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Welcome to an aviation podcast that caters to all aviation enthusiasts, ranging from pilots to airplane spotters. Our show covers a wide range of topics, including private pilot training, airline operations, and the latest aviation news. Our knowledgeable host, an experienced airline pilot with eight years of flying under his belt, is thrilled to share his own experiences and offer valuable advice to help you pursue your aviation dreams. We are here to support you on your journey, constantly wishing you Tailwinds & Sunshine!
How's it going, everyone? Thank you so much for joining me today and spending some quality time with me. I do appreciate that. It is always a privilege to be allowed into your space wherever that is, whether it's at work, commuting to work. It doesn't matter.
Manny:Thank you so much. I never take that for granted. So my greatest gratitude for to you guys. I also wanna give a huge shout out to my Australian Australian listeners. Thank you so much for your support.
Manny:Absolutely love Sydney. I wanna go back, to visit more of the country, but the, my our visit to Sydney was remarkable and we really wanna go back and explore a little bit more of your beautiful country. So thank you so much for that. If you're a new listener, I encourage you to do the follow, submit a review on Apple Podcasts or, submit a a review. Whatever platform you're listening to this podcast in, I encourage you to do so.
Manny:Thank you so much. Also, I wanna thank my supporters for all the emails, suggestions, everything. I'm just beside myself, just the support that I'm getting from you guys. So thank you. The growth of the podcast is because of you.
Manny:So thank you so much for that. Also, if you haven't followed me on social media on Instagram, I am in there as, climb b x. That's c l I m, b as in bravo, v as in Victor, x-ray. Go ahead and follow there. I do post some stuff in there so you can be more, involved with that community.
Manny:Also, if you I encourage you to if you wanna come to the show, please do so. We can have a chat. Share your experiences with us with the community. That form is in the show notes so you can, my availability there. So you can schedule a chat with me and we can talk about whatever is that you wanna talk about.
Manny:Please go ahead and do that in there. If you wanna submit questions, you can email me as well. Don't be shy, you know. I'm a I'm a I'm a pretty easy guy to talk to. You'll find that out really quick.
Manny:So, and I think you'll be you'll have a lot of fun. I always have fun with my guest on the show, so thank you so much, for considering that as an option moving forward. Okay. So today, the today's episode, it's gonna be a little bit on the shorter side, but I I really wanted to address the few emails that I've gotten from you guys. I am not gonna talk to about them, openly.
Manny:They are regarding financials. They're regarding about investments, about compensation packages and all that stuff, but I don't want to, open, speak about them openly because, I am not a CPA. I'm not a licensed financial adviser, so I I don't wanna get myself into hot water because I'm giving advice, on a public platform. And also, I don't, the compensation packages are very different for different airlines, etcetera. So I don't I, you know, without any, like, good research, I cannot give you really good advice.
Manny:So, for those who send me emails, you've probably gotten the reply already, but, I don't you know, I put that bit big asterisk there saying, you know, I'm not a financial adviser or a CPA, so please take my advice with a huge pile of salt. And what I am gonna share with you is just my experiences that I've gotten over the years, the mistakes that I've made over in the past, so how I've managed my finances to be in a comfortable level. Right? So, that's what I can definitely share with you, and I'm gonna share that with you in this episode. So anyways, intro's over.
Manny:Let's get started with the show. From the Summerlin Studios in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, this is the Tailwinds and Sunshine podcast. You know, I don't know if that's your intent and just kinda start the conversation from there, you know, because I found out that sometimes when you communicate that, the person was not even aware they were doing that, and they'll back off a little bit.
ATC:Possible pilot deviation, I have a number for you. Adviser date copy.
Daniel:Dude, this triple 7 has been really fun to fly. It's honestly just a bigger Embraer 175. But the fact that they were sitting on that runway knowing there was a heavy coming their way, unacceptable.
Rachel:I'm from the central part, so I'm from a town. We have more cows than people where I come from. Very country. The aches I have, I can go on. Number 1, when the jet bridge is pulled back and we're ready to push and you guys don't have your headsets on.
Patrick:The plan has to be perfect because you can't turn left. You can't turn right. The only way out of that, if the pilot gets into a bad spot or if there's something that's, like, happened at the airport that shuts down a runway, the only way out is up.
