HOW TO PREPARE FOR RETIREMENT DURING TURBULENT TIMES

Tim: [00:00:00] If you had to summarize your financial life with one word, what would that word be? 

André Beckles: Well, I think the one that that keeps coming back is just discipline. I would say discipline. You know, that’s something that it’s, it’s a trained habit, right? Nobody wakes up and you’re just disciplined, right? It’s something you have to work at, and especially in marriage, it’s something that we had to, it’s a push and pull of finding where that discipline meter lands, ’cause that word even, it means different things to different people.

So I would say discipline is the word that I would, that I would summarize everything with 

Tim: that is really interesting. So if you had to summarize your whole financial life, you’ve chosen the word discipline now as a financial planner, my follow up question is, well, what has that discipline been able to do for you?

You are listening to the Pilot’s portfolio, the show dedicated to guiding professional pilots towards a future of financial success and stability. Fly along with your host Timothy P. [00:01:00] Pope, as he provides financial planning insights and answers to your burning questions and dives into real life stories from fellow pilots who share their success.

And cautionary tales. The pilot’s portfolio takes off now. Well folks, I’m excited to bring you this episode of Pilot’s Portfolio. You’ve heard me tease it at the end of last year. You heard me talk about it earlier in previous episodes. This year we’re doing a, something a little different for season three.

Something to spice it up. Something I think to it’s gonna be a bit more fun. So. Welcome to this episode’s Peer-to-Peer segment, and joining us today is Andre. Andre. Welcome to Pilot’s Portfolio. 

André Beckles: Tim, thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this conversation. When you came with the idea, the answer was yes, automatically.

I didn’t even need to know the context. I just knew it was gonna be a yes. 

Tim: Well, I appreciate you being willing to hop on and talk about these things to our listeners because, hey, with this peer-to-peer [00:02:00] segment, what we’re looking to do is, there’s a lot of pilots that listen to this show. Obviously this is a financial show and.

Instead of just having Tim, the certified financial planner behind the mic all the time or other, you know, industry experts all the time, I thought there was gonna be a lot of value for pilots to be able to hear one of their peers where they are in life, where they’ve come from like, and what questions and so on that they have financially and they can hear themself and say, Hey, you know what?

I have those same exact questions, or I’ve overcome the same thing, or I’ve got the same problems. Right. So I appreciate you jumping on. 

André Beckles: Absolutely. I’m excited to help pilots. I love helping pilots, you know, ’cause I think one of the things that makes this industry great is different perspectives, right?

You know, every pilot you meet is a different journey, a different story, a different financial background. And everyone has needs and desires that they want to see. Okay, did someone else do this already? Am I kind of weird? Am I not weird? And it just gets some validation in that. So it’s definitely an important topic to talk about.

And you know, money is one of those things that a lot of people shy away [00:03:00] from. And you can, that’s an option. I think it’s better to lean in. ’cause the more you know, the more understanding you have of your own finances, just the more freedom you have. And I’m a big person that just loves to have freedom, so I’m excited to be here and talk about it.

Tim: Yeah. Well, let’s do this. First things first, tell us a little bit about your flying background. What seat you sit in, what fleet you’re on. 

André Beckles: Yeah, absolutely. So right now I’m currently on the Boeing 7 37 First Officer at American Airlines, and I’m in my sixth year going on seven. In a month, in a week.

Congratulations. In year seven, which sounds like a crazy long time. So prior to that, I was at Envoy. I got hired off the street back in 2020 right before Armageddon happened, and I got furloughed, another story for another day, but that will actually kind of play into the financial conversation a little bit.

So I did get furloughed from American right as I got hired. Prior to Envoy, I was a corporate pilot, so I kind of went a different direction than some other pilots would. I became a flight instructor [00:04:00] right outta Liberty University. Did that for about three months and then through networking and opportunities, was able to get a corporate flying job with the 250 hours.

So I actually did that find a citation. Excel for, from two 50 to 1250 was my restricted a TP number. And then I went to Envoy prior to that. So little bit different flying background, if you will. A hundred percent civilian. I was no military. And here I am now in year six going on seven. Loving every second of it, 

Tim: going on seven years at a major, some unique experience that you just mentioned, being able to get into the right seat of a corporate jet at 250 hours, so that’s awesome.

Now you kind of look back and you’ve also been through some things, I think, right as COVID was happening, and then you guys got a new contract. So you’ve kind of seen some things there in your seven years. 

André Beckles: Yes. I would say, you know, it’s kind of funny because as you look at the industry when you’re about to go into it.

You, you hear of these things happening, but I mean, like anything you don’t think it’s gonna [00:05:00] happen to you and you know, I got just punched left and right with some big, huge industry events that I didn’t see coming. I think that was the, the big thing that even now that I look back is I knew it was going to come except when I get, when it comes, you’re actually surprised.

Right. So, you know, COVID, you know, I worked my whole life working my tail off to get hired. Off the street from Envoy, which, you know, if, if there’s any listener that it’s outta holy on, you know how difficult it is. And right when you get to that pinnacle of your career, you know, March 17th, 2020, you get that dreaded email saying, Hey, don’t come in for your first day.

You know, and we don’t know what the future’s gonna be. We know we want you on property, but that’s all we can tell you, you know, and then living through that period of not knowing what’s gonna happen, and then. You know, the, the day of October, was it October 1st, 2020 when all the furloughs happened? I remember sitting there watching c-span, you know, never watched C-span that much in my life, hoping a bill was gonna pass and it didn’t.[00:06:00] 

And right then I got furloughed from my dream job. I was the most junior pilot at American, so I remember 15,710, and I was the first person out the door. 

