Jason Schappert — From Small Steps to Big Freedom: Jason Schappert on Redefining Financial Success

Working Edit

[00:00:00] Jason Schappert: I wanna take you by the hand and say, listen, there is a better way. I know you feel like saving $5 a week isn’t gonna add up, but I’m here to tell you it’s gonna add up. , you hear ’em all the time. These money myths of save for a rainy day, , to get rich.

[00:00:12] You gotta step on people. Like we hear all these things. No, no, no. We gotta change our mindset. We gotta start your $5 a, a week, a month, whatever it is. Let’s start somewhere. And that’s what I

[00:00:21] want to be, , for this next generation. Just like you.

[00:00:24] Intro: Do you think money takes up more life space than it should? On this show, we discuss with and share stories from artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and advisors about how they mindfully minimize the time and energies. Spent thinking about money. Join your host, Jonathan DeYoe, and learn how to put money in its place and get more out of life.

[00:00:57]

[00:00:57] Jonathan DeYoe: hey, welcome back on this episode of the Mindful Money [00:01:00] Podcast. .I’m chatting with Jason Schappert. Jason is a serial entrepreneur and financial technology visionary dedicated to empowering individuals to achieve financial freedom. He’s the founder of Moola, an AI driven investment platform that simplifies complex financial.

[00:01:16] Concepts and provides personal insights and recommendations to help users make informed investment decisions among lots of other things. He’s a passionate advocate for financial literacy, believes that everyone deserves access to the tools and knowledge, , necessary to achieve financial security. His mission similar to my own, is to empower the next generation to take control of their financial futures , and create financial freedoms and live lives free of financial stress.

[00:01:42] Jason, welcome to the Mindful

[00:01:44] Jason Schappert: Thank you so much for having my friend. Glad to be here. Thank you for the wonderful intro on reading this going, wow, this, this sounds good. Right? Wow. Thank you. I appreciate that.

[00:01:52] Jonathan DeYoe: Let’s hope you live up the.

[00:01:54] Jason Schappert: this is a, this is a lot of pressure, right? It’s a lot of pressure. , so we’re very thankful to, to be here and, uh, and get this on the schedule.

[00:01:59] [00:02:00] So thank you for that.

[00:02:01] Jonathan DeYoe: So I’ve done this, I’ve done two interviews with some, , different kinds of apps and financial literacy tools and investment tools in the past. So I, I like doing it. , before we get too into it, tell us where is home and where you’re calling

[00:02:11] Jason Schappert: Yep. So I’m in Naples, Florida. , it’s kind of it, it’s my paradise. You have your paradise. We have our paradise here. We just swim through our paradise with the humidity and everything else.

[00:02:21] Jonathan DeYoe: Did you, did you grow up

[00:02:22] Jason Schappert: I grew up in Florida. I grew up in Ocala, which is like North central Florida, so that’s rare to see someone who’s like, you know, born, raised kind of Florida guy.

[00:02:30] Jonathan DeYoe: So born and raised. I, yeah, , I’ve never known anyone that stayed

[00:02:34] either there or in Chicago. People in Chicago leave for different reasons.

[00:02:37] Jason Schappert: That’s right. That’s right. Very rare.

[00:02:40] Jonathan DeYoe: What did you learn about money entrepreneurship? You know, as a kid growing up in I Ocala you said

[00:02:45] Jason Schappert: Yeah. So Ocala, , to give you an example, the whole economy of Ocala is horse racing, believe it or not. So if you watch the Kentucky Derby this year, 18 of the 20 horses had some connection to Ocala, born, there, trained there. Their trainers are from there, something [00:03:00] along those lines. So that is the whole industry, , in, , in Ocala, we were not in the horse industry. My parents were actually in pest control. And

[00:03:10] I learned so much killing bugs with dad. It sounds so silly, but just a young kid, 10, 11 years old. Dad, take me on the pest control route. You’re a sweaty bug guy covered in chemicals and you gotta convince somebody to let you into their house, right?

[00:03:24] Like I learned about customer service and sales real quick and how to be persuasive. =. it taught me so much like growing up in a family business, and my mom and dad still do that to this day. It is still just a, a mom and pop business. They absolutely love it. But I, I saw very quickly that I really didn’t wanna work for somebody.

[00:03:41] I, I wanted to set out on my own and I loved, , I loved the entrepreneurial type dream.

[00:03:48] Jonathan DeYoe: I had no intention to go down this path. I didn’t know what your background was, but, , I’m, I’m excited to hear that. Were they, , I wanna be careful what I say here. I, so, my, my dad was very entrepreneurial and he, he sort of, he ran his own things. Did his [00:04:00] own things, and that gave me the bug for sure.

[00:04:02] But he wasn’t very good at it. So were they good at

[00:04:04] Jason Schappert: Good, good enough we’ll say. Right. I didn’t go to private school or anything like that, but good enough. And you know, my dad calls it a blessing now that his son has exceeded him financially and everything else, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Right. Our kids are supposed to do better than us eventually to, to feed the next generations.

[00:04:18] , and such, you know, that they’re still doing it. , most importantly, my parents are very passionate about it. And, , as

[00:04:24] listened to some

[00:04:25] of your

[00:04:25] Jonathan DeYoe: love killing

[00:04:26] Jason Schappert: Yeah, exactly. They, they, who loves killing bugs? Well, my dad does, and my mom loves

[00:04:30] talking about it. So.

