Avoid these 15 NOOB Money Mistakes in 2026.

avoid making these top 15 newbie money

mistakes in 2026 and take it from

somebody who's done almost all of the

mistakes that you can possibly imagine

and has had great fortune and still

being able to make it. So, in other

words, take it from me. Don't make these

mistakes because I've been at both ends

of this from broke working at Jamba

Juice to flying my own PJ around. None

of that matters now though. What matters

is the top 15 tips for you. Here we go.

Number one, every noob makes this

mistake and you want to avoid this in

2026, especially with how high interest

rates are. Buying the biggest possible

home you possibly can afford because you

want your forever home and you need the

square footage or whatever your freaking

excuse is. It is a mistake. See, the

pros understand that there's a hack to

doing something known as bank hacking.

Now, obviously with how high interest

rates are, you don't necessarily want to

get the lowest down payment loan anyway

to get into a loan or a home, but this

can actually also help you accelerate

your path to home ownership and in the

long-term real estate wealth. The

strategy that I call bank hacking works

really well if you don't have children.

You can still do it if you have

children, but here we go. buy a smaller

home than you actually want. So, think

about it. Maybe you want a fourbedroom,

2 and 1 half bath with a pool or like a

six-bedroom house with 10,000 square ft.

Great. Put that on the vision board for

the future. But now, especially earlier

in your life, or depending on where you

are, you can kind of try to jump in,

right? Start with something smaller on

purpose. a townhouse, a condo, a

two-bedroom, one bath, a three-bedroom,

two bath, something that you know you're

going to outgrow or maybe can even

barely fit into. Now, this way, when

it's time to upgrade and you go get your

next house, your next big good deal, the

pro knows two things happen. Number one,

the bank's actually going to give you a

loan. See, no bank is going to give you

a loan for your next house if you're

going from a five- bedroomedroom, two

and a half bath with a pool to a twoin-

one. They're going to be like, "Yeah,

sure you're a homeowner. You're just

trying to get yourself a rental

property." But if you do the reverse,

you can get a homeowner loan for that, a

two-bedroom, one bath or three and two

or whatever it is, and easily get to

that next level and kind of keep moving

up in size. And the excuse is, hey, we

need more space. We need a home office.

We have children or whatever. And it's a

reasonable way for them to put in their

file, okay, this is why they're getting

a homeowner occupied loan. And then you

get better rates and better terms. Makes

sense. Second big pro benefit of doing

this strategy that the pro really knows.

The pro knows if they're constantly

going to be moving every few years,

doesn't have to be every year, right?

But every call it four or five years,

you just sort of plan for that. You

don't always have to blow money on these

timeless upgrades. See, people do this.

As soon as they believe they're in their

forever home, they spend money on that

better quality kitchen. They're spending

a h 100red grand on a kitchen instead of

what they should be spending like 20

grand because it's their forever home.

It's a great way to always keep yourself

broke. So, bank hack and don't make the

big house mistake early in your career.

Now, to really nail this point home,

because I think there's a a real value

in this one, I want to show you one of

the benefits of starting early,

especially if you could put more money

down because rates are higher these

days, for owning real estate. Watch

this. If you bought a home, let's say

for h we'll call it $400,000 because,

you know, things are a little bit more

expensive right now. Rates are a lot

higher, right? So, let's say at 25 years

old, and again, you could jump in

wherever your age is. You buy a home for

$400,000, smaller starter home,

something just to get, you know, going

in, right? And then every 7 years. Come

on, everybody can commit to moving seven

years, you know, once every seven years

because, frankly, that's the average.

Most people move every seven years

anyway. If you're a tenant, you probably

move more often than that. But anyway,

let's write down every seven years here.

So, what would that be? 32, 39, 46, 53,

60, 67. We'll call that retirement age.

Let's say every seven years you buy a

house for a little bit more money than

what we've previously had. There we go.

Get that background noise out of there.

So, we'll go with $600,000 next. And

we'll call it 200k per property more,

right? So, we'll go with 800K over here.

We'll go with 1 mil over here. 1.2 1.4 4

1.6. If you had no real estate today, it

would seem really daunting to say, "Oh

my gosh, I'm going to buy a $1.6 million

home." And you know, obviously, this is

not assuming inflation. Prices are going

to change over time, so adjust for that.

But consider this. If you buy a property

every 7 years on this road map, by the

time you're 67, if you started at 25, 42

years would have gone by. You'd have $7

million of real estate. Your first

million dollar of property would have no

debt, assuming you got a 30-year fixed

rate mortgage. This would be 2 years

from being paid off. This right here

would be 11 years from being paid off.