Tim: I want to dig into that financially. What did that mean for you? Were you married? Like, give us a little bit more color. What was happening Wow. In Andre’s life at that point?

André Beckles: Yeah, so that’s a great question. So at the time I was dating, so I interviewed in January of 2020 and you heard some rumblings of things, but nothing big enough to think that the world was gonna stop. Right? So I interviewed, got the job offer, and you know, so I was dating, serious dating at the time. And then this event happens, and you know, for me, knowing that, okay, this is how I was gonna provide for my family to now have this period of uncertainty where I’m gonna get paid, but only paid until October.

What am I gonna do? Right. I have someone that’s relying on me. And then during that time, I also proposed 

Tim: between March and October you proposed. 

André Beckles: Yeah. [00:07:00] Yeah. 

Tim: Well, you had faith in the industry, my friend. It was coming back. 

André Beckles: Yes, yes. It was a very interesting time. So, yeah. You know, and a lot of uncertainty with all of those things.

But I think the biggest thing for me, just going through that is I knew I had a good sense of my financial situation. So although there was fear, there wasn’t like it, it wasn’t dire straits, it was, oh, this is a bit uncomfortable. But I knew okay. This is why you save. Just all those things you did in the past, like now it’s the time where that’s gonna happen.

So it actually worked out that I did get furloughed. I did have to file for unemployment, which I would not wish that on my worst enemy. That is, that was a very humbling experience getting to the pinnacle, and then you’re filing for unemployment. However, you know, the two months was only furloughed for two months.

In that timeframe, I didn’t actually dip into my savings at all. Just the way how the bills and how, you know, the credit card payment cycles worked. You know, I used the credit card as a debit card paying the bill every month. I never actually had to dip into the savings. [00:08:00] So once we got paid back December 1st, 2020, you know, everything just kept moving forward and I didn’t have to have any serious financial setbacks.

Tim: Yeah. So you said something there that I have a follow-up question and you said, hey, like although there was uncertainty in the job, like you, you had a good handle on your finances. What had you done up until that point that allowed you to face that uncertainty with, let’s say confidence? 

André Beckles: Yeah, I think the first thing is discipline.

You know, saving, you know, rainy day fund. Just making sure that, asking yourself that question, okay, if the worst happened right now, how would I feel? And I think, you know, I, I phrase it with the word feel because a lot of, in my mind, a lot of financial decisions, it is a emotional feeling that goes behind it, and everybody’s feeling is different.

So for me to find that number of, okay, how much did I want in a bank account? How much did I want invested? Ultimately I had to ask myself, okay, do you feel good with this number? You know, so I had a lot of financial discipline, you know, even up to [00:09:00] that point it was probably, it’s kind of crazy because COVID shifted a lot of my financial thinking a little bit.

I was a little too saving, too fiscally responsible, like saving money and never doing anything fun. Just, Hey, I can’t go here, I can’t go there ’cause I gotta save for this rainy day. Right. So I think those are some of the disciplines that I had of, you know, just making sure that the, the balance sheet, if you will, was in order that if the worst happened, that I’d be able to navigate it and at least allow myself time.

And I think that’s one of the biggest things that Safety Nets do, is they really just allow time. You know, you can control expenses to a point, right? There’s only so much stuff you can cut, but really you’re just trying to allow time to be able to, you know, seek opportunities and stuff like that. So once COVID happened, it wasn’t.

Yeah. I mean, it, it, it, did I cry a couple times? Yes, I did. I’ll be honest, I did. However, it, it, it wasn’t like there was 0.00 in the bank account. 

Tim: Right, 

André Beckles: right. There was [00:10:00] that, that feeling, that comfort feeling came back Okay. When I looked at the number. Okay. Whew. It’s gonna be okay. So that’s kind of how I navigated that part in terms of financial knowhow, if you will.

Tim: You know, I think you bring up a couple of excellent points. Having a well-funded emergency fund does give you time when things happen, or they give you the ability to, if it’s a large expense, to be able to satisfy that large expense without having to tap credit and having done those things when times were good for you, set you up to be able to enter some uncertainty with confidence, and that was nice.

And then the other thing that you mentioned was, hey, in a lot of financial decisions. Have an emotional component to them, and they absolutely do because it’s like, well, what do we look at the balance sheet? But okay, what does that mean for me though? And in your case, at that time, it meant that, you know what?

You had a specific amount of time, you knew your burn rate, that you were gonna be okay, and you were still able to propose to your fiance, you know, in the middle of it because you, you knew you were going to be [00:11:00] fine. Let’s go a little bit further back. I would love to hear, you know, what was your financial environment like when you were being raised?

André Beckles: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. You know, I was blessed to grow up in a household. Of everyone in my household was a part of the financial industry, if you will, in some shape or form. My mom was a math teacher. My dad was like, yourself, a financial planner, CPA. My brother, you know, masters in economics and probably the best wizard I know when it comes to the stock market.

And my sister was an educator, so growing up I got told, Hey, can I have this toy? No, you cannot. Or you know, hey, we’re gonna go on this trip, or we’re gonna budget for the trip. Or Hey, you know, consumer debt. Like, here’s what it is. Be careful of it. There’s, there’s good debt, there’s bad debt. You know, kind of teaching the real truth behind how to leverage money, how to use it the right way, how to use it the wrong way, assets, liabilities, that it’s okay to spend [00:12:00] money as long as you apply that discipline to it.

