[00:01.6]
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen and the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from. Are you in Palo Alto Radhika or where are you? I'm in, I'm in the Bay. You're in the Bay area. Okay.

[00:16.8]
Well, we were just talking about somebody we know in common who's actually works at Stanford. So we were saying that. And Radhika Paliwal, you want to hold up your book, we'll have you go like this. This is her new book.

[00:32.0]
You can see From Ramen Noodles to Riches. We're going to be talking about that. And Radhika, I want to let the listeners know a little bit about you. I'm actually very delighted to have you join us on the show because I think this is an area that doesn't get a lot of airtime.

[00:52.4]
And it should, it should get more air time. Radica is, was a computer engineer turned author, real estate investor, speaker, personal finance enthusiast. She's now released this book From Ramen Noodles to Riches.

[01:09.7]
And I think it's a great book for everybody to read, but in particular, for, I'm going to say our audiences who are a bit younger. So after graduating from Purdue with a degree in computer engineering and building a successful career in tech, she recognized a critical graph in our education system that really aren't taught how to manage money effectively.

[01:34.2]
And that's true. There aren't any courses until you actually get to college. And then if you're a business major. Major, you take finance. Because I was a business major. Remember that? Right? Yeah. And drawing from her own journey from financial confusion to financial success, she created this practical humor filled guide that breaks down an offer, often what we call overwhelming world of personal finance into accessible, actionable steps.

[02:04.3]
Her approach combines education content with her sister signature sarcastic tone, making topics from budgeting to credit cards to investing in real estate marketing both approachable and enjoyable. She's really passionate about what she does and that's a great thing.

[02:21.6]
She wants to empower young adults to take control of their finances and their future and build well with the right tools and mindset. So this book is her first attempt at doing that. So welcome to the show. I appreciate you taking this time and I think let's just dive right into, you know, what you've written, why you've written it.

[02:45.4]
So tell us a little bit. I mean I gave the audience a bit of your background, but was there something that kind of happened along the way for you and Your family, frequently there is, Or was it just your drive to understand more about finances?

[03:04.7]
Because sometimes when a family doesn't have the resources, they're literally like, okay, well, the kids are like, I don't want to grow up like that. So I always like to ask if there was something or something along the way that influenced you. Honestly, it was the lack of knowledge.

[03:23.2]
So, yes, my parents are immigrants to this country. So as soon as we moved, I was 10 years old at the time. I mean, my dad and my mom were learning what a 401k was from scratch. That's not something, you know, we had back in India. So there was definitely a huge knowledge.

[03:40.2]
Knowledge gap for my parents, and that was just them figuring it out. But I think what bothered me most is that our education system doesn't really teach us that. Like you said, I wasn't taught personal finance in high school. Forget middle school. Definitely not taught it, in college either.

[03:56.6]
Right. Like, like you said, I think finance is taught for business majors, but even then, it's corporate finance, not personal finance. Right. Whereas personal finance is something that affects all of our lives, and we should all be, taking care of it and thinking about money. So really, the pivoting point was actually after I graduated, I moved out here to California for the first time.

[04:19.2]
I was like, okay, great. Like, I'm earning a salary for the first time. I have a job. I have my own apartment. This is fantastic. And then I looked at my credit card bills and my checkings account for the first time in three months, and I was like, wait, what the heck? Where.

[04:34.3]
Where's my money going? And that's when I realized, just because you're earning decent money and you have a job doesn't really mean anything about financial literacy. I needed to educate myself on how to save, how to invest, and what to really do with that funds. And that's when I took a step back, and I'm like, hold on.

[04:51.8]
I. I can't be spending hundreds of dollars every single weekend. I really need to be meticulous about this and learn, where. How to grow the funds that I do have. Very important point. And I. I've reminded my listeners many times that I was brought up with a little Jewish mother, and she always used to say, it's not what you earn, it's what you save of what you are.

