The BASIC Show

ANNA MANUKYAN: Financial Freedom for Creatives, Beauty Pros & Generational Wealth | EPISODE 9

• Viktorija Pashuta • Season 2 • Episode 9

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In this eye-opening episode of The BASIC Show, beauty executive and certified financial educator Anna Manukyan breaks down the essential money moves every freelancer, creative, and beauty professional needs to make — from investing smarter to protecting your future with the right insurance.

Host Viktorija Pashuta dives deep with Anna on how to overcome financial fear, plan for retirement (even in your 40s), and create generational wealth — even if you’re living paycheck to paycheck.

You’ll learn:

💸 Why you can’t retire just by saving — you must invest
👩‍🎤 How freelancers can legally pay their kids and write off $12,000/year
📈 The easiest low-risk ways to start investing today
👶 How to build a million-dollar portfolio for your children
🛡️ The 3 types of insurance every creative needs to protect their income
💡 The mindset shift that will change your relationship with money forever

Whether you're a hairstylist, makeup artist, designer, or any kind of self-employed creative — this is the financial education you should’ve gotten in school.

🎧 Listen now and follow the show for new episodes every Wednesday!

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

  • Instagram: @amanukyan
  • Anna’s Financial Course: Beautiful Wealth Academy
  • Recommended App: Compounder
  • Brokerage Accounts: Vanguard, Robinhood, Fidelity, E-Trade

🎙️ Hosted by Viktorija Pashuta, Editor-in-Chief of BASIC Magazine
📍 Recorded at The Maybourne Beverly Hills

✨ Subscribe to the print edition of BASIC Magazine — a collectible work of art delivered quarterly:
 https://buybasicmagazine.myshopify.com

#FinancialFreedom #AnnaManukyan #TheBASICShow #CreativeWealth #FinanceForFreelancers #MoneyTips #WomenWhoInvest #GenerationalWealth #BeautyIndustryBusiness #RetirementPlanning #BuzzsproutPodcast #BASICMagazine #ViktorijaPashuta

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SPEAKER_01:

We brought you to this country so you can go cut hair. How dare you embarrass me? Everything from, you know, get a sugar daddy to marry rich. We're not going to get to retirement by saving money. We're going to get to retirement by investing money. You can legally write off, pay them and write off$12,000 a year,$12,000 a year that you are able to deduct from your taxes. Not one time has somebody said a yacht in the ocean. Not one time has somebody said, you know, at the skyscraper in Manhattan. Not one time has somebody said, you know, a house next to Jeff Bezos or whoever it is. I would see really hardworking professionals who literally use their life to take care of other people. The number one mistake that people make is they transfer money into the account and then they don't invest it. The number one goal over the last 25 years as a beauty professional has been to prove my dad wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

They say luxury is a lifestyle. I say it's a mindset. And this one comes with room service. Here at The Mayborn, where European charm meets California flair, I don't just check in, I reset. Because real power isn't loud. It's knowing when to ghost the noise and draft something far more lasting behind the scenes. The Mayborn, Beverly Hills.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello,

SPEAKER_02:

Anna. Welcome to The Basic Show. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, of course. We're here at this beautiful, gorgeous suite at The Mayborn in Beverly Hills and happy to have you and get some beauty finance tips on this episode. So we have today Anna Manoukian, the beauty executive and certified financial educator. So Anna, can you tell us a little bit more

SPEAKER_01:

about your background? Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to be here. First of all, thank you so much. The place is beautiful. You're beautiful. It's such a treat. So thank you for having me. You know, I started the conversation around beauty and finance many, many years ago, more professionally about seven years ago. So I'll tell you a little bit more of like, well, let's go take it way back for a second.

UNKNOWN:

So

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. Our parents don't know. I don't come from a generation of a family that actually talked about finances at the dinner table. Making it meant enough that you had enough for today and that you weren't worried about rent. So I started working at the age of 12. I also started hustling very, very young. And at the age of 17, I finished high school early and I went to beauty school and I signed myself up and I told my dad, Dad, I'm going to beauty school. I'm going to have this career in beauty. And he, you would have thought that I... made a grave mistake. And he told me, we brought you to this country so you can go cut hair. How dare you embarrass me? And that specific point in time, I remember, you know, to this day, very, very significantly because I was like, well, you can have creativity and you can have a career and you can have financial success. And to this day, my number one goal over the last 25 years as a beauty professional has been to prove my dad wrong. It has been to say, no, you can have it all. You can be creative. You can be of service. You can have autonomy in your career and you can be financially successful. Fast forward to, you know, many years of being a beauty executive, of leading international teams, of being, you know, head of function for some of the largest brands in our industry. One of the things that I saw time and time and time again was that I would see really hardworking professionals who literally use their life to take care of other people retire or not retire, end their career with a GoFundMe, never be able to retire, never have the financial freedom that they deserve because they work so hard for it, and to feel completely shamed for not knowing even what questions to ask. And, you know, I started really thinking about this conversation when I was coming up on my like 15, 20 year anniversary of being in this career. And I was like, what is it that I want my legacy to be? And simultaneously at that time, place and time, there was a very significant event where over the last, you know, it was a couple of years. There was I just saw salons close. I saw people going out of business. I saw people. salon professionals who were at the height of their career get into an accident and literally completely lose it all. There was just a string of events. And so for the organization that I was working with at the time, I really started to go and look for like financial education to bring to the teams. And when I tell you, Victoria, I had such a hard time, even as an executive, even as somebody who was like, you know, professional, so to speak. Anytime I went and had a professional conversation with anybody in finance, I always felt like ashamed of the things that i didn't know i always felt completely confused and i always felt like i was being spoken down to and again you know being a woman being an immigrant being in the service industry a lot of us carry so much shame around what we never we were we were never taught what we don't know and so it was like and i kept looking and i kept looking and i kept looking and i kept having the same feeling so it's like i'm gonna change this because listen for those of us that were in beauty who have you know ever held someone's hand as they were having a conversation around a major major life change if you've ever shaved a client's head because they were going through treatment if you've ever done a color correction if you are there for the hardest moments of people's lives and if you're able to do that you can understand how compound interest works like that's a complete no-brainer we can figure out that we can figure out money and so i started to get you know deeper into the world of finance i got my my uh accreditations i got my sort of a financial educator um accreditation and really started to essentially be a translator. Because again, you know, I'm a big believer of the saying that we work too hard not to have enough. And we spend our lives taking care of other people. At the end of it, there's nobody to take care of us. And so, yeah, so I'm very passionate about financial literacy for all of us. You

