Househacking and Side Hustling to Financial Freedom - Episode 9

Meet Andre, the man behind the Millennials Next Door. He is financial advisor that walks the walk. He has found creative ways to generate multiple streams of income and cut his living expenses so that work is optional. He is a graduate of the school of hard knocks and has  learned and educated form his mistakes. 

Get started investing in REITs with Andre’s  FREE Guidebook. 

About our guest: Andre Albritton specializes in providing financial advising and education to graduates from all Historically Black College or University. He graduated from Florida A&M University in 2011 where he fell in love with the family environment and grew professionally. He uses his expertise to help HBCU graduates to take a holistic look at their life goals and craft a plan along with them to maximize their financial potential, not only for today but for future generations. He typically assists people who have experienced success in life and in their careers and businesses. They have been saying they will get their finances in order but only accumulated a financial "junk drawer", of sorts. His process involves providing clarity, creating an organizational system, identify inefficiencies and opportunities to achieve balance, protect their assets and grow wealth efficiently to provide them more options to enjoy every chapter of their life.

---

Support the show

Please join me here, and follow me on social media, Instagram, and Facebook.

Need help getting started on your path to financial freedom? Start Here

Join the Financially Intentional Community

Oh and please subscribe and leave a review on whatever app you're using to stream this podcast.

Get my book Smart Money

Subscribe & Review

Love this episode? Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. 

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Naseema: Welcome back. My Financially Intentional Posse. We have a special tree today we are joined by my friend, my homie, OG homie Andre Albritton. We're just gonna say I'm just joined by my homie Andre, cause I'm not on most of his last name. .

[00:00:21] Andre: Yes. I appreciate you.

Thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited And yeah, we've been for a while now, so, you know, again, I'm minding how old I am getting.

[00:00:30] Naseema: Exactly like I've been know Andre forever and we were reminiscent on even just how old my youngest is cuz she wasn't even in existence before and she's turning four on New Year's Eve.

So, wow. This is such a good experience. But what I love most is that how much we've been able to see each other come up kind of in this industry and how things have changed for both of. So I just love your origin story and I want you to share with people how you kind of learned about money and kind of like your background and like experiencing money.

Like how did you, how were you taught about money? Like, I wanna hear all about like, Andre back in the day. .

[00:01:14] Andre: Alright, so let's go back to way back when. So if we're talking about my parents, I, I think I mainly got two things from them. One, my mom, and she's still like this today, she always said there's a, a recession coming.

There's recession coming. So that's really all I got from my mom. Whether I think recession came maybe twice y event, but that's what she always kept saying. The other one was for my dad. I probably took this over more than I would like to. But he's just kind of cheap. I'm kind of cheap too, except on certain items like, so items like speakers, I almost spend a lot going down in Atlanta.

I almost spend a lot, but it's like painful shipping, pricing. Nah, I ain't paying for no shipping. If it's not BOGO at Publix, I ain't gonna pay for that either. Yeah, I'd pick and choose what I'm cheap with. And then you know, the same as far as like my background, I got started in finance 2016. Basically I was working Inn in Shawn State Farm in Dallas, Texas.

No lie, I was bored. So I said I need to do something with my life. And I remember at work, I went through all the comics of Walking Dead. So I said, okay, what I'm gonna do next? So I decided to learn a little bit more about money. I started studying for the cfp, then took the test, but I just was studying for it.

and I decided to go ahead and post what I was learning online. So I started posting it. My friends would see it, they liked it. And then that one Instagram page that became the millennials next door. Now, I didn't create my own personal page again, pretty much, but since then, worked in the financial forum.

It was pretty interesting. Wasn't like Wolf of Wall Street where I thought it would be. It was very boring. I wanna say I might have been the only black person that was ever hire there. I'm not. But either way, it was a pretty boring job, but it's like, hey, this is my first experience and I was pushing paper, creating accounts, haggling checks that were way, way past my budget, way past my salary for the whole year, and just like one check, which was crazy.

So fast forward to now you know, I'm just doing financial advising, still doing my influencing, still doing the podcast. Overall, I just feel like I have a spirit that likes to help people, so I just help people through. With their money. Cuz at the end of the day, the more money you have, the better steward you are of your money, the more options you have in life.

And I help people maximize their options. That's all I want to do. .

[00:03:41] Naseema: I think that's incredible. And I was cracking up when you were talking about your, your mama's basically like Stuart Little, like the sky is falling, the recession is coming, like so day . Yeah. But like what did she do to prepare for a recession?