[00:04:32] Jonathan DeYoe: That’s, that’s awesome. , so I’m wondering about how did the entrepreneurial spirit, I mean it seeps into you ’cause you’re, you’re born and, and raised with it. What kind of personal financial lessons did that teach you though? What did you pull out

[00:04:43] Jason Schappert: So actually a big one. So while my dream was not to be a bugman, my dream was actually to be a pilot, but I realized

[00:04:50] very quickly that becoming a pilot was gonna be very, very expensive. There are some great aviation colleges and they’ll happily give you two or 300 grand worth of debt to go do [00:05:00] it. And and the back of my mind, I’m going, I don’t think that’s the brightest way to do it. And. I began working in dad’s business, saving money and upselling his customers. Hey, you know, you need your driveway pressure washed by the way, and I, I’ll do that for you for $40. I can come back this Saturday and begin saving money to pay for flight lessons. , saving is usually such a burden for people, but as a, as a, you know, 14, 15-year-old kid, I had a goal in mind.

[00:05:25] I was bit by the aviation bug saving was, was a, was awesome because every dollar I saved meant I could go to the airport.

[00:05:33] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. , bizarre. So , that wasn’t like a, an element of your dad’s, mom’s and dad’s business. It was something you said you did on the side. Hey, it looks like your driveway needs to be done. , what, what kind of odd things did you add? Did you upsell paint jobs?

[00:05:44] Jason Schappert: Didn’t, didn’t do any painting, but like the stuff no one wanted to do pressure washing, you know, pulling weeds, all stuff that no one

[00:05:51] wants to do in Florida because it’s too hot. I’m like, I’ll do all the outside stuff. Right. I’m a young kid. That’s a Okay. So we just, any odd job we could do, [00:06:00] um, to, to pay for flight lessons.

[00:06:02] Jonathan DeYoe: it’s important that goal. It’s important to kind of have the thing in front of you. , did parents. Apply any stick to go with that? I mean, you had the carrot with the goal, but did they, did they tell you you had to save? Did they explain the consequences of not saving or did you not not learn those

[00:06:17] Jason Schappert: grew up in a, in a different household. I kind of grew up in a safer, rainy day kind of household, which, you know what, there’s, there’s good and bad to that, but I also believe if you think safe for a rainy day, the rainy day is gonna come too. Right. I know you’re very big into mindset. So I, I’m a balance between I’m gonna save, but it’s not for a rainy day.

[00:06:36] It’s for these things. So it was. Taking the things I saw my parents successful with and applying those. But I also gotta see their mistakes. Like I got to see the lean months when we were just having TV dinners for dinner instead of country fried steak. You know, or what, or whatever.

[00:06:51] It was like, we didn’t grow up, even middle class, it were just mom and dad killing bugs, you know?

[00:06:55] It wasn’t, it wasn’t the luxurious lifestyle by any means. Country fried steak was the big night.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Jonathan DeYoe: I, My father’s favorite meal when we go out is

[00:07:03] Jason Schappert: Oh my goodness.

[00:07:04] Jonathan DeYoe: I don’t think, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone reference it in my life until today.

[00:07:10] Uh, that’s, that’s, that’s where I’m from too. I get, I totally get country fried steak. That’s a truck stop like thing across the country.

[00:07:16] Jason Schappert: That was the luxury meal, man. That was mashed potatoes.

[00:07:19] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, exactly. That is so true. That’s so, that’s crazy. So I want, I want to get to Moula before we do that, , what did you do that sort of what, give us the arc. What did you do before and how did that, I know you were a pilot and how did that lead, how does that lead into creating

[00:07:34] Jason Schappert: Wow. , so. I realized I didn’t wanna be an airline pilot. , my dream was to be a military pilot, but I was too tall. Actually. I, I did the asab test. I was getting ready to go in the military as an aviator, already a pilot. , I’m six foot four. , and they measure, it’s not so much a height restriction.

[00:07:49] It’s your, your seated height. They gotta be able to eject you outta there and not make you an amputee on the way out. So I was, , my, my legs were too long. My torso was fine. My legs were too long, so I couldn’t be a pilot thought [00:08:00] at, at this time, I’m a flight instructor. So I’m teaching people to fly and I’m very young.

[00:08:04] I’m 18, 19 years old. I’ve got this baby face and everyone’s like, there’s no way you’re gonna teach me to fly. Like you look, you look way too young. You can’t even drive. So I ended up getting all these, I don’t know how to politely say it, but kind of like the reject students. And I don’t, I don’t mean that in a negative term.

[00:08:21] I mean that as this person. Has 60 hours and it normally takes around 40 hours to learn to fly. And, and they haven’t even done it yet, right? , someone told ’em they’ll never be able to land, they’ll never be a pilot. There’ll never be these things. And I’m like, no one else will fly with me. I’ll take these students. So I began working with these difficult cases, and I had to

[00:08:40] take these complex situations like land in an airplane and working around weather and making smart decisions and break them into plain English. To help these students. And every single one of those who the world would’ve called reject, should never be a pilot are pilots today. Simply because someone, and I’m not trying to brag on myself, I’m just saying this has happened to all [00:09:00] of us. Someone took ’em by the hand and said, Hey, this is the way to go and I’m gonna mentor you and we’re gonna do this thing together. And that teacher’s heart is what I really saw there. And I said, okay, how can I make a living teaching, make a living teaching aviation? About this time, YouTube was starting to get big, like not owned by Google yet, but starting to come up and get big. A little company called, , called GoPro in your neck of the woods was starting to make these action cameras. And I said, wow, I’m gonna put these GoPro cameras, I’m gonna put ’em in my airplane and I’m gonna film my flight lessons.

[00:09:31] Just like if those students were there next to me, I’ll leave the left seat empty. I’m gonna sit in the copilot seat. Because I’m the instructor and just like Jonathan was there with me, I’m gonna start teaching and just talking out loud. And I began to edit those lessons and sell them online to people.

[00:09:45] And that’s what grew into our actual aviation business that we just made an exit from, , 16 years later.

