Denis O’Brien [0:37]
Welcome to Episode 198. Financially Well Off. Hey money clan, a very warm welcome to the Chain of Wealth podcast. I’m your host, Denis O’Brien.
Katie Welsh [0:49]
And I’m Katie Wellsh.
Denis O’Brien [1:19]
So Katie, really awesome conversation with Chris, all about really mastering your money, your mindset, and you know, figuring out what you want from your life.
Katie Welsh [0:59]
I love talking about this. And I think this is probably one of my most favorite types of money conversations. Because it allows you to look into what other people really value and hold true to themselves and where they’re going and where they came from. And all those really fun questions.
Denis O’Brien [1:19]
Kate, what I really like about it as well is it puts you in the mindset of the only limit is yourself what you can do.
Katie Welsh [1:27]
And if you can do it, then I can do it too. So I find these kind of conversations super motivational.
Denis O’Brien [1:32]
Yeah, and I absolutely loved hanging out Chris. He’s a really cool, dude. Yeah. Anyway, before we dive into today, show if you guys haven’t already, don’t forget to join our Facebook community, you can head on over to chainofwealth.com/group and come and say hi. Alright Kate, you ready to dive right in?
Katie Welsh [1:47]
Yeah.
Denis O’Brien [1:47]
Fantastic, let’s do it.
Voice Over [1:50]
Welcome to chain of wealth. here’s your host, Denis inspiring you to begin your journey of financial freedom.
Denis O’Brien [2:3]
Chris is a freelance writer and the host of Financially Well Off podcast. Where aims to inspire entrepreneurs to earn more and manage their money better by interviewing other successful entrepreneurs. He does all of this while managing a demanding full time job. He hopes to inspire others and to take charge of their finances and mindset so they can live happier lives. Welcome, Chris.
Katie Welsh [2:55]
Hey Chris.
Christopher Alarcon [2:28]
Hey, Denis, Katie, so pumped to be on this Saturday. I’m looking outside the window is like beautiful but you know what? I’m with you guys. You guys have high energy. So I’m pumped to be here and share my story. Hopefully I spark the listeners out there with my story, my background, because I’m not someone who as you mentioned a little bit about me, I’m not someone who has it all. I’m not this hotshot entrepreneur who’s doing it full time. I’m juggling a full time job as I’m building this side hustle. And I know many of your listeners are probably doing the same thing. So hopefully, this is some inspiration to you guys.
Katie Welsh [2:55]
Yeah, Yeah, for sure. So Well, with that intro, please tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and, and everything like that.
Christopher Alarcon [3:5]
Nice. I love that question. And brings me back like when I’m like I’m doing a job interview. Tell me about yourself. But no, I
Denis O’Brien [3:12]
We actually give you a score afterwards.
Christopher Alarcon [3:16]
Awesome. I cool. So a little bit about myself. I’ve been doing this for about four years now, which is insane. I’m 27 years old right now. But when I started, I was like 23, I would say, early 23s. I finished my full time RFS my graduate out of college and I’m like, Okay, I’m going to jump into the corporate world and be happy. And quickly, I found out that wasn’t the case, I needed to do something more. So I started listening to a podcast because a mentor of mine mentioned it and I was like you’re crazy, but started listening to it. And it was pretty cool. I fell in love with JLD from Entrepreneurs On Fire. He got me fired up with all these stories from different entrepreneurs. And fast forward a couple of months later, I started a blog failed miserably started another one I failed miserably. And just keep doing that for a couple of more times. Eventually I stumble into the one I have now is called financially well off. After a certain amount of time, I’ve learned just the craft and itself how to write a blog post, how to market it all that good stuff. And that’s the blogging journey. And then I’ve also decided to start a podcast which is which has been a game changer for me because as an entrepreneur, as many of you listeners out to you know that when you’re starting the side hussle was tough, like you’re doing it literally in your basement or in your room. And it’s sometimes your many times you’re just failing, you’re lost, you’re know what you’re doing. And it’s it’s just motivating. And the reason why so many businesses fail, but interview an entrepreneur has given me that inspiration. To know that it’s possible that, hey, if they’re doing it, you can do it too, just keep working. And it’s not going to maybe happen in a year or two or maybe four it takes time. So I know many of you listeners probably heard of from your guests or from wherever they heard from that these people are crushing it after a year or two. But the reality is it takes a long time, it takes maybe a couple years for you to actually build this side hustle into something that’s gonna make if you want to go full time with it is going to take a couple years. So that’s where I’m at. I’ve been doing this for as I mentioned a few years. And now I never thought was gonna do podcasting. But here I am with Denis and Katie and that’s that’s kind of my journey right now.