Uh and the others, well, you would have

just acquired this one, right? But you'd

be in that final retirement home. You'd

be in that $ 1.6 million home. Now,

obviously, if you add market

appreciation to this, you probably have

over $10 to $15 million worth of real

estate over that time frame, if not

more. But the point is, people generally

don't start at a $1.6 million home. They

usually start somewhere. Utilize that

like a pro to your advantage. Both

psychologically so you don't overspend

on the home that you're in, but also

practically so you could bank hack your

way up. That's the difference between

how a noob thinks and how a pro thinks.

Lesson number two, lifestyle creep. Now,

we know this, but folks, there is no

better definition than lifestyle creep

than this guy right here. Watch this and

look at somebody who wins tens of

millions of dollars from fights.

Basically panicking over DD to sell his

Pokemon card to raise cash for his

wedding. Bro, what the hell, man? Get a

financial advisor. This guy is the

epitome of our failed school system. As

soon as you make money, you upgrade your

lifestyle on nicer houses, cars, boats,

planes, or gadgets. Even as all of your

costs and bills keep going up, then

you're stuck making massive payments

because somebody told you to take a loan

out on it because you're going to get a

tax write off. And then you got to make

the monthly payments every freaking

month. So, every month you're like,

"Damn, what am I going to do this month,

honey, just to pay the bills?" You get

so freaking fearful about debt, you

don't even want to go to the mailbox

anymore. This is what this is the

epitome of lifestyle creep creep listen

to this.

>> You happy walking out of here layw with

today? Right now. Right now. You will

write the check right now?

>> Yes. He's so desperate for money. He's

like, "Wait, you're going to give me an

advance on selling my Pokémon card right

now?" And listen to his thought process

when he tells you why it would be nice

to get a check right now. So

it may need to be a little higher.

>> What would make you happy walking out of

here to lay with today? Right now.

>> Right now.

>> You will write the check right now?

>> Yes. [music] Got an expensive wedding

3 million.

>> So they end up negotiating. The guy

writes a check. They go for something

around 2 and a half. But the point here

is the guy's literally as part of his

financial decisionmaking saying, "I've

got an expensive wedding coming up. How

do you not have the cash to pay that

bill to you need to where you need to

start liquidating assets?" Is the

definition of lifestyle creep. The noob

sees it.

>> The noob does it. The pro sees it from a

mile away. And this is the thing. The

pro looks at a situation like this and

says, "Don't be relative to your

neighbors or your peers." So, the

problem with the Paul brothers is

they're relative against each other. Oh,

he got a new house. I need a new house.

He got a jet. I need a jet. In fact,

statistically, the pro knows the

following. The pro knows that if your

neighbor wins the lottery or somehow

gets a lot of income suddenly, for every

extra $1,000 they earn, you are 2% more

likely to go bankrupt. That is a proven

statistic for this toxicity of

relativity. The more your friends or

neighbors win big, the more money you're

going to blow taking on new payments for

butter, butter, butter. Butter assets

are things that melt away. You don't

want butter. You want things that go up

in value and appreciate over time. A pro

knows this. But I'm telling you, as you

make more money, this affects everyone.

And it doesn't matter if your income is

going from $100,000 to $120,000 or $50

to $80,000 or a million to 1.5 million.

It hits all of us because our society

with Instagram and Tik Tok is really

relative. And the pro at least is aware

of it and tries to avoid this new

mistake. Number three, single stocks.

Now, I hate to say it because I have

been in this boat. I've made millions of

dollars on Tesla. Knock on wood, very

fortunate and grateful for that.

Investing in Tesla back in 2018 and 19

or Nvidia in 2022 when nobody wanted

them. But why didn't I sell at the tops

of prices? Well, frequently because I

didn't want to pay taxes. I was so

worried about paying capital gains taxes

that I refused to let myself diversify

and do the financially correct thing.

And as a result, I ended up having to

hold Tesla through 60 to 70% declines in

value, sometimes in a matter of mere

months because Elon Musk had to go sell

to raise money or whatever. And I hate

to say it, but those days will come

again. And unfortunately, the noob is so

worried about paying those long-term

capital gains that they end up suffering

through substantially worse losses. And

then those can sometimes compound into

them selling at exactly the wrong time.

And this is where there's this new

product. I have not used this before, so

I want to be clear about this. This is

not a paid promotion, but I found this

because I've read the law on this before

and I see a lot of pros starting to use

this. And what the product is is the

following. It's called cash. And they

pitch this as is your financial future

writing on one or two stocks. Nvidia,

Tesla, Amazon. They really cater to like

a tech audience here. And what they do

is they say you could use the 721

exchange kind of like a 1031 exchange to

diversify into an ETF to get out of that

single stock risk. And obviously, you

know, there are asset management fees

for doing this. And so there are terms

and conditions you should read about on

this. But I found it very interesting

because you could protect your

hard-earned wealth with a cash exchange

fund, blah blah blah blah, whatever. It

just basically lets you move from one

large stock, single stock concentrated

position into a diversified position in

an exchangeraded fund that is exposed to

dozens or hundreds of different stocks.