[00:03:58] Andre: You know, I wanna say she sold a lot of her stuff when the first fuse of it came. And when I'm thinking back to like the oh 7, 0 8 crash, it's probably because she kept saying it the moment she saw it. She said, oh, I'm right. And she took all the money out, sold everything. So that helped them out really.

And then she got back in kinda almost everything kind of situated out and now she's po possibly selling again. I don't know, .

[00:04:23] Naseema: So she just sold all her stocks. Like she's just like, I'm getting outta the stock market as it's going down. Mm-hmm. . And then she gets back in as it's going

[00:04:31] Andre: up. Pretty much, yeah. It turned out to work, so it's like, Hey, okay, I'll take it.

Cool Beans.

[00:04:40] Naseema: Well, her intuition led her to have some pretty good timing. I'm sure some financial advising firms would love her to have her on staff then. Yeah, yeah, for sure. . But anyway, I know you very well from millennials and next door because you get give such good. Money advice. So much so I didn't even know, I didn't even know that you were licensed this whole time.

But you have a, a strategy and a way of walking people through their finances that I would love for you to share. If you wanna break that down for everybody.

[00:05:15] Andre: Oh yeah, for sure. And just give a little background. I started doing financial coaching, maybe 20. , and this was before the same. I even knew that people even pay you to tell 'em what to do with their money.

Like that thing was brainless, like, wait, people pay you to do what? So yeah, started doing that for coaching. So I broke it down into three buckets and I did this just because I really noticed on and on, especially people I was dealing with that you'll finance just can be. I. You hear a lot that you need pay down debt, you need to save, you need to invest.

Say what do you need to invest in? What's the best credit card? What's the best savings account? It's intimidating if you start just try and tackle it all at once. So I broke it down in two days to make it easier. So we got three different buckets to represent a day. The first one is today on today's bucket, I just want people just to focus on what you can actually get done today on the near future.

So one is like setting those financial goals. Establishing a spending plan, aka a budget, creating an emergency fund just for starters. You don't have to have the full thing max, but having some type of cushion for when life pushes you down, you know you're not gonna hit your bud on the concrete. And then the other one being I walked in the insurance for so long is checking out your car, home, and life and life insurance because I promise you, people have called in before asking for insurance after something happened.

Lil, they'll be in a call accident and say, Hey, lemme get insurance now. Now it don't work that way, . So you ain't know. After today's bucket, we look at the next bucket, which is yesterday's bucket. So that's the bucket I think a lot of people don't like to discuss just because we're going to go ahead into the debt management.

So credit cards, student loans, Tracking your credit score, tracking your net worth, and also forgiving yourself for a lot of the things you've done. So you don't have to really carry that on with you in the into the future. And again, people don't like that bucket because yeah, it's like looking back at all the dumb things you might have done in the past, like credit cards, going back to college or whatever.

And then the fun bucket, this is two malls bucket. This is the bucket people tend to stall on even though they probably. So he like NFTs and random stocks. Yeah, so tomorrow's bucket, I'd consider this a luxury bucket. So this goes into the categories of retirement planning, education, funds for children, next generational wealth and estate planning.

And I said this is the fund bucket, but you need to have a strong foundation cuz again, as we have seen before, especially with those NFTs, cuz I ain't gonna let people forget about that. Y'all have invested in, y'all really hyped it. Those ain't all trash now. And yeah, it's like, okay, if you're gonna invest in it, that's cool, but you still still have some type of strong financial foundation.

If you're putting your mortgage rent kids tuition money into this, then yeah, it is just gonna end up in a bad situation for most of the times. I'm not saying some people didn't get rich off the stuff, but the majority of people I've seen, they ain't make that much money. They're kind of stuck holding the bag.

[00:08:23] Naseema: Yeah, I like that because so many people like get caught up in like these flashy investments. They wanna ha go from like nothing to all the way up. And I always love that meme of like that person like, Sitting on the the landing of the steps and then have their foot all the way up to the fifth step.

Like you skipping hella steps, bro. Like seriously? Yeah. Like, and, and the thing is, is like these are not even tested, tried and true investments. These are really new things and yes, you have heard people getting rich, but typically by the time you hear people getting enriched off of things to kind, it's kinda.

Not the right opportunity for you. So I love, I love those groupings of days because it kind of gives people something to look forward to also to know where they start. I also like that you have kind of Use this phrase, the financial junk drawer, cuz you people wanna do, they wanna do well with their finances, but they end up with this junk drawer and we all have those junk drawers in our house.

Yeah. So I think it is hilarious. Explain to me what that is.

