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Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:05] You are listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. We believe hosting with heart is at the core of every short-term rental. With Annette’s background in business operation–

Annette Grant: [00:00:14] And Sarah’s extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 countries, earning us over $1,000,000 and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:28] We love sharing creative ways for your listing to stand out, serve your guests, and be profitable. Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term rental industry–

Annette Grant: [00:00:39] Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement actual improvements to your rentals. Whether you’re experienced, new, or nervous to start your own short-term rental, we promise you’ll feel right at home. Before we dive into the content, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:01] Hey, welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: [00:01:05] I am Annette Grant and together we are– 

Both Annette & Sarah: [00:01:07] Thanks for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:08] We’re going to kick off this episode like we do every week, and that’s sharing one of you, our amazing listeners, viewers who’s using our hashtag #STRShareSunday. Why Sunday? Why not? We share you on Instagram, our email list, the YouTubes, here on the podcast. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

Annette Grant: [00:01:24] This week we are sharing @wooded.wanderlust. And that’s W-A– I guess I should say, wander, wander, wander, whatever. Wooded wanderlust. And I want to give Marie and Omar a huge shout out. Here’s what they did. Pay attention. Take notes. They were voted and featured on Travel Guide Asheville as one of the best vacation rentals. Here’s the deal with this, everybody. This is genius. I don’t know if they wrote in or if they were nominated, but you got to go after that PR because here’s the deal. 

That travel guide has 73,000 followers on Instagram. I didn’t look them up anywhere else beforehand. But listen, they shouted them out. They got that PR. Genius, Marie and Omar. However you got on that travel guide, kudos to you because I am sure they are going to get some direct bookings and just guests that saw their property on that travel guide. 

So if you haven’t reached out to a local travel blogger, a local travel guide, put that on your list of things for this year. You’ve got to do your own PR, You just can’t sit back and wait for it. And Sarah, I think that’s a lovely intro to the guest that we have on today, because she is a go-getter. She is going to get out there and get the PR for her and her brand. 

Sarah, let’s talk about our guest a little bit, though. I’m going to say it. We’re just going to say we actually met her via the gram. Well, I did and bought her course. We’ll talk about that later. But Sarah and I, it’s probably one of the first people we’ve ever literally met on a boat, on a nice boat in Columbia.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:03] In Columbia.

Annette Grant: [00:03:03] Her and Sarah share birthdays. Are they the exact same day?

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:08] Are you November 12th, Delyanne?

Delyanne Barros: [00:03:10] November 18.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:11] 18.

Annette Grant: [00:03:11] Close enough.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:12] But we’re Scorpios. It’s a Scorpio season and we were celebrating. Yeah.

Annette Grant: [00:03:15] So everyone was scared. The ones that know them well, I’m just joking, anyways. But we’re going to get into how we know Delyanne. And, Sarah, let’s give some accolades before we get started though.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:24] Yeah, Delyanne is an award-winning investing coach. She’s taught over 6,000 students how to slay the stock market and has over 500,000 followers across her social media platforms. And this is the really cool part that I hope we have time to talk about a little bit today too. She’s a former employment attorney who plans to retire in Portugal for very specific reasons. Delyanne, welcome to the show.

Delyanne Barros: [00:03:48] Thank you. Happy to be here.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:50] Okay. So listeners, you heard that right. Slay the stock market, not the real estate market. We are going rogue today because Annette and I– Delyanne, we will share this with you too– we are figuring out how we can better allocate our profits, so not what we pay ourselves, but our profits towards investing, yes, into real estate and to more short-term rentals, but also to diversify in the market as well. Because we believe in a really healthy, diversified situation. Did I miss anything there, Annette?

Annette Grant: [00:04:26] I don’t think so. And I’ll be honest, I bought Delyanne’s course. I feel very versed in the stock market, but she was speaking to something very specific, which was financial independence and also index funds. And I was like, “Let’s dive in here.” I owe it to myself to continue my education. And I hadn’t really purchased any sort of course around the stock market before, and I was digging her vibe and I was like, “Let’s do this.” 

So I wanted to make that investment in myself. And now, like Sarah said, we’re making sure that profits from not only our business, our short-term rentals are going to be diversified. So Delyanne, how did you get into this? You’re an employment attorney. Weren’t you just going to do that forever?

Delyanne Barros: [00:05:10] I know, it’s wild. First of all, I just want to say I’m so glad you guys are highlighting the fact that you can do both. Because sometimes when I talk to people in real estate, they’re like, “Why would I do that? I have my real estate portfolio that I’m investing in.” And I’m like, “There’s nothing stopping you from doing both.” One is even more passive. I would argue the stock market’s even more passive. 

So my question to you is, what are you doing with those profits? Are they just sitting in a checking or savings account? Why not put that money to work for you even further? So I’m so glad you guys see it that way, because I feel like sometimes I’m having to explain that to people or I’m pulling teeth. But anyway, so how did I get into this? Yes, I was an employment attorney for 14 years. I’ve always wanted to help people and I decided law school was the route. 

