246. Finance Ninja & Theatre Nerd Bailie Slevin

In Episode 246, Sean, Andy and guest co-host Kate Foretek talk with financial advisor Bailie Slevin to get the lowdown on making your money work for you as a freelancer to plan for both the future you expect, and the one you don’t! This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

A combination of finance ninja and theatre nerd, Bailie is a business management and financial consultant focused specifically on working with creatives of all types. With 10 years of experience as a financial adviser and a hefty résumé in theater, she is re-defining planning for artists and entrepreneurs.

Bailie has worked with Certified Financial Services and Forest Hills Financial Group in finance, and teaches financial literacy and wellbeing workshops, and speaks throughout the NY region on the specifics of financial management for artists.

As a stage manager, general manager, and producer on Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway, Tony, Drama Desk, OBIE, and IT Awards pepper Slevin’s résumé. Some of her favorite projects include “The Norman Conquests,” “Altar Boyz,” “Naked Boys Singing!,” “Pursuit of Persephone,” “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,” and “Popesical,” in Concert at Joe’s Pub. She currently serves as a board member for The Tank NYC, a non-profit arts presenter for emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new forms of expression, and Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU), a training ground for tomorrows theatrical producers.

Savings versus debt, retirement accounts, the different types of life insurance, and more are all laid out on the table in this discussion. If you ever thought that liquid assets are something you buy at the corner liquor store, this is definitely the episode for you!

Note: The things discussed in this episode are for informational purposes only, and may not necessarily be the right choices for you. Be sure to talk to a financial advisor who knows your situation before making any investment, savings, or other financial decisions! If you’d like to talk to Bailie about your specific needs, reach out to her via her website, and mention that you heard this episode to get a totally free, no commitment 30-minute consultation.

Episode Links:
Bailie Slevin Website
Pound Foolish, by Helaine Olen
Episode 246 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 246 - Money Talk with Bailie Slevin

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Signal the Noise on the ProSoundWeb podcast network. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and back in the co host seat is my friend and yours, Mr. Sean Walker. How you doing, Sean? 

Sean Walker: I'm good, man. How are you guys doing? 

Andy Leviss: I'm good, you know, hanging in there. And, you know, Sean said guys, uh, well, actually, it, uh, We'll go with folks for this one because we have an extra special, uh, vaguely nepotistic co host this week. 

Uh, y'all have heard legend of her, uh, my incredibly talented and incredibly smart partner Kate Foretek is joining us as a co host. 

Kate Foretek: Aw, hi. You oversell me, but hi. 

Sean Walker: We, we're actually just using you to get to her, Andy. As soon as she's on board, now that she's on board, you're out. I don't, I don't want to say it, but... 

Andy Leviss: I, hey, great workload 

Sean Walker: the call, the call's coming, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Um, but yeah, I, I've been threatening to drag Kate in on this for a bit. And the subject we're talking about today is something that Kate is very smart about, very passionate and interested in about. And we were starting over dinner to talk through questions that I could ask. 

And then I was like, why don't you just sign on and you join us and, and you ask and I'll shut up and let you talk. And she basically asked me why I don't do that more often. And here we are. 

Kate Foretek: I appreciate you. You haven't introduced your guest yet. 

Andy Leviss: We're, we're getting there. We got to introduce the hosts first, but um, 

Sean Walker: Gotta stay on that divorce prevention program. Gotta get the, scribbling, 

Kate Foretek: appreciate that out of you, Sean. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, so yeah, this guest is also a very old friend of mine. Uh, we're not going to get into specifics of how old, but, uh, Bailie Slevin, who, uh, I actually went to college with, uh, when I was a lighting designer starting to turn into a sound designer, and Bailie was a stage manager at the time. 

Uh, we met on an ill fated show where I very briefly attempted to pinch hit as a scenic designer, and we'll talk no further about that. But, uh, over the years, Bailie has, uh, gone into In addition to stage managing, general managing theater stuff, uh, financial advising, and particularly focusing on folks in the entertainment industry. 

And I know we've been getting lots of questions about business stuff, and this is an area that I know a lot of us in the sound industry don't think about, don't think about early enough, uh, or are just kind of overwhelmed by. I know I certainly fit that description, so I reached out to Bailie and said, hey, I'm You want to come talk to us about it. 

Um, so how are you doing, Bailie? 

Bailie Slevin: good. I'm so happy to be here and talking about finance for people in the arts. It's my singular passion at this point, I'd say. 

Andy Leviss: I love it. And I'm glad you could join us. And I know the one thing we want to put up out front here is that we're going to talk about a lot of financial stuff. Uh, this is information only. You shouldn't take it as direct personal advice. Everybody's situation is a little bit different. So if you have questions, reach out to an advisor, whether that's Bailie or somebody else qualified. 

Uh, is, is there anything else you need to add to that, Bailie, before we go? 

Bailie Slevin: I actually, I just want to even like kind of zero in on that a little bit more because it doesn't just apply to us. Any financial advice you get anywhere that's in the public is not necessarily financial advice for you. And it's a big problem in the country where we have these Like, financial advisor celebrities who, by the way, if you look it up, do not take their own advice, fantastic book called Pound Foolish, highly recommend it. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: scribbling, scribbling. I got it. 

Bailie Slevin: I, I know the titles, I never know who writes them, it's, it's horrible, my mother's an author, I should be better. Um, but it really is important to hear, hear financial advice, see where it's coming from, and then say, does this apply to someone who's my age? Making roughly my amount of money living in a similar area. 

Maybe, you know, if you have kids. That's very different advice than someone who doesn't have kids. And yet you have people just sitting up there going, You need to get mutual funds! Don't get me wrong, I love a mutual fund, but they're not a financial plan, and they aren't for everyone at all times, so with the grains of salt you hear me with, throw them on any other financial pundit. 

Kate Foretek: That's fair. Bailie, do you want to start with sort of talking about how people should, like, take stock of their financial situation, even if they're just, you know, be it in the beginning of their career or, like, or halfway through it? Like, just sort of getting a hold on where you are, how much you're bringing in, how much your expenses are, that sort of thing. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, absolutely. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. How do I go from dumpster fire to Scrooge McDuck? That's what I want to know. 

Bailie Slevin: don't know that I've taken any clients to diving into a pile of gold coins, but we have gotten out of six figure debt, so I take that as a massive win. Um, the first step in getting a hold of your finances is learning to speak a little bit of finance, right? The example I always use is, I grew up in New Jersey, and if you know anything about New Jersey, it's malls, the Jersey Shore, and the fact that we drive everywhere, and we're, you know, we're not always so good at it. 

So I grew up in Jersey, and, uh, no one ever explained to me about auto insurance. Like, how all that is put together. If there's a better way, there's a less better way. Less better is not wording. So, 

Kate Foretek: It's good wording. It works. 

Andy Leviss: Perfectly cromulent word. 