SPEAKER_02:

are, you are. It's important. And so what was the turning? Do you remember the specific turning moment where you decided to switch from being, you know, a beauty executive to turn into finance? Were there specific... moment that you said okay this some you know a change in my life that I want to improve and go completely different direction because beauty and finance completely two different you know industries

SPEAKER_01:

yes but I think you know I think I would I've been very very fortunate because they are completely different finance I mean it's completely different but at the end of the day at the end of the day it's freedom right at the end of the day it's freedom and everybody wants freedom and I started really, you know, really leveraging my platform, quite honestly, about five or six years ago with working across the beauty industry, with not being attached to any one brand, with really bringing this message to, you know, to so many beauty professionals across the US. And I've been able, very fortunate to be able to do that. You know, one of the things that's really interesting, and I think any single time that I've asked, whether it's in a seminar, whether it's in a large crowd, whether it's one-on-one of what is personal, like, what does wealth mean to you?

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

Not one time has somebody said a yacht in the ocean. Not one time has somebody said a skyscraper in Manhattan. Not one time has somebody said a house next to Jeff Bezos or whoever it is. The answer always is something to the effect of, I don't want to worry about money. I don't want to worry about bills. I don't want to look at price tags. I don't want to worry about retirement. It's such fundamental things. And it's

SPEAKER_02:

interesting because you don't get taught that it's cool, right? You don't being taught having financial literacy nowadays, especially for creatives, right? They spend so much time crafting and polishing their skills and being creative. And for most of them, when you say the word finance, like you said, they get scared and petrified because such a complete different world. So how do you get in? How do you, I guess, what would be the first steps for anybody who is a creative or a freelancer to take? to get themselves a little bit more educated on the topic?

SPEAKER_01:

I think the first thing has to do with mindset. And I don't want to sound overly woo-woo or anything like that, but really, you know, are you scared of the ocean or are you scared of like heights by any chance? What gives you fear? Finance.

SPEAKER_02:

Finance gives me fear. Finance gives you fear, okay. Because it's the unknown. It's something that numbers, right? The business aspect of it. But I feel it's knowledge that It's not something you can just Google and find out in five minutes. To me, it's something you need to go to school to understand. It's something that you think only the millionaires, billionaires have the CPAs to teach them and to advise them. But for creatives who live paycheck to paycheck, they have no clue what are the first steps they need to take. Where do they go? How do they find that information? Yeah. There's actually a

SPEAKER_01:

lot out there. And the reason I was asking what scares you is like, even if, you know, one of the examples that I always say is being on a plane. Okay, so if I tell you you're scared of being on a plane, and which a lot of people are, and I'm like, okay, guess what? We are going to have an incredible all-expense-paid trip around the world. We're going to go to every continent in the next decade. Two weeks. And we're going to just prepare. You're going to have a lot of miles come in. And to somebody else, I'm going to be like, oh, my God, sign me up. I'm going to pack my bags right now. Like, where are we going? What time is the car picking us up? And to somebody that's terrified of flights, they're like, can I pay you not to go? Right? And so the first kind of mindset is the first mindset around, you know, around taking the fear out of it is giving yourself the space and the grace to say it's okay that I don't know. It's okay. I can do hard things. It can be scary and we're going to do it anyway. And it doesn't all have to be done at once. Because the reality is, is that when you look at, yes, of course, there's, you know, billionaires and millionaires and people that have an abundance very quickly. But for the majority of the people, small, consistent changes on a daily, on a weekly, on a monthly basis actually gets you so much farther ahead than than if you were just to invest like you know fifty thousand dollars into something and that's kind of the reality is giving yourself the permission of like what can i control what can i control and what can i do consistently because it's not about necessarily how much money you have think about every broke millionaire that ever existed think about how many people win the lottery and are completely broken at the end of it think about mike tyson think about I mean, we have so many cultural examples of somebody that has an incredible amount of money, doesn't know how to not only manage it, but doesn't know their mindset around money and winds up being in a worse condition. So as a first step is give yourself the space again and the grace to say, it's scary and I'm going to do it anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Starting to invest in having your money work for you, and we'll talk about that in a second, is the sooner you're able to start. Even if it's small amounts, the better off you are. Don't wait for life to be perfect. Don't wait for that perfect paycheck. Don't wait to be fully out of debt. Don't wait for your partner to be perfect. Don't wait for life to be perfect to start because life only gets harder and life only gets busier. And you'll never have time. And you'll never have time. And years go by. I mean, I feel like this and it's like we're halfway to the year. This and the year's over. It's so quick. And if you were to have invested five years ago, like the best time to plant a tree would have been five years ago so you can eat the fruit now. The second best time is now. And the same thing happens with investments and money, especially with the markets being so crazy right now. It also gives so many people fear around like, what am I even doing? When you're consistently putting your money to work, you're buying assets, things will come up, things will come down, but you're still gathering wealth in a way that you're not even realizing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's talk maybe a little bit more about, give us the background and the change for the professional beauty salons. So do you think, how the life or the business models change from being a traditional beauty salon with the rise of the social media? What change you think has happened?