Denis O’Brien [5:9]
It really is crazy, like how much really does go into getting something off the ground. And you know, like looking in your in your own little world. And you think that you’re so small that no one’s listening to you. But, you know, if you grow like say you grow like 10%, you may be like, Okay, well, I went from, let’s say 100 listeners to 110 listeners next month seems so small you like 110 is tiny. But if you think that that’s 10% in one month, that’s a massive change, you know, and it’s hard to just get something off the ground when you when you start with a very small base. And you know, that’s why I really like your story as well. Because you’re not just a crazy successful person off the bat, you are in the struggle, you’re trying to make something of yourself. And I think that that’s really important. That’s that’s in between step that’s really critical.
Christopher Alarcon [5:55]
Yeah, and it’s I know you were talking earlier, you guys have been podcasting for maybe over two years now. And I’ve been doing this podcasting thing. And blogging is another story. But podcasting I’ve been doing it for not even a year yet, but very close to being a year. And it’s slow and steady growth. I’m not at the point where I can say I’m gonna quit my job and you know, do this full time, but it’s going to take a a lot of time. So for those listeners out there who are starting a side hustle or thinking of starting one, just know that you have to love what you do. And don’t get obsessed with finding that passion because that’s that’s where I got lost. And as a kid, I was like, I don’t know what my passion is. I’m not this guy was like waking up in the morning and I know exactly what I’m gonna do on the weekends or, or after work, I didn’t know that. And the best way to just find that quote unquote, passion. Is to just get started, get started. And whatever that seems curious to you. Blogging seemed curious to me, because I’m going to keep it real. I always want to make quick money. And I saw these bloggers make a lot of money. And I was like, I can do it too. Fast forward. But that wasn’t the case. It takes a long time. So that’s that’s the thing. Just follow your passion.
Katie Welsh [6:50]
Isn’t that a little bit heart wrenching? When you read all these articles, or bloggers are like I made a million dollars last month? And then they make it seem so easy, and it’s not. And it’s and I don’t know how your blog and podcast like in the very beginning, started. But when we started our blog and podcast, we’re like, okay, here’s our first episode, and we’re going to have a million downloads and it’s gonna be great. And then reality sunk in. And the five downloads we got were three from me and Denis, and two from my mom. That was it. Like, Oh, no, this is gonna be a lot harder than I thought.
Christopher Alarcon [7:34]
Yeah, I mean, I think everyone has their I think one hack that has worked for me. Denis and Katie has been just either I got this, I think from Ramit Sethi from I will teach you to be rich on one of his blog posts a while back to find what you like is just go trace it back to what you’re buying. So if you’re buying books on finance, or cars, or whatever it is magazines and start something around that because that just goes to show you that you’re already spending your hard earned money on that. Hopefully not just blindly subscribing to random things, because that’s another issue. But if you’re buying things intentionally, you can see that okay, maybe I like this enough to just start talking about it. Because odds are, you know, a lot more. And that’s also another thing that as a kid you have we have the curse of knowledge. We think we think everyone knows what we know. But the reality is, that’s not the case. Many people are so far behind. They’re experimenting with other interests that your specific niche that you’re or interest that you’re focusing daily without even knowing you’re actually an expert in that field. So that’s, that’s a good place to start.
Denis O’Brien [8:28]
Yes. So talking a bit about money. I know you have a little bit of a debt story as well. Could you maybe share that with us?
