Building Wealth from the Ground Up: Gen Z’s Roadmap to Financial Freedom

The Play by Play – Building Wealth from the Ground Up: Gen Z’s Roadmap to Financial Freedom

Hosts: Jack McFarlane & Nick Schlemmer

Guest: Collin Kanyuck, Digital Asset Execution Service Analyst

This week on The Play by Play podcast, Jack McFarlane and Nick Schlemmer talked with Collin Kanyuck about managing your money and investing.

– The best time to start managing your money

– How to find “extra” money to start investing

– Getting started with investments

– How much income should you be saving?

– Tips for Gen Z on how to find the right job

Check out Collin’s YouTube videos here

Thank you for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Transcript follows:

Nick Schlemmer 0:16
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the HR Happy Hour Network. This is The Play by Play podcast hosted by myself, Nick Schlemmer and Jack McFarlane.

Jack McFarlane 0:25
Guys, how’s it going? Today we have another super fun episode, we have a guest who currently works in financial services as a digital asset execution service analyst. He is also halfway through a double Master’s in Business Administration and Finance at the University of Utah. And on top of that, he’s also a real estate investor – all by the age of 27. So please help us welcome Collin Kanyuck.

Collin Kanyuck 0:50
Hey, Jack, and Nick, thanks for having me.

Jack McFarlane 0:52
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on today. Collin, why don’t you just give us a little introduction about yourself? And we’ll go from there.

Collin Kanyuck 0:59
That sounds great. So back when I was in college, I got a bachelor’s in neuroscience and a minor in Spanish. As you can tell, that’s been very useful for what I do today. And that’s because, you know, I used to plan on going to medical school and becoming a neurosurgeon, and life had other plans. I’m a two time cancer survivor. And that gives me a really unique perspective on life, to live everyday to the fullest and really take advantage of the opportunities we have. And I found a love and passion for finance and investing. And that’s what kind of led me to financial services, and to be a real estate investor and really passionate about my own investing portfolio. And so that’s what I really love to do.

Jack McFarlane 1:39
Yeah, that’s great to hear. And to have all of that at the young age of 27. I mean, what are just kind of some ways starting it off that when you’re young and in college, that you can just start managing money and saving money properly?

Collin Kanyuck 1:51
Absolutely. I think the best time to start is when you’re young. And it’s so important that you first of all, kind of know your goals and your mindset. I mean, what do you want to accomplish in your life, there are some people who are happy, you know, living a pretty comfortable life, maybe they want to be a teacher, or maybe they know exactly what career they want to have. And that’s great. But for some people, if you’re really ambitious, you might want a life of luxury, you might want to be rich at some point in your life. And so it is very important that you do start young and you set goals. Because if you don’t have a path in mind, you’re never going to get anywhere because you have to have that direction in your life. And so I found that, for me personally, it was really important to sit down and establish those goals, you know, how much money do I want to have? By what age? And how am I going to get there. And I think once you have that clear perspective, it’s really going to help you to achieve those goals later on in your life. Now for actually being able to manage your money and start to accrue money whenever you are young. And in college, I think it’s really important that you do have a budget. And that means that you know where your finances are going, I mean, how much are you spending every month and how much is coming in. Because if you’re spending more than you’re making, or that you’re saving, ultimately, you’re just going to continue to accrue debt. And that’s going to be a problem later on. And I think a lot of people, when they’re in college don’t really understand things like credit and things like debt. And it’s really easy to max out a credit card or rack up student debt without having any idea why you’re doing it, or what your goals are in life. And so I mean, credit is extremely important, and you should be building good credit. But what that really means is, you know, you get a credit card, and you’re using it like a debit card, you get things like food, you pay gas, but then you’re immediately paying that off every month. And if you’re not, then you’re spending so much money in interest that you’re paying to that credit card, it’s gonna cost you so much over the long run. And that is really going to cause you problems with being able to manage your money and start to build that wealth early on. Along with that, it’s really important that you start investing young. I mean, there are studies that have shown just investing at age 20, compared to starting to invest at age 30, that literally mean millions of dollars of difference when you’re at retirement age, which is substantial. I mean, whether you want to live in a nice house and you’re retired or whether you want to be living with your family, maybe your kids, it’s going to play a huge role on how well you plan for retirement and how young you start investing. And so I think that really emphasizes that you know, if you’re 20 right now is the best possible time that you can start investing put away, you know, 50 $100 every month, and that’s going to make a big difference in the long run.

