Podcast 219. The Importance of Financial Literacy When Life Throws a Curveball with Mike Tarnow

Average Joe Finances: Hey, welcome back to the Average Show Finances podcast. I’m your host, Mike Cavaggioni, and today’s guest is another Mike. It’s Mike Tarnow. So Mike, super excited to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me today and being here.

Mike Tarnow: Thank you for having me. Yeah, it’s you got a great podcast. I love the information you share, so.

Average Joe Finances: Thank you. I really appreciate that. Speaking of great podcasts, I know you also have your own too, so we’re gonna get to that a little bit later, but, I would like to start this off the same way I start every podcast episode, and that is introducing you so my guests can know a little bit more about you and who you are and your story. So if you could share with us a little bit about yourself. Who is Mike Tarnow?

Mike Tarnow: Boy, I could go on for hours actually, because I love talking about myself. No I’m originally from southwest Florida. Small town, probably halfway between Sarasota and Fort Myers. If you’re familiar with Florida. Son of of a world War II veteran Korean war veteran police officer, the whole thing. So I grew up very straight laced and a little bit of a dork, which, it turned out to be an advantage later on. Joined the Air Force when I was 19. I served four years. I was at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. I learned how to do how to repair radios and radar equipment, all air traffic control equipment. Bring down lines, which they don’t have those anymore. But phone equipment was switching. We had a switching room that was as big as a bedroom. And so I learned all that stuff and I got out and I started fixing copiers for a living. So I drove around and fixed copiers for, I did that for about. Five and a half years. And then I ended up working as a forklift driver for Anheuser-Busch. And I did that for 25 years. And then I finally had enough and they, there was an opportunity to to kind of work for myself. And they always say that if you wanna work for an idiot, go ahead and work for yourself. And that’s I just decided it, it was a good time for us. My wife had already retired. She was a teacher, and so we’re young. Things have been going well for us. We got married in 1989. She’s the love of my life. My son and his wife just gave us twin granddaughters, identical twin granddaughters.

Average Joe Finances: Oh, wow.

Mike Tarnow: Yeah. Shout out to Eleanor and Rosemary yeah.

Average Joe Finances: Awesome.

Mike Tarnow: They’re nine weeks old.

Average Joe Finances: Wow. Okay. Awesome. Congratulations, grandpa.

Mike Tarnow: Yeah, no.

Average Joe Finances: That’s great.

Mike Tarnow: I’m a little late in life. I’m 59. Normally you you get that a little bit early, but it’s okay. I have the time to enjoy it now. That’s why I’m looking at it.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Tarnow: Yeah.

Average Joe Finances: Alright fantastic. So you joined the Air Force at 19. Thank you for your service. I appreciate that. It is a calling that. Not a lot of people get into, not a lot of people do. It’s less than 1% of Americans have served in the military. I appreciate that. Yeah. So then you got out and you started working on copiers, right?

Mike Tarnow: Yeah.

Average Joe Finances: So you did that for five years before you became a forklift operator for 25 years for Anheuser-Busch. 25 years in a career field is huge. I know that. One of the things we’re gonna be talking about today is how you got yourself to the point where you were able to retire at the age of 55, right?

Mike Tarnow: Correct.

Average Joe Finances: I’d like to get into that a little bit and talk about what you did to get there. And so the first question I want to ask you is, as you were in this career field, how did you know what you needed to do to get to the point where you can retire at 55? Like most people retired at 65, right? So how did you get there? 10 years earlier,