So, I thought this was really cool

because it lets you do this without

paying taxes. I like that a lot. Now,

what I think is really interesting as

well is because they have that asset

management fee, I actually made an

account because I I've never used them

before. So, fair disclaimer. I made an

account solely to help you get this. It

says, "When you introduce your friends

to Smarter Diversification, you both get

$200,000 managed free for one year." So,

I don't use the service, but at the very

least, if you don't have somebody else's

affiliate link, you could use mine. I'll

link it down below in the description.

Now, let's go on to the next

big mistake that people end up making.

And I'll tell you, there are a lot of

mistakes. But the new mistake number

four that people make is not actually

paying attention to where we are in the

economic cycle. The business cycle is

extremely important to pay attention to

because it helps you understand when you

should be a little bit more careful and

when you should take on a little bit

more risk. For example, when I started

my career as a real estate agent, I

created something called the real estate

cycle chart. Not many people have made

real estate cycle charts before. Uh but

I made this because I would go to open

houses and I would say things in 2011

like, "Wow, we're actually in a place

right now where it might make sense to

take on a little bit more risk because

we're probably closer to the bottom of a

cycle." Now, this real estate cycle

chart that I have, it's a little bit

blurry, but it gives you a little bit of

an idea of how the business cycle

functions. That's just an old PNG that's

been saved too many times. AI could

probably make me a new one. But anyway,

this has to do with the real estate

cycle, how you go from uh increased rent

in prices, like you saw in Austin and

Texas, uh to accelerated new

construction, you build too many homes,

then you have an over supply of homes,

you can't rent out properties, and then

prices come down. This is exactly what's

happened in Austin, Texas. And from

peak, Austin, Texas, real estate prices

are down about 25%. Now, the noob

ignores the real estate cycle. In fact,

the noob tends to jump into buying uh

real estate or stocks when we're at tops

of markets when it's the worst time to

potentially buy certain assets. I mean,

consider this for a moment. We're just

looking at the stock market, for

example. Stock markets rarely sustain

two standard deviations above average

returns for four years straight. That

means in English there is a statistical

85% chance the market moves sideways or

down in 2026. And here we are December

25th, 2025 making this warning. So

basically we've only got a 15% chance

that there's going to be another green

year just based on history. Now

obviously maybe this time will be

different but understanding the economic

cycle can help us say okay are we in a

place now where we want to take extra

risks or be a little bit more

conservative. I'm not here to fear

monger and say sell everything and I'm

not going to tell you to go all in on

margin at the bottom of the market

because obviously there could be other

risks. Maybe we'll get big green market.

Maybe at the bottom of the market we'll

end up getting another double dip,

right? And that's why you always have to

balance this. But when you pay attention

to what's going on in the market, like

the noob does, or I'm sorry, what the

pro does, of course, when you pay

attention to what's going on in the

economy, you understand that even though

our government is telling us GDP is

booming at over 4%. You should know that

GDP right now is driven almost entirely

by artificial intelligence spending. And

if that goes away, we are negative on

GDP. And that's a really big risk factor

because all of a sudden if artificial

intelligence spending for whatever

reason it is evaporates. Then there's

nothing left and we have negative GDP.

Every other category of our economy is

in contraction. That's a big problem

because it should prepare you by paying

attention not just to what's going on in

AI spending and debt spending. But the

pro, in addition to paying attention to

these things, looks at the labor market

and realizes that, hey, maybe it's time

to be a little bit more conservative and

just take on a little bit less risk. I'm

a big fan of that. I disagree with a lot

of folks out there who say the labor

market is fine. I'll give you a quick

example and we'll move on from this.

David Saxs has been yapping about this

idea that the labor market is actually

doing fine. that the AI job loss hoax

has been exposed by him. He says it's

been exposed because occupations quote

most exposed to artificial intelligence

are actually outperforming the rest of

the labor market in terms of job growth.