So I think growing up, you know, just like usually like, you know, a lot of households, you know, when you have two individuals. They’re usually opposite. So my dad was the, the super conservative, you know, not spend any money. And then my mom was the, you know, it’s okay to spend money. So I kind of got a blend between the two.

And again, blessed to have that. And then being the youngest of three, I got to learn everybody’s mistakes. So, you know, I’m seeing this happen or that happen, I’m like, okay, let me take my mental note and, you know, try this a different way or try to another way. But I think all in all, all these events, because I got to see it happen this way when adversity did hit.

Like I said earlier, there was a sense of comfort because I had not maybe experienced it before, but I had seen it maybe in the old family or I’d seen my family talk about other situation it was in, and I knew that, you know, you can’t save for a rainy day in two seconds. I mean, maybe somebody can, I couldn’t do that.

So it’s a lot of pre-planning years [00:13:00] out and just, just keep chipping at that pile that you want to build. You know, knowing that, okay, at some point the reason for this pot is for X or Y. So, you know, like I said, I was blessed to grow up in a household like that. That taught me the discipline of saving, of tithing, of investing, you know, spending, of not spending more than you have.

And I was able to kind of take that into my marriage and into my career. And then here today, 

Tim: that’s a tremendous benefit, is to be introduced to those concepts at an early age. To see it happening throughout your life so it can become part of your DNA. So then when you are out on your own and you’re independent.

The things that you were taught, the things that you saw, the things that you practiced under the guidance of parents, you know, it became second nature to you. And so you were able to, to do it on your own. That is your tremendous benefit. I tell folks, we all pay for our education, right? We do it like that to where you were told no to a toy [00:14:00] or, Hey, we’re gonna, we’re gonna budget for this trip that we’re gonna take.

And, and so you get it that way. Or sometimes, you know, folks come out and they have no idea and they bump their toe, they make some mistakes, and they pay for it that way. You know, and I think as long as we’re learning, that’s the big thing. So with having that background. And you come out, you come to the airlines, which the airlines can be notorious for uneven pay, especially in the beginning year.

One un reserved, maybe you might fly an a little extra. You get a true up. And, and, and American, you guys have an interesting, the way the paychecks come out anyway. So talk to me about budgeting and how that was early on for you and maybe some conversations that you were having with your peers and helping them budget if, if that was going on.

André Beckles: Yeah, I think at Envoy was a lot easier and I was single at the time, so it was. I already didn’t spend much money as it was. So that was pretty easy, I would say, to basically just don’t spend more than you make, you know, and set aside your what we do now. Tithing was 10%, investing at [00:15:00] 15%, saving for something was 20%.

So off the top, those already went into their respective buckets, if you will. So the rest was, and there were some other financial rules that I had in there, but basically just lived off that remaining percentage. So now coming into Envoy. If their pay structure is a little bit easier to predict, I would say so the one of the things that I try to do, especially on reserve, is, you know, try to find that bottom average number, if you will, or something that you can, with a level of confidence.

Assume that you’re gonna get that number, whether it’s the men guarantee or whether it’s half the line value, whatever number you want to use, and then budget off of that number. So nine times outta 10, that number was always way lower than the number that actually came into the bank account. And then when the money came into the bank account, then again, that same percentage thing that I did, the 10% went here, 15%, 20%, so on and so forth.

So now coming into a major, obviously the checks are a little bit bigger. It’s the same thing. However, [00:16:00] what I did differently at America that I did from Envoy. Was I kept track of how many hours I was actually doing each month credit wise. So I still started with a lower number. Let’s say maybe it’s 75 hours or 80 hours, whatever the case may be, and then track it for a year and at the end of the year, okay, how many months was I above that number?

If it was, you know, maybe, okay. Average a hundred hours. Well, may maybe the next year the number goes from 80 to 90. Or so on and so forth. So it was a lot of paying attention to spending habits. You know, people are creatures of habit, you know, so one thing I’ve learned about myself is, you know, if you look at our last five years of budgets, they’re pretty much the same.

They don’t shift that much. So now, you know, present day, it’s, you know, we kind of have that average number. Personally, again, I, I said a lot of it’s emotional, a lot of it’s feeling. I like the feeling of starting with a lower number, budgeting everything out, and at the end of the month, or the 15th and the 30th.

The number grows, right? It just feels like, oh, [00:17:00] this is such a great moment. So that’s just something for me that helped us both navigate different financial things. So we had budget off of the, the number we knew we probably could get without a reasonable doubt. And then once the new money came in. Okay, great.

There’s a surplus. Do we wanna put it here? Do we wanna put it there? And that’s what we found to be successful over the last, now coming up five years of marriage in, you know, what is it? 6, 5, 5 months or so, July, whatever that is from now. So that’s what we’ve used to be successful, you know? But I would say I, I had to pay attention to it, you know, I think money is something that, you know, I heard this quote, if you don’t pay attention to money, it never pays attention to you.

Now you can take that quote any way you want to. The way I translated that quote is if I never budget, I’ll never know how much money that I have. If I never save, then when the time comes to buy a big, it’s not gonna be there. If you never invest, you’re not gonna reap the benefits of the investment if you never started.

Right? So finances for me’s always been something to just pay [00:18:00] attention to. So that you know, ultimately you can live that life that you always wanted to live or whatever goal you try to meet. 

Tim: I like the points that you made about budgeting and your percentage system. You were doing it on Envoy where it was easier, it carried over to American.

