Violeta 0:00

You need to invest in the stock market. Just put it in an index fund, set it, and forget it. That's often the advice that we get as we start learning about investing and start our financial journey. At least for me, that's exactly the type of advice that was given to me. But now we're seeing how the economy is going. We got high gas prices, high groceries, mass layoffs. And so we're starting to think what is going on? Because a lot of these are companies that are in these index funds. So the question is, are we funding our own struggles? And that is what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. We're going to get into how we may be funding our own struggles. What does that look like? How do we get in there? And a different way to invest and become more aware. And so I brought in awesome guests that I'm so excited to really have this conversation because it's something if you've been following Money Cheese Mate and the other podcast, Real Estate Cheese, you know that I talk about becoming more of a real estate investor that has more of a conscious effort of understanding that you are impacting a community and just making more ethical investments in general. And so today with me I have Tina Berger, the author of Invest Like a Mother. And I have her book. I'm halfway through it. It's really good books, I suggest. Already gonna plug that in for her. Definitely check that out. Very great book so far. She is a former investment advisor and innovation strategist with more than 20 years of experience. And her work explores a question that rarely comes up in conversations when we're talking about investing. And that is what are we actually evaluating when we decide whether an investment is a good one? Because we hear that all the time. Is this a good stock investment? But it's not just about the return, like how much it grows. There's a little bit more about it and how it impacts everything else, right? And that's what we're gonna get into. So thank you, Tina, so much for coming on here to really talk about this because I'm excited. It's something that I've been kind of navigating internally and offline and all that stuff. So excited.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Thank you. Thank you for having me. You did an amazing job of explaining what the book is about, too. Yeah, I have to take you around with me so you can tell other people what it's about.

Violeta 2:32

You know, that's how that's how it goes. We're usually like bad at, you know, doing the elevator pitch for ourselves because I really suck at my stuff, but I'm okay with other people's like, you know, introducing their work and everything. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

It's been fun to follow you. I really appreciate what you're up to and the angles that you're taking too. So I'm really, really happy to be on your podcast with you. And I really like the question of are we funding our own struggle? Sometimes I feel like I can see that on a small scale in my daily life too.

Violeta 3:05

Yeah, yeah. That's something I've been wondering about because we see all these big companies, the companies that are in these index funds, and then I feel that guilt. And I think you mentioned it also in your book. When you start like taking it back, and I think that happens whenever you get out of the financial like struggle, like once you start becoming a little bit more financially stable and then you start learning more about finances, then you start seeing everything, and of course, everything that's going on right now, you're like, wait a minute. And so when I found you on TikTok, it's kind of like a light bulb because it's been something that I've been just kind of like wondering about. And so I really like the conversations that you're having on TikTok, which by the way, if you're not following her, like she's having some awesome conversations, you know, geared similar to this. And actually, one of my favorite ones was the recent one that you did was about how the Elon Musk, like all that controversy, which I won't get too much. I'll just already have it linked in the show notes. So make sure you check out that. I think you have a two-part for that one, and it explains all of that drama over there. So it was it really was like mind-blowing when I realized that. So I kind of want to ask you and kind of like set the scene on what we're talking about of like, are we funding our own struggles and how that looks like and how you navigate it? Because you talk a little bit about your book when you started realizing that. So I want to go through like a little bit setting the scene, but also how you started coming, I guess, conscious of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

