"If you heard that phrase, 'I came to make money and I stayed for the revolution'... people came because there's the opportunity to make money in it. And then as they started to learn about it and what it was... it's not about making money anymore, it's about what it actually represents..."

"We're all gonna be at that point someday where you can't... and you can't count on social security to be... adequate for you."

"... everything that would've been sort of status quo that I would've... thought was the right thing... in maybe the past decade... none of that applies anymore."

-Kimberly

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Hi everybody.

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Today you are going to be listening to my conversation with Kimberly.

Hi, Kimberly, welcome to the show.

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you a question that I ask all my guests.

What made you first pay attention to Bitcoin?

I had heard about it through the years, and I think those were all

the years I was very busy and raising my kids, like we've talked about.

Right?

Like, April, 2020, it may have been March, 2020.

It was covid.

The world had slowed down, right?

I thought the whole thing was a hoax.

I couldn't believe that the world had stopped for this.

I couldn't believe that Americans allowed themselves to be shut down.

So I was already on heightened mistrust.

Right.

But a, uh, dear friend, and he happens to be a pastor, shared with me about

Bitcoin, which is kind of a crazy source actually now when I think about it.

But he shared with me about Bitcoin, the blockchain, and cryptocurrency.

So Bitcoin wasn't necessarily anything special, do you know what I mean?

Like, like it was just lumped in there with, with cryptocurrency and it was

the on ramp, on ramp to cryptocurrency.

And basically the, what, I guess what he was really sharing with me

was the, the blockchain concept.

So how did that come up?

I mean, that's not a common topic for you to talk about with your pastor.

Well, he wasn't my pastor.

He was a friend and he happened to be a pastor, so...

Okay.

So we talk about all kinds of things.

Yeah.

But you're right.

I think he had come across it, like somebody...

and he, he had connections down in Florida, so he was probably had, you

know, connections outside of our normal circle, but somehow he had just gotten

into it, and so then he shared it with me.

What about what he said made you kind of perk up?

Yeah, I, I think it was the, the asymmetric bet, so to speak, right?

The upside potential for it.

You know, he definitely talked about blockchain and the, this idea of kind

of this technology of the blockchain...

how it was gonna allow for smart contracts and, you know, he used

kind of some of those buzzwords.

That's a really good question.

I, I, you know, honestly, I think it was the investment, the, you

know, the potential for, for returns at that point in time.

If you heard that phrase, "I came to make money and I stayed for the revolution"...

or something, or something like that.

Like, people came because there's the opportunity to make money in it.

And then as they started to learn about it and what it was, they're,

it's not about making money anymore, it's about what it actually represents.

So I think at the time that he, he introduced it, he, it was like,

oh, it's this cool technology.

It can do this.

Right?

Yeah.

Now, then as I've learned more, and now I know what it's about, but

it took me a while to get there.

I think it took me probably a good year or so before I got there.

So when he started talking to you about Bitcoin, and you thought

of it as an investment vehicle, what was your goal when you were

considering it as an investment?

What were you trying to achieve?

To make money.

To make money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's definitely...

if an investment involves risk, what about Bitcoin made you

feel like it was worth looking at, despite the volatility of the price?

Because if we look at it historically, it's gone up and it's gone down,

and the swings are pretty dramatic.

Well, any sort of small, I mean, I used to be a financial

planner, before I had kids.

So I've always managed our investments and so I understand volatility.

And you know, if you, if you're into, you know, what you'd call large cap, but

large companies, right, they, there's less volatility, but anything new, like a small

cap or a tech stock or you know, anything new, definitely has volatility to it.

But quite honestly, I probably in the very beginning, didn't understand

the risks as much as I should have.

You know, I lost money along the way, right?

But it was worth putting some money into and then dabbling in it.

It was one of those things I put, I put money into it that I

could afford to lose, I guess.

Right.

And that is the way you, you manage risk, right?

You don't put money in it that you can't afford to lose, and you, um,

also don't put money into it that you need in a certain timeframe.

So I always talk to people about that when I'm talking about Bitcoin.

Like, because there is, because it is volatile, you don't wanna put money

in it that you're gonna need in, you know, 12 to 24, 36 months, right?

Because you don't know what, where it's gonna be.

In the long run, we know it's gonna go up, but in the, in the short run, we don't

know because it is, it's volatile and it's impacted by a lot of different things.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So you said that your background is financial planning and you've

always invested your family's money.

What I've been asking some homeschooling parents to think about is the notion

that we tell our kids when they grow up, they are, they have one job,

mostly, most people have one job, right?

They're, they're preparing themselves for a certain career and they have a job.

But the truth is all of us have to have two jobs.

We have one job to earn money.

And one job to try to keep it.

So can you talk about that from a financial planner point of view with

our, with our current, with our financial system today, with our US dollars today?

Why you may or may not agree with that statement.

Absolutely.

Our financial system today is, it's really difficult.

You know, my, my husband and I, and I guess it's probably 'cause I was a

financial planner, you know, we, we have saved money, I have saved money from

the, from the get go, from day one since I've had it, I would put 10% away, right?

Like, we have, we have been very faithful, consistent planners

or savers and always, you know, saved and planned for the future.

