Avoiding the 'Middle Class Trap' w/ Scott Trench #1148

How to Money

iHeartPodcasts

Education, Business, Investing

4.6 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Rockin' the Suburbs, Ben Folds pokes fun at the “struggles” of middle-class life… it’s angsty, a little whiny, but also tongue-in-cheek. It’s killer piano rock that makes you laugh because deep down, it’s a little too relatable. And that tension is still alive today. A lot of Americans, and plenty of HTM listeners, feel like they’re doing all the right things: saving diligently and investing wisely but at the cost of flexibility, and maybe even some joy right now. So how do you balance building wealth for the future without squeezing the life out of the present? That’s what we’re diving into today with Scott Trench. He literally wrote the book on this, Set for Life: Dominate Life, Money, and the American Dream, and he has helped thousands of people chart a path to financial independence. Today we discuss:

Frugality isn’t a virtue
Managing your biggest monthly expense
House hacking
Scott’s ideal day and vision document
Real estate as an inflation adjusted store of value
Index funds vs real estate
Optionality vs optimality
Illiquid investments and avoiding the middle-class trap
Why Scott doesn’t count his primary home as an investment
And much more!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed Human.
0:04.3	Welcome to How to Money.
0:05.8	I'm Joel.
0:06.5	And today I'm talking about avoiding the middle class trap with Scott Trench.
0:35.9	I'm talking about. Okay, so in the song Rock in the Suburbs, Ben Folds, he pokes fun at the struggles of middle class life.
0:38.9	Anxty, a little whiny, but also tongue-in-cheek.
0:41.6	It's killer piano rock that makes you laugh.
0:44.0	Because deep down, it's a little too relatable.
0:46.8	And that tension, it's still alive today.
0:51.6	A lot of Americans and plenty of How to Money listeners feel like they're doing all the right things.
0:51.9	They're saving diligently.
0:53.1	They're investing wisely.
0:54.3	But at the cost of flexibility and maybe even some joy right now. So how do you balance building
0:59.9	wealth for the future without squeezing the life out of the present? That's what we're diving
1:04.5	into today with Scott Trench. He literally wrote the book on this set for life. He's helped
1:09.4	thousands of people, and I think the book has sold more than 100,000 copies, chart their path to financial independence. So, Scott, thank you for taking the time to join me today, my friend. Joel, thank you for the very, very kind intro. You're legend, Scott Trent. You've been in this space. You're still pretty young, but you've still went in the space for a long time, and you've helped a lot of people. You've done a lot of great work. So I'm thrilled to have you here. First question I ask everybody who comes on, though, is what do you like to splurge on? What's your craft beer equivalent? Okay, so this is a pretty embarrassing one for somebody who runs a podcast and personal financial responsibility. But I have a, I recently came or purchased a golf cart which I used to get around the neighborhood and take my two little kids to the local park.
1:49.2	I will use it to take them to school when they start attending school and to the local pool.
1:54.3	So that's my, my very big splurge, you know, seven or eight grand, somewhere in that range.
1:59.0	Oh, wow. Okay. This is a fancy golf cart.
2:01.3	A nice little toy, yeah, that I got to take around the neighborhood here. Okay. So did you buy it brand new? Are you buying used on Facebook marketplace? I should have bought it used. I should have bought it used. But I got it, I got a new one because the company that was selling them was going out of business. So I picked up a new one there.
2:18.2	I feel like golf carts are all the rage in the burbs these days.
	...

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