Bailie Slevin: So I never got that kind of education, and when I first started in financial advising, one of the first things they said is, Let's break down an auto policy. And they said, all right, look at these numbers. It says 100, 000 slash 300, 000. What does that mean? It's your liability protection. What does that mean? I had been driving for nearly a decade at that point, and I could not tell you, nor could anyone else in the room. So the first thing is to really learn what this is. 

And if we break it down just with that, that's what I call the protection area, which is insurances and legal documents. Everyone says, you know, you have to save first, that first dollar is for saving. The first dollar is for protection. I'm actually, uh, I'm staying with my parents at the moment, and when I got here, there was a massive leak in the boiler. 

There were two inches of water down in, in our garage. This thing, I haven't seen the total bills, but rest assured, like, 25, 000, 30, 000, I have to redo all the floors? Well, his first dollar went to his home insurance policy, and he got the maximum coverage. And he doesn't have to pay anything over the deductible for that. So, yeah, so first dollar to protection. And do it right. You know, like, we don't want to go overboard with insurances. Also, spoiler alert, they won't let you. Um, you can't over insure things. They just, it's impossible. So looking at that, taking stock of it, and what you, what you think you need. So, you know, auto insurance, renters, homeowners. My personal opinion, if you're eligible for disability insurance, get on that. Of course, health insurance, long term care insurance, if it's available as a standalone to you, oh my god, still take it. But then that brings us to life insurance, which can also be long term care insurance. Now they're doing double duties on permanent policies. 

So getting that idea that it's not, oh, I have to hoard my money, it's I have to protect the fact that I can make money and stay where I am living the life that I live. Next. 

Kate Foretek: protecting you, sorry to interrupt, that's protecting you a little bit as a freelancer because your welfare and your financial situation is so closely tied to your physical health. 

Bailie Slevin: It's be being a freelancer, especially being a freelancer in any of the arts, I think is the hardest thing to do because you're not only a business owner, you're also head marketing officer, chief sales officer, and you're the product Like that's a lot. And if one of those pieces is slightly malfunctioning, I mean, what if you're a dancer with a migraine? Like, a small thing suddenly blows it out. Um, so yeah, the protection can keep you going, but it also makes sure you don't backslide. It's just, and we've seen it happen. Um, so yes, start with protection. The next thing I would look at is cash flow. And this is kind of the base of the question that you asked. 

I just turned it into a 17 hour answer. Um, so when I first started in this business and people were like, that's your gross income, that's your net income. It's like, what are these words? I can never remember which is which. So I'm going to give you my little, Uh, tip, although I know all of your listeners are smarter than me about this, the number that you actually get paid, your gross income, is because the ocean is grossly large. 

I'm making hand gestures, they're amazing. But what you take home is what you keep in your net. So your net income is what you take home as opposed to the grossly large ocean of income that gets disbursed. Uh, first thing, know what you're declaring if you need to declare something. Um, 

Kate Foretek: What do you mean by that? 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, I realized that that made sense when I was envisioning paperwork in my head. 

Uh, so like when you're declaring dependence on, what is that, the W 4? I hate tax forms. Um, I am not an accountant, by the way. I'll actually point that out. Accountants and financial advisors have two completely different goals and two completely different jobs. You should have both, and they should talk to each other and work together and not compete against each other. 

Sean Walker: Oof, that's like a dogfight waiting to happen. 

Bailie Slevin: It can be. Yeah. Um, so yeah, what you're, uh, What you're putting down in terms of dependents, what you're declaring to determine how much tax is actually taken out of your paycheck. So when I look at someone who says, hey, you know, I'm going to be making 100, 000 on this. I go, okay, so that means you are max taking home 70 percent of it. And that's, you know, if you can take home more, great. If not, that's what we want to budget with. And understand where the other money is, is going for sure. All right. Cashflow, you'll hear one of my least favorite kind of, uh, money tips that goes around is this 50 30 20 idea. 50 percent of your money on lifestyle, 30 percent on your home, I think, and 20 percent on savings and debt. It's that 20 percent I take umbrage with. The money you're putting towards debt and the money you're putting towards savings are two completely different things. You should never be sacrificing savings to try to pay off debt quicker, because that's the cycle of debt, right? So you're in your 20s, you're not saving enough, oh my god. 

You break your leg, you go into the hospital, you're gonna spend a lot of money, but you didn't have savings, so it goes on your credit card. But you're really good! So you work, you don't spend anything extra, you pay off that debt, you pay it off, you are so proud, you're back to zero, you haven't been saving anything. 

And now your dog, true story from one of my clients, gets hit by a bicycle. Now, you're gonna need this 4, 000 for the vet bill, but you haven't been saving, you've just been paying off debt, so 

Sean Walker: You're right back to your card. 

Bailie Slevin: goes right back to your card. So it's not the same dollars. You need to do both, but it's not the same dollars. 

I think the best and most harsh thing is Any trainer ever told me in the finance industry was, if you have to put it on a credit card, you can't afford it. And I think these days, points and miles and all of these things, it's really if you can't pay it off today, you can't afford it. And it's, so when we're looking at paying off debt, and I'm excluding, uh, student loan debt from this particular instance, when you're looking at debt, you did it to yourself. Right? You spent money you didn't have. So now you have to pare back your lifestyle to make up for it. But future you really can't afford to have you stop saving. So that's the cash flow piece of it. After that we get to, we'll do debt first because it sucks, and then we'll talk about assets because it's great. So there are different types of debt, right? We all know that, everyone's like, little mortgage, it's great debt! I'm not saying it isn't. But debt is debt, and once you have it, it becomes a fixed point in your budget. So it's super important, especially actually when buying a house, because they will show you houses that you can't afford, right? 

You tell them what you can afford, and then they inflate it by 150, 000 and tell you that, you know, you'll figure it out. And suddenly 

Kate Foretek: recently gone 

Andy Leviss: bit of a stretch, but 

Kate Foretek: Have recently gone through this, actually, yes. 

Sean Walker: Dude, when we were buying a house, I looked at what we were approved for and I was like, there's no way I'm swinging the hammer on that payment every month. Are you kidding me? Like, holy crap. They totally inflated. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, good for you for saying no. So many people get so excited. And then it's like, yeah, I can put 40 percent of my income towards that. It's not a problem. It's like, hey, now that you own a house, you're meant property taxes. Have you met property taxes? Um, and of course, 

Sean Walker: Don't get me started. Don't, don't, just don't. Just don't. 

Bailie Slevin: You know what? 

Like I said, I grew up in Jersey. Neither one of us needs to talk about it. Painful. 

Andy Leviss: Ken confirm also grew up in Jersey. 

Bailie Slevin: mortgage is good debt. But again, it's comes to all of it comes down to cash flow. Right? Money comes into your balance sheet through cash flow, and it goes off of your balance sheet through cash flow. Everything is just this circle, and how long you're holding money in places. Uh, it goes without saying, credit card debt is bad. It is, there's not much to say about that. There are ways to handle it, if you've gotten yourself in trouble, um, but that really is so specific to the individual. But stick with, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. Credit card isn't real money. It's not. It's your future money. It is. You're just spending money you haven't made yet. 