So my background is that I didn't come from people that had a lot of financial literacy. You know, my dad was military and from a farm family before that, as is often the case. And my mom is an immigrant here from a different country from Cyprus, which is a little tiny, tiny island in the Mediterranean. So they both really worked hard and they put me in a position where I could go to school and do things that they didn't have access to. And so that, you know, is sort of wired into my sort of DNA and my heritage of we want to make things better for the people who come after us. And so I sort of was like, okay, so I got to learn about school. You know, I went to school and I was like, I'm gonna learn also about financial, my own personal finance picture, and get as much understanding of that so that I could continue the trend of uplifting those that came after me. And so I for all through my 20s, you know, I had financial books, financial planning books, try to understand mutual funds, how they work, how the stock market worked, what alternatives were out there. And I was like, okay, I got this. I need to give my 401k, all this same stuff that we're told. Although index funds back then were not as central as they are to most people's financial planning and advice now. That wasn't the main driver. It was mutual funds, it was diversification of your portfolio using funds. I'd say in the last probably 15 years, that has become much more prevalent as the primary guidance. So, but anyway, I got interested in that. I went and got my job and I started my 401k, and I started working inside of very large organizations, which very large organizations back then were a completely different animal to very large organizations right now. And I think that's really important to say because I think many people that are in my generation think with it because they haven't really dug into it and because they haven't been fascinated by it, and I'm weird, so I have been, they don't recognize how different it is now and how different the impacts are. So you mentioned, are we funding our own struggle? And the truth is we have been, but it hasn't been as visible as it is now. Now everybody's going, hang on, Oracle's paid out $4.2 billion in profit sharing dividends this year, and they just took out almost $5 billion in loans to fund data centers instead of using their own cash, right? Like when I first started investing, and if you go back and look at the old books, they will tell you there were two types of profiles for companies. You could be a giant company that you weren't going to be growing a lot. The expectation from your shareholders was not to grow a lot, it was to share profit, and that's what dividends do. Dividends are cash that are it's a little, you know, some amount per share that's paid out to stockholders every quarter. Small investors, they're not used to thinking about or looking at what dividends are because we automatically reinvest them. There's a little tick box when you invest in a mutual fund or in an index fund that you're just gonna reinvest those. And that's kind of how we're programmed and trained to do it. But every quarter, people that own those stocks individually, huge numbers of them, big amounts of them. I don't know how much Larry Ellison made in the last dividends payout, but he got a giant chunk of that $4.2 billion so far. That's only three payments out this year so far. And then they took out this huge leverage. So Oracle, the company, is highly leveraged, meaning it has a ton of debt because they're trying to build all these data centers. There's so much to talk about there. But the point is back in the day, you would either pay out dividends because you were a big company and you weren't expected to grow, or you were a growth company and you didn't pay any dividends because you were highly investing all of the profits that came back in to growing the company. Now you've got giant companies like Oracle that are turning into big cash grabs for large, wealthy people that own that stock individually. And the rest of us who are investing, and I'm not invested in the stock market anymore, which I'm not saying everybody should do, mind you. That's not my advice. I'm just saying small investors never see that kind of cash. They don't see that kind of return from the market. And there's some impacts on the other side, too. We tend to live in the neighborhoods or the parts of the country where data centers get put because we don't have the resources to fight those things, and because they go sell it to the local politicians and councils, and they get all these great trade-offs for tax benefits. So if they default on their loans, we'll pay for it. If data centers go in and it increases energy uses, we'll pay higher energy. We end up subsidizing all of this. And then all that we are looking at, though, which is back to the original question. What we end up looking at is what was our return from the stock increase over the last year? So we only look at one little teeny tiny dimension of impact when we evaluate our own investments. And that's the kind of big picture, a lot of words, hopefully not too many, but it's kind of mind-blowing when you see how extractive it is from working people.

Violeta 10:19

Yeah, when I started learning and founding TikTok, like it just opened up a whole can of worms, and then I started thinking about it. It's like this is definitely for sure by design, they tell us to just let it forget it. That's a smart investment, right? Just put in an index fund. And because the important thing is me, myself, and I, right? Like now it's going the stocks is going to increase, my portfolio is going to increase, so then I will be okay for retirement. And then we also talk about like what's the magic number that you need for retirement, but then we don't like question is like why the reasons like we need, I think I calculated mine, it was like three point something. I was like, the reason I would need that is because of all the issues, and then you start looking into that kind of worms of you know, like the healthcare and the data centers is a big live in a rural area, and so right now there's a big fight. I mean, Facebook has been so much full of drama because everyone's surprisingly, you know, it's been unifying people to go fight these data centers. So it's been it's been interesting.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Oh, you're in an actual location where they're bringing one potentially. I see.