[05:12.8]
Yes, yes. And, you know, I think, okay, so that statement's been heard many times. But on the other hand, I'm, not quite certain it penetrates for people because it's like, okay, well I'm going to go out here, I'm going to go out there, we're going to go have some drinks, we're going to do this.

[05:28.2]
And before you know it, you, credit card statement has 4, 5, $600 on it. You do that three months in a row and there's an extra $1500 that now you owe somebody for that you've got to take out of your earnings. And you, you know, you mentioned that a good degree and a good job just now, it's not going to solve your financial problem.

[05:48.9]
So I don't care what degree you can't, you have. Can you elaborate on this really counterintuitive idea on how it shaped, you know, really your financial journey that you've taken? Because I think people assume, well, if you went through college and you got either a bachelor's degree or a master's degree that you should sit, know something about finance.

[06:14.2]
And you're absolutely right. Most people coming out of college have so little understanding about finance. You know what, I've shared a little bit about my story, but I want to share a story about my co worker as well.

[06:29.3]
It's funny, this co worker of mine, they were 10 years older than me. So I figured once you're older again, you have maybe more knowledge of how things work or you have better sense of saving, investing, like making your money grow. And then I learned over drinks one day that they had 40 to $50,000 just sitting in their checkings account.

[06:53.1]
And my immediate question was, why isn't this in the high, high yield saving savings account where you can actually grow that money because of interest rates. Right. And they were just like, I've never, I've never heard of that, I don't know what that is.

[07:08.8]
And honestly the thing that came up is I'm really scared, I'm really scared to even learn because I don't know what that looks like and what if my money was disappear. So I think a lot of people have so much inbuilt fear from yeah. Their past experiences, maybe they, how they grew up.

[07:26.6]
And people like to like hold on to it. Right. And going back to your point, a good degree and a good job will give you that money in that checkings account, right in your bank account. But if you don't know what to do with it, it just kind of sits there and it's actually losing money over time.

[07:42.2]
So I experienced this in the beginning, but I quickly turn things around. Because I was like, I can't have this. I can't lose money. I need to figure out a way to grow it, even if it's sitting in my bank account. So let me put it in the S&P 500. Let me put it in a high yield savings account. And then I learned there's a lot of other people out there that are also scared and don't know what to do with it.

[08:02.9]
And so therefore it's just sitting. So that's really why I wrote the book in the first place, is I realized this battle wasn't just mine in terms of financial literacy. A lot of other people struggle with the same thing. And you bring up a really important point. It's not that.

[08:19.3]
And I do agree with you that people are afraid, they don't understand, they don't have the knowledge. But I'd also agree that some of there's a carryover psychologically from one generation to the next that frequently prevails. Like, hey, we always had 25, 000 in our checking account.

[08:37.8]
That was our rainy day fund. Right. And so your mindset kind of goes to that. On the other hand, if they look for like money market, yeah, that's fine. I know in today's world, with the huge change we've had in this administration, you know, even me and my IRA account, I've moved tons of money into money, market.

[09:02.3]
Right? But that doesn't keep pace with inflation. But it does at least protect the corpus, the principle, right? It's like, okay, well I don't really want to go backwards, I'm afraid. So I'll move money out of here and go to here, even though it was in these stocks or these bonds or whatever.

[09:19.6]
And you know, I used to be a stock broker, so I, I know the market, I know how it works. And there are alternative investments. And one of the things you've done is real estate. And I want you to talk about it. And it's not really an alternative, but a lot of people think of it as an alternative because it's not the first thing that comes to mind, right?

[09:38.0]
It's like, oh, I'd like to do that, but I need all this money to get it done. I have to put a big down pay, because I can't cover the debt service or the rent or whatever. So let's talk about this thing about assets and liabilities on a balance sheet. It's central to your book and I'll just say to a personal balance sheet or, personal financial statement.

[10:00.0]
And that's one of the things that I see many people never do is create a personal financial statement. It's like, what are my assets? What are my liabilities? What's my net worth? How much am I really worth? How do you respond to basically this?