And sadly, soon after becoming an attorney and landing a job at my dream firm, I quickly realized that I did not like being a lawyer, which was heartbreaking for me. Because I’m like, “Oh, my God. I just put myself through so much school. I just spent $150,000 on my education and I do not like what I’m doing.” And it was a really big realization at that time. But I’m an overachiever. I refuse to fail at things. 

So I just put my head down and I continued to work as an employment attorney for 14 years, which is crazy when I think about it now. I’m like, “How did I even make it that long?” So this idea of, love what you do and have freedom around your work, and as long as you love what you do, you’ll never feel like you worked a day in your life. I never understood any of that. I was like, I don’t know what you guys are talking about. This is such BS. I feel like I’m going to work every day. This is freaking miserable. What are you talking about? 

And only when I finally left the law and started my business did I finally understand what people were talking about. I’m like, oh, this is what it feels like to like what you do. This is what it feels like to be in alignment with what your passion is, and what you’re good at, and how you can actually make money. When all of those things like line up together, that finally clicked for me. 

So I started transitioning away from law through my own personal journey. Like I said, I owed a ton of money in student loans and I was like, God, there’s got to be a way to pay off these loans faster. This is taking forever. And I wanted an exit strategy out of law. I’m like, “I can’t imagine myself doing this until I’m 65 years old.” 

So I started digging around the Internet as one does, and I started finding the debt-free community. The people who are like super frugal, and they sell everything they own, and they save every dollar, and they coupon and they pay down that debt. And I was like, “Okay, that’s cool, but I don’t think that’s really for me. 

So you’re digging around. Then I found the financial independence community and I was like, “Oh, this is feeling more like my vibe.” Because I didn’t understand the whole point of knocking out a bunch of debt just for the sake of knocking out debt. 

I’m like, “Knocking out my student loans is not going to get me out of law faster. So what can I do?” I didn’t see the end game there, but when I found financial independence, I’m like, “Oh, paying off my debt will get me closer to financial independence.” Now we’re talking. Now I want to get rid of those loans. 

So I started sharing my journey on Instagram as one does. And I’m like, hey, y’all, I know this is a fitness page. I’m really into fitness. I used to be a spinning instructor too on the side. Overachiever.

And I’m like, I’m going to start talking about my student loan journey and how I’m going to pay that off and how I’m starting to invest in the stock market. And people are like, okay, that’s weird, but cool. We’re here for it. And this was literally at the beginning of the pandemic, January 2020. So now there’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to do. We’re all stuck at home. 

I’m like, I’m going to double down on this page and start really developing my business here. So things started growing. I started growing the business. I created my course, Slay the Stock Market. And today the course has made over two and one half million dollars. It just exploded.

Annette Grant: [00:09:09] Say it again. Because I just love when women talk about money like that. Say it again.

Delyanne Barros: [00:09:14] Two and a half million dollars. I feel like I should go like [Inaudible].

Annette Grant: [00:09:19] Yes. Do your Austin Powers. No, that is– I mean, we have nothing to say about that, but congratulations, because that is so inspiring. Man.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:09:28] And the content that you’re sharing is just helping other humans and I’m sure a lot of women to do the same, to slay the stock market and achieve whatever financial independence means for them or financial wherewithal, I think and really understanding about how our money can make more money and how we don’t always have to trade our time for money. 
And it’s a really hard concept. And we actually were listening to something yesterday about how the reason why it’s so hard is we are just programmed from a really young age, just watching our parents trade time for money, most of us. 

And so to have any other idea that financial independence is possible for us, you almost feel like you don’t deserve it or that’s not for you, it’s for someone else. So when you were going through that in that time of developing Slay the Stock Market, what was it about having to share what you were learning that was important to you? Because you could have just done this for yourself. Or were people asking you questions and you were like, listen, there’s no people that look like you, sharing this information?

Delyanne Barros: [00:10:34] Yeah, absolutely. And this was only three years ago. I feel like even in that short amount of time, this space has exploded. There are so many more women, especially women of color, talking about these issues. But when I started, it was still mostly guys. And I would see a lot of men in the tech space or engineers, and I’m like, okay, this message, I feel like I can apply this to my life. But God, the messaging behind this is just not connecting with me. 

But I was like, well, I’ve always been really comfortable on social media. So I just started sharing, like I said, my journey about the student loans. But it obviously evolved beyond that with me talking about investing and talking about index funds, and how easy it is to invest, and how this was going to be my exit strategy out of law. 

I’m like, oh, my God, instead of having to work till I’m 65, I’m only going to have to work until I’m 45. I can literally quit at 45, stop working, and live off my investments, a concept that was never explained to me during school, at a job, from a friend, nothing. 

Something that I had to dig up and discover myself. And I’m like– and not to put myself on a pedestal at all, but I’m like, wow, I live in– I was living in New York City at the time, the mecca of the financial industry, literally three subway stops from the stock market. And I’m an attorney. I’m here 15 years and didn’t know anything about the stock market. And I’m like, “If it didn’t reach me, it certainly hasn’t reached other people, so it can’t just be me.” 