[00:09:52] Jonathan DeYoe: Wow. So do you, do you still teach

[00:09:55] Jason Schappert: ,

[00:09:55] I still do teach Yeah, a little bit, , here and there, kinda helping out friends and everything else. And, and I’m [00:10:00] still a little involved, , in the business that we, that we sold. , , it’s a passion, but really

[00:10:04] teaching is a passion. And that’s

[00:10:06] kind of the segue into how Moulah came about. Everyone’s like, well, how did you get involved in this? Well, the truth of the matter is, I, I’ve been broke twice and by broke I mean like tow trucks sitting in the driveway kind of broke. Like you can’t go outside and open your garage ’cause he’s coming for it kind of broke.

[00:10:20] I’m a teacher. , I, I dropped outta college three times ’cause I just wanted to do the fun aviation classes. I didn’t pay attention to pre-calculus, all this other stuff I wish I would’ve done. Like I, I really, , I learned a lot the rough way and I want to share with people like, Hey, listen, there is a better way.

[00:10:37] Back to the aviation. I wanna take you by the hand and say, listen, there is a better way. I know you feel like saving $5 a week isn’t gonna add up, but I’m here to tell you it’s gonna add up. And we need to change your mindset around some of these things. Like, , you hear ’em all the time. These money myths of save for a rainy day, , to get rich.

[00:10:53] You gotta step on people. Like we hear all these things. No, no, no. We gotta change our mindset. We gotta start your $5 a, a week, a [00:11:00] month, whatever it is. Let’s start somewhere. And that’s what I

[00:11:03] want to be, , for this next generation. Just like you.

[00:11:06] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. , so you talk about, and I, it makes some sense. I talk about the parallels between money or investing , and health. You talk about the parallels between piloting and investing. Can you lay that out for me?

[00:11:17] Jason Schappert: That’s actually a big nexus around Moola. So, in my airplane in front of me, and I’m sorry for so many airplane analogies, there’ll be a lot of ’em this episode, so I, I

[00:11:26] apologize. Yeah, exactly. In my airplane, I have six instruments in front of me, and on those six instruments I can tell what just happened 30 seconds ago. What’s happening right now and what’s likely to happen in the next 30 seconds if I keep doing what I’m doing? Where is the same instrument panel in our finances? In our banking, right? Why is online banking so crusty and ugly? Why are a lot of these, self-directed brokerage firms just difficult.

[00:11:52] Like, why do I have to click four times to see my unrealized gains? By the way, what are unrealized gains, right? Like, that’s the kind of [00:12:00] investor we’re going after here, , is to start with them really where they’re at so they can get to your level, , as well, and kind of pass them off. But they have to start. Somewhere. And that’s where the financial literacy comes into it. Because if you and I walked down the street and did a man on the street interview, what are unrealized gain? , they’re gonna go, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Right? What, what is dollar cost averaging, you know, tell about compound interest?

[00:12:22] Like, these are things that you and I , have used to leverage and create wealth, , not only for yourself, but for others. And most of modern America doesn’t even know what those terms are.

[00:12:34] Jonathan DeYoe: I mean, before you launched Mulland, probably since, can you just give us the, lay out the groundwork of sort of that financial literacy negative

[00:12:41] Jason Schappert: Yeah.

[00:12:42] Jonathan DeYoe: You mentioned compound interest. That’s one of the four big questions. And you’re right, like 75%.

[00:12:45] People don’t have no idea what that is like,

[00:12:47] Jason Schappert: don’t even understand. And you’re exactly right, the stats I

[00:12:49] saw were more like 80%, , Literally % don’t have an emergency fund.

[00:12:53] . You know, we just experienced, , a hurricane that just went through in, in one of our properties and we lost the AC unit , because [00:13:00] it flooded, it was $14,000.

[00:13:02] Like it’s a little town home. It’s not a big mansion or anything like that. $14,000. ’cause we needed an outdoor unit and the AC handler as well. , where would most people get that from? Right. And I’m not trying to brag by any means. I’m just trying to say that if we don’t have an emergency fund set aside, surprises are

[00:13:19] gonna happen. And 75% of Americans don’t even have that.

[00:13:22] Jonathan DeYoe: There’s a bumper sticker that describes that, you know,

[00:13:24] Jason Schappert: Exactly. Exactly. But then how do they pay for it? And then look at our interest

[00:13:28] rate environment. So they go out and they get a probably an unsecured loan at 10, 11%, and don’t realize they’re behind the power curve before they even start on that loan.

[00:13:37] Jonathan DeYoe: So, ,, how does all that play into, or how do you then translate that into a lesson on

[00:13:42] Jason Schappert: Yeah, great question. So,

[00:13:44] , mo really twofold. I know we’re talking a lot about the investing, , but there’s also the banking, , side of things, the, and the mo law savings side of things where we’ve

[00:13:52] essentially, , made, a beautiful electronic version of what my mother still does to this day, which is the envelope budgeting system. We call them

[00:13:59] pockets, but [00:14:00] everybody puts their money in their pockets and saves for those concert tickets and saves for the private school education. My mom, I love her. She still has cash and envelopes, can’t even make it up. We’re digitized and all that. I hope my mom will, will get on board here eventually.

[00:14:12] Right? , but within that. We, we believe that knowledge isn’t power. It’s just potential power. And I didn’t say that. Jim Rohn said it many, many years ago. It, we all know somebody who has all that wisdom and all those headlines and buzzwords, but can’t even apply it themselves. They’ll tell you how to fix their, your marriage, but their marriage is all outta whack or whatever that may be, right? , knowledge isn’t power. It’s potential power. So. What we wanna do is create the financial incentives around a lot of these things. So right now we’re working with some partners, , to, hey, if we complete this course on understanding, , automobile loans, right? We’re working with some partners. They can give you a quarter or a half point off your interest rate.