Sean Walker: Future me is real proud of current me then, apparently. 

Bailie Slevin: Financial planning at its core is just a negotiation between present day you and future you. 

Kate Foretek: That's a really interesting statement, actually. 

Sean Walker: was just gonna say that's a good way to put that, totally. 

Kate Foretek: yeah. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I'm sitting here like, God, both of them are kind of dicks. 

Bailie Slevin: like to tell my clients that you can be present day you and I'm gonna have all the knowledge of future you and we're just gonna figure out when you're having the most fun. 

Sean Walker: Now. I'm having the most fun now. 

Bailie Slevin: As well you should, you know, just don't Leave it up to the government to take care of you when you're retired. They're not trustworthy. That's a different topic, I'll shut up. Um, so, yeah, debt, 

Sean Walker: was, that was part of the property taxes. Don't get me started. 

Bailie Slevin: love a little finance riff. Um, what was I about to say? Oh, so, student loans. Let's talk about student loans. They're terrible. They're the closest thing we have to mafia debt because they can sell it and not tell you. I've actually had that with many, many clients where we had to like figure out, Oh, this company sold to this company to this company, but you log in through their website, which is separate from the first company. A nightmare. The most important thing is that you cannot ignore them. They, they're going to keep doing what they do, right? Student loans be student loans ing. That's, that's what the kids say. Um, so know about it, but also know, like, what to register. So if you want to do an income based repayment, you have to do the paperwork each year. 

The paperwork's a little bit of a pain in the ass, but you do that, and then you're on your income based repayment, which is Definitely less than what you started with. If you're still paying your initial payment plan from when you graduated, you have to check. You have to go see if something is better. 

And the public service forgiveness. But you have to do your paperwork each year, each month maybe for that one. Um, otherwise you don't get it. So you could be working for, you know, the country, for a state, you could be a teacher, whatever all those write offs are. Um. And you could be doing it for six years and be like, Oh man, four more years and this gets forgiven. 

If you haven't been registering each year, you have 10 years from that point. They do not go back in time. So that is my, my big advice around student loans. You can't ignore them. A lot of times we can make it better. Um, and also see a financial advisor who's really up with it. Student loans are not for everyone. 

My passion in life? Uh, one of my colleagues is a genius at student loan stuff. So when I have a complicated student loan case, I call him in. And when he has a complicated freelancer's case, he calls me in. We do what we're specialized for and I also think that's important in any profession to be able to say, hey, let me get someone who can do this right. 

Andy Leviss: That's, that's a big one because that's, that's something we do in audio industry, but I feel like from our perspective, not being financial folks to us, y'all are, you know, they're the smart money people. They're all the same. So it's, I, I like reframing it to, yeah, to remind us that there are specialties there and to find the right person for what you need. 

Bailie Slevin: Finding the right person as a financial advisor is so important. To the point where I have actually passed clients on to other advisors fully because I was like, you guys are going to be a better match. And here's the truth. Nobody's like, oh my god, I'm so excited. I'm going to see my financial advisor today. 

It's going to be a party. Yay. No one's that excited about it. So we better like each other because we're going to be with each other for a while. I'm going to ask you some real personal questions and you're going to have to trust me with them. So, you have to be with the right person. It's like finding the right shrink. 

I once got a referral from a shrink to her clients, a couple who needed to talk about money better. That was fun. It was not fun. 

Sean Walker: I was going to say, did you tell her thanks, but no thanks. Like, I don't need that kind of crazy in my life. 

Bailie Slevin: Uh, if I could figure out who it was who actually sent them to me, no one told me the name. 

Sean Walker: Oh, you just got these clients showed up out of nowhere and we're like, Hey, we got referred to you by a shrink and 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, pretty much. 

Sean Walker: this out. You're like, good. Here's the, here's the rate plus pay to the ass fee rate. 

Bailie Slevin: Mm hmm. 

Andy Leviss: points to the shrink for, for maintaining HIPAA. 

Bailie Slevin: Yes. Uh, 

Kate Foretek: Are there other kinds of good debt that we don't know about? I feel like a buzzkill right 

Bailie Slevin: now it's not, not at all. I wouldn't say that in and of itself there is other good debt, but there are other really good ways to leverage assets, which is more powerful than, uh, over debting. It's the end of my day. I was talking a lot earlier, over debting, oh my god, um, you don't want to over leverage yourself without the assets. 

We're actually, you know, hate to bring it up again, but like, Trump is learning that pretty hardcore right now. You can be worth a ton of money and have absolutely nothing, even though you have a ton of money. 

Kate Foretek: And have no cash flow. 

Bailie Slevin: comes down to cash flow, and second to cash flow is liquidity. Because liquidity gives you choices. 

And choices are the only way you get through a Ptolemy. 

Andy Leviss: So for the sound engineers among us, uh, quick definition of liquidity. 

Bailie Slevin: Liquidity, if you can spend it right now. 

Sean Walker: Cash in the motherfucking bank, not tied up in real estate or a CD or something that you can't get to. 

Bailie Slevin: Right, so even a very fine line example of that is a regular investment account, where you're in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, just a regular brokerage account. Liquid. You have the exact same things, the exact same stock, bond, mutual fund, ETF, but now, now it's in an IRA. Now it's not liquid. Because in order to get that, you have to pay a penalty plus all the taxes you never paid. Right? So that becomes very expensive money. So when we're talking about saving and growing, where to go? And this is, I made a joke before we even started about the Roth IRA. I love a Roth IRA. I do, but so many people say, this is where you should start saving because it's tax free. And yes, you should save there because it's tax free, but it's not going to give liquidity. And if we're talking about, I'll go back to my parents situation just now. Ah, oh my god, I completely lost track of what I was saying when I thought about referencing their boiler again. 

Sean Walker: Liquidity Roth IRA. 

Kate Foretek: yeah, 

Bailie Slevin: yeah. So, say, my dad did not have good Homeowner's insurance. He just low balled everything. And let's say his house was fully mortgaged. 

He had a business that was fully mortgaged. There's no liquidity. Suddenly can't fix the house, even though there might be a house that's, you know, worth a ton of money. So it's, yeah, liquidity, liquidity, liquidity. Um, I'm going to pause for a second. I could go in like 17 other directions, but you guys guide me. 

Sean Walker: While you pause, Andy and I are gonna go get simultaneous liquidity tats so that we never forget that. Sorry, Kate, we're putting Ron right on his keister. Just gonna say liquidity. 

Andy Leviss: That hurts more than the crippling debt. Um, I mean, I, I don't know if we want to do it now or if we want to circle back, but I think maybe just touching a little bit on Roth versus traditional IRAs would probably be useful for some folks. 

Bailie Slevin: So let's, if you guys could see me, if I could do like my little PowerPoint presentation, I have something, it's called the asset trifecta. I've created it in order to keep track of all of these accounts. So we start by classifying accounts, in my opinion, by the thing we have the least control over, and that's taxes. 

