Hometown Hero Outdoors
Welcome to the Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast, where we’re more than just a show—we’re a mission. As a non-profit dedicated to enhancing mental health through life-changing outdoor adventures for military service members, veterans, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMS personnel, we bring you stories of resilience, healing, and community.
🌲 Why Listen?
- Over 5,000 heroes have experienced the healing power of the outdoors with us—through activities like hunting, fishing, camping, snowmobiling, and more.
- 85% of participants report reduced stress, increased camaraderie, and a renewed sense of purpose after our adventures.
- We share inspiring stories of mental health advocacy and people overcoming the toughest challenges, highlighting the profound impact of reconnecting with nature.
Whether you’re here for thrilling outdoor adventures, meaningful conversations about mental health, or to hear from real people who’ve used the outdoors to heal and grow, this podcast has something for everyone.
🎧 Subscribe now and join us on this journey of healing, resilience, and the transformative power of the great outdoors!
Hometown Hero Outdoors
Financial Freedom for First Responders: Nick Daugherty is the Financial Cop
Imagine being buried under $80,000 in debt from reckless spending. Meet Nick Daugherty, the Financial Cop, who transformed his financial life and now inspires thousands of first responders to find their own financial freedom. Nick shares his journey from financial despair to stability, with insights gained from financial guru Dave Ramsey. By emphasizing the critical link between financial health and mental well-being, Nick's story highlights how financial literacy can lead to improved professional performance and personal peace of mind, especially in high-pressure roles like law enforcement.
Transitioning careers can be daunting, particularly for first responders accustomed to a steady paycheck and demanding work environments. We explore the fears and possibilities that come with such career transitions, spotlighting the resilience and unique skills that first responders bring to the table. From strategic financial planning to leveraging platforms like LinkedIn for career advancement, we discuss actionable steps to ensure total wellness and financial preparedness as first responders navigate new career paths.
Unpacking the financial landscape, we delve into strategies for first responders to maximize their financial potential. Whether it's using overtime to pay off debt and save for retirement or exploring how pensions can provide flexibility for pursuing fulfilling careers, the episode is packed with insights. We also touch on the broader aspects of financial planning, from entrepreneurial ventures like renting a family van to understanding the complexities of financial markets. This conversation is a guide to not only surviving but thriving by making informed financial decisions and prioritizing personal and family well-being.
Produced by Phil Ewert Productions
Theme Music: Hero's Journey
Joel Loopez Tunepocket.com
Licensed by: Phil Ewert Productions
hometownherooutdoors.org
In the land of 10,000 lakes, a remarkable movement was born. Welcome to Hometown Hero Outdoors. We are dedicated to honoring our military service members, veterans and first responders by providing them with unforgettable outdoor recreational opportunities. We believe those who have served and sacrificed so much for our country and communities deserve a chance to reclaim their spirit and find healing in the great outdoors. This is Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast. Here is your host, chris Tatro.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast. We are in season three. We have a special guest today named Nick Daugherty. Did I say that right? Yep, all right, good, he is known as Financial Cop. I'm pretty excited to have him on the show today. We're trying to do a little bit different of podcasts this year and I think that this is a very good addition to what we're going to do for the podcast throughout the year. Nick is known as Financial Cop out of Texas. I met Nick down at Police Week this year. I met him through Relentless Defender, which is an absolute amazing contact to have. One of the biggest things that we do for Hometown Hero Outdoors is I don't know health and wellness and helping mental health and mind, body, soul and finances. So finances are a very important key role within people in different professions and you have some financial troubles. It can definitely be an issue for you with it comes to mind, body and soul and affect you otherwise. So welcome to the podcast, nick. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 3:Thanks, honored to be here. It's very good to meet you in DC as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was awesome. I'm glad that Slater got us together and we had to sit at the same table at Cops Gala.
Speaker 3:That was pretty cool. That was an amazing.
Speaker 2:I mean just 40 years of cops, man, that's just crazy yeah, and for those who don't know, cops is concerns of police survivors, and they have a phenomenal organization that helps um officers and family of the fallen throughout the year and they bring them out to dc and they celebrate, uh, their loved ones that are no longer with us, but then also provide different programs and experiences for not only the spouses of the fallen, the family, but also the children, and it's a, it's a fantastic organization that does help, do follow up and they're not alone after they lose one of their loved ones. So, very good time. So, nick, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell everyone a little bit about yourself and where you came from?
Speaker 3:Yep, so obviously Nick Daugherty. I grew up in Texas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I really got introduced to the world of money because I did a bunch of stupid stuff as a young person basically, and I always like to joke and said I was kind of part of my rookie orientation to do dumb with money and came into law enforcement in 2003 for the Grand Prairie Police Department. Is a phenomenal job. Absolutely loved every part of not just being a cop but working for Grand Prairie PD and when I came into law enforcement I had about $80,000 in debt. 21,000 of that was in one car stereo system, all on credit cards. That's a lot. When it was all said and done, I actually had spent about 30,000 total on every car stereo I had on credit cards and I really got stuck into that overtime cycle that so many of us get wrapped up into and I was working 20 hours of overtime basically a week just to pay my bills, which is really scary in any kind of a first responder position, because in our industry it's not a matter of if it's when you get injured and you can't work part-time and overtime jobs when you're on light duty, and so I was one injury away from complete financial ruin.