SPEAKER_01:

With the rise of social media, it's interesting because before, I mean, when I was getting into, you know, when I was first starting, there was like five salons that you knew that I wanted to be. If I wanted to make it in this industry, there was five, these five salons that I needed to assist in or with these five hairdressers that I wanted to aspire to. And the rise of social media really changed it where anybody could be a celebrity. You don't need a brand to back you. You don't need a salon reputation to back you. And so what was happening early on was, you know, Professionals, licensed professionals, and quite honestly, even people that don't even have a license that were teaching how-to tutorials on YouTube instantly had a platform and instantly had credibility and instantly had this perceived expertise that they didn't develop decades training themselves to have. And so the traditional salons really had to quickly change and still struggle with it, as we all do. to retain the expertise because it's not always necessarily the perceived value versus actual value are completely independent of each other sometimes. And perceived value, self-branding, marketing, you know, of how you're showing up as the expert has become more important than ever because word of mouth, personal referrals, while, you know, a lot of us still rely on those, that's not necessarily the first go-to that is an attention grabber for someone. So traditional salons have really had to figure out a way to not only continue to get younger stylists in the door, because a lot of people are now aging out of our industry, but to really now all of a sudden say, okay, now I have to be a social media manager. And also compete with the social media

SPEAKER_02:

experts.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And now I have to compete with XYZ. And now I still have to pay my bills. And now I still have to keep my doors open. It's become a lot harder. It's become a lot harder than it used to be to be a salon owner specifically.

SPEAKER_02:

So now, do you think all the power now are with the pretend beauty influencers in a sense?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't think that's all the power now. I think they have a louder microphone, right? So even if, you know, even if, I mean, you can have somebody that's singing in a subway that has like an incredible Whitney Houston voice and they're only singing to a certain specific people and people are walking by because they're like, oh, you're just in a subway. That might be somebody in a small salon that isn't necessarily catching people's attention, regardless of how good the quality of what you're producing is. And then there's some people that, you know, go viral on TikTok and all of a sudden they have brand deals and everything else. And so it's about how do you showcase regardless of what scenario you're in? How do you leverage your expertise in a way that so that it's reaching the people that you want to attract?

SPEAKER_02:

Because

SPEAKER_01:

you do have to now, you know, and when we talk about the pricing conversation and everything else, you know, that can be such a hot topic as well of, what do you mean hairdressers are charging XYZ? I think it's being able to back up your prices with the skill that you have. And so that regardless of what's coming into the doors, you can actually service guests of all types is an important thing too.

SPEAKER_02:

And what are the most common misconceptions you think you've helped the professionals in the beauty industry overcome about money?

SPEAKER_01:

That life can change. That life can change. And that, you know, the amount of people that I've seen in, you know, because if you think about a 30-year career, think about a 30-year career. Unfortunately, bad things happen to really exceptional, fantastic, good people. And so what do you do so that, because three things tend to happen in our industry. So actually one of the few places that the longer you're in it, the less money you make.

SPEAKER_02:

The

SPEAKER_01:

longer you were in it, the less money we make. And why is that? Because if you think about the first five to seven years, most of us have a goal of like, yes, I want to be that busy hairdresser. I want to be that salon owner. I want to be that platform artist. I want to be that influencer. Like, that's what I want. And so we spend the first five to seven years really hustling, really grinding, really showing up, saying yes, working on our craft, all the things. And then we get there and then we're tired because it's physically, mentally, emotionally, it is a hard career to be in. And what happens when we get there? We start to plateau. And when we start to plateau, there's three things that we typically don't pay attention to. We don't pay attention to inflation. You know, I mean, last year was at a record high. So everybody like that after 25 years of being in this in this industry, it was the first time that industry wide, everyone was talking about it because you felt it at every step of your purchasing journey, professionally or personally. But inflation goes up three to 5% every single year. So every single year, you need at least five cents more to buy what that$1 used to cost you, right? So our money is going a lot less. And then we also don't take care of our physical health. We have our physical decline because you're not, you're tired, your wrists hurt, your back hurts, your hips hurt, your shoulders hurt, all the things. So we're not taking, we're not, you know, we're not able to do as much. And we're also not paying attention to continuing to grow our clients. Because also like I'm booked and busy, I've made it. So we're not

SPEAKER_02:

adjusting.

SPEAKER_01:

We're comfortable. And so what happens year after year is we start to steadily decline. And then when we look at, you know, 20 years in, 15 years in, 25 years in, you actually start to see the drop off of either people leaving the industry or where they're continuously making less and less and less money. And so one of the things that I'm really passionate about is, you know, in the conversations that I have and the education that I have is, how are you making sure that you're not, that you're not, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. One of the Canadian hairdressers, funny enough, asked like, hey guys, what do you do for retirement in the US? And girl, you have to see this feed. Like I have screenshots of it. And it was everything from, you know, get a sugar daddy to marry rich to I'm going to be, you know, we retire, what do we retire? We curl up and die. Like literally that was, and there was hundreds of these comments and I was like giggling as well. I'm like, oh my God. And then I started to actually, that, you know, the laughter turned into like nervous laughter. And then until like, it turned into like, borderline panic of, oh my God, this is how we view ourselves. It's not even in the cards

SPEAKER_00:

for us.

