Ep. 124: Part 1 - Financial Freedom with @fitbux
What if financial freedom was within reach for every young professional? In this episode, Michelle chats with Joseph Reinke, the visionary founder and CEO of FitBux, a groundbreaking financial planning service tailored for young professionals. Joseph takes us on his journey through the world of finance, sharing how FitBux is transforming the industry by using cutting-edge technology and AI to deliver affordable, personalized financial guidance.
From debunking common myths about financial products to breaking down the importance of understanding student loans, Joseph offers actionable insights that can change the trajectory of your financial future. He also reveals the curriculum he teaches at universities, designed to empower students with the tools they need to make smarter financial decisions. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to level up your financial game, this episode is packed with wisdom you can’t afford to miss!
Disclaimer: AMN does not endorse this advice & individuals should contact their financial advisor or a tax expert and make decisions that are right for them. Learn more about our show: https://www.amnhealthcare.com/podcast...
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Timestamps
00:00 - Meet Joseph Renke and the FitBUX Mission
02:31 - How Technology is Transforming Financial Planning
06:26 - Why Financial Education is a Game-Changer for Young Professionals
10:57 - Debunking Myths About Financial Products
16:30 - The Role of AI in Personalized Financial Advice
20:39 - Why Young Professionals Should Seek Financial Guidance Early
23:19 - Empowering Students Through Financial Education
28:55 - Key Financial Questions Every Young Professional Should Ask
Show Sponsors
We're proudly sponsored by AMN Healthcare, the leader in healthcare staffing and workforce solutions. Explore their services at AMN Healthcare, https://www.amnhealthcare.com/
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About Joseph
Joseph Reinke is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and the founder of FitBux, a revolutionary financial planning platform that has empowered young professionals to manage over $3 billion in assets and debts. With a passion for finance that began at the age of 12, Joseph has built an impressive career spanning student loans, mortgages, wealth management, investment banking, valuation, stock trading, and options trading. As a sought-after speaker, Joseph has been featured on hundreds of podcasts and invited to speak at universities across the country, where he shares his expertise with soon-to-be graduates. His mission? To make financial planning accessible, actionable, and impactful for the next generation of professionals. When he’s not helping others unlock their financial potential, Joseph is busy innovating ways to bridge the gap between technology and financial wellness. Connect with FitBux: 
/ @fitbux 
/ fitbuxofficial 
/ fitbuxofficialgroup
About Michelle
Michelle Gage, MA CCC-SLP, embarked on her journey in speech-language pathology during her undergraduate studies at the University of Mississippi, where she also worked at North Mississippi Regional Center, gaining invaluable experience in various therapy approaches. Following her Master's Degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Central Florida, she has dedicated 25 years to empowering children and families in improving language skills and overall development. Currently residing in Mississippi, Michelle extends her expertise through telehealth services. Additionally, she proudly serves as the host of the SLP Full Disclosure podcast.
Outside of her professional commitments, Michelle is the proud mother of Mia, an accomplished middle school math teacher and all-around amazing human. In her leisure time, she indulges in her love for travel and cherishes moments spent with family and friends.
Transcript
Speaker 2 (00:00.184)
Hey y'all, it's Michelle with SLP Full Disclosure. Thanks for joining the podcast today. Today we have the founder and CEO of FitBux, Joseph Reinke. Joseph, welcome to the podcast.
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here touching on a lot of good stuff today.
Yeah, lots of things that I don't know a lot about. I'm sad to say that financial information, all of that stuff is just so foreign to me. So I'm super excited to have you here today and talk about FitBux, talk about your partnership with AMM. You guys are experts in financial planning specifically for allied professionals, correct?
Correct, yeah, and we've helped something like over 50,000 allied professionals in the last few years. Wow. I know more about those professions than I ever thought that I would, but here we are.