Mike Tarnow: They gave us a lot of information when I first started working there. And and this was an, as a Busch had just opened this brewery in 93. I started there in 94. It was their phase two of the opening. And they had a, a. And this is a specific situation you’re probably not gonna find very often, especially nowadays. But they had this retirement plan that if you worked 10 years, you were 10 years vested and you were 55, you could retire with full benefits. All full benefits means is that you could pay for your health insurance for the rest of your life. And at the discounted rate at put in as and as a bush pays So that, that was a unique situation because that was a union negotiated thing and I give them all the credit for that. I had I was very fortunate for all that to happen. Plus they were matching their 401K dollar for dollar 6%. And so it, it was really, you were doubling your money every time you put 6% in. So my wife and I had considered, we were working 12 hour shifts. We were understaffed, so I was working a lot of overtime, a lot of weeks. It was six days a week. It was one of the better paying jobs in the county at that point, even though it was factory work. So I was making more money than I ever had before. So we decided just, with this great situation of a 401K, which was almost a new thing to us, I never made enough money to really put away money in a 401K previously. So we just decided 16% and that was the maximum at the time. We just put 16% in and then they changed everything to eight hour shifts. We brought it back to 6% and I kept everything in a it was through Vanguard. It’s still in Vanguard ’cause I’m in the, and we can talk about the that later. But I’m Vanguard and they have a they have a Nasdaq. That’s indexed to Nasdaq? Pretty much so I, I kept it in there because tech stocks normally do do almost better than Dow a lot of times, seemingly at that point. So I just left it there and I didn’t look at it for 10 more years. And then once I started looking at it, then I started, playing around with a little bit, but I’m not gonna take any credit for growing just because it grew no matter what you did, except for maybe 2007, 2008. But anyway, the that was the situation. Plus Anheuser-Busch gave us a what they called a a pension. Even though it’s not a traditional pension, like you would think it’s a pension to where they put. $4 an hour for every regular hour you worked into this fund, they called a pension and it was a cash only pension. So at the end of your time there, it’s it’s sitting there in cash. And when I retired, I can retire at 55 Co, according to Anheuser-Busch. But I was wondering about that money because normally you can’t access that money to your 59 and a half. The federal government had come out with a plan a while back called the 72 T plan, where you can access as long as you retire from the company that still holds your 401K, you can access whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or yearly certain money out of that account and without penalty. And so I that all just fell into place for me. So I, like I said I’m really I really don’t want to take a lot of credit for this because things were just kinda laid out in front of me, and it was it was very nice. I’m grateful to God that things were were laid out the way they were because I couldn’t have orchestrated this at all. So we just, my wife and I just diligently made sure that was something we always did. We put the, we had. That set up to where 6% went in and we left it. And in heck, the last 2017, 18 and 19, 16, 17, 18 and 19 the stock market just exploded. And so of course when you’ve got a chunk in there to begin with, when it explodes exponentially and it looks really good. And by the time that by the time I hit my 55th birthday, I was I was right where the goal was. Where. What we had set. And so I figured, oh, I’m gonna wait until January. ’cause we were gonna move and I decided November 1st. I was like, I’ve had it, so I gotta go. So that was kind.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, no that’s fantastic. But what was great about that is that you were at a point where you could say, I can walk away now. Yeah. Because you had, you were very diligent about it now. I’m curious because, I’m just doing the math in my head, so you started at. Anheuser-Busch, early nineties, late eighties.

Mike Tarnow: 1994.

Average Joe Finances: 94, Okay. So early nineties and 401Ks, they only came out in the eighties, right? So it’s it was still a fairly new. Thing and there was a lot of skepticism behind it where people were like, ah, we’d rather, focus on this. A standard pension, not this 401K nonsense, whatever. What gave you the confidence to invest in that 401K? Especially with the fact that they, were matching up to 6% dollar for dollar. That’s fantastic. That’s actually a great rate. Most companies four to 5%. So what was it that made you say, okay, I’m gonna go all in on this 401K thing, ’cause you started off at 16%, right? Yeah. Yeah. And actually the other piece of this question I wanna ask you too is, you were working a lot of overtime when you started there, right? You were talking about that. Was it 6% including your overtime or was it 6%? That they matched of your regular hours.

Mike Tarnow: It was just 6% of the regular hours, the four year. Okay.

Average Joe Finances: So they don’t match the overtime.

Mike Tarnow: Oh no, no. I know that sucks. That would’ve been great. But yeah, I think because of the name in-house of Bush, and especially back at the time, maybe not that this past year or so they’ve tarnished themselves a little bit. But back then, that was a company that. Everybody had confidence in and for me to work for a company that, that I never worked for a company that large except for a little short period of time I worked for Goodyear. So I had the confidence because, they wouldn’t be behind something that wasn’t stable and or that wasn’t worthwhile. And for them to they paid for all of our health insurance. They paid for we had company parties, two or three a year. It was fantastic. It was like hitting a gold mine. I thought, what if they’re willing to do this for the, for people coming in so they don’t go other places, so they don’t have the turnover. And it worked. We didn’t, we really didn’t have much turnover at all. Maybe four or five people a year out of 400. It was very low. So anyway, I, that was the confidence I had and I really didn’t honestly know anything about a 401K or how all that worked. But I did know enough to where, there was no internet, not really back then, I didn’t have a computer or anything, so I, yeah, I just had to I just trusted that was a thing. I’d heard enough about it on the news, I guess so.

Average Joe Finances: Okay. On now. Okay, so besides the 401K, I know that you were doing some other things to really budget. And save money. There was, we talked about this a little bit before we hit the record button, so I’m curious I want to explore what you did there because we were talking about the envelope method before we hit record. And you said that you have this a different version of it and I’d like to hear what that’s all about. ’cause you said a little bit to me before we hit record. Yeah. But held back and I’m glad you did because I want to ask this question now ’cause I did something similar. I started with the envelope method and then I started having a bunch of different bank accounts for the different areas where I needed to put my money for all our different expenses and things that were coming up. So I’m curious what is this method that you did, Mike?