Speaker 3:I met the love of my life and Carrie was my girlfriend at the time and then she changed titles to fiance and I kind of forgot to tell her this little bit of information about being $80,000 in debt. So I had to go sit across the table from the girl I wanted to marry and explain to her the guy she wanted to marry was so far in debt and of course she was debt free and you can imagine the look on her face. And of course I looked at her. I said, don't worry, I got a plan. And she looked at me back and she said you better. Very lucky, I had a beat partner at the time.
Speaker 3:That was that 20-year vet that became one of my best friends.
Speaker 3:I had a guy I was eating lunch with one day that said hey, you should listen to this Dave Ramsey guy and I fell in love with Dave's debt snowball and how to pay off debt at an accelerated rate and I committed to carry to become debt-free before we got married. So I worked about a thousand hours of overtime In March 2007,. We got married 100% consumer debt-free everything but the house at the time and that kind of is what sparked me to become the nerd at my department and fast forward in 2011, we got a new chief and he basically ordered me to start teaching financial wellness to the recruits, and then I got asked to teach the whole department. Then, all of a sudden, we were being asked to teach leadership academies. We just got the word we're going to teach.
Speaker 3:I think this is our eighth out of ninth Concerns of Police Survivors National Conference, and sometime this year we'll cross 40,000 first responders from 4,000 agencies we've touched in person. So it's been an honor to become the voice of financial wellness, all because I did a bunch of stupid stuff with money.
Speaker 2:Wow, no, that's impressive and I do think that that speaks highly to a lot of individuals who may be listening. With that side of things and, like you said, we're always chasing that overtime and it's not always a healthy place to be to just chase the overtime. But then also the financial side of things, you know what I mean. Some of the partners are out there, are on top of it and they like that overtime for some extra stuff that they might have financially, but give them some extra vacations or time, but maybe sock away some money and more retirement stuff, but but yeah, that's, that's a big hill to climb $80,000. And that's a big number.
Speaker 3:It was intense. I mean, if you think about it now, I mean that was 2003. I mean that would probably be the equivalent of $130,000 to $150,000 in today's money. But it sucked. I mean there ain't nothing fun about it, right, and that's one of the first things we tell people when it comes to paying off debt, is there ain't nothing fun about having to dig out of the holes that we put ourselves in? But one of my favorite quotes from Dave Ramsey is if you live like no one else, you sacrifice like no one else. Later in life, you don't have to sacrifice, you get to live like no one else. And so I look back at that time and I'm like, yeah, it sucked, but but the things we get to do with our family now and not just the fun things because we don't have debt, but the charitable aspect of things it's all because of the sacrifices we had to go through during those few years of paying off debt.
Speaker 2:Right. And so what year did you make that full transition again?
Speaker 3:So 2003 is when I became a cop, paid off all my debt by 2007. I actually left law enforcement in 2017 and started not only doing financial wellness training across the country but also became a licensed financial advisor. So I'm a fiduciary only financial advisor, created my own company in 2018. And so we're kind of two part. Now. We're one of the largest financial wellness training groups in the country for first responders, but then we're also unique in that we represent less than about 10% of the financial firms out there that are 100% fiduciary only run firms, no products that we sell. We don't do any of the commission business in the financial world outside of term life insurance.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. And then first responders all include too.
Speaker 3:We kind of have a broader definition than a lot of people. Yeah, most people think first responders are your cops, your firefighters, your EMS. We believe dispatchers are first responders. We believe detention and correction is first responders. Hex, I believe the records clerks at the PDs and FDs. We're a family the police department, the fire department. They don't operate without those administrative staff, without those people that are doing the record keeping. So we kind of almost in a sense, consider anybody that works for a police or fire department a first responder in our words.
Speaker 2:Nice. No, it's good to know because that kind of broadens the horizons on those who may be interested in learning more from you in the future. And then I got a question for you too. So the transition from law enforcement into the financial world when you did leave law enforcement, you know that's a lot of question marks for people. What did that look like for you and like what kind of advice or anything that would you give to other people who might be questioning if they want to continue in their roles?
Speaker 3:Scary as hell.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was 14 and a half years in um, I ended up doing 20 years total, but I left full-time at 14 and a half and did reserve so I wasn't getting paid and um, it's you know, it's the scariest thing you will ever do as a first responder. Right, we have a government check, we get a guaranteed pension for the most part, and you sit there and start having thoughts. Like you know, I think I want to leave this guaranteed check I get every two weeks where I don't really have to worry about not ever getting paid. And you know, ultimately, for me, I had a dream and I had a passion and I thought you know, if I jump off this cliff, the worst thing that can happen to me is, oh darn, I go back to being a cop again and I got to work patrol.
Speaker 3:And I love patrol so it's scary, but I got to work patrol and I love patrol, so it's scary. But at the same token, right now it's a tough industry and we have a lot of people that are exploring this. There's some really good Facebook pages out there that you know really starting to talk to first responders about that jumping off that cliff, especially the cops, right, I mean, it's never been harder to be a cop in this country than it is today, and so there's a lot of interest in it, but there's still. I would say it's funny. I talked to Slater from Wellness Defender all the time and we and him talk about this, a lot about all these first responders that talk about wanting to jump off the cliff, but they're so terrified and a lot of it's just because of the fear of the guaranteed check.
Speaker 3:But I can tell you one of the things that I see if you're out there and you're listening to this and you're like I'm done, I'm ready to get out of this, if you have a good work ethic, you're probably never going to have to worry about anything in the corporate world If you get laid off. That's usually the biggest fear. Is what if I get laid off? I mean, if you work your butt off and you got great work ethic, you're going to find another job, you're going to be okay.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it is. It is very concerning to individuals who are looking to step up. But anyone in these careers are very marketable people, very resilient, no-transcript you know, and and you gotta be able to talk to people you know. And how many times do?