SPEAKER_01:

And so one of the things that is incredibly important is just being an advocate for people asking better questions and having financial autonomy so that that's not a common joke. Because what my dad tells me, don't embarrass me by going into the beauty industry. And we ourselves are like, yeah, we never retire. We never have financial freedom. We never have these things. That's not for us. There's a problem, right? We have to change that for not only for ourselves to be able to have that. It's not even freedom. It's almost like a self-respect of the things that we deserve because we do work so incredibly hard to make sure everyone else is okay. But it's also to change the narrative around this industry as a whole.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right. And most of the creatives put themselves second, right? 100%. All the time. And especially... So what would be the practical advice? Say... we have the corporate world, right? When you are taking, where the corporation is taking care of you, the 401k plan and all those benefits. But when you're a freelancer, especially a lot of, you know, foreign freelancers or immigrants or people coming from different states, what would be the basic, you know, the basis in terms of the insurance that any creative should think about and have, you know, in sort of like one, two, three step that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, disability insurance is key. Right. And disability insurance is really key because you are in a physically, you know, you are in an, or we are right in an industry that is directly where your physical ability to do your job is directly tied to your paycheck. So to your point, so if, you know, I was hiking and broke my ankle really badly two years ago and was out completely for three and a half months, I couldn't even stand on three and a half months. I've known educators or stylists that, you know, there was one who was brand educator. She had been a brand educator for 20 years, but she was freelance. She was driving to a class, was a salon owner, was t-boned by a truck, broke both hips, had to close her salon, had to go into major debt. She wasn't relying on the brand because she was a freelancer. She didn't have a 401k. She didn't have basic insurance. And these are people that are successful, right? And everything can be lost so quickly. So At a minimum, having proper disability insurance is great. The one caveat with disability insurance for our industry is that most disability insurance does expire when you're 65. Companies will not insure you. So everything you've paid for it, at that point, if you've lost it, you don't have it anymore. So looking into while you are young and healthy, looking into things like long-term care that you can then pull money out of if you need to so it's not just for you to be in a nursing home or something like that is really important. And If you are in a partnered relationship where you are relying on someone else's contribution to your life financially, I hate to say it, but life insurance is really important as well. Because when you look at, again, bad things can happen to really good people, it's making sure that you have those insurances because the amount of people that we hear of that completely unexpectedly pass away is really scary. And so at a minimum, having those three is really important. Sorry, to summarize,

SPEAKER_02:

so disability insurance before you're 65, then life insurance, and then the third one? Long-term care. Long-term care. Yeah, long-term

SPEAKER_01:

care. And a lot of times, depending on the life insurance that you're getting... So there are three different ones. Three different ones, yeah, for different parts of life, right? So a lot of times, if you're getting universal life insurance, there's a whole thing on insurance in general, but a lot of times you can actually add... a rider they're called to your life insurance with long-term care there's options to do that so it's not a separate what is it exactly you said life what i don't um if you're a lot of times you can add long-term care to your life insurance insurance okay yeah so i mean that's you know some insurance agent to be should be able to uh to help with but one of the things that i will say is that you know insurance agents get paid with commission

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So being an educated, a lot of them do a really good job with educating their clients. Some of them don't. And so anytime you're shopping for insurance, anytime you're investing with anyone, my biggest piece of advice or my biggest like, no, you have to be able to self-advocate for yourself and do not sign anything. Do not put your money into anything until you really understand it.

SPEAKER_00:

Because

SPEAKER_01:

also the amount of people that I've seen that thought they had something covered and then life actually happens and you're like, I've been paying money and this isn't even protected. Being an educated consumer is incredibly important with anything with finance, insurance being a key part of that. So to

SPEAKER_02:

summarize again, could you do all three with one provider or it's completely three different providers? You

SPEAKER_01:

could do one with the three with all provider. A lot of times disability insurance. Like a bundle you can get? A lot of times life insurance and long-term care will come with it. And disability, those are considered to be like riders. Like the life insurance would be the biggest portion of that because oftentimes that's the bigger amount. And then you can add different riders, they're called, to that.

SPEAKER_02:

Could you recommend your top two, top three insurance companies to go with?

SPEAKER_01:

AFLAC typically, yeah, I mean, it depends. It also depends on the state. So here's the thing that especially between L.A. and New York, oh, my God, East Coast and West Coast like that. Talk about battles like there's a completely different world. So you have to see what is because for insurance agents, they actually have to be licensed. You have to carry a license in that state. And the state laws vary quite drastically depending on what insurance types of coverage, like the rates that you're getting. So depending on the state, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I mean, disability insurance, Aflac, quite honestly, is one

SPEAKER_02:

of the better ones. The reason I'm asking, because that's where you start getting into the rabbit hole, researching and Googling, and then you get overwhelmed because there's so many choices. So many add-ons and conditions and things like that. I would say

SPEAKER_01:

for insurance, a couple of things to know, regardless of the state that you're in, is always have a prospectus. Prospectus is basically a fancy word for saying summary page. If you're doing anything that is permanent, that's not like temporary life insurance for like 20 years, always ask to see what the cash value of it is. Because a lot of permanent policies are able to give you cash value. So you basically are, they treat it as like an investment account. What is the cash

SPEAKER_02:

value?