Mike Tarnow: Let me give you a touch background first. We bought our first house when I was 30 years old, and that was in 1994. Okay. And I think our payment was $688 a month. And I was working at, I was working at Goodyear at the time. And so I. That first payment that was, I think it was August of 1994 came due and I, we had just moved in the house. We’re buying drapes, we’re buying all this other kind of stuff, and I didn’t have it. And I panicked. Nothing will tighten up a sphincter, like not having enough to pay that mortgage. So I went to the bank absolutely. Cash advance on my credit card and said I need to get $200 out. And that was enough to get a little bit of groceries and pay enough on the mortgage, but it scared the crap outta me, which is good. It, those kind of things should scare the crap out of you and it’ll change your mindset. And that’s exactly what it did. So I started trying to do some research on it. I had a friend of mine that was going to a church here in town different one than I was going to, and he went to his A seminar, I think it was on a Sunday night that was talking about the envelope system, and he was talking to me about it. And I, and by the time a couple of years later when I really got serious about it I did some research on it and, taking, getting money out every day and or every week or every two weeks or whatever we got paid. And putting it actually, physically putting it in an envelope seemed ridiculous to me. And I know that work, that it would definitely work. But I thought, yeah, there’s gotta be a different way that I can make this work for me because I don’t have a lot of time. So what I did is that I, working in an abus, working in a warehouse, being a forklift operator, we have pallets of beer, we have bays of 24 pallets of beer. So if we’ve got a load at, let’s say in door of 25 and we need, 30 pallets of certain light bud light cans. But there’s a bay of that right next to you. So you could actually load it from that bay, but you go to scan the barcode on it and it tells you it’s earmarked. So earmarks mean it’s out of the system. It’s unavailable. You can’t touch it. Pretend like it’s not there. And I was a trainer at the time and one day I was like, this makes so much sense. I can make earmarks work for me. So in the budgeting system, what I have is every time I get paid, I take I put the pay in, and then my I have about, I think at the time I might’ve had six or seven earmarks. I had my mortgage. Let’s say that you have your mortgages a thousand dollars a month, just for argument’s sake. So if you get paid every week, you take $250, you subtract. That from the amount in your checkbook register, I bought a book on Amazon. These things are fantastic. They’ll last you a couple of years. But you take $250 out and you put 250 in that little line next to where it says mortgage, and then the next month you put 500 in there and you take another 250 out. By the time you get to the end of the month, you’ve got enough in there for when it comes out you’ve got enough. And I do the same with. Car insurance. I take what way too much for car insurance because that way it tricks myself into saving money. So I’m, every year or so, I’ll have a thousand dollars extra in that car insurance account or car insurance earmark. That I can use for Christmas or whatever I need to use it for. But I do that for the power my wife’s car payment cell phone bill. I’ve got a bunch of ’em. So all I just call those earmarks. So every, I get paid every month now, but when I was getting paid every week, I just took a quarter of whatever it was every month and just earmarked it out. And that way it it worked for me. And So anyway, that, that’s just my version of that. Plus I round up to the next five. So I do that too.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, I like that. So I did something similar with the envelope method, but it was with bank accounts, right? I opened up several bank accounts in these different for the different accounts that we needed. I had a vet pet account, I had the car maintenance account. It was car payment and car maintenance. So all the money for that would go in there. Sure. I, our grocery budget, we had a grocery budget and we would always go over on the grocery budget to make sure that. Like we would always put extra into it.

Mike Tarnow: Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances: And at the end of the year, same thing, like we would take that money and that was extra presents and stuff around Christmas time and things like that, which we also had a birthday and holiday fund as well. So we know how much we spend on everybody every single year for the, family members for birthdays and all that other stuff. So we would put that amount in and out of each paycheck. I knew what I had to take out and distribute to all of these accounts every single month. Yeah. Some months I’d have to pay more into this. Lesson to this and because at least for the holiday and birthday ones, birthdays happen all throughout the year. Yeah. It’s not just that one time a year. So we would, move the funds around as needed, with what we had to pay into. It was the same payment every month that we paid into these accounts. It just varied what account it went into when we did that. So we knew what we had and then what was left over was money that we would invest or at the time for us it was paying off debt. cause we did have a lot of debt at that time when we started this. And in doing this method, I was able to pay off over $40,000 in debt. In two years and saved $40,000 before we moved out here to Hawaii when we when we bought our home out here. So it was just like, and this was off of one, one income. So it was crazy. So yeah it is definitely possible and I like how you talked about when you had that first mortgage payment come up and you were like, oh. I don’t have it. I’m not ready. And you know that there was a triggering moment for you to change something and it changed your mindset on how you viewed your finances. So, I definitely think that’s awesome. So earmarking it’s another way to do what I was doing, but without having, all of these accounts, right? You just you have to keep a log and keep a register of where your money’s going. But really pay attention to your checkbook, which I feel like a lot of people. Have a problem doing today. Everyone’s oh, I could just, I’ll just swipe the card and I’ll just check my account and see what I’ve got later instead of planning those purchases and planning everything out. And I think, you could really do a lot of damage that way if you would actually just take a step back and plan your spending versus just swiping a card and saying, I’ll get to that later. That’s when you put yourself in the danger zone.