Speaker 2:Individuals in these first responder roles are very engaged with having to talk people off the cliff or into a very out of a dark situation, and I think that can translate pretty heavily into any profession really, and I think that's the biggest question that people have is this is all I've known, this is my identity and this is what I do.
Speaker 2:But, man, you look in the world of what's out there for careers and you can really transition to a lot of different things and you have a success story when it comes to that as well. And financially and you know a lot of us cops really don't look at the financial future until that horizon of that. What am I going to do next? Number one if I want to get out. Number two retirement's coming. I really should probably start planning a little closer and that's usually that 40 years old mark where I'm at and looking into the future going. I probably should have looked a little further down the road on what my finances look like, and I think that's probably something that you run into often when it comes to finances.
Speaker 3:It is. I always tell people I have a very love-hate relationship with pensions in first responder land because I love them, because we get a guaranteed check for the rest of our life. I hate them because I talked to all these younger folks and they're like Nick, I don't need to contribute to my deferred comp account because I got a pension. And by the time we realize that the reality is most pensions are not going to replace 100% of your income, we've lost our most valuable asset, which is time, and it's tougher to make that up. And I'll go a step further on that. Retirement is not just about your retirement accounts. It's what your financial situation is like when you go into retirement. You could have a crap load of money in retirement, but if you're in debt up to your eyeballs and you don't know how to do a basic budget on what you're going to spend, it ain't going to matter. And we tell people all the time you know you should be focusing on the total wellness right In the financial world. The problem I see all the time is that you know everybody in the financial world they're all concerned about how do I get your investment so I can make money. Well, the reality is. Is that really needs to be one of the last things you need to talk about when it comes to any kind of financial planning, because we gotta get out of credit card debt right? Why are we putting money in the market if we're paying 24% on a credit card? We need to understand how to do a budget right. We need to make sure that your will and estate plans in place and the totality of the wellness aspect of that.
Speaker 3:And, if I can backtrack real quick, one of the things you said is what's some of the things you would tell people? When we teach our recruit classes, we tell them you should start planning your exit strategy today, right? Start taking the things you do as a first responder. Figure out what you enjoy and then figure out how to turn it into a second career.
Speaker 3:When you go to conferences and you get all those business cards that you throw away or that you look at six months later, what you need to be doing is you need to have a LinkedIn page and every time you come back on Monday from that conference, you need to be going in there and connecting with all those business cards, and every time you come back on Monday from that conference. You need to be going in there and connecting with all those business cards. Right, you get a, you get a list. You teach a class and you get a list of people you taught. You need to be going to LinkedIn and starting to connect with those people and posting stuff, because you never know when that random person you connected with at a detective conference four years ago, next thing you know, they're like hey, I remember this guy from this agency and maybe he has a good fit for this networking, networking, network. I can't stress it enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think LinkedIn's a completely underutilized asset in our world too. You know everyone always sit in Instagram or Facebook, but LinkedIn is definitely a good place to be able to go to and showcase who you are and what you've done. But also, with that networking piece and I really started to grow mine a few years ago, but I always avoided it I did the corporate stuff for a hot minute and then, with law enforcement, that was one thing I overlooked heavily was doing LinkedIn stuff and connecting with individuals, and it's very important that you stay on top or at least explore that avenue for a social media aspect.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I'll tell you, a lot of people get intimidated by things like LinkedIn. You know, I'll offer you this because someone offered it to me. I remember I went to a Lieutenant who's now a chief of police one day and I'm like man, you have a phenomenal LinkedIn profile. How did you create that? And he goes Nick, just go copy it. So if you're sitting here watching this, go to Nick Daugherty's LinkedIn page and go hey, mirror this, build it just like that. I don't care it's.
Speaker 1:You know this is about helping brothers and sisters with this stuff. Hi, this is Phil podcast producer for the hometown hero outdoors podcast. I know your time is valuable and we thank you for listening to our podcast. Can I ask you a favor? On whatever podcast platform you are listening to us on right now, could you please give us a five-star review? It is very helpful in growing our podcast and expanding the message of HHO. Thank you. Now here's a word from our sponsors.
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Speaker 2:Yeah, no, as you say, that's I think that's pretty much what I've done for my my LinkedIn page, too was I went and looked at somebody else's and tried to figure out you know what, what I was missing on mine and kind of a it's like a conglomeration of a whole bunch of different too. So what are some common challenges that you see in the first responder world that you've experienced with them that are a common mistake that individuals make? Beyond what you just explained? You know you're talking about looking down to the future, the deferred comp side of things. What are the common things that we really need to tackle as first responders?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of the biggest pitfalls I see for first responders is overtime and part-time jobs and we get self-reliant on it and for some of us we don't have a choice. Some of us we do. I preach to my cops you get the choice to go sign up for the overtime For my fire people. You get the choice to decide if you want a part-time side gig on your days off. For my dispatchers, corrections and detention they just get told which is another whole dynamic, because then all of a sudden overtime gets pulled back and you can't just go sign up for it. And so we better really start to learn how to live within our means and we as first responders have something the civilian world doesn't have access to. You always tell people that I worked 1,000 hours of overtime to become debt-free. I worked 3,500 hours of overtime after I became debt-free. Why? Because I'm a bit of a workaholic. I enjoy working a lot. Carrie at the time was working during the day. I was working evening shift. I might as well go in and do something. Well, one year our department had to scale back our overtime and we got an email that says you can't work more than five hours of overtime until October and it was June and I remember I got a special call to the assistant chief's office because I was working so much overtime. And he goes Nick, are you going to be okay? We're checking on all of our top overtime folks. And I said, sir, with all due respect, thank you for the vacation. He goes, excuse me, I mean you can imagine that wasn't the conversation he'd been having all day. And I said, sir, you know how we go on vacations a lot. He goes. Yeah, I said I just go work overtime to pay for the vacations.