Right? No one's really specifically asking us and doing what we say. So, 

Sean Walker: I want to go down that rabbit hole later when you have a tangent, when you have a minute. 

Bailie Slevin: oh yeah, just throw it at me, man. Um, so, we'll start with taxable. What I was referring to before as like a regular brokerage account. Taxable means that you're either gonna pay capital gains tax as it grows, or you'll pay ordinary income tax on the growth if it's under a year. But either way, you're getting taxed on the growth. 

This is a savings account. This is even your checking account. This is a regular money market. And it's that regular brokerage account where you said, hey, I'm just gonna buy this S& P 500 fund. That's all gonna be taxable. Then we have tax deferred. For ease, I want you to always replace deferred with procrastinated. They're tax procrastinated. We are saying, we don't want to pay it now, we think it'll be better later. 

Sean Walker: Taxman gon get you later. 

Bailie Slevin: Yup. And they're kind of counting on this. So 401ks and IRAs fall under this, as do annuities. Um, a SEP IRA also would, uh, be here. Again, this is not specific or all inclusive. By any means, this is for, you know, people see examples. 

Sean Walker: you're just betting that you'll be at a lower tax bracket when you retire than you are right now when you're earning, 

Bailie Slevin: Right, which is Well, I won't say what it is. Let's play the game. So, right now, let's say we're talking to people in their 30s and 40s. We'll go as broad as we can. Are they making the most money that they will ever make? 

Sean Walker: Let's say probably. 

Bailie Slevin: So they're gonna, at like age 50, they're gonna start making less money? 

Sean Walker: Nah. 

Bailie Slevin: Now, let's just talk household, because this is not specific to anyone. So, people in their 30s and 40s statistically are not making the most that they'll ever make. Now, obviously with freelancers, you're gonna have years where you kill it and years where you don't, and if you kill it enough for like two decades, you probably will start maybe earning less, but you're not gonna want to live on less. Right? You might say, you're 65, I'm, I'm retiring today, you're not suddenly gonna go, Hey, I've been living on 150, 000, but now it's cool, I'll live on 50, 000. That, that's not how it works, but that's traditional retirement planning, is telling you that you're gonna be in a lower tax bracket in the future. So one, you're gonna be living on more money in the future. 

Like, we want to expand our lives. So you're gonna need that money to be more, which, In and of itself will put you in a higher tax bracket, but also us right now, um, and I'm looking at all of us, we're pretty much the same age, um, making judgments, me. Uh, so, yeah, so if we're looking at this, historically, this is still some of the lowest tax rates have ever been. tell me, what is a reason that tax rates could go down in the next 10 to 20 years? Exactly. 

Kate Foretek: blank. 

Bailie Slevin: How could they possibly go down? Like, we look around, the national debt, everything that's going on in the world, there's no way taxes can ever go down. So for you and me, when we're looking at retiring and taking this money out in like 20, 25 years, I don't know about you guys, but I want to be living, like, the fine life, and I want to be in the top tax bracket, I just want to have tax planning in a way that I don't have to pay that kind of taxes, which is why we never want to overfill a 401k, an IRA, a SEP IRA. 

Now that I've destroyed them. I'm going to say they have so much value to freelancers because that's really where you're going to be able to put away a ton of money. Um, so, what I do with any of my clients who are using the SEP IRA specifically because you can make that all one contribution at the end of the year, is I say, go to your taxes, have your accountant tell me how much they want you to put into the SEP. come back to me and I go, okay, that's going to be a little high for the liquidity level, we're going to knock that down like 2, 000 and then I think we're set. Check with your accountant, the accountant says okay, and that's how we do it. That's how I like to work with accountants, I don't want to do their job, they don't want to do me. Um, so that was going back to just tax deferred, tax procrastinated, right? I don't want to deal with it now, I'm hoping it'll be better later. Last bucket is tax free, and this is where the Roth IRA comes in. So a regular IRA, jumping back to tax deferred, You put the money in, you don't pay taxes at the time it goes in, it stays in there, and then when you take the money out, you have to pay the taxes. Can't take the money out before age 59 and a half, otherwise you have to pay additional penalty, and you must start taking, uh, withdrawals by the time you're 72 and a half, or they charge you a 50 percent penalty on what you should have taken out, which is highway robbery, in my opinion. The Roth IRA, you put in after tax dollars, right? 

So this is that net of the paycheck. You put it in the Roth, you can invest it. Any money that you put in, you can take back out prior to age 59 and a half with no penalty. If you need to take the growth out, there's a 10 percent penalty. After 59 and a half, you can do whatever you want. You can take all of it out, you could leave it all in, you don't have to take money out at any point. 

So it's really a great tool. It does, um, does kind of fade in how you can contribute based on your income, so only under a certain income level is allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA. However, there's a beautiful thing happening now where companies are offering Roth 401Ks, which you can contribute to regardless of your income because it's a company sponsored plan. 

Sean Walker: Now you're just flirting with me. 

Bailie Slevin: You can't see me, but I'm batting my eyes. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? 

Bailie Slevin: Um, and then the last place to, uh, well, two more things to get cash, tax free growth. One, municipal bonds, because they're triple tax exempt. They're not an aggressive way of going, although with interest rates going how they are, bonds not looking too shabby these days. 

Not investment advice, but they're really not looking too shabby. And then the last place to get tax free growth is inside of a whole life insurance policy. That's like a whole conversation unto itself and a very loaded one for some reason that I don't quite understand. Um, but, the, essentially, the cash value, um, you can, I think of as the life value. 

It's the percentage of the death benefit that you can access while you're still alive. So, for example, I, years ago, um, I decided to move out of a corporate office and, like, set up my own WeWork and do that, all of that. I took, I think it was like 10, 000 out of my life insurance cash value. Paid no taxes, it keeps growing, because contractually it should, and I pay it back whenever the hell I want. 

And if I don't, when I die, they'll just, you know, give my nieces and nephews, uh, 10, 000 less. So, that's the third place. The idea when putting together a plan is we want some of pretty much everything. It's just the balance of how it works. And that depends on who you are specifically. www. microsoft. com There are some basic rules, but I think we'll fold them into any other conversation, so. 

I will pause. 

Andy Leviss: Well, if nobody else has a pressing question there, I was gonna kind of spin off from that, and, and, if we can go a little bit, uh, term versus, whole life, and, when, if ever, term makes sense, or like when, when you should convert one to the other, 

Bailie Slevin: So I'll start by saying I own both. As a single person, I own over a million dollars worth of life, life insurance, death benefit, it is mixed between whole life and term life, um, and I have reasons for all of it, as you might have guessed. I think both term and whole can have great places in people's lives. 

I think variable life insurance has no place in anyone's life. If you want to invest, invest where the fees are less, and don't take the risk with the death benefit. Um, there's a thing also with universal life, which was created in the 80s so that people could take advantage of the stock market inside of their policies. 