Mike Tarnow: Exactly. I think when you were talking about debt, I bounced I think I did it three different times. I’m a little bit hardheaded, but I, at three different times, I had $10,000 in credit card debt. And I just like, and it, but it depresses you. It’s because we, and because in your mind you go, and it’s not my fault. The refrigerator broke. I’ve had, the car needed, was messed up and needed to do something. And with it, and that’s certainly not your fault, but if you did, because I didn’t plan for that, those kind of things like you were talking about, then then yeah, those kind of things will devastate you and you have no choice but to go to the credit card. That’s definitely a different a different aspect of it where you really have to make sure that you’re prepared for the bad things. So you were talking about the How much money you put aside, you put extra. It’s like I always put and I live in Georgia, Northwest Georgia. We, every, a lot of things are cheaper here than I know, than Hawaii for sure. But here I think this month I paid $156 for my power bill, which is very low compared to most people that I’ve talked to. But I earmark $280 a month for my. For my power bill and my water bill. This month it was only, I think both of them combined were 180, so I put a hundred dollars into that extra. Right now I’ve got $1,100 extra in that power water bill waiting for, the rainy day fund type thing. And that way that it’s there. But yeah those kind of things are flexible. So you don’t know you have to, I’ve adjusted that over the years and you always want too much rather than not enough. For sure.

Average Joe Finances: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And when I started this system, this was, I was actually back in Virginia. I was stationed in Virginia at the time. And like I already had an idea that I was going to Hawaii in two years, but it wasn’t official because I couldn’t get my official orders till a year out. But I was like, if we’re gonna be moving to Hawaii, it’s gonna be a lot more expensive and we’re gonna have to really be on top of our stuff. So it was like, okay, the debt has to be gone before we move. And and that was the goal and we were able to accomplish that. So I feel like it just goes to show that if you really put the effort into it and you really discipline yourself, there’s nothing that you can’t accomplish.

Mike Tarnow: Absolutely. And having a partner and having your spouse be on the same page with you means all the difference in, I’ve known so many people that percent’s like their wife or their husband or big spenders and they’re always cruising Amazon or Temu or whatever, and it’s man, you just can’t, you can’t do that. It’s just,

Average Joe Finances: oh yeah, team’s. The new dangerous thing it’s part of it was Amazon and then they had Wish, right? thewish.com thing, and then it went back to Amazon and now it’s Amazon and Temu, and I’m like,

Mike Tarnow: Wish kinda went way when the when all the tariffs started going on, the Chinese goods coming in. And then they found a way around it with with Temu being based in Boston, I think is how they’ve done that. So it’s like there’s always a work around, but yeah.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah. I feel like it’s basically wish.com all over again, but it looks that way. They’re based in the us. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. So now let’s actually talk about that a little bit more about being on the same page as your partner, right? Because I feel a lot of people when they approach their finances, they look at it from a personal perspective and not a team perspective. And I know that when my wife and I decided to do what we did to pay off all of our debt, this was something we both had to 100% agree on. Not 80%, 20%, not I’ll meet you halfway. It was like, no, this is all or nothing. Like we all need to, have the same mindset when it comes to what we’re gonna do. With our finances. So could you share a little bit more on that or elaborate a little bit more on like how or different ways, somebody could talk to their partner to, to get them on the same page when it comes to their finances?

Mike Tarnow: Gosh, that’s, that, that’s a really good question. I know that my wife and I think it’s the age old question right there. Yeah, I think so. We grew up with with probably lower middle class type surroundings. I think she was worse off than I was. I think that growing up in that situation and and going to work as soon as you are able to and. Mowing. I grew up in Florida, so we were, I was mowing grass at 12 years old, and I was just doing, always doing something to make a little bit of money. Not necessarily, I wasn’t Mr. Diligence saying, oh, here, mom and dad, here’s the money I made today. It wasn’t anything like that. It was like, yeah, I just wanted my own money and just in that era that we were in. So I think both of us had the same mindset that. We both, neither one of us wanted to work until we died. We’ve all had family members. We both have had family members that have, either just retired and died or died at 55, taken a nap having a heart attack. And so we’ve all had, those examples, negative or positive to where that hasn’t worked. And, and for me, My personality, I think my wife is the same way, is that we learn more from watching people. I don’t wanna say fail but screw things up and sort Ooh, I don’t wanna do that. And or whatever it is. It could be relationally, it could be whatever, but we’ve just had this whole thing. It’s you, she was like, you make a lot more money than I do now when I started with Anna as a bush, and you need to do your part, even though I’m gonna be riding on that part eventually. And she does. And, but we always look at the things as 50 50. She did her part, even though on paper it was a smaller part. She, we didn’t try to look at it that way. We looked at it as, this is our team effort. We are the Tarnows and we’re not, Mike and Barbara we’re more the Tarnows. And I think that having that cohesive attitude towards it, made a big difference.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah yeah. Actually going into it as one instead of two separate partners, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, I definitely think that’s huge. Okay. So Mike, now, besides, what you did with your 401K to get to retirement at 55, and then also, your, the way that you earmark your funds I know that you also. Do voiceover stuff as well. So is that kinda like a little side hustle that you have going on?