And when I started sharing online, that’s exactly what I found. I found a bunch of people who are like, “Wow, you make this so approachable. You’re doing it. That means that I can do it too. And oh, you mean I don’t have to pick stocks and I don’t have to sit in front of a computer screen like Wolf of Wall Street trying to choose these winning companies. And I don’t need thousands and thousands of dollars to get started.” 

It was debunking all of these myths that we’ve all, I think, absorbed either through media, or like you said, through our parents. And I’m glad you brought the parent thing, because what I tell people is, whatever works for our parents, unfortunately, is no longer working for us. When you think about it, they had pensions, something that’s becoming a rare bird these days. They had– you would stay at a company for 30, 40 years and you would retire from one company. You didn’t have to job hop.

It made sense to be loyal to your company. You are a company man and they were able to buy homes for so cheap. So the combination of all those things made it so that like, hey, look, I did it, why can’t you do it? And I’m like, “Things have changed a little bit, mom and dad, since you were starting out in corporate America.” And so we have to build wealth in different ways. We have to evolve with the way the economy is evolving.

Annette Grant: [00:13:27] Let’s talk about your– I follow you very closely online. And so I know at the student loan debt– I want to take it back a little ways. You did have the student loan debt. You were working the full time job. And I know you were, at the time, when this started, you were saving for a down payment on a house. So you were stockpiling cash in a savings account. 

Can you take us through when you started to learn about the index fund and the compound effect, and what happened with the paying off of the student loans in conjunction with saving for the house, and how you reconfigured how you were going to start to grow the portfolio?

Delyanne Barros: [00:14:05] Yeah, I was trying to buy in New York City for many years. And anybody who knows the New York City market, they know how competitive it is. I mean, it’s competitive everywhere today, but especially in New York City. And so I had several deals fall through. I even had one that went all the way to the contract. And they still cancelled the contract for an all-cash buyer. So I was feeling really frustrated. I’m like, “I don’t understand. Everybody says real estate is the way to build wealth and I’m struggling to make it happen for me.” I’m like, “What’s happening?” 

So I was feeling very frustrated and I had no one around me to mentor me or give me any information. And like you said, stockpiling a ton of money in a savings account. Literally didn’t know what to do with it. This is obviously money that I’ve accumulated over a 12, 13-year period. So this is my life savings. And we’re talking about $100,000 that I scraped and did everything I can to put that money together. And then I’m like, okay, well– then I discover investing in index funds. And I’m like, “Okay.” I read so many books. 

Oh, my God, I read so many blogs. I just followed so many people and I’m seeing a pattern. I’m seeing over and over again people recommending the same things. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to try this out.” So I basically took that 100k, I left 20k in my savings account as my emergency fund. I took 50k and– let me see, 50k. Yeah. I took about $50,000 and I threw it at my student loans. I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to throw 50k at the student loan to try to get the ball rolling.”

And then I’m just going to do as much work as I can to knock it out in the next year or two. And then the rest of the money I invested in a brokerage account. It was my first time ever investing outside of a 401(k). Because the 401(k) at work, you don’t have to do anything. You just show up. They do it for you. But the brokerage account, it was me. I was choosing the investments. It was all me. So I’m like, “Okay.” So here we go, $30,000, and this was October 2019. 

And I did the thing that everybody is so scared of doing. Everybody’s like, “Oh, I’m so scared of putting money in the market and then the market crashes.” I’m like, “Guess what I did. I did exactly that.” I put thousands of thousands of dollars into the stock market in October 2019 and guess what happened just four or five months later. We had the COVID crash. So I know what that feels like and it’s painful, but I’m so glad I didn’t let it scare me.

Thank God I did my research and I was mentally prepared because I kept putting that money in during 2020, all of 2020, all of 2021. And that money has made me money because I was mentally prepared for it. So I finally became debt free August of 2020. No more student loans. That was my debt free date. It was so exciting. I was crying. And that’s when my net worth just started really taking off because the conjunction of paying off the student loans and having invested really, really came together.

Annette Grant: [00:17:02] Cool. Let’s talk about it. We’re tossing around index funds all over the place. Why do you choose index funds– what are index funds and why have you chosen those as your path to wealth?

Delyanne Barros: [00:17:13] Yeah. So I quickly realized that stock picking is a losing strategy. Not only is it a losing strategy, it’s also exhausting, and it’s nerve wracking. I’ve bought individual stocks here and there in the past, but I didn’t do it until I had a ton of money invested already. And I was like, “Ah, this makes my stomach hurt. I can’t do this. This is so stressful.” When you buy a single stock, you’re putting your trust in that company that they’re going to not only perform well, but that they’re actually going to stick around.

And companies go bankrupt and disappear all the time. So that’s a really scary thought. But with an index fund, you’re not investing in just one company. You’re investing in thousands of companies. You can invest in the entire stock market, in every single company that is publicly listed in the stock market. We’re talking about thousands and thousands of companies. So you can own a piece of Apple, Amazon, Tesla, the good and the bad. You’re going to get both. 