But what happened is all of these, um, Um, kind of loopholes went in there, so if the market doesn't do what it should, suddenly you owe premiums again. And in the early, let's see, around, what is it, 2008, uh, was when all of those policies started. Literally, the term is blowing up, and people get letters that said, Hey, your premium, which was 1, 000 for the year, if you don't get us 8, 000 by next quarter, your policy is ended. 

That's a, uh, like I saw that letter. That one is actually specific. Um, so, 

Sean Walker: That sucks. 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, I felt awful. I was like, the thing is, when she bought it, she really, as a consumer, had no reason to think it wasn't going to be a great policy. What happened was her agent thought, hey, things are going really well now and I'm sure they'll never go too badly in the future. 

Which is not a financial advisor's job. Our job is to go, but what if things go horribly wrong? Um. So, yeah, so term insurance is perfect for when you need, well, take a second with need and want, but term insurance is for when you need the death benefit. So if I had, say, I'm gonna be very cut and dry and then we can talk about nuances, if I had two new parents, come in and meet with me and they had no insurance at all, I would say, all right, so at the very least we need to get term insurance in and then let's talk about how much. 

Because no matter how we go, term insurance is always going to be the lowest premium for the higher, um, higher death benefit for the time. The problem with term insurance is that it's only for a specific term. So say you get it when you're in your 20s and you get a 20 year level term policy. It's the most popular policy in the country, with good reason. 

So you buy that in your 20s and it's like a thousand, it's not even a thousand dollars a year, probably like six hundred dollars a year. So you're paying that now for 20 years. You got that good rate because you're young and you're healthy. So you're probably going to live those 20 years. In fact, I'm going to Less than 2 percent of term policies ever pay out a death benefit. 

So it's really term insurance is auto insurance for your life. 

Sean Walker: So we're in the wrong fucking business doing audio. I got it. We should be in the insurance business. 2 percent payout on that. They're just printing money. Like it's a little cash machine. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah. If I had no soul, I would run a term life insurance company. I've said it many times. 

Sean Walker: Noted. Taking notes, taking notes. 

Bailie Slevin: Um, so that's the term side. Whole life insurance is exactly what it sounds like. You buy it, and you eat it. Either die with it in place and the death benefit gets paid out, or you live until the end of it, and you get the death benefit. Now I say this like it's some fairy tale, I was actually with my grandfather when he got his own death benefit payout at 97, because his policy ended at 96. He got a whopping 10, 000 from the policy from the 1950s. That's a lot of money back then. Um, so it goes until 

Sean Walker: And now it buys a cup of coffee. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: but it's a really good cup of 

Sean Walker: Look, between you and Ryan, I'm going fucking bankrupt over here with the fucking coffee machines. All right. That's enough out of you. Damn, bro. Sorry. Sorry. Coffee tangent. Apologize. Back to it. 

Bailie Slevin: All for coffee. I was recently trying to figure out how to get my Starbucks order less expensive because I have really gone off the rails. A double dirty chai is way too expensive to have more than once a month. 

Sean Walker: I don't know, but it sounds fancy. I 

Kate Foretek: It's so 

Bailie Slevin: Oh my god. It makes me so happy. I should really 

Sean Walker: Back to the important stuff, I'm sorry for derailing that train to coffee. 

Bailie Slevin: Not at all. Um, so whole life, my dad's been in this business forever, so some of the stuff I say I hear like in his words coming out of my mouth. 

Whole Life is for people who want to have life insurance on the day they die, no matter what. And it can be leveraged and used because it's an asset. Not just the cash value that I was talking about. Um, there's a whole spend down philosophy that we also use for people with pensions, of, you get to retirement, you have all these assets, you got, round numbers, you got a million dollars of investments, well what the hell do you do with it? 

You don't know how long you're gonna live, so you gotta be careful about spending it down. But you also, like, can't live on nothing because a 5 percent return on a million dollars is 50, 000. And the last number I saw, the Wall Street Journal, said you could only count on 2 percent return if you want to live off the interest. 

That's 20, 000. You, millionaire, you living on 20, 000. So we want to be able to spend that down. If you have whole life insurance, you can leverage the two together. So you have that death benefit. If anything happens to you, you know, if you want to take care of anyone, great. Or, if you just spend all of your investment money, you now can spend all that cash value. So you get these two piles, and they each grow in a different way. You never want only one or only the other. I think people think that's a misconception. People say, oh, term and invest the difference. I Okay, whole life and invest the difference. It's still, still the same. But again, this is something that really depends on your cash flow. 

Whole life, uh, premiums, in my humble opinion, and what I do for my own life, are part of my savings budget. Because I know it's going into a place where it's guaranteed to grow every single year, tax free. It doesn't matter what the economy is doing, I have a contract that says they're giving me more money every year than I had before. 

So for me, I'm actually, like, I do not like risk in my investments. I take it because I understand the products. But, like, my brothers are stock pickers and they just, like, get off on it and I'm like, oh my god, don't do it. I can't. I can't. Let me just spend the money. I'd rather spend it than risk it. Um, so it's about cash flow and this is where the political pundits really can get in the way. I'm gonna pick on Susie Orman because I like to. Um, she's a big fan of Term and Invest the Difference. The question is who is she talking to and what is her job? What is Susie Orman's job? 

Andy Leviss: To make good TV. 

Bailie Slevin: she is an entertainer and I'll tell you she's one of the most amazing marketers I've ever seen. But, and this is not a spoiler alert, she is not a financial advisor. Anyone licensed would not be allowed to get up and say what she says without all the clarification. She also, there's an, uh, an article in the New York Times from probably a decade ago now explaining how while she tells everyone to do term and invest the difference, she herself owns a ton of whole life insurance. 

Same thing with Dave Ramsey. He actually claimed once that his wife was so nervous that she made him buy more life insurance. But that's not what he says to his public. Pound foolish, this book will really, like, pull back the curtains. 

Sean Walker: Dude, I'm doing it. I'm checking that out. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. We'll put a link to this, to it in the show notes. So folks can check it 

Bailie Slevin: You should have seen it. 

Sean Walker: All right. While you're there, what are your thoughts on Dave's book about getting out of debt? 

Bailie Slevin: I think Dave Ramsey hallucinates. Um, he loves to make this claim that you can get 12 percent in a mutual fund every year. I will tell you that mutual fund does not exist. Nor, nor can, unless you're Bernie Madoff, like you cannot do the things that he says, he's also the one who says that you can sacrifice savings for debt payments. He wants you to pay off all your debt and pay it off as quick as possible, right? That's still his, his spiel. Cool. happens when something goes wrong? 

Sean Walker: Well, I think his spiel right now is like, put a thousand bucks in the bank and then pay off your debt as fast as you can, but yeah. 