Yeah. All right. So before we get started, I'm just going to tell you guys a little bit about Joseph. Joseph is a chartered financial analyst and the visionary behind FitBux, dedicated to guiding young professionals toward financial freedom. With a passion for investing ignited at age 12, Joseph brings extensive experience in student loans, mortgages, wealth management, and investment banking. Beyond FitBux, Joseph is an adjunct financial professor at 15 universities,
Speaker 2 (01:17.24)
where he shares his expertise to inspire the next generation of young professionals. In his free time, he enjoys hiking and daily cold plunges, activities that fuel his innovative approach to financial technology. So if I start cold plunges, will I be an expert in financial planning?
that maybe you gotta focus a lot.
I've all of the amazing benefits of that, even just thinking about it puts chill bumps all over my body, but I hear that it's absolutely amazing for you.
Yeah, I do it. So back, I played hockey and baseball back in high school and college. And when I was about 20 years old, I fractured a vertebrae in my back and I've had a bunch of other injuries in my neck and my shoulder. And so a couple of years ago, I didn't know about my back for probably 20 years and it just kept getting worse and worse until I lost all mobility in it. And that's when they found out that I had fractured it.
because there was just a mint swelling in my back. Wow. So instead of taking painkillers, I was like, I'm going to build myself a cold plunge and go jump in that every day. Awesome. if that works and started doing it. So I do it for swelling and it's phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (02:31.118)
It really does help. focus. All right. So let's get started. Tell us about FitBux. What is FitBux?
So as you mentioned, I've journeyed through a lot of different areas in the rule of finance, from investments to investment bankings and working on like billion dollar companies. And along that way, I was also in wealth management. And at the time when I was in wealth management, I was working with like 50 and 60 year olds. I can't tell you how many of them that I met that had been paying financial planners for years, three, four, $5,000.
I'm looking at, you know, their assets and looking at their debt positions. And I'm like, there's no way you guys can retire or you can, but it's going to be like nickel and diming stuff because you're to run out of money. how can you have an advisor and have this happen? And then I started looking at like the way banks are set up and why financial services companies are set up and the way products are sold. And the whole thing, it was just like, well, people are getting the wrong products at the wrong time. They're highly inefficient. When you talk to financial planners.
You know, they might know one thing, but that's it. And because humans are limited in our knowledge, and I'll give you an example. Like if you have like seven things you got to make a financial decision about, let it be like saving for a house or paying off your loans, know, if you, you know, car insurances, what do you get there? Like all that type of stuff. If you just have seven things, there's over 5,000 combinations that you can do.
Okay, no human brain can do that. And at the same time, figure out everything else about products and everything else. so I was like, okay, what's out in the industry? And everything in the industry for technology was like, here's your net wealth. And it's like, okay, well, that doesn't tell me what I should do. Like, I'm trying to, like, what am I supposed to do here?
Speaker 2 (04:28.462)
I'll tell you how to grow it.
It doesn't tell me if like going on loan forgiveness or paying off my loans is the right thing to do. Like it doesn't tell me how much home can I actually afford? It doesn't tell me these things, right? Right. And so I started looking at that and I started building out a bunch of algorithms to piece all those things together. But I knew that it couldn't just be mathematical because I'm also into a lot of behavioral finance and just behavioral stuff in general.
And so I started figuring out ways and research in human behavior around money and how can you actually help with financial wellness? What influences people on different things? How do you simplify this? Because at the time when I talked to people on finance about this, like, we need to do more financial education. And it's like, okay, like let's just say you're an SLP. What do you think about when you think of education? You think of like, I went to grade school, then high school.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:20.832)
and then college and then I had to get my masters. That was like 20 years. You're telling me in order to learn money, I gotta spend 20 years learning this? Like no one
Because it's so much information. It is.
It's overwhelming the amount of information. And so I said, from a behavioral standpoint, how can we tie behavior and then the mathematical side together? And those are the fundamental algorithms that we built to power financial planning and financial management for everybody to be affordable. And we, at the time I said, I don't want to go out and try to help like 50 and 60 year olds because
Everybody's trying to help them. Like this problem starts younger. So let's go into like 20 and 30 year olds. And when we first started the company, we had to start somewhere with the tech, right? Because like you just said, finance is huge. So where do you start? We say, what's the number one problem for new grads right now? It's student loans. And so like the first products we launched were around student loans. And then we built the financial planning and the financial management software around that.
