May 7, 2025
87: Why Waiting to Invest Is Keeping You Broke
Think you need to be debt-free or have a fat savings account before you invest? That myth is keeping you broke. In this episode, Jess and Brandon break down why starting now—even with just $5—is more powerful than waiting for the "perfect" moment. They call out outdated advice that tells you to wait, and show you how to grow wealth while paying off debt. You’ll learn why index funds are your low-risk, high-impact secret weapon, and exactly how to start investing—even if you're overwhelmed or ...
Think you need to be debt-free or have a fat savings account before you invest? That myth is keeping you broke. In this episode, Jess and Brandon break down why starting now —even with just $5—is more powerful than waiting for the "perfect" moment.
They call out outdated advice that tells you to wait, and show you how to grow wealth while paying off debt. You’ll learn why index funds are your low-risk, high-impact secret weapon, and exactly how to start investing—even if you're overwhelmed or on a tight budget.
This isn’t about hype. It’s about time, math, and using both to your advantage.
Hit play and take the first step toward financial freedom—imperfect action beats perfect planning every time.
Visit prenups.com/sugardaddy to learn more about fair prenups that help couples plan for a healthy financial relationship.
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Chapters
00:00 - Investing Now vs. Waiting
03:39 - Time in Market vs. Dave Ramsey
06:20 - Breaking Down Investment Barriers
10:52 - Debt Reduction Service Introduction
15:34 - Understanding Financial Advisor Fee Models
22:28 - DIY Investing vs. Professional Guidance
28:28 - Breaking Down Index Funds
31:15 - Getting Started with Limited Income
Transcript
WEBVTT
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This episode is sponsored by Prenupscom.
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Backslash sugardaddy and get the prenup that helps you stay married.
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Already married, no worries.
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They do postnuptial agreements too.
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That's what Brandon and I did after eight years of marriage.
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Think investing is only for people with six figures in the bank.
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That's what they want you to believe.
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Today we're breaking down how to start building wealth with what you have and why waiting until you're rich enough is the fastest way to stay broke.
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We hope you tune in Sugar Daddy Podcast yo Learn how to make them pockets grow.
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Financial freedom's where we go.
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We hope you tune in.
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Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
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Today we are talking about why you need to start investing right now or yesterday, instead of waiting until you can invest hundreds or thousands of dollars.
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Yeah, I would say that's one of the biggest things that I do come across for people is that they are waiting till they're completely out of debt, waiting till they have more money saved up.
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Waiting for the raise, the promotion, the bonus.
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Always waiting for a quote unquote the perfect opportunity to start investing when there is no perfect opportunity to start investing, Just today.
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Today is the day right.
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Yeah, and I would also say that was one of the main gripes that I have when it comes to Dave Ramsey's method.
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Oh, we're going there early.
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Yeah, I mean Dave Ramsey's method has you pay off all of your debt outside of your mortgage before he recommends that you start investing, and I think that's a huge miss.
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Why.
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Well, as we've talked about before, one of the biggest benefits to investing is time time in the market.
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The more time you have on your side for investing, the better the outcome is going to be, because you have compound interest on your side and you have a longer period for it to work for you.
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Right.
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We've even seen models online where people will show okay, if you start investing less, but you have more time, versus doubling or even tripling that amount, but you have less time, your outcomes are always going to be more favorable when you started earlier, even with less money.
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Oh yeah, like I said, the number one benefit is time.
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The longer time that you have to be in the market, the better the outcome is going to be, the more money you're going to have at the end of the day.
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Okay, so why do you think people wait to invest?
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Well, honestly, this is what we've been told for years on end.
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Is that?
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Oh, you know, we need to wait to invest.
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Also, you know, prior to technology becoming better, you know, don't do a lot of hurdles in order to just invest it wasn't quite as simple as it is now, where you can simply do this online, as compared to before, you actually had to do it through a person.
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Right.
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So our parents experiences at a younger age when it comes to investing is all that they have.