[00:14:54] Like these are the kinds of incentives we’re looking to do that. And, and by the way, , these loan companies, I can’t name any [00:15:00] names just yet ’cause it’s not official. . They want sophisticated people, they want educated people coming in, , that aren’t gonna be delinquent or don’t know how, or know how to manipulate the collections agencies or whatever that is.

[00:15:10] So we’re looking to really not just educate, but empower that education and show them. Back to your point, you were, you used that carrot, , at the end of all

[00:15:19] Jonathan DeYoe: Yep. So , do you have any of those partnerships? Not necessarily with lenders, but other, you have partners with banking? Partners with lending partners with investing is, and that’s the goal. That’s the sort of , the business

[00:15:29] Jason Schappert: exactly right.

[00:15:29] So we’re working on some partnerships. I mean, obviously if you go to Moola, , you’re gonna see , the savings mechanism, the investing mechanism and everything else. But then you’ll also see the different partners that are underlied, , in there. , we’re currently working on some insurance partners in there as well,

[00:15:42] just to help out.

[00:15:42] Again, on the auto insurance, people don’t understand the different types of coverage. , the most, important and thankfully popular video, , in there right now is understand your credit score. ,

[00:15:52] , and people wanna gamify it. They wanna look at all this stuff, but, and I don’t totally agree with the nation’s credit scoring system.

[00:15:59] I think it’s slightly [00:16:00] archaic and –everything else. However, , it’s the rules we have to play within. , so , let’s play within the rules. That’s what we’re given. , so just teaching that and helping people understand utilization and everything else, and the impact that just missing one payment can really have and how it’s gonna trickle down.

[00:16:14] And it’s not just people see it as a score, but what they forget is when you go to get that mortgage, that 30 day missed payment on your Barclay card could have cost you, you know, an interest point, which over the course

[00:16:25] of a mortgage is 10, 20, 30,

[00:16:27] 40 grand for one

[00:16:28] 30 day missed payment.

[00:16:30] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m gonna apologize in advance because I’m gonna ask you kind of a, I think this may be a tough question. , how do you vet back in the day? NerdWallet was a great source of information and, you know, I wrote for NerdWallet so many people, and then NerdWallet became.

[00:16:43] It’s sort of an avenue for credit card companies to sell credit cards

[00:16:47] Jason Schappert: a safe word.

[00:16:48] Jonathan DeYoe: commercialized, which is fine, right? You gotta monetize it somehow. I understand that. , and I still love NerdWallet. There’s nothing against NerdWallet. It’s just you, sometimes you gotta ask the question, how do you make sure that the products that [00:17:00] get through to the customer on Moula isn’t going to take advantage of that

[00:17:04] Jason Schappert: Sure. , so first off, MO law’s actually not making money off of those relationships. We make our money on a $5 99 cents monthly fee just to use the app. It’s essentially where we make our money,

[00:17:13] Jonathan DeYoe: Beautiful. Good answer.

[00:17:14] Jason Schappert: , We, I did the same thing in our aviation business. , and I won’t name names, but when we grew our aviation business very large, there were a lot of companies wanting to throw merch at you, throw products at you, you deal with it too all the time.

[00:17:25] People wanting to sponsor this, I’ll throw you this, wear this shirt, whatever it is at the end of the day, like, this isn’t nascar. Like , we are not for sale. We’re not gonna put everything on up there. We’re going to work with the people , that we know. we like that we trust and have the same mission because, again, I’m not gonna name names, but there are plenty of companies out there, big, big banks, big big companies that say they want financial literacy.

[00:17:48] But in actuality, their P&L does very well on people who remain ignorant, is the unfortunate truth behind

[00:17:53] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. And selling is a

[00:17:56] Jason Schappert: You are, you are spot on.

[00:17:59] Jonathan DeYoe: That’s, what [00:18:00] I see all.

[00:18:00] Jason Schappert: Yeah.

[00:18:01] Jonathan DeYoe: So I love the fact that , it’s a monthly fee. Like, or is it just a

[00:18:04] Jason Schappert: monthly fee? for, for using the app. 5 99 a month.

[00:18:07] Jonathan DeYoe: if you’re not paying a monthly fee and you’re receiving some kind of a benefit, you have, you have to realize that you’re the

[00:18:12] Jason Schappert: And that’s so true.

[00:18:13] Jonathan DeYoe: and understand that you’re, the product is critical.

[00:18:15] And I think there’s a lot of people that don’t get that. So I, I love the fact that you’re, you’re charging it that way.

[00:18:19] What’s the long-term vision? What’s the hope, ,

[00:18:21] Jason Schappert: . So, , in our last business, , we made an exit to, , private equity. And the, the

[00:18:26] fun avenue I wanna go this way is actually, I wanna do an IPO. , I wanna take it all the way up and through. I’m, I’m being very, very serious with you and I want to take the Moola members along the journey with us.

[00:18:37] I. Right. Like how cool will it be? This is the investing app that you’re using for investing, and in 5, 6, 7 years, you see my wife and I up there ringing the bell one day and those are the two people who taught you what all of this even means and how to read the financial news , and everything else.

[00:18:52] And now they have an opportunity to invest in the app that got them where they are financially. Like that is the serious vision. I, I could [00:19:00] be a little audacious sometimes. ,

[00:19:01] Jonathan DeYoe: that’s.

[00:19:02] Jason Schappert: but that is, that is, that is the dream.