Violeta 11:30

Yeah, and I'm in Texas, and they just it's just was open, you know, just come over here, build all the data centers, like we don't have issues over here. So then I think the past few years, I think now it has grown so much that the average person can't ignore it anymore. We're seeing all the layoffs. Amazon and Walmart was on like the top, I forget what list it was, but like where their majority of their employees have to have, you know, like welfare, food stamps, all that stuff. Yes, but they're making so much money, and you're like, what's going on? But then we are putting stocks into them, like you know, purchasing the stocks and funding this as well, and you see, like it's just it's just been kind of like a journey, eye-opening for me, like realizing all this, and then it made me mad.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yes, so so what you said was Walmart is booking all of these profits, and they're not paying their people, so we're subsidizing the taxpayer is subsidizing the wages that Walmart people are funding Walmart's profit with, right? That's something is wrong with that picture. That's not how it used to be. Now, I don't want to say that it wasn't exploiting somebody. Anytime you expect a consistent 10 plus, 15 plus percent return, you got to go, whose expense is that at? Like every year, how do you consistently have a business that does that every year without it having an impact that's hurtful somewhere in the world, right? And though it hasn't been as visible to us over the past when I first started investing, it wasn't as visible to me. Now it's like we can't not see it, it's everywhere. You can see what problems it's causing. And so my book is like I knew this before, but it's really hard to bring something forward and not have any kind of solution or action to recommend to people. And even in my book, you haven't got to the parts where it says here's what to do instead. But even in the book, I don't say, oh, everybody should sell all their stock. You have to manage your own risk profile and the needs that you have and balance that. But when you have the awareness of it, it changes the way you evaluate your risk level in some way because we're collectively at risk. So if you if you're just managing my risk, financial risk, and then we have health risks and all of these other risks that can take us to our knees, then you kind of have to back up and look at the bigger picture and go, okay, what's the balance? You know, like how do I manage all of this risk and safety for myself and for future generations? Because we kind of know, like we feel it. It's not like we don't know. Part of why there's so much anxiety now, you know, we're all medicated.

Violeta 14:28

Yeah, like I think it can't be everyone has freaking anxiety. I swear, even yesterday we started one of my classes like the semester just started when we talked a little bit line that I'm in school and everything, and even him just like, yeah, I got potentially ADHD, diagnosed with extreme anxiety, and everybody was like saying, and I was like, what is going on? We were just anxiety everywhere, and it was funny, but not funny at the same time because I was like, and I mean too diagnosed and everything. I was like, okay, something's going on here that's definitely, and then you start looking at you already mentioned it like, yeah, it's causing us all this anxiety, and you kind of mentioned it already a little bit of how we got here was the mentality of this, and I really like that you mention it in your book too about this, in my opinion, like greediness of constantly wanting to grow and outdo the previous year. And I've seen it, and I've seen it even on the military side. That's I don't know if you see it on the news, but especially the Navy, which is what I was in, and it was the same issue. I like to say that the private equity mentality has been messing up the Navy for a really long time because of the whole growth statistics, looking good on paper, hitting the check mark, and the same with these big giant corporations, they're just kind of like, oh, we've got to increase, make profits, and all that stuff. And my husband works for a startup, so that's all I hear as well. And I'm like, like, it's everywhere. Like, once you like open your eyes, you notice how it has engulfed everything, and now we're seeing all the consequences, and now we're having to be like, what is going on? What do we do? All that.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

So, yeah, and I think part of the reason why it became so clear to me so early is because I'm in Houston, by the way, so I'm also in Texas, is I was working inside of some of the largest energy corporations, and I was watching over time as really amazing programs that had good social and environmental and carbon reduction intentions kept getting canceled. Because when you're doing that kind of work, if we compare you to a different company that's in your same sector and you're underperforming because you're investing in new technologies that will reduce environmental impacts, or because you're doing good citizen stuff as a company, or you're taking extra good care of your employees and your pensions are good. There's this pressure from market expectations, we'll say shareholders, we'll say Wall Street, that you're not performing well against your peers as I compare to your peers. So they'll downgrade your stock if you do that. And so there's several stories in my book about how I saw this consistently over time. But but it's very heartbreaking because I'm inside of these companies and I'm seeing people making decisions that they have to make that are out of alignment with their own personal values, with what they know is the correct decision, because they have to satisfy these financial expectations above all. And if you look like this morning, I was listening to somebody who was talking about a product that she'd gotten from Apple and it was already falling apart. And she was saying, Well, when I first started working with Apple products, what they're missing about the Apple story from 30 years ago is that Steve had a much smaller company. So when you're a small company and you're not at market saturation and you can continue to grow by selling your products at a price that works for people, then you can say you're about I'm we're about creativity, we're about profit, we're about taking care of our community, we're about taking care of our employees. We have these in the break room and whatever, you know. And over time, as you grow to a certain size and you get to market saturation where you're having a hard time finding more market share, all of that stuff falls away. Every single one of those things goes away until all you're left with is this one number that we just have to chase every year, regardless. So they end up creating new a new plug. So you have to buy all new equipment to charge your phone, and you see a whole lot less innovation. And I'm not picking on Apple. I mean, it's similar if you look at Whole Foods and the progression of Whole Foods from when they started and all of this conversation about how cool it was because they had caps on executive salaries that were a certain multiplier of whoever the lowest paid employee was. You couldn't go above that. They paid for college for people, Starbucks. Same stories. Like at the beginning, when you're small, you can say and actually mean it. I believe a lot of these leaders mean it, but then it turns into something. It turns into this big machine that everybody's now. It's like you're investing in your 401k so that you can escape working for the company that provides your 401k. That's what it feels like people are doing.