[10:15.7]
People insist that their primary home is their investment rather than a liability. Because it's like, okay, you go to the Bay Area and buy a home, it's $2 million, right? If you only have 200,000 to put down, that means you have a, $1.8 million 12 to $15,000 a month house payment, not including the taxes.

[10:39.7]
Right. So it's, it's, it is a bit scary because people are like, I don't know, am I going to have enough money? And young people today, homeownership is at the lowest level it's ever been. Yeah, that's true. So here's the thing. A house that you live in costs you money every month, right?

[10:57.7]
At the end of the day, it doesn't produce any income. So while I do think that a lot of people insist that primary home is an investment, it' not an investment because it essentially makes it a liability, not an asset, at least until it generates cash flow.

[11:14.8]
So I'm not anti homeownership, obviously. Like, I do think that makes sense. But I think people confuse that, like, emotional value they have with the financial return. So it's important to kind of see the difference and plan wisely. So I was kind of saying, if a house isn't producing income, so I think the question becomes, how do you get a primary house where it does produce income?

[11:37.1]
So there's a strategy in real estate called house hacking, and it's one of the topics I talk about in the book. And this is where you can live in one side of the house, rent out portions of it. This could be different rooms. You could buy a multifamily, maybe it's a duplex triplex. You're living in one unit, renting out the others.

[11:53.8]
Or it could be a temporary thing where you're living in a majority, of the year, and then when you're traveling, you rent it out for short term rentals. So all three of those categories kind of fall into house hacking. And this is where we talk about the home being not just a liability, but an actual investment.

[12:11.9]
Yeah, and I, and I agree with that. I mean, you see people buying duplexes, if you can find them, you see people, they are hard to find. I will Say that they are, they're, they're more available in places like New Orleans. There's, there's a lot of them there, There are places where it, you can find these, what you would call income producing properties where you live as well.

[12:38.0]
Right now, ADUs now are a big thing in our state, meaning California. That's where you and I are. So it's a matter of does somebody want to put in an additional dwelling unit, and remodel a back of a house or do something.

[12:53.9]
But then you've got the cost of doing that. Right. To get it to the point where it generates 2,000amonth and rent or 3,000. One of the things I want to get to though, and everybody knows that you can invest in real estate without making a huge investment because there are things called REITs, real estate investment trusts, and those are things you can actually buy in your IRA or your 401k or anything like that.

[13:25.9]
Would you want to address that or do you just want to leave that alone? Yeah, let's talk about it. Okay. Okay. So what, what would you say? Because I have a friend who's is a partner at DLP and it's one of the largest, there's about $3 billion 10 and 12% income.

[13:50.4]
You get your depreciation as well, your tax returns. I think people enough, not a lot of people know about them, especially the younger people, and I think they might want to be aware of those. That's true. Along with a lot of things we're talking about.

[14:07.4]
There's a huge gap in education when it comes to REITs. And I would also include real estate syndication into that same category. They're a little different. So REITs are actually easy for everyone out there. Like you said, if it's your IRA, 401k I believe in, even in your brokerage account, I've invested in a few REITs, where you go in, you just kind of put in a dollar amount or a certain number of shares that you want, just like you're buying any other ticker symbol out there and then you get dividends.

[14:35.6]
So it's typically a dividend based things. And then every quarter or every month, based on how REITs work, you'll get a little bit of, you know, those dividends in, in your account. So very simple to get into. I highly encourage people do it. However, I do think if you're thinking about diversifying your portfolio and you care about a physical asset, I do like owning a physical property kind of yourself or with a few partners, just because there's other benefits to real estate than just depreciation, being one of those things.

[15:10.2]
There's also other tax benefits and then there's a safety net in terms of, okay, my assets are 50, 50 split or 75, 25 split, or however you kind of do your, net worth and investments. Right. And then let's, let's talk about syndication really quickly too.

[15:26.7]
So this isn't something I've done so far, but something I'm very interested in. This is a good way to start in real estate without being like the main person or having all, like, the headaches that, come along with owning a property.

