The Rapper Who Made $400K Reading the Market

- Very real flux right now.

(upbeat music) Can I say? - Yes. - One point five six eight mil. - And these are the growth on there.

- Six hundred and a fifty three percent. Young gravy is a beloved rapper. You have known him through his music. Until he dropped the mic on a crazy financial trade. That video went viral and I had to know more.

- It's your biggest financial class. Today, gravy tells me about the options trade that created a major major payday for him. - We're in COVID. I want to say something in like 30 K. It came up like four.

I should have just popped in. - What he's investing in now. - My strategy is investing in the infrastructure of the newest thing. - So like AI, computer chips, all that.

“- And how musicians are actually making money right now?”

- A lot of processes here, you know.

The writers, there's producers, there's investors, there's a lot of people like going to the process of making it. Once you put out the music, there's a ton of other things that come along with it. During, then you sell your meat and greets, your merch. There's a lot of different things.

- So here's the big question. Have you made more money from your trading or from music? - I think overall. - And Nicole Laff, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money right now.

- And gravy, welcome to Money Rehab. - Thank you, Nicole, have it to be here. - So what do we call you? Your rep calls you gravy. - Matter gravy.

- Matter gravy? - Yeah. - What do you prefer? - You call me Matt. - Matt, cool.

Love that. So people know you as young gravy. They know you for your music and rapping. But you kind of outage yourself as a very savvy trader. And I don't even know where this was.

It was like a red carpet event. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - For the video? - Yeah, where you said that you did really well

on some call options for 1,800 flowers. - Yeah. - Tell me how that went down. - The actual video happening is we got a red carpet random. And they were like asking about what do you invest in

and most people tried to be like, oh, I invested myself.

“- It was like, what's your craziest investment move?”

And I was like, oh, I have the exact one right here. And I was like, oh, maybe people. Once I filmed it, I would be like, oh, it might be kind of dark. But, you know, it worked out. And then a lot of people hit me up after that video

for investment stuff. The way that the actual trade and the option to happen, I was during COVID, when it was getting pretty bad, I moved back to Minnesota. And I was like, I don't know, I would just pent up

in this house like every day, making music and needed something to focus on. So I started getting like back into my investment stuff. You know, I was on Wall Street Bats all the above. And I kept seeing obviously the meme stocks going crazy.

You know, I was like, I need to find my own version of this and I just sat there and thought for a while, like, what's something out of the box? You know, what's something off beatin' path here? And I thought, hey, people are dying.

People don't want to be together in person right now. How do they, you know? Are they gonna get flowers to each other? Money on her flowers, you know, someone delivers it. There's no human contact.

I thought this is probably gonna go up over the next couple of years.

“So I think it was like March, late March, 2020.”

And I just did like one year and two year call options for, I want to say I put in like 30k and it came out like 400. - 30k to 400. - And call options are an advanced investing strategy.

So you had done this before.

I assume it was the first time you were playing with options.

I had done it before and learned about it in college, kind of went deep in like, read it and have you learned stuff before a tragedy? And I had taken a lot of else trying it. 'Cause it's a year and you gotta be pretty specific

about things and I learned the hard way, like how to do a safer call, which was like long term, not quite as risky, but you know, you could do. The short term ones is what everyone would hype up

and that was like, yeah, like one day. And I had to have no luck with those, so. I learned from a few of those and then it was just good timing. I obviously also did like puts on airlines and cruise ships and all that.

- Jess. - Okay, so just as like options when I won, the way I remember it when I took all of my financial tests, I was like, call up, put down. I feel like there's a song in here or something.

- Yeah. - So like call you think something's gonna go, if you're gonna buy calls, or do you think it's gonna go up? And puts as you just mentioned, it's gonna go down.

- Okay, really, really quick, PSA on options. And option is not a stock. When you buy a stock, the worst case scenario is that the company tanks, you lose all the money you put in.

There are some strategies where you can lose more

than what you put in.

“So when somebody tells me that options are the way”

they're gonna get rich quick, I say the same thing. Options are how a lot of people got poor quick. So I love love, and I'm obsessed with the fact that you have had all of these big wins with options. But I also think that they should generally come

with the warning. So you thought all of the transportation type stuff, nobody was gonna be traveling. - Mm-hmm. - So you bought puts, just how did those--

- So you buy puts and you're betting against it. Someone who thinks it's gonna go up. - Yeah. - Basically. - There's pretty good explanation.

Call up, put down. Like that. - I feel like there's a wrap in there. - Good to be. Yeah.

We'll call it up or down. I don't know how I remember it. Some other strategy but like here's better. - Thank you. - So you said you had some big else.

What were those? - I guess not big. I was just testing it out. And I feel like I can't learn something. It's my big tip.

I feel like I can't really remember something if I don't put real money into it. Because then I'll remember it way better if I lose it. So I mean, it would be even if it's just a hundred bucks. I'd put that into like a call, but any kind of option.