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Parents' experiences at a younger age when it comes to investing is all that they have.
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So, essentially, when we're asking them about investing at a younger age, this is where they're coming from and this is why they think it's a lot harder of a hurdle for you to start investing.
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Well, and then let's not even forget to mention women when it comes to finances and investing, owning our own things right.
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Like you couldn't open a credit card by yourself, or a line of credit until what was it like 1974?
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I think it was 1974, 1975 was when women could have credit cards.
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Yeah, it was only about 50 years ago.
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Yeah, I mean that's insane.
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Which is crazy because that's only nine years before I was born.
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Right that women could go and open their own bank accounts.
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I mean that's without the signature of their husband or father.
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I mean that's mind blowing.
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And I'm not going to glaze over the truth that financial services has not made it easy for people.
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You know, I would even say today, a good portion of the financial services industry doesn't focus on the everyday person.
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You know they focus on the rich, the wealthy because they make more money that way.
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So you know they are going to focus more on them when there should be more of a focus on the everyday person because that's the largest demographic.
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On how you can invest, what are the strategies, what is the you know easy way to get just into doing it to begin with.
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So a good portion of it is also on the financial services industry itself.
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Well, and we've even had guests on the podcast who've said hey, the reason I know how to do this now is because I was turned away from a financial advisor or from a wealth advisor, or whatever we want to call people like you, right, which is I mean.
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Yes, there are obviously firms and people who only work with individuals who have a certain net worth, but that's so discouraging, like you said, for the average person who's like no, I want to figure this out, I want to do better, I want to build my family's wealth, but I'm literally getting turned away.
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All right, real quick.
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I want to speak to the person listening who feels like they can't work with a financial planner yet because they're carrying a lot of debt.
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First of all, I see you and I need you to know.
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You're not broken, you're not behind.
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You're just in a tough season.
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I created something just for you because I've had people reach out who are serious about changing their money story.
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But the full financial planning package just wasn't the right fit yet.
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So I built a new service through Oak City Financial that's focused completely on debt reduction no fluff, no shame.
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You'll get a one-time planning session, a personalized payoff strategy, your own financial dashboard and monthly coaching.
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If you want extra support while you climb out, it's $300 to get started and $100 a month.
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If you want that ongoing guidance, that's it.
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This is about helping you get unstuck, not making you feel like you failed.
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If this sounds like what you've been needing, go ahead and schedule a call with me.
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The link is in the show notes.
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Let's take the first step together.
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So that's something to consider too.
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I mean, that's part of why I have my service model, because the traditional service model for financial advisors is the assets under management, so they get paid AUM.
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So they get paid a percentage based upon how much of that individual's assets they're managing from an investment standpoint.
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So if they're most people, kind of the rule of thumb is a 1% asset under management fee.
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So if someone has a million dollar portfolio that the person that the advisor isn't the advisor is managing, then they get $10,000.
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If the person has a $500,000 investment portfolio, then the financial advisor is getting $5,000.
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So you can see where it's more advantageous to work with those individuals with higher investment portfolios for them to manage because you get more money.
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But that's why my service model is different, so that you have individuals that can still pay these certain fees, but I don't have to manage these large portfolios in order to work with them.
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Well, and that's where I think the internet goes crazy.
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And it's like never pay a financial advisor a percentage of your portfolio.
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You're getting scammed.
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I mean, there's all those things, too, where it's like, well, you could be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars over the quote unquote lifetime of your portfolio in 1% asset under management fees.
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Don't do that.
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And then people are like, well, I guess I can't work with an advisor, but then they don't do it themselves.
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So then you're back to square one, which is you're not investing.
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Yeah, so I don't you know me.
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I don't like when people say all or none.
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Right.
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So I would never say don't you know me?
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I don't like when people say all or none Right, so I would never say don't work with a asset under management advisor, don't pay for crappy advice is what I'm focused on.
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So a person could be charging a 1% asset under management and it equates to the same, as you know me charging you a monthly fee, but they're just charging it differently, even though the outcome is the same.