Christopher Alarcon [8:36]
Yeah. So that’s the reason I started with this. I jumped on the financial freedom journey because I was in debt. I was I graduated college, and I was like, I had around $6 – 7,000 in credit card debt, which seemed normal, I was like, never put like your school tuition in that on your credit card. Just some advice on the side. That’s essentially how I accumulated to 7000. And I was like, that’s not where I want to be one day, I was just like, I was like thinking that I was. Because I was going numbers. I thought I was good with budgeting and good with finance. I was like, I don’t need to learn anything about finances, basic math. But eventually I had to stare at my interest. And one day I received that interest payment of my credit card of like 70 or 100 bucks. And I was like I can’t I can’t make this payment every single month is going to hurts me right. And I wasn’t making that much money straight out of a college. So I had to, that’s when I set my foot on the set the flag and stone the same that I don’t want to be in debt or live paycheck to paycheck. And I started getting obsessed with with personal finance and start reading, reading all these crazy personal finance blogs. And I started learning about side hustles. And I started learning about managing your money well. And that’s essentially when I started writing about it, I started jumping into the side hustle, life and created a blog. As I mentioned, the first few were failing, but I started learning how to write better, I started learning how to, I started getting comments and just little progression after one of the other the dead debt story of 7000, I paid it off. And at the same time I was building this thing called a side hustle, which I didn’t know at the time. But I started learning from these people who were teaching me how to manage my money better. So that’s my debt story of 7000, I’m still have to this point, I’m not perfect. And I want to be transparent to those listeners that just because I talk about money. And I’m this I’m not just financial guru, I’m not a financial planner, I am a financial I work in finance, but I’m no expert, financial expert, I still carry some debt, I still have, I think less than $4,000 in student loan debt, which is amazing to compared to some of the people and friends that I’ve heard they have thousands of thousands of dollars of debt. So I still have some debt off, I still have a car payment. I’m paying that off. But that’s my journey. That’s the reason I grind so hard because I want to just pay everything off. I just want to be not stressing about money, as many listeners probably are as well. And it does consume your life. Sometimes when you just have all this debt, like let’s be honest, no one likes debt. So that’s how I started with my side hustle with a debt story. And I’m continuing to pursue the side hustle and struggling or not struggling, but pushing through the struggle because I still carry some of that debt, but not as much as before.
Denis O’Brien [11:7]
So what is your long term goal with your side hustle? Is it to sort of make it a primary revenue stream for yourself? Or is this sort of just always going to be a project on the side.
Christopher Alarcon [11:17]
I think eventually it won’t be a project on the side, Denis, because it’s going to consume more of my time. I think, in the past, writing a blog post was easier. It didn’t take much of my time. But then I started doing the podcast thing. And I’m also doing freelance writing, because I’ve been just blogging for so long the as I mentioned, you get the hang of things, once you do it for so long. Now I’m looking to get paid. And that’s just advice to a lot of the listeners out there that when you’re starting something, just do it for a while before you consider being paid. Because the reality is you’re going to suck a little bit and that’s okay. Or maybe not if you’ve been doing it for a while. But my long term goal I don’t want to derail the question then is my long term goal is to eventually is inevitable, if it keeps growing, eventually, it’s going to just take more of my time. So I would want to do that more more time. Full time.
Denis O’Brien [12:1]
Yeah, what I really like is that it’s been a passion project for you as well, like we spoke a little bit earlier how you were saying that, you know, it’s it’s those passions that really keep you in it for the long game and you know, having something that you really believe in, it’s really going to help you be accountable, and it’s going to help you ready take it to the next level for those times when you know you’re feeling that burnout, and you don’t want to keep going with it.
