The Keys to Free College, Graduating Early, & Retiring with $10 Million

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast show number 241, where we interview Amber Porter from Minority Millennial Money podcast and talk about paying for college, simple investment strategies that grow real well, and just in general, absolutely crushing life.

Amber:
I think that a lot of it is ignorance unfortunately. A lot of it is that people lack knowledge and they don’t know anybody who’s doing it, and they’re focused on get rich quick schemes, I think. When you don’t have a lot of money, you want money to multiply really fast. But it really is about the long game. It’s really important that you are investing for the future and you see the money grow over time.

Mindy:
Hello. Hello. Hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today as guest host is David Pere from the Military Millionaire group and podcast. From time to time, Scott is unavailable to record. Rather than miss a week, I’m calling on all my smart friends to fill in for him. David last joined us on episode 179, where we titled his episode, the guy who did everything wrong, but still figured it out. Today I’m bringing in sexy back, the man, the myth, the mustache, David Pere.

David:
Thank you so much for imortalizing that you have called me smart online, and thanks for having me.

Mindy:
You’re very smart, David. You’re not even a crayon eater.

David:
I am. I absolutely am.

Mindy:
That’s a military joke. If you don’t like it, email David, because he’s the one who told it to me.

David:
Yes.

Mindy:
David and I are here to make financial independence less scary. Less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story because we truly believe that financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

David:
Whether you want to retire early and travel the world or go on to big time investments in assets like real estate, graduate college debt free, or start your own business, we will help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards your dreams. (silence)

Mindy:
David, I hope that you are getting comfortable because you are going to be blown away by Amber’s story today. She has so much ambition and such a strong work ethic she makes your Marine self look like a lazy bum.

David:
I know. It was insane. She’s the student my mom wishes she had.

Mindy:
She’s the student everybody wishes they had. She’s the student-

David:
I know.

Mindy:
… my mom wishes I would be.

David:
This is a phenomenal episode. It’s just crazy what some work ethic and drive will do for your future.

Mindy:
I’m sorry, you just said some work ethic. She has all the work ethic. If you ever meet somebody and you’re like, “Wow, they don’t really have a lot of work ethic.” Amber stole it from them. She is unbelievably amazing, and her story will knock off your socks. Amber Porter, welcomes to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today.

Amber:
Thanks. I’m excited to be here.

Mindy:
Let’s jump right into it because I know we have a lot of ground to cover. Where does your journey with money begin?

Amber:
Yeah, sure. I would say it probably began my last year of high school when I was planning for college. I’ve told this story a bunch of times on a lot of different platforms, but I actually applied to over 100 scholarships in order to get money to go to college. I was from kind of a smaller town in Chicago and didn’t have a lot of money growing up. I knew that I had to fund my own education if I wanted to not be poor anymore. I had actually graduated high school in three years. My third year, which was my junior year, is when I was going to be graduating. I literally went to the counselor’s office every single morning and I just sat there for an hour or two before school started every single day and I just felt out scholarship applications after scholarship applications. I don’t think people realize how much money there is out there for people. Not even just based on race, there’s socioeconomic status, if you’re right handed, if you like to read books. There’re so many scholarships out there for everyone.
I just literally applied to so many of them. I think I got 10 or 15 scholarships, which ended up paying for the majority of my undergraduate college. I worked full-time during college, and so I actually graduated college debt free. I think that’s where I started to really understand what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to pursue journalism, which is a difficult career at the time as far as money. I didn’t want to have any debt, and so that’s what I did.

Mindy:
Wow. Okay. You casually, did you catch this, David, she casually threw out there that she graduated high school in three years. How do you graduate high school in three years? So you graduated when you were 16 or 17?

Amber:
16, I walked across the stage at graduation.

Mindy:
Did you just take massive loads of summer school? How do you get out so quickly?

Amber:
Well. in eighth grade I was in a accelerated gifted program where I think two or three classes, they actually bused us to a high school to take classes. I actually got high school credit for those classes. In addition, I skipped lunch. You could waive lunch at my high school and you could also take a zero period in the morning and get there early. Then you could also do correspondence school. You could do school by mail, and that’s what I did on the weekends. I did school by mail. I did morning school. I did lunch school. After three years, I was done with all of my credits and I graduated and I went to college.

Mindy:
Wow. Sorry, you don’t have any ambition.

David:
Man. My wife is actually a high school [crosstalk 00:06:18]-

Mindy:
This is a crazy story. I love that. I’m sorry, David, I jumped right in front of you, but holy cow.

David:
I didn’t point at myself.

Mindy:
No, you didn’t. I’ll point at you.

David:
Yeah. My wife is a high school counselor, and every year there’s maybe two or three people graduate a semester, maybe 10, out of a class of three or 400. It is extremely rare that somebody graduates at the end of junior year. I think I know of one or two over the last four or five years that she’s been doing it. I mean, that speaks to your work ethic on the school side. But I think it also translates into the work ethic for the scholarships. Which is great because there’s so much money in scholarships, but people don’t put in the effort to apply. My wife was senior counselor last year and it would drive her nuts because she’s like, “These kids have so many opportunities if they just write the essay or just fill out the scholarship piece.” The fact that you were not only able and willing to finish high school in three years, but then also applied for 100 scholarships is just, man, you set yourself up for success. That’s awesome.

Amber:
Thank you.

Mindy:
Yeah. Did you hear her say that she got 10 or 15 that basically paid for her entire undergrad degree? Wow. Yeah, your work ethic is amazing. I hope if you’re ever looking for a job, you put that in there. “Hey, I graduated high school in three years because I did all this extra stuff.” I mean, what employer would not want to have Amber as their employee because I bet you knock it out of the park as an employee too? You can’t have the work at 12, at 13, at 14, have the work ethic to take on all of this extra when I’m sure none of your friends were doing it. I’ve never even heard of this. I know none of my friends were doing any of this. I certainly didn’t do it. This is amazing to have this work ethic. Then you don’t go from 12 crushing it to like, “Okay, I graduated, I’m 16. I’m just going to do nothing for the rest of my life.” Did you just sit and eat bonbons all day? You were just by the pool lounging?