Which that's interesting. That means

maybe we're not losing jobs from AI,

right? Not necessarily. See, when you

actually pull up the study like I did

and I annotated, I found that their

comparison period was a period where it

took 5 years for the S&P 500 to grow

59%. We basically just did that in 2

years. And we know that when companies

get rich, especially ones that say they

are AI related, they benefit more from

the stock market going up and therefore

they end up hiring more. But the reverse

happens very quickly. So just be

cautious. Now, number five. Ah, this is

a good one. So, this one gets me excited

because here is just a noob who talks

about remodeling a kitchen. Uh, and they

go on uh X basically to complain about

how they can't get a lower quote than

$90,000

to remodel their kitchen and they're

going to spend $20,000

on uh kitchen appliances, which is

insane. Mind you, I personally spent

$20,000 on the entire kitchen remodel,

but whatever. This person says they've

spent hours trying to get $9,000

kitchen quotes or he's contacted

multiple contractors and he's frustrated

that all of a sudden this kitchen cost

is so high. He says here, it's actually

him talking about his buddy. My buddy

wants to redo his kitchen. Contractor

quoted him $90,000. He's 32 with a wife

and two young kids. His options are

heliloc, take a loan from his dad, or

take $100,000 from high high yield

savings. He was saving to buy a rental

property. How should he be pay for the

kitchen? Well, the best advice, I hate

to say it, but the noob is like, "Oh my

gosh, $90,000. Maybe you could get

another quote." and then they go get

another quote from another contractor

and it comes in at $110,000 and it's

like, well, I guess I really need to do

this kitchen and I'm just going to go

with the 90k guy. Here's the thing.

Everybody overspends on real estate. And

I absolutely hate this about real

estate, but I also love it because I

realize when so many people make dumb

mistakes and investment decisions like

blowing $90,000 on a kitchen, all

they're really doing is creating a

discount for the next buyer who's now

getting that kitchen for maybe 30 cents

on the dollar because the market value

of the home is not going to go up by 90

grand. The market value of your home is

sucked down by the value of all of your

neighbors. If I am in a $500,000

neighborhood and all my neighbors have

$500,000 homes and I put in a $200,000

kitchen, is my house all of a sudden

going to sell for $700,000?

No. And the pro knows this. The pro

knows maybe your house will sell for

$520, but now you're taking a massive

loss. You're taking a 90% loss on that

kitchen, right? And yeah, $200,000

kitchens do exist out there. Anyway,

I'll give you advice in just a moment on

what to do for this guy's scenario. But

first, I think this is a fair

opportunity to just make a pitch of our

real estate artificial intelligence

investment product. We are uh creating

this app called Reinvest AI where uh

overtime in 2026, we're on pre-sale for

this product now. Uh, and we also have a

small window left where people can

actually invest in the company at house

hack.com or reinvest uh.ai. What we're

creating is an option for you to

actually upload photos of your kitchen.

We're calling it the renovation AI. And

when you upload photos of that kitchen,

we'll tell you what you should spend,

how much of a market value increase

you're going to actually see in your

neighborhood based on the photos that

you give us, the value of the property,

and us looking at the comps with our

artificial intelligence. And then we

calculate for you a net worth boost. So,

for example, if in your market the

market value of a kitchen is 40 grand

and we could get you to spend 15 grand,

you might actually see a net worth boost

from that kitchen remodel of $25,000.

Now, I'll go through the pro method in

just a moment for actually getting a

less expensive kitchen. But let's

understand this. Barbell Financial, who

literally says they're, you know, what

are this your daily dose of finance,

fitness, and fatherhood, whatever. How

does the home value not change with a

new kitchen? This is the one few things

that does add resale value. Well, no. It

depends what you're replacing. I've seen

people tear out 2008 kitchens and put in

a brand new kitchen because they want

their style. And they actually put spend

100 grand putting in a custom kitchen

that looks worse than the builder grade

basic one that appeals to 90% of people.

Their custom version appeals to 10% of

people and they actually lower the value

of the property. So, it depends what

you're starting with. If you're starting

with a 1970s kitchen and it's ugly,

funky wood, fine. Then what does the pro

do? The pro calls a handy person, says,

"Tear it out. Sketch out on the drywall

the new box cabinets we need. Go down to

the local hardware store, order them up

a week later, pick them up, plop them

in. Then you call the countertop guy.

They throw on the countertop in the

sink. Then you call the plumber to hook

it all up. You call the electrician. You

call the painter to finish it up. Boom.