Christopher Alarcon [12:25]
Yeah and I’m glad you mentioned that Denis because the reality is, it’s easy to go to work. And not easy, right? But it’s easy, just go to work, and then go home and just open Netflix, watch Game of Thrones, whatever you like watching, just sit there for a few hours, go to sleep, repeat that same process the next day. And the reality is many times that people who are doing that, and I’ve been that bowl, I’m not special anything, we’re not liking the job we’re at, we’re not liking the life we’re living and a side hustle gives you an opportunity to create that life is not going to be easy, you’re still gonna have to do additional work, it’s gonna suck waking up earlier. Because the reality is you’re not going to have time. Or you can have to get smarter with the way you work. And for me is waking up early in the morning, because if I don’t wake up at 5am, or 4am, and get some work done, and the evening, I’m going to be so tired and drained from my full time job, which is demanding, I’m sure most of your listeners have demanding jobs, that I’m not going to want to work in my side hustle. Some days I do but most days, I kind of don’t. So I have to wake up earlier, having a side hustle forces you to have a better lifestyle. And to become better, you have to continue learning after read. Listen to other entrepreneurs, who are crushing it, podcast like yourself, just keep evolving as a human being. And that in itself has been another reason why my income and my job has improved through these past three to four years. Because at that pivotal point when I was in debt, and I decided to start a side hustle. Building that side hustle has forced me to just become a better person to just learn to become more adaptable, to create better routines just become an overall better version of me. And I’m sure if your listeners are starting a side hustle or want to start one, similar things are going to happen to them, they’re just gonna have to evolve as a better person.
Denis O’Brien [13:59]
So how critical would you say that your side hustling has been to your successes to where you are today.
Christopher Alarcon [14:6]
It’s been a messy I like I mentioned it before, I would just go home, watch Netflix and call it a day after that. I mean, it now forces me to manage my time better. So I’m not I used to get so crazy, don’t get me wrong, it’s too over the top is bad. You don’t want to be that person that’s tracking your time. Every second which I’ve done, I track my lunch, my free time, all that stuff. And I was miserable. Like I was being productive. But I was miserable. And I was going the wrong. I was a accomplishing my goals, but I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture and I was itself just heading the wrong direction. So it’s not good to to go that route. So it’s helped me become more efficient with my time and just to manage it better in the sense that I’m not just accomplishing the side hustle. But I’m also accomplishing other things in my life. Because that’s another thing, Denis and Katie that having a side hustle was great money is great building wealth is amazing. But it’s not the end all be all the end goal for me. And I’m sure for all your listeners, everyone the world, in my opinion, is probably to be happy in life, and to have a fulfilled life. And one way to do that is to have that side hustle, but also focus, learn how to set goals and focus on your relationships, and other parts of your life that are really, really important. So the side hustle is just that extension to help you spread out and see the bigger for me and always see the bigger picture in life and start setting goals and just start getting intentional to go about getting those accomplished.
Katie Welsh [15:24]
I like how you have mentioned that before you used to come home and used to, you know, veg out on the couch and watch Netflix and everything. And I read a study somewhere, or somebody told me that the average person watches about 40 hours of TV a week.
Christopher Alarcon [15:40]
Whoa, that’s alot.
Katie Welsh [15:42]
And when you think about it, like, wow, 40 hours, like there’s no way I watch 40 hours a week. But then if you actually think that like well, I come home and you know, I watch two or three, maybe four hours of TV and night. It compounds and by the end of the week, you’re probably if you’re not at 40 hours a week, you’re probably pretty close. And when I heard that, it made me a little bit more self aware of how much TV I was watching. And back when I used to watch a lot of TV, I would sit there and I would feel like I was in a bit of a rut because I didn’t have something to occupy my time with. And I wanted to ask your opinion for somebody who does kind of feel like they’re in like a rut. So they’re watching a lot of TV and they don’t really have anything else to do. What is a good stepping stone to help get them motivated to find a side hustle or something because I’ve talked to a lot of my friends. And I also like to do side hustles all the time. But they always ask me, but where do you find them? So what advice do you have for somebody who’s wanting to do something but doesn’t know where to go.