Speaker 3:A couple of years ago, you remember how me and Kerry bought our first house? He goes yeah, we didn't have any furniture. So guess what I did? I went and worked overtime to buy furniture. So this year I'm actually because we're in a good spot. I'm actually using overtime to fully fund my wife's 401k plan and, max it out, fully fund my Roth IRA accounts. We, as first responders, have the luxury to take overtime and use it as a mechanism to further build our financial strength, not elevate our standard of life. The civilian world they got to go. Get part-time jobs and work. I got to deliver for Uber Eats or something. We just go. Hey, I want to save for a down payment on a home. Let's go work some overtime. I need to dig myself out of debt.
Speaker 2:Work some overtime, right, we get that luxury yeah, no, that makes sense and I see it all the time. Individuals that are looking to aim towards that stuff, and some of my partners are for the law enforcement I'm sorry the the retirement side of things, but then some of them you know, like you just explained, going towards those 401ks and the Roths. But yeah, so then I'm moving on to with, can you? So what does your firm look like? Like who do you have working for you? How many people are there to support you? And then, like, when it comes to engaging with someone new to your firm, what does that look like?
Speaker 3:So I've got seven employees. I've got three advisors and four support staff. Now we hope to have a bunch more advisors just because we're growing so fast right now. Currently almost everybody that works for me is either current or former law enforcement. All of my advisors are, or the support staff are. You know, most of them are married to first responders or there's some kind of nexus with that.
Speaker 3:Again aggressively trying to hire people right now. I know it's going to be kind of tough to keep it in the first responder world just because most of us are not nerds. But as far as working with us, you can reach out to us, obviously on financialcopcom, but most of what we do is going across the country and teaching financial wellness is going across the country and teaching financial wellness. And then people reach out to us when it comes to the financial planning aspect of it and building financial plans to understand where we're at in the home building process.
Speaker 3:I always tell people you gotta have a good foundation for the walls to stand up. So do you need help getting out of debt? Are you in a position where we do need to start increasing contributions to again the deferred comps or the other retirement plans? What's your spouse doing for it? What about college funding? Are we trying to buy a home or pay a home off? And so that's how we really engage with people is what spectrum, in the wellness side of things, are you? Because, again, a lot of people come in talking about retirement, not knowing that we need to focus on retirement. But we need to focus on retirement. But we need to build the foundation, get the walls solid, before we dive into that.
Speaker 2:No, it makes sense, I mean. So then that kind of leads into my next question too is when it comes to investment planning and making informed investment decisions and stuff like that there's a lot of. I don't know what the retirement age is in Texas for your full pension. Is that 55 for you?
Speaker 3:So most of our first responders in Texas are actually it's a years of service. So we have people, most people can retire at 20 years of service, which I mean if you start at 21, you could technically take a pension at age 41.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, yeah, so we're 55 where we are and then we can go at 50, but you start taking hits. Yeah, so if we would go at 50, we would end up with 60% of what our normal retirement plan would be. So there are people out there that are looking to save on those last five years, not only for their own mental health and wellbeing, but move on to the next, maybe, chapter of their life, you know, and that that's a huge hit 40%, you know. So what kind of advice or things would you explain to those individuals on what they could start looking to so they can shorten that timeframe?
Speaker 3:Same thing with us. Right, 20 years of service, your pension's not very large. It ain't going to. If you're going at 20 years of service or age 50, heck, even at age 55,. The reality is most of us are not retire, retiring, we're going into another industry, another career. I got to be honest with you. Even if you're 60, very few Americans actually retire and sit in a chair and do nothing.
Speaker 3:If you want to wilt away and die early, I think that's what you may want to do, but most people are staying active and I'll tell people that the pinnacle of retirement to me is to retire from your agency and go back to work because you want to, not because you have to.
Speaker 3:And if your boss makes you mad, you just laugh and walk out the door.
Speaker 3:And so, for those of us who are leaving early, we need to change the direction of what we look at with that pension and go okay, I'm going to take a 60% cut.
Speaker 3:Well, now we look at the pension as a piece of the retirement. It's going to fund retirement down the road when we retire, retire, but right now it's going to give me that luxury to go springboard into another career, and so if I'm getting 40% of my income. That gives me some leeway to go find another job where I don't have to replace 100% of my income I only need to replace 60 in that scenario and so use it from that perspective. Really focus on what the next transition is, and that goes back to my whole. Find what you're really interested in, because if we leave first responder land and we go to another career, the number one most important thing in finding your next job is finding something that you are extremely passionate about, that you want to do, because when you find that passion, the money will eventually come if you're doing what you love no, it's very good advice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when it feels like you're not working, that's for sure. You know, um, you know, and in our job you know it might feel that way for people too is I'm doing something that I absolutely love right now and transitioning outside of that can be very difficult and you know they say that a lot of times. You know, within law enforcement, a lot of us begin to have mental health issues or we struggle because we feel like that identity is stripped. And being able to find those passions early on, kind of like what I'm doing with Hometown Hero Outdoors, you know this is a very thing, large thing I'm passionate about and you know, in time that's my transition and I'll keep doing this as long as I can. I don't make any money but at the same time, this is also what feeds me and well, my soul anyway, and you and I can but those, I'm learning a lot of marketable skills just by running and helping run this non-profit with my peers.