[00:09:27] Andre: So pretty much what the financial junk junk drawer is when people come to the financial advisor, they finally get a hold of the finance. That's usually years of them telling themselves they need to get caught up or they need to do this. So it's like year number one.

So I should pay off my debt they put in the drawer. Year number two, I should really start saving, put in the drawer. Year number three, I should start investing. And this can go on for multiple years depending on the person. Cause I've, I mean, I have sat down with people on, in the late fifties asking how to retire.

And quite frankly, it's not necessarily possible, but it's very d. , especially if you haven't started since your late fifties. So yes, the junk drawer, I mean, it can even be compared to me and my total fitness journey of trying to get a six pack like I've been trying to see for like the past few years and say, you know, if you would've started this way before, you would've been way ahead of the game.

I'd had my six pack, I would've been cooking eggs off my abs or something, maybe, I don't know. But yes, that juncture is something serious that people. Just need to unload. Unload off of. I mean, there's no easier way to say it, but I can definitely say the more years you keep on going without it, it's gonna get more and more stuff in there.

[00:10:46] Naseema: Yeah, and I see it a lot too, like people put things and especially their finances on the back burner, and it's simply because like sometimes they just don't understand or think it's super intimidating or don't wanna take that first step. I mean, so I always tell people just. Do one thing today. Like don't wait because the time is gonna pass and before you know it, and that's with everything.

That's with insurance, that's with estate planning. Mm-hmm. , that's with like all kinds of things that you see people just putting off when. It could be done with like, and it doesn't have to be hard, and that's why I love, you know, being able to have this podcast to get in front of people, to show them like, Hey, it doesn't have to be hard.

These are simple, actionable things that you can do right now to get started. So, I, that analogy, the financial junk drawer. Cause we all have one. We all have one. And I'm still working on my six pack two and I've been working on that since high school. So yeah, that's, it's gonna come

[00:11:44] Andre: about one day. One day.

I definitely agree with you. And one thing I'll mention too is when I was at this popup shop outside in Laco this past weekend, this one guy, he does prep. He was like, literally have these emergency bags. That was his niche. So I thought that was really cool. But one thing he did say was, preparation is a luxury.

Mm-hmm. . And I feel it's the same way with our finances, with our health, with mental health as well. Preparation is truly a luxury that we take for granted. And if I had to make up a fact, so this is a Andre fad, don't take it too seriously all, but I would say 82.76% of Americans don't retire how they think they.

Like, it's okay to make the plan, but as far as I'm retiring, hey, you get hooked. Your job goes bust. No one wants to hire you anymore. It does happen more often than not. It's something we just don't talk about.

[00:12:38] Naseema: Yeah. That is so, so true. And but the thing is, is that usually what happens is is that we under prepare thinking that we have more time than we have.

Another thing that we don't do is prepare for things that we know is a strong possibility of happening, like us getting hurt on our jobs. So like, I think like the disability insurance component of, you know, finances is really, really undersold and yes, I think it is one of those things that's kind of looked at as a luxury, but yeah.

Chances are something's gonna happen to you, where you gonna lose the ability to either partially or fully be able to work in the same capacity that you're working in. And so like these are just things like that go into prep. And I think there's so many different layers and levels, but the key is to just get started where you are and not get overwhelmed and take those first steps.

So with the people. That you typically work with? Like typically, like what's their demographics like usually what are their financial situations are like, and like what are their biggest hangups?

[00:13:47] Andre: So to be well. 99% is African American women . I don't ask any questions. You know, I have to keep telling my girlfriend, Hey, I got a lot of women clients,

I don't know what it is. I owe lot to fans cause I'm good looking. Maybe it is, maybe they ain't, don't know . But yes, those are all my typical client, nine times outta 10. And I, I sit down with everybody, honestly. So whether you have a lot of money, whether you don. I am here to help. So like my goal next year is to create 200 financial plans for African Americans in the community, and again, , you can be making six figures easy.

You can be making only 20 k. I'll sit down with you, no charge, call it a day. Easy help. But yeah those are like my typical clients. Some of the natural hangups, and this is a little bit insight into why I do have some financial advisor. We make money off of commission. It's not the perfect system, I'd be honest, but it is what it is right now.

But yes, we make commission off of those disability policies. You mentioned life insurance and taking assets under management. So for the life insurance and disability especially for always, we tend to get denied more often than not. That's one thing I have noticed, and it's simply because of the B. Obesity rates among African Americans, they are greater, and especially when I do sit down with young ladies.

Now, I guess the thing is to be thick, which is cool capture of the guys. Those,

[00:15:21] Naseema: those b, those BBLs

[00:15:24] Andre: out loud. But yeah, like. I have a lot of people who do get denied for life insurance. People think they're just gonna take your money, but it's really not the case. They do their research.