[00:19:04] Jonathan DeYoe: so I guess, , I know how this works in sort of a tech ish company. You have kind of a roadmap of product and partnership. What, what’s the roadmap , look like over like six months and then look at it like over three years, what’s gonna be there in

[00:19:15] Jason Schappert: Yeah. Six months. We definitely know. And just being honest with you, even three years out, we are such a customer focused type organization like we are really, we’re not perfectly letting the customers steer it, right? This is still, it’s a, it’s a democracy in a way, but at the end of the day, we still have to say, no, the ships going this way. , you can’t be a

[00:19:32] pilot and ask everybody, all 300 people on board, where do you guys wanna go today? Right? We have to know

[00:19:36] where we’re going, but. I can accommodate you along that journey, , as well is what we’re really, , looking for as far as that goes. So continuing to roll out more investing tools.

[00:19:46] , the next big thing for us the next three months, , is 5 2 9 plants, which again, word on

[00:19:51] the street. No one’s gonna even know what a, what a 5 29 college savings plan is. And by the way, you, and I know this, but the average person doesn’t, that doesn’t get used. [00:20:00] Roll it into an IRA, preferably a Roth, IRA. Right? , and by the way, what’s an IRA, some people are gonna even ask , as crazy terms you use every single day. , so helping people start for success that way you, you know, and our demographic, that we’re targeted and currently have. It is a 30-year-old nurse, like she’s doing great, she’s making $60,000 a year, but she doesn’t understand why, why she has more month than money. She doesn’t understand where her money’s going. So that’s where the Moola banking side of things comes in to say, okay, here’s where we’re draining money. Here’s where money’s going out. Do you know you’re paying for Hulu, Netflix, and Paramount Plus? Like, trust me, you don’t need all three of those. , can we get rid of two of those for me please? And then we say, I know you feel like you can’t start investing, but , let’s do an automated investment of just $10 a week from that paycheck, $10 every other week. What? Just start somewhere. And, and we’re encouraging ’em into these, you know, just low cost ETFs for now, let’s get the money in there.

[00:20:54] Let’s let compounding get to work and let’s, let the machine start working. So eventually as they build up [00:21:00] that net worth, right, they graduate to someone like yourself and go from there. That is the trajectory of a typical MOULAH member.

[00:21:06] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s two things that I just wanna talk concretely about . , , and this is directly from the Mulah website. So the, there’s visual budgeting and then there’s this personal financial scoreboard. I want you to what goes into the scoreboard and talk about

[00:21:17] Jason Schappert: Yeah. So, , both can go hand in hand., I can share both in a, a quick little paragraph. It’s back to that instrument panel. What can I actually see? It sounds so simple, but to see my statement and on my statement, green is money in red is money out pluses and minuses. , I have a beautiful bar graph in there that shows, Hey, January the green was higher than the red.

[00:21:38] That is a great month, Jason. I realize it sounds like I. Talking to a third grader or something. But honestly, we need that level of transparency sometimes in our finances. And then the other aspect of it is the pocket goals. So the

[00:21:51] budgeting aspect is happening all in real time. , , you’re a business owner, so you get it.

[00:21:57] No one loves the end of the month when it’s time to start [00:22:00] reconciling QuickBooks. , Like reconciling QuickBooks is like my least favorite thing to do. We are doing real-time reconciliation and they’re budgeting without them even realizing. So how Moola actually works, and this is one of the features you can turn on.

[00:22:12] It doesn’t have to work this way, but if you want this level of guardrails, you can turn that on, is essentially you have a debit card and you can keep in your spending pocket. Whatever amount of money you want, and that’s for your debit card. We recommend people keep a hundred two hundred, dollars in there. That’s it. The rest you keep in your pockets, which is a detached account from that debit card. So if there’s ever fraud or anything like that. I got a hundred, 200 bucks in there. It’s really, it’s really no big deal, especially on a debit card. You’ve gotta really watch fraud gas stations and those sort of things. Then when I’m going out to that nice dinner with my wife, I go on the Moola app. I open up my food or my dining pocket. I transfer a hundred dollars from there into my spending account. I hand the waiter or waitress my Moola card. It goes through. I instantly [00:23:00] reconciled it though because Moola knows it came from the food pocket and whatever’s left over. will go back to the food pocket after tip after a few days and everything else is reconciled through and. Unlike QuickBooks where I have to wait until, you know, the end of the month, to reconcile everything that just got reconciled in real time. So I can now see, oh wow, I spent how much at Olive Garden, right? Or I spent how much wherever I went. , it’s a wake up call for people. , the silly example of Netflix, Hulu, and Paramount Plus, like, it’s sounds silly.

[00:23:28] That’s so realistic. It’s so,

[00:23:30] Jonathan DeYoe: not silly.

[00:23:30] Jason Schappert: So many people have that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:23:34] Jonathan DeYoe: I, So , my dad told this story. He told this story a a thousand times. , I grew up with, my parents, had nothing. My, my dad lived in. If you drive across the Midwest of the country and you see one of these gray old houses that roof has fallen in, that’s the kind of place my dad lived in.

[00:23:49] Like, they would, they would stop and live in that place and kind of build it back up and, , anyway. So he would tell the story about when he went to college, everyone would go out and he would say, okay, I got six bucks for the rest of the, you know, the rest of the month. And he would [00:24:00] go out and he’d have a beer and he’d have another beer, and then he’d have to redo his entire budget for the rest of the month every time he went out, because he just didn’t have any money.

[00:24:07] I love this about the app that you’re, you’re actually saying, okay, it’s in a pocket and you’re awareness of what you’re spending happens before you spend it. There’s a management

[00:24:16] Jason Schappert: tr it sounds bad. We’re trying to create a little bit of pain around it. We’re trying to do kind of the opposite, what Amazon did.

[00:24:23] Jonathan DeYoe: Mindfulness, not

[00:24:24] Jason Schappert: there you go. I like that. Use your word mindfulness around it, because Amazon takes away mindfulness because I can do one click, buy it now, my card’s on file, they know where I live, and somehow a drone delivers it in, you know, two, three hours.