Amber:
Funny enough, I think people think that it took a lot more effort than it actually did. I talk about this in one of my books. I was actually able to automate a lot of it because a lot of the scholarship would ask for your generic personal statement. You write one essay, you can apply to probably at least 50 scholarships with that same essay. The same thing that goes for the recommendation letters that they want for those scholarships. I had three or four people in my life who were teachers or other adults that were mentors. I had them write letters and I had them write to whom it made concern, or to scholarship committee. I just made copies. Back then, everything was by mail. I literally just had a stack of letters of recommendation, a stack of personal statements and I was stuffing envelopes. Maybe you had to fill out an application that asked for your contact information for each one, but other than that, I had it down to a science basically. Work smart, not hard. It wasn’t really as difficult maybe as people may think.

Mindy:
Okay. I am going to say, no, it was an enormous effort. You should be applauded. I am trying to celebrate you because this is fabulous. This story, for all the moms, the high school kids that are listening right now, go back, rewind couple of minutes and listen to her again on regular speed. Because I know people listen to podcasts at 2X. Go back and listen to her on regular speed. She had an essay that she would use, and I’m sure tweaked to each separate person, but used this same essay. Spend time writing a killer essay and then tweak it a little bit. You only have to write that one killer essay, like you said, for 50 or 60 different scholarships, and get these really, really, really great letters of recommendation and use them over and over again. But don’t downplay the fact that you crushed life at 16 and 12 and 15. That’s amazing. But yes, when you’re applying for scholarships, first of all, applying for every single one of them. My cousin, I have an enormous range of age in my family, and I have a cousin who just graduated …
No, she just went into college and her mom said, “We sat down and any scholarship that we had a remote chance of getting …” Her dad’s not a firefighter, so she didn’t apply for the firefighter’s children’s scholarship or whatever, but anything she was remotely able to apply for, she applied for because she wasn’t ready a brand new essay every single-

Amber:
Essay.

Mindy:
… time. She wasn’t going out and then trying to find more people to give her a letter of recommendation. She just had her stack and she’s like, “This is for women, so I’m going to get all these ladies who gave me a recommendation and I’m going to tweak my essay.” You got 10 scholarships to pay for college. How much were these scholarships that you were getting? It sounds like five figure scholarships, right?

Amber:
It depended really. At the time, tuition was $16,000 and room and board was about $10,000. We’re looking at about, I don’t do math well, but about $26,000 a year at that time.

Mindy:
A year. Times four, that’s 100 ish.

Amber:
Right. A lot of the scholarships I got were low hanging fruit, like Walmart, BP gas station. Those were only two or $3,000 each. I got some scholarships just from the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Those were about $5,000 each. Then I also got a scholarship from the Boys & Girls Club, which I was a part of. That was $5,000 each year. Then I was an RA when I was in college. That covered my room and board for the second two years I was there. I also graduated college in three years. Everything was, when you added it all up, it covered most of my tuition. Then there were certain portions where I had to pay, but it was a couple thousand dollars maybe a year or something I had to pay. I worked full-time, so I just paid them the money. I ended up graduating with no debt.

David:
Man, you are the student my parents wish they had. I wanted to go back and just touch on one other thing though. Mindy went back and touched on the stack of applications and rewriting the essay, but I think there was another piece there that’s just equally as important. Was the fact that you had people willing to write letters of recommendation. I think there’s … That speaks volumes. Because all the work ethic in the world, if you’re not a person that people want to recommend, is … People make mistakes in high school. I made mistakes in high school. But being a person that is clearly successful enough that people are willing to put their name on the line to recommend you for scholarships too, it’s huge. College in three years too. I-

Mindy:
Of course.

David:
Well, I don’t know what questions to ask there other than where did I go wrong?

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, so I think that’s a good point, basically, why did I do that? I actually did some research my first year and I realized that a course overload, meaning maxing out the amount of credits that you can take per year taking more of them was cheaper than it would be to do a fourth year. Because some of my scholarships were renewable each year and some of them were not. I knew that if I could get all my credits done in three years, I’d actually be saving $20,000 of my education. Especially since I was an RA and I wasn’t paying room and board, you have to get hired every year. You don’t know if you’re going to get hired as an RA the next year. I wanted to maximize how much money I was getting and I wanted to maximize the time. I’ve said this before, college is a business and you have to treat it as such. When I realized that doing three years of college was way cheaper than doing four years of college, I did it.
Summers, I went to community college and then I reverse transferred those credits back to my main college. Then I overloaded each semester. I think I took 25 credits each semester or something crazy. Then winter breaks, I took winter session classes and I just maxed it all out until I was done. Again, it saved me thousands of dollars.

Mindy:
Wow.

David:
Yeah. Powerful.

Mindy:
We need to celebrate Amber and her work ethic.

David:
I also-

Mindy:
I feel so lazy right now.

David:
I owe you … I don’t want to say I owe you an apology, but last week when Mindy and I were prepping this to record before I messed up us recording last week, I assumed because you were military that the topic we were going to have was how the military is a great way to pay for college. My assumption was that, “Well, of course that’s a great way to get …” No. You didn’t join the military and get them to pay for college. You crushed it in high school with scholarships and in college and joined the military as an afterthought. I mean, well, I think that’s incredible. Because I tell people all the time, like, “No, the military is a great way to pay for school.” But it’s not the only way, and you are proof is in the pudding. I mean, that’s phenomenal.
I guess I would ask, what do you think is the one piece of advice in the scholarship realm that you think people should hear? If you’re a parent and you’re telling your kid, how in the world … I don’t know how you’d get my son to understand scholarships. What do you think is the most important thing to know about that maybe from a parent standpoint or from a student standpoint?