You’re going to get the good and the bad. But what’s going to happen with the good and the bad is you’re going to get the average. What I tell people, it’s the GPA of the stock market. So if you want to hone in on the GPA of the stock market for years, you do it through an index fund. Because stock picking is very, very risky. Even the pros, the guys who do this as a full time, the guys and gals who do this as a full time job are terrible at beating an index fund. 

They are not able to do better than an index fund over the long term. So what is that GPA? It’s around 10%. So people are like, “Oh my God, it’s 10%. I can get 10% every single year?” I’m like, “No, not at 10% every single year. It’s at 10% average.” So some years you’re going to get way more. 2019, the market was up, if I’m remembering correctly, I think it was almost 30%. And then you’ve got a year like 2022 where the market was down 20%. So you’re going to have years where the market’s way up ,and you’re going to have years where the market’s way down, and the average over time is going to be 10%. 

So I tell people– I didn’t invent an index fund. I wish. It was invented many decades ago. It’s been around a long time. Warren Buffett, if you don’t know who that is, one of the best investors in the world, talks about index funds all the time. He himself has said, “When I die, in my will, it’s written that all the money passed on to my wife should be invested in index funds, and that’s how she’s going to live off of the interest.” 

So I didn’t invent this thing and it’s just something that I’m like, people don’t have time to be picking stocks. They don’t have time to research these companies. They don’t have time to read complicated K-10s, these companies reporting, their earnings and their losses. Who has time to dig through those things? I barely have time to do my taxes. So index funds are a way to get around all that. It’s you just buy it, you set it and forget it, and then you go live your life.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:20:11] You said it best, that investing in stock market is a good complement to real estate investing because obviously our listeners, they love real estate and they actually love– we’re the sickos, I think. We love active real estate investing. We love hosting vacation and short-term rentals. We enjoy making that house do something for us. And we like being in control of that house doing something for us. 

So can you talk to our listeners right now who are like, “Yeah, but I could just buy another house.” Why do you think the stock market is a really nice complement to what we already like to do?

Delyanne Barros: [00:20:47] Yeah, it’s precisely because you like doing that. You like being active in that space that this is going to allow you to do more of that. Because whatever it is– yeah, because I mean, again, you maybe only want to have a small portfolio of short-term rentals. You’re like, “This is my max, I want to stop here.” But you still have a lot of income coming in and you’re like, “Okay, but I still don’t know what to do with this income.” What a nice problem to have. And you don’t know where to put it. 

Well, the stock market will give you additional exposure. And we all know that different sectors perform differently. Sometimes the real estate market is going gangbusters and doing amazing and sometimes it’s the stock market that’s doing amazing. Sometimes it’s both. So you definitely don’t want to have all your eggs in any one basket. And I’m sure you guys talk about diversification in real estate too. So this is just going to help you diversify even further. 

And guess what, you can also– if you really like all real estate, you can also invest in real estate index funds. They’re called REITs where it’s a giant collection of real estate property. And it could be commercial property, it could be residential, whatever. And you can invest that way too. So you’re like, okay, I can’t afford to have 100 doors, but I can invest in this index fund and own like 1,000 doors, and get income from that. So there’s many, many ways to weave this into your life and weave it into your portfolio.

Annette Grant: [00:22:11] And that right there is the kicker. Sarah started it off and then Delyanne wrapped it up like this is very active. You said at the beginning too. Even if you’re the most passive real estate investor, there’s still activity to it. You do have to run the numbers. You do need to know who your property manager is. You’re still going to be the person on the hook if the HVAC goes down. It is really, really active. 

And I think the other thing too about the market is, let’s say you’re done with that active part of your real estate investing, and you want to transition to more of a passive lifestyle. This is there for you. But let’s talk about you and your financial independence, because I do want our listeners to get a taste of them getting that paycheck from just– everyone likes their passive mailbox money. We’ll align it to mailbox money, the rent checks coming in. Talk about the money that the investor can bring out of their own portfolio and mimic that mailbox money.

Delyanne Barros: [00:23:10] Yeah. I think one of the misconceptions about investing is people are like, “Okay, so I accumulate a 500,000 portfolio or a $1 million portfolio, then I go to retire. So I just– well, how do I get it out? Do I just sell the whole thing and then just move it to my savings account?” I’m like, “No, no, no, no. That is not what you do.” What you do is you only pull out what you need for that year. So you’re basically paying yourself a salary. 

And again, if you still have real estate going on the side, you don’t even have to pull that much from your stock portfolio because now it’s a combination of the real estate and the stock portfolio. And let’s say the stock market’s not having such a great year. Cool. I’m going to focus more on my rental income and I’m going to leave the money in the stock market so we can recover. 