you're done. You're not spending $90,000

on a kitchen. We've done like 10 of

these in the last few months for House

Hack, my real estate startup. It's not

that hard. You end up spending 15 grand

on the kitchen. For appliances, people

think you need like a $5,000 stove. This

is frankly stupid. We end up buying from

Lowe's like on, you know, Black Friday

or Christmas sale a $599

GE fiveurner stove. And guess what? When

we have 80 different units or a hundred

different units at our company and we

put all these stoves in, maybe out of a

hundred units, maybe we have one stove

go bad a year, if that. Who cares? And

then they're cheap to replace and we

don't feel bad about throwing away a

$600 stove when Lowe's will haul it out

for free and install the new one for

free. They just want your business

getting you in the store and buying that

appliance. They don't need to spend 20

grand on an appliance package. But

that's the difference between a noob and

a pro. This is a big mistake that a lot

of people make. Now, next mistake,

number six, the heliloc. The noob

doesn't even know what a heloc is or

worse, they end up using a heliloc to

pay off credit card debt. This is the

worst possible move you could make as

you'll almost always end up right back

in debt on your credit cards. And then

you've got two payments to make, your

credit card and your heliloc. This is a

big mistake. So, the pro plays this a

little differently. The pro opens a home

equity line of credit, a second mortgage

on their home, but they keep it paid off

until there's a big opportunity or they

need their money. This really serves as

like an emergency fund, right? Like

imagine for a moment there's a huge dip

in the stock market, a I worst case

scenario like a terrorist attack or

something that freaks people out. the

market dips and you're like, "This is an

opportunity to buy or there's a really

good fix or upper that comes up." Having

that home equity line of credit gives

you opportunity at a very low cost. A

heliloc might only cost you 80 bucks a

year to maintain. The problem is when we

go into recession, sometimes banks start

freezing credit lines. Now, pros know

this and then what they'll do is they'll

actually write a check to themselves at

a different bank drawing on that credit

line and then having that cash

available. Now, remember, the cool thing

about the HELOC is you don't actually

have to pay interest on the undrawn

balances. Most noobs don't understand

this. They hear, "Oh my gosh, taking out

a second on my home, that sounds

terrible." But the pro knows, "No, man.

I'm not going to pay any interest

because I'm not going to borrow on it

unless there's some kind of really sick

opportunity to take advantage of." So,

go to your local credit union and try

getting a home equity line of credit as

soon as possible. which does also bring

up the mistake number seven which has to

do with taxes and a cash emergency fund.

I hate to say this but there are two

noob mistakes under this category.

Number one, the noob is the person who

gets a tax refund. Yeah, let's just

pause on that for a moment because a lot

of people get a tax refund. But you know

what the reality is? If you're getting a

tax refund, it means you gave the

government an interestfree loan. Talk to

a CPA about adjusting your dependence so

you spread your tax refund out over each

paycheck. This way you're getting a

little bit more in your take-home pay

every single month if you have steady

employment. And then this way you can

actually budget appropriately. Try to

get out of that paycheck to paycheck

lifestyle. Just make sure you don't blow

your money on butter purchases, which

hate to say it, most people do with

their tax refunds. They go into a bunch

of credit card debt in the holidays and

then they try to pay some of it off with

their tax refund. It's a bad thing to

anticipate. Bad way to build your

financial future. So, this is why the

pro goes to their CPA and says, "You

know what? I want to adjust this. So, I

just even out what I owe. I don't owe

the government anything at the end of

the year, and they don't owe me anything

at the end of the year or even. Nobody's

given interest free loans to anybody."

Now, unfortunately, this brings up noob

mistake number two. Those self-employed

individuals who watch my channel. You

know who you are. I've been in the boat

myself.

You don't end up saving any money to pay

for taxes because we throw it all into

buying the dip in stocks and then the

dip keeps giving

or you end up buying real estate and you

stretch to go buy things with money that

you're kind of borrowing from the

government because at some point you're

going to have to pay taxes. Then tax

time comes around. you're like, "Ah,

let's just file an extension." And then

you end up paying penalties on all the

back taxes plus the back taxes. And

you're like, "Crap, now I got to borrow

or go into debt." The worst time to do

this is in a macro environment that's

potentially at a turning point. And this

is why I say, and the pros say it's

important to pay attention to macro, not

to try to perfectly time the market,

just to know when it is even more risky

to be risk, right? If you're near the

top of the market, it's riskier to be

risky. At the bottom of the market, it's

actually less risky to be risky for what

that's worth. So anyway, I would say for

2026, it's probably not a bad idea.

Reduce the stress a little bit. Actually

try to start saving for some of your

taxes earlier this year. Maybe actually

file and pay off your taxes on time this

year. Reduce that anxiety for

self-employment taxes and just chillax a

bit. Now, number eight, everybody's

heard of this before, but statistically

lumpsum investing is the best way to

invest in the stock market. The problem

with this is the noob ends up buying at

all-time highs. They take on debt and

they buy when the stock market is

skyrocketing. This is great short-term

feeloodism. Everybody loves buying a

stock and seeing it go up right away.