[00:15:35] Naseema: Well, I really, I wanna pause there because actually this is my first time hearing it, and I don't know if it's because you're in Georgia and I'm in California.

down here. Here. Yeah. Y'all a. Thinking down there. I'm not, no, I don't wanna stereotype, but I, it is really, truly like my first time ever hearing that. But this is something that we have to plan for and something that you need to understand is that like in order to get a life insurance policy, they want you to be quote unquote healthy.

And that's gonna look. Different from, for different demographics, right? So you have a heavy African American woman population, and so like B M I matters. And so I, I, it's just something that you have to think about, like a, along with the prep, like yes, your, mm-hmm , your weight and your health does factor into your financial.

And so all those things tie together. But what I've also noticed though, is what people get intentional about things with their finances. They also get intentional about things like with the weight and eating and other factor, other parts of their lives, and so they all tie together. . I know I wasn't as healthy as I was until I started like really diving into my finances because like, then it, it helped me like really just hone in on like what I wanted my life to look like.

Mm-hmm. and maybe like being denied for health insurance. I mean, for a life insurance should be a wake up call for some people to be like, listen, this is not just money and, and finances is not just about like having a number at the end of the day. It's really. Living the, your best life overall.

[00:17:20] Andre: Yeah, true.

Yeah. You know, I, I definitely add on two things. So one you mentioned is pretty much, I, I guess I'll put like this, the best time to get life insurance is very similar to best time to ask the bank for money or like a credit limit increase. And you ask them for that stuff when you don't need it. Mm-hmm. . So while you are young, you are healthy, you know you're gonna qualify.

Now's the time to get it. Up upfront when I have young clients coming in, like millennials who are younger than me and say, Hey, now's the time to get it. Ask 'em a simple question. How's your health gonna be in five years? Nobody knows. I mean, I wish I knew, but I don't. I might not even be here in five years.

Who knows? So yeah, it's like, get it while you qualify. And then the other thing, this is my mantra I live by, and I do mean this in this order, but I believe everyone should take care of themselves mentally first, physically, and then financially. Mm-hmm. Because yeah, you get to that retirement. Yeah. I mean, imagine now you make a lot of money, you get to retirement and you didn't take care of yourself physically or mentally, so you can't enjoy the.

I don't make

[00:18:28] Naseema: no sense. It's not even that. I think that a lot of people think that money fixes the problem, but really what happens is, is typically if you fix yourself mentally and physically, all those other things will fall into place. A lot of times, even like people seeking out, you know, help from you, Andre probably need to see a financial therapist.

Or just a regular therapist first, because there's a lot of traumas and blocks that will get in the way of people getting their finances together. So even if they have the best financial plan, even if they implement these things because of some kind of mental trauma or block that they have, they'll fall back into the money mistakes that they have been making.

And so I think that that. Super duper important. And I, and I love that. So, okay, so talking about your demographic and your, and your client population, what typically do you see kind of gets in their way of them completing the plans that you put in place for

[00:19:25] Andre: them? It is gonna be discipline and mindset.

You know, with so much information, and I, I tweeted this recently, but after age of 25 saying that your school didn't teach you this, that's not a valid excuse to me anymore, y'all, I've seen what people do on TikTok and how they make all these cuts and everything. . I seen how people can follow YouTube video to do something.

So it's like, Hey, you can do the same for finances, like the information, oh my God,

[00:19:52] Naseema: out there. I love that because like people, like first of all, two things I always say, if you can create a Instagram page, like if you just have a basic Instagram account, you can follow those same steps to open an investment account.

It just doesn't make any sense. Now, on another, Okay. You work with black women, so I know you see the sleigh. Okay? Like all the layers of makeup and all that stuff. First of all, I never learned how to do that. Like I cannot do that. That is a real skill. So if you can have your face beat to the gods, you know how to transform yourself, like witchcraft, okay?

You a whole nother person. You can invest because it is just step one of those things. Like it is really that simple. You can get you, you can create a budget, you can do these things. Like seriously, like I think people put so much on it and I don't understand, you know, where that comes from, but I can.

Only imagine that it kind of goes back to a, like some kind of financial trauma. I know like in the African American community, we were growing up like, you know, with the make it enough kind of philosophy, like we don't have it. Like no, you can't like a lot of deprivation and so when you get something, there's a lot of hoarding and a lot of money is hard kind of sentence.

Mm. and there's a lot of mental work that needs to go into that. So kind of bringing it back full circle to like your philosophy. Yeah, yeah. True.