Nick Schlemmer 4:23
Yeah, that that’s great. And I just had a couple of things for you. So I’m curious, when did you start taking seriously the whole? What age did you start really looking into? Okay, I got to save invest? When did that come to mind?

Collin Kanyuck 4:35
I’d say it was around age 22 When I really caught the investing bug. And that was around the time when you know, I was still doing my bachelor’s in neuroscience, but I was getting close to being finished. But I was starting to realize, you know, I don’t really want to go to medical school and be hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt. So what the heck am I going to do with my life? And I took a finance class and they talked about all the different careers you could have in finance, and I realized, you know, I want to be a middle In air, and being a doctor isn’t the only way to do that you can work in finance, you can go work at a hedge fund or an investment bank, there are so many ways to become a millionaire. And so once once I learned about that, then I learned well, a lot of rich people invest, they invest their money. And so what does that mean? I’ve heard of the stock market, I have put a little bit of money into the s&p 500 When I was younger, but I felt like the s&p 500 isn’t really gonna make me rich, at least not for, you know, 30 years, it’s gonna take a long time for my money to really build up in the s&p 500. And so at age 22, I really took it upon myself to you know, start reading finance books, watch videos on YouTube and podcasts where people can educate you and share their experience. And that really showed me how many different things there are to invest in. I mean, you can learn about companies you like, maybe you like Tesla, and you enjoy their cars. So you want to put some money in Tesla stock. Maybe you enjoy cryptocurrency, which is something that really caught my attention. And crypto is something that is very new and up and coming technology. And it certainly can be very risky, because it’s very volatile. I mean, your money can go up or down very quickly, day to day, and it moves very quickly. But at the same time, I found that really exciting because I could invest in that. And within a week, I could I could make some money. And so it’s really, really interesting to start investing like that. But I think the most important thing is that you do your due diligence. You do your research and know what you’re putting your money into. And maybe the most important thing that I always tell myself when I invest, is I never invest more than I can afford to lose. So I’m not putting money that I need to pay my mortgage or my my car bills. I’m not putting that money down on investing, I’m investing that excess that I’ve saved on top, and that’s what I’m investing with. And then if something goes to zero, then I’m going to learn a lesson from that investment. I’m going to try again, but never invest more than you can afford to lose. Because that’s when you really put yourself in a bad situation.

Jack McFarlane 6:55
Yeah, so I mean, those are all those are all great tips there. But I have a question. Um, let’s say you are 20,21,22 and you do want to invest, but you just don’t have the money to how would you suggest maybe building up a little bit of extra money or just starting small with investments when you really don’t have the disposable income?

Collin Kanyuck 7:16
Yeah, that’s an excellent question. And for me personally, when I was in college, I didn’t have much money. And I was working a couple of part time jobs just to pay tuition and to pay rent every month. But just like you said, I was trying to figure out where am I even gonna get money to invest on top of everything I’m already trying to pay for. And so what I personally did was I looked for side hustles, and other ways to make money aside from you know, working a part time job or a full time job. And so one thing that I did is I worked as a freelancer. And so I know I mentioned I did a minor in Spanish. I’m fluent in Spanish. And so one thing I did was I joined a freelance company. And I started transcribing videos. And these were videos from famous youtubers from all kinds of things like that shows on TV, and I would transcribe the videos from English to Spanish subtitles. And that would pay great. I mean, it really, really depended on how fast I could transcribe to Spanish, but generally would pay 40 to $50 an hour, and I could kind of take on jobs on the side. So let’s say I was done with my homework for the day, didn’t have to work at one of my part time jobs, I could jump on my computer, and I could work on some videos, and maybe make an extra 100 bucks in a day. And sometimes that would add up to $1,000 a week, which was, you know, just insane. Just some of that time that maybe I would waste watching TV or playing video games, something that I wouldn’t really use my time wisely for, I could then go and make some money. And so I think it really comes down to looking for those opportunities. And maybe the biggest thing, maybe the most important thing is that you do things that you enjoy.