Speaker 2:You know, when it comes to doing stuff like a podcast or we do, planning for our galas and fundraising and organizational management and just general and regulations for fundraisers and I I've been man this last year I actually put two bills on our Minnesota State, house and Senate. So I mean writing bills and testifying. I mean a lot of marketable things that can be out there to help out with other financial needs later on in your career. And that's exactly what you're speaking to, in my opinion. I mean.
Speaker 3:Think about the civilian world. If you're 50 years old and you decide I don't like my job anymore and I want to leave, you got to go find another job making what you left. Now, with us, we just again we get that 40% of our income, which it gives you extra opportunities.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. So what are some of the more rewarding aspects in your career and what you've gone through? What are the things that have really filled your cup up when it comes to helping others?
Speaker 3:There is nothing better. Uh, having now taught geez for 12 or 13 years, um, we're at. We're at that point where we're consistently getting people that reach out to us and tell us things about you know, hey, I went to your class four or five years ago and this is what I've accomplished. And, um, you know, I I one of my most memorable ones. She's a single mom from an agency here locally and I taught her one day and I mean, I didn't know who she was.
Speaker 3:And I get this random email a year later going hey, I just wanted to let you know that I went to your class and I aggressively started working on paying off my debt. And now I work overtime when I want to, not because I have to, and I've spent more time with my daughter in the last couple of months than I've ever spent, and it's been one of the most rewarding things I've ever got to go through, and the only reason I could do it is because I paid off all my debt and I didn't have to work overtime anymore. Those are some of the most rewarding emails and contacts that we get. A guy from New Jersey that went to my class four years ago. I see him at a conference earlier this year and he goes hey, when I went to your class four years ago, it was $180,000 in debt. I'm $10,000 away from being debt-free man. There is, I mean, talk about goosebumps.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 3:Now the only drawback is is I get those, and I get people all the time they're like thank you so much, nick, for what you're doing. You changed my life. I didn't change their life, I just gave them the tools to make the decision. They changed their life, and that's the magic I love to see. Is someone going I'm going to take some things I learn and I'm going to use it to change my life. And I always tell people you've reached that point. At that point you got to start giving, like nobody else, right? What can you do to give back, to start to influence and change someone else's life too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's disciplines, everything. When it comes to looking to make those changes, it's easy to slide back into the old ways and let loose on some of the things that you are really trying to change. And it's kind of like you know your diet, you're trying to change something to lose some weight and be disciplined and go to the gym and you know you let go in a little bit. But if you can maintain that discipline and time it's going to pay off in the long run if you can stick to it and totally makes sense.
Speaker 3:The number one characteristics of wealthy people in this country is discipline. I've studied just about every millionaire study you can find out there. Ironically, the largest study ever conducted was over 11,000 millionaires. A third of them responded having become millionaires even though they never earned $100,000 in any one given year of their entire life.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, that's incredible. Just grind Lots of grinding. That's cool. I know there's a lot of cops out there that do have side hustles when it comes to law enforcement. They do have businesses that they do engage in, or other first responders too. Those are absolutely excellent avenues for them to make an extra income and transition to when they start to move on from that career. Yep, similar to what you did.
Speaker 3:Yep Similar, similar to what you did. Yep A hundred percent. I mean I, if you had told me I was going to do this back in 2015, I would have laughed at you.
Speaker 3:You just don't know when those doors are going to open, and I'll go back. Another thing when it comes to doors opening, I talked to a lot of first responders that have ideas and they want to jump off that cliff and I would say a very large majority of them are terrified to jump off that cliff. And I would say a very large majority of them are terrified to jump off that cliff because it's like Nick, I need to make X amount to pay my bills. Well, when we dig into the budget, 25, 30% of that I need to make this month is just to service their debt. People told me I was crazy for jumping off this cliff. I gave up a six-figure salary as a sergeant, could have gone on and probably made more, but to me, I didn't need the six-figure salary because our bills were so low, because we didn't have any debt, which gave us the wiggle room to go. I can afford to take this pay cut to pursue a dream and see if it works and not affect and impact my family long term.
Speaker 2:And you said something too, a little bit ago that really spoke to me too, about spending more time with kids and family. You know, and we spent a lot of our time going through this over time and being able to maintain either lifestyle or pay for that extra vacation, and you know, you're really taking that time away for a week away and that really takes away from things. And recently I just hosted a fishing trip up in central Minnesota on Mille Lacs Lake and I brought five parents up there and their kids to go fishing with each other. And the biggest thing is there's a lot of lost time that's there and some of these parents that were with me recognized that early on, you know, and some of their kids a little older, some were younger, but I think it was really eye-opening at like how much time that has been missed because they were able to get to know their kids a little bit more, even though it was there for a couple of days, but still, I mean it did add to it. And I think that you know, by engaging in the correct financial ways, that you're able to actually get that time to be able to spend that, because you look at the reality of life Right and you have a child and you have 18 years with that kid and then after that they're an adult and they move on If they're not living at home.