SPEAKER_01:

So a portion of your payment goes into an investment portion of that. The insurance company is making money off of it. But you as a customer have access to it because it's essentially your money. Okay. You will be able to pull money outside of that policy. Mm-hmm. Yes. Cash value and insurance policies is a tax-free loophole that a lot of rich people use as well. So just, you know, again, the whole deep down... Like you said, that's

SPEAKER_02:

a really smart question to ask, right? So it's important to, like you said, which questions you ask. And sometimes we don't even know what to

SPEAKER_01:

ask. We don't even know what to ask. Another question is, when it comes to insurance, is this reimbursed or is this cash indemnity? Especially with disability insurance. Scary

SPEAKER_02:

words. I

SPEAKER_01:

know, honey, but we don't have to. But this is why. This is the deal, right? Is that cash indemnity. Insurance, you don't want anything that has reimbursement. Remember that. Reimbursement, insurance, no thank you. Give me my money, I'll decide what to do with it. Because if you have, God forbid, you have a claim that you have to file and you're on a reimbursement policy, you then basically have to give receipts. to the insurance company. They have to say, yes, it's qualified. No, it's not qualified. And then give you money back. That is a nightmare. If something is, has indemnity, cash indemnity, then it's an agreed upon amount. You get the check, you spend it however you need to, right? So the least you have to deal with insurance companies when you're actually in need of them, the better you are. But understanding like the fine print and not being able to be scared to ask the questions is an important thing. And then the waiting period, right? is also really important. So three things so far, cash value. Cash value, number one. Number one, indemnity or reimbursement. Okay, reimbursement. And waiting period. The longer the waiting period, the worse it is off for you, but the cheaper the policy is going to be, okay? So if I, God forbid, hurt myself today and I have a waiting period of 30 days, I won't be able to get benefits for 30 days. And they typically vary from three days to 90 days. So what's your advice? The shorter, the better, the shorter. And you

SPEAKER_02:

negotiate that obviously before signing anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, of course, of course. So one of the things that any insurance company will give you is called an illustration. And that basically goes through like, All of the different options of what you're paying for, if it's going to go into cash value, what it's covered, what it's not covered. And don't be afraid to ask for different illustrations. Take one, compare it, talk to a different agent, compare the two. Because when you start to really compare it, you're like, oh my God, I'm getting, I'm paying so much more commission to you. Right, right. Whereas, because here's the deal with, you know, and I, you know, I don't want my any finance friends to get mad at me, but, um, in the world of finance professionals, they don't always have to act in your best interest. The only professional that has to act in your absolute best interest is called a fiduciary. And they don't sell it... Yeah, fiduciary. This is a key word to know. Fiduciary. Fiduciary. Fiduciary. Say that three times fast. Okay. Well, I'll... Fiduciary. All finance professionals have a fiduciary duty... They have to basically not completely screw you over. But they are legally recommended within their fiduciary duty to make suggestions that are suitable for you. Something that is suitable for you versus something that is in your best interest are completely different.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm afraid to ask you, can you paraphrase it as if you're talking to a 12-year-old? So 12-year-old.

SPEAKER_01:

So if I'm talking to a 12-year-old is... No, it's hard. No, it's not. I love this. Is if I either have to tell you like, no, this in my everything I know as an adult, 12 year old, is this is going to be the absolute best case scenario for you. Okay. Like you're going to have to drink this glass of water. And this water is like the best version of water that you can have for what you're trying to buy. And I know this. And even though if I was to sell you that other glass of water, I'm going to make more money off of it. This is the glass of water that you need to have because this is going to be the most perfect, nourishing, right one for you. Even though I'm making less money off of this water as a professional. That's a fiduciary. Okay. In general, looking out for you because I'm not incentivized to sell you this glass of water. A lot of other people are like, well, here, there's three glass options, three options of water. One is like tap water, which you can survive on. You can drink it. It's fine. One is going to be, I don't know, Avion, and one is going to be like the fancy spring something, right? And it's$20. And I'm like, listen, I know that for you, the tap water is actually the best case scenario. That's what you need. And that's what you need for your financial situation. But I want to make more money. So guess what? I'm going to sell you on the benefits of the fancy water.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

And oftentimes that's what winds up happening because it's suitable. It's still water. You're still going to get hydrated. You're still going to get, you know, the benefits of being... You end up paying so much more when you don't have

SPEAKER_02:

to. And

SPEAKER_01:

so asking the questions and being relentless with having the... You know, having enough information to be dangerous. I always say the smartest person in the room is not the one with all the information. And that's also a part of, you know, kind of taking a lot of the fear out is the smartest person in the room. You do not have to know all of the information. It's about asking the right questions so that you're able to withdraw the information that you need to make the decisions that are right for you. And the same thing has to do when you're dealing with anybody in finance at all. they're there to help you, they're there to serve you, and they're there to make money off of you. True. And so being able to be very crystal clear with what it is that you need, what it is that you need to know, so that you can be an advocate for yourself in that process is really important.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that was very insightful. I appreciate it. Simplified explanation. So now let's talk about your... the videos that you made. The one particular video that got my interest was stating, make your children millionaires. So can you please recap those steps that you mentioned in

SPEAKER_01:

that video? Absolutely. Yeah, no, this is a big one because, you know, I have two children and I didn't, quite honestly, full transparency, I didn't love this information enough. And now I'm like having to catch up. And now I'm like, oh my God, I'm having to support them so much more than if I knew this when they were babies. The way that money works is, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But instead of having money in there, it's where you're going to buy and sell your stocks, any securities that you have, like your investments. Your investments live in a brokerage account, whereas for a lot of people, your daily money lives in a bank account. So that's all it is. It's a place. It's an online, a lot of times online, financial institution that then your investments live in. You can... You can open an account for your kids and dedicate, if you're doing$50 a month,$100 a month, whatever it is, and consistently buy pieces of companies. So you're buying stock, you're buying assets. So that if you think about the return of even something like the S&P 500, which is basically Standard& Poor's 500, it's the top 500 companies in the United States. Mm-hmm. For the last 10 years, the results are 13%, between 13% to 16% growth, actually.