And so that's where we're at right now. Like I said, we've helped like 50,000 individuals so far, $3 billion in assets and debt. It's a lot of money and just keep growing. now that's, that's the platform now. Like we have it, the technology to help us be efficient as planners so it can be affordable. And then we're, we're incorporating AI into it as well. So it can help more and more people and be more like in your pocket, getting help as soon as you need it.
Speaker 2 (06:53.484)
Yeah, and I think that that piece right there that you and you said it in your pocket. That's what the younger generation wants is an app, something simple, something that they have access to all the time. So I think that's going to be pivotal for FitBux. Yeah, AI. I think I had this later on, but we'll go ahead and talk about that. I know that in our intro call, you said that you have been working for eight years to build the AI platform that is going to support FitBux. Did I say that correctly?
Correct, yeah. Okay. So, when I talk about algorithms and stuff that I was making and the behavioral side, that's what differentiates us. So, I knew, like in AI, like what you see with chat GPT, that's called a large language model. That takes hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Okay. And I knew that we would eventually need it, but I was like, well, maybe there's a shortcut, but let's build this other stuff first. So like,
When you go down on the track GPT, it doesn't have any of your personal information. That's number one. But number two, it can't do mathematics sequentially. So it can't go out monthly for like 10 years to project something. It can do something very simplistic. Like, what would be my monthly payment? Like it could do that. But if you said like, what's my monthly payment?
But what happens if I buy a house in three years? It can't do it. You need underline algorithms that it can input data in. And then it can look at the output of those algorithms, interpret it, and bring it back. And so those planning algorithms, the underneath of that, that's what we've been building for eight years of how do we incorporate behavioral into these algorithms? Are the algorithms correct?
Like how do we actually develop a planning system that's easy to understand and not, you know, like a 60 page PDF that financial advisors give to people. so we've, we wrapped up the foundation of that about a year ago. And then the cool part for us is because of the advancements in AI, all those big pieces I told you about that cost like a hundred million dollars. We don't have to pay that anymore. We can use what's already built and then combine it with what we have.
Speaker 1 (09:10.254)
And then it's called fine tuning it. just fine tune it for to, to correct it. And that's what we're doing right now. We're just testing it to correct it and keep training it to make sure that's coming out with the right stuff. But we built the foundation and then we're taking stuff from the market that's already out there and just combining it and off we go.
Wow, that is fascinating to me. And it's amazing what AI can do. And we've talked about AI before on the podcast, but it is just, it's kind of like back in the old days, and I'm much older than you, Joseph, back in the old days, the way a fax machine works. You're like, how does a fax machine work, right? And I'm at the age where I'm like, how does AI work? How does it know all that information? AI can only, and what I've learned by talking to all of these people who are doing it, including yourself, is that AI can only do what you teach it to do.
So that's what you guys have been doing for the past eight years is teaching it to do what you want it to do within this FitBux app that is going to help young professionals with their financial planning and all of the things finance related, correct?
Correct. And it's also like giving it the tools too. So teaching it and giving it the tools that actually do some of the calculations. You know, I'll give you an example, right? You know, my wife's a PT, so I'll use a PT as an example. If I, you know, she goes and she's like, look, you know, this person's doing an exercise. I need to, you know, understand how, you know, what the angle of their knee bend is. So, you know, how they're progressing. She can look and she can guess. That's what chat GPT does.
It looks at all this data and guesses based on it. And it's pretty good at guessing. That's what it does where the tool comes in is like, oh, well, here's a going on. And I actually measure it to come up with a real number. now chat, you can look at that number and then tell you, you know, like intelligently, this is the number. Yeah. And so that's what we were building is those tools and the, and the teaching aspect of it. Um, that's why I'm excited. Cause it's been a long time and it's like, it's, almost there.