Manny:Alright. So, the questions that I've gotten were very specific to an airline's compensation package. And like I mentioned before, before, I I can't really give very specific advice, but what I can tell you right now that more important than how much you wanna contribute or the questions you have regarding contributions, regarding compensation packages, regarding, contracts, regarding training contracts, etcetera. The more important thing you need to do is to look at yourself in the mirror and assess the relationship you have with money. Because if you have a toxic dysfunctional relationship with money, there is no amount of advice.
Manny:There is no amount of money that is going to make you happy. More and more, I see people, you know, I spend up you know, a lot of time on forums and stuff like that, and a lot of people are just complaining and pointing fingers at their employers. They're pointing fingers at the government. They're pointing fingers at everyone else besides themselves for their faults or for their shortcomings or for anything that's happening to them that, you know, financially, something's going wrong. It's someone it's always someone else's fault.
Manny:Right? I see a lot of people not taking responsibility for their actions because they don't look at themselves in the mirror because that person they're looking at there, they're staring at the at the mirror is the person that is responsible for their financial freedom, not an airline, not the government. No one's gonna come to save you. So I wanna make sure I wanna kinda cover a few things that that you need to have to make sure you guarantee your financial freedom, but it starts with you. So first off, you need to have a budget.
Manny:If you have nothing till you can track that money that's coming in or how it's going out, you have already failed. You're failed. There are plenty of apps out there that you can use that are free. You can use a spreadsheet. Whatever system works for you, you need to be able to track every dollar you spend.
Manny:Wherever is that your money is going to, you need to be able to categorize it and you need to be able to know how much money you're spending because if you have no way of tracking it, you've already failed. If you don't have a goal, you've already failed. Right? How are you going to shoot for something when you have absolutely nothing to aim at? So you definitely need to have a budget.
Manny:Service or service or something. I don't know. I've I don't I haven't followed Mint in a while, but Mint, you were able to connect your accounts in, you're able to connect your accounts like your credit cards and your bank accounts into it and you it's going to just import all those transactions and you can categorize them and it'll do all that stuff. But now what I use is is this app called YNAB. YNAB is w, n a b, and it stands for you need a budget.
Manny:And I've honestly stuck with this app more than any other software I've ever had before regarding because I've used Quicken. I've used spreadsheets. I've used Mint. I've used other other budgeting apps, but this one is the one that I've stuck with and it just makes sense and it's so easy to use. I'm not sponsored by them, but it's something I wanted to share that with you.
Manny:A really cool app. I have all my accounts connected and I have a ton of of accounts, different bank accounts, different investment accounts, credit cards. I mean, I have dozens of these things and they all connect seamlessly to YNAB. I think probably one that doesn't connect, but I'm sure they'll have support for that bank one of these days. But I have a mole connected and that and I and I know where my money's going every single day.
Manny:I know every every transaction that I make, whether tracked, you know, and also, it's a trial and error thing. It took me probably about 6 months to kinda really dial in where my budgets needs to be at, but the important part here is that you need to have something where you can track your money and and then you just need to tweak your budgets because it especially if you've never had a budget before, just kind of give it a ballpark figure and then just kind of tweak it after that. Like, let's say you have, you have monthly subscriptions and you think you spend about, you know, a $100 a month in subscriptions, and then next month you end up spending a 120, and then next month you end up, you know, $200 and then it kind of fluctuates. You can set it kind of an average, but it just important part is to start. You don't have to be perfect.
Manny:You don't have to have certain things paid off. Just You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have certain things paid off. Just get it started. It's so important for that.
Manny:You have no idea how important if if if from this entire episode, if you have if you if you can take away one thing, one pearl of wisdom from this episode is to have a budget. Period. Now the second thing I wanted, I I think it's just as important is to live within your means. I think most of America, our government is not living within their means. We are living way above where we can afford.
Manny:We are spending money on things we don't need. We're spending money on things we cannot afford. Right? We are buying vehicles. We because, you know, it's the new car smell.
Manny:Right? Because, oh, my neighbor had this other car. I will need to get another car. Right? It's keeping up with the Joneses or the Johnson's or whatever the saying is, but we are most of us are living way outside our means and the problem is that when we get into a tight spot, we blame others.
Manny:We blame our companies. Why aren't they paying me more? I'm not being paid my words, yada yada yada. This and that, we blame the economy, but it's really that we are spending more money than we can afford. Right?