Mike Tarnow: Yeah. I started in in 2012 we had I was working with a guy that we were on night shift. I worked night shift for many years, 14 years straight. I worked night shift. It was awful. But anyway, we we would have magazines and we would be reading an article on our breaks. And one article was about Gilbert Gottfried losing his job as the Aflac Duck because he made some kind of inappropriate joke. The Japanese people that. That ran the company basically didn’t appreciate it, and they fired him. He was making six figures by doing the Aflac duck voice. And I thought, that sounds great. So we both decided we were gonna audition for the Aflac Duck. They put that as an open audition for the whole country and we, neither one of us ever did. But it got me reading about it and thinking, I’ve always done, I’ve always read back commercials to the radio when I was a kid and. I’ve always just been enamored with the radio and DJs, and I was a DJ at one point and it was just, it’s just been a burning love inside of me my whole life. So anyway, in 2012 I bought some equipment and I practiced practice all through that year, and I finally got my first job in December of that year. I was an off-camera chef talking about his, how I liked my kitchen and and it was for a kitchen remodeling company in Munich, Germany. Ever since then, your my voice has found the niche that I’m supposed to be doing, I think, and a lot of it is radio imaging, which a lot of people don’t know what that is. But on in radio stations you have the voice that comes on that’s not the dj. This is John Boy and Billy in the morning, classic rock all day. So you’ve got that voice. Yeah. Yeah. This thing. So

Average Joe Finances: I do a lot of stuff kinda like what I have for my intro, for my podcast.

Mike Tarnow: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very good. I was gonna offer my services to you, but you don’t need me. But I do a lot of stuff in Great Britain. I have a great producer Paul, that I work with over there several times a week. He has different people that need intros. I’ve done voice of just one of my more recent ones is is a bluegrass Station here in the us. So it’s I don’t sound like a bluegrass guy, but it the guy loves me. We were actually chatting on Facebook yesterday. He says, and everybody loves what you do. And it’s I love hearing that stuff. So anyway, I do that and I do commercials. I’ve done commercials for the Canary Islands all through Europe, Thailand Africa. It’s been a fantastic ride. I’m not rolling in cash over it. I’m a middle tier guy. I am not one of the I’m not the Don LaFontaine or Mike Rowe or anything I’m just I’m happy with what I do. I don’t wanna be too busy either. I’m just I enjoy doing it. I’ve got a good setup for my For my career and eh, it’ll keep me busy, keep me out of my wife’s hair most, most days.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah. No, that’s great. So do you actually do the voice acting from your own home? Yes. Or do you have a studio that you go to? Yep.

Mike Tarnow: This is a studio where I’m talking to you right now from yeah.

Average Joe Finances: Fantastic. Yeah that’s great. What a great. A side hustle that you have as well, right? Yeah. And actually maybe not so much a side hustle now since you’re retired and it’s maybe like your main gig, right?

Mike Tarnow: Yeah. And like I said, I know there are so many times where it’s I need to go put myself out there more and get on more rosters and and be busier. But, I’ve got grass to cut. I’ve got I got stuff to do, man. I just don’t, I don’t want to be a slave to my to my desk in here either. Some days I’m in here, four hours. Some days I’m not in here at all. But yeah it’s fantastic. I love it. It’s just fun. It’s very similar. I did do a radio show during the pandemic, as a matter of fact. It was for a, in a a radio station in Great Britain is, I was the only American on there. It was just called Rocking in the u s a and it was a two hour, eighties, seventies, and eighties music radio show. And it was fun.

Average Joe Finances: Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats on all your success there. That’s fantastic. And I, one of the reasons why I wanna point this out too is I know that you’ve also had some hardships in life, right? And it goes to show that if you’re persistent and you never give up, you can go out there and crush it in anything. Sure. But I’d like to touch on this a little bit, right? ’cause it’s part of your story and it’s part of who you are. But this was what last year, right? Yeah. When you found out that you had that April something going on. So if you could share that with us and let the audience know if you’re comfortable with that.