Now, the stock market’s going gangbusters and maybe one of your rentals is empty. You don’t have a tenant over here. Cool. Well, I’m going to pull more money for my stocks and that’s going to pay the bills this year. Having diversification at retirement, having different buckets to pull from is the thing that I try to emphasize to people the most. I’m like, “You never want to pin yourself into a corner where this is your only source of income.” So having multiple sources of income is the way to go. So with a portfolio, you make and sell money in two different ways.

So you make money off of dividends, so your stocks pay you a little bonus check, literally just for owning it. Companies, why do they do this? They pay their shareholders this bonus basically for loyalty. Thank you for investing in us. Thank you for giving us your money. And we’re doing so well. Our company is so profitable that we’re actually going to give some of that back to you. Here’s a bonus. So you’re making interest off of that with the dividend. 

But then also the share price. So let’s say you bought at 50 bucks, it went up to $60. You just made $10, if you sell. So price appreciation is the other way that you make money. So I would compare that to a price appreciation that you get a real estate, the market price, and then the cash flow from renting. So you get the rental cash flow from your tenants. It’s the same thing. Your dividends is your cash flow and your share price is your market price. And those are the two ways that you make money. 

So you pay yourself a salary, you pull what you need for the year, and you leave the rest of it in the stock market to continue to compound and grow. And it’s going to fill back that hole that you just made by taking that money out. So the idea is that you can live off of this portfolio for 30 plus years. And that’s the goal. You never want to outlive your money. The goal is to always have money there just in case you do end up living to be 120 or something.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:58] Who is that for, though, Delyanne? How much would someone have to put away to be able to tap into living off of their stocks. Is it some– if they’re listening right now and they’re like, they got a couple of properties and you know what, we do have some money sitting the bank that would be nice to diversify, but I’m whatever, I’m 45 years old. Is it even worth it at this point? What do you say to those people who feel like it’s too late or how much do people really have to put away in order to tap into a future like that?

Delyanne Barros: [00:26:30] Right. It’s never too late. I even have students in my course that are 55 because, imagine, we live on average until we’re about 80. Sometimes even longer, especially for women. So that’s still a lot. That’s still 40 plus years. So that’s a lot of time. So even if it’s not money that you need right now, today, well, maybe your 60 or 70 or 80-year old self is going to need it. And if you want to pass money down to your heirs, this is also another great way to do it.

And they’re not going to have to sell a house. Again, there’s pros and cons to everything. Having to sell a house, having to deal with all of that, with a portfolio, it’s much easier to pass it down to your heirs. A lot less complicated. And so I would say, especially somebody who already is making consistent income from real estate, it’s even easier to supplement that with a stock portfolio because you’re not going to need that much money. 

It’s all about how much do you want per year? If you want 40,000 a year to be able to pull from your portfolio, you would need $1,000,000. And this comes from the 4% rule. So if you take 40,000 times 25, that is your financial independence number. You’re like, “Oh, if I just had 40,000 a year, I could cover all my bills, I would never have to work again. Take 40,000, multiply by 25. That’s your fire number, your financial independence, relax early number. 

I like to say relax instead of retire, because I think retire has like a negative connotation where people think of old people in nursing homes, your life is over. You have nothing else to contribute to the world. You have no interests. You’re not contributing to society. I’m like, “That’s not what this is.” So I say relax early. And so you take that amount of annual expenses that you’re expecting to spend multiplied by 25. There’s your financial independence number. 

And now you’re going to workshop it backwards. You’re going to be like, “Okay, well, then how much would I need to invest per year to get to $1,000,000? And how long is that going to take me?” Now, obviously the younger you are, the better it is because you get to invest a lot less and it will sit and compound for much longer, which is why I tell people start as soon as possible. 

The older you are, the more you would have to invest in order to catch up. But I tell people it doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t achieve financial independence, you’re still going to end up with more money than if you didn’t invest at all. So I tell people, what if you only had to work 20 hours a week? Maybe you can’t retire completely, or maybe you cut back and you only have to work 20 hours a week. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t you want 20 hours back to your week? 

And I think it’s important to tell people that retirement or whatever, financial independence is not all or nothing. It’s not 100% retire or just work 40 to 50 hours a week until you die. There are a lot of variations and steps in between that you might even prefer even if you had the money to fully retire. You might decide, I love my job or I love running my real estate properties. I never want to walk away from them, but I would like to do less of it. Okay, cool. You can do that. You can scale back and let this be the supplement.

Annette Grant: [00:29:42] That’s it right there. It’s, again, diversification in your own choices and how much you’re going to have to– if you want to work, if you don’t want to work. Because I know people are probably listening, okay, at the $1,000,000 I can pull out 40,000 and plus. It’s still growing every year, but I know people are like $40,000, am I going to be able to live off of that? The deal is you don’t have to live your whole entire life on that. 

It’s, can you have your real estate income? Can you maybe have a job where you’re working 10, 15, 20 hours a week? And cumulatively, maybe you’re making that six-figure salary that you’re used to? And I think I’m talking to myself about this because I very much used to be a all or nothing person of, if I can’t get all the way to this goal, then what’s the point in even doing it? 