SPEAKER_02:

What do you use, Robinhood account?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, so things like Robinhood, E-Trade, Vanguard, even Acorns. I mean, there's so many different ones. But yeah, that is exactly it. That's a brokerage account. So you open

SPEAKER_02:

a, first of all, you open a brokerage account, create a custodian. So you can do, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So

SPEAKER_02:

you open

SPEAKER_01:

it up for yourself. For yourself first. Okay. Mm-hmm. And then you, within that, a lot of times it has like, yeah, within that, it'll say open a custodial, you know, or saving for later, a custodial account, youth account, depending on the platform, they'll have different ones. Okay. Do they have like an age limit? So they have to, depending on the state, again, you can set it up. Let's say California. Some of you, depending on the account itself, so it's either 18 or 21 is when they take ownership of the account.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So

SPEAKER_01:

then you're essentially, you can automate it to, again, whatever your budget is,$10,$20,$100. Can you start it while you're pregnant? They

SPEAKER_02:

need a social security. Okay, so you need the social security of your kid to open their custodian account underneath the brokerage

SPEAKER_01:

account. Within your brokerage account. And then when they turn of age, and so you can automate it to where every month it's just a certain amount,$200 goes from your bank to there, and then you can set it to where it's literally buying pieces of a portfolio. So you can say, you know, and because you have so much time oftentimes, it's going to, and again, with like robo-advisors or whatever, you could automate it within then where it's just buying stock on every single month. How do you report

SPEAKER_02:

it in your tax return?

SPEAKER_01:

On the tax returns? Depending on the type of, you would give that to your CPA, but again, if you're looking at, if you're looking at, depending on how you have it set up, you could actually have it set up where you're not actively paying taxes on it, depending on it, because you could actually also do a Roth account for those guys that you would pay taxes on. Okay. What is a Roth account? A Roth, Roth is, okay, so there's, okay, so the,

SPEAKER_02:

girl, there's

SPEAKER_01:

so many things. Hey, crash five minutes. There's so many things. There's so many things. So, Okay, so let's go back to kids and I'll talk about... Victoria, grade one. No, no, no. But this is so important. It's such an important conversation. But it's such an important conversation because so many of us... We don't know anything. We don't

SPEAKER_02:

know. We know nothing.

SPEAKER_01:

We don't know. And that's the thing is that once you know, you're like, oh, this is so much easier than I thought because it's just demystifying it. And then once you know, then you just... It's a big mystique, the finance

SPEAKER_02:

world.

SPEAKER_01:

It is. But there's so much that we can... And once you kind of start to know, you're like, oh, I want that. And oh, I want that. Okay. Like it changes your mindset.

SPEAKER_02:

The reason I actually, sorry to interrupt you. The reason I thought about that question, I remember Beyonce saying she's hiring her daughter to be a dancer. Yes. Right. And then she is investing in her daughter. And apparently that money, if I'm not mistaken, is not taxed. And accumulating.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you could actually, yes. So you could actually do, there's a couple of things. Because that money will start to get taxed when they start to be used. Because there's capital gains taxes and all of that stuff on that account that once it starts to get used and sold, they'll start paying the taxes on it way later in the future. You can actually, to Beyonce's point, you can actually hire your child. Yes. Okay. Let's say your child is not, you know, Blue Ivy and she's not a dancer, but you want them to be an assistant on a photo shoot or you want to take pictures of them for their hair to show treatment or you want them to sweep the hair in the salon or there's a thousand different things, right, that you can hire your child for. You can legally write off, pay them and write off$12,000 a year.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

Right? Make a note, guys. Right?$12,000 a year that you are able to deduct from your taxes. Right? You're not paying money on that. And you're actually able to invest that into an account for them. So you're getting the tax benefit. You're getting the tax write-off. And you're able to start investing that money for them in a brokerage account, in a youth Roth IRA account. which is really like setting them up for later in life. But there's ways to be able to do that so that depending on even what part of life you want them to be millionaires in. And again, one of the apps, I'll talk about this app really quickly. Yes, please. It's called the Compounder. Free app and it's basically a calculator. Okay. Okay, you can plug in. You can plug in because what we need to know about money is compounding growth. So when money compounds, it's let's say you... Let's say, you know, there's fixed interest. Okay. There's fixed interest. Okay. And so you and I both have$10,000, let's just say. Okay. Okay. I'm going to invest my money in an account that has fixed interest with a 5% return. Okay. Every year, I'm going to get 5%. Mm-hmm. Year two, you're going to get 5% on$10,500. Now you're up another$750. Year three, your 5% is going to go on that$1,150,$500. So you're actively growing. That money that you're earning interest on is also earning interest. That's how money compounds. So it's more for long term. investment, right? Long-term investment or short-term investments. Anytime you're investing money, you want to make sure it's compounding. So the money that you're earning is continuing to earn money on that larger amount. So if you had$10,000, now it's$11,000. It's earning 5% on$11,000. Now it's$12,000. Now it's earning 5% on that$12,000. Whereas if it's fixed, it's always earning interest on that initial ten thousand dollars so when you're borrowing money when you're borrowing money fixed is always better when you're borrowing fixed is always better anytime you're investing compounding is always better so let's go back to

SPEAKER_02:

that app

SPEAKER_01:

so how do

SPEAKER_02:

you use the compound

SPEAKER_01:

so compounder app thank you so compounding app is a really great quick way just i just like to because it's like okay if i have you know a hundred dollars a month that i want to do for the next you know, five years, and if I have the return of like, you can plug in every scenario possible.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And it'll show you 10 years, 15 years, five years, it'll just quickly give you like what the outcome is going to be. So even for your children's accounts, you can say, okay, one year old, if I do$150 a month, okay, and we want to always base the return of like 7% 8% to be safe. By the time the child is 18, what is that going to be? Now you're like, okay, well, maybe I have$200 a month. Maybe I have$50 a month. It's a really quick way. Wow, so smart. It's a really quick way of being able to see. And then you're like, okay, well, all right. So birthday money, if I do an extra, you know,$500 a year from all of the birthday presents that you get. Let me ask you, can you always pull it out or no? Okay, really good question. Really, really good question. With custodial accounts. Yes. You cannot pull it out until, because it's their money. Until they turn 18 or 21. Until they turn of age 18 or 21 and then they are able to have access to it. So that's an important thing to know is that, you know, it's considered to be almost a gift to the account. So once you set it up, that's it. You're not touching it. There's no

SPEAKER_02:

emergency pool.