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a couple things. I think one is, the student has to understand what their life might be like with loans after they graduate college. I took a really big risk. I went to art school for undergrad. I said I was a journalism major. I actually wanted to do TV news, and so I went to art school. I knew that by going to art school, I probably was limiting myself on how much money I could realistically make with an art school degree. Knowing that up front, knowing that I had grown up in poverty, cash strapped, I grew up on welfare, going to food pantries, I didn’t want that to be my life. What I realized around me was that a lot of people had a lot of debt. I wanted to prevent that at all costs. I think that explaining that to someone who is a student, assuming that they’re mature enough to understand that, it really is a great motivating factor.
Then on the scholarship front, you mentioned I got letters of recommendation. I was in clubs in high school. I was on the Snowball Operations, which was a group for students who didn’t drink alcohol or engage in drug activity. I would go to retreats and I would meet people and I was there around mentors, and I was a camp counselor for several years. That’s where I built the relationships where those people were able to write me a letter of recommendation and also add it to my resume. Again, a lot of this is strategic. A lot of this is figuring out a way to increase your chances of success.

Mindy:
I want to circle back for a second. You said, “Well, some of my scholarships were only two or $3,000.” I didn’t fill out scholarships. When I was little, my mom and dad bought me a savings bond with every paycheck that my dad had. I had a literal stack that I had to sign when I was in second grade, which was a terrible experience. But I had a literal stack of savings bonds, and I’m real old, that was back when they just kept growing. Now they’ll stop and they’ll cap at a certain amount. But they could continue forever. I had this huge stack of saving bonds. My parents locked it at, this is going to sound insane in 2021, but they locked it into a CD for five or 10 years. Maybe 10 years, because I was in second grade, at 14% interest. That grew because that was the … David, let me introduce you to this time called the late ’70s, early ’80s when interest rates were through the roof. The bank did not offer to renew that when they finally came due after-

David:
Of course.

Mindy:
… the CD was … He was like, “Hey, I could do it at one.” No. I didn’t apply for scholarships, but all that I have gathered from people that I’ve spoken to, is that, and I’m not trying to diminish anything, but it doesn’t take that long to apply for one scholarship. Let’s say you take an hour or two hours to apply for a scholarship. I’m trying to change the way that people think about applying for scholarships. “This is only $2,000.” Well, if it takes you an hour and you get it, you just made $2,000 in one hour, which is not my current rate of payment. That’s amazing. You made 2,000. If you don’t get it, it only cost you an hour. You’re a kid. Unless you’re Amber, who’s probably got 57 classes that she’s got to go to, what else do you have to do? I’m not trying to belittle anybody. I’m trying to reframe the mindset. You could make a lot of money. You could win or earn a lot of money putting in a fairly low amount of time. The amount of money that you’re making is just enormous.
I read an article several years ago about a woman similar to you. Her mother sat her down freshman year and said, “Hey, if you want to go to college, you’re going to have to find a way to pay for it. I don’t have any money.” She was like, “Okay, I guess that’s my job now is to find money for college.” She applied to everything she could find, and she was able … I mean, I’m listening to your story, I’m like, “Was her name Amber?” Because she got all of her school paid for too.

David:
That’s a great-

Mindy:
But that’s not where your story ends.

David:
I was just going to say, that’s a great perspective shift because it makes you think that theoretically as a junior, senior in high school, the most valuable job you could possibly have-

Amber:
Agreed.

David:
… is applying for scholarships.

Mindy:
Yes. That’s a great way to think of it.

Amber:
I also worked part-time. I also worked a-

Mindy:
Of course she did.

Amber:
… job in high school too, but-

David:
She probably founded some Fortune 500 company as a sophomore.

Mindy:
Yeah.

Amber:
I wish.

David:
I’m feeling way worse about high school years.

Mindy:
She’s like, “I wish. It was Fortune 1,000.” Okay. But wait, there’s more. Amber didn’t finish with just a four year degree from college. What else happened to Amber? I’m sorry, three years. Yes. She didn’t finish a four year degree in three years, she did more. Of course she did more.

Amber:
I did. I took a year off where I worked. Then back, this was back in 2010, the market was really tough for journalists. It was very difficult to get a TV news job. I had a host of issues with interviewing and it just, at the end of the day, I realized that I couldn’t do it. Most of the jobs I was applying for for TV news anchors were all over the country. I had to fly in and out for interviews. I just didn’t have the funds, frankly. My family was still poor and I realized I had to do something else. The news anchor jobs were paying, at the time, $15,000 a year. I knew that long term that was never going to work. I was thinking, “What can I do that I would really be good at that I would enjoy, but that also I could solidify my financial security frankly?” I randomly woke up one morning and decided to go to law school.
A few months later, I just got some books from the library, studied for the law school admission test. A few months later I took the law school admission test and applied to law school. I got into one of the top 25 law schools in the country at the time. A few months later, I went off to the University of Illinois to start law school.

Mindy:
Did you finish law school in three years?

Amber:
Law school is three years.

Mindy:
Yeah. Okay. You did it in-

Amber:
I did.

Mindy:
… a minute and a half?

David:
She did it in two years.

Amber:
It took the whole three years.

Mindy:
Wow. Three years high school.

Amber:
Well, yeah. I mean, the good thing is, in college I had a 3.7 GPA. I had done well in college, even though I didn’t even know I was going to grad school. Frankly, I could have just coasted through those classes, but I had got a 3.7 GPA. I did okay on the law school admission test. Since I had worked during that year that I took off for kind of an investigative agency at the time, I had a really good law school application. That’s how I was able to get in.

Mindy:
You graduated high school in three years, you graduated college in three years, you graduated law school in three years. Just really a theme. I knew it was three years. But still, that’s amazing. What was your financial position graduating law school?

Amber:
Right. I had actually obviously applied to scholarships going to law school. Unfortunately, the scholarships going to law school were a lot more difficult. There’s not as many scholarships going to law school as there is going to undergrad. However, I did a pretty significant scholarship of my law school. I got $25,000 a year from the law school directly. That made tuition $10,000 a year. Then of course I still had to pay for all of my books, my living expenses, all that stuff. Which was actually quite expensive. But then I had applied for some other scholarships and I got those. I ended up graduating law school with about $60,000 of debt which is actually significantly lower than typical lawyers.
Typically at the point where you’re graduating law school, most of the people I knew had over $100,000 of debt just from law school, not counting debt from college. I was really happy about that. Then there’s a lot of loan forgiveness programs out there. Because I do public service, my loans will be forgiven in three years. Out of law school I had about $62,000 of debt and I had maybe $500 in savings.