Violeta 19:36

Yeah, that's exactly it. Where it's just basically a circle. You're funding the company that is not paying you enough. So then you have to struggle and everything's getting higher, and it's just like an endless circle, and it's just kind of like which now we get into of how we can start making a change. And again, the idea isn't to, and I get told this all the time when I tell them, like, well, you know, as a real estate investor, my goal is to do a little bit more ethical, and they're like, What do you mean ethical? You're still being part of capitalism or whatever. I was like, Yeah, but there's no perfection, but I can make conscious effort. And so when I saw like your concept of investing like a mother, it just like I was like, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. And so I want to get into that mindset, that mentality of what, well, first of all, let's talk about what you mean by investing like a mother.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

So investing like a mother to me is really just backing up and taking that whole picture into account because, first of all, it's not a gendered thing in my experience. I'm kind of saying this is nurturing, it's like looking at the whole community, not just one side of the equation. So anytime you make an investment, whether it's real estate or whether it's a stock market or whatever a business, you're creating a relationship. There's a relationship that you're establishing. You can turn away from it and not care even in real estate about your tenants. If you're a landlord and you you can try to maximize your gain and minimize the value that you provide. And then there are more ethical ways to do that, more human ways to do that. So investing like a mother is finding things that work on both ends of that relationship. And that's the way that I think about it, is really understanding and being responsible for your impact and hopefully doing something that has a positive outcome on the communities and people you affect with those investments, and also looking at what you need. So I think the question we were talking earlier about like, well, what can I make on that? Because when you're investing in investments or in financial investments, the way we're kind of taught to do it, it's like, well, what's been the history of that from a returns point of view? That's the only question. What's the average return you get off that? What do I get from if I give you my if I put my $100, what am I going to get at the end of the year? That's the only question we are taught to. Ask. So you're not wrong to be thinking that way. It's what we're taught to ask. And also, you're a question of what do you really need to have in order to be financially secure? So I think investing like a mother asks a different question, which is what do you need individually to be okay with your family? That's not a small question. It's not insignificant. You shouldn't trade that off, right? You got to take care of that. But also, how do we collectively take care of what does the world need? What does my community need? How do you balance all of those things together? Because if you retire with three million dollars and you can take care of kids and maybe grandkids or whatever, but the world is less safe, the world is less secure, then you trade it off maybe more than you intended to. Now, as long as you're intentional, it's okay. And that's what my book is about. It's like as long as we own what we're doing, as long as we stay aware of it, then it's okay. And that's like a mother. It's like, look, you realize this is what's happening, right? Like you realize that this is not just about you, it's also about future generations. It's also about these people that we're all connected to. So we have this individual experience that we're having, but there's nothing that we do that's not interconnected. And culturally, I come from a place that knows that, but we all do. If you go back far enough, we all know that. But we've kind of gotten in this cultural mindset that it's an individual game and that you can win at it, you know.