And just watch it go from a hundred to like a one dollar or it could go way up, if you're right. So I think that is a good way to learn as long as you're not putting in like your whole network. - How did you even get interested in investing

much less getting into options? I'm assuming you did just straight trading before you started doing options. - So I went to school for marketing and finance at University of Wisconsin.

But when my music really started taking off, it was going so fast that I had to I dropped finance as a major and graduated in three and a half years with just marketing. So I had, I didn't get to like the final finance classes

but I had enough education and finance that I could, you know, do my thing. And also I think if you're learning finance in school,

“you should be also trading at the same time.”

- Yeah, 'cause it's so theoretical.

- It was so learning, yeah, the first finance class

I took, I didn't invest besides like Bitcoin and stuff and it's just so much harder to learn and actually care about things that we're not doing it. - Bro. - When did you invest in Bitcoin?

- 2015. - At what price? - I don't remember. But I know when I sold it and I have gone back and forth with other, you know, buying and selling Bitcoin

but that was a big come up. I think it was like 20,000 off of like four or something. I don't know what it was. It was a big, big one. - So you mentioned Wall Street bets that you were

like on Reddit looking through stuff do you have your own type of Wall Street bets group chat? - Oh, like a group chat. You know, I had like two or three friends that were in a group chat. I didn't even know who some of the guys were.

I just like had one home and he was interested in it and he added in his friends and they would all send like crazy recommendations like day of and especially in that like 2020 to 2022 era I was trying a lot of those

and I think there was like a golden era of like two years where everything was going to shit but Donald Trump was also trying to make the economy look great so there was this crazy way down, way up, thing going on like every day and you could kind of

actually predict what was gonna happen which has not happened before or since in my experience. So there was this window of time or like you'd hear some news and then you could put an investment and quick before it really affected the market.

I would assume other people would have caught on to that

but my first invested in it, the volume was pretty low.

- It was the craziest thing to come out of the group chat and does it still exist and can I join? - Hmm, probably give a good one. There's like, what's that like aerospace company sort of the day, archer, archer aviation?

I think it's called. That was a good one, the flower is play. - And you didn't do any of the meme stocks. Like the, you didn't get into game stock, right? - I, so that was another thing that I really like

would spend time on was I would watch the conversations in Wall Street Bets and watch those stocks and then put options against them. So as it's going up crazy, I would put a put on it which is kind of obvious but it worked really well

when they're like boosting game stock to the moon or virgin or anything like that. 'Cause I was just virgin aerospace, that is the space one. - Which has gone basically to zero. - It was like every day we go way up, way down

and you could just time option and it was, it's free money.

“- So like how many open options orders do you have now?”

- Now I'm not really messing with that as much. I don't have the time like sit there and like really lock it in.

what I usually do is find a company

that's pretty early on and it's growing fast and just get in early. - So what are you investing in now? - On the way here, I look through my portfolio and try to find like a good overall description

“and I think it's, that's why I describe my strategy”

is investing in like the infrastructure of the newest thing. So like AI, computer chips, all that, like I was investing and still I'm in all the things that like support that growth. - Infrastructure, yeah, fix and troubles.

- So, Celestica is one. Nevis group, you know these. Some of the ones I've invested in, I'm like, I'll think anyone's gonna know it and I'll just go out there and I'm like,

what the hell is that? So I know both those support all this new AI technology, carpenter, technology, I saw that one on there. That shit was poppin', it's a rare metal company. I'd like to think it's not for like the military

but it might, I don't know, I think it's mostly just for good things, help. - So how much research are you doing? I got this stuff. - If I finally--

- If I finally put it in.

- Usually like a hundred K or like 50,

“if I really think something's gonna go well”

but if you throw like six 50 Ks at different things and wait a year, usually one of them, if three of them don't go well and three go well, at that stage, it's a big one. - So how much have you made overall on trading?

- Okay, we're in a flux right now. I like to look at my like all time on here. - Which app are you using? - Robinhood. Since the job I used Robinhood,

I switched to E-Trader for a little bit. I just like how this looks more and like I just think overall you can do better on here. Is that all time like I invested a total like 200,000? - Can I say?

- Yeah. - 1.568 mil.

- And you see the growth on there?

- 600 and 50, let me just make sure it's in the mic. 600 and a 53% growth of all time. That's crazy. So what was your basis here? 30 K, this is in the way of getting--

- I think way early on like 2015 I put in like 30 K and then I kept adding little bits, but most of the money invested is just the gains reinvested. - That's wild.

I mean you start the like back in-- - 2014 maybe 2015? - 2014, you were at 200. Now you're at almost one point. - I think the number is on at the 218,

I don't have to under K in 2015. I think if you add more cash to it, it just kind of adds it to like the all time things that doesn't show it as growth. So I think overall I've added in like around 200 K,

of actual cash and then the other rest is just growth. - It's kind of nice. - I mean that's one way to look at it's sick. Are you long-term investing or only trading? Like do you have long-term positions?