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The biggest thing you want to focus on is do you believe that what you're paying for, do you value?
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it Justifies the cost Correct.
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Are you getting out of this what you believe you should, based upon what you are paying, and that's what should be the metric, because I think a lot of people could miss out like, oh, I'm not going to work for this person because they do an AUM fee, and this person could be providing you above and beyond service of what they're actually charging you based upon their AUM.
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So I think the focus needs to be on what is the end product that you're getting, what is the end results, the guidance that you are receiving, based upon what you're paying, not how it's being paid per se.
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Yeah.
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And then also, too, is like with the whole like starting to investing once again.
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It kind of the same thing we've talked about when it comes to saving.
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People feel some shame if they can't save or invest a certain amount of money.
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So if you're like, oh, I want to be able to invest $500 a month, $400 a month, but you don't have that, then these people just wait until they have that and you're missing out on the biggest component.
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That's in your favor and that's time.
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So, biggest component, that's in your favor and that's time.
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So, even if it's only $5, $10, that is better than zero, and I cannot stress that enough.
00:09:26.789 --> 00:09:46.677
Well, and one of the things that I think you've repeatedly talked about on the podcast is building the habit of either you know you set a timer, you set a calendar invite for yourself and you go in on you know the first Saturday of of the month and you move some money over into your investment accounts, or, even better, you automate it so you get in that habit of you're not going to miss that $5 coming out of your account.
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Right, you're just not going to miss it, but in a few months when you look at it and it's growing, you're going to be reminded of oh, $5 does do something.
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$5 is better than nothing.
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Oh, 100%.
00:10:00.331 --> 00:10:07.196
And, as you said before, once you've been doing $10 a month for two or three months you're like, oh, I don't miss that, let me up at the 20.
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Another few months pass, I don't miss 20.
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Let me go in and up at the 40.
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And you don't have to have this drastic increase.
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It can be a gradual increase but, like you said, it's getting the habit started.
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That's the biggest thing.
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Yeah, what else do you want people to know?
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Because there's so much noise around investing, right, you have some platforms that are like it's so easy, you can do it yourself, you don't need to pay anybody.
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And then other people are like no, there's so much risk, you can mess it up, you need to pay somebody.
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So there's a lot of just two sides of the aisle and I think it's overwhelming for people who are like okay, everybody keeps telling me it's easy to get started, but I literally do not know how.
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So technology definitely changed the game.
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Having improvements in technology has definitely lowered the barrier of entering for the majority of people, but then also, just you know, more access to information has helped people to understand their options that are available to them a little bit more.
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But then also it can be a bit of noise where it's hard to decipher what is true, what is false and what is applicable to your situation.
00:11:12.038 --> 00:11:16.836
So, with you know new technologies such as robo-advisors, I think.
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I think robo advisors can be used for a very early on person in their career.
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You know, you just got out of college, your first full time job, and you don't have a ton of assets, but you do want to start the process of investing.
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I think a robo advisor can be very helpful for you because your financial situation is not very complicated.
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You, because your financial situation is not very complicated, a lot of the robo advisors will provide you with some basic education when it comes to investing in index funds, etfs, and help you to pick a portfolio that will perform decent based upon you know, your age and your risk tolerance.
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And where do I find these robo advisors?
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I mean you can find them at a lot of the you know large financial institutions.
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So you know Fidelity, charles Schwab, I think most people out here you know heard about Robinhood.
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I wouldn't necessarily go with Robinhood, I'm not the biggest fan of them.
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I think their user interface is done very well and the reason for it being done very well is that's their draw.
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They make it very easy for people to do things.
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But I think you could get better service, lower fees at you know, like a Charles Schwab Fidelity places like that.
00:12:26.845 --> 00:12:31.780
Okay, what do you say to the people twofold who have debt?
00:12:31.780 --> 00:12:36.057
I think we kind of addressed it at the beginning, right Of like yes, you have debt.