Speaker 2:Still, you have less time right, and certainly you know it's a very prevalent thing in our profession where divorce is high and then you have the kids for half the time and now you're balancing potentially child support and other issues like that, where not only your kids half the time, half your chunk of your income may be going to helping support that kid, which is nothing wrong with that, and that's how you know we should be good parents and be helping raise our kids the right way. But that does dig into a little bit, and you see a lot of people in these professions who are picking up these overtime shifts for that. So being able to approach you and have those questions for you on how to maximize their dollar and be able to plan right, you know that that's very important. So I do want to ask about that too, though. So in your line of work and you have likely talked to several first responders who are in a divorce situation where they do have child support Is that a common thing that you see?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. And so the problem we lose more of our brothers and sisters, whether you're a cop or a firefighter, to suicide not in the line of duty. And we do a lot of work with a lot of PTSD suicide prevention organizations. And I've been asked several times you know, why do you do so much work with that group? Well, the reality is is, you know there's there's two primary reasons typically given for suicide in this country and its relationships, and money. What do we suck at so much? I mean, we know the old saying you're not really truly a cop or a firefighter until you've been divorced once or twice. Right, I mean, it depends on what study you look at. Some studies show us having a 75 plus percent divorce rate.
Speaker 3:You throw money problems in the mix and it's a recipe for disaster. And then you get the lost time. You don't get back with the kids, right? I worked 4,500 hours of overtime in my career in law enforcement, but on November 1, 2011, I never worked another hour of overtime after that day again. Why? Because my son was born and that was my rule Could have paid my house off years ago. I couldn't have been the baseball coach. I can't be there with my kids for that stuff.
Speaker 3:And that's part of what this movement's about. It's not just becoming financially stable. It's not about winning with money and being able to retire. It's about putting yourself in a position to be able to take care of the number one priority in our lives, which is our family. Far too many of us give the family up for the job, and it's got to be the other way around. It's about building our financial strength to take care of the family and our priorities, to honor the noble profession we chose to pursue.
Speaker 3:And on the divorce side of things, I mean, I get it. Divorce is going to happen, right, if it happens. It happens, it's part of it. I don't care if you're a chief, I don't care if you're a records clerk, I don't care if you're a rookie, if you're mid-career, late career. You got divorced once, twice, three times, I don't care.
Speaker 3:The number one way to start to build wealth and really start to build your financial strength, no matter what your situation is, is the monthly budget. Everything starts not just writing what you think you're going to spend, but writing what you think you're going to spend. But writing what you think you're going to spend and tracking it throughout the month to make sure everything you thought you were going to spend actually got spent. It's the only way you can handle a divorce and cutting income and having to take care of child support. I get people all the time go. I got to work 10 hours of overtime every week just to cover my child support and I can't do anything else.
Speaker 3:And then we dive into the budget. I'm like you got a $950 truck payment. Don't tell me you can't fix things. You can go down to a cheaper car and give you some wiggle room to be able to live a little bit more and, heck, maybe, do some more stuff with your kids. Everyone in America has stuff in their budget they can cut out. It's a matter of are you willing to make the sacrifice to change the priorities?
Speaker 2:No, it makes total sense. You know it's interesting to say that too, because you know you talked about the payment, right, the vehicle, the truck payment. A story that I share with others too is I have a lot of people in my family and I don't think that's a secret to anyone who's listened to the podcast or followed us. You know I have nine people in my family. We're a blended family. I went through a divorce and I'm remarried. My wife has three children. I have three children and we have one together, and we do like to take our road trips, and usually right after school gets out we'll get in the vehicle and go.
Speaker 2:And then a few years ago, two years ago, we went over to the Black Hills and we were in a Tahoe and it fit nine people and, as you can imagine, you know, being on the road for 18 hours in a Tahoe is kind of tight.
Speaker 2:All their kids are smaller. So one of the things I started to look at was what can I do to be able to expand and get a nicer vehicle that's more comfortable and affordable Well, not, I shouldn't say affordable, because nothing's affordable right now, it feels like but what can I do that's more comfortable, that and reasonable for my family to be able to purchase a vehicle and get on the road. So we ended up buying a nine-person conversion van and it was not a cheap investment it was $90,000. But I will say this the best thing that we did was we put it on Turo and I rent that thing throughout the entire year. We charge anywhere from $250 a day to $300 a day and I haven't taken a single cent out of my own pocket to pay for it. Everybody else is paying for the vehicle that my family gets to use and you either may agree that that's a good move or not, but it's been working for us and the family has an awesome vehicle to use and we don't pay for it.
Speaker 3:Well, I love that idea, but I'll tell you the other thing I love even more than that idea is you look at people all the time and I see people that buy $90,000 Tahoe's that fit nine people and they're a family of three and they go. Well, I can't afford anything else. What the heck do you need a nine person Tahoe? For Right, you needed a nine person Tahoe and a van because you legitimately need to fit nine people. Right.
Speaker 3:And then you get, you went I've got to buy a vehicle and it's going to be expensive because there ain't nothing. There ain't no such thing as a cheap vehicle that can fit nine people and you said all right, this is expensive.
Speaker 3:This is going to be a tough pull for our family. How do I get creative and find ways to make it work? And you found a way to go. We can afford it if we do X, y, z, and so I absolutely love that, because that's what we've got to start doing Thinking outside the box sometimes to make something we can't afford. But we need work, not buying something that we can't afford, that we don't need, and going why does nothing else work? Well, because we didn't really need a $90,000 Tahoe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how frequently we do actually use our own van ourselves. It's not very often. It's not often that I need to go somewhere with nine people and if we do at times. Times we'll use two vehicles if we have to, if the van's not here. But we do rent it throughout the summer months pretty heavily. We'll get some in the winter and the fall, but we haven't had to pay a single cent in our own pocket and plus we have an LLC on the side that assists with our financial taxes at the end of the year and depreciation write-offs in the vehicle makes it easier.