Mike Tarnow: Sure. Yeah, no problem. In April of last year I’d. I’ve been on let me back up a little bit. I’ve been on proton pump inhibitors for about 25 years now. Maybe a little bit longer, but all that is like an omeprazole Prilosec, prevacid type things. So I’ve been taking that every day for a long time, and it’s still, you still get heartburn once in a while, and one night back in April of last year. I had a particularly struggle with the heartburn. So I was in the recliner with the cat and I was sleeping out there until about three in the morning and I felt better and I went to bed. And ’cause when you lay flat, it’s just not a good thing. I went to bed and the next morning I got up and my wife was sleeping in a little bit. I went in to take a shower and I’m in the shower and I’m feeling weird and I thought what, what is going on? I got out of the shower and everything’s spinning, so I’m thinking, they’re not gonna find me naked. So I went over and I got underwear and a t-shirt on and I passed out. And I’ve not passed down in my entire life and it’s wait, I was only out for about 10 seconds. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I thought. This is just, this is concerning. So of course my wife hears the big thud the 215 pound guy hitting the floor in the bathroom. She woke up to that. So she she was like on me for a while. I went to the doctor, he says, sounds like you might have a bleeding ulcer, because there were there were other symptoms that caused them to believe that I had internal bleeding. My hemoglobin was down to seven, which is normally between 11 to 14. So I was. Bleeding internally, they thought it was a bleeding ulcer. I went to have an upper GI done, which he said that I’ve had a few of those done before because when you have chronic heartburn, they wanna make sure that your Barrett’s esophagus is not a, is not outta control. So anyway he went down there, he was, I can fix that if I see the bleeding ulcer. And so he came back after they put me in recovery and he says, I’ve been doing this a long time and I believe you did not have a bleeding ulcer. I believe I’ve seen you have a massive cancer. And above where your stomach is. Okay. So they did a biopsy, they called me back, said, yeah, it’s cancer. So I went through the the chemo and radiation for that six rounds of chemo, 28 rounds of radiation. And it it struck me hard there at the end. I had lost about 35 pounds which was good. I needed to lose a little bit of weight. It was a very expensive weight loss program. It, it was and so far I’ve only put back 20. Of all that, which is good. I didn’t wanna be over 200 anymore, any, anyway. So we went to go have the surgery done with surgery is very brutal. They take your esophagus out, they move your stomach up into your chest. You struggle to get nutrition a lot of your life, and most people have just just a hard time with it. The doctor that I had was far superior than anybody I have read about. We did a lot of research and it was a lot of horror stories, but this guy was like, he was a superstar. He had actually come out with different ways of doing this procedure. And he was just, he was fantastic. He was a superstar. So we’re at the hotel across the street from Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, and we get a phone call at six 30 at night. Surgery was the next morning and they said that Your surgery’s canceled and the doctor is clearing a schedule for the foreseeable future. Couldn’t tell me why. Just said you’re done. I just paid $174 for this hotel room. What are you talking about? I’m a stingy guy. It’s this sucks. Anyway, so we we found out later that his his son had issues. And so anyway I decided to forego the surgery and just didn’t just didn’t have it. It did voiceover wise, it actually took me outta the game for a while. Even though this is just a, this is a freebie for you folks out there. If they talk. Tell you it’s targeted radiation, which my targeted radiation is right down at the bottom of my sternum or just above the bottom of my sternum. And, it was near our heart. So one of the, my heart. And so one of the things we asked the doctor immediately, it’s is this gonna affect my heart, my lungs, all the other semi-important things that are in there. And he says, ah, it’s targeted. It’s not gonna bother that stuff at all. Okay. It, it was state-of-the-art equipment. So about, I think it was right at the 20, I think it was at the 20th, radiation mark they turn up the radiation a little bit. So it was like almost immediately I could feel the difference when they turned up. The radiation kind of finish you off right there at the end. But it was like I lost my voice. And, I’m still getting work. I’m I might not be feeling so good, but I’m still doing work. You can act, it’s called voice acting for a reason. So anyway I was over there and and I, you want to get the scoop on things. You talk to the techs that you talk to every day that, that deal with you. And I was like, I’m losing my voice. And the one girl that I talk to all the time, she goes, oh yeah, that’s us. It’s But my vocal cords are quite a distance from the targeted radiation. She goes. That’s the radiation. It’s okay. So it’s not as targeted as they, they sell it to be. So I lost my voice for about a month and a half. And it finally, I was afraid it wasn’t gonna come back the way it was, but it it finally came back. It was very weak at first, but it was better. So anyway I had promised my wife to get a scan at the end of summer, so I’m gonna so I, ’cause I haven’t had a scan since September of last year. So as soon as as soon as we find out that I’m in the clear then she’ll leave me alone. She promises, alright.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah. Listen to the wife, man. I’m, yes. We’re all pulling for you. For you. Yeah, that’s, I wanted you to share that because, The whole time I talked to you even before we hit record, you just seem like a very positive guy, right? Yeah. That you haven’t let anything in life get you down, and by being that way, you are able to be successful in everything that you do. I think that’s important for my listeners to hear that, you can really get some of the worst, most terrible news but you made something out of it, and I just wanna say, thank you for sharing that with us because I know that’s not easy to share. But also, man, here you are, you’re back, right? You got your voice back and you’re continuing to do your voice acting. You didn’t let that hold you down. You didn’t let that stop you. You could have easily said, ah, I don’t know if I could do this anymore and given up, and, but you didn’t.