Maybe you were doing it at your corporate job. Right. And I try to tell folks, Hey, I’m like, hey. The budget is, it’s very informative because if you have savings goals, if you have things that you wanna do beyond just your daily sustenance, it’s gonna inform you how quickly you can get them done. That’s gonna inform you what the excesses, you know, that you have to, to do other things.

It’s also gonna let you know. Like, Hey, how much should I be saving, you know, off the top. But eventually, sometimes we move away from, say, a strict budget to a money management system, right? As the numbers grow and your basics are taken care of. So we’ve spent some time talking about the beginning. Talk to me about, so I’m gonna ask you some questions.

So, are you married? Yes. Does your spouse work? Yes. You own a home? Yes. Any other sources of income besides the airline job? Yes. [00:19:00] And are they, is it W2 or is it other? 

André Beckles: 10 99. 

Tim: 10 99. Okay, cool. So that kind of, you know, married a home. Ownership. Oh, kids. 

André Beckles: No kids. 

Tim: No kids. Spout dual income. Own a home. Multiple sources of income.

So two for you at least. Does your spouse, does she have one or two jobs? 

André Beckles: Just the one income. 

Tim: Just the one. Okay. So is it a little bit more complex than your Envoy days? I would imagine. So if you had to summarize your financial life with one word, what would that word be? 

André Beckles: I think the one that that keeps coming back is just discipline.

I would say discipline. You know, that’s something that it’s, it’s a trained habit, right? Nobody wakes up and you’re just disciplined. Right? It’s something you have to work at. And especially in marriage, that’s something that we had to, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a give and take. It’s a push and pull of finding where that discipline meter lands.

’cause that word even it means different things to different people, right? So I would say disciplined is the word that I would, that I would summarize everything with. 

Tim: That is really [00:20:00] interesting. So if you had to summarize your whole financial life, you’ve chosen the word discipline now as a financial planner.

My follow up question is, well, what has that discipline been able to do for you? Think back last five years, but tell me what’s different. 

André Beckles: The word that’s coming in my mind is freedom. Yeah, freedom. You know, my wife and I, we’ve tracked our net worth from before we were married, back when it was in the negatives for me, student loans and everything.

And every time we go on this app, you know, we do our, we probably do it like maybe once, twice a year or so. We’ll kind of look the trajectory, just seeing that bar move and then move faster. And then move faster and move faster. If we zoom back to each of those moments when you couldn’t see where the line was gonna go, it reinforced the need to be disciplined because at the time the market could crash, things could happen.

COVID 2.0 could all these things could happen, right? They’re just fears. Right. I think the quote, what 90% of what you fear never happens, or [00:21:00] something like that. Right? It, it was fear. But when we look back, the disciplined, you know, call it 15%, the disciplined, you know, savings, the disciplined this, when you look back and you see, oh wow, we were able to do all those things and see that number there, and it’s al, it almost doesn’t make any sense.

Because you know the way compound interest works, I remember learning it as a student. It seems like the math doesn’t work, right? It seems like somebody lied and they missed a calculation, right? They didn’t carry the one, right? So, but to be in a situation where you’re like, oh my goodness, like did the app mess up?

Let me refresh it, and no, that’s what it does. And then two. It provides that sense of security, right? Knowing that, okay, the investments, they’re looking strong, right? Even in the dips, like earlier, what, a almost a year ago now, when the market dipped pretty bad and you look at now, look at it now, compared to then, it’s almost like it didn’t happen, right?

You look back at COVID, it’s almost like it didn’t happen, and this is where, you know, I think the word discipline is important because when you mix [00:22:00] it with that emotional word, when you go back and you look at all the fears that you may have had. Then you zoom forward and look back at those things, it wasn’t as bad as you thought it may have been.

So that’s kind of the, the big thing for us. And then when you stick with that, it becomes habitual, like when new money comes in, you know, like you talked about the new contract, we got that retro check, big bonus, the same financial rules applied. 10%, 15%. It’s the same. It’s like robotic at this point. So for us, just training that muscle now when new money comes in or money changes, nothing really changed.

’cause it’s the same thing. Whether it’s a hundred dollars, a thousand, whatever the number is, each number goes into its bucket. So it provided a sense of freedom. So now if you wanna plan that trip, you know, like the wife and I just went to Switzerland in October. That was a deliberate plan for years. It’s a travel bucket that we put money into.

Right. So then we get to that point and we haven’t traveled anywhere. Well, the money in the bucket is [00:23:00] for travel, so it’s not like we have to dip into, we gotta, you know, pull a loan out against our 401k, or we gotta dip into the savings. It’s no, because we were disciplined and planned this early on, the money’s already there, right?

So I would say freedom is what that. Discipline has allowed us to see, if I look back over the last five years, 

Tim: freedom. Wow. I love that. You know, and you hit on a couple things. Discipline one, to, to have a organized financial life in the first place. To know the dollars that are coming in, to know what’s going out.

So that’s like the baseline. The second level of discipline is. Let’s go ahead and live on less than what we make. I’m hearing heard you earlier say, Hey, you use a credit card, like a debit card. We don’t carry a balance on it, so you’re not paying interest. I heard, you know, tithing was 10%, 15% with savings.

So right off the top, there’s 25% of your income that you’re not living on, and then of course you got taxes to pay. So there’s even more that you’re not living on than you talked about other, you know, other buckets that you’re saving for. So the discipline to [00:24:00] live on less than what we make, and then the discipline to stay in the market.