But the more you train your mind to buy

a stock and then expect it to go up

right away, the worse you're going to

perform in a bare market. See, in a bare

market where the real money is made,

like my biggest wins ever in the stock

market have been during bare markets

where I was buying and nobody else was

buying. 2018 Tesla 2022 Nvidia 2020

during COVID buying like everything. You

can go back and watch my videos. I was

refinancing homes to buy stocks and it

was great. Nobody wanted to touch stocks

during those times. Today, everybody

wants to buy stocks. And that's the

thing. My biggest losses were buying

when everybody else was buying. And as a

pro, I know that and I'm trying to teach

that lesson. And so, here's the pro

hack. Buy when things are at highs in

very small increments. And ideally, only

buy when there's blood. when stocks are

red or you have some kind of defensible

position to say that this is actually

undervalued.

Now, I just sold a bunch of stocks and

I'm slowly allocating just a little bit

back in because of where I think we are

in the macro cycle and I'm also

diversifying to different stocks. But

I'll have a cash reserve so that way if

the market falls I'll be able to buy

bigger and keep buying as as things dip

and I won't be psychologically disturbed

that prices are falling because that's

what I want. I want to increase my

exposure to companies at lower costs.

That's what I want because I'm in it for

the very long term. Now number nine, the

wedge deal. Now, many of you already

know about this, so skip to number 10 if

you don't want to hear about it again,

but I'll keep it short. My favorite

favorite favorite house to buy, and we

literally just did it. People always

like to say, "Oh, Kevin, you know, I

mean, we just did it like 10 times.

People are always like, "Kevin, you

can't get deals anymore in the market."

Okay, this is why I made my company, my

real estate startup called House Hack or

also known as Reinvest. We buy or we buy

houses that are totally beat up because

we know nobody else wants to buy this

stuff. Now, yeah, we're also developing

artificial intelligence real estate

software because we know what people

need in real estate. And that's why

we're really excited about the company.

But what I want you to understand is we

go buy houses that look like this for

$600,000

in $800,000 neighborhoods. Now, it'll

take us probably 80,000 bucks to redo

the entire house, but then we'll be up

120 grand. So, we'll be into this deal

for 680 and it'll probably it's probably

about an $820,000 hood. So, uh 820 is

the new value. Uh divided into 680,

that'll be about a 20.5%

return or what I call a wedge. The

reason we call it the wedge is because

you can buy the property so cheaply

because it's so gross in an area where

people want the land and they want to

live. I mean, look at this. This is

disgusting, right? So, we just tear the

stuff out and do it new and we do it

right, but we don't overspend. We know

who to call. We know what to do. That's

the point. But anyway, we don't want to

buy properties at market value. We want

insulation. If the market value now goes

down in this neighborhood, the first 20%

of declines cost us nothing because we

are insulated by the wedge. And in the

meantime, our net worth goes up by 120

grand. Now, why is that cool? Well, if

we end up going into a deal, like let's

say you're a homeowner and you're like,

"Okay, I'm going to go finance this."

Obviously, you're going to have to do

some things during escrow to actually

get this to pass financing, but it's

doable. So, all in all, let's say you

spend $80,000 fixing it up after putting

10% down. It'll cost you $140 grand to

do all of that plus closing costs, call

it 150 grand. But if in year 1 you get

120 back in equity, you've returned 80%

instantly on that purchase. And that's

what the pro does. See, the noob goes in

and buys the nicest house on the street.

The pro goes in and buys the worst house

on one of the nicest streets. That's how

they get instant equity. And guess what?

It's untaxed. That extra 120 grand we

just generated. No tax. It's fantastic.

And so that's what we do on a larger

scale. Now then we take homes that

people can't live in and we rent them

out providing housing for people to

actually live in. Nobody wants to buy

this. This is nasty. We fix it up. Make

it great. What does that say? Clock. Oh

yeah, they labeled where their clock

was. Odd. Anyway, okay. Didn't even

notice that. So, that is an example of a

wedge deal. Now, noob mistake number 10.

They hear that there is now a car

interest deduction thanks to Donald

Trump's big, beautiful bill, and they go

buy a new car. Yet, they don't realize

that during the negotiations, they ended

up negotiating for a 0% interest loan.

And now they bought a car because they

wanted the car interest deduction, but

now they're actually paying no interest

and so they don't get any deduction and

they're stuck with an expensive car

payment. Oopsies. Yeah, that's because a

lot of the car dealers are struggling

right now. And so you got to be careful

with this. The pro knows this. The pro

says cars generally 99% of the time are

really depreciating assets. Uh, as some

like to say, if it flies, floats,

drives, or there's another crude part to

this, rent it. Don't buy it. And that's

typically true because they go down in

value. So, the pro says, "Well, if I'm

going to buy something, fine. I'll get

something cheaper that I know I could

afford to pay for in cash or I'll get

something used that I could pay off

quickly and maybe then get my interest

deduction because I'll actually pay some

interest on it. my total payment might

be lower than that fancy new car that we

know is just going to lose value when we

drive it off the lot. Now, sometimes we

can get lucky. Okay, I've been in that

position. I've bought and sold assets

before that I thought were going to go

down in value. They actually ended up

making money. A plane is a perfect

example of that. Usually go down in

value. Sometimes the economy is weird

and they actually go up in value. That's

just lucky, but it's not the norm. And

betting on luck is not a great way to

bet on your future, especially in 2026.