[00:21:25] Andre: And you know, I, I think I've not spent on why people feel the need of financial advisor. Cuz at end the day I tell people, Hey, you can Google this stuff if you want to, but if you saw me means your money, I'll do it.

I'll take your money. Don't worry about that. But you can do this to yourself too. So I think just because, for what reason throughout the years. as American citizens, at least, were so dependent on financial advisors to invest for us. I mean, when we think about history, we used to have pensions. Pensions ain't common anymore, so that was one company that's really gonna take care of you.

Then financial advisors say, Hey, this advisor's gonna take your money. They're gonna invest it for you. People forget for before Robinhood that you had to one pay for trades, like each trade you did. You had to pay. So you need to have all the money for the stock. There won't no slice options. And three, you gotta have an advisor to say, Hey, do this for me.

But now we know we can do this on our own. So I think throughout the years for a lot of consumers, it is just kind of gather the thoughts that we, financial advisors might have a secret sauce or something, or know all the secrets not the case. I, I remember when I worked in the financial film my first few months, the one head honcho, he had a tough question.

So, you know, he did, he told someone else to find out one of the financial advisors, they Googled it went back to him. Simple as that. So, yeah. We don't have any secret sauce. I would like to think I'm needed most of the times, again, because people need some backing on their thoughts. But often time, you know the answer.

Like, it's kinda like walking out or losing weight. You know what you need to do more pushups, eat less foods. Drink less, you know what you need to do. But some people, they need like that walkout partner or that walkout trainer to get into that mindset and create that discipline.

[00:23:15] Naseema: Yeah, that is true. Like within my lifetime with, you know, as an adult, I should say, within my adult lifespan, it has, there has been a lot of gatekeeping in the financial services industry.

I remember like making my, you know, getting. First six figures, check as a nurse. And I was just like, Ooh, now I have money to invest. And then working, walking into a swab or something. And then them being like, well, you know, we only work with clients that have like a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars or something crazy like that.

And I was like, who has money like that? Just laying around and then not even understanding. So I understand like, so we're in this kind of like in between the sandwich generation. You know, the way that we look at finances, where it used to be totally like you think somebody else has to handle it as to where now we can totally do it independently and do it as efficiently and for less fees.

But people just need to have the confidence to do that. But I feel like still like, okay, like. Video editing and all this other kind of stuff, like you said, like the things that people, the transitions that people can do on TikTok and Instagram and all these kind of things. If you can learn to do that, you can learn to manage your finances.

And so a hundred percent, I think there's still a lot of like fear and, you know, fear is a big motivator for a lot of things. There's still a lot of fear. So hopefully, you know, platforms like ours can help break down that fear and give people into the habit of really taking control of their finances on their own.

Like you said, we are like personal trainers, like you don't necessarily need us. We give out a lot of free game. And I know you give out a lot of free game on your platform too. Like just follow those steps. You can ask for clarification but you don't necessarily need financial advisor. . Yeah. So I wanna talk about your role cuz you transitioned from like selling life insurance to kind of being a coach and then really going full-fledged into the cfp.

Why did you choose to go that route?

[00:25:11] Andre: You know, I decided to go this route cause what could inside insurance, this is my. My second entrepreneurial story cuz I've done this entrepreneur thing before. So I said Okay Andre, I'm going to try this financial advisor thing way. Well not way back In some in the summer of 2022, I said, okay, I'm gonna get my Life health license again cuz I needed that.

Cause I do sell life insurance and disability policies and whatnot. So I got that. And Sima, for whatever reason, I guess it dinged something inside the State Farm system. . So they say, Hey, this guy has a life insurance policy, not policy license. And with State Farm, they have a code of conduct. So pretty much it was gonna be a conflict of interest to break it down.

Simply, if I'm talking to clients, they think I might try and sell them life insurance as well. So that's a big no no. So once that thing dinged, I think two days later they said, Hey, you either need two. Leave the job. B, let go of your license. Or C, we can move this up to corporate, see if they'll give you a pass.

Which option? She C wasn't really an option, I guess. So I said, okay, well I guess I'm gonna head out. So then from there I really started going to it full-time and I started liking it more and more just because I just create financial plans for people. I mean, that's what I always wanted to. And to make it in this business, you need to talk to high net with people, middle net with people pretty much being known in the area.

So I've kind of been doing that already. Like I'm Pav lot of organizations. I told you before, I'm doing a game night tomorrow, so I feel like I had my network around me now and through the millennials next door. I have a strong enough platform that I believe that people understand. I'm genuine about it and I truly do want to help.