Mike Tarnow: I was hoping it was gonna come back. I tried to keep myself relatively in decent health. I take my vitamins every day, yeah. And the whole thing. But and try to exercise and I guess for 59 I’m not doing too bad, but I do, I have to give God all the credit for this because it’s like for me to not be. I really think not being afraid of being on the planet anymore. I don’t know if I said that correctly, but I, my, my faith drives my life 100%. So it’s if I’m not on this planet anymore I’m doing better. Not that I’m wanting to accelerate that. Timeline, but I’m okay. But yeah I agree. I think having a positive attitude does help. I think that having a, my wife’s stood by me. She went to every radiation appointment, it was three o’clock in the afternoon every afternoon, and she went with me every day. And all she did was just sit in the waiting room, waiting for me to go through my 10 minute radiation process. But I do think tribute part of that to her because she was such a big part of that. We celebrate 34 years in in September. And for her to still like me, I think is a fantastic thing. I don’t think that happens too often anymore. But yeah, you gotta enjoy, you gotta still laugh. I was talking to a guy that I worked with a while back back in 2005. We were talking off the air. I had lost my dad in high school from cancer. And I think that when you deal with. Death early on in your life. He actually took me to see my aunt who died on the kitchen floor when I was probably about seven or eight years old too. And I remember seeing that going, why did he bring me? Even, I tell people now, I like, why in the world did he bring you? I, and I think that part of that is you have to understand that. Life is not, puppy dogs and unicorns and you have to understand that the sucky parts are just as important or just as prevalent in your life, that as the good parts. So yeah, you need to focus on the good, but dealing with the bad, I’ve known so many people that cannot deal with the bad at all. Any time there’s a death in the family or whatever, they collapse and it’s man, how does that work? I just never felt like that was an option for me. And I think that, that was part of when things suck and they’re always gonna say things go well now, eventually they’re gonna suck. And you just have to. And in 2005 I went to have coffee with my mother and I found her, she had died the night before on the couch. So it’s like one of those things that a friend of mine at work, he saw me after my three days of bereavement, and he goes he goes, I just don’t know if I could deal with that. It’s what are you gonna do? I sat on the curb and I called, I, this is another way God took care of me. I sat on the curb and I called 911. And a guy that I the reason I live in Cartersville, Georgia is because of this guy that I was stationed with at Pope Air Force Base. He ended up working at 911. I hadn’t even thought about it in a while, but guess who answered the phone? When I called 911, my buddy Jesse. So it’s yeah. And it’s like at that point you needed a friend or a friendly voice, somebody that knew you, somebody that knew my mother to answer the phone. And that’s exactly what I got. So it’s hard to, it’s hard to say that life’s been unfair. Life is life. So just.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, no, I like that. Life is life. It’s, it life isn’t fair, right? Yep. But, It is what it is, and you gotta make the best of it no matter where you are in life, right? And no matter what station you’re at in life. So yeah definitely appreciate that perspective. Mike, I wanna go ahead and transition this into something now that I call the final round. It’s where I’m gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on the show, and it gives us a good idea of how you are under a little bit of pressure, which I’m sure you’re gonna crush it. So if you’re ready to go, we’ll get that party started.

Mike Tarnow: All right.

Average Joe Finances: Here we go. So Mike, the first question of the final round is, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made when it comes to your finances? Investing real estate or just business in general?

Mike Tarnow: Not having a plan. I think when when I got married, I just I always floated through life as being a single guy. And I didn’t have a plan for finances. I didn’t have a plan for when we were gonna buy a house. I had no plans. Now I have a plan for just about everything, so I think not having a plan it set me back a few. I.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, no, absolutely. That’s one thing that could really slow you up a little bit. But alright. So the next question, Mike, they all, these all kind of tie into each other, but what is something that you’ve learned that you wish you knew when you first got started?

Mike Tarnow: Let’s see that when I when I was younger I was always trying to find the wrong girl. I think that was a lot of it. I was always trying to find the, somebody that was I always shot for somebody that was outta my league. But and I still did that with my wife. I always say I, I’ll kick my punt coverage, but I think that a lot of that is, she was she is a huge part of everything I’ve become. So I think that, I, yeah I wish I had known that she was gonna be there for me and I knew that I wasn’t gonna be alone or a failure, and, failure’s temporary anyway, so just knowing that I had her by my side was good.

Average Joe Finances: That’s great. That’s great. All right. So next question. Do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today?