David:
Can we extrapolate? We hit the three year, three year, three year. How old were you when you finished law school?

Amber:
When I finished law school-

David:
I know there was a gap, but …

Amber:
… I think I was 23 or 24-

David:
Man.

Amber:
… when I graduated law school. Because I graduated college at 19. When I walked across the stage, I was 19 when I had my bachelor’s. I took a year off and I started law school at 21. Yeah.

David:
Yeah. With a year off, you’re graduating law school, maybe one year, maybe a year and a half after most people get their undergrad and with less debt than most people come out of undergrad with.

Amber:
Thank you.

David:
That impressive.

Amber:
Yeah. I think I was 24 when I finished law school.

Mindy:
Where did you go to work? You mentioned the public service forgiveness program. That’s not just for any attorney. That’s for the public service attorneys. What is your job?

Amber:
Any attorney that works in government or non-for-profit, but I started working at the Attorney General’s office in Illinois. That was my first job out of law school. I worked there for a few years. But that was my first job. I’ve worked in public service government my entire career.

Mindy:
Did you do any sort of weighing of the benefits of them paying off your loans versus going into a bigger law firm and making the crazy money with also the crazy hours that come with it?

Amber:
I really was more interested just naturally in government service. Law school’s very competitive. It’s also very elitist. I graduated law school with a 3.1 GPA, which I think a lot of people would say is very low for the school I went to because it was a top 25 school in the country. A lot of people who got those big law jobs were getting 3.5 GPAs and above. It would’ve been quite difficult for who apply for those firms and actually get them. Certainly now I could do that. But back then, it would’ve been really difficult for me to frankly just even get a job in that field. I realized that I had to get the best job I could on the government side in order for it to make sense. Because there’s a lot of people who went into private practice that went to smaller law firms. But the smaller law firms, that’s not really where the money is. I knew that strategically I would’ve had to go work in government in order to get those loans paid off.

Mindy:
Okay. Hey, B’s get degrees. So do C’s and so do D’s.

Amber:
They do.

Mindy:
Yeah. I did not graduate law school with a 3.1.. You’re already so far ahead of me in every single way and I’m older than you. Your whole story is very impressive. I really love that you thought strategically about this. You graduated with some debt, but like you said, that’s less than a lot of people have just from law school. That was basically your whole entire load because you graduated high school no debt. You graduated college, no debt. You graduate and and then it’s paid off in … Did you stay in three years yours will be paid off or it’s a three year payoff program?

Amber:
It’s a 10 year payoff program. I’ve been practicing for seven years now, so I have three more years left.

Mindy:
Okay. Then are all 100% of your 62,000 wiped out or do you have to make payments while you’re doing this?

Amber:
I do, yes. You do have to make minimum payments the whole time. But luckily, due to the coronavirus, there have been no payments for a while, a couple years. Then your first year you pay zero because your income taxes from the year prior are very low/non-existing because you were in school. It’s very worth it. It’s very lucrative to try to get the payoff if you can.

Mindy:
Okay. What’s next for Amber besides conquering the world?

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, like me and Brenda, Brenda was on the podcast before, we have our own podcast on money. I’ve actually built my network up quite a bit since I graduated law school. I really wanted to do get some … First of all, I really wanted to get the information out there of, one, how to graduate college while incurring a little bit of debt. But also, what are the money tips that I can give to people who maybe grew up in poverty, who they do start making money as a lawyer or as whatever career that they have chosen, and what do you do with it at that point? A few years in my career, I had like significant amounts of money and I was like, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I have no idea.” I’ve always been sort of struggling. I’ve always been trying to make ends meet, and so what do I do that I have this load of cash?
Obviously I did a bunch of research and all that. Now I’m at the point where I have a more significant net worth, and so me and Brenda started the podcast and I have several books out telling people how to do it.

David:
Well, how do you do it? What was it you invested in?

Mindy:
Let’s look into what you’re telling people.

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, there’s a couple things. Like first of all, I think everybody knows about lowering your tax implications, 401(k)s, IRAs, all of that stuff. But beyond that, just investing in the market. I think that where I grew up, investing, first of all, it’s unheard of. But second of all, people look at it as gambling or they look at it as a very scary … You’re going to put your money in and you’re not going to be able to get it out. I invested significance amounts of money and in my free time I’m also in the army, which I just actually joined the army only three and a half years ago. But like my entire military salary, I put in my army 401(k). I don’t even spend it. Then from my main job, I invest $750 every two weeks, and I’ve been doing that for years.
Then whenever I have extra money or whatever, I’ll put it into the market. All of my retirement account … At this point, I’m set to graduate … Or graduate. I’m set to retire at 50. That’s basically the advice. Is, don’t spend your money, invest it.

Mindy:
You said something that I thought was very interesting. You said, “I think everyone knows to lower your tax implications with 401(k) and IRA.” No, they don’t, which is why we need you telling them how to do this in the book. You also said that where you come from people think that investing is gambling or that it’s scary. This is a huge one because I think anybody who doesn’t know about investing automatically assumes that it’s a gamble and you could lose your money. Yes, you could lose your money. Past performance is not indicative of future gain. Let’s get all those legal phrases out there. But also, it gives you a huge opportunity to grow your wealth. How do you overcome that, it’s a gamble or it’s scary argument? What is your answer when somebody says, “I don’t know how to do this.” Or, “I’m not going to do this because of this.”

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, I think you can just look at history. I mean, just everybody who has any money has invested into the market. Obviously it can’t be that much of a gamble. I think that a lot of people want to pick out specific … I’m one of those people that I have everything automated. I have a brokerage account and it’s auto invested into whatever the portfolio it is that I chose, which is an aggressive portfolio at this point. It automatically purchases ETFs for me, based on my level of choice about aggressiveness. You can literally Google, what is the average stock market return? It’s 10%. On average, you’re going to get 10% back of your money. I mean, think about it. If you put money into a savings account, most saving accounts are 0.001% that you’re getting back. If you feel like you want to put money in a savings account, why wouldn’t you just invest it in the market when you know literally Google says the average stock market return is 10%? It’s a no-brainer.
You know what I mean? I think that a lot of it is ignorance unfortunately. A lot of it is, people lack knowledge and they don’t know anybody who’s doing it. They’re focused on get rich quick schemes, I think. When you don’t have a lot of money, you want money to multiply really fast. But it really is about the long game, and it’s really important that you are investing for the future and you see the money grow over time. Even I’ve seen the money grow since I started practicing law and started investing.