Bailie Slevin: But even that, so 1, 000 in the bank, now to someone making 50, 000 a year, and that's really their trajectory, 1, 000 in the bank is actually going to make a difference. But, at least, I live in New York City. A thousand dollars is barely gonna get me to Midtown. So, 

Sean Walker: Hey, hey, easy. Don't exaggerate. You get a cup of coffee and halfway to midtown. 

Bailie Slevin: that's fair, yeah. Especially with 

Andy Leviss: until congestion pricing goes into effect 

Sean Walker: it's mediocre coffee. It's, it's not Andy Leavis coffee, but it, you know, it's fine. 

Andy Leviss: It's a 

Sean Walker: It's all right. Sorry. Back on track. 

Bailie Slevin: no, please, this needs levity. Uh, 

Kate Foretek: How, how much, can I ask, like, how much should you be saving for, like, a, like, a rainy day, or, like, an oops, or, like, a, oh, by the way, I'm unemployed because that gig fell through. Like, I know it's different for everyone's situation, but is there, like, a percentage, or, like, a number of months of living expenses, or anything like that, that we should be aiming for as a ballpark? 

Bailie Slevin: the, the break point is 20%. You want to be saving 20 percent or more of your income. I've done so many projections on this. And it, regardless of how much you make, if you want to be kept in the same lifestyle to which you've become accustomed to in retirement, 20 percent is where we go. What I like to do, when looking at savings, I like to bucket it a little. 

I like the long term, absolutely cannot touch, no matter what anyone says. But then I like to have what I call kind of a deferred spending account. Where I put money in there so that I'm saving, but I, it's also money that's flexible if I want something that, like, that becomes my vacation account, basically. And if it gets above a certain amount, I sweep it. I'm making hand gestures again, like you can see me. 

Sean Walker: I love it. I love it. 

Bailie Slevin: Um, and if it hits over a certain amount, I'll sweep it into the long term savings because good for me for not spending. Now I get to spend it in the future. I had a client, we used to call her IRA, Um, her deferred bag shopping account. And that, but that was how she got it. She was like, oh, there is a limit to how many bags I can buy in my life. If I buy them all in my 20s, I can't buy any in my 70s. That's, 

Sean Walker: Totes. 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, money is a finite thing because life is a finite thing. Um, in terms of money, I would say, so three to six months used to be like what we would tell people. 

I always, because I. Worked with freelancers, aired on 6 12 months of not living expenses, of income. Now, we can start separating that out. I'd say once someone has, again depending on their situation, but somewhere between the 3 and 6 months in a regular boring savings account, now we can start putting money into a more interesting investment account that's also taxable. Depending on where that goes, we might fold in the whole life insurance, because that's another thing that's not going to have any risk. We'll be pushing off a little liquidity, but no risk. It's not until you have a year's worth of income In liquid accounts, do I really recommend fully taking advantage of the tax deferred accounts? Now, there are exceptions to this rule all over the place. If you're getting, you know, a 100 percent match on your 3 percent going into your 401k, then as long as you have enough liquidity, yeah, let's take advantage of the match. Or, you just made a boatload of money and we really need the tax deduction of maxing out an IRA this year. 

Let's do it! As long as you have other liquidity that's there as well. 

Sean Walker: You must be talking to the video department, because the audio department does not make a boatload of money all at one time, usually. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, my ex who was in the audio department didn't really know how to handle money at all. 

Kate Foretek: That cuts a little deep, I 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Totally. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, I hope he hears it! 

Sean Walker: Fucking video. Have you seen those day rates? Jesus. 

Bailie Slevin: Um, yeah, so that's, that's how I would break it down. Those are kind of the mile markers. And I'd also say, you know, just like anything, Saving is a practice. Like, you start yoga, you have a yoga practice. We're not all gonna be perfect. Like, you're gonna see something and have a splurge that you have to spend. 

Or, you know, the dog gets my dog just tore her ACL and the week I was moving. And, like, 

Kate Foretek: Because life never throws you one curveball, it throws you six at one time. 

Bailie Slevin: It's bonkers. But liquidity. makes it all fine, right? Like, I feel terrible that this dog is limping like a little tripod all over the house. She's a brave little toaster, I'm very proud of her. But let me tell you, like, I felt real good that I could just pull out my savings and not be like, oh crap. 

Sean Walker: Totally. You're not straight to a credit card. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah. And she, she's gonna get to have some physical therapy because I did my job. So it's, savings is, it's a practice, it's a thought process, I, I've always like tried to put little tricks or make it fun for clients, because when you're just saying, hey this is money I can't use now, sometimes it feels like, hey this is happiness I can't have now, and the accomplishment is the growth, ah. 

And just seeing it, and it becomes addictive. I'll tell you, when, like, I've had clients who get to maybe 9, 300 in a savings account for the first time, and they call me up and they're like, just take the other 7, 000. Just take that 7, 000, I need to see 10, 000. I need it! I'm like, yeah, you do! Now that person is a lifelong saver. 

Sean Walker: You start looking at your dashboard, you're like, Goddamn, I'm good. Look at me go. 

Bailie Slevin: Yes. Yes, 

Sean Walker: And it starts to come down, you're like, Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah, we just switched all the numbers right? It was fine? Like, don't know. The dog can't get sick? The guy's fucked with my numbers. 

Andy Leviss: so, so it shouldn't look like the price is right. 

Sean Walker: Absolutely not. No. Not, not if, I mean, not if I'm gonna stay on the divorce prevention program. My wife is allergic to debt, bro. If I 

Bailie Slevin: would say savings looks like that, which is why you need to separate. Life's a wild ride. 

Sean Walker: It sure is. It sure is. 

Andy Leviss: talking about the percentage of savings, a slight tangent on that. I just want to ask for your input because it's something I've been thinking about lately. And I know because as, as listeners know, I've pivoted, uh, to Basically since January into something from something fairly steady to freelancing where it's a lot of gig here gig there Like money, and as I'm trying, 

Kate Foretek: dog parent. 

Andy Leviss: that as well, 

Sean Walker: of a bitch. 

Andy Leviss: right, um, but one of the things I've been trying to sort out is like planning as, as I take work, as I say no to work, what to take, kind of how to look ahead and know, okay, I'm enough ahead for where I need to be at this point in the year that I don't have to stress that I know a slow month is coming up, or I don't have to stress that I'm on vacation, and I know savings is some of that, but also there's that, that Income flow that more, I don't want to say more immediate liquidity, because I'm sure that's not the right way to describe it. 

But like, how much of a buffer on that to think about, separate from how much is, is in savings or in conjunction with 

Sean Walker: It's cash flow right? 

Andy Leviss: make sense? 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, um, I actually created a series of, uh, spreadsheets that do this for people on an annual basis. So what I did is we worked to come up with a budget. You know, everyone should have a budget. Everyone should understand their budget also and check it every so often. Um, but I take that budget and I have like a template version of it. 

And then I break out, uh, in Excel just a page, January, February, March, one for each month. And part of that budget has inputs, different inputs for income and debt payments. So when you know a job is going to pay you, so say you get something now and you're like, you know, I may be working next week, but they're not going to pay me till June. 