SPEAKER_01:

There's no, like with a custodial account, there's not. There are also things if they want to be specific for college that are 529 accounts. 529 accounts. 529 accounts that are very, that are specific. Is it within the same brokerage account? They can be, you can do within the same, again, depending on, again, depending on the state, depending on things. But a lot of times, because 529 accounts are through the state, a lot of the time, they're actually considered to be municipal bonds. So it's a lot of times a state funded investment. And those are, those will grow tax-free. But those are specific for college accounts. So for a lot of us in this industry, maybe our parents and they would have to be transferred to a different child. They passed a law about two years ago that they can be rolled over into like a retirement account up to a certain amount. But custodial brokerage account is like the jam for kids. So speaking

SPEAKER_02:

of

SPEAKER_01:

the retirement,

SPEAKER_02:

can you walk us quickly through how do you... Plan for your retirement in your 40s.

SPEAKER_01:

You've got to do some homework and you've got to start quicker. So, yeah, I know. We want everything fast. We want everything clear. It's a matter of being very intentional then with how much more you have to invest. And that's why it's better starting now. It's absolutely better than starting later. But it's, again, looking at that compounding app of like, okay, what is going to give me the rule of thumb for retirement is about 20 years of life.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So, okay. If I'm having a hard time saving, saving for six months of emergency expenses, how the heck do I get to 20 years of funding my life? Right. So it's also changing the mindset that we're not going to get to retirement by saving money. We're not going to get to retirement by saving money. We're going to get to retirement by investing money.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And then it's also looking at, you know, within, again, even if you look at the compound or app of, okay, I need to have savings. I want to have a million dollars of retirement. I want to have$300,000 of retirement. I want to have X amount of dollars of retirement. How much do I need to be doing every single month, every single

SPEAKER_02:

week

SPEAKER_01:

to be able to have a number that's close to that? And then putting it into a brokerage account. I

SPEAKER_02:

mean, every time I think about investment, I always think about risk. Any type of investment that has the minimal risk just to be safe because... I'm sure you know many cases with investment, people lose their life savings, you know, in certain different situations. Is there any way the safest, I say the safest investment you would recommend to use for the retirement?

SPEAKER_01:

So retirement accounts, that's a really good point. And that's a really good question you bring up, actually, because when you look at like the stock market, it's considered to be pure risk. Exactly. Actually, yes. The reason why is... is there's no guarantee. There's no guarantee. That's not insured. There's no FDIC. Like you keep your money in the bank, you know that$250,000, I'm okay if everything goes bad. With the stock market, there's not the case. But when you look at what makes up a IRAs or individual retirement accounts or 401ks, a lot of times those are comprised of mutual funds. They're comprised of many, many, many different types of investments to almost create an internal not only diversification, but like checks and balances. So within your retirement account, you're not going to pick these individually by the way. It's going to be kind of like automatically selected for you. You're going to have some stocks. You're going to have some bonds. Bonds are considered to be... Squam about bonds. Bonds. So stocks are shares of ownership in a company, right? So here's Apple. I'm going to buy one share of Apple. I own a teeny tiny fraction of Apple. Bonds... are actually debt instruments. Bonds is I'm loaning my money to someone for a specific number of years. And those are considered to be the safest because it's an IOU. Like if you get a US treasury bond, for example. What is IOU? Like, I owe you. I owe you money. It's a crazy acronym. No, no, no. It's I owe you. Basically, you're like, here's my$1,000. And they'll be like, okay, great. Thank you so much. I owe you, you know, this$1,000 plus 5% interest in five years. Like, I'm good for it. I'm the U.S. I'm good for it, right? So bonds are considered to be the safest, but they're very limited in growth.

UNKNOWN:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And the rule of thumb is the older that you are, the less time you have for retirement, more of your retirement portfolio will be in fixed guaranteed securities. So it'll be naturally a lot more bond heavy.

SPEAKER_02:

The

SPEAKER_01:

younger you are, the less, the longer you are, oh, excuse me, the younger you are, the less time you are, The less time you have until retirement, you're like, I've got two decades still. The more aggressive your portfolio will tend to be because you can afford to be a lot riskier. Because even right now with, you know, the stock market going crazy with so many things happening that are wild in the U.S. right now, the S&P 500 is still up like 10% for the year, right? Like the baseline kind of the baseline measurement of the U.S. market is still up 10% for the year. Whereas, you know, if you were to keep your money in the bank, your money would be giving you 0.1% return. And if you're investing your money in the S&P 500, you're getting 10% back. So there are still checks and balances put in place where, you know, I wouldn't buy, put all my money into like a cryptocurrency. So give us

SPEAKER_02:

like a template. A template. I know there's so many different ways you can go, but let's say if you are a creative freelancer, how much you would put in bonds? How much, what and how much? or in how many companies you would invest stock-wise, just give us like just what you would do, let's say for yourself or recommend to somebody to start with.