[15:43.2]
So typically there's like a principal who leads, the investment, the conversation, finding tenants, finding property manager, whatever else it might be. And they're the ones who collect funds or investments. So you can put in as little as 10k, 20k. Sometimes you need to be accredited, sometimes you don't.

[16:01.3]
Just depends on what time you get in and then you put in your money. Similar thing to REITs, except you have a larger percentage because the max number of people, or I don't want to say max, but like the number of people who typically invest in syndication could be 5 or it could be 100.

[16:17.1]
But REITs are, you know, again, like a symbol where anyone out there can invest, so it's just a larger amount. So hundreds of thousands of people. Exactly. Invested into REITs. Yeah, but I mean, it is a way for people to get into real estate. It is an alternative to a stock investment.

[16:33.6]
Right. Because there are assets that are held, which is real property. You know, it's like somebody saying today, well, I'm going to go get gold. Well, gold is probably a good thing because it's not probably going to go down in value, so you're not going to get a huge decrease.

[16:50.7]
It may not uptick huge as well, but again, it is an asset which is, and you can buy the physical asset if you wanted to actually take possession of gold, but you can actually buy real gold on the Internet in shares as well.

[17:08.2]
So the question I have for you, because one of the things that comes up for me is use advocate for tracking expenses in what you call excruciating detail initially. And I think, you know, there's all kinds of budgeting programs out there, software, and I'm going to be asking you which ones you would advocate for people today to potentially use, whether it's on their iPhone or their Android or their iPad or whatever it might be.

[17:40.5]
Some of them actually, I believe are not designed for the average person to say, I want to stick doing this, okay? And I've tried many, many of them. Okay.

[17:55.5]
One of them is you need a budget, which is, probably one of the better, better ones. It's a guy in Utah. But on the other hand, it's like, if you've never done any of this stuff with your finance, it's like, well, excruciating detail. I don't know if I want to go down to this detail.

[18:11.9]
How is this practice for you changed your relationship with money? And why do you think most people resist this level of financial self awareness? Because look, there isn't anything better than an application when you're looking at it and you're seeing where you're spending money and it's popping up, giving you notifications.

[18:33.7]
Right. Yet I believe so many people want to brush it under the carpet. Yeah. Well, I'll be honest, with you. I actually first tracked my spending in an Excel sheet. It was boring and manual as that.

[18:50.6]
And I went line by line with, I think I had two credit cards at the time and then I had one checkings account. So I went line by line for all of those accounts and I was like, where am I spending my money? And I was shocked at how much I was spending on one Amazon. I don't even know what I was buying when I look back on it, but there's a lot of money going there.

[19:09.4]
And essentially like just being very detailed about it helped. That clarity helped me cut the fluff and just spend intentionally. I was like, I do not need to be spending this much on Amazon. Right. So I think most people resist it because once it forces them to be very uncomfortable with where their money's going.

[19:27.6]
But that discomfort, I think is the first step. Right? And I'm not saying you need to budget or you need to go to your accounts every single month. But if you're taking a step into personal finance, then looking at the past three months, doing it once to understand where your natural spending habits are.

[19:44.9]
It could be restaurants, it could be bars, it could be. I don't, maybe it's just rent, honestly. And that's what you're realizing when you're going through it. I, think doing it once is very important. And I'll be, I'll be very honest. Like, I don't track my expenses anymore.

[20:00.2]
Now I have a general monthly cap that I use, and that I don't want to spend above that every month and that's it. So it could include anything. So if it's. If that entire, like, cap that I have is full of Amazon orders, totally fine. It's just, I don't.

[20:16.0]
I'm trying not to spend above that every single month. But again, that discipline wouldn't have existed if I didn't know what was actually happening with my finances. So you put a cap on it? Yeah, I put a cap on you. Introduced in here was what you call Core 4 savings accounts.

