Building wealth is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. You need to position yourself for the best possible success from day one. Here’s an interview on how to build wealth slowly.

Build Wealth Slowly: An Interview with Spills Spot

I wanted to call this interview series “build wealth slowly” because of how awesome a point of view Matt has from Spills Spot.

Since launching my book on Dividend Investing Your Way to Financial Freedom, I’ve been gladly speaking with fellow bloggers on how they approach wealth building and financial success.

I created a blog on Bluehost because I wanted to share my lessons learned with the world. Using my link, you can start a blog on Bluehost for $3.95 a month. I believe everyone should have a blog. You already share your personal life via social media every day.

Why not paint a legacy and views through a blog too? It’s a great way to connect with people around the world. Here’s why I created a blog.

Who is Spills Spot?

My name is Matt from Spills Spot, a blog where I write about my personal finance journey with the goal of inspiring others to be more interested in personal finance and improve at managing their money.

My wife and I paid off $55,000 of debt to reach debt freedom. It was a long journey, but being debt free and building wealth is an incredible feeling, a feeling I want to help other people achieve in their lives. Wealth creation takes time. Here are Millionaire Mob’s favorite wealth creation tips.

Interview with Spills Spot on Building Wealth Slowly

Let’s get into the interview questions with Spills Spot and how he approaches wealth building. Spills Spot has similar habits as our Vital Dollar interview.

What is the one piece of advice that you’d give to millennials just realizing that they need to get their ‘financial fitness’ in order?

My biggest piece of advice for people just starting is to figure out where you’re at. You need to be fully aware of the accounts you have and your debts (including the minimum payments and interest rates). Without knowing where you’re currently at, you can’t effectively measure improvement. Once you’ve figured out your starting point, begin tracking your spending closely to see where your money is going. It will be an eye opener of how much you’re spending and how much you’re earning each month. This will also help you realize areas you can improve.

My wife and I used Mint and Personal Capital to gain a snapshot view of all our savings, debt, and expenses. For there we were able to start making improvements and get our finances in order.

What do you hope to accomplish in the near-term and the long-term to gain financial independence?

Our biggest short-term goal was to become debt free, which I’m proud to say we achieved this past July. Right now we continue to build up savings and invest heavily in index funds into our 401k’s and IRA’s. At some point we would like to get into real estate, potentially purchasing a duplex. We would live in one side and rent out the other side (also known as “house hacking”). This would be a great building block to test the waters on real estate and see where it fits into our long-term plan.

Financial independence is the ultimate goal, and we will use a variety of levers to get there (stocks/bonds, real estate, side hustles, etc). Here’s how to use a 401(k) optimizer to save on retirement fees.

What are your favorite forms of side hustle income?

My favorite form of side hustle income is the work I do for a local minor league baseball team. Essentially I work in the press box and do stats for the team. It’s something I really enjoy and has been a good source of side income for the past six seasons.

My blog is also a side hustle, and while it currently doesn’t make much income, a goal of mine is to build it up to the point where it is bringing in a consistent income stream.

Airbnb appeals to me a lot and I could see us doing that in the future. My wife has also experimented with dog-walking through Rover.

What have you learned from creating side hustle income streams? Do you like to take your side income and recycle it into new opportunities?

Through side hustles, I’ve learned the importance of building up multiple income streams, how bringing in some extra money can get you to your goals significantly faster, and have learned many additional skills to add.

Nearly all the money I bring in from my baseball stats job has gone directly into paying off debt and growing our investments. My blog has been a huge driver in building up additional marketable skills that have made me a more valuable employee at my marketing day job.

I would highly recommend that people pursue a side hustle that they are interested in and see where it takes them. You can always pivot if it becomes too much to handle or no longer interests you, but you could find that it adds a lot of value to your life.

Do you have any mentors or people that you follow that have influenced you to be financially independent?

My parents did an effective job raising my siblings and me to have a strong understanding of financial concepts. Through that foundation, I was inspired to learn as much as possible so that my wife and I could remove that stress that financial problems can bring.

I started reading dozens of blogs, reading books, and listening to podcasts. We also attended a Financial Peace class (Dave Ramsey’s program) at our church.