Now in the flip side, if I happen to sell some life insurance, hey, more money for me . But yeah. You know, I always believe that planning comes first before selling hands down. So I just hope Yeah. If they decide they want to use me, cool. If they don't, I got recommendations. , the point is to get this stuff done right, with or without me.

[00:27:15] Naseema: Right. I love it. And I just wanna talk a lot, a little bit about like the different structures and like p working with different kind of financial advisors. So we have a expert that's on the podcast who's a fee only fiduciary financial advisor. So his financial advising is just, you pay him a flat fee.

or a monthly fee, and then he gives advice. You go buy the products, he tells you what to buy and what to do as opposed to you're an agent. So you sell products and get commission off of that, correct? Correct. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:50] Andre: well, first off, I will say the financial industry pricing and payment model is a mess.

I, I honestly don't like, But again, it is what it is. So when you mentioned earlier you went to Schwab and you know, they basically said you don't have enough money to invest with us. I do get it. Because for us, as far as like those assets under management, we only get 1%. And that's not including the other feess.

We gotta pay out to other people too. So someone comes to me with 10,000, that's not 1%. It's like that's not much. It's like maybe 50 bucks I'll be actually in my pocket. So that right there, I don't like that portion just because it makes people want to find the big fish. And then middle class low people, they kind of get left out.

It's an unfair system. It's not right. But again, that's what we live in. So the fee only that is something rather new in the past few years. So I personally like that one. When it comes to asset management and coaching, that's what I do as well. And yeah, I mean the commission still something cool too, but I'll do like Fiona and definitely fiduciary.

I can explain that real quick. So fiduciary and suitability, those are the two big tones in the financial world. So let's imagine you go into Macy's and you wanna buy a coat full of wintertime. The first person you meet is a salesperson. They are going to represent suitability. They say, okay, you looking for a coat?

Perfect. I got a coat right here for you. The coat looks decent on you. And they say, okay, well you can get this coat. I just happen to get the highest commission possible. It's a win-win right now for fiduciary, the salesperson, they might put on the same coat on you and say, you know, that coat looks pretty decent, but I have a better looking coat in the back.

Let me go grab it. They put the new coat on you and say, you know what? This coat looks a much better fit for you. And also turns out they don't get as much commission. So overall difference between fiduciary and suitability is fiduciary. They have to put the best item that is for you. Like you are put ahead of their commission.

Pretty much suitability. They're gonna get you what you need, but it might not be the best product depending on the person. So at all times, find someone you do trust. .

[00:30:08] Naseema: So it sounds like you kind of do a hybrid model cuz you don't necessarily have to sell somebody into a product. You do a lot of like the planning and the coaching as well.

So that's, that's cool. I like that structure cuz you do have the option to put them into something and actually walk 'em through that process, like their life insurance. So I, yeah, I, I like that structure. What was I gonna say? Oh my god. When you brought up the entrepreneurialship, I remember that you are like the king of side hustles and I used

I used to follow your little side hustle while you're like crazy little things that you used to do. And I love this because I feel like Andre, you don't wait for money to come to you like you always are gon you always hustling and you always gonna go out. Oh yeah. So can you talk to us about a few of your side hustles?

What are your favorite one?

[00:31:01] Andre: My favorite one hands down is Uber. Like I love to drive y'all. I'm a talkative, friendly ass dude from Orlando, Florida. So yeah, I don't wanna talk to everybody in the car. So that's always been fun to me. And depending on when you're doing it, you can and depend on where you're driving cuz you now anti did make a thousand in the weekend.

I'll say usually on the weekend I do 24 hours, like not straight, of course, by 24 hours from Friday to Sunday, and I walk away from about seven to eight 50 in just revenue. Again, it's not bad. My car is pretty small. I don't pay much in gas, so it just kind of fit me well. The other one I did in the past was the scooters, and that was crazy in alley until like at one point you would see U-Haul.

at 10 o'clock at night with kids in them, and the kids would go out, grab the scooters, bring them back to the U-Haul. It was madness, but man, that thing paid out at first . Since then, it kind of calmed down. Like now it's only $5 per scooter, but sometimes it was like $20 per scooter. Yeah, that thing calmed down a lot.

So outside of Uber, I do that one pretty actively. The second one I do is Airbnb. So I get live in a four, two and a half foot house. It's just me. My Airbnb guest just left y. Like I, I know maybe this was a good timing, but he just left yesterday. I was getting about $1,200 from him just for one room.