[20:33.6]
Yes. It's emergency weddings, slash kids, house and car. Why'd you start saving for these at your age of 21 before they were immediate needs? Because I don't think younger people listening to the show to you and see you speaking are going like, hey, I'm going to put money away for a house or an emergency or weddings or kids or a car.

[20:59.7]
Yeah. Maybe they're actually already bought a car and are making a payment. Right. But that's just part of their expenses. But, you know, hey, if, if you really were smart, there's one thing, it's like, okay, are you being frugal?

[21:16.6]
Are you being a minimalist? Are you looking at it in a different way? And I think for most people, they overspend to the income they make, and that's just the truth of it. Because the credit cards are proof in the pudding that if you're sitting with $40,000 in credit card debt, that along the way you've just inched away and it's continued to go up.

[21:41.0]
And then the interest rate on those credit cards get you in trouble. Yeah. So Core four, I'm gonna take you, take everyone just a step back. So 21, wasn't dating anyone, wasn't planning on buying a house.

[21:56.2]
I think I had a, hand me down car and was not thinking about kids at all. Right. Like, this was me fresh out of college. So all four of those four things that I talk about were not top of mind for me, but I started saving for them because they were realities of life.

[22:12.0]
Eventually I would need a car. Eventually I was going to buy a house. Eventually I wanted to get married, right? So why not start saving for it? Because all of these are high ticket life items. Weddings can be very, very expensive.

[22:27.4]
A car can be really, really expensive. I didn't want to have to deal with a lot of interest payments. How large could I make my down payment for a. So once I thought about how real these outcomes are, no matter if it was five, eight, ten years Away, I don't know, or I didn't know at the time.

[22:46.8]
I knew these were financially heavy items that I needed to start saving for. So honestly I started with $100 a month in each one of those accounts. And then I realized, okay, well a house obviously costs more than a car. So then I started putting in more towards that. So over the last, well, how many ever years I've just started allocating this different budget.

[23:07.0]
So now I'm at a point where if I need to make any of those decisions. I actually just bought a car, about a month ago. I had money in my savings account to use for this specific purpose and wasn't scrambling around figuring out how I was going to get the money, or anything like that.

[23:23.0]
It was a much more calm and clean process rather than what I assume a lot of people go through. I think somebody really ought to think twice. I was listening to a story. Obviously you live in the Bay Area, you know the there was a big story about Waymo, right?

[23:42.8]
And the self driving cars and people using them and are they, you know, they feel okay with them and whatever. And I think when you look at insurance and you look at maintenance and you look at all the things and if you live in a big city, a car is not necessary.

[23:58.8]
And I think people need to weigh the option, right? It's like, okay, could I do public transportation? How much might I spend on that? Because if you add up the insurance cost alone in the state of California to insure a vehicle and then drive that vehicle and then put gas or even the charge it if it's electric doesn't, I don't care what you're talking about, you still have all these costs that you haven't considered.

[24:25.3]
Whereas if you just said, well, I really don't use a car that much. So I tell people to be a little more practical and think through. If you're in an urban area, can you ride share? Could you do something? Because over the years one of the things I made a mistake on was I bought too many cars.

[24:44.1]
I literally would like trade a car in and then get another car. And I've driven. I say this because I drove Priuses for literally like 12 years. And then I stepped up and I bought a Tesla and I've actually thought, why did I do that?

[25:01.0]
You know, what's the point of having done that? Because I put a bunch of money down and I have a payment now and I didn't have any car payments, right? And so the Point was, is really think about that, think about those other options you've got, because it's a good way for you to save.

[25:22.6]
And if you really did a spreadsheet on it, you'd probably find out between the insurances and the maintenance and the gas versus you just ride sharing or doing whatever, you would save a lot of money. I would just add one quick thing. Also think about how you're buying.

[25:40.2]
So, so you don't necessarily need to buy a new car every time buying used as such a great option. Right. Let someone else take the depreciation. Yeah. But a lot of young people, I realize, you know, peers of mine, they're just like, no, I want to have the coolest, fanciest car, brand new 2025 model.