[00:24:35] I mean, it’s, it’s

[00:24:35] ridiculous. This, like you said, causes you to go, wow, I finally just hit my goal on that. Do I really wanna move that money out and have to start saving again? It produces the mindfulness around it. Great. Very, very well said.

[00:24:47] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s great. , , I wanna go down a different avenue here. There’s been a lot of research on the benefits of, and, the limits to financial education and financial literacy. , have you read that the limits like. You can teach kids all about financial [00:25:00] literacy, but then, you know, they go to college, they don’t have another course in financial literacy.

[00:25:04] They graduate, they get a job, they get handed a 401k and insurance and these are the things you gotta sign up for for your new job. And they forgot everything. So there’s not, you need to have ongoing. So what does Moula do

[00:25:15] Jason Schappert: That’s a, that’s a really great analogy, and we saw it all the time in aviation, someone would learn to fly. And unfortunately the FAA doesn’t require you to do a recheck, but every two years you could learn to fly today,

[00:25:26] Jonathan DeYoe: Oh

[00:25:26] Jason Schappert: current for the next two years, having never touched an airplane. Like that’s dangerous.

[00:25:30] Right. And it,

[00:25:31] and it’s no different. If somebody gave you the hold of a, of an IRA or you inherited some money, you know, , which should things, that should be a blessing. And now you’re like. Y

[00:25:39] you, you don’t have that,

[00:25:40] that literacy with it. So

[00:25:42] Again, back to the premise of Jim Rohn knowledge isn’t power, it’s potential power. So how do we

[00:25:47] continue to incentivize? One of the things on that, probably more like the six month type roadmap, is starting to gamify this education. Hey, Jonathan just completed this course and earned this, and here’s his feedback on this, and he’s got his [00:26:00] gold star. Remember, our demographic is 25 and 30 year olds.

[00:26:02] We gamify anything. It’s gonna do, you know quite well from that

[00:26:05] standpoint. Everything’s on the app, by the way. It’s vertical video, so it’s easily consumable right there. While they’re in the subway. While they’re in the Uber, whatever they’re doing, walking the dog at the gym, they can easily consume this, that, that’s the other big aspect.

[00:26:17] You mentioned someone goes to college and they forget things. It’s an accessibility thing. Those textbooks were expensive. they’re collecting dust somewhere, whereas I’m in their pocket, right?, I can send ’em a push notification that a new course is, is out there. And then the real big aspect of all of this, if I wanted to share maybe a three year type vision, I know I said we’re gonna let the customer steer it. , but picture this with me. This doesn’t exist, , just yet for moola, but this is kind of where we wanna take things. , I know that our customer lives in Naples, Florida, right? They went through the KYC process.

[00:26:49] I know that’s where they live. Since I’m also their banking partner, I know that their rent is around $2,200 a month. I can use a large language model to say, okay, what [00:27:00] is. The average rent in Naples? Well, for a one, two, and three bedroom, it’s actually this, and you could be overpaying. Imagine if I sent you a push notification, say, Hey, I know your rent’s 2,200 bucks a month, but we’ve partnered with, I don’t know, Zillow, or I’m making stuff up now, and here’s three listings that might meet your criteria. They would save you 200 bucks a month. But let’s do the math. What does a move cost? Is that move

[00:27:21] worth saving just $200 a month? , and actually, no, it’s not. It’s better just to stay where you’re at and wait till your lease is up and then we’ll make the move. Like, these are the scenarios I wanna run people through. , we are inundated every day with should I buy a car? Should I lease a car? I mean, you and I kind of know that right answer to everything, but people are attracted to low payments with the lease and the new car and it smells good and everything else, but at the end of the day, you should really buy a three-year-old car that’s already depreciated a little bit.

[00:27:48] And I’m not against auto loans, but can you put 50% down? Right. That’s the kind of education we wanna start, , sharing with people and doing it in real time. When we know they’re shopping for a car or their [00:28:00] car, , we can see what their car payment is because we see it going to Wells Fargo. You know, auto group for 600 bucks a month and go, there’s no way you need 600 bucks a month of a worth of a car.

[00:28:10] Jonathan DeYoe: how many lessons do you have up and are, and are? Do you, do you actually teach the same lesson

[00:28:15] Jason Schappert: Yeah, You you, you you have to, , ’cause , things get buried. , some headlines, , you know, it from posts and podcasts, every, you know, all, all the

[00:28:22] time. Some headlines just capture people. You can have the greatest content in the world in there, but if the thumbnail or the heading or whatever it is doesn’t capture people so. I bet in 80% of the videos I probably mentioned, automate your savings and how important it is. And to those who watch every video, maybe it’s, I sound like a parrot, but to someone it’s gonna finally click that one time. So yes, you have to continue to teach the same things over and over. Back to your college example, , they may use rote memorization to get through final exams, and that’s not a deep enough understanding to really go out and apply it when they inherit a hundred thousand dollars from grandpa and go, oh man, this is awesome.

[00:28:55] But I’m almost kind of nervous because what do I do with it now?

[00:28:58] Jonathan DeYoe: what’s the feedback like [00:29:00] from your, from the users?

[00:29:01] Jason Schappert: really, really good. So my wife and I both, , teach, , in the classes we kind of co-lead some, , as well. And what’s even more fascinating is the questions we get asked. , , , I don’t know how often you run into this, but the, I’ve been really on a big push lately, and you see this a lot . And having mindfulness in, in your, in your money, this negative mindset, like there is a, there’s like this poverty spirit that some people have that they just believe they’re destined to be poor and that’s why they believe they can’t save and just help and pick someone up and dust them off. Like our support team, that’s what they do the most.