Speaker 2 (10:57.355)
more precise.
Speaker 2 (11:08.086)
Yeah, I can see the excitement on your face. That's amazing. That's incredible. okay, so getting back to FitBux, why is it important for young professionals to seek out FitBux and start learning about financial kinds of things? I think we talked a little bit in the intro call that they're not taught. And I saw, I'm super excited to know that you're teaching an adjunct professor in 15 universities and you're teaching these things. We'll talk about...
a little bit in a little bit what you're talking about at those universities, what you're teaching them. But it's such a stark difference. Like, and I remember, you know, way back in the day when I was young and just graduated, I didn't know how to do those things. They give me a W-2 and they're like, fill out your withholdings. I'm like, what does that mean? And kids don't know how to do that. Something as simple as my daughter bought a couch a year ago and she had no idea. She could not understand, she's going to kill me for saying this on the podcast, the concept of 12 months, same as cash.
She was like, I don't want to charge it. So being able, you were talking about making those decisions. So she had the money in her savings, but is it better to do the 12 months financing or should I just pay cash for the couch and those kinds of things. So, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to help her do that. So why is it important for young professionals to have this knowledge?
Well, yeah, did. There's I talked earlier about people getting into the wrong products and misusing products. And that's what ends up happening. And that's one of the biggest things that costs people money is, is I'm in this product and I'll give you a few examples, touching on one with like student loans, right? We've, talk to people, SLPs all the time that are going for a student loan forgiveness and, or public service loan forgiveness. And they've been on it for a couple of years and they, they'll call us and be like, you know, yeah, I'm going for forgiveness.
but I've been making extra payments and I don't want the interest to your crew. It's like, why? You're going for loan forgiveness. They're going to forgive it. Why are you making extra payments? If they tell you your payments are $200, pay $200, I'll pay 250. They're going to forgive the part you don't pay. I mean, that's money you could be reinvesting, right? That's a big one. The other one that we see, I would probably say about five to 10 % of new grads that we talk to, they get sold this stuff, is cash value life insurance.
Speaker 1 (13:21.324)
And that's a huge trend on TikTok right now with people being like.
I saw something the other day about that.
Yeah, and it's like when you actually dig into the people that are promoting it, it's funny, I always joke around because it's like the people that are on there promoting it, they're all insurance agents. All the people that are bashing it don't sell any insurance. So they're both biased in their stuff. And long story short, it's not a bad product. It's just that most of you are not in a position to use it right now. And in fact, throughout one's lifetime, like 95 % of people shouldn't use it. And the ones that should most of the time, the insurance agents don't even know how to structure it correctly to be a benefit.
So it's like, you probably shouldn't do it. But five to 10%, it's always like, my friend works for Northwestern Mutual and they told me this cash value life insurance policy. it's like, okay, I got talked to a vet the other day. I mean, she had in the last three years, four years, she's put in $36,000 in this cash value policy and it's worthless. And it's like, that's money you just lost. Like it's gone.
Okay, she went to a professional and someone who was going to help her. And so she took their advice. And now here she is with a policy that's not worth anything.
Speaker 1 (14:33.198)
And there was no point to it. it's like, you know, so these earlier years are very important because that money could be used to pay off debts. It could be used, you know, to accumulate assets. mean, it could be used for vacation. Like, you can have it actually working for you instead of just being gone. And starting early and young, one of the biggest keys, and this is one of the biggest things that I learned when I was like,
doing a lot of research, right? Because we always hear like compounding, compounding, compounding. And compounding is good. Don't get me wrong. Compounding is fantastic. Okay. But that's not the sole driver. That's not the important driver of future wealth. Okay. When you do stuff mathematically, and I'll give you an example. Like if I start investing a hundred dollars today and I do that for 40 years, it's only $350,000 in 40 years from now. Okay. It's not that much money in the grand scheme of things. Right. Now, if we really learned finance and understood
And we said, okay, well, if I started investing a hundred dollars today, but during those same 40 years, I increase it by $25 per month. So next year I do 125, the next year I do 150. It comes out to $1.2 to $1.3 million just by that one little tweak. just simple things like that. If we were able to learn those when we were younger, you would have a lot of money over 20, 30, 40 years. And you don't have to be a financial expert. You know, even on debt.