[26:00.4]
I, I just don't understand it. All throughout life, I bought pretty much used cars with like 20000 miles on them and they were Priuses with 20000 miles on them. And the reality is, is that I never lost money on them when I sold them because they had already been depreciated.

[26:17.0]
And I drove them another 60,000, 80,000 miles and another one with 20,000 miles on it. So I know, look, there is a, a good way to do this. Now all of this revolves around the psychology of money. You have a chapter in there that touches on these emotional triggers and the delayed gratification.

[26:37.0]
Right. So that this is something we're all really need to look at is, how have you personally overcome this challenge or anybody listening? I'd love to hear from them if you send us a comment of instant gratification in your financial life.

[26:58.4]
Because you just mentioned, oh, my friends, they want to buy a 2025, whatever it is. And that certainly isn't delaying gratification. Why do you think it's so hard, Radic? It's hard because our brains are wired to want something now.

[27:17.6]
And I think this is such a good topic. I actually got a lot of feedback, on my book where people wanted me to write about this like just money psychology even more. I know there's a lot of books out there that cover the same topic, but it's hard because now we're playing with not just like the financial component, but our emotional component.

[27:36.8]
So I didn't always have this discipline, by the way. And what I started doing is I started asking myself, okay, is this for future me or is this just present me wanting my, this dopamine hit? And I created little rules. It started with, I'm not going to spend anything for 24 hours.

[27:55.9]
Or I'm walking in a store and I see a really nice shirt that I like and I'm like, you know what? If I still like it a week from now, then I'll buy it. And so I started creating these little rules in my head that really helped me set the stage and be like, I don't really need to spend right now.

[28:12.7]
If it keeps nagging at me, then I'll come back and get it. And then now, like, I'll still do something like, no week or no spend weeks where I'm just not spending at all. I have my credit card at home. It's harder now just because everything's on our, like Google phone and our Apple wallet and everything.

[28:30.4]
But it just creates that kind of mentality in my head saying, I don't really need this now. So let me, Let me just wait and see. Yeah, I like this topic a lot. And, I have a friend who has a family office and a very, very wealthy family and his young kids, when they go into the store and they say, oh, daddy, I want this.

[28:54.3]
He'll say, is it a want or a need? Yes. Right. And I think it's important for people to realize that the media has done a great job of turning our wants into needs.

[29:11.3]
And we're always bombarded by advertisements and social media and all these people and all these various things, and it really isn't a need. I would say that, you know, probably 80% of what we have is really not a need.

[29:27.4]
Right. If you have your basic food and shelter. And the reality is, of all the statistics that have been done, that if you earned $70,000 in this economy where we are, you're not going to be any happier if you earned $350,000.

[29:46.5]
Okay, exactly. The reality is, is what are you saving of the 70? Right. So I love this and. But throughout the book, you talk about the balance of pragmatic advice with acknowledgment.

[30:01.8]
That's life's pleasures. A guilty. Free, free lattes. How important is it to balance to achieving sustainable financial independence? Because I believe this is really an important one. It's like, I know I catch myself wanting to go to a place called Better Buzz, which is like a little coffee place.

[30:21.6]
And, you know, I'll maybe spend $7 there on a, matcha latte, and I might do that two or three times a week. And I realize I don't need it. But I have to remind myself, oh, no, I don't need that I don't.

[30:38.6]
It's not a need, it's a want. Yeah. So here's my thing. I don't think being financially independent means that you need to live like a monk. I do think the whole point of money is to be able to enjoy life and spend it. I know we're kind of going back and forth between the topics.

[30:54.4]
Like firstly, I will say it's very important you start saving and investing first rather than spending. I think people get their paycheck and they're like, oh, let me go buy stuff. But the way I do it, the way I run my system is I say, okay, I got my paycheck, let me put money in savings, let me put money in investing.