David:
You’re saying all the right things. I love it. One of the things that always kind of makes me chuckle inside is, the same people in my experience, the same people who bring up the investing is gambling, they’re not the people who have seven figures in a savings account because they’re scared to gamble and they just leave it there because it’s safe. They’re the people who have no money in their bank account because they would rather go and buy an Xbox and a new phone and a new car and new shoes. A guaranteed loss of money doesn’t bother them, but a potential … The psychology is just weird to me. I always like to kind of frame that when and I’m talking to someone. I’m like, “Just to clarify, $200 on what could go to $400 is risky, but $200 on a pair of sneakers you’re going to walk in the mud in, totally cool?”

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a good point. I mean, most people, like when I go back to my old neighborhood, all I see is luxury vehicles and things of that nature. There’s obviously a lot of psychological reasons why people do that stuff when they’re in poverty. I’m very sympathetic to those reasons. But I mean, I shop at Target. I buy things from Costco in bulk. I am very frugal for the most part. I mean, of course there’s I like to do like travel, which I spend money on or whatever. But other than that, I mean, I’m a pretty frugal person. I think it’s difficult for people to see the future impact of their money decisions because everything to a lot of people is about the now. Like, “What can I indulge in right now?”
I really have never felt that way just in my whole life. I will still eat canned ravioli. I don’t care. You know what I mean? I’m not really interested in super luxurious things. Now of course, every now and then absolutely stay at a nice hotel or whatever. But for the most part, I would much rather retire at 50. I’m exhausted. I’ve in the workforce since I’ve been doing this stuff, like you guys said, since I was 12 and I’m 31. The longevity of this is going to end soon.

Mindy:
You said you’re investing in ETFs. You have it automated. Are you investing in any individual stocks or are you investing mainly in the funds and the index funds?

Amber:
I have a brokerage account with Merrill Lynch and it’s managed, so there’s a person that manages it for me. But I really don’t believe in individual stocks at all. I think it’s way better to just invest it in the ETFs and the index funds. I did have some mutual funds, which I actually just recently sold. But it just makes more sense, I think, than individual stocks. Because I think those are more risky because you don’t know where Apple’s going to be in 20 years. We all love Starbucks and Apple, and that’s great. I’m sure if you put money in it, maybe you’ll get a return. But I would rather go with the guaranteed sort of way to make money on stocks, like investing in oil and communications. I don’t even think people realize that you could do that. I have ETFs that literally say oil, communications.

Mindy:
That’s really interesting. You just-

David:
I absolutely love this.

Mindy:
Yeah. You just educated yourself? You did the research. I mean, clearly you love to study.

Amber:
Yes. I’m a frequent Reddit user. I’m on multiple Reddit forums on my phone and on my computer. I’m just always surfing the interwebs. It’s funny because I get all these texts from people who text me, like, “How do I do this? What do I do this? How do I go to college? How did you pay this?” I’m just like, “Literally all I did was Google.” I mean, and actually I told this story all the time, but when I was growing up, before Google existed, before even dial up internet existed, we used to get Encyclopædia Britannica in CD-ROMs in the mail. We had a computer and I would literally sit there and read the encyclopedia of what things were. I just always researched, like, what does it mean to go to college? What does it mean to get an undergraduate degree? How is an undergraduate degree different than a graduate degree?
I was eight. I was just reading the encyclopedia because I was like, it’s something to do. That’s literally all you have to do now. It’s even easier. You literally type things into a search engine and it spits out an answer in a second. I just don’t understand why people don’t utilize it.

David:
You’re speaking my love language now. When I was a recruiter, and I’ve been notorious for this for a long time, but I was notorious for people would ask a question and I would just say, “Google knows.” Because it’s like, look, I might be able to give you the answer, and that’s great. But if I give you the answer and you learn that you can just come to me about every question you possibly have, then when I’m not here, you’re going to not be able to function until I come back around. But if you learn how to find the answers yourself online or wherever, knowing where to find an answer, I think, is ultimately more important than knowing the answer. I love that.

Amber:
Yeah. I agree. I’m sure since we’ve been recording this, I can go back to my phone and I have multiple Facebook messages and text messages from people like, “I don’t know what to do. Can you review my resume? Can you help me apply for the job? Can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this?” I’ve actually had to limit it and set some boundaries lately of, all right, I can’t do this. But I mean, that’s why I wrote my book series. I have five books that I’ve published. Three of them are about undergrad, one of them is about law school, and one of them is about becoming a millionaire. Literally, I map out what to do. In most of the chapters, I’m like, Google scholarships. That is the answer. That is the answer. Obviously it says a lot more than that, but some of it does come down to doing your own research.

David:
Man. The crazy thing about this, we talked about the crazy that you did everything in three years, crazy that you got all these scholarships, all of these things that compounded. But the compound effect is huge and it’s so crucial here because if you were still paying undergrad and law school student loans and you were living under a two or $300,000 student loan bubble like a lot of people end up doing, you would not be able to put $1,500 a month into an index fund. You’d be paying down debt. It would take longer to hockey stick into retirement. I think it’s, people underestimate how important it is to find a way to pay for college because coming out of school debt free just means that you can … Every dollar saved at 18, 19, 20 years old is worth two, three, four, $10 saved down the road.
It’s like, man, just getting that debt out of the way and being able to save at an early age, I would rather like be … I don’t want to say homeless. But just be able to save $10,000 at 18 than be able to put $40,000 in when I’m 40 or 50 or years old. I think that’s … You just set yourself up so well to be able to say, “Hey, I don’t have this massive debt. I’m also young and now I’ve done my research. I’m taking the emotion out of it and I’m just dollar cost averaging into these funds for the long haul.” That’s cool.