Violeta 23:38

Yeah, yeah, that definitely has been sold as like just work hard and all that stuff. And now is we didn't see how our actions were affecting the community in itself, and that's the way I view with real estate because I know that's one of the reasons you know real estate investors get like and for good reason, right? Because there's really bad investors that, like you mentioned, they just go in there. How can I maximize this? And matter of fact, this past month I took a landlord training for my other portfolio because I'm now going to self-manage. And one of the things that the instructor said that when you walk down these communities and you see like two out of three, right? Like two-thirds of the houses there. They're run down, they're looking just crappy or whatever. And most of them are owned by out-of-state real estate investors because they are just too focused on the maximization and they just run these properties to the ground trying to squeeze as much profit out, and then they just sell them, you know, once they're done. And so that really kind of put it in perspective how much of a problem it is, especially in that those communities, which is a low-income community. And even here in San Antonio, where now I'm trying to grow a portfolio here, and I'm also going into a low-income area, and I'm seeing these, and these are properties that they still are dealing with lead and asbestos and other health hazards. So it would have been easy for me to just leave the asbestos insulation and all that because they're like, Well, as long as you don't go up there, and I'm like, No, I'm just gonna go ahead and take care of it. Yes, that's a little bit from the investing like a mother, too. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, so I was like, no, I'm not going to have these people, and especially in the other ones where I know I have like single mothers with kids. It's like I don't want anything with lead there. Like, I have a background in occupational health and safety as well. So now I understand. And matter of fact, that's where I went to school in Houston, and that was around the time where like you had all these explosions, too, because of the safety being done away. So, like, I can't understand how like you know, you can just take away the human out of your investments, but it was easy for me to do when I started investing in stocks, right? Because you're so like real estate investments, like it's kind of more right there, but with stock, like you know, so I think it was just it's too easy for people, you're too detached, and so now you can't be because of the high gas, the high prices, the groceries and all that stuff, and then with all the freaking food thing, recalls and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

And all of those are impacts of trying to push down costs, trying to push down costs. So, can we compromise off that? Can we compromise off that? Can we do this with fewer people? Can AI do that for us? I understand the pressures, like I said, I've sat in meetings with senior leaders in large corporations and saw them just be like, I've been given this directive that I have to let go of 30% of my people, or I have to classify them by performance when they're all really high performers so that they can justify it, you know, or so that they can not pay out bonuses to those people this year. It's like it's terrible, you know, and then they've been there for 20 years or whatever. And so their choices are I can leave it and then I'm at risk, right? Like we talk about what do I need? Like there's some security risk there, and different people have their risks. Like, I'm fortunate because I didn't grow up with a lot of trauma. I didn't grow up with a lot of insecurity, and I just kind of have a disposition of that'll figure it out, you know. But that's why I felt okay doing that. I also have a great family around me that's close by. That's not everybody's situation. So, like, I look at that and I'm not mad at that dude. I'm like looking at that systemically, going, this system needs to change. We need alternatives to this. So, real estate is definitely one of them. And one of the things I cover in my book, and we could do a whole show on self-directed IRAs used for. Have you done that? Do you know? Do you know the structure?

Violeta 27:51

It is on my to-do list.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Violeta 27:53

The only thing I'm waiting on is I have my TSP from the military, but I had a loan on it that I'm still paying off, so I can't switch it yet. But once that loan has paid off, I plan to switch it over to a self-directed IRA and then still learning what all I can do with that. I know I can do real estate things, but I just don't know all the roles or anything like that yet.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah, yeah. So it's a whole realm. And the reason why I say it is because most people don't know you can use retirement dollars, not while you're still employed by that company that you have your 401k with. But I see people getting laid off and then they leave that money in the old 401k or they move it into Schwab, and all of those places are limited in what you can invest in. Basically, you're still stuck in investing all of it in the market. And if you wanted to do a percentage of it in the market and a percentage of it in real estate and have the returns from your real estate tax deferred, just like you know, in a retirement account without paying penalties, there's a structure called the self-directed IRA. You won't find it at Schwab, you won't find it at any of the standard typical brokerage houses. But it's covered in my book. And I want people to know about it because it opens up a whole lot more possibilities for people that don't have a lot in saving savings, but they may have money that is from their 401k from an old company or a company they got laid off of. And it may allow them to start a new business or invest in real estate or do a number of different things that they don't make loans that they don't know they have access to. So that's one but put a pin in that for people that might be listening. The other thing I wanted your listeners to know about, because I'm planting seeds out here, is you probably saw my posts on Magnolia Fund. So in Houston, I've been like, there's got to be a way for individuals to do funds that make it possible for small investors to invest in better investments than the stock market, or at least alternative investments to the stock market. And one of the guys here in Houston who grew up in the East End, he grew up in Second Ward, which is historically Mexican part of the city, was redlined for a while. Now you've got private equity and other outside investors coming in and buying up the buildings, the old schools, and then they are developing it and they're changing the dynamic, they're changing the flavor of the neighborhood, and not all of them, but you know what the trend is that I'm talking about. And Eric, who grew up in that community, has done a couple of different tech startups, and he said to a couple of his friends, we need to do something here that allows and enables the neighborhood, our neighbors, to also benefit from the development of this part of the city. And he knew how to do a startup fund because he'd done them before, but he was like, let's make it accessible to the people who live here. And so he started Magnolia Fund. I think they got 160 people invested in, and the total investments were maybe $600,000, a little more than that. So it's not huge, but they took that money and they bought a piece of property that was a commercial kitchen. And now, because that part of the city is also known for food restaurants and food businesses, food-related businesses, it's very kind of central to that community. Now there isn't a commercial kitchen that's available to food startups in that community that is owned by that community. And it's a structure that I feel like could and should be replicated. Because even if like most of your portfolio stays invested in the stock market, if you could take a thousand or you know, some percentage of it and put it in your local community and start showing interest in other alternatives, more of these possibilities will emerge and we want them to.