Do you have regular index funds or even sparring stuff? - Yeah, I work with three different-- I actually know it not's two different managers at North Western ones, I don't know. They're like friends of mine who are good at what they do.

He's a tall swub. And that guy does private investments in sparring clay. He's private investments as well, which I didn't have a good person for before. So I did get in on the SpaceX IPO.

- Nice. - But yeah, outside of my like fun Robinhood stuff, I have a similar amount invested with three different guys. - So long-term, what are you bullish on? Like do you have VOL or some basic investments that we're talking about?

- Like the S&P 500 overall market. - Oh, I asked them to go a little riskier than that, but there's safe stuff in there as well. I know at one point they were doing this, some sort of life insurance investment.

Do you know what about that? - Not my favorite.

“- Yeah, I remember that was one interesting thing we tried”

and I was like, let's just write that. - So you didn't do like an IU L or? - Probably. - Whole life insurance policy. - Yeah, the something where I was like,

we did it for a while and it seemed like kind of weird and slimy so I just got out of that. Otherwise, it's a lot of ETFs and just groups of stocks that are mostly like tech and it's a little bit diversified with general other things.

I think a lot of like the infrastructure and industry, I guess, is a good way to put it. A lot of those in there 'cause those kind of won't go away. - And what's your trip to crypto now? So you got in super early, sounds like you made some money.

- Yes, early on Bitcoin and Ethereum. - And then I don't really like it anymore. Too many people got into it and made it corny and now like there's NFTs everywhere

tweeted about it and the price one up I was like, that's pretty cool. But then I just feel like there's no real basis behind the business, no actual reason for it to go up or down besides other people.

I don't think you see the value. - Where's the budget penguin? - I still got 'em.

“Yeah, I think I lost enough money where I'm just gonna keep it”

and not sell it unless something happens. - So what did you buy it for, do you remember? - It was like, like 70,000 or something. - 70,000 versus like a digital. - Yes, 'cause they were going up and going around

and then I kind of forgot about it. And I wanna say now it's worth like 30. - I mean, anything goes really worth what someone else will pay for it. - Yeah.

And with NFTs, there's a weird like, you know, I could say this is my budget penguins and to have the, you know, social media audience who wants to buy my budget penguin and maybe there's somebody out there

but that also feels a little, you know, that's like a more desperate play. - My heart take on the NFTs was that it was just a big money, a lot of skim. - It kind of feels like that.

- You could just hide a bunch of money and like the new valuations that were kept going up. - Yeah, and I felt like in my experience

before NFTs, cryptos always used for sketchy things.

And that was Lime's and you'd have crypto was like, buy drugs or like, do something like, put it on somebody so that I'm like, I don't know, I just have this weird pace of my mouth when it comes to career out.

- So I have a theorem, but not a lot. And I had fun one time, I downloaded like the, over the main app is for like shit coins and I literally invested in like feet coin just to try it out, you know?

But like, 100 bucks in feet coin and got like, I watched it go to 3000 from like 100 or whatever it was in two hours and then I tried to bunch more.

“And it's like, you have to stay at your phone.”

And just, I don't know, but I guess there is value that way if you have the time for it. - So are you still invested in feet coin? - No, you know what, I think you can't like sell them those coins at a certain point

because they lose all their value. So I think I do own like a fraction of a cent of a bunch of like shit coins now that are just priced there for ever. - So here's the big question.

Have you made more money from your trading or from music? - From music, the other from music. There's probably been years though, 2020 for example, where I made more from trading. But I think overall, you know,

I feel like a yearly income statement, maybe like a fifth is investing, which I think is like, you know, more than most artists could say, to me, that's kind of, significant.

- So I'm curious, has investing in the market

“changed the way you think about investing in your career?”

- I guess the first place where I really learned

about diversifying was a finance class, you know? And I have diversified very strongly in my music career. Besides just touring, putting on music, I also have done like voice acting, acting, acting,

sync, songs, I mean, do a lot of sync. Music, open a restaurant. - How big are you? - All right, it's a nice place, it's pretty good. I guess I would say it's an Atlanta.

But yeah, I have diversified pretty heavily on the music side as well. And I think that's been pretty, pretty effective. - Restaurants are tough, man.

- Yeah. - I wanted to try it out and see what it was all about. I think it's breaking even, but it's like, it's interesting to go there and see how busy it is. Now pop in it is and then find out

that it's breaking even. And like, an old restaurants are hard

and they always say that, but...

- Like, we can not take from actually investing in it and seeing that, that you learned. - I feel bad for the managers, you know, it seems like a really stressful job and complicated. Hot take is don't invest in a restaurant

unless really like food. Maybe don't invest in it unless it's near your house and you can go there. So I've only been in my place at four times. - Was it a friend?