Amber:
I agree. I mean, like I said, my loan payments are a couple hundred dollars a month. I’m able to do $750 every two weeks. I’m able to invest my entire military salary into my 401(k). I max out my IRA every year, $6,000. I also contribute to the pension at my job, which is 8.5%. By the time I retire, even at 50, I’m looking at $10 million at that point. For someone who grew up poor-

David:
Not learning for-

Amber:
Yeah. For someone who, I don’t have any advantages, my uncle’s not Barack Obama, although I joke about that on Twitter that it is, I knew nobody. No one was helping me or telling me any of this information. I didn’t even know anybody with a bachelor’s degree when I was growing up. You know what I mean? I didn’t know any information. I think a lot of people sometimes they assume like, “You’re Black. You obviously got scholarships whatever.” I’m sorry, I wish that I could walk in and be like, “Hey, I’m Black. Can I get this for free?” Because that would’ve been a lot easier than what I did. But-

Mindy:
I was going to say, I didn’t know that’s how that worked.

Amber:
I wish. Believe me. I really truly wish.

David:
I’m lefthanded, hopefully I can … Mindy, are you okay if I nerd out on military speak for 60 seconds here?

Mindy:
Yes. Go nuts with all of your acronyms.

David:
Well, I’m just curious, Amber, you mentioned military 401(k). Are you investing in the Thrift Savings Plan or do you-

Amber:
Yes.

David:
… take your military money … You have a civilian Roth IRA and then ETFs and everything, and then your TSP as well?

Amber:
Correct? Yes.

David:
Cool. I love that. I’m a huge fan of the Thrift Savings Plan. Especially now with the Blended Retirement System.

Amber:
Yes.

Mindy:
No. Go ahead. I said continue on.

David:
My next question, which has nothing to do with what we’re talking about, I’m just curious if you’ve taken advantage of your VA loan yet?

Amber:
The home loan? Funny story, I actually bought a house when I was 25, years ago. It actually was horrible. I probably would have more money right now if I didn’t buy that house. It was a terrible experience. Pretty much I bought it. It was really cheap. I was living in Springfield, Illinois at the time. It was $117,000. My mortgage was $500 a month. But as soon as I bought it, literally everything broke. Like I needed a new furnace. I needed the house reinsulated. I needed all this stuff. Then I ended up getting a job in Chicago and moving, and then I rented it out. I had issues with my tenants. They kept moving out, and it ended up being a nightmare and ended up actually draining a lot of my money when I first became an attorney. I haven’t used the VA Home Loan yet, although I have it because I think home ownership, at least in my experience, was one of the ways that actually distracted from me building wealth.

David:
Interesting. Well, that backfired on me. I love the VA loan-

Amber:
I’m sorry.

David:
… but I think you’re absolutely right. But I’m on the same fence though where I think a primary residence is not always the investment that people think it is. I think there’s a way to do it and a way not to. I’ve had the way not to have it happen as well. It can be a hard lesson to learn.

Amber:
Yeah. I really like renting. I have no costs. You know what I mean? If something breaks, I call maintenance, they come fix it. I don’t have to do anything. I’m already too busy. I can’t. I can’t [inaudible 00:45:47].

David:
Yeah. There’s absolutely a time and a place for both.

Mindy:
I’m wondering if we can’t place a little bit or a lot of blame on your agent in Springfield. Because it doesn’t sound like you had somebody looking out for your best interests. Did you have a home inspection when you bought the house?

Amber:
I did. Everything came back okay, but I think that … I don’t know why the furnace blew within the first few years of me owning the house. I have no idea if that was something that was missed in the home inspection. I’ve never really thought about it before actually. It was sort of an old house, but it was renovated. It looks really new and updated. As 25 year old, with no knowledge of anything, I was just like, “This house is awesome. It’s $500.” I’m from Chicago, so moving to Springfield, Illinois, and I had a huge two bed, two bath house, I was in love with it. It probably was a lot to do with just me just not really knowing a lot of anything about houses or anything like that. That could have played a part.

Mindy:
Yeah. The newly renovated houses can be a disaster sometimes because the person doing the flipping might not know what they’re doing, or they hire a contractor who cuts a corner. I flip houses, but I’m perfect, so it’s always a great experience for my buyer. But-

David:
I don’t flip houses anymore because I’m not perfect.

Mindy:
I can give you lessons. Amber could give you lessons too. You can learn so much from both of us, David.

David:
I’m a huge advocate of the VA loan and real estate, for sure. But I will tell, there’s a time and a place for renting, there’s a time and a place for buying. There’s definitely a larger learning curve for buying a house than there is for buying an index fund. It kind of comes down to the old, I love making money, everybody does, but how much time and how much effort is it going to take to make that dollar? Index funds is about as passive as you get.

Amber:
I agree. It just grows and you don’t have to do anything. It’s great. My net worth has boomed.

David:
While you’re sleeping, while you’re waking. It’s wonderful.

Amber:
Yes.

Mindy:
Amber, this has been a lot of fun. I love your story. I love that you just have this insatiable drive to do more. I’m wondering if your numbers are going to continue to grow in such a way that age 50 might be too far. You’re 31 now. We have talked to a lot of people on this show and even starting from a place of negative net worth have gotten to a place of retirement within 10 years. Yes, we’ve had this huge tailwind on the stock market right now, but I’m wondering if 36, 38, 40, you’re going to start looking at your balance and being like, “It’s that big now? Maybe I can step back, or maybe I can go part-time, or maybe I can only do the parts of my job that I love.”

Amber:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I could certainly swing retirement at 40. I’m interested in Fat FIRE though, and I want to have … I think my projected right now is 100,000 every year. Or no, 150,000 or something like that every year, starting at 50 until I die. The reason being is, I like to take cool trips and I want to still have a house cleaner that comes, and still have a lot of those other luxury things. Maybe I might change my mind at 40 frankly, depending on how tired I am. I might be like, “I don’t even want to go to Europe anymore. I’m fine with the US.” But yes, I certainly could retire a lot early. I just want sort of a larger sum of money on the back end. That’s why 50 is the absolute latest that I would retire. But I could retire a lot earlier.