Again, not bad. Y'all like, you gotta live with someone. That part sucks. But it's a sacrifice at the end of the day. Yeah, love. I mean, if you're

[00:32:35] Naseema: being good with the money, you're good. Yeah. I mean, I love it. That's house hacking, like at its best. And you're using Airbnb? I house hack. I rent my rooms out to travel.

I have a room that I rent out to travel nurses. I love it because it's just a extra building support system for me. But I love it, so I don't, I don't mind living with other people. Cause I always meet the most interesting people that end up being like family.

[00:32:56] Andre: Yeah. And you know, you mentioned house hacking.

Cause I gotta tell my story now. So house hacking. That is a love language, just like dividends, . When I think about it, me and my ex-wife, we lived in one home, sold it, made a profit. Then I ended up in the Airbnb, just kind of passed the time by. This was before Covid hit. I said, you know what? I don't wanna be this Airbnb no more.

Use that money to get a town home out here in Takeda, Georgia. It was a fix uper, so I fixed up a lot of stuff. And then next thing you know, the pandemic hits. So I was kind of there. I had a roommate. She was paying about 80% of the mortgage by herself. And then I said, okay, you know what? I'm gonna move into another house.

And it just turned out that the market took off. So I sold that house for way more than it's worth, called it a day. Now I'm in a 4 0 2 and a better community with a gate. So yeah, house hacking is a way cuz I don't make a lot of money. Like I think my salad before this was like maybe 50 k a. So, yeah, if without house sacking, I'll never be able to afford this home.

So yeah, may. People. Mm-hmm. , take a look at that. Sorry. I got used to my own podcast. . .

[00:34:07] Naseema: Oh, you're about to say neighbors.

No, I love it. I love it. But I do kind of want you to break it down a little bit more, cuz I understand what you're saying. But for people who. Don't really understand the process of house hacking. He basically walked you through how he went from like want, went through four houses and basically doesn't have any living expenses.

So it really doesn't matter how much he's bringing home because his overhead is so low. Like Andre, if you wanted to just take a year off and not work, you could probably be cool and still be able to live. and that's what House Hacking has afforded you to do. So Leslie, like, walk us through again. So you and your ex-wife had a house and then you guys sold that and go through union?

Yep.

[00:34:52] Andre: Mm-hmm. . So we sold that. And this was in the gentrified area of Atlanta. So we did pretty well. I think we walked with maybe 40 K each, so that was pretty cool. Paid off some credit card debt, called it today. Then the next house, and I think this is the most important for house acting is. using delayed gratification.

So think of it like this. Delayed gratifications to say, Hey, I make more money, but that doesn't mean I need to spend more money. So if you guys ever look up the term lifestyle inflation, it is real, I promise you, cuz usually after college you make the most money you might have made in the forever, and all of a sudden you are too good to stay with the roommate.

Or all of a sudden, Yohanna civic ain't doing, you need that bmw. So, yeah, it's like you make an extra 50 K in your life, but you also got extra 50 K of expenses. You're not realizing the extra amount you actually have. So going back to the store here, with the house hacking, you wanna make sure you have some way to pay the mortgage or as much as possible.

So again, it goes back to delay gratification. As a bachelor, again, move into a town home. I didn't wanna live with anybody. I don't wanna live by. But D way gratification is real. So I had a roommate, she was paying about 600, and then we split the utilities and the mortgage was about maybe 8 20, 8 50. So it really wasn't much I Oh,

[00:36:15] Naseema: in Atlanta.

[00:36:16] Andre: Jesus. Yeah. No, you gotta love it . But yeah, like she stayed there for pretty much until I moved out. So that was this great incoming, especially during Covid, I was taking that money and investing in stocks. So again, preparation is key. So during Covid, a lot of people, they learned how to vest in stocks during Covid, not prior.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So they weren't really able to take full advantage of it, but you know for sure. I Sure enough did. Yeah, she did. Yeah. But with that town home with the roommate, I wasn't paying much again. So I had enough time to save up. So that's another key to house hackings. You need some type of plan to move into the next house, your next big home, or buy another home, whatever your plan is.

So for me, again, I found this had great timing, just a bunch of luck. But I found a new community, new the Cascade area, if you're familiar with. , but in the area it was new homes being built. I said New homes. Okay, bet I put down a thousand dollars deposit just to get the lot secured. And this was February, 2021, I suppose.

Yeah, February, 2021. And during that time, I was able to still look around. , and I guess that's when the house market really started to take off. So I was like, okay, well I can't find nothing. I guess I'm moving into this homem now, so I actually pay the full price. And it costs 2 74 2 and then, yeah, overall, Again, it is about that delayed gratification.