When times are turbulent. Many moons ago, before I was working with professional pilots, I would ask clients, I’m like, Hey, like if you went on an airplane trip and captain came on and said, ladies and gentlemen, having some rough air, like, would you go ask for a parachute? No. You would go put your seatbelt on and stay in there.

Stay in your seat until you got to where you were going. Right? You know? So I love that discipline to stay in the seat. To continue with your investments and now over time you have this financial freedom. 

André Beckles: Now, before we keep going, I’d like to mention this At 360 

Tim: Aviation Advisors, we help successful professional pilots who have outgrown DIY investing.

We help them coordinate retirement planning, investments and tax decisions with ease and clarity because at a certain point. Building and preserving wealth. To support the life you enjoy takes a [00:25:00] team, learn more. Visit 360 aviation advisors.com. That’s 3 6 0 aviation advisors.com. Now back to the show. So as you think about how your life has changed financially, sounded like things are, you have a bit more going on than you did at your days at Envoy, even earlier at your days at American.

When you think about your priorities. Right now, what priorities come to mind? Financial priorities. 

André Beckles: Financial priorities, emotionally are hitting some net worth milestones. I call it emotional because it’s just a number. 

Tim: What are they? 

André Beckles: Well, a million has always been the number that I feel like is society.

It’s always been the fun number to get to. It’s a fun number right now. A million dollars today is not what it was five, 10 years ago. Sure. But it’s still a fun number. Right. And then outside of that, one of our priorities that are. I guess we kind of already completed it was becoming completely debt free outside of the house.

[00:26:00] That was a really liberating moment. You know, the car payments that we had, which we had financial roofs with the cars as well. Then we got to the point and it’s like, if we have it and we can do it and it fits in the budget, just pay it off. So we paid it off and now we have an had car payment for two years now.

And then other things like, you know, our house, right? It’s not paid off right now, but if we wanted to, we could. So that’s a, that’s a sense of freedom that that is there. So that’s like, I guess that’s a priority there as well. And then moving forward now, I think the priority is multiple flows of income.

You know, after going through that COVID situation, one thing that woke me up to is, you know, my dad used to tell me this all the time. Your job is only as good as this stroke of a pen. And I saw that head on, you know, October 1st hit, boom, it’s gone. You can cry about it, you can be emotional about it. It’s gone.

There’s nothing you can do about it. Now what? Right. So a big priority in, you know, 20, 26 and beyond is now taking that freedom, right? The extra income [00:27:00] and tapping into things that I like to do and saying, okay, can this be monetized? Right. Passions that I may have, or different things that I might interested in.

And creating more spigots of income. So that would love to be in a situation where, you know, if American paused paychecks, it would be okay. Like it’s okay. I mean, obviously you want your income, but it wouldn’t be that big of a deal because you had other flows. Right? So, you know, I’ve always had the quote, there’s nothing more powerful in this world than a person with options.

And that’s something that I’ve always tried to stick with. Okay, yes, this career is great. However, it is a very consistent career in the fact that something happens every five to eight years. I don’t know how it works that way, but it just does, right? So, you know, we’re five years removed from cope, something’s going to happen.

So now I can either just ride the wave, right, ride the turbulence, go through that emotional wave, or tap into some other things to maybe offset that income. So yeah, I [00:28:00] think that’s, that’s a priority for, for 26 that, you know, we’ve talked about. I would say to get to that point of priorities, you know, it, you had, it had to start somewhere.

Right. You know, if you asked me five years ago if I was thinking about multiple flows of income right before I got furloughed, no. I was thinking about the income. How am I gonna eat now? You know? 

Tim: Right. 

André Beckles: So that’s what I would say to that question. 

Tim: And that could take. A number of forms, right? Multiple streams of income.

It could be passive, it could be active, it could be, you know, a business that that you do there. There’s so many things, so many forms that it could take. Right. Another question that I have for you is, so as you rate your own financial savvy, which you consider your and and under, and I heard you loud and clear, the way you were raised and the voices and the influences that you had at home, would you consider yourself as someone that’s financially savvy?

Not financially savvy, like where would you rank your, your knowledge and comfort level? 

André Beckles: I would say generally speaking, financially savvy is what I would characterize it as. 

Tim: And [00:29:00] now as you think about how things have changed for you over time and where you are right now, like what is one financial area that it would just like, man, if you could get more clarity on how to solve that to that problem or crack that nut, like what would that area be?

André Beckles: In finance in general, I think it’s important for anyone to, you have to have discipline, right? But within discipline, you almost have to create financial rules for yourself, and that number changes risk tolerance. Everybody’s risk tolerance is different, right? Some of it’s emotional, some of it’s based on age, some of it’s based on, you know, your financial situation, right?

So I would say for me, I’ve always been a more conservatively minded financial. The planning has always been very conservatively minded. So risk is not something that I like to take too much. 

Tim: When you say risk, could you define it for us? 

André Beckles: Yeah. When I say risk, I mean more volatility, right? So for example, let’s just take Vanguard, like a Vanguard VGI [00:30:00] fund, right?

Basically s and p 500. It’s risky because all money’s gonna be at risk. But generally speaking, it does what the s and p 500 does. So it’s not really a steep risk. But then you have funds that are like, you know, a fund that we’re in is Baron Funds by Iran Baron at Barry Capital, and it’s a riskier fund because they invested in like Tesla, like years ago when some of these niche markets and companies that just pose.

You don’t really know what’s gonna happen, but if it, if it’s great, it’s great. And if it’s not, it’s not right. So for me, you know, the s and p has kind of always been like, it is for a lot of people, it’s always been my barometer. And I know people, some people my age will go maybe more risky than the s and p.