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Yes, Before we hop into that, remember you were talking about, like the people that are DIY and stuff like that that maybe can't do it themselves.
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Like I said before, I think very few people are DIY and I think if you are a true DIY where you are going to be able to check all the boxes consistently throughout the course of your life from a financial standpoint, more than likely you've done this or you are doing this as your profession.
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Most people that's not what they're doing.
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You're going to miss something.
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Yes.
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So even if you want to be a DIY person, I still think you can benefit from at least having some check-ins with a financial planner to make sure that you're not missing in your blind spots, because I can tell you that I've met with several DIYers and they're missing things and, in all honesty, they're very basic things.
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Like I look at their financial situation, within two seconds I could point out five or six things that they missed that are very basic.
00:13:26.462 --> 00:13:31.299
So that's why I said that most people can't be a DIY fully on their own.
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Be honest.
00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:39.543
But the DIYers that you have encountered are DIYing because they have an interest, but also because they just want to save money.
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Oh, that's the main reason people DIY.
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No one says that like, oh, I don't mind spending a bunch of money, but I'd rather do it myself.
00:13:51.556 --> 00:14:28.941
Well, but here's the thing vastly underinsured when it comes to their life insurance, people who are, you know, making decisions to cancel life insurance policies or different things because they want to save a little bit more money right now, and you know, like there's just decisions that I know we've talked about that are being made or not being made, because when you're looking at your finances from one singular lens, you're you have blind spots, right, you've you're looking at your finances from one singular lens, you have blind spots, right, you're focused on those numbers in a very emotional way and you can't step back far enough to see the full picture.
00:14:29.490 --> 00:14:41.479
It's also hard because there's a lot of different disciplines within financial planning, and so you might be able to oh, I can DIY my investment portfolio from a very basic standpoint of using index funds.
00:14:41.479 --> 00:14:53.515
Yeah you could probably do that, but that's just one area and they all overflow into each other, and that's the hardest thing I think people have the ability to do is take a step back and see how each piece interconnects.
00:14:54.417 --> 00:15:04.509
Yeah, no, that's a great call out because it is a portfolio, for a reason, right, that term indicates that there's various segments.
00:15:04.509 --> 00:15:08.080
Right, you need your what do you call them?
00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:14.200
Not your protections, but your different insurances.
00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:14.821
What are they called?
00:15:14.821 --> 00:15:18.692
You call them something, I don't know.
00:15:18.692 --> 00:15:18.874
Okay.
00:15:18.874 --> 00:15:22.841
Risk mitigation no no no, it's, it'll come to me, but that's okay.
00:15:22.841 --> 00:15:32.682
I mean, it's just a lot of times, you know, you say that everybody knows what they need to do, but you're also the person holding people's hands, making sure things get across the finish line.
00:15:32.929 --> 00:15:36.352
Yeah, and I think everyone can benefit from working with an advisor.
00:15:36.352 --> 00:15:47.581
However, you know there is an entry level from a fee standpoint to work with an advisor and some of these people are not at that point where it makes sense to pay that fee to do the full planning.
00:15:47.581 --> 00:15:54.005
So, you know, the robo advisor can work for you in certain aspects to at least get you started and get a portion of the plan in place.
00:15:54.005 --> 00:15:58.152
Because, let me understand, the robo-advising is not financial planning.
00:15:58.152 --> 00:16:01.461
The robo-advising is helping you with your investing.
00:16:01.903 --> 00:16:15.272
That's it, and we had a whole episode on comprehensive financial planning versus AI and robo-advisors and we break down the pros and the cons and how financial advisors like Brandon can use AI to help them in their practice.
00:16:15.272 --> 00:16:21.683
So, we're not against AI and robo advisors, but there are limitations and it's not comprehensive financial planning.
00:16:21.909 --> 00:16:27.616
Yeah, For example, the robo advisors aren't going to ask you what is your goals in two years, five years, 10 years?
00:16:27.616 --> 00:16:29.120
How much student loan debt do you have?