When I talk to people that have auto loans or mortgages, they don't understand that you can make extra payments and pay it off early. They think they're, they have to make the required payment and that's all they can do. And it's like, no, no, no, you can pay this off early. Like I didn't know I could do that. Same thing with credit cards. Like you brought up your daughter with credit cards. A lot of people think that my payment's $50 a month. Like that's, that's the most I can pay. It's like, no, no, no, you can pay the whole thing off. It's like, oh, really? It's like, yeah.
And so little simple things like that can end up making a major difference in the long run.
Speaker 2 (16:32.246)
Yeah, and that's what FitBux can do. So what information does a person need to have readily available when they reach out to you guys and reach out to one of your professionals?
So the way the technology is set up right now in the services for you to build a profile and in that profile, you don't have to put everything, like we allow you to link accounts if you want to, not all accounts link. So a lot of people just use estimates. And so that's what I tell people, just put in estimates when you build the profile and get to your dashboard and you can use the tools and the calculators, the plan building technology on your own if you want to, but we highly encourage people on that, especially that first time, schedule call with us.
Because we can answer those questions. We can make sure that the technology is all being used correctly. And on that call, then we'll dig a little bit deeper and be like, okay, well, what's your 401k? Do you have documents that we can look at with you to say, what is the match? Make sure you're maximizing that. Even on things like that, people don't know that sometimes they have like a Roth 401k available to them. That's like, okay, well, how do we maximize that and incorporate that? A lot of people don't understand stuff about their student loans.
everything from forgiveness to what plans are qualified for, what's the difference between them. So it's not that much data that you have to add because when you build your profile, we collect most of the data that we need. But most of the time on that first call, it might be something like your 401k information, clarification on student loans, and then we can help you build out the plan and go from there.
Okay. And we're going to be having a separate podcast specifically for student loans, right? Because you said in our intro call, you said there's so much changing and there's so much out there right now. So guys that are listening, don't worry. We're going to do a separate podcast just for student loans. What in, like, I told you what my daughter was going to say when I told her, Hey, we've got this guy coming on fit bucks, financial planner.
Speaker 1 (18:05.934)
That's a beast.
Speaker 2 (18:29.89)
financial advisor, I want you to get set up with this company. And the first thing she said was, I'm a teacher, I make no money. Why do I need a financial planner? So why do these young professionals like my daughter who might not be making a ton of money, why do they need a financial planner?
So number one, in the past, I would say you're right. Why spend three or four or five grand on a financial planner? You don't make enough to justify it. But that's why I really wanted to start the company with technologies, because we charge $18 a month. So it's like, yeah, you can afford that. It's affordable. Yeah, you can make a difference. And a lot of people don't realize this. Teachers are actually the number one group of millionaires in this country.
I told her you said that and she was like, maybe I do need to talk to him. Maybe I do need to meet him.
Absolutely. And so there's a number of different things that we specifically work with teachers. One of the biggest things is do I qualify for teacher student loan forgiveness? And if I do, do I do that versus public service loan forgiveness? Because they don't understand the differences in what qualifies on them. They don't understand like, okay, if I work for a public school system, how does my pension potential play into my bigger picture of my life? They don't understand
you know, investment side, what should I be invested in? Because I do maybe have a pension, maybe I don't have a pension, like what is it? How does that change my actual investment allocation of what I should be doing? And then even other things like, okay, well, if I'm buying a car, what can I actually afford? If I want to buy a house, what would I be able to afford? You know, those types of questions, we can go through all those, even the question about should I pay this off, you know, or use a credit card? You know, we
Speaker 1 (20:11.916)
you know, answer emails about that all the time, which is why I'm excited about the AI because AI will be able to answer it.