Now, new mistake number 11. I call it

the momentum play. Look, momentum, we

all get it. We talk about momentum every

single day. The market is open in our

market open live streams. Uh these are

uh our course member live streams. You

could gain lifetime access to them over

at meet.com.

For example, MP material is a documented

call that I made when we double rejected

here at 80. I suggested there was a

psychological chance this was going to

momentum up to $100, which it did. As

soon as it did, we suggested the meme

euphoria around you rare earths is going

to fade and I expect this stock to go

back down to $31 per share. So far, the

stock has declined over 50% maybe closer

to 42ish% because intraday it got to

about $104 up here. Uh, and it's on its

way to 31. Now, how do you avoid as a

pro? How do you avoid getting suckered

into what seems like it has such a

fundamentally good story? Trump's

investing in in it, blah blah blah,

whatever. Well, the best way is by

setting a trailing stop. Now, the pro

knows this and goes into their Robin

Hood or their Weeble and they click sell

and they set what's called a trailing

stop and they'll sell their meme stock

position, whether it's gold or silver or

some stock that's flying high, flying

high, and they'll set a trail amount of

let's say 10%. So, now if this stock

ends up crashing to 49 bucks, another

10% pretty rapidly within usually 60

days, uh, and on some brokerages you'll

be able to set a good cancel. On others,

you'll have to set this regularly, which

is really annoying. So, what some people

do on Weeble, for example, is they just

end up setting a good to cancel stop and

they'll pick a price. But trailing

stops, which Robin Hood does better, are

really nice because as the stock goes

up, that 10% follows you up. So, if it

goes up 5% and then drops 10%, you sell

at about -5, which could be a takerit,

right? And there's some approximation

and rounding there. But take a look if

your brokerage account does trailing

stops. Great way to protect yourself on

those momentum plays that are so fun to

be part of on the upside, but so rapidly

bleed out on the downside. I hate to say

it, but stocks like Coreweave, these

were a great momentum play when Nvidia

started buying them, but they're

basically going full circle. And when

they go full circle, sometimes they

become fundamental buying opportunities.

Look at Circle for example. Circle

literally went full circle. You know,

your USDC stable coin issuer. They make

a lot of money fundamentally. They

actually look pretty decent at some of

these low numbers, especially if you

could get back to that level of 66 bucks

a share, which is roughly where we uh

started out on this one.

Nice. But look at some other ones. NBIS,

just another example. We're just now

starting to get some of the bleed. So,

just be careful. Momentum trades tend to

rocket up very quickly and then bleed

out very over time, but people forget

the bleed up. I know a lot of people who

ended up buying Open Door at 10 bucks

and now they're suffering down 40%

because it's been slow bleeding and they

keep getting convinced to hold on by

these little pumps and that's exactly

what ends up burying their net worth.

Now, number 12. Ah, this is a good one.

Have a side hustle. Now, the noob never

has a side hustle. They work their 8 to

5 job and they don't care. They go to

Jamba Juice or Red Robin like I did.

They put their hours in. They clock out.

They're done. They don't want to study.

They don't want to do anything else.

Well, the pro does this differently. The

pro says, "I'm going to hedge my bets.

I'm going to have a real estate license.

I'm going to have a lending license.

Maybe I'll even get a pilot license or

I'll be an electrician on the side.

Maybe if I make enough money on my side

hustle, it'll end up becoming my main

gig. But if in the meantime it's a side

hustle, then I get to write off other

expenses that I wouldn't otherwise be

able to write off. Maybe I could write

off my laptop or my cell phone bill or a

home office or part of my car or part of

my utility bills. Now, you're saving

money where you otherwise weren't saving

money as a W2 employee. So, always make

sure you have some kind of side hustle

that you could justify expensing things

under to the IRS. Not only because they

are necessary and ordinary in your

business, obviously, iPad, iPhone,

whatever, office, right? But also, you

have the expectation of making a profit.

Can't do this with hobbies. The pro

knows this, but the pro always wants a

little side hustle going on. Not

necessarily because they're trying to

undermine their main income.

But frankly, to be able to write off

things they otherwise couldn't write off

as unreimbured employee expenses, those

are limited to where you have to have

unreimbured employee expenses of like 7%

of your income anyway before you can

start writing them off. So that's lame.