00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:30.571
How much credit card debt do you have?
00:16:30.910 --> 00:16:31.971
Do you want to start a family?
00:16:31.971 --> 00:16:33.774
Are you looking to buy a house?
00:16:34.114 --> 00:16:34.754
What is your current?
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How much do you have in your emergency fund?
00:16:37.015 --> 00:16:39.118
They're really not going to ask you those questions.
00:16:39.118 --> 00:16:49.386
It really is focused on the investment portfolio only, and I just want to make sure that people understand that that is a piece of the financial planning puzzle, but it's not all of it.
00:16:50.169 --> 00:16:51.754
Right, all right.
00:16:51.754 --> 00:16:52.395
Where do you want to go?
00:16:52.836 --> 00:16:55.371
We can go into the debt part now, sorry, Okay, that's fine.
00:16:56.615 --> 00:17:02.850
So for people who are saying, well, I have debt, I really want to pay off my debt before I start investing, we kind of touched on it at the beginning.
00:17:02.850 --> 00:17:04.336
But what do you say to those people?
00:17:05.030 --> 00:17:07.510
You can do both, as we said before.
00:17:07.510 --> 00:17:13.018
For example, obviously, if you have credit card debt or any other type of debt, you do want to be focused on paying that off.
00:17:13.018 --> 00:17:28.438
However, even if you're just doing five, 10, $20 towards investing, it makes a difference, and I think people often think that they have to focus everything on their debt and wait.
00:17:28.438 --> 00:17:30.482
They're going to miss out on years of possibly investing.
00:17:30.482 --> 00:17:45.076
And one of the biggest things there is just to say, like if you're employed at a company that has a 401k plan and you're not investing your 401k plan because you're focused solely on paying off debt, Now you're also possibly missing off, missing out on an employer match.
00:17:45.526 --> 00:17:47.011
Don't miss on your employer match.
00:17:47.726 --> 00:17:52.155
So let's just say, hypothetically, your employer provides a 3% match.
00:17:52.155 --> 00:18:07.596
Okay, so if you're just, you just do the 3%, so you're taking full advantage of the match, because now you're getting free money and that free money being invested over years, allowing compound interest to do its thing, it's going to pay off for you so much more in the end.
00:18:07.596 --> 00:18:10.372
Now I'm not saying don't focus on paying off the debt.
00:18:10.372 --> 00:18:13.428
That is definitely a focus point, but it shouldn't be the only focus.
00:18:14.490 --> 00:18:17.136
What about the people who are just?
00:18:17.136 --> 00:18:24.417
You know, the stock market's going crazy and everybody's like do I move my money, Do I not?
00:18:24.417 --> 00:18:30.707
This is, you know, these are unprecedented times, the amount of unprecedented times we, as millennials, have been through.
00:18:30.707 --> 00:18:33.794
Can I just say I'm over the unprecedented times?
00:18:33.794 --> 00:18:37.813
But what would you say to the people who are just like I, can't put.
00:18:37.813 --> 00:18:38.674
It's like gambling.
00:18:38.674 --> 00:18:41.213
I don't want to put my money in the market because it's gambling.
00:18:41.213 --> 00:18:42.308
I'd rather put it in the bank.
00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:44.606
It's not gambling I can.
00:18:44.606 --> 00:18:45.790
It's not gambling at all.
00:18:46.031 --> 00:18:46.753
But there's risk.
00:18:46.753 --> 00:18:48.852
So what do you say to the people?
00:18:49.164 --> 00:18:52.692
But the risks are minimum when you're focused on a long-term investing strategy.
00:18:52.692 --> 00:18:56.239
If you were to cause, we're talking about like 20 plus years here.
00:18:56.239 --> 00:19:08.823
So if you look at investing in the stock market, no, no, as long as the stock market has existed, if you invested for a 20 year period, at any point in time you are up over that period.
00:19:08.823 --> 00:19:17.513
You can start at any year the market has existed and then go 20 years out and you are, you are, you're going to have growth in the market.