Is the AI going to be built into the app, I would assume? So she's like, hey, I've got this couch that I want. It's $1,500. Is it better to do the 12 months same as cash? Do I just pull the money out of my savings and pay cash for it? And those are the kinds of decisions that she's starting to make, those bigger decisions to buy bigger and bigger things. And a car is probably next on her list.
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we have people ask us about the financing on the car. Like I worked with, and actually an SLP last week who was going out and they're like, she's like, yeah, my car loan that they're, they're going to tell me that I have to get, they're telling me it's going to be 13%. And I said, that's just what the dealer is telling you because they make a little bit extra money if they charge you more. So go back in and say you're part of a local credit union that's given you 7 % and see what they say.
And sure enough, she went back in and she's like, this is my credit union. They pulled it up on the computer. like, oh yeah, we see the seven and quarter percent. Like we can get you that rate through us. And it's like, well, why are you telling her 13 %? Like, yeah, or here's another one on the car loan. Cause this was the same conversation I had with her too. Most of time when you go to go and do a dealership and you get a car loan, it's a five year loan. Okay. And so.
Because they thought she didn't know.
Speaker 1 (21:37.262)
you might have like credit card debt that's like 20%. Okay, or maybe you actually can get a car loan at like 4%, but your student loans are at 6 or 7 % from your masters. Okay. So you might have other debt that actually makes more sense to pay off than your car loan. And so you can, instead of using the five-year car loan, you can potentially use a seven or a 10-year car loan. And what that does is it reduces your required payment. So that frees up more money to go target those other things faster. And so you can...
save money on those other things a lot, a lot of money. And those are just the small things. That's why I say from a young age is beneficial because those small things, they add up to be a lot of money in the long run. you know, I get this all the time too, because it's like, well, I'm a teacher. I make like 45 or $50,000, $60,000. And it's like, you know, you're not at the low, low end where you don't make any money at all. So it makes no sense because you don't even have extra money. And you're not at the high end. You're actually at the
Right.
perfect level where it's like you need to make sure you don't make any mistakes because one mistake can actually derail everything. So if you actually do the right things, you'll get there. And that's why, again, I kind of saying that I really wanted to build a technology because that type of knowledge has never been available to people. You know, even if you're spending four or five grand, that knowledge isn't available because financial planners, they don't talk about car loan debt. They don't know about car loan debt. Right. work with 50 and 60 year olds.
Because the way the industry is set up is to pay them off of insurance and what's called asset management fees. They don't get paid to talk to you about that. where do you? Yeah, so that's why I'm really excited about what we're doing and getting the world out there. So yeah, tell your daughter, we're going to answer her questions.
Speaker 2 (23:20.11)
Yeah, for sure. Speaking of the knowledge that you have to have such a vast knowledge of so many different things, what are some of the things that you target as an adjunct professor at the universities? Do you have an outline? You're like, we're going to talk about this, we're going to talk about this. How does that work and what information are they getting?
Yeah, we've actually expanded since I sent that to you. It's not even 15 anymore. It's something like 35. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's summertime. So it blew up really quick because everybody's planning for next year right now. But yeah, we have an entire, it's like a four or five hour curriculum that we tie into the existing programs for master's and doctorate programs. Okay. And we focus on five, we have five primary modules. So the first module,
I wanna take your class.
Speaker 1 (24:12.374)
is more about like financial wellness and financial behavior. So we talk about how do you set up like a financial plan so it's easy. What's the key components versus what's all this noise that are just distractions. So that way you can really simplify your life. I have this saying all the time, like you're an SLP, you're an OT, you're a PA, you're, you know, PT, like you're in healthcare, right? Like you're going to that profession because you want to help people. Okay. So.
how do you make it so you can focus on that? Because every minute you're worried about your money is a minute that's being taken away from treating someone, or it's a distraction, or it's increased stress. So then client outcomes go down, and then you start incorporating family life on top of that, and that starts being hurt because of finances. And so it's like, how do you actually say, this is what's important, none of this other stuff is important, I don't care about this, this is what I'm focusing on. So we talk about that.