[31:12.4]
Okay, yourself first. Yeah. Now I have the leftover money to spend. Right. So I think using that spend that you've allocated and thought through already, spend it on whatever you'd like. Right. I also think, a lot of people in my life, they just have different interests.

[31:30.8]
Right. Some people like you and I, I also spend on seven dollar matcha lattes. They're so good. But then, but then I have friends who only care about cashmere sweaters and that's what they're spending on. Or I have friends who only care about cars. Right. Like going back to the car topic.

[31:47.2]
So they save up, and only spend on cars. I think whatever it is, this just needs to be guilt free spending so that you are just more intentional about it and you enjoy the life and build the future that you want. It's not either or. Well, the book is filled with awesome advice for anybody.

[32:06.6]
I, I, you know, I know that it's, it's geared toward younger people, but it's also geared to anybody who hasn't paid any attention to this because you talk about stuff like HSAs and all kinds of wonderful things that people should know about. But I would like to ask you that if you went back and gave your college graduate self one piece of financial advice that wasn't in your book, what would it be?

[32:35.8]
Yeah, yeah, good question. Well, one, I want to share the advice that was in the book, which I didn't do. And then I'll share one that wasn't. So one that was in the book. Book is no matter what, start a brokerage account, put in $20 a month.

[32:52.0]
That's literally one meal, maybe two meals in this day and age. And start investing, put it in the S P 500, try different stocks out. It's just learning. So now you have Four years of learning for. Until you graduate, and then you have actual money to put in and see it grow once you have that, you know, real thing.

[33:10.5]
So I, I wish I'd done that just for, From a learning perspective, but I didn't. Okay, cool. So, advice. You want to hear a quick story? It's a, it's along the same line, so it will complement what you just said. You know, if you had an excess earning one year and you did the same thing, not the $20 a week, but let's say one year you, you, had an inheritance or something came along, or you made a big commission and started spending the commission, you decided to open up the brokerage.

[33:42.8]
So I'm going to say Approximately, I'll be 71 in July. Okay. I, 30 years ago, took $20,000 and I bought Microsoft and a bunch of stocks or whatever, and I still own them. That $20,000 equivalently, without any additional, turned into $470,000, which is in the account 30 years later.

[34:08.1]
Wow. Wow. I am so impressed that you didn't, sell them during these 20 years, because I've heard a lot. I bought and sold. I bought and sold. But my point is, is that, yes, I've, you know, I used to be a stockbroker.

[34:24.1]
So my point is, is that, yes, I manipulated. What I'm saying is, if somebody had a windfall, take that windfall versus oh, well, I'm gonna go do this and buy a house or buy some stock or do something else with it. But get it working for you, right?

[34:40.7]
Yeah. And then later on in life, like your people are asking me, they say, why are you still working? You don't need to work. And it's like, because I enjoy what I'm doing. My point is, is that the pragmatic part of that is most people are like, going to go, oh, I want to go buy that car, or I want to do this.

[34:57.3]
That asset is not going to be worth squat. So buy something that can appreciate that's really an asset that will appreciate, whether it's a stock or it's a bond or mutual fund or I don't care what it is. So what?

[35:14.7]
Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, well, like the one advice I didn't share in my book, and I wish I could tell my college self is I would also build like a career opportunity fund, basically, like setting money aside not just for emergencies or big life events like we talked about, but for opportunities.

[35:33.9]
This could be moving to a new city, quitting A job, starting a side hustle, like anything that gives you freedom to say yes to things that change your life. Because a lot of it, like right now we're talking about saving, investing, where to put your money. But a lot of this also comes from how much can you grow your income.

[35:51.1]
Right? And so if I gave myself a little bit of fun to attend conferences where I would have an opportunity to meet the right people and build my network, I think that would be so cool if people started thinking of those as an investment in the. In themselves. That's great advice.

[36:09.2]
And the most important thing is, is to. I mean, look, if you don't have any. Your joy in your life, it's not worth it. But if whatever it is you're investing in, you believe is going to bring you joy, go invest in it and don't be afraid is what I would say.