00:19:17.513 --> 00:19:19.451
So it's not gambling.
00:19:20.085 --> 00:19:23.275
I mean, I know last year we were at almost 25% growth.
00:19:23.525 --> 00:19:30.336
You're going to have up and down days, up and down years, but over the long term is what we are focusing on, is the long term investing.
00:19:30.336 --> 00:19:34.733
You are going to be up, so it is not gambling by any means.
00:19:35.204 --> 00:20:02.394
Well, and we're not talking about day trading and picking individual stocks and so the average individual should not be picking individual stocks to invest in, especially when you're starting out, because one that is a much more complicated process in regards to analyzing a stock and there's multiple ways to analyze a stock and you know it's much easier to simply focus on, you know, index funds and also it's a less.
00:20:02.394 --> 00:20:06.971
You know it's less expensive to do index funds from a diversification standpoint, so you're able.
00:20:06.971 --> 00:20:14.637
Part of diversifying your portfolio is part of the risk mitigation aspect as well, so that helps with lowering the potential of losing money.
00:20:14.637 --> 00:20:15.865
So that helps with lowering the potential of losing money.
00:20:15.885 --> 00:20:27.634
I mean, I think when people talk about investing right, you're thinking of the Wolf of Wall Street, the crazy I hope you're not thinking of the Wolf of Wall Street that is illegal In suits on the trading floor.
00:20:27.634 --> 00:20:34.221
Everybody's shouting into their phones, yelling at the screen right Like that's not what we're talking about.
00:20:34.840 --> 00:20:35.541
Yeah, most people.
00:20:35.541 --> 00:20:47.078
When you're starting out honestly even not just starting out you know a core portion of your portfolio should be just index funds, like when I'm working with clients, I'm not looking to beat the market.
00:20:48.040 --> 00:20:55.192
That's not what I'm, that's not what I'm aspiring to do, because if I could consistently beat the market, then I'd be a hedge fund manager and I'd be a billionaire.
00:20:55.192 --> 00:20:56.997
But that's I'm, not Warren Buffett.
00:20:56.997 --> 00:21:11.776
And so a basic portfolio of index funds based upon your age and your risk tolerance works perfectly fine, and that's where most people should start, and that should also still be the bulk of your portfolio, moving forward.
00:21:12.545 --> 00:21:13.565
What is an index fund?
00:21:13.565 --> 00:21:21.192
People always talk about how good they are, how little they cost, like, what is it and why is it important?
00:21:21.212 --> 00:21:28.617
The easiest way for me to describe what an index fund is is that there's different indexes that we use to measure the performance of the market.
00:21:28.617 --> 00:21:40.277
The most common index that people have heard of even though maybe you haven't heard it mentioned this way is the S&P 500 index, and that is made up of the 500 largest US companies on the stock market.
00:21:40.277 --> 00:21:47.395
Okay, and when you hear the market is up or the market is down, this amount, normally they're referring to the S&P 500.
00:21:47.395 --> 00:21:54.338
And it's kind of just a microcosm to measure the broad perspective of how the market is performing.
00:21:54.338 --> 00:22:06.434
So, once again, instead of investing in a single stock, when you're investing in an S and P 500 index fund, you are investing in all those 500 companies a little portion of yes as compared to.
00:22:06.454 --> 00:22:24.549
I'm just going to invest in Apple, I'm just going to invest in Microsoft and by investing in an index fund, you are lowering your risk because you are diversifying the potential of losing money across 500, you know essentially companies as compared to if you were invested in maybe two or three individual stocks.
00:22:25.310 --> 00:22:30.406
Okay, so you're you're kind of buying little pieces in bulk instead of picking one company.
00:22:30.406 --> 00:22:31.488
Correct yeah.
00:22:31.488 --> 00:22:32.888
Mitigating risk.
00:22:32.888 --> 00:22:45.301
Yeah, okay, what do you think is keeping kind of the average person from moving forward with their investing journey?
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