Collin Kanyuck 8:47
And so that means that you know, if you just try to fill all of your time you work 100 hours a week, working and doing things that you hate, you’re gonna burn out really quickly. And it’s not going to be worth making a few extra bucks on the side if you burn out and you hate everything you’re doing. And so it’s important you look for side hustles that you can actually enjoy and maybe are even kind of recreational yet you still enjoy them like transcribing those videos was completely different than, you know, the other jobs I was doing. And so it was almost kind of relaxing, it was almost kind of like a game. And so I was making money, but it was also just something that I really enjoyed. And so that’s one great thing is looking for those freelance opportunities. And you can join things like Fiverr Upwork, all kinds of different websites where you can be a freelancer, and you can offer services. So maybe you really like to write or maybe you like music and you can write music or edit videos for people. Those are things you can offer your services for and that people will pay you for. And that’s some extra money you can make on the side while improving yourself maybe getting some experience for your resume. Really, really great ways to just make a few extra bucks. Some other things I did, just kind of starting slow was you know, I’d say this is how much money I’m going to start out investing and I’m gonna see if I can turn it into more and so I had a small portfolio starting out, I think I’d put in 50 bucks. And then that became 100 bucks, like a little more in. And the goal was how do I turn 100 bucks into 200 bucks. And you know, it’s kind of lower risk, low reward because I mean, 100 bucks, if I lose it big deal, I’ll make another 100 bucks. But I feel like that really taught me so much about investing, like, what, what are opportunities where I can make more money from the 100 bucks, maybe 200 bucks doesn’t sound like a huge amount. But hey, later on, whenever I’ve made more money, what if I turned 10,000 into 20,000? Now we’re starting to talk about serious money. And so I think kind of just having that mindset got me so that every day I was looking at my portfolio, I was looking over the stocks that I owned in the companies, how are they performing? You know, what’s what’s going on in the news. And that really just got me into that mindset of being an investor and starting to look at the trends and how stocks move. And that was super interesting. Some other things you can do, you can invest in real estate, which is something that can be a little more difficult, especially when you’re in college. But surprisingly enough, you can do it with very little money down. And so the experience that I had, my wife had just graduated from college, and I still had two years left. And we made this goal, we sat down kind of like how I talked about goal planning, we said in the next 10 years, we’re going to buy a house. And so you know, we were saying, well, by 2030, we’ll have a house that that sounds really great. That’s plenty of time. I mean, it’s getting more and more expensive to buy a house.

Collin Kanyuck 11:29
And surprisingly enough over that one year, by the end of that first year that we made the goal, we had bought our first property, which I know sounds crazy, because you have that 10 year horizon. But I think once we had it in our heads, we were like, Okay, how are we going to make this a reality? How what are we what do we need to do, so that we can purchase a house and be homeowners. And so what it really came down to, and something that college students really have a huge benefit for, is generally when you buy a house, your mortgage lender is going to look at your last two years of income and take the average of it, which can be really difficult if maybe you’re starting out in a you know, just an average salary job, maybe making 15 an hour, it’s gonna be really hard to buy a house. But if you graduate from college, and then get your first real job making a decent salary, they kind of ignore those last two years when you’ve been a student and they say, Okay, your average is what you currently are making at your at your new job. And so because of that my wife’s new salary plus my little part time gigs and my part time jobs, we were able to buy our first house. And then the other kind of question with that as well. How do you get a downpayment, generally, you’re spending 20 $30,000, on the down payment for a house? Well, I would recommend looking into something called an FHA loan, which is basically that if you’re a first time homebuyer, you, you only have to put down three and a half percent for a down payment rather than five or 10, or 20%, which first of all makes it a lot easier to purchase your first home. But then on top of that, some lenders will make it so that you can take out a second mortgage rather than pay that three and a half percent. So because my wife and I basically had no money, you know, we’re just getting out of college, we were able to take that three and a half percent down, put into a second mortgage, and we paid I think it was $25 out of pocket to purchase a $309,000 house. So absolutely no money out of our pocket. And then you know, we’ve moved on, we’ve bought another house now and we now rent out that old house we rented by the room. And it cash flows over $2,000 a month. And so that’s $2,000 a month comes into my pocket, and I do nothing, just free passive income. So just some some ideas that really helped me make passive income on the side. And they’re really incredible, and kind of fun. I really enjoy them.