Manny:Just because you can make the monthly payment technically does not mean you can afford that thing that you purchased. Just because you can put it in the credit card and your minimum monthly payment is gonna be $25 a month, that doesn't necessarily mean you can afford it. Right? If you can pay that thing off cash, yes, you can definitely afford it or, you know, some cases, you can purchase something and have zero interest for 6 months and you can pay it off. Absolutely.
Manny:Right? You have the money in the bank to pay for it, but hey, why not defer it for 6 months and then just pay it off, you know, with no interest whatsoever. That's in my opinion, that's okay. It's kind of obviously up to debate, but most of us don't do that. We put vacations we cannot afford on the credit card and then pay 25% on $5,000, Right?
Manny:That every single month we're paying 25% on the balance of the the remaining balance and we're just shooting ourselves in the foot because we thought we could afford it. And, you know, when I first got my my first credit card when I was a teenager, I must have been 18 or 19 years old when I got my first credit card. I think my my, I think what was it? I think my available balance that you know I think that they give me, like, $500. Right?
Manny:And I went out and bought a pair of sunglasses and they were, like, $200. So I went out and bought it, and then I was making the monthly payments. I was like, oh, well, look at that. Well, I can afford it because I can make the payments. Right?
Manny:But then I maxed up my credit card and then got to the point where I wasn't making money or I wasn't making the same. I didn't make a paycheck or or or I I spend more than I had, and now I didn't have the money to pay even the minimum payment of that credit card. And now I had late fees. And then I just I carry that over, and now I continue to spend more. And guess what?
Manny:Well, I kept paying that minimum payment to their credit card and it took me years to finally pay that credit card off because I did not, could not afford it. I could not afford it and it caught up with me. So it's super important to live within your means, you know. We can also talk about this whole deal about how the American dream is not no longer attainable anymore, how it is difficult. It's more difficult for our our current generations to get a house and all this stuff, but we need to stop focusing on outside factors and focus on yourself.
Manny:Right? There's very little impact. You have very little impact on what you can do to outside forces such as our government and the economy, inflation, etcetera, but you need to start focusing on you. Right? Live within your means.
Manny:It doesn't mean because, you know, go get an apartment, a smaller apartment, in in some extreme cases means that you're probably gonna have to live with mom and dad for a little bit longer than you thought. Right? Because we have this image of we but a certain age or certain milestone in your life, you have to be living on your own or be married or have that house with a white picket fence and a vehicle in a garage or in a motorcycle, etcetera, you cannot compare yourself to others. You have to live within your means based on what you can afford. Right?
Manny:Because another thing that kind of exacerbates the situation is social media. You get all these people, you see social media, and you see people taking this extravagant and lavish vacations and having nice cars and all this stuff, and we wanna mimic that. We want to mimic that because we see that as success. That surface version, the surface image of success, we wanna mimic that. We wanna replicate that and we end up getting ourselves or digging ourselves into a hole that we can we later can get out.
Manny:But it's all about those perceptions, you know, how you feel people perceive you and the way that we do it here in America is that we post our successes whether it cost you an arm and a leg. We wanna post on social media to show off. We all do it. Right? We show off.
Manny:We like to show off, but that is a really difficult place to to play around in because you are going to get yourself in a tight situation because maybe those people online were able to afford it, but you can't. And another thing is that in America, we have we live in a very dangerous place in a sense of we have some of the lowest interest rates in the world. So we're able to quote unquote afford things that we can't other places in the country are not able to afford it by using credit. Perfect example, I have family in Mexico. They have multiple properties and, you know, they own houses and stuff like that.
Manny:All of those are paid cash. They work through they worked hard and they paid it off. There is more affordable definitely to a certain degree, but very little people use credit in Mexico because interest rates are ridiculous. They're double triple of what they are here in the United States. So here, we get into this false sense of security or comfort that, oh, well, I'll just put it on credit.
Manny:Oh, I'll just go buy a $75,000 vehicle and put it because it's a 3.5% interest. I'm gonna go and buy it and then I'm paying about $10,000 more in interest over 5 years. That's ridiculous. A lot of us have things that we cannot afford. Just think about this.
Manny:If you are making less than a $100,000 and your car is worth more than $60,000 you cannot afford that vehicle because you also need to take keep in mind the maintenance cost, gas, insurance, all this other stuff for you to be comfortable, right? So it doesn't take a huge chunk out of your actual budget, but you would know that because you don't have a budget, right? But it's just like a lot of people have and you see this all the time. You see people that are making, you know, they have new cars almost every other every 4 years, every 5 years, they have a new car. How are they doing it?