Mindy:
Can you get a part-time job at a big law firm?

Amber:
I could.

Mindy:
Do that on the weekend?

Amber:
I could.

Mindy:
Yeah. Crank out the money with your steady paycheck during the weeks. What are you shaking you head for, David?

David:
Or you could also probably write some books.

Amber:
Write more books.

David:
I mean, it sounds like she’s already got herself some side income. I’m just trying to do the math in my head. I mean, you have 750 every two weeks, probably roughly 20 grand a year that you putting in over time, compound … I don’t know that I can extrapolate the exponential curve in my head. I’m not quite that good at math, but at 50 you’ll be good by 50 for sure. But I mean, it sounds like you’ve already … I mean, you’ve already got books and a podcast. It sounds like you’ve already found the little bit of side income, side hustle stuff. I would imagine you’re doing it, but how much of that is getting added to index funds? Are you reinvesting all of that or what are you doing with the money from the books and stuff?

Amber:
Yeah. I mean, I do 20K just off the top of my own salary. Then 20 K I get from the army every year that goes into TSP. Plus all of the money I make from royalties immediately just goes into my brokerage account. Frankly, I don’t even know how much that is because I don’t even really check it. But it goes straight to my brokerage account. Then I’m also going to get a pension because I’m a government employee. That will also come into play in my 60s or whenever I get the pension. Those three avenues will be … Then I’ll get an army retirement check when I hit 20 years as well. I could probably retire tomorrow. Now I can’t retire tomorrow.

Mindy:
I was going to say, you can retire tomorrow.

David:
Very well set up for the future, and I love it. I love that you’re re-investing the royalties.

Amber:
Yes. I mean, I usually honestly have a lot of money left over in the year because like I said, I don’t really buy any expensive things. Really I have my budget at things that I go to, my spa time or whatever. But that’s not really that expensive considering how much I make. I’m making six figures at my job and all the other money that comes in.

Mindy:
I hope you are layering all of this with credit card rewards so you can start earning your hotel stays. As long as you’re using the credit card and contributing to the rewards programs, those rewards don’t go away. You can be saving up your Hyatt rewards accounts and then when you retire, you have 4,000 stays. Then you can go and then your travel is less expensive.

Amber:
Yeah. I have the Amex Platinum card. I’m a Marriott Bonvoy member and a Hilton Honors member. Actually I do a lot of Hotwire. Hotwire is awesome. You can get really cheap stuff on Hotwire. But yes, I am also somewhat of a travel hacker. Not really, but somewhat.

Mindy:
Yeah. That would be an interesting research opportunity for you when you have some downtime from saving the world that working seven jobs. But the travel hacking, I have the Hyatt credit card. Every time I go to the grocery store or the gas station, I swipe on my credit card and I’m earning stays. I don’t remember what the math is. But I earn a stay based on my regular. I was going to buy groceries anyway. Now I bought groceries and I got a free hotel night out of it, or 3000 points towards the free hotel nights. That’s another way you can just go to the spa and earn a hotel stay all at the same time.

Amber:
That’s a great idea. Yeah.

Mindy:
Yeah. You’re maxing out your money and then find a hotel or two that you like. It sounds like you’ve got those already. Find a couple of airlines that you like or one airline that you know is going to be great, and just start taking advantage of those opportunities now. Then next year you don’t even have to pay for your travel. You can just fly free on points. David and I, we’re in Austin, Texas at a conference called FinCon. Everybody here is the most optimized to get all the money out. Squeeze everything out of their dollar. It’s exciting to be around people like this, but now my mind is like, “You can do all of these things too.” Of course, on your timeframe. You can start earning these rewards more.

David:
I love though that you’re clearly very frugal, more so than me. My wife is the frugal one. She balances me out because I definitely like expensive toys or hobbies every now and then. But I would say you mentioned it subtly, that except for the budgeted things like the spa, I have found that some of my best ROIs are things like massage or rent a jet ski or some of these things that people don’t splurge on when they’re being really frugal. Because it’s so easy to just be so thrifty that you don’t let yourself have fun. Then you get so burnt out that it blows up in your face and you just do nothing for weeks. I love that you were like, “I budget for this.” Because I would imagine that the time where you’re able to just be almost meditative in the spa and relax and just decompress is probably almost as high at ROI as everything else you’re doing. I love that.

Amber:
I mean, like this past weekend, I had the army. I worked everyday last week. I had the army over the weekend and now I’m finishing up this week. I’ve worked 12 days in a row. I have a spa day on Sunday and it’s like, I have to. I have to go to the spa. I have to get that 80 minute massage. There’s no way I can keep going doing all of this, managing everything that I manage, without having time to myself. I’m a natural introvert anyway, so I get energy from thinking, being on my own, doing meditative activities. Yeah, absolutely, I have to have a spa. I have a person that comes to clean my apartment every month and just little self-care things that I try to do to make sure that I’m okay. Because if I’m not okay, then all of this fails. All the bills anyway.

Mindy:
Well, and also this is something that you can afford. You’re not paying bills late so you can go to the spa. I think it’s really important to have things that you enjoy doing, things that help you relax and decompress. But also, these things have to fit well within your budget, which they clearly do. You’re already doing $1,500 a month to your investments. In addition to a bunch of other stuff into investments. Of course you want to keep yourself in tip-top condition so you can continue this. I don’t want to call it a slog, but it’s kind of a slog. You want to be able to continue that, so you don’t burn out. Because burnout is real and burnout really hits hard. It almost seems like the 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 90 minutes that you could have taken to decompress are exponentially more that you need to recover from when you burn out.

Amber:
Definitely. Definitely.

Mindy:
Okay. Well, Amber, this has been super, super fun, but we’re not quite done yet. We still have to get to our famous four. Are you ready?

Amber:
Yeah, I am.

Mindy:
Okay. Amber, what is your favorite finance book?