And because of what I did, like, I was aware of, um, you know, what it meant

to be in an IRA or you know, that you wanted your max out, your 401k and you

wanna take advantage of any tax benefits that you can get, just things like that.

But all of that for the typical American or for, you know, the

typical, typical person, that's their, that's a second job, right?

Just to keep up with all of that takes a lot of time and reading and, and

it's not necessarily something that people are interested in or want to do.

Right?

And then they end up using a financial planner for help, or they don't do it.

Or they, or they do it and they, you know, they make mistakes along the way.

But our system is fairly complex because you do have to not only save money, you

have to have a rate of return on that money so that that money can hopefully...

you know, there's no such thing as compounded interest rate, interest,

when interest rates are zero.

Right?

So, you know, you put your money in the stock market hoping, hoping that you can

get like an average 8% rate of return.

You know, sometimes, some years it's up, some years it's down, and you

just hope over, over time, right?

That you're gonna get that rate of return.

But with inflation, right?

Like, these days you're not even, we're not even keeping pace with

inflation in, in the stock market.

And, and inflation, I've, I've, and I've learned a lot more about

inflation in the past few years, right?

I didn't fully understand what inflation was and how it was being

created and, and all of that.

And again, so if people, yeah, you have to, you, you're, youre you,

you have your paycheck and you're earning money, just to keep, just

to pay for expenses along the way.

But you have, but along with that, you have to keep [enough] aside to,

you know, provide for retirement.

And we're all gonna be at that point someday where you can't, can't work.

You may want to work, but you're probably gonna be at a point where you can't work,

and you can't count on social security to be the, to be adequate for you.

You're right on the point, because I'm just thinking back to the

financial advice I was given right out of college, and it was the same thing

that you have said just now, which is, save 10% of your money and put it in

either a mutual fund or some kind of stock that you choose yourself, right.

My sort of reality over the last several decades has been, even

when, when I try to do the right thing, when there's a layoff...

which my husband went through several.

Like every time there was a financial crisis, the layoffs would just impact

hundreds of thousands of people.

And unfortunately, we were included in that, several times over.

Every time there's a financial crisis, the layoffs would impact us.

And whatever you try to save through that 10% a year, and you put it in the stock

market, and hope that it'll keep up with, you know, the inflation rate and stuff.

When you go through a financial crisis like that, it would be gone.

It would be eaten up so quickly when you go through that.

And then if you go through it several times, you can't, you go into a

hole and then it's like, I thought I, I did all the right things.

I've, I studied hard.

I saved 10% of what I made, and every time these people, these bankers

would mess with the financial system, we pay the consequence for it.

And it wipes out savings and investments, when it happens

over and over again, right.

And it wasn't just that, you know, every time the stock market [would]

go down, it would affect our assets.

It was, we now have no job kind of thing.

And then I also want to reference, you know, someone else that I know who paid

off her house, paid off her car, and she put her retirement in mutual fund.

And when she had retired and was ready to draw her funds to live on, right

around that time, value went down by 40%.

And it wiped out all the earnings that she had, the 8% average that she had,

over the several decades that she had her money in there, and then she was

afraid to withdraw the money that she needed, because then they had, once

she withdraws the money, it had no more potential to go back up with the market.

And she did everything right.

She paid off her car, she paid off her house.

But now she's facing the, the reality of having to sell her house in order

to live on, because her mutual fund that she thought would be able to

support her, can no longer support her.

So, I think for me, that's my frustration, because you know, like I mentioned

before, tell me what to do and I'll do it.

Like, tell me the right thing to do and I will follow it.

There are no guarantees and I feel like it's just been so disappointing.

And I, I get to the point where I feel like I don't know how to tell my

kids, prepare for financial success.

Because I no longer understand what the right path is.

Like, you have, you see these kids who become bazillionaires when

they're in high school, because they have a successful YouTube video.

They're 16 or 17.

And you see doctors who go through medical school training, become

a specialist, and then they are squashed by the insurance payments.

So, what do I tell my kids?

Go be a doctor, or go be a YouTuber?

[laughter]

I don't even know what to tell them, now.

I completely understand cuz that's exactly where I'm at with my kids.

Right?

Our kids are the same age.

They're, we're about, we're launching them.

Yeah.

And everything that would've been sort of status

quo that I would've known...

thought was the right thing to tell them...

um, you know, in maybe the past decade or, or whatever, right?

Like, none of that applies anymore.

None of it.

And, and you bring artificial intelligence in there and it's even more complex,

because every career, and I know this is off topic, but like, every career

is going to be affected by that.

Every job, the white collar, college-educated jobs that, like, our kids

would be, are headed into, all of that, that, that's all gonna look different.

I have no idea where to steer them.

Thinking with my kids, like, okay, you need to, to jump into Bitcoin.

Like, understand that.

[laughter]

Right, right.

Yeah.

Or, or you better learn how to work with artificial intelligence.

Right?

You better be able to embrace that and be able to contribute to that, somehow.

Otherwise, I don't know.

I, I don't know what...

Thank you for joining us today.

We will continue this conversation tomorrow.

Be sure to come back and hear the rest.