Well, I’m going to need $10,000,000. It’s going to take me forever. So how do I figure it out faster. So I think I love you saying, if you’re just going to end up with more money at the end, no matter what that total is, just start now. Because I do think people do get in that very all or nothing state of, how do I get to the end goal immediately. And it’s just not going to happen.

Delyanne Barros: [00:30:46] Yeah. I mean, if the alternative is letting it sit in a savings account or putting it in the stock market and it being no additional sweat equity from you, one or the other, then why not choose the one where the chances are of you making more money, why wouldn’t you choose that one? And I also want to say, because I don’t want to be accused of painting an overly rosy picture. Obviously, with any kind of investing, real estate or stock market, there’s risk. 

Nothing’s 100% risk free in life, ever, ever. So I’m not here to tell anybody that index funds are 100% guaranteed. The closest thing to guarantee these days are a bond. And that’s assuming the government doesn’t up and disappear someday. But if the government does up and disappear someday, then we’re all in trouble. And you’re not even going to be able to pull your money out of your bank account anyway.

So there’s risk to everything. But what I like about the index fund and I didn’t say before is, people are like, “Well, can it go to zero? Can I lose all my money?” And I’m like, “For that to go to zero and for you to lose all your money, that means that all those thousands of companies that you just invested in, each one of those have gone bankrupt.” That means all the banks went bankrupt. Every single store, every single grocery store. Anything that’s publicly traded has gone bankrupt. 

So that means we are in zombie apocalypse mode. That means money is no longer a thing. We are in the streets bartering for food and water. It’s like Lord of the Flies out here. So that’s what it would take for the index fund to plummet and go to zero. I would rather be an optimist and operate under the idea that that probably won’t happen. And if it does, I’ll deal with that when it comes. 

So to be an investor of any kind, real estate or stock market, you have to be an optimist and you have to be a realistic optimist, obviously. But there has to be optimism there. Otherwise, how can you invest if you’re constantly thinking about everything that could go wrong? You’ll never move on to the next step.

Annette Grant: [00:32:41] I’m hoping our listeners– I think they are risk takers because they are letting strangers sleep in their beds. So I think they are a little bit risky. I’m going to just lump all of our listeners in to that in hoping that these strangers sleeping in their bed are good people. 

Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:54] I want to talk to you, so in my head, everything you say I’m relating it to real estate because that’s what I know and understand, I’m not going to lie. And I want to make a better effort of opening up my mind because I want to be limitless in how much wealth I build and I want to diversify that. 

So we’re saying that– I know how important it is to have a really knowledgeable realtor, have a really knowledgeable mortgage broker or lender, like someone who’s not going to steer me wrong, who knows a bunch of stuff about real estate law and all the different lending strategies. So what do you say to that as it relates to finding index funds? Do I need someone to help guide me? Can I do this on my own? What is a wealth manager? Is that the same thing? Where do you stand on all that?

Delyanne Barros: [00:33:39] Yeah. Okay. I’m glad you asked that. And I think that people somehow get the impression that I’m like anti financial planners, but I’m not. I think that there is a time and a place to use them and they can be extremely helpful to create your wealth ecosystem. But you do not need a financial planner to go and click a button for you and buy your index funds for you. And unfortunately, what a lot of them will do is they’ll do just that and they will charge you a hefty fee for it. 

And the whole point of investing in index funds, the whole beauty of it is that it’s a low cost index fund. It’s very, very cheap. I mean, some places even offer for free, like Fidelity. The only reason why the index fund works is because it’s low fee. If it had a big fee on it, it would not work. It would not be as successful as it is. So the only reason why it works is because it’s low fee. 

Now, if you hire a wealth manager who comes along and charges you a big 1% fee, when an index fund is charging you 0.03% or barely anything, you’ve just obliterated the whole point of the index fund. Now, the thing is that wealth manager is probably not going to be buying index fund for you. They’re going to put you in a bunch of other funds. They’re like, “No, this is much better. This is going to beat an index fund,” and blah, blah, blah. Again, all of those funds are loaded with fees. 

And remember what I told you, it’s very hard to beat an index fund. Nobody’s been able to do it consistently over a long period of time. So I think the best way, if you do want to work with a financial planner is to do it on what’s called advice only. They do not manage your investments. They  will look at your portfolio. They’ll give you their feedback. They will tell you whether you’re on track, whether you’re investing enough, or whatever. They will also help you with estate planning. Anything else that’s a little more complicated, they will help you with that. 

I also think it’s great to talk to a financial planner when you’re getting closer to retirement, when it’s time to start pulling the money out and you’re like, “Ooh, should I pull money out of my Roth IRA or should I pull money out of my brokerage account? Or should I lean on my real estate income? How should I cobble together all of these different buckets of money in the most tax efficient way?” Beautiful thing for a financial planner to help you with that. Your CPA and your financial planner working together, ah, it’s a beautiful thing. 

But you do not need a financial planner at the beginning of your wealth journey. Very, very beginning where you’re like, I’m just starting out. You can go and buy an index fund in 15 minutes on Fidelity, on Vanguard. It’s not a big deal. Do your research. Everybody here is more than capable of figuring this out. 