- Like a friend who asked you to invest. - Yeah, yeah, a friend and we put together a few friends to all invest in it. Walk a flock of flame, this one of the investors. He'd be cool to have on this.

- Okay. - And have you gotten into trouble with friends and money? I have people asked you to invest in stuff and it's gone sideways or has a friend asked you to borrow money and it's gotten weird.

or help them out, I find a way for them to pay it off

with like work. So like hired somebody as a temporary assistant to pay off a bunch of money alone then, that worked pretty well. Had a friend who needed a place to stay in some money

and now I just bring them to every recording session 'cause he's talented. I think that's a good way to handle a friend and he's money is a find a way that you can build benefit. - I agree, I've actually done that.

And it actually creates, I feel like some more integrity or dignity on the other person's side 'cause it's a very vulnerable position

“when you have to ask for money or to borrow money”

if you're in a bad spot. - Yeah, well I've helped with my friends, if it's a close friend of mine, I'll make sure they're good. - Okay, so pretend like I am from another planet, explain the music in the street to me.

- Basically the best thing we have on our planet Earth

is music, everybody uses it, everybody likes it. And we have a full array of options for you, you know, any kind, you want. And it's been around forever. We, I'm gonna a little bit too alien for you right now.

So a lot of processes here, you know. Music gets made, it's riders, there's producers, there's mixers, masterers, there's a lot of people that go into the process of making it. Then there's all these different things that come out of it.

There's the master, the publishing, and all the different kinds of IPs, which are all assets on themselves, so when you write and record a song, you create the IP of the publishing, which is like the actual cords and lyrics and everything,

then there's the master, which is the actual recording itself. So someone uses anything from your actual song, that's one clearance and the writing, it's another one. Outside of that, once you put out the music, there's a ton of other things that come along with it,

touring, for example, which is my favorite way to make money. Touring, you invest portion of money in a tour bus and a team and a full production set up, go on the road, 12 guys in a bus, all sleeping together, and you go to like 30 to 60 cities in every show.

You kind of guess how much you're gonna sell, take a wise. If you get over that, it's even more of a benefit. If you're under it, you don't profit. And then you sell, your meeting grades, and your merch, which are another big bag on top of that.

So there's a lot of different things. Oh, and when you do taxes on your tour,

“you have to pay taxes in every state that you want to,”

which is kind of, kind of, find a sign with all of that off. It's very nice to have a business manager if you're in music. Then if you sell out your tour, you do really well. - Now, the business model, it sounds like,

is touring and licensing. That's where the money really is, 'cause you're not really making money from people downloading yourself. - You can, all my independent catalogative put out

before I was signed, is released through Tune Core or STEM, which are independent distributors. They take a little percentage, but all that money just comes straight to me for streams. I think it's around, I don't know if it's different now,

but around like $5,000 per million streams.

So that can be a lot, if you got a big sign, if you're signed to a label, they take that money and you get a percentage. But they also distribution deals, Lables, which I have, where a label supports my music puts it out.

It gives me a few tools to work with, and then they take 10%.

“That's how I prefer doing it, but for certain genres.”

I'm still kinda talking to you like an alien. For certain genres, like pop, it might be better to have a full label like pushing it everywhere. If you don't have your own brand and social media support. - So like give me a range of what you're getting

from the streams, what you're getting from touring, like how do I think about that? - Remember a good like year. We go with 2022, it's probably my biggest year. This is not the average year in music,

but I think I went on one of two tours, the almost three, which ended up being 108 shows in one year. And those, let's say, I guess I could example as a college show, where it just straight up, just straight up like flat payment, and you just go and do it

Those, especially during that year, I'd say we're like anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000, a pop, and a normal tour show. If it's sold out, everything goes well. That's probably like 50 to 60,000.

And then you do a bunch of a row. So that's obviously subtract the costs of the tour bus. Everyone that's on tour with you, and all their expenses.

“I think that year, my netted around seven million”

on touring, and then I did a few brand deals and the streaming income from my other catalogs,

probably ended up being around four million.

Top of that, let's say maybe one million from investing. So I remember the total was like around 12. And then you got your taxes and your management commissions. So touring, yeah, about half of that. So if you go hard on touring,

I think that's the best income stream, but brands, if you work with big brands that I might get thrown around, you can really make some bread that way. So when you net six million, are you taking 20%

and putting it into investing? Is there a formula or is an automatic transfer? I put the majority in investments, usually. I also, you know, bought a house the next year, other things, other investments,

but I try not to have any money sitting in the bank,

always invested in something.

If it's not like my own personal investment, it's with one of those two money managers, and one guy does it pretty safe. So if I have extra money, I just go to him. - Smart, how'd you learn that?

Learn where I wanted to put the money? - Or just like to not have it sitting in a checking account,

“'cause I think that's what a lot of people.”