So you're going to put that income in for June and that's going to show you, do you have a deficit or are you over what you need? And in which case, looking at the rest of the year where it is right now, Are we wiping that into savings or are we keeping it in cash flow to actually spend for the next month that's going to be tight? Um, there's, there's a system for this also. It includes something called a wealth coordination account, um, where really all money comes into that account and then it gets dispersed to, like, I do this for myself, I have an income account, it disperses to my savings and it disperses to my spending. And so, I know that I keep like two to three months buffer in that, uh, in that, uh, wow, I just named it. 

Sean Walker: General operating account, 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, the general operating account. That way, because I'm freelance too, like, if I have a rough month or so, I'm still paying myself. Like, I saved for my own unemployment insurance in there. And until I build it back up with extra money coming in, you know, I better hope I don't run out of my own money. But that's also what my long term savings is for, and that's This method is how I got all of my clients through COVID. was it. So you treat yourself like a business from day one. How much do you make a month? And you get to decide that. Now, your first stab at it might not be plausible. It might be way too low, it might be way too high. But you're gonna start figuring out, well, I know I need this much to live, but also, what do I deserve an hour? Right? What 

Sean Walker: Is that like a real number or like can I let my ego choose that number? Cause those are very different numbers. 

Bailie Slevin: So we used to have a way of valuing businesses where I'd say to a business owner, All right, say I wanted to buy your business right now. What, what would I have to pay you for it? And they would give me a number. And I say, great, it's one day later. I'm going to sell it back to you. How much are you going to buy it for? Inevitably less. That's your dollarly. Hour. Hourly dollar. Oh, see, I told you we couldn't start at nine. Just flies away. But also, if you want to see that spreadsheet, I can send it to you, but you can probably also make something up that's far 

Sean Walker: Oh my god, you had Andy at Spreadsheet and Template. He's been literally drooling at the mouth since you said that. 

Andy Leviss: I literally spent a chunk of last week, I think, reinventing a similar to wheel to what you just described on a Google Sheet. 

Bailie Slevin: been perfecting it over many years. There's even a place, like, to take taxes out, you determine your savings rate. Breaks it down even to what you 

Sean Walker: my god, hit 

Bailie Slevin: spend weekly. 

Sean Walker: Send it over. Put it 

Andy Leviss: you're, if you're game to share a link with that. Yeah, we'll, we'll link it to folks. And yeah, Kate's making that face of like, okay. 

Bailie Slevin: me. 

Andy Leviss: Gotcha. 

Bailie Slevin: happy to give you a version of it, but it is mine. 

Sean Walker: Okay, you're hired. Fine. Take my fucking 

Kate Foretek: Everyone go talk to Bailie. 

Bailie Slevin: That's  

Sean Walker: Yes, 

Bailie Slevin: information hostage until I got the clients. 

Andy Leviss: Is that we in the podcast industry call that a tease? 

Bailie Slevin: Uh, 

Kate Foretek: Can I ask my W2 question? Is now a good time? Uh, so, um, a lot of us are, myself included, um, wavering back and forth between W2 income and 1099 income, um, and if you're working on a 1099, um, you know, it's usually cash in hand at the end of the gig, uh, but you still get taxed on it. Um, should I be looking at pulling some out earlier, or how much should I look at pulling out and, and, uh, How much can I count as actual income out of that 1099? 

Bailie Slevin: so the 1099 is all going to be taxable income and you won't be able to have anything pulled out of it because you're not an employee, so no one would be doing that. Um, so definitely put aside some of that for taxes right off the bat. My default, like, super, super safe number is to put aside 30%, but this depends on the balance between the work. 

If it's just a little bit of 1099, Honestly, you might not even have to, but still maybe put away 10%. The other thing to do is if you think you're going to be a similar split to last year, see what your effective tax rate was for last year, add a couple percentage points, and then use that as a benchmark. 

I say always round up, because, you know, worst case scenario, you're creating your own tax refund. 

Kate Foretek: I do like an April paycheck. So, sorry, that, um, I think that, uh, particular question hits, um, pretty close to home. Um, I don't know if it does for anyone else, but, um, I definitely saw my, my, uh, employment shift dramatically, um, over COVID from W2 to 1099. So, uh, with that, I did not plan accordingly and was surprised that first year. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I, I, I'm feeling slightly vindicated because in, like, I was trying to do a little bit of research and went into, um, friend of the podcast and recent guest Michael Curtis has a sort of, like, finance for freelance audio folks kind of crash course. And based on the numbers, like, he had as I was trying to figure out this spreadsheet, I was like, get 20, uh, 20 and 25. 

Let me do 30 percent as a number just to play it extra safe. So even though I kind of backed into it by almost wild ass guess, I'm feeling good that I picked the right number. Sean, 

Bailie Slevin: no, I think 30 percent is, is a great place to be because that really does account for, hey, what if the rest of the year I make a ton of money on 1099? I'd rather, like, have over saved in anticipation of that than been like, eh, you know, in the past I've only made like two or three thousand dollars on 1099 and then second half of the year you're like, oh. Now there's 25, 000. Somebody didn't save! 

Sean Walker: Wait, you guys are saving? Shit. 

Bailie Slevin: Wait, is that what we're 

Andy Leviss: where have you been for the last 58 

Sean Walker: am I doing this wrong? I, I started a sound company, which means everything that I make goes to somebody else for more gear. You guys have savings accounts? Shit. I feel so out of the club. 

Bailie Slevin: is your sound gear all insured appropriately? 

Kate Foretek: Oh, that's a good question. 

Sean Walker: percent. Yeah. If this, if this fucking building burns down, I'm going on vacation, buying a Maserati and a boat and I'm out. Like, don't call me, don't write. Like, 

Bailie Slevin: That's how I felt about my apartment. I have, uh, the piano that was in my grandparents house, and I was like, if anything happens, I have so much insurance on this friggin apartment, I'm just buying a country. That might be an exaggeration. 

Sean Walker: A small one though. Like, you know, a small one. There's plenty that are like, man, I'll take it. A hundred grand, I'll take you. 

Bailie Slevin: Like a manageable island. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, like a little, just a helipad in and out of that mug, you know? 

Kate Foretek: I'm envisioning those little islands, like for myself that are, it's literally the lighthouse is the island. 

Sean Walker: totally. 

Kate Foretek: I can afford that? No, I can't. 

Sean Walker: Lighthouse and a helipad. 

Andy Leviss: don't have the, not the power to run the 

Sean Walker: Yeah. That's it. Lighthouse and a helipad. That's what's up. 

Andy Leviss: so we're getting to the punchy point of this episode, so why don't we bring it back around and is there, we've, we've been talking a lot about, about long term planning I think. Um, I know one, one thing there's a lot of us in the industry have is we, we come to it late and late into our 40s, 50s realize, oh shit, we never thought about this. 