Christopher Alarcon [16:56]
All right. Well, first, I want to just admit, you called me out. You mentioned that TV. I feel guilty now because I’m gonna be transparent because I’ve watched I recently got into the Game of Thrones. So mind you in the past I’ve been just hustling, whatever, but then recently, I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna start enjoying life a little bit more. I’ve watched I kid you not in two weeks, I’m in season seven, The Game of Thrones. So that’s bad in itself right there. So I watched all those episodes. But I mean, again, it goes back to managing your time a little bit. So I did have that free time, but it’s a little too much. But. But answer your question. Getting back to the bigger picture, starting a side hustle is hard. I mean, the biggest question is, yeah, well, where do I start? How do I? How do I Where do I look, there’s so many of you Google it right now. I mean, like type side hustlers, you’ll easily find list of 100 different side hustles. And the reality is most of them suck. They’re just like take surveys and all that stuff that most people don’t want to do. The reality is, you’re gonna have to find something that you’re going to do long term. And the reality is that odds are against everyone into building a successful business. Because it’s hard. It’s not easy. And the side hustle makes it sound cute and, and like it’s easy, but it’s not. For some people, they get lucky they get for whatever reason, they just find success faster. But I just want to set the clear expectation to anyone starting a side hustle, just think of a long term, assume that it’s going to take minimum at least a year to see some traction. If you start with that you can have a lot more success than other people. And I’m just going to quote on some of the people that are followed. So before you even start a side hustle, just start learning a little bit. So Tim Ferriss recommended, he has his YouTube video on learning the fundamentals of business. And he has like all these different books on learning how to build a brand, learning about the audience, learning how to expand the scale of business, all that good stuff. So that’s definitely worth checking out for, for the listeners to just start getting a foundation going on. I’m going to look at that myself. And I’m still reading some of the books he recommended. So that’s a good foundation to start. But to find that side hustle, just know that Gary Vaynerchuk said, if you can talk, if you can write. And I think if you can do video, if you can do any of those three things, well, you’re going to be successful in life period. So pick one of those medium, you want to write, you don’t have to just write blogs, you can write magazines, you can write. For businesses, there’s different ways to just write not just novels and all that stuff. You can do video, you can do YouTube, you can do podcasting is another platform. So pick one of those three, those big three, I would say and then just start talking about your passion, whatever it is. And I think when you start going that route, you’re going to go something similar as I did, when I just picked a blog, and I was like, I don’t know, writing wasn’t my thing. But I just picked blogging, I just started writing about finance, I started realizing that, okay, I don’t like talking just about money. I like talking about different things. And you’re going to just discover more about yourself. It’s like a journey. So the best way to start start one of those three, the video voice or writing, pick one of those three, pick a topic that you’re passionate about, you think you’re passionate about that you like a lot, and just go all in, do it for like a few weeks and see what comes out of it, you enjoy doing it? Do you enjoy talking about more about this specific topic within that higher topic. And overall, I think that experiment, Denis and Katie is going to be it’s a good exercise for anyone looking to start a side hustle because one, they’re going to start building skills or on fundamentals that they’re going to use anywhere in business, they’re going to be crucial, and two they’re gonna learn more about what they like, and if there really is a passion, they want to pursue long term.
Katie Welsh [20:13]
Okay, so and now I have one more question for you. Because you seem like you are a very goal oriented type of person. Am I right? Awesome. So I wanted to to ask you, what process do you take when setting goals? in case somebody doesn’t, you know, again, they’re just out there floundering and they’re not really sure what to do? How do you set your goal? And how often do you like, check in with them?
Christopher Alarcon [20:47]
Yes, a goal setting is like a magical thing you hear like some great, amazing people like say, get a journal do this, do that. And then people like try to, I think what I want to start with that question is to understand that goal setting is a little bit personal. So just stick with what works. If you want to just grab a sheet of paper and just write three things that you need to get accomplished. per day that’s, that works for you go for it. But first, before you do anything, just start brainstorming, like what is it that you want to accomplish? Do you want to build the business and get specific, so like set SMART goals, and you can google what that is, but essentially what SMART goals are, they’re just specific, something you can measure something that’s not just I want to be debt free. I mean, you can say that, but you can be more specific and saying, I want to pay 5 thousand dollars in 12 months, that was my initial goal back a few years ago. So you can get that get that specific first, and then break it down using tools like workflowy, and just lays it out perfectly how you want to just create those little sub tasks. But more than anything, I recommend just getting a journal, it can be something so basic from Amazon, just like a plain journal that you can just and by journal, you know, something like a diary, just literally just like a little notebook. And you can just break down your goal, write write down your main goal. And every single day, just break it down. So