That's the first module. Second module is all about as a incoming student, what to really start working on now with your money in terms of behavior, as well as what type of student loans they get, as well as like if you worked for four, like what are some tricks you could do with your 401k's while you're in school so you can save money. So that's the second module. And then third, fourth and fifth modules where we really dive into like the actual plan. The first or the third module is day to day money.
So we focus on like income, different income types, like, you know, PRN work, 1099. What's W-2, like if you're a travel SLP, what does that look like? Self-employed, what does that look like? And then on the expenses on day-to-day money, we focus on taxes. So that way you can understand, have a basic understanding of how the tax system works, because you have to understand that. So that way you understand how the income, different, like different incomes affect.
your taxes, how retirement accounts affect taxes. So we talked about the basic system of tax taxes, like the progressive taxes, somehow it works. What's a credit? What's a deduction? All that type of stuff, just to have a foundation there. And then the fourth module is like the big one where we talk about assets and debt. So everything from from like, what's a high yield savings account to what's an IRA, what's a 401k, to the different types of debt, we primarily focus on student loans and mortgages. And then I also
Speaker 1 (26:34.69)
talking that about how to manipulate your credit score so that way you can graduate with a high credit score. So a lot of people don't know those tricks. Again, if some of your parents out there listening to this, so like what we talk about is as a student, like if you're an SLP student, if your parents have good credit and they trust you, like ask them to be a signer on their credit card because then all their credit history and all their credit utilization ratios all go to your credit as well. And that can really increase your credit score. So when you graduate, auto loans and everything else are cheaper.
Um, so that's module four and then module five is all about risk management. So we primarily talk about three things there. Life insurance, disability insurance. Um, what do you need to know about them? What do you need to actually get? Um, and then we talk about estate planning, which a lot of people like estate planning, young people, like, what do they need to go in the trust? like, we touch on the will and the trust, but we were primarily talking about power of attorneys and healthcare proxies because that's what you're going to need more. So as a new grad.
versus like the wills and the trust, like healthcare proxies and financial power of attorneys in case something happens to you, which is actually, I'm really excited because about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, we partnered with an AI company that's doing wills, trusts, and healthcare proxies. So instead of having to pay a lawyer like four grand to do it for you, five grand to do it for you, it's like a hundred dollars and the AI helps you do it. It's like, this is fantastic. So.
And that's going to all be through FitBux.
Yeah, we just launched that a couple of weeks ago with that partner company. It's fantastic. I love it. So we'll see where that goes. But that's the curriculum. That's what we go through. You know, it's only like four or five hours all combined. So the programs really interlace it throughout the two or three years that you're going to school. So it's not all that one time just bombarding people.
Speaker 1 (28:19.498)
And yeah, it's worked out well. The feedback's been great. I wish I could do it with more universities. I just don't have time to promote it.
Because it's information that these young kids don't know. And I say young kids, but I think that there are a lot of adults, people in my age group, that just don't have that knowledge and they just don't have that information.
Yeah, when we do our webinars with the universities, we have professors, chairs, deans, they're all sitting in on the conversations. Right. Like, they're like, and most of the time they're like, oh, we just want to make sure we want to hear what you're talking about. Like, so that way we know what the content is. And then afterwards you're like, I didn't know that.
I didn't know that. learned something. Yeah, you can always learn something. Yep. What questions should young professionals be asking about their finances?
I like, there's external questions and there's internal questions. And I like to focus on internal questions first. And the biggest thing that I think is overlooked is income. And because there's different ways of generating wealth, the most common way is income, working for somebody else. And then there's other stuff like being self-employed where you can build a business, generate income and that type of stuff. And so a lot of people...