- I think that was like the first thing I gathered when I was taking, you've learned anything about finance, was like, oh, any money you have can be gaining, can be literally gaining, kind of a lot of time. Even if it's something really safe, you know,

S&P, you're still gonna make something small. So like my girlfriend, for example, when we started dating, she had a bunch of money sitting in the bank. Instantly it was like, oh, let's figure this out. Connector with good managers, and they got it all invested.

So I think anyone, if you have money sitting around, you should put it somewhere. - I could not agree more. You started in college with business and marketing. How did music come into that?

- It was always a big fan of rap music.

Always a big fan of soul music. Dream, job of mine probably would have been being a rapper, or some type of musician, but I just didn't really cross my mind as being possible. Coming from Minnesota, like two years in my college,

maybe more than a half, I was working in a startup accelerator, helping them brand these small businesses and was doing pretty well with that, and started like really getting into my bag

with the brand stuff. So I thought, why can't I just do this for myself? And I saw artists on SoundCloud using that platform to pop off, just 'cause they're very unique. And I just thought to myself, I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna keep it on the low. So I didn't show my face or anything in my first year and a half of music. I wanted it so bad that I just used all my free time to make music, release music from my music. And then within like a year and a half,

just because of SoundCloud, YouTube, maybe a little bit like Instagram too, but we didn't have TikTok or Reels or anything. We just had to use those sources and within a year and a half, I took off.

And then I was like, okay, this is what I wanna do. I can make this work well. I didn't think it would come this far, but it was basically just my dream and it happened. - Is there more pressure now to make music

that could be used in TikTok videos?

“- Yeah, I think every artist pretty much,”

when they're making music now, keeps that in mind, I've been in sessions where people literally are making a song, the first thing they'd do is try to make a project talk. What I do is usually, I haven't actually, the album I'm making right now,

I haven't really thought about it, but in the past, I would add a little something into a song that I think could go well on TikTok. For example, on the song "Oops," I did like a talking little moment before the beat dropped,

where I said, "Are you talking about tracing?" Tracing with the ass. Tracing with the Honda, something like that. And that really took off. - When you think it's gonna pop or resonate on TikTok,

does it? And when you don't think it will. - Well, the second one. - When you don't think it's gonna pop. - I think it's gonna pop.

- Ended up popping. - Got that too much popping. - Yeah, yeah, so, still I'm gonna clarify, so earlier on, you could just kind of, you could guess that it was gonna pop

and do the right thing and make it work, but then everyone started doing it. Everyone like started paying people to make videos with it with their music. - That was how they got popular.

People just paid creators. - I think that was probably 2020, and I'd had a few songs blow up on there just for no reason, just 'cause someone used it. - Like you didn't pay people to.

- I have since then, and everybody seems to do that now, but up until like 2024, maybe you could just, it was just natural.

“And I think still it is just that you can't really pay”

for it to work, and you can pay it for like people to make it, and it might become a little trend, but if it's like really blow up,

it always ends up being something random

that people just like. 'Cause they can kind of tell, like, I think anywhere people can kind of tell if something's in genuine. - So has something hit that you,

like, I had no idea would become a TikTok thing. - Yeah, I mean, the first few songs I have blow up on there, I made before TikTok existed. I just, you know, I didn't expect those specific ones to blow up magic, forget me thoughts, Cheryl,

or three of the my songs that just were up. And they actually were so popping that TikTok hit me up to like, please make an account. And at the time I thought it was corny, I don't need more, but I got them to agree

to like, pay me a little bit of money, so I could post and say, well, I'm just doing this 'cause they paid me. That was like a little ego thing I had going on,

“and then since then, I think it's completely changed,”

but my first post I thought TikTok was,

I'm just doing this 'cause they paid me. - What year was that? - And then it blew up 2020, probably. 2019, that was 2020, I think. - Like, what was a minimum guarantee that they were giving?

- Back then. - Yeah, I don't think they paid anybody. I just convinced them to do it once. It was like 200 bucks, but I just wanted to say that they did that 'cause I thought it looked cool.

I was a little bit more particular about my brand at the time, and I only did it for anybody else. But I just didn't like me a lot. Since then, in the recent years, everybody's trying to get a pop in song and TikTok,

so like, people have no reason to really use a sound unless they're getting paid or it's already popular. So, I think it's not really that marker anymore, to like just make a sound that's gonna blow up. It's kind of random.

- Yeah, I mean, like, Fleetwood Mac, right? Not in the blue, so. - Yeah, classic songs that are just inherently good,

I think they always pop off on there.

I do like about TikTok, 'cause there's been like three songs that I had found deep in the internet somewhere that I never thought people would hear, but I was really like them. Use later at the blah-up on TikTok.

Like, young, lean has a song, Jinseng Strip.

“That was like my alarm, is it my favorite song in college?”

I mean, it was popular among deep internet people, but it wasn't poppin'. Blah-pump TikTok, whether they dare. - If it pops on TikTok, are you seeing money from that? - Yeah.

