How to Retire Rich & Still Have a Family
Today, we welcome Joe DiSanto. He spent his childhood riding BMX bikes, breakdancing, and memorizing 80’s movies, but the carefree days of youth wouldn’t last long. By 13 he was working as a busboy, helping his recently-divorced mom, and picking up some of his own tabs. A valuable lesson was learned: If you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you. From that point on, he made it his mission to learn everything he could about making smart money moves.
It paid off. By age 30, Joe had wiped out $70k in student loans, bought his first house, and started a post-production company in Los Angeles. Over the next decade, the company grew to 30+ employees with over 5 million in annual revenue, while producing two critically-acclaimed documentaries and an Emmy-winning HBO series. During this time, he and his wife also transacted on 15 residential and commercial real estate properties. But nothing had a more life-changing impact than the birth of their son.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
[2:11] About his background and his work in Hollywood
[7:13] How he and his wife changed their mind about the business when they had a kid
[10:07] He found in real estate a passive income and then create his website: playlouder.com
[10:32] His motto is work smarter, play better, and play louder
[13:59] His point of view about retirement and how he handles money and investments.
[17:15] How he helps people with their money to find creative ways to invest and coaching
[18:39] The courses he has on his website to find financial independence roadmap
[19:38] The three pillars he calls for success
[24:08] How to be conscious about retirement and calculations about how old you are and if it’s more fun spending money or investing smartly
[26:35] How to be tax-efficient (like the secret fourth pilar)
Joe’s Top Tips
“I always had a hope of earlier retirement. And luckily, I managed to get that a little bit earlier than even I expected. And now I try to share that information in my knowledge with both my clients and also anybody who's interested in it through my website, playloder.com. I got to the point of owning a business in the post-production industry in Los Angeles or Hollywood”
“The reason we were able to do that is that I was into finance. I guess probably a lot like your listeners to this podcast and they're looking for unique investing ideas and trying to figure out how to make the most of their savings, I was just like them and managed to make some good moves and figure out a few things and doing that allowed me to compound the money we were saving and get it into a nice position where it's giving us a good portion of our income, is coming from the passive income from a real estate”
“Now I'm enjoying a lot freer time. I'm in this position, but what my website really does is a blog. And basically, I'm just giving all sorts of information my own information from my life and what I've learned over the years just away free, whoever wants to read it, I'm sharing all my thoughts and all the stuff I've cobbled together. So that's the website”
“Your business is one thing, but your money enters your life and your business. And it really just only becomes meaningful when it's like in your savings account. And it's in the bank, if you own a business and you spend most of the money in the business tank, you don't take them much well. So, I really started to educate people that you got to take the business, bookkeeping and the business financial management and apply those same principles to your personal life and really do personal bookkeeping, personal financial management, and look at it as one whole system”
“You have to spend some time figuring out how you can utilize your business status and real estate investments to be more tax-efficient, you really have to do in my opinion, the bookkeeping for your business, but also for your personal life. So, tracking your income and expenses really having good data and knowing that you're doing a good job and you're being prudent with your money”
“You have to figure out how you're going to invest those savings it's like keeping as much of the money as you're making while also enjoying your life. I was never really a super frugal person, to be honest, but I was smart about my money. And then I spent money on things that were important to me and I didn't waste money on stuff that didn't matter to me. And then figuring out what's the best way to invest those savings so that they're growing working as hard as they can for you while you're continuing to do your day job”
“I like managing my money I like learning about investments. I like that whole process so for me it was always kind, being naturally inquisitive on a topic that I enjoy, but for others is the last thing they want to do and combine that with limited time because like I said, as you get more responsibility in this world in the job, the hours go up, they don't go down, and the finances fall by the wayside, I think you leave a lot of money on the table. And which ultimately translates into just more years of work”
“And that's part of the problem. It's like I say to people, you go on a road trip, and you have no map, and you don't exactly know where you're going, I guess that could be fun. And the irony is, that could be really fun, if like, you just got out of college or whatever, just want to have a good time”
“If I need to make more, I really need to take that seriously. How do I do that? I think it just changes your mindset to being more entrepreneurial and even at your regular job like I always say to people you know in that case because while not every career allows you to go do a business you know so I say if you can do a business not only do you get the benefit of hopefully making more money controlling your income controlling your time”
“It's a hard challenge for everybody to be proactive on the saving and the financial prudency part, well within everybody's control immediately and most people are not doing anything on that front at all, they don't even like to track any of their expenses in some kind of computer program or whatever a spreadsheet and you're just budgeting app and doing it, that's not good enough you're just you're lying to yourself”.
Mike’s Top Tip’s
“Believe me we pay taxes but we also are smart and I don't like people that complain and bitch about all these things, but then we'll do anything to fix it. Yeah, okay, quit, I mean, quit bitching to me about it, change your lifestyle whether you do passive income investments, or go into business yourself, there are ways that you can also save with your income, by doing depreciation and write-offs, so you can not owe as much tax”.
“Sorry people that keeping up with the Joneses might be nice for the next 10 15 years. But there's going to be guys like Joe and I that don't care what the Joneses do and we're going to be 55 60 and we're the ones that are going to be sipping my ties and you're still going to be working because you have all of these expenses, where my house is going to be paid off because I don't need a bigger house every five years. Mike cars are actually through the business because I own a business so do business expenses so how can I not have any personal costs and, minimize my personal costs. It's something that needs to be talked about and I know Joe that through your website, playlouder.com can help people and work these types of issues and get a foundation established for our listeners”
“If you're interested in getting ahead in life retiring early, and having more control of your life, even though I work a lot of hours, I control when I work, And, then I can go golf if I want in the morning, or I can work in through in my RV or I can work up at my cabin. These are the different things I'm still working on. But I get to choose where, when, and I have more control, I'm happier. And that's what we all want, I think”
Resources from Joe
LinkedIn | Instagram | Play Louder
ABOUT JOE DISANTO
Joe DiSanto spent his childhood riding BMX bikes, breakdancing, and memorizing 80’s movies, but the carefree days of youth wouldn’t last long. By 13 he was working as a busboy, helping his recently-divorced mom, and picking up some of his own tabs. A valuable lesson was learned: If you don’t deal with your money, your money will deal with you. From that point on, he made it his mission to learn everything he could about making smart money moves.
It paid off. By age 30, Joe had wiped out $70k in student loans, bought his first house, and started a post-production company in Los Angeles. Over the next decade, the company grew to 30+ employees with over 5 million in annual revenue, while producing two critically-acclaimed documentaries and an Emmy-winning HBO series. During this time, he and his wife also transacted on 15 residential and commercial real estate properties. But nothing had a more life-changing impact than the birth of their son.
After a successful 19-year run in L.A., the couple decided to slow down and invest in their new family. They cashed out of the business and bought into small-town life on the Florida coast. Having semi-retired at age 43, Joe’s efforts are now focused on his educational blog Play Louder, where he shares a lifetime of fiscal know-how to help individuals and business owners navigate their finances, increase their net worth, and plan better for their future.