Speaker 1 (29:35.5)
that say, hey, if you ever want to make a lot of money, you have to be self-employed. And that's not necessarily true. When you are basically want to produce income and that's how you want your primary money coming in, it's well, what can I do to increase that income? And what I mean by that, like when you listen to personal financial people, you know, I'm not saying anything are bad or good about these people, but people like Dave Ramsey.
or some of these finance books that you can read. They all focus on things like cutting your expenses. And you can only cut your expenses so much. Right. Right? Like that's only worked so long, but your income can grow infinitely. There's no cap to your income. And so it's like, well, what can I do? And we call that human capital. So what skills am I actually developing that can actually increase my income and make me more valuable?
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (30:30.67)
So for example, for SLPs, when you go from your undergrad degree to getting your SLP, you're going to get a pay bump. That's human capital development. That's education. That's increasing your pay. You know, sometimes we have SLPs then go on to get their masters. Why? Because then they can go into the corporate side and the healthcare, like, you know, for a healthcare organization on that side. And now they can get a pay bump. We have people now in different industries.
like SLP, OT, PT that are actually saying, you know what, I'm going to teach myself a little bit about like a crash course in coding and AI. And then they're going to work at AI companies and actually training the AI on medical stuff. Because like if I could create an SLP AI company tomorrow and it would be good, but I'm not an SLP. I don't know how to train it. I need an SLP to train that. Right. So it's what skills am I building to increase my income?
and I'll give you one more story about how that can happen. Like, my wife's mentor in the PT industry. I mean, she taught herself how to do blogs and it's kind of social media marketing and that type of stuff. And she started doing like a really niche part of the industry where she was looking at sports injuries. And she would then say, how is this going to affect their fantasy sports? even when they come back, are they going to be full strength? How long are they going to be out?
Long story short, she left the industry because ESPN gave her a massive contract to go work for them. So it's like, you know, those skills, it's like, what skills can I continue to build? Which is extremely important because I talk to people all the time that they graduate. Let's just say they get, they become an SLP. You've been through a lot of schooling and then they just stop learning. And within like 10 or 15 years, those skills, they erode.
Right. So it's like, you got to keep that going. So I highly influenced, like talk to people about developing those skills and what do you love doing and what can you become an expert in and combine? You're an expert in, know, SLP. What, one other thing can you become an expert in that you can combine that can really increase that income? You never know. Maybe it leads to starting your own business one day, you know, like that's, you just don't know. Right. It's internal.
Speaker 2 (32:51.416)
I love that.
Yeah, that's internal. Then external, it's things like, okay, when am I actually getting paid? Should I switch jobs? You know, we've had a lot of conversations recently like, hey, I live, for example, I live in California. Would it make sense for me to potentially move, you know, to a different state? Like that's lower cost. Like what does the income look like? You know, what type of house do I actually want to buy? What can I actually afford? Do I even want to buy a house? Like, you know, really focus on your goals on what's really important to you.
And once you have those goals, that's part of our financial planning system. It's like, once you have those goals, that first one, that's what we're going for. You're doing that, and then the second one, and then the second one. And as long as you're going down the list, so you're always happy externally about what you're trying to accomplish and you're doing it. So those are the two things that I tell young professionals that really focus on financially is what's the internal thing that you can do, and then what's the external thing that you can do.
I love that. Joseph, it has been so great having you on the podcast and I'm super excited. So you guys are going to have to stay tuned and come back and listen to our other podcasts that we're going to have with Joseph coming up. And we're going to be talking specifically about student loans. And I had no idea all of the information and everything that's out there. But after we got off of our intro call, I started doing a little bit of research and I was overwhelmed within five minutes because there's
so much information out there. But Joseph, thank you so much for joining us. Guys, if you're listening and you want to get started with FitBux, we're going to have their contact information linked in this podcast. And I encourage all of you guys to go and get connected with one of their professionals. They're a great company that are going to continue to grow and do great things. So thank you so much, Joseph. All right, we'll talk to you guys soon. Thank you for tuning in to SLP Full Disclosure.
Speaker 1 (34:34.668)
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:42.444)
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