this for example, if you going back to the 5000, paying that $5,000 in 12 months, if you want to pay that you’re going to write that down in a notebook, and then you’re going to break it down by month, they’re going to break it down by week, and then what you’re going to do every single day, I would just check in with your journal and say I need to accomplish this by today. And that’s in the morning, by the end the night you check in to accomplish it. And then that’s how you do it. And to check it how often I would recommend maybe checking in every week, or every month. Again, whatever works for you, people check it daily, or people review their goals daily or monthly, it just depends. But you have to sit back and set like a period where you just literally do nothing. But just think of how am I doing with my goals am I am I hitting on track? What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right, and just start evaluating because you’re going to make the same mistake I made in the past. If you don’t, that you’re going to be accomplishing your goals, you’re going to feel good. It’s almost like that checklist. I mean, I don’t recommend a checklist because you can just check them off. And it doesn’t mean anything, you can be accomplishing all these tasks, but they’re not all equal, right? Some of them more important than others. And that’s where you need to get intentional. So writing down a journal, review them and check on them daily, weekly, or monthly, whatever works for you. But just make sure you stop and evaluate where you’re at. So you know you’re heading in the right direction, sometimes you need to just change. And that’s the reality. And there’s the thing called like sunk cost fallacy when you’re so invested in the goal, that at one point, you just like, you know what I made it this far, like I built this website, I’m surprised just keep going, I don’t think I’m going the right direction. You don’t say it to yourself, but you’re thinking it subconsciously, just like you know, I’m going to keep going because I’m already like halfway there, I’m just gonna keep investing time into it. And you can just easily head to the wrong direction. And once you get there, you gonna be so disappointed. So use a journal, write it down every single day, review it weekly, monthly, or whatever works for you, and make changes when you need to make changes.
Denis O’Brien [23:51]
I think it’s actually critically important, you know, that idea of reviewing your goals and be able to make changes as well. Like, like you said, like, there’s no point in chasing something, if you feel that there’s, you know, sort of no end in sight, and you’re just doing something for the sake of doing it. And if you are at that point that you’re doing it you need to be realistic with yourself and realize that yes, you put some time into it, is this really working and long term, Is it sustainable. And I think being able to do that it really opens your eyes in terms of you know, not getting stuck in the state of oh I’m just going to keep you know, doing this blog because I I’ve been riding on it for a year. But you may sit back and say, Well, you know, I am trying to build it up. It’s not growing how want to grow it, I’m doing something wrong. Or maybe it’s time to pivot. Maybe this is not for me, you know, and like realizing that you haven’t wasted something by stopping it. You know, like you’ve learned critical skills in doing that. And knowing that you can do stuff differently if you were to do it over again, that’s a very powerful asset to have.
Christopher Alarcon [24:55]
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. Because just a little backtracking and time a little bit. I did have another personal finance blog in the past, it was called like it was a funny name was called Smart budget life. com. That was my blog. And I was doing that for about a year. And I was like that that’s exactly what happened. I was like, I didn’t really plan ahead to good and I just started just knocking down checklists. And I was heading nowhere. I didn’t like what I was heading. But I was like, You know what, I’ve invested so much time into building this blog. I have so many posts. I even hired a developer to build like, edit this website. It was crazy. So a lot of time invested on this blog, which was not heading in the right direction. And luckily, I decided to attend conferences, I attended fin con, I met with this amazing person, blogger. Entrepreneur called Jay Money, which you may know already.
Katie Welsh [25:39]
We love Jay Money.
Christopher Alarcon [25:40]
Yeah, he’s really cool. He’s a really cool dude. And I actually talked to him sent a message I was like, Hey, can I was going to pay for his consulting and I got some of his time. And he recommended me as]Hey, Chris. Like, I looked at my picture and he was like, you look professional here is I would you want to he just gave me tips. Like I didn’t like where I was heading, I looked perfect. Had a picture of my LinkedIn I didn’t like where I was. It made it seem like I was his professional finance person writing about finance stuff. And that’s not the image I want to portray. I want to be like this young person, which we all are. And at least I think we are we are and then just be someone talking about money. And my perspective, I was just I felt like I was just someone else talking about personal finance, I wasn’t happy and long story short, I had to cut that blog off. And it was tough because I invested so much time into it. And I had to start this other one, which was the Financially Well Off blog, which is a little bit more, a lot more like me and the direction that I want to headed towards. So that was hard for me. And I think it’s important for anyone who’s investing time and something to just sit there and really think and ask yourself constantly. Is this where you wanna? Is this heading where you want to be? Is this really what you want to build? And sometimes the tough answer is no. And you got to cut the plug and forget about the time you invest you just gotta move on sometimes starting new is the best thing you can do because you’re not heading in the right direction.