[00:29:35] Stuff honestly, is just encouraging somebody, Hey, you got this. No, $5 a week is isn’t insignificant. It’s going to add up. Just let compound interest take hold and give it time. Stay the course. Right. I.

[00:29:48] Jonathan DeYoe: A very specific question, and I don’t know if you are in the business of investment advice or not, but there’s a lot of noise in the investment advice world. I wrote a book about this mindful [00:30:00] investing. , when you’re teaching about investing, , what’s the method like? What are you teaching?

[00:30:04] Jason Schappert: and I are cut from the same cloth.

[00:30:06] I am not a hot stock chaser. I am, , at the end of the day, a fundamentals, more of a technical type guy, is the approach I take. , we are not encouraging people to invest in sexy companies. No

[00:30:17] one’s investing in the video or Tesla, or like, yes, they’re companies, you know, like, sorry, we’re looking at things like Proctor and Gamble, or, , I could list a, a.

[00:30:27] Ford, uh, right. Just took a little dip with all their EV issues and everything else. Like we’re invested in just a lot of America’s pastime kind of companies, not these hot stocks that we’re chasing because, and I know you live this every day, you have to help people take emotion out of it. Well, my brother-in-Law has a Tesla, so they must totally be a great company, and he bought a Tesla, so I’m gonna buy their stock. That doesn’t, that doesn’t mean Tesla’s a great company, right? Yes. Elon is polarizing and all these things, but that doesn’t mean it’s a great investible company, but it’s going up Well, it. Lemme explain to you why the market goes up and down. It goes up and down because of [00:31:00] people making rash decisions like you’re about to go make.

[00:31:02] Right? Let’s look at

[00:31:03] the fundamentals.

[00:31:04] Jonathan DeYoe: You are talking about individual stocks though, not

[00:31:07] Jason Schappert: No, no. I, I, um, so we encourage about 80% of the portfolio to be in a , low cost. ETF

[00:31:13] mimic the s and p 500. Take the Warren Buffet

[00:31:16] approach. , you’re not

[00:31:17] smarter than, than Wall Street Now. Within the s and p 500, are there two or three outliers that help the s and p 500 reach that 8% benchmark each and every year?

[00:31:27] Absolutely. Let’s go hunt those boys down, right? Not Nvidia, not not the others. Let’s go look for those. And they’re not always the sexy companies. , we want some dividend growth and everything else, but the end of the day, most people are just pushed right into an ETF, typically

[00:31:41] mimicking the s and p 500.

[00:31:43] Jonathan DeYoe: people that listen to me long enough know that I, I’m gonna say don’t do any individual stocks, but I also do I with 10% of my own money, I do some more specialty things, and that’s 20% is too much. But for me, you know, it’s whatever, that’s the words. Qui, quibbling over the, over the little, little

[00:31:56] Jason Schappert: spot on. We’re on the same

[00:31:57] Jonathan DeYoe: Um. . there’s an enormous amount of noise [00:32:00] out there. And I like to ask, and you probably know this if you were listening to the episode, , I like to ask everybody to simplify things for us. So if you’re meeting with one of your users and they’re like, yeah, I can’t get started, what is one thing that you would tell them , to do today that would make a difference in their both personal and financial

[00:32:14] Jason Schappert: , assuming it’s a Moola member, the most important thing, and we didn’t talk about this yet, is to activate what we call our spare change feature. This sounds so, so

[00:32:21] small, but you and I go out and get a coffee. And it’s $6.95 We use our Moola card. We appropriately transferred money over to our spending. Moola is going to charge you $7 $6.95 goes to the coffee shop. Five cents goes into the pocket of your choice or pockets of your choice. I. College savings account, dream vacation, dining, whatever you want. And people go, ah, Jason, , it’s 5 cents. There’s no, there’s no way. Trust me, small seeds grow into big trees, is what we teach.

[00:32:51] And we actually have a

[00:32:51] metric , , on their scoreboard that says, here’s how much you’ve saved using spare change. And most people look at it, they go, what’d you mean?

[00:32:58] I’ve saved [00:33:00] $120 this year by saving nickels and dimes and quarters. You’d be amazed, right? What people can

[00:33:05] really set aside. So when someone comes to me, like you said, I just can’t afford to get started.

[00:33:09] I can’t afford to invest, I can’t afford to save. Let me tell you, you’re going to Starbucks, you know, three times, three times a week. , let’s cut, you know, a few of those out and I’m go buy you a Keurig, is what I’m gonna do. And when you use your card, turn on your spare change feature.

[00:33:23] Jonathan DeYoe: could I, , maybe this is a roadmap idea, . But could I say, Hey, if that coffee is $6 95 cents, could you charge me, you know, $8 and put a dollar five in that? Can I set it up so

[00:33:33] Jason Schappert: Yeah, that’s kind of a future roadmap idea. It was, it was

[00:33:37] from a development standpoint, it was hard enough just to do and then get our, the banks and our partners and else to agree to just that. , but we’ve got that going now. But yes, can I add 10% on top of that? , but

[00:33:46] there’s other caps on that too.

[00:33:47] What if I buy a TV at Best Buy? I don’t wanna round up 10% because that could be 80 bucks on my $800 tv. So you gotta kind of put a cap on it so there’s some algorithmic things

[00:33:56] we’re talking through to make that happen under a certain dollar value. Those kinds of [00:34:00] things.

[00:34:00] Jonathan DeYoe: that’s one thing that they should do, turn on the spare change feature. What’s one thing that they’re probably doing that if they stop doing right away, would actually give them greater personal

[00:34:08] Jason Schappert: , it is those unnecessary expenses. I mean, , you’ve had several guests on here and they all kind of talk about the same thing, but one day it’s gonna really click for somebody. It is the Hulu, the Netflix, the Paramount Plus it is the Starbucks every single day when you could be making a coffee at home.