Amber:
I’d have to say the one I wrote, Money Moves: The Road to Millionaire Status, definitely is my favorite finance book. Actually, I wrote it last year while on deployment and I was really excited to publish it. It is basically how anybody can become a millionaire just based on putting money into your retirement and maxing out your IRAs. That’s my favorite book.

Mindy:
I love it.

David:
What was your biggest money mistake?

Amber:
I would say buying my house, definitely. I would definitely say that I spent more on the house and I was not able to build wealth for two years because I was dealing with all those expenses that came with that house. When I started renting, I was able to jump with wealth. That was my mistake.

Mindy:
There’s a time and a place to be a homeowner.

David:
That hurts me to hear.

Mindy:
This is the BiggerPockets Money podcast. We talk about real estate a lot, but there’s also a time … It’s okay to rent. Scott is the CEO of BiggerPockets and he rents right now. You don’t have to own a house. If you don’t want to own a house, don’t own a house. If you don’t want to own rental property, don’t own rental property. Somebody asked us the other day, it’s okay to be a renter and own rental properties that somebody else lives in. You don’t have to own your own home to … Personal finance is personal. However you work it out, as long as it works for you, it’s the only person it has to work for.

Amber:
I agree.

Mindy:
Okay. Amber, what is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Amber:
I would say that when you’re just starting out, I think a lot of people, again, want those get rich quick schemes, and so a lot of people will invest the money frivolously or give it to people on Twitter who claim to double their money or start a business or something like that. I think that when you first started building wealth, you should do that, started building it. You should max out your tax advantaged accounts. You should put money into a brokerage. You should do all the traditional things before you start that business or buy a house or give money to someone on Twitter.

David:
All right. The next question is, what’s your favorite joke to tell at parties?

Amber:
Okay. I’ve thought long and hard about this actually. Mindy probably knows I’m a fanatic of Twitter. This is the joke. A man goes to the doctor and he says, “Doc help me. I’m addicted to Twitter.” The doctor replies, “Sorry, I don’t follow.”

David:
I love a good pun.

Mindy:
That was good. I don’t love a good pun, but that was good. That was a good joke. Okay. Amber, where can people find out more about you?

Amber:
Sure. You can visit my Linktree. That’s Link, L-I-N-K-T-R.E-E/moneymovesauthor. I’m also on Twitter is @moneymovesauth, A-U-T-H. People can view me. Then Minority Millennial Money is our podcast that I’m on with Brenda who also was on Bigger Money Pockets a while ago, a few months ago. You can find our Instagram @MMMMoneyPod.

Mindy:
Okay. Brenda was on episode 195 of the BiggerPockets Money podcast. We will include a link to all of Amber’s links in our show notes, which can be found at biggerpockets.com/moneyshow241. Okay. Amber, this was awesome. This was a delightful show. I’m so glad we finally got around to recording it. We had some technical issues on several of our friends and we all got together and this was wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m going to make my older one listen to this show and do all of those scholarship tips. Those were fabulous. I’m going to let you know how much money she gets for her scholarships when she’s done. She’s a freshman now, so she’s got some time, but I got to start thinking about it.

Amber:
Please do. This is awesome. Thank you.

Mindy:
Yeah. Thank you. Okay. We’ll talk to you soon.

Amber:
Bye.

Mindy:
Okay. David, that was Amber Porter from Minority Millennial Money podcast. I am blown away by her amazingness. What did you think of her story?

David:
Well, you’re right. I feel like a lazy bum. I mean, she did well, I mean, way more schooling than I ever did and in way less time. Then, I mean, she just set herself up so well for the future. I love it.

Mindy:
Everything she did, she did right. She took it upon herself to do these things. I mean, who has this kind of work ethic when they’re 12? Not Mindy Jensen.

David:
No. I was homeschooled-

Mindy:
Frankly, I don’t have that kind of work ethic now.

David:
… but I still fell behind.

Mindy:
You were homeschooled?

David:
Here we go. This is going to be the highlight of the show now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know how to talk to people, believe it or not.

Mindy:
Okay. I thought you were making a joke when you said you were homeschooled. I didn’t realize you were homeschooled. That’s hilarious. I shouldn’t say that’s hilarious. That sounds-

David:
All but one semester.

Mindy:
All but one semester?

David:
It always blows people away just-

Mindy:
Wow. I had no idea. I’ve known you for a while, David? Yes, she was-

David:
You’ll hear the jokes.

Mindy:
Yes. My brother was homeschooled from third grade on. Yes, Amber, her work ethic is astonishing. Then she decided to go be an attorney because why not? Then she still crushes life with all of her … Did you see she just casually mentions, “I happened to graduate from high school in three years instead of four.” I’ve never heard of anybody doing that in my whole life until today. I was today years old when I learned that was a possibility. That’s amazing. That alone-

David:
Was so casual.

Mindy:
… what she did … Yes. She did high school, college and law school in three years. I know law school is always already three years, but that’s still, she did all three. That’s amazing.

David:
Yeah. She was what, 23, she said when she graduated law school and with less debt than people have normally when they graduate undergrad? Awesome.

Mindy:
Yeah. Awesome. David, why don’t you tell people where they can find out more about you?

David:
The easiest way is to just Google Military Millionaire. Most of our community will pop up right there. We’re on all the social platforms and have a website as well.

Mindy:
You are geared towards people, active duty military-

David:
No. We help-

Mindy:
… anybody enlisted? I don’t know anything about the military.

David:
Okay. Well, the ten second elevator pitch is, we help service members and veterans learn how to build wealth through real estate investing, entrepreneurship, personal finance, and using their VA loan.

Mindy:
You’re kind of like BiggerPockets Money for the military?

David:
I will take that compliment and I will not fight you on it.

Mindy:
Awesome. Okay, David, should we get out of here?

David:
Absolutely.

Mindy:
Thank you for stepping into Scott’s shoes and doing a delightful job. From episode 241 of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, he is David Pere from Military Millionaire and I am Mindy Jensen saying, in honor of David’s pet raccoon, which he used to feed out of his beard … You can email him at militarytomillionairegmail.com for more information, or see the picture in our show notes. Which can be found at biggerpockets.com/moneyshow241. We’re saying, see you soon raccoon. (silence)