Denis O’Brien [26:56]
I love that money clan where just going to get quick break and then we’ll dive right back into the value link round. Money clan we are teamed up with Damien Lupo from Total Control Financial to bring you a really cool offer. If you guys are looking to maximize your time and account, you should definitely consider something called a QRP, which is a Qualified Retirement Plan. A QRP is for people looking to maximize their tax advantage account through self directed IRAs and 401ks it puts you in control of your money and your retirement funds and you direct what you’re invested in. It’s a really powerful tool, and a lot of people can get a lot of value out of it. Damien has teamed up with us and he will be shipping a book to you for free. If you sign up using our special link, you can use the link chainofwealth.com/qrp. That’s chainofwealth.com/qrp. Take control of your financial life with Damien Lupo and Total Control Financial.
Katie Welsh [28:0]
Okay, Chris, I know you are paying off debt and everything but I was curious to know about your retirement plan.
Christopher Alarcon [28:8]
So I use this tool called personal capital, which some of the listeners may be familiar with. And my retirement plan is to retire by age 50. And how I’m going to do that it has been contributing maybe like over 2000 per month, which I’m not obviously hitting, but I am increasing my income slowly and I plan to keep investing more and now I’m contributing, I think it was 15% or more in my 401k. So slowly, I’m contributing more to my retirement. And eventually the long term is to retire by 50 meaning that I don’t have to work or I’m not dependent on a job to sustain me.
Denis O’Brien [28:40]
So predominantly like just 401ks or any other vehicle using or is it just mainly 401ks at this point.
Christopher Alarcon [28:47]
Right now is 401k is a Roth IRA. It’s it’s mainly those type of vehicles, I am trying to focus on building this blog and his side hustle to be another vehicle where it’s generating some income in the future. We’re and also real estate, I’m going to get involved hopefully by the end of this year and to invest in your rental properties. And that’s going to be another stream of income for me.
Katie Welsh [29:7]
Awesome. And do you have a favorite book?
Christopher Alarcon [29:11]
Thats a great question. I would probably say, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That’s how I started everything. It just gave me an aspiration that finance is simple, but at the same time complicated and that if you change your mentality or relationship about money, things start becoming a little bit better. That money is not the root of all evil. Money is not a bad thing. Having more wealth is actually a good thing. Because now you can impact more people’s lives you can donate to more charities and stuff like that. So Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
Katie Welsh [29:39]
I love that. And do you have a favorite quote you try to live by?
Christopher Alarcon [29:43]
I forget the exact person who said this, but life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how do you react.
Denis O’Brien [29:49]
That is true.
Christopher Alarcon [29:52]
Yeah.
Denis O’Brien [29:53]
I love that. Chris, we absolutely love hanging out today, do you have another last parting piece of advice for our listeners. And then we’ll say goodbye.
Christopher Alarcon [30:1]
Yeah, so for all the listeners out there, wherever you are in your financial journey, just keep going to keep grinding. It’s going to be tough. But if it was easy, everyone will be doing it right. And eventually things are going to get better. And if you stick with your side hustle long enough, you’re going to see a lot of positive changes, you’re going to meet a lot of amazing people because you’ll learn that entrepreneurship isn’t a lonely journey. And if you want to learn more about entrepreneurs sharing their tips on finance and sharing their amazing stories and skills that they have with you on how to grow your side hustle, you can check out my podcast Financially Well Off at iTunes or whatever platform you listen to nowadays, which is out there. So yeah.
Denis O’Brien [30:38]
Money clan. We’ve absolutely loved hanging out with Chris today. Check out his website as well. It’s financiallywelloff.com and definitely check out his site, he’s got some really cool materials on there.