SPEAKER_01:

I tend to go, I mean, quite honestly, as a safer one to take any fear out of it, any fear of it, go with the indexes. The index is basically like, again, I keep saying the S&P 500. It's not going to make you a crazy millionaire, but it's a really good baseline of these are the top 500 companies in the U.S., So the Fortune 500? For Fortune 500. That's like what the baseline is, right? The Google, Apple, Tesla. Exactly. All of them. It's a combined of many different... It's the safest way to invest just in this. Safest way to invest because that's basically a kind of a snapshot of the U.S. economy overall, right? You can go... I mean, there's different ones that track international indexes and everything else. As a baseline, S&P 500 is great. Another one that's really tends to be really safe is... Is Berkshire Hathaway B? So Warren Buffett's companies, they tend to have really stable because he's like the best investor of all time. Berkshire Hathaway, but B class, you can't even touch the other one. The other one's like... What is B class? B class is a split of the shares. So there's A that is like... hundreds of thousands of dollars for one. I don't know anybody that can afford it. Forget it for now. Forget it for now. Put it on a wish list. Exactly. But yeah, so the S&P 500 and Berkshire Hathaway B tend to be like safe, Your money will grow. It's not going to go wildly crazy, but you're going to get... So how do

SPEAKER_02:

you find that? So you go like

SPEAKER_01:

one of those, the Robinhood account? So open your brokerage account. So find one that you work. So Vanguard, Robinhood, E-Trade, Fidelity. There's a bunch of them, right? So first is open a brokerage account. You're going to follow all of the steps. So... Sign up, enter in your information. They're going to want your social security number. They're going to want all of that stuff that is secure. That's legit. You're going to link your bank account.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you can fund the account. You're going to link your bank account and fund it. The number one mistake that people make is they transfer money into the account and then they don't invest it. That's me. And then it just sits there. That's me. It's just there. It's just there. So then exactly. So you have to invest it. I was thinking too hard. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So you are so not alone. That's literally the number one mistake. People are like, no, I have it. I'm good. I'm invested. It's there. It's just sitting there. Exactly. It's just sitting there. It's not making you any money. Yes. So then you want to get it out of the waiting room and you want to buy assets with it. So then you can look at, I mean, you know, there's so many resources even online. You can say, you know. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

I was looking in tech and healthcare, but I don't want to risk, right? So, okay. So I have, you have the money in the

SPEAKER_01:

account and you pick. So you can say, you know, SPYY is like the S&P 500 one. So then you, like you, and you, so how many shares of that one do you want to buy? And then now, instead of that money being just like liquid money, now you own those shares. And then those shares will continue to someone, some days you're going to make money, some days you're going to lose money. Don't panic if you lose a little bit because they will always come back. And then you just every month. So you only lose money when you take

SPEAKER_02:

it

SPEAKER_01:

out.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Right. So you don't lose money if the money are in the circle.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. You want it with the thing with investing is it's the long term game.

SPEAKER_02:

It's

SPEAKER_01:

a long term game. The other thing that I tend to do, and this is, you know, not advice. It's just what I do is like, what are the politicians buying? What's Nancy Pelosi buying? What is she

SPEAKER_02:

buying?

SPEAKER_01:

There's apps like, well, there's apps. There's a. Quiver Quest. I think a teenager came up with it and literally tracks all of the politicians and all of the company insiders. Quiver Quest. Quiver Quest. Yeah. I'm not like endorsing them or anything like that. But I use it because I'm like, Nancy, what you got, girl? What are you doing in there? And funny enough is I've actually made money off of stocks that she's bought that I've just copycat. Smart woman. Because, you know, and some of them are going to be hit and miss. But I'm like, those guys have more insight. So, you know. With things like that, never bet more than you're willing to lose. But you also have an opportunity to make some money. So again, when you're playing the long game and when you're like, okay, I can buy that pair of shoes or I can buy shares of the company that makes that pair of shoes, start to think about like... You see more of a bigger picture rather than your

SPEAKER_02:

immediate short-term goals. Yeah, exactly. And then to wrap it up, so if you could summarize, so what are the secrets

SPEAKER_01:

of wealth? The secrets of wealth is having freedom and autonomy. Honestly, I think the secrets of wealth is, you know, information is just half the battle. Knowing what to do is half the battle. And so it's about having enough faith in yourself, having enough security in yourself to make decisions that are going to be the best for you. I think we put ourselves third, second, last in our lives so many times. And so we never feel fully fulfilled. We never feel fully wealthy. We never feel fully secure because we are making sure that everybody else does. And so I think, you know, information is just a part of wealth. I think it's leveraging that information to ask yourself, what decision can I make today, right now, that is going to give me the best outcome? And ask yourself that question any single time that you're making a decision or any single time that you're not sure what to do. Because... When you put your own oxygen mask on, when you make sure that you are taken care of, everybody that you love will be taken care of. Everything else falls into place. And so, you know, I always say we spend our lives taking care of others and it's really time to start taking care of ourselves and being able to do so as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Make no guys. Well, thank you so much for this really, really informative interview. I learned a lot, so I have to do some more homework. So if somebody wants to get a personal advice from you, where can they find you and how can they get rich? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

I can contact you. Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on Instagram at amanukian. I do have a very extensive course that's launching at the Beautiful Wealth and they can go through the academy that way or just contact me and I'll figure, I'll share any resources that I have or point you in the right direction. And we'll tag all of your contacts in this episode. Well,

SPEAKER_02:

thank you for being on The Basic Show. Thank you, Victoria, for having me. Thank you for being here. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Pleasure is all mine.

UNKNOWN:

Thanks. so