Some go more conservative than the s and p. So I would say, for me to answer your question, one area that I have not tapped into much, and some of its risks, some of it’s not, is things like gold. Silver or the big money topic now is crypto, right? Crypto is not in the portfolio at all. ’cause for me, it, in [00:31:00] my opinion, it’s a little risky.

Right? So I would say that would be the question to you when you look at things like gold, silver, or something that, a little bit separate than that, a crypto. How do you as a financial planner kind of lump that into a portfolio? If it should be there or it shouldn’t be there? How do you kind of assess the, the yes or no to going into those avenues?

Tim: Yeah, that’s a good question. So I like the way you defined risk because. I was thinking market volatility, right? And different folks think about, well, I was thinking market volatility, but then also just there’s inherent risk in business and so on. Some of the things that in creating your additional income streams.

So I’m glad that you define that. And also some folks here, hey, like I’m comfortable with the s and p 500. There’s some on the risk spectrum that would be like, Ooh, I’m less comfortable with the s and p 500. So I’m glad that we had you define it. So as a financial planner, when I think about building a portfolio.

And there’s certain things that should be inside and certain things that. Maybe are more [00:32:00] speculative, right? When you think about crypto, whether, whatever coin you want, right? So I think about those more of as, as a, a speculative piece of the portfolio and clients will have it and we say, Hey, well if you’re gonna add this to your portfolio, what job?

Is it doing right? So you think about the stocks in your portfolio are typically going to be your growth engines, and you can separate those from safe value or growth stocks or large cap and medium and small cap companies, and we can assign them over the track record that we have of the observable stock market.

Hey, here’s the characteristics that these different asset classes usually take. So if we’re gonna add something and it’s gonna be part of our investment universe, typically I want to know like, what job am I asking this asset to do? Because all. All it is, is either I’m asking it to help grow my assets over time, or I might be asking it to hedge against some kind of risk, right?

And so those are really two big components of a portfolio. So with crypto, you [00:33:00] know, I will typically consider that more of a speculative piece and for. Folks that are gonna add a speculative piece of the portfolio or a speculative asset into their portfolio, I think they should ascribe some rules to it.

Just like you were talking about, Hey, what percentage of this am I okay being of my overall portfolio? Am I okay if this is 50% of my portfolio? Ooh. That might be a lot for a speculative physician, right? Particularly if you don’t have a high risk tolerance. Am I okay with it being 5% of my portfolio? Will I have the discipline to, if I add it at five and it grows to 10, to shave off those gains and reposition that somewhere else in the portfolio?

So that word discipline comes up when you think about rebalancing and keeping the risk of the overall portfolio in check. So that’s one thing. And then you think about commodities. Gold, silver, other precious metals as of this recording in early 2026. They have had a heyday last year and they [00:34:00] continue to do okay here in the first quarter.

That being said, look at a historical commodity. Look at a a, a chart of historical asset price returns and see where commodities typically are. Do they have moments where they pop? Absolutely. Have they been historically your growth engine? No. They will have moments like this where in, in, oh and I think silver and 25 did over like 40% or something like that.

It was ridiculous. Probably higher. I think silver last year in 2025 just had an absolute run, right? It was just very, a very high return. But that’s not where silver is historically. So when I think about commodities, yes, they can be used as hedges. To the price of commodities. Right? But like not as a typical growth engine to the overall portfolio.

So did that answer your question of how I think about that? 

André Beckles: Yeah, no, I think it did because I think you hit on something that I think everyone needs to process is, like you said, what is the goal of this? [00:35:00] Buying it for what? Right? And everybody’s what is different. And then again, it goes back to that risk word, you know, should you have a hundred percent in crypto?

I wouldn’t, but I mean, hey, if you could hedge it against something, go right ahead. Right? I’m not gonna tell you to do that. But again, I think it’s, it’s those questions you have to ask yourself, right? Is that feeling word? I keep coming back to the feeling word, right? Is where are we trying to go and then how are we gonna get to that point in the most efficient manner, right?

Because you know, like you said, silver, right? It did great. Does that mean it’s gonna do it every year? No. Right? The s and p did great. It means it’s gonna do that every year. No. Now there’s historical averages, right? And I think that’s where the financial rules, like you said, rebalancing. You know, some people do, okay, I’ll do this much crypto till it gets to this percentage and then we’ll just rebalance it down, right?

So, you know, a lot of what we do in the even budgeting is percentage based, right? Nothing’s actual number based. Everything is percentage based. That way. It’s just an easy number to. Okay, right now we’re gonna go 15% and [00:36:00] then well, maybe your feelings change over time. Your circumstances change over time.

Maybe you get more income than maybe that 15 goes to 20, or so on and so forth. So I think it does, it definitely adds more clarity to that. And I think that’s an area, a hot topic now of crypto. You know, it’s, well, what do we do with this? Is it good? Is it bad? You know, and you price it a lot. It depends, right?

It depends. 

Tim: There’s that, and I think to your point as well, we can’t really let FOMO create our investment portfolio. Ooh, I see some eye popping returns. Maybe I’m gonna load up on that. Now. A lot of times, once you see the eye popping returns, they’re done. That that’s, you had to be in it before, before the hiphop returns happened.

And then, you know, going back to, hey, well what role do I want this to play in my portfolio as well? FOMO is not really part of that, you know? So now I do believe that everybody deserves some fund money themselves. So do you have a broker’s account that you play around in 

André Beckles: in investments? 