- How? - Is your streams will go up? A lot on that particular song, and if you want your songs start going up, then they're where the one Spotify's gonna recommend

more of your music. I randomly had my song Betty, it blew up in 2023 on TikTok. Like, not long after I dropped it, has become my biggest song of all time. And there was a trend, less than a year ago,

that kind of brought it back where it was like, this guy, I think it's gonna Australian dude doing a quiz, I'm like, what flag? Something was, and he said they're on one, he's like, he's like, "Guessing, he says China

and the song drops, for some reason, that blew up." And I watched the streams on the song like, "Go up for a couple months and everything went up following." It was 'cause the trend was so big. - If you could wave a magic wand

and change something about the music industry, what would it be? - Probably TikTok can, like, basically, controlling whether or song succeeds or not. I liked it more when I was soundclad YouTube

and just people valued something being unique and interesting. And you know, they're gonna go listen to a full album and not just a single. - Is that dying or still going strong?

Like, is what's the next TikTok arbiter of what's gonna pop? - I don't know, I try not to look. It's also mean you that much, you kind of stresses me out. But it seems like a lot of older songs blow up on there now, which is cool, you know?

It's songs that I like, like I mentioned, songs that I like before are blowing up and maybe another catalog, song on another catalog, song on mine will go up. But I think there's just being another new episode

or new music streaming platform. - You ration your, or put boundaries around your social media time?

And never like looking at social media

'cause it like kind of stresses me out. I don't want to like scroll or look at anything. So I make myself go on it every day at some point and like check messages and like, not take talk. I don't go on it more than like once a week.

- Do you give yourself a time limit? - Well, I give, like the opposite, like I'll force myself to go on for 20 minutes 'cause I just don't like doing it. So 20 minutes, I guess, on Instagram to like do whatever.

Do you feel like it's bad for mental health? - I probably, I'm not a good example because I have just been so much of my career and business has been around has revolved around using social media.

And now I'm just sick of it. So I don't like scrolling.

“And I'm, I think I have the opposite of a lot of people”

that get addicted to scrolling. And it seems like that is bad. I've seen people just on their phone for hours. But I shouldn't really be the authority on that 'cause I'm the opposite.

It has that come up in your relationship. You mentioned helping your girlfriend with her finances. Is she like that with? - She, no, she, if she wanted to me where she doesn't like it, she makes herself do it every day.

And she's very helpful and makes it better for me because she'll just help me make videos for her socials. And you know, what are my songs? So like every day she's going, we'll wake up, she'll go home.

It always does everything early, she'll go make like three videos

for her socials every day. And then, you know, I have time, we'll link up and she'll help me make a couple. That's like one to week. So it's pretty helpful and not stressful.

And she, I think anyone who's been, an influencer is probably not addicted to scrolling 'cause they're sick of it. - Yeah, it makes sense. - But it sounds like you guys have come up with a good system.

- Some preation. - Yeah. - What's that for you? - Yeah, it's really nice. We just make videos together 'cause she's following.

- When you start talking about like, oh, damn, all of your money is in your checking account.

“Is that weird to talk about finances in a relationship?”

- No, 'cause we're pretty, another case where it's probably different for other people but her and I are pretty much on the same page with everything. And very, very strong trust and pretty, it's just fully agreed upon, we're gonna get married,

we're gonna have everything together. So me helping her with money, her helping us social media, it's all like, we just do everything together. It's one unit.

- I love that. - I love that. - Had finances ever been a cause or an issue, cause of fights in relationships and now it feels,

help me in better? - Yeah, I think my other series relationships, the girls didn't have any money. And I think it didn't cause problems, 'cause they're not, anyone in that position is not gonna really ask for too much.

They said my experience and I would give them nice gifts and it was fine. - So it feels more equal. - This feels weird.

“It's actually much better less arguments,”

but some people say don't date in the same industry as you. And we're not in the same exact one, but like both have a following. And it's working very well. - So you're gonna get married?

- Yeah. - That's okay. - Are you gonna get a pre-nut? - I don't think so. - No, why not? - I don't know enough about pre-nut.

I know that there's a way, isn't there a way to get a pre-nut where it kinda just is all good stuff and it's not like, you know, like a great upon things

here, is it always a bad.

Actually, I had an argument with an expert. Her dad was of divorce lawyer, divorce lawyer. And she was telling me that this is a better conversation topic here. She was, we talked about getting married.

She told me that her dad swears by not getting a pre-nut. And I was like, he's a divorce lawyer. He makes pre-nut for people. Why would he not want us to get a pre-nut? I never really got an answer on that.

- So interesting because we just had a really big divorce attorney on the show who said anecdotally, that if you had a pre-nut in place, you were less likely to get divorced. And the reason for that is that you're more willing

to have open and honest financial conversations thing out on the same page. But when things are good. - Got it, 'cause early-- - Okay, so then, am I right in thinking

that you could make a pre-nut that's has a lot of good things and it's not just a like over and split up. And-- - I think it's a good thing. It's all, you get to decide what--

of divorce coming and being selfish. But I think there's a way to do that that I would for sure do it. - Everybody has a pre-nut, first of all, it's what the state decides.