So there's other ways to do it. You can do a multi-family home where you have one person living on one side, you live on the other. Hey, they pay the mortgage pretty much, or a big portion of it. I had one guest on my podcast. She had a full unit apartment, three people paying for the whole apartment. She live in the house for.

And yet it just goes back to that delayed gratification. Doing what you don't want to do now, what other people aren't willing to do so you can live the life you wanna live down the road. Cause yeah, 10 years I ain't gonna be doing this. Yes. I won't be on the beach. Hopefully .

[00:38:20] Naseema: Yeah, just chilling. I love it.

And dang, two 70 something. Oh my God. Four four bedroom house in 2021. That's insane. So you, so with your mortgage, like how much of that do you actually pay?

[00:38:38] Andre: Hmm. For this past person, he's been here, well, he was here since August, he's paying 1200. My mortgage is 16. Some chunk change, so I only had to pay 400 on the mortgage and HOA fees.

Prior to this, when I was really doing Airbnb, I had two people in both rooms, so I'll probably do that again. Maybe February, but yeah. Like one of them I charged I think $30 per day. The other one's $40 per day, just because it's big as it's on tv, it's kinda more luxurious. So again, if I book out two rooms, then yeah, it is gonna pay for the whole mortgage.

And especially, you know, starting with a new career in this business. Yeah. I'm taking all the money I can get. , .

[00:39:21] Naseema: I love it. I love it. But then I love what you said too, like you don't just use that money and inflate your lifestyle. You use that money to invest, you use that money to save and look for the next property.

So I think that's what's key and that's what anything, yeah. That's with even just working a nine to five and getting a bonus. Don't use that money to like inflate your lifestyle. Use that money to put extra money away so that later on work becomes optional for you. And I think like that's the goal for all of us is to make work optional.

Yeah, exactly. And

[00:39:51] Andre: still have fun with her money. Exactly. Some a little bit fun cause I definitely bought a lot of speakers throughout this past year.

[00:39:58] Naseema: you and your speakers. But yeah, the house shaking. Oh my God, you are so funny. . I think like that's the, that's like the whole like thing about life is that you have to do the things that you enjoy as well.

But you don't have to. , like live without, live outside of your means, or you don't have to in order to like, okay, in order to be successful, you have to have a balance between things that make you happy, like your speakers. Mm-hmm. and things that are gonna provide for you in the future. And I just don't think people do that balance very well.

Think like it's like a lot of this yellow mentality and not a lot of. What if, like are preparing for the future mentality? So I think that you do that excellently, but the, the best way to do it again, is to reduce your housing expenses, reduce your transportation expenses. So you, you do reduce your housing expenses through house hacking.

You reduce your transportation expenses through doing Uber. And 600 something dollars a month and six to $800 a month in a weekend is nothing to laugh at. Like as a side hustle income. I mean, imagine, yeah, true. Like you can put away, I mean, to max how you know, your I r A, it's only $500 a month, you know, so just like put things into perspective.

Anyway, Andre, I love your story. I love all the things that you share. You're an incredible resource. I love millennials next door, even though I cannot spell millennial .

[00:41:23] Andre: Hey, you, you and everybody else, and myself. I did not think about that when I made the name, until I started spelling it myself. ,

[00:41:30] Naseema: I spell, I'm like the oldest millennial, so I'm like the, the oldest millennial you can be.

But yeah, that I just, I like the generations like the X and the Z and the Y. Like that's easy. the millennial. It's so hard. Anyway, you guys check out millennials next door. Andre has his own podcast, great newsletters, great community and content. But if people wanna work with you, how can they get in contact with you

[00:41:56] Andre: in true millennial fashion?

Y'all can just send me up in the dms, honestly. Like I answer my DMS all the time. So, D dm. Exactly. If you guys wanna follow me, it's at the millennials next door, or we can put this look up. Andre. I'm on LinkedIn. Facebook, those like I'm more born than the influencing side of me . So yeah, if anything for the IG page, , ,

[00:42:18] Naseema: I love it.

And thank you so much Andre, so much insight, so much fun. But I really think that you have like figured out the key to success and you have fun doing it, so I love seeing it. .

[00:42:32] Andre: Hey, thank you and thank you so much for having me on the show and I always love what you do for your community as well, so it's always a pleasure.

Thank

[00:42:39] Naseema: you .

Hey there I’m Naseema

My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

Learn about the course

---

Join the Facebook Community

Join the Financially Intentional community and get access to resources to guide you on the path to Financial Freedom.

---

Watch these Videos To Learn How to…

---

Keep Listening

Here are some more episodes you may enjoy…