I just don’t want anybody being so nervous that they’re like, “Oh, no, I’m just going to let a professional buy these index funds for me,” and you’re paying this crazy fee. It’s literally going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of that portfolio.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:35] I just learned something. Because you know and it feels so scary, because we’re brought up to believe that it is a scary thing to think about. Because it’s, ooh, it’s investing and it’s, I don’t know, stocks and maybe I’m alone there.

Annette Grant: [00:36:48] No, no. Actually I’m going to shout out my wealth manager, Mark Phillips. Hey, Mark. No, because there was a time when I was super scared to invest and there was some money that I wanted to pull out to do something very personal to me. And he was so– that fear that Sarah was talking about, I just will always appreciate this. My nickname is Nettie. He’s like, “Nettie, this is your money.” 

This fear inducing tactics were “by old white men” who were like, they are making money off of your money. So you have to understand where the messaging was coming from, where the messaging was rooted and think about that. And that was the thing in this fund. He was like, “That’s your money. Why are you scared to use your own money in a way that you’ve really thought through how you want to use it?” 

And that day that he just really told me where this marketing and where this mindset came from, it really did help flip the script for me and think about that messaging was for other people to continue to grow their wealth on the money that we were putting away. So I was really thankful for that. I don’t know. That was one of those light bulb moments. And I was like, “Oh, wait.” That changed it all around for me, for sure.

Delyanne Barros: [00:38:05] And it sounds like he’s a great wealth planner if he’s talking to you that way, which unfortunately a lot of them aren’t. A lot of them will– I get stories all the time where they’re like, “Oh, mine’s so condescending. I can barely get them on the phone. When I ask a question, they don’t explain.” And,  usually they’re overworked, they have too many clients, so they’re not able to provide the level of service that you want. 

And some of them, the ones that you actually want that are good, sometimes you can’t get to them because they will have like a minimum like, “Oh, if you don’t even have at least $250,000, I can’t even take you as a client.” 

Obviously that’s a massive barrier to entry to a lot of people. They’re like, “I don’t have a quarter million dollars sitting around for you to manage.” I called around to get a new tax preparer because I’m moving abroad, as we mentioned, and I’m like, “Oh, my God, I need a new tax preparer who knows about expat law?” And I’ve been calling around interviewing people, and one of them was like, “Oh, this sounds like a perfect fit.” And they’re like, “Oh, by the way, if you want to hire us, we also have to manage your investments.” 

I’m like, “What does that have to do with my taxes? What do you mean you have to manage my investments?” She’s like, “Oh, yeah, that’s the deal.” So I already see what this is. I’m like, they want a foreign investment so they can charge me an extra fee, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, “Absolutely not.” So I was like, “I’m not interested.” So it’s hard to find a good person who we can connect with, who’s going to respect our wishes, who aren’t going to talk down to us. 

And also, again, there’s fraud in every industry, but when you put your money in somebody’s hands and you just totally wash yourself of it, you’re like, “Here, you handle it. I don’t want to deal with this,” you are opening yourself up to the possibility of fraud. This is what happened with the Bernie Madoff.

Annette Grant: [00:39:49] I just watched the Netflix. If you guys haven’t watched the Netflix.

Delyanne Barros: [00:39:52] I mean, weren’t you screaming at the screen? I was forgetting– 

Annette Grant: [00:39:57] It’s unbelievable.

Delyanne Barros: [00:39:57] This one page statement that looks like a child printed it off of this crazy printer. And I’m like, “You guys, you’re not allowed to ask who your money manager is? You weren’t allowed to ask what investments your money were being put into?” All of that. Massive, massive red flags. You should know every detail of what’s going on with your money. If anybody is trying to keep a secret of any kind, hello. Abort, abort. Get away. Something’s gone wrong. 

So there’s a lot of that in the financial industry, and so there’s a lot of mistrust. So I’m trying to rebuild that trust now, especially with communities of color who have been taken advantage of. You’re trying to rebuild that trust and be like, “Hey, I know the financial industry has screwed us in the past, but let me show you how this works. Let me show you the way.” Instead of people hoarding their money in their bank accounts because they’re so scared of being taken advantage of.

Annette Grant: [00:40:49] All right. Well, listeners, you please have to follow Delyanne on her social media because you’re going to get a really good picture of a lot of the stats, statistics, her own journey. She’s very, very transparent in exactly where her portfolio sits, pretty much on a, I’d say, for sure, monthly basis. Sometimes more than monthly when she’s got big things going on. 

But I think just the way that you educate, it’s very, obviously it’s social media, so it’s bite size, but you can learn so much just from your social media. But let’s give our followers, where else can they dig deeper in with you and learn more about what you teach?

Delyanne Barros: [00:41:30] Yeah. So like you said, the best place to find me is on Instagram. And I have a link there in my bio for my free investing class. A great place to start. So if you guys want to check that out, you just have to go to investforindependence.com or you can just click the link in my bio and there’s a free class. There’s also my free guide. 