Have a side hustle. You solve all of

that. Now, number 13 is a little bit

more, how should I put it? It feels a

little more dad mode. But something that

I found is experiences over stuff. I've

done private jet. I've been licensed as

I am licensed as a private jet pilot. Uh

you know, fancy cars, fancy stuff, fancy

houses, whatever. I'll tell you what

matters the most isn't stuff ever. Spend

money. I'm not saying don't spend money.

I'm not trying to be the Grinch that's

like, "No, no, no. Never spend money."

instead. While the noob is out there

buying stuff to make themselves look

good to other people, the pro doesn't

really care what they look like.

Obviously, if you're running a business,

you know, you have to be presentable,

right? You should have a presentable

attire and look good. Uh but outside of

that, the pro they go on vacation, what

they care about most is an experience,

not stuff. They're willing to pay for

the front-of-the-line pass. They're

willing to pay for the room upgrade or

they better experience because they're

paying to live their life. And that's

what it's all about after all. Big win

right there. Now, number 14. We're

almost done. Instead of getting a margin

loan, where the noob doesn't even

realize it, but the worst part about

margin loans is well, obviously getting

margin called. This is why I hate margin

loans. Not that I've been margin called,

but even if you don't get margin called,

you have the stress of getting a margin

call. Like, oh my gosh, if the share go

down another 20 bucks, I'm going to get

a margin called. You end up getting so

worried and you can't sleep at night and

you end up selling the stock at the

worst possible freaking time. Happens

all the time to people. So, the

professional, they look at potentially

these new, and I don't have all the

details on this yet, but these caller

advances. Yeah, this was something new I

haven't seen before. So, this also goes

back to cash. Again, I'll put my link in

the description. This is not a paid

promotion with this company. And again,

I I don't benefit from getting this

referral link. I'm just putting it there

for your purposes. But they have this

other product. And I'm like, huh? Borrow

against your concentrated stocks with no

margin calls. And basically what they do

is you can access up to 90% of your

stock's value to do whatever you want.

You lock in a fixed rate loan. And then

what they do is they let your stock move

up up to 60% or down and your max loss

on the downside is about 20%. Now, it's

kind of complicated how they do it, and

it's probably worth its own video, but

basically, they end up going to buy

derivative contracts to, yes, somewhat

limit your upside, but also limit your

downside, which is great. Uh especially

if you want access to cash without

hitting those taxable

uh sales, right? You start selling stock

and then you have to pay taxes. It kind

of sucks, right? And you don't have

margin calls. So, Cash, honestly,

they've got some pretty good products

here. Like, I personally I care less

about the product. I'm I'm looking at

this like, man, how could I go invest in

this company, right? But anyway, that's

also a topic for a different video. It's

like a venture capital video. But

anyway, uh this I think is a really cool

pro strategy that you might look into.

So, check it out. Again, link in the

description. Okay. Now, with all of that

said, number 15, the noob does nothing

to increase their productivity,

happiness, or tax hacks on a daily

basis. And I think that is a massive

mistake. So, what I've done is I've

created what I call the daily wealth

email. Now, you can get this totally for

free. The way you can get this is you go

to meet Kevin.com/data.

If you just go to mekevin.com, you could

see the alpha membership and my top 10

stocks to buy, all that good stuff. But

if you type in data and scroll down,

you'll actually see right here the daily

wealth. You could type in your email and

subscribe. Or if you'd prefer to have an

app, we also offer the app known as the

Meet Kevin app or the Reinvest app and

you could get the daily wealth to you

every single day. You can also customize

your notifications to only get notified

about the things that you like. So,

check that out. In summary, what did we

learn today and what are our action

items? Well, action item number one, if

you want to invest in my real estate

startup, the deadline is the end of the

year and I can't wait to be done

fundraising. So, check that out at

houseack.com. This video is not a

solicitation. Make sure to read the

offering circular. If you want to join

the Reinvest AI software and buy

lifetime access to that, you can do that

over at houseack.com or reinvest.co co

as well. So, same company. Want to join

the Meet Kevin Alpha membership and get

those top 10 stocks stock picks and join

me every day when the market is open,

talk about strategies for the stock

market, do that at meetke.com.

If you want to check out those two cash

products we talked about, you can go to

usecash.com or use that link in the

description. Makes no difference to me.

It's not a paid partnership with the

company. Now, last thing that you got to

do, download that Mee Kevin app. get

that daily wealth notification and

improve your life a little bit every

single day. Thanks so much for watching

and we'll see you in the next one.

>> Why not advertise [music] these things

that you told us here? I feel like

nobody else knows about this.

>> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you.

>> Kevin Praath there, financial analyst

and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always great

to get your take.