Tim: Yes. 

André Beckles: I would [00:37:00] say we have different buckets of investment accounts.

So one bucket is retirement, right? What is the goal? Well, it’s to retire so that money is there. It does not get touched if. The world fell apart. It does not get touched. That’s what it sit there and does. Then we have a non-retirement money. That one, it may be a little fun, but not really. It’s still more of a structured fund with, you know, ETFs, mutual funds that have a good track record, good history, that intent when it, whenever the time comes, maybe you retire at 65.

You can use it for multitude of different things. Just a different bucket, and then there’s another bucket. Again, I wouldn’t consider it. Fund money. It’s more of super conservative investments. Meaning I could go to a bank and put it in a savings account. I could go to an online bank and put it in a higher yielding savings account, or I could put it in a more conservative fund.

That’s kind of in between, right? It’s, it’s better return than a bank would do, but it’s less than. [00:38:00] S and p would do. That’s kind of how we divide our three accounts into, I would categorize it as fund money. I would say each of those buckets just have different purposes that, that we angle with those. 

Tim: I love that you said that because as you’re speaking, I’m saying, well, hey, you know what?

Maybe Andre is not interested in trading, and so if somebody’s not interested in trading, then that’s very easy to say, Hey, like, do exactly what you described. Versus when I think about fund money, I think somebody who has a trading itch or they, you know, they wanna dabble a little bit, I’m like, all right, well you take a.

Smaller percentage of your portfolio. You set that on the side. That’s what you get to work with, but you really let your long-term money be disciplined, be strategic, as we already talked about before. 

André Beckles: Hey, pilot, are you looking to save 20% on the sale or purchase of your 

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André Beckles: Buyer credit varies in some states. Contact us for details. 

Tim: I have another question for you. Nearly year seven fo multiple income streams on your side, how do you approach taxes? I mean, this is so 7 37 6 year fo.

I don’t know [00:40:00] how many hours your credit you earlier I heard you say maybe 90, maybe a hundred. Right. So like as a planner who knows your contract and knows what those number means, I know what that means. And then you said your wife is a nurse practitioner. Okay. So there’s six figures of income there.

You have another income stream that’s 10 99. How do you approach your tax plan? 

André Beckles: Yeah, I think taxes are the thing everybody hates, right? Unless your IRS is getting the money. The interesting structure of how we’ve structured our business portfolio, if you will. What we try to do is definitely use things like the 401k to offset some of that, that tax bill, right?

And then planning, you can predict what your number probably is gonna be at the end of the year. Right? The tax brackets are published, right? You know, the tax day is April 15th. Like there’s, there’s not many surprises. So with that throughout the year. Little tax check-ins. Okay. Where are we at now? Do we owe, do we not owe?

Personally, you know, this family does not like refunds. They’re just psychological, don’t like refunds. I [00:41:00] don’t like giving money that was not supposed to go somewhere, you know, to begin with. I want to get it throughout the year, so we’re typically on the side of where we would owe most of the time, but throughout the year that money’s in an account.

It’s, it’s saved, right? It’s just we wait until we see how that year is going. Then we adjust our tax planning, if you will, as we see how the year develops with different incomes and different write-offs and different changes like, you know, some of the changes we got in the, this bill of the last year. So that’s what we handle.

Taxes. I wouldn’t say that we are, you know, that’s one area I wish I was a brainiac on, right? To find the little loopholes here and there of the tax code legal ways to, to reduce that tax bill. But those are kind of strategies that we use. 

Tim: Yeah. Well, and I think we’re not gonna get away from, but we do owe it to ourselves no more than what we have to hit nail on.[00:42:00] 

Hey, your retirement plans that can help offset the employer benefits, can help offset. You’ve got a couple business businesses, it sounds like. So even those plans themselves or those businesses can have plans if the cashflow supports it to offset some of the income. And then as you are. Evaluating risk.

There’s other alternative investments that you can, if you have the time and capacity that you could get into, some of which can offset W2, others could offset some, some passive income. So there is a toolbox to be, to be used when it comes to tax planning. I love the fact that we had this conversation and I’m hoping that the listeners at home can see themselves at somewhere along your journey.

Right? And here’s some of the things that you’ve talked about, which, you know, I heard hate, discipline, budget. You have different. Sets of money, your long-term money, your intermediate term money, and then your emergency fund. You know some of, some of those, you know, conservative things. I’ve got some rapid fire questions.

André Beckles: Let’s do it. 

Tim: [00:43:00] Before I go to Rapid fire, is there anything else that you want to mention or you think I, we should ask? 

André Beckles: No, I think you hit it there. You know, I would say for the listeners, you have to be curious when it comes to finances, right? Nobody has the magic crystal ball. To know everything is risk.

Some of it is personal. You know, everybody’s situation is different. Your background, how you grew up. There’s a lot more facets to find news that I don’t think people consider. Right? And it’s not wrong. It’s just that’s how you grew up. You know, I was blessed to grow up in a family that they knew a lot about money.

Then it doesn’t make me any better or worse than anybody else. And vice versa. If you didn’t grow up like that, that doesn’t mean that you are. Incapable of making good financial decisions. I think the biggest thing is you have to understand that it is very emotional, right? It takes a level of discipline, and at the end of the day, you have to be comfortable with the choices that you’re going to make.