Mike Tarnow: Yeah. Yeah, I think that, Sit down and write down all your bills for the month. Just that’s probably one of the first things you can do. Sit down, write out all the bills that you have, whether you look at your checking account or you look at your check register, which most people don’t have. But if you don’t have a checker register, that would be number one. This is number two. Sit down, write everything out, and figure out how much you need to budget for those things every month. And that’s a good starting point, and at least you have a tangible. Thing to look at every month is that, this is coming up on the seventh. I know when my power bill comes in, I know when my water bill comes in. I know the date. So it’s as long as you are prepared for whatever happens during that month, the regular bills, the, for groceries, clip those coupons. Don’t be afraid of clipping coupons. Go to, if you go to Kroger, clip the online coupons and round up. That’s one of the big things for me. I think you round up the next five and you’ll be I saved $800 that first year just by rounding up the next five with every purchase.

Average Joe Finances: So that’s great. Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s amazing how much you could save in a year when you’re not paying attention to those little things like that. But it’s also amazing how much you can lose in a year if you’re not paying attention to some of the things that you’re spending. So I think don’t be that person. That’s great point.

Mike Tarnow: Don’t be that person that says, oh, I have money. Look at my app. I’ve got $400 left.

Average Joe Finances: And then you forgot about the thing you swiped earlier, and then you’re like, oh, why? Why is it getting declined?

Mike Tarnow: Yeah, exactly.

Average Joe Finances: Cause that thing you swiped earlier just came out.

Mike Tarnow: Yep.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah. Okay. Definitely Mike, appreciate that. Okay, final question of the final round, and this is an opinion based question and I will preface this with, besides your own, do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Mike Tarnow: Oh my gosh. Yeah, there’s a financial guy here in Atlanta. His name is Wes Moss, and he has a book out called, you Can Retire Sooner Than You Think. And he was, he has a radio show on W S B here in Atlanta. It’s every Sunday morning, I think at nine o’clock, or maybe it was before that. But I used to listen to him if I worked Saturday nights. But I bought his book and he’s got really good practical advice on on how to budget your money and how to prepare for that retirement phase of your life. And and it certainly did help me. And he’s just a practical guy. He’s not one of these huge speakers that, that, travels around the country and has this big ego. He’s a good guy. He’s just He’s just a a down to earth and has some practical advice for you. So you can retire sooner than you think by West Moss.

Average Joe Finances: Awesome, great recommendation. I wrote that one down. It’s getting added to the list. Definitely appreciate that. Okay, Mike, that is it for the final round. Definitely appreciate you being a participant there. You crushed it. So actually. That may be the final round. But I do have one more question for you. And this is probably the most important question of this entire podcast because for my guests that have been listening right now, that have been listening to your story, and they’re just like, man, Mike’s been through the ringer, but he got out there and he made it happen. And I wanna know more about Mike and what he’s doing. I wanna know about his podcast so I can go listen to it. So where can people find more information about you? You have a website you can share with us, social media, your podcast, all that good stuff.

Mike Tarnow: Yeah, my, thankfully, my name is very unique. There’s not a whole lot of Mike Tarnow. I think the other Mike Tarnow that I know is in Berlin. So yeah, mine is if you just search my name, TARNOW Mike Tarnow. And you, I’m on Instagram and Facebook. I’m not a big tiktoker I do have a, an account, but I don’t hardly ever use it. And my. Voiceover website is miketarnow.com, MIKETARNOW.com. And then my podcast, it’s called Stay Off My Lawn. I co-host it with a friend of mine, Richard Dorrington. He can be found@richarddorrington.com, which he’s a great guy. He’s got a very unique voice he’s also a voice actor. So if you need somebody with a real folksy, very unique voice somebody a little more standard you come to me. But yeah, stayoffmylawn.us, you can find us there and you can find all about the podcast. We kinda look at the news of the day. It’s a little political, we make fun of everybody, whether you have a D or an R next to your name, because basically politicians are the funniest people on the planet right now because they say such stupid things. So we, we have a good time with that. So we laugh a lot

Average Joe Finances: Awesome. Appreciate that. Alright, so hey, I’ll make sure I have all those links in the show notes to make it easy for people to follow and go check it out. I just ask, if you’re driving right now, please wait till you get somewhere where you can copy and paste it or click safely. So Mike, this has been awesome. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

Mike Tarnow: Oh my goodness. When things look bleak, like I said earlier I’ve been in $10,000 plus credit card debt three different occasions. And if you’re in that situation right now, and yeah, it looks bleak, but sit down and make a plan. I can’t emphasize enough to take that 30,000 foot view of things, zoom out a little bit and go, okay, it’s not gonna be that bad. We need to figure out. How to make this work and how to move forward ’cause you can’t change the past. So.

Average Joe Finances: I love that. I love that you can’t change the past, make the best of what you have right now and today. So yeah. What a great message, Mike. Definitely appreciate that. I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. This was fantastic.

Mike Tarnow: Oh great. I had a great time.

Average Joe Finances: Yeah, absolutely. And hey, I also wanna thank all of my listeners for joining me and our special guest, Mike Tarnow, on the average Joe Finances podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today’s episode with Mike. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.