So in the, in the guise of it's never too late to start something, if, if you're late on and haven't really thought about this. Is there, is there anywhere you would suggest diving in first, past what we've already talked about? 

Bailie Slevin: It really comes back to, like, the cash flow and the liquidity piece of it, slash protection. Um, the first thing people should do is have all of their insurance policies evaluated. Find a financial advisor, probably the best way, call up the company, have them explain it to you. Next is savings, and if you're just starting savings, it should be in a regular, boring savings account. 

It, it just, it's, you know, 

Sean Walker: Like were you saying to you had like three to six months worth of income in the boring savings account and then go find something fun? 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, yeah, then you can start, you know, pushing it a little. I will also say that everyone can save. And here's what I mean by that. If I snuck into your home and stole 5, assuming anyone has cash still, if I stole that 5, would you notice? If you wouldn't notice, 

Sean Walker: I gotta be honest. I would not. No. 

Bailie Slevin: then you can save 5 a week and, you know, do it for a while and then say, hey. Would I miss 8? And now you're building a practice and you're going to start seeing the numbers grow a little bit more. I showed, I gave this method to a client, uh, one of my first years in the business. Come to find out that she had built it up to like 25 to 50 a week depending on the gig and she bought her husband's wedding ring with it. 

Sean Walker: Oh, cool, dude. That's awesome. 

Kate Foretek: cute. 

Bailie Slevin: savings she didn't even think she could do. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah, sneak it away from yourself. I hide money from myself all over the place. I can't be trusted. I love spending. So like, if I could figure out how to get me to save, anyone can. I literally hide my own money from myself. 

Andy Leviss: I hide money from myself all over the place, too. The problem is I then don't find it. ADHD, 

Bailie Slevin: Ah. 

Sean Walker: a squirrel with a nut, you son of a gun. 

Bailie Slevin: Yeah. That's not great. 

Andy Leviss: man. 

Bailie Slevin: So, 

Sean Walker: So I, I need your help specifically on exactly this. I need like something to say to people that is maybe less offensive than what I would normally say. Cause I'm a little rough around the edges. So when, when people are. You know, saying they can't save or they don't have money or whatever, but they've got cigarettes, booze and weed. 

What do you say to them rather than hello? If you can afford that shit, you can afford to put gas in the tank and a couple of bucks in your account. 

Bailie Slevin: what I would say is let's talk about priorities. I can't change anyone's priorities. One of my cousins refused to meet with me for like five years because he didn't want to tell me that he liked to bet on football because he thought I'd tell him not to. We finally met. I took a look at the money and I said, hey, if we allot you X amount a month, is that enough to bet? 

As long as you're saving, I do not care what you do with the rest of your money. You want weed? Let's do a weed budget. Let's, let's do a booze budget. Mom, if I could sneak into your house and steal five dollars, would you notice? Uh, 

Kate Foretek: your booze budget is pretty big. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Cause it doesn't say Budweiser on any more, right, Andy? 

Andy Leviss: I misunderstood what we meant by liquidity. There's a cabinet of liquid downstairs. 

Sean Walker: They all got fancy labels and brown bottles now. 

Bailie Slevin: I'll give you one other thing that I tell people in situations like that. With money? You can do just about anything, but you cannot do everything. So what are you gonna do? That's actually how I, when I first got into this business, I was working with theater people, so I was not making any money, um, which was cute to be in finance and still be poor, uh, really defeated the purpose. 

But anyway, there was this red leather, 

Sean Walker: hard to give people advice if you're poor and in financing, 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, yeah. I was like, I better get good at this and make money real fast. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. 

Bailie Slevin: Um, but I wanted to buy this beautiful red leather couch. Couldn't afford it, and so what I decided is I had a tendency to order beverages anytime I went out to a restaurant. Like, not just booze, but, at the time, give me a diet coke, give me a ginger. 

And I said, you know what, let's see if I just stop ordering beverages at restaurants. And what I would do is take my phone out and go, oh, I was gonna get that glass of wine that's 18 and I'm not gonna do it. I'm putting 18 into my savings account. right now. And then I started doing it, uh, with cabs. It was a 30 cab ride home to my apartment from the, uh, the pub I would do karaoke at, you know, until four o'clock in the morning on Fridays. 

So whenever I got out not at four o'clock in the morning, or even then, I would take a moment and go, hey, I'm about to spend 30. I could put this money into a savings account right now. Or I could take a cab. And just that one moment, I'd say four out of five times, I didn't take a cab. But when I did, I really felt like I earned it. 

I was like, this is more important to me than anything else in this moment. This cab is great. And 

Sean Walker: I'm not showing up to work looking like a drowned rat today. 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, those 

Sean Walker: I actually have a client meeting I gotta get to. 

Bailie Slevin: I'm not saying I ever went directly to brunch, but I might have gone directly to brunch. Yeah, those were the days, I'm old now. But it really 

Kate Foretek: But like, do you start to reframe your, like, your, you know, I, I don't, reframe your, like, possessions of like, oh, that red leather couch was like 10 cab rides, or like, it was like 20 cab rides, you know what I mean? It's like, you start to look at things and you're like, wow, that, that hard work actually like afforded me this thing that is something I really wanted as opposed to the thing that I was like, yeah, okay, 

Bailie Slevin: yeah, it was incredibly, uh, satisfying, and I've, I've done it other times, too. It's even like a trick that comes in handy, um, with nutrition, honestly. Cause it's like, how can I form this? in a way that makes me be gaining something, not losing something. Yeah, it comes back to being a practice. It's gonna be uncomfortable when you start doing this, but you'll get good at it and you'll like it. And future you will be very, very happy. 

Sean Walker: Future you're stoked when you can buy a cool new microphone. 

Andy Leviss: Well, I think future you being very happy seems like a great place to tie this up, unless anybody's got any last questions. Or if Bailie's got any last, uh, last advice you want to leave folks with. 

Bailie Slevin: Now I feel like that was a good one. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, that, that was, that was great advice. Thank you so much for hanging out, dude. 

Bailie Slevin: my pleasure. This was great. Thank you so much for having me. 

Andy Leviss: absolutely. I'm glad you could jump in and do this. Uh, thanks Kate for tagging in and finally coming on the show. I told you I'd drag you in one time and I think this was the perfect opportunity to do it. 

Kate Foretek: this is a really interesting opportunity, and I like what you guys are doing here, and Bailie, you're an awesome, awesome guest, so thank you for every piece of advice that you offered. 

Bailie Slevin: Oh, thank you. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I suspect Kate and I will be reaching out to you, uh, in the not too distant future 

Bailie Slevin: I am here for you. 

Sean Walker: Duh, call me later. 

Andy Leviss: Awesome. Well, on that note, the only people left to thank are our sponsors, Allen and Heath and RCF, who help keep the virtual lights on in the studio, and all of you listening out there. So, thanks for tuning 

Sean Walker: Thanks y'all. 

Andy Leviss: Join us again next week, and we'll see you then. And until then, 

Sean Walker: That's the pod.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green