“And so if you want to make the rules different for you,”

then it's just about having that open-on as conversation, especially if you're coming in with assets of your own, which it sounds like your girlfriend has, you just want to understand what that looks like. In case something happens and it's not divorce planning,

it's not a way that you're living. But it's having that adult conversation before you have to get to and lawyers and you don't want a judge to decide what ends up happening. To not only your assets, but how you think about kids

and if somebody stops working and what that all looks like, I think it's just healthy to... - It hadn't crossed my mind 'cause I don't see it ever in divorce ever happening, but yeah, it sounds pretty. I don't think it would be her.

It wouldn't be a problem at all to put that together. With the X, I'm still wonder why she promised that her dad didn't like pre-nups. - That's why she's the answer to the divorce lawyer, yeah. I think I have a little more clarity now that you said that.

- I'm glad. - And I'll get a pre-nut. - Okay. - Mm-hmm. I love that.

“It's a conversation that you should have going in”

with everybody's expectations and like getting on the same page finances. We do this because it's the last taboo. I think we have in society. You know, we'll talk about a lot before we end up talking

openly and honestly about money. - Yeah, I think in most cases, that's exactly the case. - But it's true, and a lot of relationships end in divorce because of money, stress, and financial, and fidelity.

You know, if somebody's hiding something, I'm not saying that this is the case, right?

- You just want to say like, here's what it is.

Here's what I have, here's the ownership, and also a lot of people that run companies or have equity stakes. Sometimes they're bored, requires them to have it. So that that position in the company is protected.

Or whatever that is, you get to decide what the rules are. Otherwise California decides. If my partner was someone who was really financially literate and I did her own investments and stuff, I could see that why that would be,

you know, there'd be some budding of heads, but in her case, you know, she's pretty hands off and I just came in and helped her put it all together. But you know, if someone was, you know, there's not ever really a right way to invest.

There's like so many options and I think. You're a risk tolerance, your own goals, but it sounds like you guys coming together. You want to have joint accounts, like yours mine in hours.

- We have our own separate ones, but whenever we like, you know, buy something, go on a trip, we just both, evenly split everything, don't worry about it. And we've the same business managers.

So that kind of makes it easy to just pick, all right, yo, for your Japan trip, how do you guys want to do this? I'll just put it and then I'll kind of do that in the back end.

- Do you make similar amounts? - Yeah, it's surprisingly close. So we both do like brand deals around the same size. I'd say looking back, at least the years that I remember seeing, there was like three years

where I made more and when you were she made more,

but it's always very close.

- Yeah, I mean, sometimes I just talk to couples about the idea of waiting what they contribute. So like if you're the same, then splitting makes sense. - Yeah, it's pretty pretty pretty. - But like if one person makes a million dollars

and one person makes a hundred grand, then you wanna, you know, do something that's, or think about doing something that's weighted, so it feels fair to both people, feels like the same amount.

- She owns two houses, both like around three or four million. One of them she just bought in your my house in German Oaks. I was wondering if thinking about refinancing it and investing that money.

Have you any, do you have any experience with that? - refinancing now, like what was her interest rate before? - I don't know. - Okay, maybe check on that. - Okay.

- So she has sweet, like two percent, three percent interest rate right now, where seven, eight percent. - Yeah, I don't know if it's that low, but I think it was a good one. I just didn't even know about-

- I think I did want, I mean, you might wanna...

“- But that's what didn't stop happening.”

Everybody, you know, it's sort of locked in because they have these low interest rates. So the market's not moving as much, but it model it out and see, you know, it really seems getting four to five percent over time.

The market is gonna, you'll do eight to 10 percent over time.

- You explain, like I'm five, I'll refinancing work. (laughs) I think I understand it, but I figured most people might not. - Okay, refinancing a mortgage like your five. Basically, you're taking out a brand new loan

because the new loan has better terms, usually a lower interest rate. And that's it? - That's what I'm talking about. - Yeah, so she paid in cash

and we want to get that money back to invest it.

Like basically, mortgaging it after buying it.

- Yeah.

“- Which I think is refinancing or form of it.”

- A form of it, I would say like a heat lock, like which is just a line of credit from your house. - Heat lock? - That lets you borrow against the value of your home, the part that you've already paid off.

It's kind of like a credit card, but your house is collateral. So you gotta prove for a maximum full amount, you only though burrow what you need when you need it from that line of credit and you only pay interest

on the part that you actually use. But remember that your home, your literal home is the collateral here. So if you can't pay back that line of credit, the bank can come for your house.