Violeta 32:02

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I I'm gonna have to look that one, the Magnolia Fund. But yeah, you're right. Like, I yeah, I think a lot of times we just get stuck and like, you know, it's just me, myself, and I like how can I make such a difference when I'm going against these big giant corporations and like you know, Amazon or Walmart or whatever. But coming together is definitely a great way to go. And I've been thinking about that as well because I know I have a friend, she's in Dallas, and she's also thinking, and that's where I started realizing like there's people like us, we're just kind of like scattered, and you know, I'm glad they're doing the Magnolia Fund. And so I think we're finally starting to understand that, like, okay, we can come together and start making impacts as well. And another one that I kind of want to mention as well is like other ways that you can invest like a mother, and it's because one of my friends is telling me to do this next year is becoming an angel investor, and so you can directly invest and have a direct impact on somebody else to help start their business or whatever that has the values or whatever that you're looking for and have a more direct impact to as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

So something I've been thinking about for maybe to do next year, except I just don't know all the details that goes into being an angel investor and return what all you know, like what I have said and what I consistently say is they want us to feel like this is very complicated. But what you just said is like my friend wants to start this business that I believe in. I have some money, I could invest in that. There's just an agreement that you're writing up that says, so I don't expect anything for two years. And then after that, the expectation that I have is X percentage, or it's a loan. And here are the terms for the first five years. After five years, these are the terms what they change to. At that point, that person can either refinance and pay you back. It's not that hard, but they want us to think it's that hard. You're just having a conversation with somebody. On one of my videos, I threw out this example of how you could help somebody become a first-time home buyer if you have $30,000. So I found there's a couple of different places in Texas too where you can find undervalued or parts of the state that have taken a bad hit and the property values are low. But there are people there renting those places. So I used one in my example that was in Shreveport, Louisiana, because that's where my dad's family is from around that area. And you can buy a house for $30,000 that already has a tenant in it. That person might be paying $550 a month. And you could decide to offer that to them to purchase from you at 10% per year return. And it would make their actual monthly, it would make it less for them if they bought it from you for that. And then I had people come in and go, Yeah, but what if they default or what if their credit's bad? It's like, what's your risk here? You own the property. Yes, it's a pain in the butt. But if you have a relationship with that person and you're not treating it like a transaction, then you can have a lot different conversation about what to do if something happens that causes them not to be able to pay you. So all of those things are just person to person, they're relationship issues, you know. So if you're invested in somebody's business, it's a business thing, but also this is somebody you know potentially, or somebody you care about, somebody that's doing something with good intent that you feel like has a good chance to make something work. Otherwise, you wouldn't be thinking about investing in it. You could write down what you think it should be and then take it to an attorney and go, hey, this is I want it to be simple. This is what we want. And they'll they'll might tell you, oh, well, have you thought about oh god, they get trained to think of worst-case scenario. That's fine. But I'm just saying, like, people have bad credit for a lot of reasons. People don't want to work with banks for a lot of reasons. Good reasons. And maybe the person who's in there, I can tell I don't have a good vibe for them. I don't want to sell it to them, but you could sell it to somebody else for that price and that deal. And that person might be amazed because they can't see a way for them to become a homeowner ever. And then people said, Well, if you're trying to do good, why don't you just like you could sell it to them for 2% interest? I'm like, if you don't need this, it's back to what do I need to have in order to like take care of my family? If you don't need it, sell it to them for uh 0% or give it to them. Like, I'm not arguing that you must make 10% a year. I'm telling you, you could do that without hurting anybody or making them pay more.