Manny:Well, maybe maybe they can afford it. But statistically speaking, most of us can't afford a vehicle that's more than $23,000. The average median income in the United States or I said average median. The median income in the United States is I think is about $75,000. A person making that amount of money per year can comfortably afford a vehicle that's around 20 to $25,000.
Manny:How much are cars? How much they're ridiculously expensive. If you wanna get like a nice you know, you can buy a decent car, a new car for $25,000, but it'd be like no frills, just, you know, whatever. But you see just look at the vehicles that are being driven out, you know, the new cars that are being driven out there. Top of the line fully loaded vehicles and you're like, wow, that's really cool.
Manny:You see that a lot, but just keep that in mind and something you can look at YouTube videos, you can look at just, you know, financial advice that are given is like a lot of people have more car They wanna live They wanna live these lifestyles, lavish lifestyles and travel every quarter and go to these expensive destinations or whatever and they, oh, yeah. I can as long as you have the money in the bank account, I can do it, but they have absolutely no safety net. You need to start taking responsibility for your own actions and your money. Why are you gonna go on this vacation when you have absolutely nothing to save you from anything from your car breaking down or having to go to urgent care or one of your family members you need they need some help because their roof caved in or something. They need emergency repairs in their home and they don't have money.
Manny:How are you gonna help them? Oh, but, yeah, it's okay. Let's go on that vacation and the 3rd vacation again this year, but that's okay. We have absolutely no money to save. If you're living like that, I don't care how much money we throw at you.
Manny:You're just gonna make the problem worse. Super super important to be living on the same, living within your means. I'm sorry. Also, things get a little bit more complicated if you have a partner. Money is probably one of the number 1 or one of the top causes for divorces because you'll have one person that wants to spend like crazy or maybe 2 of them and you can't get your finances straight because we don't have a budget and money is a big strain on relationships because people don't live within their means or one partner spending more than the other, etcetera.
Manny:There's always a disagreement when it comes to money, but you guys need to be on the same page about finances. Who's, you know have goals together as to what you're going to achieve with your money together. Are you going separate, you know, separate accounts, you know, or you're gonna be, closed accounts. You need to have a serious conversation, sit down, and plan together what you're gonna do with each other's money. Because if you never talk about it, you will you will definitely run into some issues and most of them is like, well, you paid this amount.
Manny:I get to pay this amount. You're paying more yada yada or I'm paying more than you are. Oh, my god. Why didn't you why did you go out and buy that, you know, that car, you know, that that TV is I thought we were saving for this. That conversation needs to happen.
Manny:Goals. And one of those should be to have a budget. Whether it's shared accounts or separate accounts, have something that you guys can agree on on what how your money is going to be spent. How are you gonna deal with debt? How are you going to deal with each other's debt?
Manny:Right? Because most of us now have student loan debt. Right? Crippling student loan debt. How are we gonna deal with that?
Manny:Are we gonna get married before we pay it off or you wanna pay off this loan debt? You know, there's so much you can talk about with your partners regarding money but it needs to be out in the open. You need to have the discussion. We live in a society where it is where a consumption in a debt society. We are consumers.
Manny:We want the brand new everything. We want the new iPhone. We want the new car. We want the new house. We want to go to our vacations.
Manny:We wanna do that but we put it all on debt. As I mentioned earlier, it makes it easier here in night and the in the US because our
ATC:interest rates are relatively low compared to other parts
Manny:of the of the of the world, but still, come on. That's ridiculous. That's just madness, guys. Super madness. That's ridiculous.
Manny:That's just madness, guys. Super madness. Alright. I'm gonna be super candid with you guys. I'm gonna share something with you that I I don't usually share with, complete strangers, but I'm going to highlight how important it is to talk about money with your partner.
Manny:I was married for 8 years and one of the big contention points, I guess, you wanna call it. I don't know what I wanna call it, but one of the the strains in our in our marriage was money. My husband at the time loved to spend money. He loved to spend money. I was kind of the breadwinner or I was making more than he was, but we would spend more than we could afford.
Manny:And it got to a point that I got tired of it. I got tired of being in debt. I got tired of having to live paycheck to paycheck, But to avoid confrontation or to avoid fights, I would have to kind of give in. Not kinda. I would have to give in.
Manny:And that money that I wanted to save for something else, we had to spend it on a vacation. Oh, we gotta go. We haven't we haven't gone on a vacation in like a year. Let's do it. And this was in the middle of me doing all my flight training.