Speaker 2:But it's worked for us, you know, and it's not always fun and pretty. You know you do have issues with renting things and people running into things or driving an 8-foot-2 vehicle through a parking ramp that only fits in a 6-foot. They try to go through a 6-foot ramp but it happens, you know. But those are just hurdles that you figure out. But that's why we also went ahead and looked at insurance. That we do through Turo and our personal insurance and company insurance. But it works and it's a game plan that works and if this works out well, we might look into doing other vehicles, but we're looking at what's marketable in the area and what is going to be used, versus us just sitting there staring at it. Those are the big things for us, Yep. Be used, versus us just sitting there staring at it. Those are the big things for us, Yep. So next question is how do you stay updated on the latest financial trends?
Speaker 3:and regulations for your guys' business and giving that outwardly to your clients.
Speaker 3:Regulations suck. Yeah. I often tell people it's probably easier to be a nuclear PowerPoint owner than it is to be a financial advisor. It's funny when somebody signs up to be a client of ours and they're like what the heck is this 130 page monstrosity? I'm like it's about 90 percent disclaimers and disclosures because of regulations, and so we are part of a much larger conglomerate that supports independent firms actually support over000 independent firms across the country and they help us stay up to date on regulations and I call them my internal affairs investigation team. Nobody loves compliance, but they're a necessary evil and they can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how up to date you are and how much you stay within the lines, which you should always be staying within the lines to make sure you're on that side of things with that, and so that's how we stay up to date. You know, you know financial wise that, believe it or not, the financial aspect of staying up to date on the money and the markets and stuff, that's actually probably one of the easier things you know.
Speaker 3:When it comes to the markets, I always tell people you know, people go, you know what's the, what's the latest and greatest in the markets. I'm like, oh, what do you mean? You don't know. I'm like, look, the markets are going to do what the markets are going to do. Anybody that tells you that they know what they're going to do. A broken clock is right twice a day. Nobody can time the market. Nobody can predict the next collapse, nobody can predict the next bull market. But you can pretty closely, accurately, predict one thing with the markets they will go down and they have always come back up. Not one time have they collapsed and not recovered.
Speaker 3:And if they do collapse and don't recover, you probably want to put a bunch of money in bullets and guns because our economy has collapsed at that point. Right, it's funny. I get asked all the time what's the latest and greatest new trend in the market? Don't know. Our philosophy when it comes to managing money is the KISS principle, Keep it simple, stupid. Why? Because when you get exotic with your money, you can really lose your tail. Not because it's exotic, but most people I see getting exotic with investments. They don't really understand what the heck they're even doing.
Speaker 2:That'd be me.
Speaker 3:I get a lot of people like you're a Bitcoin hater. I'm not a Bitcoin hater. I don't hate cryptos. Cryptos are here to stay. They're not going anywhere. What I hate is 99% of the people I talk to about crypto, because I know a lot about it and they're trying to tell me all these cool things about crypto. Because I know a lot about it, and they're trying to tell me all these cool things about crypto and I'm like you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You want to know the best advice when it comes to investing your money. It's real simple Understand what the heck you're investing in. Know what you're investing in. You know. I always tell people, you people.
Speaker 3:I learned about the market because I self-taught myself about finances. Why? Because me and Kerry went and met with a couple of financial advisors when it was time for us to start investing and we walked out of those meetings and our heads were spinning. They had all these fancy brochures. They showed me all these fancy numbers and everything. And Kerry's like which one are we going to go with? And I said neither of those bozos, she goes. What do you mean? I go, kerry. They didn't have a heart of a teacher and frankly, kerry, we work too hard for our money just to blindly give it to somebody because they have a title and they sound smart. So I got to go teach myself about the market so I can have an educated conversation about this stuff with people. That's what we've got to do. We have a section in our class. I love this section. It's my favorite section Of all the things we teach in the class. My favorite section of the class is called how to interrogate financial advisors.
Speaker 2:Ask the hard questions.
Speaker 3:Why don't we trust financial advisors? Because we don't know what the heck they're doing, and we don't trust them because of what they're doing, and we've heard the horror stories. Well, why don't we learn about the industry and why don't we teach you the words to ask that are either going to make a financial advisor look really good because they're answering the questions right, or they're going to start getting squirrely and dancing and you're going to know, yeah, this ain't somebody I want to work with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And that kind of speaks to something too is how in contact are you with your clients? How often do you reach out and try to have conversations with them about what they have going on?
Speaker 3:Everybody's a little different. It depends on how complex their situation is, and even the complex ones, it depends on what their situation is. As a fiduciary advisor. If we manage money for somebody, we have to communicate with that person at least annually, and a lot of times. You know some, especially people that have a very simple plan, or even some of the people that you know have a smaller account. They don't need a whole lot of updating.
Speaker 3:Some of my people are very advanced and you know they've got very complex situations. We may need to talk to them every three months, or they may have a situation. We may have somebody that doesn't have a complex situation all of a sudden have one. Mom and dad pass away. We got an inheritance. Well, now you just went from somebody we need to talk to once a year to we need to talk a lot. Here's the thing. If you're working with a financial advisor, you need to understand this one thing they are working for you. They do not dictate how much you communicate with them. You do. So if you need to reach out to your advisor and talk to them every other month, then make them talk to you every other month.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They won't do it. Find somebody that will. And that's just not financial world, it's all kinds of industries. We get told you know, this is the normal frequency of contact and we get lost in the fact that wait a minute, I'm paying you and you're telling me how much you're going to talk to me. It needs to be the way around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they make time. They need to make time, you know. No, that's good, that's really good advice. No, I appreciate that. So you did mention going to conferences and having classes and stuff. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what kind of conferences you travel to, how people can get a hold of you for that, and what kind of classes you host?