[00:34:23] Like my wife and I are very blessed and I still love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Right?

[00:34:29] Oh, absolutely. Now. Again, that goes back to where we started by, you know, pastime growing up. That that was lunch, right? That was it. And I still, it’s

[00:34:37] it’s comfort food nowadays. So Yes. And we still go out and we can do nice things ’cause we’re, ’cause we’re blessed, but I. I still love my comfort food, my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’ll probably have one as soon as we’re done here. Right? Like that?

[00:34:48] That’s, that’s the thing. So I don’t know how much you see what, like financial influencers are doing. I, I try not to look at it, but the big trend right now is look poor, you gotta look poor, you gotta do this.

[00:34:59] And I’m thinking [00:35:00] like, while I, I can respect that, , a little bit. . I’m really big into mindset and I really think you need to believe in yourself that you can actually do this. And if you look poor and you start feeling poor, you’re gonna stay poor. , now I’m not saying, I’m not saying go buy a Louis Vuitton.

[00:35:14] Just ’cause you want to feel, have a little swag and feel good about it. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying like my dad always said, believe it in you, starts with you Jason. So, so do that. .

[00:35:23] Jonathan DeYoe: That comment look poor. , so I think that there’s, there is a, there’s a subset of people on, you know, specifically influencers, social media, who’ve been very successful, make a lot of money, and I think their give that message is for them. Like, don’t be an ostentatious tool. Right.

[00:35:39] But I remember when I was coming up the, you know, very first job at Dean Witter, you know, I was trying to be a broker,, they said, you know, , wear a nice suit, put on a nice tie dress, like you’re gonna be the manager someday dress like for the role you want. Go look up not down. And it’s, it’s such an interesting difference in stories we have because of social media.

[00:35:59] We get this, we get

[00:35:59] Jason Schappert: [00:36:00] I, I to, I totally agree, and again, I don’t want people to stretch and run down to Louis Vuitton or Gucci because they feel like they need a Gucci suit. I’m not saying that you can, you can go to Joseph, a bank and get just a nice suit. Right.

[00:36:09] Jonathan DeYoe: Nordstrom Rack. Nordstrom Rack.

[00:36:12] Jason Schappert: Exactly,

[00:36:13] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, yeah. That’s where I got all my suits in the, in the early days. , we’re coming, we’re coming to the close here, but I want to, just to wrap up, I’d like to go personal again. , so what was the last thing you changed your mind about?

[00:36:22] Jason Schappert: Wow. The last thing I changed my mind about, , it, it’s kind of deep. It was actually selling our business. I obviously changed it back to selling it, , , it was my baby for 16 years started from nothing I’m talking, like you nursed it, you weaned it, you did everything and like to, to sell.

[00:36:40] It was. it it wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t about anything, like, there was just so much emotion tied up and almost lost that business before it saved us many a times. Like it’s just, , it took on a life of its own. And I dunno if that’s healthy or not, but a after, after 16 years of doing something and then saying, okay, I’ve gotta reinvent myself [00:37:00] now, right?

[00:37:00] Because I, . So those kind of things, that’s tough. Like what am I gonna go teach now? , how can we

[00:37:05] take everything I’ve learned and use it to impact the greater good? And that’s the nexus that brought us to MO law. So I’m thankful we still stuck by that decision, but I changed that decision quite a few times, , on some sleepless, restless nights.

[00:37:17] Yeah.

[00:37:18] Jonathan DeYoe: Me too. When I, when I went through merger of my company, I had the same sort of up and down zigzag. And do I do this? Do I not do this? It’s, it’s really hard ’cause it is your baby, 20 years, it’s your baby. , if you could get the truth about any question you know, about your future, about life, and all you had to do is ask, what would you ask?

[00:37:34] Jason Schappert: Wow. , I, I really like this question. The truth about anything. , Is my mission to make sure I’m doing. My God-given purpose, right? I don’t wanna waste , my limited time on this earth doing something I’m not supposed to be doing. Right. I, I just,

[00:37:52] if we could talk to, talk to God or get the truth, whatever it is, like, I would want to make sure that I.

[00:37:58] I’m on the path that I’m supposed to be on [00:38:00] because some days it feels like it and some days it doesn’t sometimes. Right. We all, we all go through that. , and that is that mental exercise you have to go through. But it’d be awesome to just have somebody come down, pat you on the back and say, you’re going the right way, kid.

[00:38:11] Keep it up.

[00:38:13] Jonathan DeYoe: You’re on the, you’re on the right path. Just keep going forward.

[00:38:16] Good luck. Yeah. That’s it. Uh, wow. So , tell people how people can, how they can

[00:38:20] Jason Schappert: Sure. So all over social media, , it is moula, copilot. I had to work in the aviation terminology in there as well. So anywhere, , from TikTok to YouTube, doesn’t matter. Moula, copilot, you can see some of those videos we were talking about. I released a lot of them, , on social media, not just within the app.

[00:38:35] Kind of some trailers of some of that training. Course related content so they can really go in there and see all of that, , as well. , and the website is Moo m moo la Moo la.

[00:38:46] Jonathan DeYoe: Very cool. Jason, thanks for coming on. We’re gonna put all that stuff in the show notes for sure, and I just really appreciate the conversation and, and the mission

[00:38:52] Jason Schappert: appreciate you my friend. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:38:54] Outro: Thanks for listening. Full [00:39:00] show notes for each episode, which includes a summary, key takeaways, quotes, and any resources mentioned are available at Mindful Money. Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And if you’re enjoying the content and getting value from these episodes, please leave us a rating and review at ratethispodcast.com/mindfulmoney. We’ll be sure to read those out on future episodes.