Manny:Keep in mind that I got all my flight training paid by the VA, but I had to take out loans to live to afford, right, quote in quotes, to afford this lifestyle that I was kind of because of my weakness, I was forced into living this lifestyle we could not afford. And I finally put my foot down. I said, I cannot live like this. We have to do something to get out of debt and I unanimously decided to start working towards this debt. I sold my truck and I got lucky because I was smart.
Manny:When I bought it, I put a nice fat down payment on it and when I sold my truck, I actually made some money on it and I paid off some debt. I went crazy with how I was gonna pay it off my debt. I was like selling things I didn't need, selling computers. I was selling everything I didn't need I was selling because I wanted to get myself out of debt but I took responsibility. Like I said, it was multiple factors that that eventually led to the divorce but this was a big one and it doesn't matter how much money I mean, I was making decent money based on the fact that I was getting money from the VA.
Manny:It was a stipend but I was also doing DoorDash and doing all that stuff to supplement our income, but we couldn't keep up with our lifestyle. And now what happened, you know, what happened to my ex husband now, the first thing he did when we divorced, he went out and bought himself a brand new car. How? How? There is no way.
Manny:He ended up having to turn that car back in. He moved out of state and he ended up back coming back to Nevada living with his parents because he couldn't afford it because he got himself into another hole. He had a very toxic relationship with money and I've I've I've talked to people before and they tell me, oh, you're so lucky. You have your career. You have your life put together and stuff like that.
Manny:You know, you're so lucky. You're so lucky. You're so lucky. I'm not lucky. I made sacrifices to get where I'm at And like I've said before, it doesn't matter how much money you make.
Manny:I know people that are in the, health care industry and they're broke. I know someone, you know, that they they they just all they do is travel. All they do is travel. And like, oh, they must be making so much money. No.
Manny:They're broke. They're broke as a joke because of the decisions they make. And instead of actually working towards getting out of debt and saving some money for a rainy day fund or anything, they go and buy out a brand new car because that's their dream car. We gotta stop this instant gratification, guys. You gotta do some sacrifices unless even even if you win the lottery and if you don't have the right relationship with money, you are going to pilfer all that money away.
Manny:Super important, guys. Like, it's like vital that you know this. And some people will say, well, they don't teach us in high school. I wish they teach us more, but it's life lessons. It's just almost, I don't know.
Manny:It's for me, it became common sense. I don't know. Something hit me. I don't know. I think it was, I must have watched the YouTube video something back back in, like, 2017 or 16 or something and I'm like, I need to be I I can't live like this And I had to put my foot down and say, we are not gonna continue living this lifestyle.
Manny:I am not gonna go back to my parents for help. No way. I'm in my mid thirties. I am not gonna do that. It's embarrassing.
Manny:Grow up, you guys. Pay off your debts. Have money saved up. Once you have that security net, that safety net, then yes. Start saving towards a vacation.
Manny:And if you have a partner and both of you are making really good money, then you're gonna get there quicker. But you might be saying, well, I don't make that much money right now. Well, then you're gonna have to make bigger sacrifices. Stop buying those Starbucks coffees. Stop going out to dinner every every, you know, multiple times a week or you're paying 3,000 no, $2,500 to $3,000 for a 2 bedroom apartment, guess what?
Manny:You're gonna have to downgrade. Start knocking out that debt, guys. And then once you have your finances in check, then we can start talking about investing. Then we can start talking about compensation packages. Alright, guys.
Manny:I'm getting off my soapbox now. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today And as I always say, keep learning, keep growing because good enough to earn a living may not be good enough to survive. Hey, fellow aviation enthusiasts. Before I let you go, I'd like to ask you for a huge favor. If you could please go to the platform where you're listening this podcast in and leave a review, some feedback, and some comments.
Manny:I really do appreciate that. I wanna make the Tailwinds and Sunshine podcast your podcast. I also want to give a huge thanks to my friends and coworkers that have shared the podcast with their friends and family. That means the world to me. I really appreciate your support and your subscriptions.
Manny:If you wanna reach out to me, you can email me at manny the cfi@gmail.com, or you can message me directly on Instagram at climbvx. That's climbasinvictor, x-ray. You can reach me there with your suggestions or any feedback. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate the support.
Manny:And until next episode, I wish you tailwinds and sunshine. See you. The statements made on the show are my own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.