You know, we can all have dreams and aspirations to be. Have this number, have that number. I think at the end of the day, if you don’t plan for it, it, it’s just [00:44:00] pixie dust. It doesn’t, it’s never gonna materialize. You know? Who’s to say that? You know, Tim, if you want to have a $15 million house at some point, if you don’t already have it now, at some point in the future, why can’t you get there?

Right. It’s, it’s just math, right? It’s not, you know, it may, you know, we’ll have to divide that out year by year, month by month, but it’s just reverse engineered math. Somebody wants to take that trip to wherever at some point, just reverse engineer the mat. So that’s kind of, that, at least what helped us in our financial journey is, you know, being curious, listening to different outlets like this, not being afraid to look at the numbers.

Look, my personal number was negative for a very long time. It didn’t feel good, but I had to look at it. ’cause until I got that anger that that minus was in front of the number, I didn’t have the. Discipline to want to get that negative to hit even zero. And when it hit zero, I was like, oh my God, celebrate, gosh, this is the greatest feeling.

Right? And then now it’s, I’m never letting this get back to the negative. Then it’s, I’m never letting it get [00:45:00] below this number. Then it’s, you know, you kind of move that goalpost. So it’s fun for me. It’s because like I said earlier, if you don’t pay attention to it, it’s not gonna pay attention to you. So that’s the last thing I would say on that.

Tim: No. That’s right. Thank you. That’s that. That’s awesome. Time and discipline are superpowers, huge levers, uh, right, that we have with financial success. So I’ve got some rapid fire questions. Say the first thing that 

André Beckles: let’s do, it 

Tim: comes to mind. All right, here we go. When you think about portfolio construction, you think about single stocks, ETFs and mutual funds, 

André Beckles: ETF slash mutual funds, 

Tim: your 401k contributions for you personally, pre-tax or Roth, 

André Beckles: both 

Tim: market-based cash balance plan or receive spill cash.

André Beckles: The latter 

Tim: spill cash. 

André Beckles: Yes. 

Tim: A 65 is coming. Do you ever plan to 100% retire? Will you be dabbling in into things? 

André Beckles: I don’t think I’ll ever a hundred percent retire. 

Tim: Okay. 

André Beckles: I’d probably still dabble 

Tim: one financial habit. You’re really happy about 

André Beckles: budgeting. 

Tim: And then last question, one financial habit you’d like to break.

André Beckles: Ooh. Not being afraid to spend [00:46:00] money, which sounds counterintuitive to what we’re saying. Right. And just elaborate on that. The reason why is pre COVID, I. I didn’t do trips. I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t do everything. I was just this scared person that just kept saving for this rainy day, this rainy day, this rainy day.

The rainy day hit. I still felt bad about it, but now like, you know, like I tell my wife, look, we, every bucket has been crafted. It’s been disciplined, it’s been funded. It’s okay to spend it’s okay to, to want nice things. It’s okay to to want that nice. A piece of clothing or that nice car, right? It, it’s not bad to spend money.

Where it gets outta hand is when it’s uncontrolled, when those things have you, instead of you having it, right? Like I said, it was very liberating when we got those two cars, like it was great. First big boy car, right? And then, okay, let’s, let’s pay it off. That’s a habit that I wanna, that I am breaking, that I want to be okay.

Spending money knowing that the hard work has already been emphasis on the hard work part has already been [00:47:00] done. I don’t want someone out there to think like, oh yeah, let me just go spend a whole bunch of money. I would say that just trust the process, right? It’s not gonna be like that forever, right?

But if you pay attention to it and you do just these little micro habits, micro habits turn into bigger habits, or turn into bigger habits. Eventually you’re gonna look at your portfolio, you’re gonna look back at the last couple of years and be proud of what you did. And then with that proud number, it’s okay.

Go on that vacation, go get the suite, you know, go get the extra mod on the car, or whatever the case may be, knowing that we’re gonna be okay because we already took care of our finances prior to. So very long answer to a very rapid fire short question. But that’s what I would say, 

Tim: spend more money.

Alright, so you’re already here first. Well guys, this is gonna do it for this peer-to-peer segment of the pilot’s portfolio. Andre, thank you so much for joining us. 

André Beckles: Absolutely. This was fun. This was really fun. I love talking about money and thanks for having me on the show. Thanks for doing this. It’s needed.

If nobody’s ever told you that, I’m [00:48:00] telling you that now it is needed and hopefully you can get a lot more perspectives on and like, that’s what I’ll say. The last thing is. Perspectives matter. Everybody’s different. Right? So all the listeners, you may be hearing my story and take 2% of it. Great. You may take 90% of somebody else’s, right?

That’s the point is your unique situation is it’s just that it’s unique. So, but thank you for having us as fun. Absolutely. Thanks for being here, 

Tim: guys. I appreciate you tuning into the show. Appreciate all the listeners. I love your questions. Okay, so if you’re a listener, you got questions you haven’t asked them yet, info@pilotsportfolio.com, send it to me.

Would love to put that on the next q and a episode out there. Also, big shout out to our sponsors, beacon Relocation for supporting the show, helping you guys save money on your next real estate transaction, whether it’s locally or across the country. Thank you to Beacon for your support and to the pilot out there at home that has noticed that, hey, you found financial success.

All of a sudden it seems that you don’t have enough time in the day to [00:49:00] do everything on your plate. Maybe you have lingering questions about your financial future or the stakes have changed. If you’re ready to take the relationship to the next level, to partner with an advisor who knows your industry.

Schedule an appointment, let’s talk. That link will be in the show notes. So guys, that’s gonna do it for today’s episode and we’ll see you on the next one.

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