Speaker 3:So we do two kind of. Actually we have three different ways we teach. So we have agencies all across the country that reach out to us and contract to bring us out to teach their agency. We have conferences. I'm actually going to California this weekend to teach at a wellness conference, so we do wellness conferences all the time as well. And then we also have our virtual online academy. We've got our four-hour training that we teach in person. We're going to be adding a lot of different other material on there as well, and so those are the three mechanisms in which we will come out and teach and, of course, at any time you can reach out to us on financialcopcom. There's ways to inquire about that stuff.
Speaker 2:Of course, we've got our social media Facebook, twitter, linkedin, at financialcopcom as well or at financialcop on those. No, it's great. I know there's a lot of different associations out there when it comes to any of these professions and a lot of our. It's pretty common for our veteran world to get into a first responder role too. It's pretty common for our veteran world, you know, to get into a first responder role too. So it's not that because we talked about that briefly, I think about you. Know, if you do specific stuff for military service members and I think you said not at this time but in the future you may explore that if there's a need, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love my military folks and there's nothing against you military folks. My biggest issue is we are growing so fast. It's just tough for me to keep up with the first responder demand and and so that people ask me all the time why aren't you, why aren't you helping the military out? Just because lack of lack of time to be able to do it. And you know our, our philosophy is is we're not going to take on an industry, we're not going to take on people if I can't fully service them to the level that I expect them to be treated. And so we don't just take people on, just to take people on, because then at that point, you know, our reputation could get hurt because we're not able to service them in the right way until we get more people hired, hopefully.
Speaker 2:No, that makes sense, I mean, and I think that's very admirable, you know, I think that you know you're giving the attention to those who need it and the world that your demand is in heavily and you're not going to take on something that's the unknown, which is a lot of people won't do, that A lot of people take it on just to bring the money in.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's. That's huge. So we're currently teaching. We average about 80 to a hundred classes and conferences a year right now, just with first responders, and so that's why it's like and we don't advertise, it's all word of mouth, and so when you start talking about military, I'm like geez, I'm terrified of my firefighters right now. Much like military.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, maybe that'll be another day, another conversation down the road and we can get you back on here and we can talk about that. But there is something cool that we are going to do with you and you said that you're doing a finance minute occasionally. Want to talk about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we are launching a YouTube channel and what we're doing is we're taking all of the material we have online, all of our virtual stuff. Actually, one of my financial cops is down in Houston teaching right now and the entire thing's being videoed, and so we're going to start doing financial cop money minutes where just little short 45 second to 90 second tidbits of what are some of the tips that you need to look at, and it's going to cover the entire gamut of finances, all the way from budgets to debt reduction, to will and estate, to pitfalls, to how do you start to win with this stuff, to retirement accounts, and so we're excited about being able to put these little snippets out there where you can kind of get some teaser taste of what you can do and how to get more resources from that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and we're going to be utilizing some of those throughout our podcast throughout the season. So every episode we're hoping to have at least a piece from Nick here and his team regarding the money minutes that he's going to put out there, and we'll take a break throughout the podcast. We'll play that and then we'll be able to give some more contact information on every podcast on how to get a hold of Nick and his team.
Speaker 4:Information on every podcast on how to get a hold of Nick and his team, the IRS, just released the 2025 tax brackets, as well as the increase to the standard deduction. When should you start looking at that stuff? Now to start planning for taxes next year?
Speaker 2:Right now Check out this blog to see exactly what the changes are and how they may impact you. But, hey, I want to say thank you very much for being on today and I know that you had a disclosure that you wanted to read as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember those fun disclaimers.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir.
Speaker 3:So the good old SEC says we got to give that disclaimer. You hear it at the end of all the radio commercials. I won't read it as fast as they do because I can't read that fast. Advisory services are offered through Retirement Plan Advisors LLC, a federally registered investment advisor. Rpa and Financial Cop LLC are not affiliated. The views expressed by Financial Cop are for informational purposes only and are not designed to advise you on how to handle anything specific to your finances. Nor will listening to my advice guarantee your financial success. The opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and don't take into account your specific financial situation and or needs. Neither Financial Cop nor RPA offer tax or legal advice. Interested parties are strongly encouraged to seek advice from qualified tax and or legal experts regarding the best options for your particular circumstances.
Speaker 2:I know that's a mouthful you have to do that all the time. I bet too All the time.
Speaker 3:I'd rather be on the right side of the law.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen, we have to be. No, that's great. Thank you very much for coming on. I really appreciate you and getting to meet you and getting to know you over time here. I'm sure we'll have plenty more conversations to come on and if people want to get ahold of you I know you gave a quick plug on that, but social media platforms website want to give a good shout out to those again.
Speaker 3:Yep Financialcopcom for the website, and then on Facebook and Twitter at Financial Cop or LinkedIn at Financial Cop as well.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for turning in today. This is Nick Daugherty, got it right again. I hope Two for two, and I just wanted to tell everyone thank you for tuning in again and we look forward to hearing you or have you joining us on Hometown Heroes Podcast in the near future.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Thank you, honored to be here.
Speaker 1:The Hometown Hero Outdoors Podcast is made possible by the following sponsors O'Neill Electric Contractors. The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association. Relentless Defender, apparel and Financial Cop Financial Advisors. Thank you for listening to the Hometown Hero Outdoors podcast. For more information, visit our website at hometownherooutdoorsorg.