- All right, cool. - Or you're basically your borrowing against the asset. - Mm-hmm, my do that. Thanks for the education. (laughs)

- I got you, you know, it all is obviously asterisk, asterisk, you know. Case dependent, location dependent and all of that stuff. But there's ways to take money out of something that's already purchased.

You just wanna make sure that you know

“that you have to give that money back to.”

- Yeah, it's interesting how many? - Or you buy borrow die, which is another strategy. - Or you buy borrow die. - That's the rich use. - What is that?

- So you buy like oh buy borrow die, okay, I get it, yeah. And it appreciates. So you buy it for 100 grant.

And it appreciates to a million bucks.

If you sell it for a million bucks, you're gonna pay capital gains on that 900 grant. But instead, if you borrow against it, and you use that for whatever you need, the liquidity for, you're paying off that loan

and you're not paying capital gains taxes. And when you die, it goes to your ares at a million bucks, not a 100 grant. So it steps up in basis. So it resets. So if you pass that on to your kids,

now they have a million dollar asset and they don't pay that capital gains. - So cut appreciation. - Could I? - So it's what it's like, buy a borrow, borrow against it,

and then die, and then pass it on, and then they get that step up in basis. - I didn't know about that last part where it goes down, where it gets passed on. So could I do that with my house right now?

Like borrow against it if it's a mortgage. I guess I kind of am doing that. - That's cool. - Yeah, I mean, or you can borrow against your portfolio, but you probably already have some margin loans.

- I know that. - I do margin on there.

- It's always, I forget that,

'cause the numbers of shows are your actual cash in there. And then I'll randomly see the margin number pop up, pop up, which is double, it's a cliche, there's three million. - I mean, two-be clear, margin loans, super, super risky. You know, borrowing against assets,

you want to make sure that the biggest trick is that the percent that you're gonna gain is higher than the percent that you're borrowing at, right? So you're capturing that arbitrage or the deltive in between. So if you're borrowing, you know, at 5%,

you want to make 10% on the money that you're borrowing with, then you're gonna, you know, capture that 5% deltive. - I believe on Robinhood, if I'm not mistaken, for gold, which they have, which is like their margin system, I believe you just pay a monthly rate,

and they let you borrow double. - That's where it gets really risky 'cause you can also get margin called, which is what happened during the 2008 crisis, of course. And so when you get margin called,

then you have to sell your securities. I would ever, that price is, and it could be a crappy price, and you could lose a lot. We just had Bilacman on the show last week. Great legendary hedge fund investor warning against margin.

- Got it. - Loans and all that stuff. I'll just give my two cents that if you're really confident in something and you margin, you do make double. But you also lose double. - You also lose double, that's right.

- I think overall, not a good idea, unless you're pretty, financially, literally. - Agreed. Yeah, maybe we should do some sort of collab. I feel like gravy, money, yeah.

- Money, rehab, financial literacy, making it cool. - Yeah. - But we're doing a restaurant or a restaurant? - Yeah, not a restaurant. - Maybe a theme song.

- Okay. - Maybe I need a new theme song. - Have you talked about how the books work already? Can you give me a like a real quick? - Yeah, totally.

- How the money works with books? - Yeah. With a traditional publisher, you get an advance.

“And then you have to make out that advance.”

- Okay, so like how music works. Where you have to, what's the word, pay off the investment. - Yeah, like investment, good. - Yeah, totally, before you earn anything additional. - And after you pass that, what's like the average

that the author would get? - With a traditional publisher, a hard cover gets you roughly 10 to 15% of the cover price.

E-books are really, really, really cheap for the publisher

to create almost nothing to make, you don't have to print. Anything is just a digital copy, so you'd make more there. Usually about 25% of what they net, so maybe a couple bucks per copy. Self-publishing really flips all of this on its head.

You have to pay for everything,

“so you have to pay for your own editing,”

your own cover, your own marketing, all of it.

But you keep the lion's share of your sales. So on Amazon, you can make up to 70% on an e-book, and that's 70% versus 25%. The trade-off is that you're gonna have to sell the books or sell if you're gonna have to get the word out there

without the publisher machine behind you, but you keep more money in your pocket if you do.

- So it's pretty similar to a label.

“- It's really hard to make back, I'll just say,”

money from books, books, and to market it. Most people put back all of the advance and then some to actually make it successful and to use it as a platform. - So you're spending like two years

making a really long, perfect song, and then putting it out and hoping that those publishers do their thing right. - Yeah, they usually go. - That's what I figured, yeah.

- You just laid out.

“- Well, Matt, so great chatting with you.”

We end all of our episodes by asking our guests for one final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. - I think it's applicable to everybody. - By low sell high. - Do you think it's a more intricate,

famous, success, are depreciating assets, ownership, isn't appreciating asset. - I'm going to take that to the bank. - Got you.

- I love that. So you rather be rich than famous. - While your famous, the clock's ticking, so you got to invest in things and make things happen. That will go up, while you go down.

- So it's like this. - Yeah. (laughing) (upbeat music)