[36:25.0]
You know, go make that investment. If it didn't pay off, then it didn't pay off. Maybe it was you went down a track and you needed to learn something, but you learned what you didn't like versus what you do. Like, in your case, you now like giving advice, writing a book, and becoming a thought leader in this area, which probably when you were 18, 19, you didn't even think about.

[36:46.7]
Right? It wasn't, it wasn't even on your radar, right? No. And, you know, so I think that's really important. And we live in such a dynamic, uncertain world, which it has kind of turned into lately.

[37:02.9]
And it's shown by these huge fluctuations in the market lately, a new administration which is managing things in a different way. So what financial trends or tools are you excited about as a young person?

[37:19.1]
And you're excited about for the future that might not have existed when you were starting your financial journey? I can stay say this, and I don't want to take your thunder away, but, you know, I've actually taken my IRIS statement and fed it to.

[37:38.2]
I, think I fed it to Claude. Or chat. And I said, will you give me advice on this portfolio? Because I'm thinking about if the prompt is written properly. And I'm going to tell you something, that the advice that it gave back was as good as any stockbroker could have given me.

[38:00.8]
Wow, that's impressive. I have not done that yet. I think part of me is just scared about the security, but that's a really good idea. Well, if you actually cross out the. The number, right, and all you're giving it is the stocks in the portfolio, you're not saying, right, you're not giving your name or anything else.

[38:19.2]
You're. You're virtually taking a screenshot and you're giving it the screenshot, which is a png, and you're saying, here's what I own. Please provide me advice, because this is what I was thinking under this dynamic, changing, uncertain environment.

[38:37.1]
And it really came back with some crazy good advice. Wow, I'm gonna have to try that. That'll leave me after. After this podcast. Well, the thing that I was really excited about, or I have been really excited about, is the rise of access to alternative investments.

[38:56.9]
I, feel like a lot of things like investing in gold or art or even wine and whiskey and small businesses, they've just been reserved for the ultra wealthy. But now there's a lot of companies like Microacquire, Yield, Street, Vinovest, a lot of just tools that exist out there.

[39:16.1]
I actually just wrote a newsletter about alternative investments and I went through 10 different tools that exist, and 10 ways to just diversify beyond stocks and real estate. So it's exciting to see how people can be more creative. And not just that, it's be. It's now finally accessible to people like me, just like a regular person.

[39:35.5]
And it's not saved for the ultra wealthy in any way. I think that's really, really sound advice. And I think that people now, they virtually can get to you just by your. You're going to go to the website, folks, and if you want to learn more about her, it's Radica and it's spelled R A D H I K A P A L I W A l dot com.

[40:06.8]
We're going to put it into the show notes. But that's where you can learn about her. You can see the book, you can see her blog on finance and real estate and personal development, the resources section, which is about her books and mentorship, where she's speaking and all about her.

[40:23.7]
And I'd highly recommend that you do that. But look in our YouTube show notes below, which you'll see. To get more information about her book, you can go to Amazon and buy this book, which is probably the best place to get it. You can sign up for her newsletter there as well.

[40:41.0]
There's a big button so that you can click on that. But Radhika, I want to thank you for being on Inside Personal Growth, sharing your insight and wisdom as a younger person who has grown through this and was willing to take some risks.

[40:58.2]
Because the things that you've done weren't risk free. And that's one of the things I think people need to look at their risk tolerance. What is their risk? What is their tolerance for risk and their willingness as you said, hey, we'll take $20 and put it in there.

[41:13.6]
Well, $20 isn't much to risk, so. But it's a start, you know, start, it's a start. And I think regardless of where you are, if you're listening to this show, Radic would be a great resource for you to go read the blog and understand more from a perspective.

[41:32.9]
So thanks for being on insight, personal growth and spending your time with us and telling us about your book and your personal journey and some of the ideas that you have for listeners out there about how to manage their finances. Any final words? Of course. No.

[41:48.0]
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. All right, Namaste today. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.