Violeta 36:47

Yeah, there's a lot of different ways where we can start investing like a mother and starting to look at the whole picture. Again, the the main takeaway here is that yeah, it's not perfect. Just, you know, we just have to start becoming aware. I mean, at this point, it's like you can't continue to be just you know blind to what's going on. So again, we're not going for perfect or anything like that. I mean, Tina's not even invested, you said, not in stocks anymore.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

So no, but I am like I have some short-term rental properties, and people kind of because there's no, as you say, and we're not trying to be perfect, but like, can you be sensitive? If I'm doing a short-term rental property that's one of my investments, how am I in the community? Am I just doing it as a transactional business or am I trying to create an experience for the people that come there where they get to experience the nature, where I'm also supporting service providers and paying them fairly in that area to take care of my property? So, what's the net effect of what you're doing in relationship with that property versus what's the way I can maximize? Because I've read a lot of stuff and they're like, here's how you pick where you should go. Back to your point. It's like you're gonna pick some place you have no connection to. Like the places where I have, like the place where I have a rental property is a place I love. I love it, and that's why I want people to experience it. That's a really different motive. And you can tell from my returns, because we consistently invest in upgrading the space and taking care of it in a different way than it would be, and I trade off some returns for that, and then the reviews that we get are people feel it and they get it, and it makes a difference. And I feel like when people experience where these properties are in Vermont, like in a very rural part of Vermont, and so they get that nature injection and it makes them care a lot more about remembering themselves and remembering ourselves as part of an interconnected place and people.

Violeta 38:59

Yeah, it's it's again just starting to become more conscious. And again, we understand. I mean, the situation we are in, of course, you always got to take care of home. And so we're not saying like go out, sell your stocks or whatever, but maybe you can make small changes. Maybe you know, you start investing in companies that have more a little bit ethical values or or views or whatever, or have something that you align with versus you know putting it all on whatever Amazon, whatever, these kind of sketchier companies, because yes, you're going to get a nice return, but again, you know, like the impact overall, we're struggling now for groceries and things like that. So, and maybe seeing what other avenues I think we all just get told stock investing, stock investing 401k, and then that's it. And I know because that's one of my struggles with trying to get people to invest in real estate. It's like, hey, you know, there's this other thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Make it really scary. Oh, it's so scary.

Violeta 39:57

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

And you're like, this isn't scary. You just have to do it once or twice, and then you go, okay, there's some things, and I know this is part of what you consult on. Like that, how do you make it safe for yourself? How do you have the right community around you so that you know you can help be walked through it? But you know, yes, it is a little bit more involved. Yes, it does take a little bit more time. And part of why we're not paying attention is because we're too busy grinding just to survive, and you got to slow down a little bit. And here's the thing is like we can only slow down so much. So I'm not trying to preach about that. But what I feel like you and I are both talking about, it's a seed planted. So even if you don't do anything different right now, it's like you decided to buy a Honda Accord and now you see Honda Accords everywhere. It's like if you start having the intention of a more ethical direction with your investments, you will start to see them. And that's my intention, you know, and also to have people kind of understand there's not such a thing as financial security if the space that we are living in is not secure for everyone, because all of that can flip just like that, right? We know it, that's why we're anxious, that's why billionaires are building bunkers. It's like, what are you protecting from? You're the richest person in the world. Are you not secure? Exactly.

Violeta 41:18

Exactly. Well, thank you so much for like coming on here. I really was excited because it's something that I'm kind of on a journey. You know, you plant you definitely planted a seed when I first came across your TikTok and everything. I've been thinking about it ever since, and then I got your book, and then I've just been reading about it, and then now, like you mentioned it, is I see it like now everywhere. And so now I'm in the journey of like okay, and I've been on the journey, like okay, figuring out how I can invest, but with more ethics and understanding the impact that I'm having. So thank you so much for coming on here. And I want to please tell everyone where they can find you, where can they get your book? Make sure you get that. I'll have the link down below. But I don't know if you want a specific place where they could purchase.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

You can in all the places that sell books, and know it's on audio too, if you want it on audio. But investlikeamother.net is my website, so that has all the links there. But thank you so much for having me on. It's been a delight to talk to you, Gioletta.

Violeta 42:17

Awesome. Well, thank you once again, and I will see everyone in the next episode. Bye.