Nick Schlemmer 13:39
No, yeah, definitely I’ve been kind of like doing some research on that as well with the FHA loan. And I’ve always heard that for like a first time homebuyer or you will get like a duplex or like a triplex or something like that. Or you could you have to live in it the first the first year, correct. Yeah, that is a great option. Yeah. And then after that you can rent leave, and then rent all three of them out.

Collin Kanyuck 14:02
Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a great, a lot of people refer to it as house hacking. If you can find a duplex anything up to four doors, you can live in one of them or rent the rest out. And that’s an amazing way because then all of your tenants and the other, let’s say four doors, you live in one of three people renting the other three, they’re going to pay your mortgage and maybe put some cash in your pocket every month. That’s an amazing way to start.

Nick Schlemmer 14:22
Yeah, exactly. And then and then I have one more thing that came to mind here. Earlier on in the show. I’m curious to see what you think about I’ve seen it on a couple different social media platforms, as far as like learning to live off of maybe like 30 to 40% of your income. And then maybe like you said, investing or just strictly saving the rest of it. I’m just kind of curious, like, What’s your thoughts on that with your background?

Collin Kanyuck 14:47
Absolutely. I think it really comes down to first of all, how much income you have coming in. And then second, what are you comfortable with? I mean, you when you’re in college when you’re young, you should have a social life. It’s really hard to say just don’t spend any of your money stay at home all the time. I mean, as much as that will benefit you, in the long run, it’s going to be a really boring and awful life. And so I think it’s fair to set some money aside and say, This is how much I can spend on recreation this month, I can go out with friends, maybe I’ll eat something cheaper on the menu, maybe I’ll do cheaper things, but still spend, spend time with friends and have fun. But at the same time, if you have enough income coming in, where you can only, you know, you can save 70 or 80% of your income every month, that’ll be incredible in the long run, especially if you’re putting a lot of that money into investing, you’re just gonna see such amazing dividends down the road. And something that I really passionate about is, you know, being financially free and not feeling like you know, I have to work until I’m 65 and have a job, maybe I work into my 30s. And then I have enough money or enough passive income, that I don’t have to be tied to a nine to five job, because that’s real freedom to me being able to say if I want to go on vacation next month, I can go for as long as I want. That’s, that’s real freedom in my mind. And so it the more you can set aside every month, the quicker you’re going to be able to reach that financial freedom, basically. And there’s even a fire movement where people are really, really excited about reaching that financial freedom really early on in life. And they say the more you can save more percentage wise of your income, the faster you’re going to reach that financial freedom. And so if you’re able only spend 30 to 40% a month, that’s amazing. And you should do that. But at the same time, make sure that you’re not depreciating, you know, your quality of life, make sure you’re still enjoying what you do, and you’re happy in life, because that really is important. You have good mental health to because all the money in the world won’t matter if you’re not healthy and you hate your life.

Jack McFarlane 16:35
Yeah, so that’s, that’s all in great, but what do you say for the people that you know, maybe got a credit card young and get it wrong? And they they find themselves in debt, or they have lots of student debt, as many college students find that they’re paying it off their whole lives? What do you think for kind of helping come out of the deep hole that you’ve dug? What’s your best way of dealing with that?