Through all this learning we were inspired to pay off our debt as quickly as possible, build up savings, and invest for our future. Now we’re fully on the path of pursuing financial independence.

My parents have continued to be a great support system through it all, and I enjoy talking through tricky financial concepts with my dad.

What inspired you to create your blog? What’s one thing that you didn’t know that you know now?

I started Spills Spot in January 2016, with the thought that the blog could be a portfolio for my writing. I quickly realized that my vision for the site was much bigger than a portfolio.

Through writing about personal finance I discovered a new passion. I wanted to share what I was learning in my money journey with as many people as possible, to help them along their own journey.

I’ve learned a lot about blogging along the way. Growing a blog takes time, consistency in posting is essential, and the personal finance blogging community is incredibly supportive!

What is the most hidden / least talked about strategy to attack debt?

This is a tough question. I think in your debt payoff journey it’s important to be patient with your progress and also remind yourself that it’s temporary. If you continue to make consistent progress over time, you won’t be paying off debt forever.

You’ll reach that endpoint of debt freedom and the weight will come off your shoulders. Life doesn’t magically become perfect at that point, but you will have more freedom in how you spend your money.

Knowing that your debt payoff journey is a temporary chapter in life, don’t be afraid to be different. Move back in with your parents to save money if that’s an option, bypass expensive vacations and nights out, be the friend who proposes cheaper alternatives when hanging out.

It’s not about deprivation, it’s about living more purposefully in the short-term to reach financial freedom in the long-term. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Build wealth slowly and achieve finnacial freedom.

Do you find it more important to save money or find ways to earn more income? Are there any tools out there that help you?

Ideally, you want to do both to build wealth slowly. Personal finance can be distilled down to one key maxim: spend less than you earn. To do this you want to cut back on your expenses and increase your income.

In the short-term, cutting back on your expenses is more doable and should be your first focus. There’s only so much you can cut back though, and that’s where income comes into the equation.

Focus on building additional marketable skills to make yourself more valuable, and pursue a side hustle to bring in more income.

For tools, we use Mint or Personal Capital for expenses tracking and we automate all our bills, savings, and investments. This takes the discipline out of the equation and means that every month we’re making progress towards our goals without having to do anything extra.

I try and focus on what I’m filling my brain with. For example, if you’re getting hundreds of emails per day of all the hottest online sales, you’re making it that much harder on yourself to cut back on your spending.

Unsubscribe from those emails, spend less time comparing yourself to others on social media, and instead read blog posts of others on this same journey. You’ll find it very encouraging to surround yourself with people building you up.

Consider using these amazing wealth management resources to ensure you are using the best FREE tools for success.

What would you tell young professionals beginning their careers? What is the first thing young professionals need to do upon the start of their careers?

Don’t worry about landing your dream job yet. Find a job that pays the bills and provides you the opportunity to learn, grow, and build your network. Learn from people smarter than you, learn new skills and gain additional experience. I think many new graduates are so focused on only pursuing their passion and trying to find the perfect job right away.

I experienced this in my own journey. I was set on working in sports, and I came to the point where my career wasn’t progressing in the way I had been hoping. At that point, my choices were to be stubborn and continue to wait, or I could pivot and learn new skills.

Pivoting ended up being a catalyst in my career, helping me gain significant experience, widen my skillset, and grow my income substantially. The more you learn, the more valuable you become. When you’re more valuable, you have the potential to increase your income and have many more doors opened to you.

Thank you Millionaire Mob for the opportunity to share my story with your readers! I would love to have you guys check out my site, Spills Spot, and interact with me on Twitter. Thanks for reading!

Conclusion Interview with Spills Spot to Build Wealth Slowly

There are many keys to build wealth slowly. You can do it by increasing your income and saving at an accelerated rate. I prefer investing in businesses to build wealth.

People pay multiples off of cash flow for businesses, they will never pay multiples for your personal cash flow. The richest 10% have significant net worth but not that high of income. They use investing to drive accumulated wealth.

Check out our other money blogger interviews to read up on the very best personal finance advice from bloggers themselves.

Build wealth slowly. Achieve financial freedom.

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