I also had a podcast with CNN, so you can go listen all those episodes. I have so many free resources. I really want people to take advantage of those. And if you only feel like you need the additional information, sure, you can come and join me inside, Slay the Stock Market, which is my paid course. But I try to pump out as much content as I can so that people can at least start somewhere.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:42:12] Delyanne, I have to– before we sign up, can I please just ask her, can you talk a little– because it got me on this path of digging and seeing what that’s all about. You’ve unlocked the American Dream. You went to school to be a lawyer, you did it. You nailed it. You quit it. And now you are an entrepreneur. You’re making millions of dollars and you’re going to move to Portugal. Why?

Delyanne Barros: [00:42:34] Yeah, Because as beautiful as the American Dream once was, I feel like it is becoming more and more difficult in America to really pull all the pieces together. And it’s a complicated question. There’s lots of factors into why I wanted to move to Portugal. Safety is a big one. It’s one of the safest countries in the world. It’s a beautiful country. It’s honestly California in Europe, which is great. Beautiful weather. Wonderful people. I’m Brazilian. I also speak the language. Also there’s a massive expat community. 

But I feel like the reality of what I want to do, which is to buy myself a home, buy my mother a home, retire myself and retire my mom, I can do all the things much easier abroad than I can’t here in the States. I also want to reunify my family and my mom is undocumented, and it’s really difficult to bring an undocumented family member into the US. It’ll be a much, much easier process for me to do it from Portugal, and we’ve been apart 20 years. 

We’ve been living on WhatsApp, communicating these life milestones through the phone. And I’m like, I really want to reunify my family. And as you guys know, my sister is moving to Italy soon, so we can all be in Europe and we’ll be close to each other. So all of that for me, that’s my why for pursuing financial independence. That’s what keeps me motivated and focused on my goal. And I think when you have a very clear goal, you can get to your dream life a lot faster when you’re really focused and it’s very, very clear. 

When you don’t know what you’re working towards, you feel like you’re fumbling around. And the fact that I’ve always been very clear on my goal, whether it was law school, whether it was paying off my debt, whether it’s investing, that is the reason why I’ve been able to reach it much faster than I ever hoped to reach it.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:44:27] And I don’t know if it’s anything to do with you domino affecting. You doing something– the pinnacle of– as a young one, I was, doctor or lawyer, that’s a hard career. You did that and then you left it to do something else. I don’t know if that was it, but I just find that you deciding to move to Portugal to reunite your family, to do this thing that isn’t easy to do, I mean, you’ve got to research, like you said, expat attorneys and I’m sure your taxes are going to be really complicated, and you do it anyway. And I think that’s really inspirational. 

I’m not telling people who are listening to, maybe you should move to Europe, but just whatever that means for you, to really think about making it a reality, because it’s possible. That we really, truly can do anything, especially when we put our money to work for us instead of us working for our money all the time, just what that could mean for you and your family and your future.

Delyanne Barros: [00:45:17] Absolutely. And, again, real estate, people are like, I don’t get it. How are you moving to Portugal with– how are you getting this visa? And I’m like, “Oh, it’s this crazy thing called a retiree visa, passive income visa.” And if you have real estate, it’s even easier for you guys to actually reach the requirements. That for me, I had to show that I had enough dividends and I had enough interest for my money, which you got to make sure that you have it all in the right buckets for it to meet that threshold. 

But with real estate, I think that’s how most people have done it, is with real estate. And so imagine being able to have all your properties here in America and then be able to live abroad. You’re getting the best of both worlds. You got to explore your options. Not everybody can pick up and move to a different country, but if you can, I encourage you to explore the option.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:08] Yeah. They’ve got really good health care over there too, which I know for some people it’s–

Delyanne Barros: [00:46:13] That’s [Inaudible].

Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:13] Yeah. Some people here it’s a really tough topic that I’m not even to try to crack right now. But no, I just wanted you to really quickly sink that in because I just think you just start thinking bigger when you get to that next level in life difficulty and going for your goals. You just realize there truly is no ceiling if you’re creative and tenacious.

Annette Grant: [00:46:33] Yeah. So next time we’re going to be in Portugal on the boat with you, so we’ll be visiting.

Delyanne Barros: [00:46:39] Yes. Come to my Portuguese villa. Join me.

Annette Grant: [00:46:42] Yeah. We will, for sure.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:43] We’re going to put all of Delyanne’s stuff in the show notes, so please– her Instagram is fun because she is sassy and she takes no bull.

Annette Grant: [00:46:50] Make sure you do not become blocked and blessed because she will block you.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:46:57] It’s good. So we’ll put all of her information on the show notes. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: [00:47:00] I am Annette Grant, and together we are–

Both Annette & Sarah: [00:47:02] Thanks for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian: [00:47:03] We’ll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to to Thanks for Visiting Podcast. Head on over to the show notes for additional information about today’s episode. And please, hit that subscribe button and leave us a review. Awesome reviews help us bring you awesome content. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to hanging out with you next week.