Collin Kanyuck 16:57
Yeah, today’s the day to start. I mean, no credit card is too big that you can’t pay it off, and you can’t start fresh. And you know, what I would say maybe your credit is is rough right now. Reach out and start trying to get those bills paid back. And something that a lot of people don’t realize is you can negotiate with a lot of those bills, you can call that credit card company and say, Hey, I really want to get this paid off. I know I got so much in debt, can you help me can you work with me, maybe you can lower my rate, maybe you can help me with a payment plan, so that I can get this credit card paid off. And there are also other options where you can consolidate your debt, potentially, if you’re I mean, if you’re paying 25% on your credit card debt, maybe look for an opportunity where you can consolidate all of your debt into one place, and maybe pay 10% or less, because that’s now 15% Less, you’re paying an interest every month, and that’s going to help you more quickly pay off that credit card. But ultimately, you know, just don’t get overwhelmed, don’t feel like it’s the end and give up now is the time to just start working towards that. And I know we talked a lot about budgeting and saving your money. But there’s no point in kind of putting that money into a savings account, if you’ve got all that debt on the side. So the first place I first thing I would do is take that money, pay off some debt every month that $100 rather than invest it, start out by, you know, paying down that debt, because as good as it’s going to be to start investing, you’re paying 25% interest on credit card debt, that’s gotta be your priority, because you’re gonna lose a lot more money paying interest on that credit card debt. So get that paid off and ask for student loans, you got to find an opportunity to get those paid off quicker. And that means you know, not necessarily you paying it off, because that’s going to take you forever, but find a good company where they’re going to help you pay that back. There are a lots of great companies out there were one of their benefits to their employees will help you pay back your student loans will help you pay for school. And I mean, a lot of people don’t realize how huge of a benefit that is, if a company will pay and 20 $30,000 of your student debt just to have you worked there for a year to add that on top of your salary. Because that’s a huge benefit that that sometimes you won’t even be able to take into account. And once again, you know, just keep paying that down over time. Really try to get it paid down and really look at those interest rates because often student student loans are going to be quite as high as credit card debt. But really try to look for those ways to avoid that debt and just decrease at every opportunity. have, you know, put any excess money you have towards that debt and get it paid down fast?

Nick Schlemmer 19:24
Yeah, no, that’s really great. I did not know that. Certain companies would actually do that for students whether like, they have to work there for X number of years, or whoever it may be. But that’s that’s pretty cool. I did not know that.

Collin Kanyuck 19:37
Yeah, that’s a great benefit. Always ask your company and sometimes, you know, they won’t say it initially in the benefits. But when you’re negotiating which course you should always negotiate when you have a new job at a company, negotiate and say, Hey, I’ve got this student debt. Will you help me pay down? Well, you put 10,000 towards it. And oftentimes you can negotiate for that and salary discussion too.

Jack McFarlane 19:58
Yeah, so kind of going off of negotiating for a new job, obviously, you went into college thinking you wanted to go to medical school, and then it took a complete left turn out of nowhere. Now you work in finance, what do you say for people that maybe are undeclared? And are not sure about what they want to do? What are your tips on finding the right job?

Collin Kanyuck 20:18
Absolutely. So the first thing is really, that you need to do a thorough self assessment. And this is huge, because there are so many people, which is shocking. You know, they jump right into college, and they don’t even think what do I want to do for the rest of my life? What do I want to spend 40 or more hours a week doing. And then before you know it, you know, they’re already working a job, and they absolutely hate it. And they feel stuck, because like we talked about, maybe they’ve got $50,000 in student debt, and they hate what they do, and they hate their degree. And so the first thing you need to do is sit down, go somewhere quiet, take a vacation, and have some alone time, and really get to know yourself, you know, what do you enjoy doing? What are you good at? What are things that just come naturally to you, we all have those things, and we’re all very different. But you should take that time and really get to know yourself. Because if you don’t even know what you want in life, you’re really not gonna be able to choose a major in college or a career later on. And it’s really, really ideal if you can get that picture in your head right, right up front. And so once you’ve kind of done that self assessment, you know, dig deeper into what your passions are, what are your skills, and I think one of the most beneficial ways to do that is reach out to your family and friends. And you know, just have a conversation with them say, What am I good at? What have you seen, that just really comes naturally to me, or you’ve said, Hey, I wish I could do that as as well as Jack, or I wish I could do that as well as Nick, he’s so good at talking to people. And those are really where your strengths lie, and what you enjoy doing more, more or less. And on top of that, you know, what, what are things that you could see yourself doing every day and not get bored of or not get tired of. And I think so many people just kind of skip past that and they focus more on Well, I want to make this much money, or I want to do this with my life. And they completely forget that, well, you know, if I if I want to be a lawyer, I have to go through this many years of school, and then I have to deal with a lot of crappy things that maybe aren’t as fun as I thought they were going to be. And so you really need to take that time to do your research and say, Okay, well, I’ve established that I like this. And I like that. So I’m going to be an engineer.

Collin Kanyuck 22:21
Now, what goes into being an engineer, though, you think you might like it, but you really need to dig deeper and do some research? What types of engineers are there? How many hours a week? Do they work? What are the big companies? And where are you going to have to live, I have an uncle who’s an engineer, and his company is in California. And you know, she’s wanting to move closer to family. But his job is in California, and they haven’t been able to move because that’s the company he works for. And so you need to be aware of you know, are you going to be kind of pigeon holed into one area where you’re going to have to live, if you go into that career and want to work for a specific company, those are very real things to consider, and what you like living there. And so once you’ve kind of done that research, go even deeper and do some networking. So what I personally do is, you know, I’ll jump on on LinkedIn, maybe I’m interested in working at a hedge fund. So I’m going to type in hedge fund whatever role that I think I’m interested in, and I’m going to look for alumni, you know, I’ve gone to Brigham Young University, and now I’m at University of Utah. Is there someone from either of those universities, that’s now working at a hedge fund? And can I add them on LinkedIn, message them and say, Hey, do you have 10 or 15 minutes, we could jump on Zoom sometime. And I can just pick your brain, I’m really interested in what you do, I think it sounds really cool. And I’d love to know if you know, that’s something that I could see myself doing down the road, and nine times out of 10. If you’re really kind and really show interest, and you’re an alumni of the same college that person’s gone to, they’re going to be interested in, you know, maybe giving you a couple of minutes of their time and talking about what they do. And that’s going to be huge for you getting to know okay, this is what the day to day looks like of a job like that. And realistically, does this person, like their job because if you’re talking to someone that absolutely hates their job, that may be a red flag that you’re going to hate it too. And so it’s so great to talk to those people who are in the industry who are really doing it. And you know, those are gonna give you a good perspective of what you’re doing. And so if you’re not sure what you should be doing right now, start doing your research, get to know yourself, and then start networking and you know, do an internship, do something where you can get that real life experience. And you’re gonna realize so quickly if you actually enjoy what you’re you’re studying in college and what you want to do down the road.

Nick Schlemmer 24:28
Yeah, I was gonna say, just touching back on that networking point that you made that I’m still currently in the PGM program. And we have kind of like that same connection with with people to where all of the past alums we still have all of their phone numbers and whatnot to reach out to and to ask those questions like, What did you think of this? What did you not like? Like, what do you think about the state because as we’re on these internships, we’re probably going to be going to different states almost every time and I just really liked that point that you made, where the connections and reaching out is so important.

Collin Kanyuck 25:02
Absolutely. Yeah, I highly, highly encourage it network and even for those people who are a little more timid, a little more introverted, push yourself out of your shell because networking is one of the most important things you’ll ever do for your career. And you never know it might lead to a job down the road you know maybe you meet someone and they’re gonna want to hire you down the road. So network, always network.

Nick Schlemmer 25:22
Yes, everyone. So that’s been a great show today. Collin, we just want to say a huge thank you for coming on the show me and Jack and I greatly appreciate it taking the time.

Jack McFarlane 25:30
Yes, thanks so much Collin.

Collin Kanyuck 25:31
Yeah, thank you so much both for having me.

Jack McFarlane 25:35
And if you guys liked what you hear and want to hear more from Collin, you can find him on YouTube at Collin Kanyuck. He is a new channel and he’s got two videos at the moment. But those are must listens to and we will put the link in the podcast description for that if you guys wanna check him out some more. So you know, thank you once again, Collin, it was a great interview, and we really appreciate it.

Collin Kanyuck 25:51
Thank you so much.

Nick Schlemmer 25:53
Thank you guys. And wait. There’s one more part Jack, we have the quote of the show.

Jack McFarlane 25:59
The favorite, the favorite, second favorite part.

Nick Schlemmer 26:01
And to go along with everything we talked today, I think this quote goes perfectly. It’s from Matthew McConaughey. It was from a recent podcast that I was listening to. And Collin already kind of mentioned it. He said, so it’s just kind of his own words said when you’re asleep, ladies and gentlemen, you need your dreams. But he said I’m also here to tell you that when you’re wide awake, you also need your dreams. And you must have your goals. And I just think that went perfectly with what we were talking about today.

Jack McFarlane 26:29
Amazing quote. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of The Play by Play. We really do appreciate your listening and we’d love to hear your feedback. Have a great day.

Nick Schlemmer 26:41
Thank you very much guys and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai