From Homeless to King of Laundry. Danny D’Angelo

 

All right, here we go. So Danny, your life journey has included going from homeless to the

[00:01:44] Bob Wheeler: king of laundry with a little bit of military service. a little bit of stand up comedy, friends that steal cars legally. Can you tell me how these experiences have sort of shaped your mindset around money

[00:01:57] Danny D’Angelo: and And your current life?

This is a money podcast. Sometimes. Well, not really money,

[00:02:02] Bob Wheeler: it’s money, it’s a mindset. It’s a mindset. I’m not gonna ask you to, like, calculate your taxes

[00:02:06] Danny D’Angelo: or anything like that. I’m impressed, Bob. I’m impressed that you did some background research on me. People that know me well, I’m a competition shooter as well, so I shoot guns all over the world, mostly with my now 20 year old daughter.

Okay. Uh, that’s a costly habit and we really get a kick out of it. So I’m hanging out with friends whom I’ve known for years. You know how it is when you go to the tennis club or you sail and you know these people, but you really don’t. And then eventually it comes out and they’ll find out, oh, I was six years Navy.

Uh, I was a licensed PI for a dozen years. I’m only 52 now, so it’s always, really? You know, you did that, you stole cars, I repossessed. It’s been a ride, but to answer your question, the money thing for me, I never had it. Right. Didn’t grow up with it. My mother will tell you we are middle class, we always were, but that’s just not the case.

Right. So, the homelessness, we turned it into a sort of a vacation, the parents got divorced, and it was… My big sister was out of the house and let’s go to. Los Angeles, ironically, you go on a surf trip, but I was a pretty savvy kid and I figured out that we were not paying for the meals out and the police were Sorry knocking on the door at night because we were sleeping in the car and it was not a rental So for me, I’m probably not the best person to give money advice.

I Got into the laundry business because I was on a property ladder. I’ve always just been ballsy when it comes to money and then Always wanted to make big moves. I love to gamble and what I mean is I really like to play craps and that doesn’t mean I’m trying to pay my mortgage. I never did. My father was a degenerate.

He lost 70, 000 on a cruise ship on credit cards. Oh, wow Yeah, not good. It was a singles cruise. He went with his best friend. He left the cruise 70 grand lighter and without a best friend. I, I gamble like I say because I enjoy it I know that if I put X down X is going away. My wife is a former stockbreaker and a financial planner and so You know, the love of my life, my savior, the mother of my three girls, she handles the money, but I make and made the money.

Is that an answer

[00:04:29] Bob Wheeler: to your question? I think it might be. All right. So you said, you know, you never had money, but was there a motivation like. Oh, there you go. There’s a fire truck. Just in case anybody’s listening. Was there any motivation of not having a safety net? In other words, like, was there like, Oh, not having money sucks.

So I think I’ll go out and make sure I have lots of, or like, Oh, this is sort of fun, but I’d like to be in a different

[00:04:50] Danny D’Angelo: lifestyle if it happens. I never want to forget the time that I didn’t have 20. Not for something. That I wanted, but for something I needed. You want the sob story, I went to public school, I did not get a yearbook until two weeks after the yearbooks came out, and there were some that were left that kids bought and didn’t get.

Yeah, always got a yearbook every year. Right. So you didn’t have to worry. The one thing I’m pissed about is I lettered. No, I’m not a basketball player. I lettered in theater, so I’m a thespian and I got the letter But I couldn’t we couldn’t afford the 98 dollars for the leather jacket. Yeah, that still kind of bothers me Yes, I did have a girlfriend.

I was good with the girls, but I couldn’t let her wear my letter coat Well, she could just put it on a necklace and just sort of wear it. I still have it. It’s in one of my free yearbooks to this day. So what’s the hesitation

[00:05:40] Bob Wheeler: to go out and buy the 98, uh, letter jacket now and

[00:05:44] Danny D’Angelo: just put the A on? I could, I guess I could, but really it doesn’t bother me as much as I let on.

It, it’s just a remembrance of those moments, I think. It was shitty. You know, really was. Did your parents talk to you

[00:05:57] Bob Wheeler: about money? Like, did they, other than like, we’re going on a vacation

[00:06:00] Danny D’Angelo: for six months. All they did was fight about it. There was no vacation. There was not that. My, all, my dad was always on the grift.

My dad was a drug dealer. He was a, pardon me, a freelance pharmacist. Okay. So that was always his. Now they call it a side hustle, but back then it was being a drug dealer, right? And I grew up didn’t I’ve never touched the illegal or illicit drug in my life, and I think that’s part of it So my makeup is take that thing Turn it into something that can help you in the future.

Now, you also did

[00:06:33] Bob Wheeler: stand up comedies. You just find that it was too much money you were making doing stand up. Right. You needed to move away from something less

[00:06:40] Danny D’Angelo: lucrative. Well, the standard line is I was sick of banging leggy waitresses because that I did do a bit of. I was very young when I did it. It was prior to my Navy days and I’m thrilled that I did it.

But I was way too serious. And I didn’t write enough. I mean, I mean, I dabbled in it. I got paid. I did. I did stand up at a couple of the places here in LA and met some girls, met some great people, but I did radio voiceover work. So I got actual, that’s why I’m this voice, but I got some radio VO work for it.

Ask my mom. I’m supposed to be in, in Hollywood and it’s just not, it’s just not just that it just didn’t happen. I have fun stories with the stories are always. You know, I do tons of voices and I never really, I was too young to realize how I needed to take those voices and write for my characters, if you know what I mean.

If I told you, you know, no, nobody now wants to hear from Jimmy Story. He is an, it doesn’t make sense to a child if when I was tapped to do Bill Clinton, like, no, I’ve never done Bill Clinton. But after a while I figured out, you know, you just. Do a little rasp and then you gotta be from Arkansas. It’s not really that hard.

And so I got paid to do that But again, I I don’t think that I took it seriously enough to to write. I’m not upset about it Yeah, because I’m I think I’m a I’m very pragmatic where I think that’s hard You know, like you said you just made too much money and you stop doing it. No, it’s not that story I read a book.

It’s I don’t know who wrote it. But the first chapter was Is comedy right for you? Instead, if you’re black or Italian, skip to chapter two. And I never read the book, so I was like, alright, I know I’m good, if you’re not telling, you can know. What was the

[00:08:30] Bob Wheeler: impetus to

[00:08:30] Danny D’Angelo: go into the military? I knew I knew over a girl.

I wanted to get out of town. Oh, fuck. That’s it. You’re trying to get away

[00:08:37] Bob Wheeler: from her? Cause they’re like, there’s other ways. I

[00:08:40] Danny D’Angelo: know. I know. I joined in 1991, right? There’s no war on. Luckily, we had one and I mean that because it was boring. I am a very, very staunch patriot and love this country, but that’s not why I joined.

I joined because I wanted to get out of town. Yep. And I’ll never forget, my dad being a Brooklyn, you know, a New York Italian, he was Navy, my grandfather was Navy, and And that’s not why I joined him. I told my dad, I said, I joined and he knew what I meant. And he says, Jesus, get out of it. It’s like, no, I’m going.

And he knew, this is the whole conversation. I’ve told this story many times. It’s very fresh in my mind. No, I’m going, what the fuck do you want to do? You could do anything. You could be a bugler, you could be a priest. You know, it’s, it’s, they have every job in the Navy. What do you want do? I said, I wanna shoot guns.

I was like, you idiot. It’s not sand pebbles. You’re the old Steve McQueen movie. Yeah. It’s not Sand Pebbles. We watched that movie together. Right. But he, he, no, he knew what I knew that I would not enjoy it. ’cause I don’t like taking orders. Right. That’s the only job I was never fired from. Well, there you go about it.

Yeah. I don’t think they can fire you. I tried and they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t let me out of it. Do you think the experience

[00:09:48] Bob Wheeler: there, um, though, helped you later on or it was just, it was just some

[00:09:53] Danny D’Angelo: time spent? A hundred percent, yes, in every aspect of life. I was the guy, I was the scrounger, I was the guy that would get things for people.

I was selling stolen cable the first time I was in a holding company. You know, anything. Uh, the first week in boot camp, they don’t let you do anything, they don’t let you spend money on anything, but we had A soda and snack machine that we could use and bootcamp is like prison, you know, they’re trying to weed out the low life for sure You know the only people that are happy in boot camp are the ones that it was either prison or or The military and you can always see those guys a mile others Happy’s a pig and shit.

So we had this soda and snack area just for our hundred and a man at the beginning You know people drop out but the hundred eighty man squad it Wouldn’t accept bills. So follow me here. I figured that out right away and I had quarters because they told us to bring a roll of quarters, right? a lot of guys didn’t for the soda machines and Almost right away.

We could write letters you can do anything else I don’t know how it is today But I wrote my dad a letter and I said send me as many quarters as you can and for him You know 50 bucks is no big deal. So he sent me quarters Well, I was selling quarters for a dollar. Right. And then, Bob, they fixed the goddamn machine, right?

So now it would accept dollars and a lot of guys had folding money. So I took part of my notebook and ripped it off and shoved it inside of that bill validator because that was my money maker right there. And I pretty much, you know, did the same thing all the bit. It comes from coming from nothing. Yeah.

Anywhere you can scrape a dime, that’s what I did. I always did well at every job I ever had. I think that I would rather be well spoken than well read. Although, I’m a ravenous reader, always have been. You name the genre, I just really get a kick out of it. I started with comic books. I used to spend my lunch money, when I had it, on comics.

And most of my lunch money came from walking up to a girl and saying, Can I have this spare change in your purse? And they would say, I don’t have any. And I’d say, If there’s any change in your purse, may I have it? And then I would dump their purse out right there in the lunch table and there’d be 7 worth of quarters in there.

And I’d scoop, you know, deal’s a deal. Deal’s a deal. Scoop up the money. Used it for comics. And if I didn’t know a word, I would look it up. I wanted to understand comic books. You know, they’re, they’re, especially graphic novels now, there’s a lot of intelligentsia in there. So, that being said, I feel like if you, if you can interview well, you can do anything in life.

Sure. And I, I had several really good jobs. I was looking around at 28 years old, fresh out of the military, I’m working in a bank and there’s all these 45 year old people and this is what they want to do with their lives. Right. And I’m thinking, Jesus, no, no thanks. Got fired. Chased a, chased a robber down with my personal pistol.

But I wasn’t at work yet. They wrote me up. Thank you, Wells Fargo. It’s on my wall in my office. There’s a write up from the Phoenix Police Department. A little thank you thing, and on the back is my pink slip from Wells Fargo. For stopping a robber. Yeah, well, I’m like, I wasn’t at work. I pulled up, and I saw the guy running with the bag.

It was like a movie, you know, with dollar signs on lobber story. I was on a property ladder in Mexico, again, the balls of money. Bought a lot for 11, 000. I picked the location. It’s scary, because it’s south of the border. Everyone has this concept that you’re going to get robbed, you’re going to get raped, nothing’s going to actually work.

The government’s going to come and take your property. Well, that happens, I guess, and that’s why risk reward. So I bought a lot for 11, 000. 24 months later, 258, 000. And I did that a few times. Uh, I remember collecting the check in Phoenix, because the Notario was in Phoenix. And there was this old gray haired couple, and I had the check in my hand and I snapped it.

And I said, you want to know what I paid for that lot? And the guy said, nuh uh. So I didn’t tell him. And the wife was looking at me like, what a prick. Because she knew it was not what they paid me. Right. But that, that, that, I had money. And then I decided, I was running a P. I. fruit, I was getting paid well, and I decided I wanted to do something brick and mortar.

I wanted to be, you know, more hands on and salt on the earth kind of asshole. What a mistake. So I fell on laundries. I just decided, oh, and this is, this is the crazy part. When I worked at the bank, I had this old man that used to come in, Ironically, with hundreds, dollars, wrapped in hundreds, in a laundry basket, that’s the ironic part.

He would bring the money in a laundry basket, and I, that always stuck with me. He came in and deposited 9, 800, 9, 700, you know, he wasn’t worried, he hit the 10, 000 mark, the currency transaction report, the CTRs. Today we have STRs, it’s another story, Joe Biden. I thought about that guy many, many times, didn’t know him, didn’t get to know him, he was an older dude.

So, here I am, have some money squirreled away, and I think, I want to do a laundromat. I started researching online, nothing. Then I started calling distributors that sell equipment. The first cat that answered the phone, his name was Randy. Randy was that old man that came into my bank’s kid, his son. Wow.

And I say kid, he was like… Andy of Mayberry to me was an older guy because Leroy who’s passed now was probably 80 at that point, right? So he became my mentor and he talked about failure all the time. I didn’t listen. I was like, I’m gonna be fine I got a Porsche in the garage, you know, I’m I’m I’m good and that was wrong because I did buy a laundromat I spent 250, 000 and I never looked at the questions why are they selling it?

I didn’t know how to read a P& L. Right. I don’t even think they had one. I didn’t care because I saw shiny equipment and it was cash and I believed what they told me it was making. Oh, right. First day that I went in to do coin and cash, and I was taught by the previous operator, who strangely wouldn’t stay for more than a day.

He was out. I went in to do the coin and cash, and I had a key ring about as big as my head. The machines were so old. Anytime something would break, or they’d have an attempted break in, they would just buy a new cooling box, put, re key it, use a new key. So I didn’t know which key was what, I didn’t understand their system.

I was, Bob, literally almost in tears. Because I thought this was gonna be a slick, in and out, do the money, It’s a pediac. Right, it was like three hours. Yep. I’m the son of a locksmith, right? My dad had many, many jobs. And I couldn’t get these boxes to open. So that was the turning point, the moment, the instant for me where I said, okay, I had a thought.

Am I going to sell this place? Am I going to get out, sell it to the next sucker? Right. Or am I going to bootstrap it the way that I do and fix it? So I fixed that one physical problem and that became the biggest mental hurdle that I ever had to overcome. What did I do? I shut the doors and I went and bought new coin boxes.

Spent a couple thousand dollars. Right. To this day, that store has one key for the change machines, one for the dryers, one for the washers. And I fixed that one issue, and everything is like that. Everything is small. But, my thing is free. Because, in the learning curve, why did they sell it? Because it was failing.

Why did I buy it? Because I was an idiot. Right. So I started scooping up stores by going around Phoenix, New Mexico, scouting locations, looking at the stores when they were falling apart. It’s obvious. The indicators are out. You don’t go to a laundromat, let me guess. You haven’t been to a laundromat your whole life?

Uh, it’s been a long, long, long, long, long time. Right. Maybe college for some people. Yeah, well, yeah. Or, you know, if you live in Brooklyn Heights. You have a brownstone, and your maid goes to the laundromat. Right. Because there’s no room. I digress. I learned all of these things the very hard way. And still, now we’re talking about no one talking about laundromats online.

Right. No one. And I… Took that store turned it around had to retool it had to buy equipment. Right? So what did I really buy? I bought into a five year lease. That’s all I had right? That’s all the previous guy had I walked in the back room and kicked the employees feet off the desk Shut their stupid TV off actually threw the TV out the back door and said get the fuck out No, because they were robbing the previous owner and they weren’t gonna rob me so all the little things all the new it’s at the big moment was for me was Starting to collect laundromats by signing leases.

I’m a born negotiator, apparently. It’s the way I grew up, having to handles, you use the Yiddish word, having to survive, having to scrape, and I built an empire of stores calling the landlord. Whether the landlord runs the laundromat or not, this guy’s falling apart, why are you doing it? Right. And there’s a tipping point, you know, they’re spending too much time.

Sure. A lot of effort. They’re not making a lot of money. If the rent they can collect is commensurate and appropriate for a laundromat and it’s a bit more or even a bit less than what they’re collecting in coin, right? What’s the tipping point? If they’re, I’m not going to use numbers because numbers don’t matter.

If it’s more money that they’re 20 hours a week running the store, fixing the equipment, It’s an obvious fix. Well, the thing I wanted to

[00:19:36] Bob Wheeler: ask is you’re dealing with a lot of cash. And so now you’ve got all these different stores, you have to have people you trust, I would imagine, or you do it all yourself.

And you’re driving from New Mexico to Arizona.

[00:19:46] Danny D’Angelo: That was the one thing, the one thing that I did myself. Yeah, I did. I did the cash. I collected the cash, took care of all that myself. My dad did it when I needed to go out of town. But now that I teach and mentor and train people to do this, and I’m not trying to jump to that at all.

But now that I do that, many, many of my clients will say, well, how do I travel? How do I get away from the store for a week? Yeah. And you know what I say? When’s the last time you did that? When’s the last time you left town for a week? The answers are astounding. You probably know this because it’s about that person.

Yeah. I’ll say seven years ago, I went to my cousin’s wedding. Right. So I’m telling them you’re creating imaginary problems. Right. It’s not going to happen. Don’t worry about it. Now, if you do need to leave, all the machines have counters on them. I’m a big cash guy I’m not a card guy. Yeah, because I’m opinionated about the things that always worked for me.

Right. We’re here in LA to visit some of my success stories. Guys that have four, five, six, twelve laundromats. Yeah, that’s life changing money. For later changing money and they didn’t give a dime for the business rights for the laundromat itself

[00:20:59] Bob Wheeler: Did you ever have to worry about? Because I’ve heard this and I have a friend in the George business who it was a similar thing people always assumed He had jewelry on him like diamonds And so we always had to change his routine up like never doing the same thing and in laundromats I’ve heard, you know It’s not good to collect the money every Tuesday at 8 right that

[00:21:17] Danny D’Angelo: you’ve got to mix it up because people are watching Well, Bob, I have a course and, uh, in the course I do talk about that specific thing.

And yes, you, you don’t, and to be honest, I never did it. I didn’t give a shit. I showed up when I showed up. I, we talked about how I’m a gun guy, right? I’m ranked 37th on the planet right now. Back then I never carried, didn’t carry a gun. Yeah, I’m concerned myself. And some people are, you know, you’re asking me questions about laundromats and cash and all of this, the biggest problem with the cash.

Was never some knucklehead trying to bang me over the brain. It was always the bank, you know, right? Because you know the bank doesn’t want to deal with it. They do not had to open special accounts, but a funny story about cash and I talked about this I collect Always collected in what do you call it?

Not a knapsack, but a little lunch carrying. Okay. Where buying a thing with a zip really on the top of it and To me I’d have that over my shoulder and normally a tool bag in the other hand and that did not look like you know Was it a money collection bag with the big dollar sign on it that you might see.

I came home one night There was thirty six thousand dollars in cash stuffed into that thing And I opened the door to my pickup truck, and I live in Cave Creek, Arizona. Still do, still did. And I put the bag next to the door, I had some beers or whatever I did. In the morning, the garage door was open, the truck door was open, and the bag was sitting there in the middle of the driveway with 36 grand in it.

Anybody could have come by and take it. You know, live in a good neighborhood, I guess. Yeah, don’t live in L. A., for sure. Yeah, man. For sure. Some of the folks who are visiting here, one of my success stories, I call them prodigies. I know that that’s not the right word, but it’s my word. So, I’m visiting one of them and he’s telling me, I don’t want to show the money.

And I’m like, Joe, people know you have the, I just don’t want to show it. He’s worried. He’s, he’s a worrywart. So I am too short life’s

[00:23:18] Bob Wheeler: too short Danny. We’re gonna take a moment We’re gonna go and test your nerve brought to you by the money nerve for all the listeners out there If you want to test your nerve and uncover the dirty truth about your finances visit test your nerve Calm our free quiz.

All right, you ready down and dirty. Are you a hoarder when it comes to money?

[00:23:34] Danny D’Angelo: No, how do you define financial success? I don’t worry about money. That’s it I worried about money my entire childhood and now I don’t. The worst thing about financial success is I, I can’t stand rich kids. Don’t like them. Never grew up with any of them.

I like self made people and my three daughters are rich assholes. Yeah. So that’s not success for me. Do they know that? My oldest spends a lot of time with me and she under, she tells me all the time, you teach me more about money than high school did. Well, it’s just not taught. How do you

[00:24:08] Bob Wheeler: know when your emotions are clouding

[00:24:10] Danny D’Angelo: a decision or do you just not worry?

Why worry? All right,

[00:24:14] Bob Wheeler: we’ll go. We’re gonna come back to that. We’re gonna come back to that. Don’t worry. And then how do you deal with financial setbacks or disappointments? Like, you know, I know with the first laundromat you like made it happen, but sometimes things don’t

[00:24:25] Danny D’Angelo: go as planned. Shot a whiskey, shot a whiskey, you know, again, this is about me and I get that, and it’s really a pleasure to be on your podcast.

And have you throw these questions at me, but you have to understand these questions are for the, uh, 20 years ago, Danny, I never really worried about things like that when there’s a financial setback, there’s going to be the sun will come out tomorrow, right? That’s really the way I think. But those that are very successful, I, you could tell me I’m wrong.

I think take bigger swings and bigger risks. For sure. You buy a stock. You loved it at 5 and it drops to three. There are people that sell it. If you loved it at five. You’re making love to it at three. Right. Buy more. That’s just me. Yeah, and I know that’s dollar cost averaging and it is a solid financial plan.

Buy low, sell high. But that’s what I play craps, you know, again because I enjoy it and it’s it’s nice when you win. That’s why you’re playing any game. Right. But I don’t go there to win. I go there, you know, when I say to people I love to gamble they think oh Jesus this poor guy. Right. No, I love to gamble the process.

Yeah. 5, 000 free beer.

[00:25:37] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, exactly. How do you have conversations on how do you handle conversations where there’s disagreement like with your wife? Do you have conversations? Do you just say I’m right? We just won’t

[00:25:49] Danny D’Angelo: talk for a week. We go to you know, sure. I’m one of the world’s best negotiators. You don’t want to be my wife when it comes to an argument.

She may not know that she’s losing the argument, but to be honest, that’s a different, those two. different questions. With my wife, I clam up. I am not a fun person to argue with. I grew up in a broken home and my wife is the love of my life, my savior. If she gets upset about something, she’s probably right.

So I’m not going to argue. Right now. But when it comes to anything else, I like to win arguments.

[00:26:23] Bob Wheeler: And did you talk with your daughters about money when they were growing up? Yeah,

[00:26:27] Danny D’Angelo: probably not enough. Yeah, because it’s difficult because I, I’m busy making it. I got my exit from the stores and that was huge.

And now they watch this, their dad buy three Rolex watches every month. Right. That was last month. And you know, my, my mother is still in the picture. My dad’s passed away. My sister comes over and says, Oh my goodness. I bought Shelly as my wife. I, I, I got a call from my AD and they wanted to offer me this gold 40 millimeter Rolex and it was our anniversary.

So I thought, here’s my chance to finally get out of this watch pyramid of hell. Cause Shelly thinks it’s stupid, even though they’re good investments. Yep. And I brought her to the A. D., got her a glass of champagne, and she thought we were there to pick up something for me, and they put it on her wrist.

I’m like, happy anniversary. She lit up. She was like, and that’s the most expensive watch that I have. Yeah. Well, I’m sorry. It’s her, it’s her gift. It was cute, Bob. She wore it for four or five days straight, like it was a wedding ring. She showered in it, she wore it to bed. Okay. You know, that’s winning, right?

Yeah. Because now she kind of gets the habit.

[00:27:40] Bob Wheeler: So here’s the question I have though, I want to go back to, because that was the five. I want to go back to this piece though. When did you know, like you were talking about young Danny versus today Danny, and you may have worried before, but now you don’t. When was the moment where you said, I don’t need to worry about money or was it, it may not have been that there was money in the bank, but you just said.

I’m just not going to worry about it. Or was it, you know what? I got 50 million in the bank. I could stop worrying. How did you get to that place of going from, oh my God, I don’t even have 20 bucks and to, yeah, I’m just not going to worry.

[00:28:15] Danny D’Angelo: Cause most people don’t do that. Right. The, well, I think again, it’s my favorite subject is me.

And inherently, I don’t worry. I think it’s a waste. Yeah. I really do. I watch these films, and you know the guy has to cross the Gobi Desert, and he’s going off, and he’s got a canteen, where you know goddamn well the keyotine’s gonna run dry. Always. Yeah. If they’re going up a mountain, somebody’s gonna sprain their wrist, or their ankle, every time!

Yeah. Right? But that’s not real life. I would be the guy that would buy a water truck and drive across, just why worry, why bother? But to answer the specifics, what is a millionaire, right? What is a billionaire? People think that a millionaire makes a million dollars a year or that they have a million dollars in the bank.

And you asked about success. Well, success is… Is love. It’s, it’s a roof over your head. It’s all these crazy things. Right. I’m not, I’m not a money guy. I’m just not about that. I don’t like to look at the Scrooge McDuck as the, as the money stacks up. Right. The smart move would be S& P. My wife and I are Formula One fans, so what do you think we do?

Invest in the F1 stock, even though it’s tanking. When I made a million dollars in a year in my late 20s, that was when I stopped. Worrying about money because everyone knows what a million dollars is right? I was almost 30 and So 29 years old million dollars that year and to me that was them I had a couple million dollars, but to me that was the million moment You know what?

I mean that it that was the income and you aren’t married at that

[00:29:49] Bob Wheeler: point or you’re it Does your wife get emotional around money like? You know, and I know that you’ve said, you know, she doesn’t necessarily take on the laissez faire Approach to not worry into that sort of silly. And so is there more of an impulse to get I mean not hysterical emotional But just emotional like oh my god, what are we

[00:30:07] Danny D’Angelo: doing?

Or did you ever live in a neighborhood where it wasn’t exactly affluential and you know The neighbors were kind of knuckleheads and you know, we’re growing up the man that introduced me to my wife I lived in this neighborhood I’m 26, 27 years old and I’m already doing well in real estate and I have this two story house and it’s a starter.

It’s like my first home and in America and every other couple, they were starter families. They’d have two kids, one and a half kids, a dog, you know, try and drive and rab force and Mike worked for Budweiser. The point is. Mike and his wife were idiots, both of them, when it came to money. Right. And that’s not good.

He’s, I don’t care if he’s the breadwinner or not. Right. Or vice versa, but you can’t have two people in a household that are terrible at the same thing. Right. But I remember they got a, they got a hot tub, and we’re like, they don’t have hot tub money. They went out and got a helock on their house. True.

Bought a hot tub, and then started buying televisions and, you know, PC4 for the kids, I don’t know, video games for the kids, and I’m like, yep, that is not an asset, and you are screwed. Of course, now they’re divorced. Well, you know, a

[00:31:20] Bob Wheeler: lot of people do that. They want to have the half a fence, or the 2. 3 children, and uh, two and a half dogs, or whatever, like, like somehow.

Like that’s the marker that they’ve made it versus, Oh, am I happy? Is my relationship good? Right. Do I get to have time off when

[00:31:35] Danny D’Angelo: I need it or want it? What your question was about Shelley and She has the financial literacy that I never wanted to have and I don’t need to do it. Right. I’m, she’s not going anywhere.

Right. I don’t do anything stupid. Again, we’re ha people know that we are happy. We want to, we, we try, we follow F1 now because, okay, it’s car races, but The most glorious places on earth. Yeah. We just got back from Monaco and who doesn’t want to go to Monaco the world’s smallest and richest country. It’s the size of Central Park, you know, it was Fantastic.

Yeah flew into Nice went to Monaco that then the next week there was a race in Spain So we went to Barcelona the way you go in you say penthouse, please, you know that life is Definitely good. And she’ll tell me for father’s day. We went to some staycation at some resort and I don’t see the bills I don’t pay the bills.

I don’t touch anything and She said to one of the kids like the room was three thousand dollars And then I look over and she’s like, sorry because I don’t want to hear it Whereas that freaks me out because i’m still poor kid right at heart, right? She keeps keeps me out of it. Okay does that for its father’s issue?

She does it for me and i’m kind of like The f k, if I knew it was gonna be three grand a night, I probably would have said no. Right, I was like, okay, so there’s a little emotion

[00:32:55] Bob Wheeler: attached to money. Well, we just try to, we try to mitigate, like,

[00:32:58] Danny D’Angelo: minimize. Pay your taxes? Yeah. Yeah. She gives me the check and I sign it.

I don’t, I don’t look at it. Yeah. So yeah, there’s that. But there’s two separate questions, right? Whether or not… She’s very emotional about all of it. I mean, she worries about me dying, even though there’s a big insurance policy, you know, she doesn’t want me to die. So that’s cute. Cause I’m like, you have all the money in the world.

And she’s like, well, I don’t, I don’t want you to die. It’s not that thing standing at the precipice and jumping when it comes to an investment versus. Wanting to pay a bill to meet bills or not are not

[00:33:32] Bob Wheeler: fun And so now you’ve gotten rid of all your laundromats and you are mentoring other people You’ve got a course and all the stuff.

Why why help other people? Why not just like hoard your money or just I give

[00:33:43] Danny D’Angelo: it more money I am fueled by hatred for the industry that I am a part of even you know Nothing about laundromats if you look at the YouTube machine You can figure out how to fix your transmission on your 87 Toyota Corolla.

Sure And 20 years ago, the guy we just met today, 2011, got a free laundromat. Now he had three stores. He sold one of them, took a nice exit. These are the stories I’m creating. I look at single moms, truck drivers that I’ve put into these stores. I charge. I charge for it. Big tax benefits for me. Big write offs.

I don’t charge very much. I truly don’t. If you pay me for a consult, you get my cell phone number for life. This is sounding salesy. It’s not. Yeah. People have started to ask me more and more, even clients. When a client’s on the phone and they say, Why do you do this? You know, they love me. Right. Because they’re not saying, well, gee, you’re a lawyer.

You’re getting paid 7, 000 an hour. Right. That’s why you do it. I do this because there are so many charlatans and scumbags in this industry. Okay. You could say there’s a bunch of used car salesmen that are that way, or there’s a bunch of financial planners that are that way. Everyone on the other side of the aisle, I swear to you, there’s a few good eggs, but they’re mostly rotten, and that is what fuels me.

If I left tomorrow, Bob, there’d be no Danny Piangelo, there’d be no free laundromat. There’s a couple of guys that have 80 stores in North Carolina, got my course back when it was a DDD. You know, so gathered in cold knowledge, even for me, even though they’re second generation. And 80 laundromats. They’re not even the biggest in the Carolinas, right?

It’s a lot of money to be had in this business.

[00:35:26] Bob Wheeler: Well, for sure. And I don’t know if this is true or not, but I was thinking you’re saying some of them, you know, not so great. A laundromats were probably one of the first money laundering kind of like literally to be able to launder the drug money or the mafia money or whatever.

Right. Right. So you’re not going to have like, you know, the

[00:35:43] Danny D’Angelo: deacons of the church owning the laundry app. There are a lot of. Churches that own laundromats, uh, and they do it as an outreach. Uh huh. They also take the money. Right. Great. And you should ask me this question. Have I ever encountered a money laundering laundromat facility?

Only once. Yeah. Understand now today that I have my fingers in the pie of more laundromats than anyone on the planet. Period. I just do because of the work I do, I negotiate leases for people. So I 28 countries, I have successful clients, right? That being said, we pulled up to a laundry. And it was shuttered and there was a for lease sign in front of it and Eric my editor I said watch this and I’d never been there don’t know the store and he’s like, what are you doing?

I typed the number in that’s on the for lease sign pops up. There’s the name of it the agent There’s the landlord’s name and there’s my client’s name. He was astounded then it happened three times the same day We get it again today. And I’m like, get out the camera. Let’s make a video. But the point is, just because it’s LA, it doesn’t matter.

This is in Texas. I’m doing four, five, six leases a week for people. And they’re getting these stores. But it takes, you know, they have to have the balls to go after it and do it. I’m terrible. I’m just like you. I can talk forever.

[00:37:04] Bob Wheeler: So let’s jump from there. If I’m a new person and I’m thinking of going into business for myself, I wouldn’t immediately think laundry, but it sounds like the first thing I need to do is have some balls.

In anything, right? Well, that’s

[00:37:16] Danny D’Angelo: true.

[00:37:16] Bob Wheeler: Right. You gotta, you gotta be willing to take the risk. Yeah. Have a. Should

[00:37:19] Danny D’Angelo: I also disagree because risk tolerance when it comes to this If you have somebody a lot of people see me on youtube and they they watch a short video of some Arab landlord screaming at me and I scream back.

I don’t I don’t back down right and they call me a douche And they move on with their day. Great. That’s a click the people that are serious. They either decide Oh, I like this character right or I don’t and I truly i’m not going to change for them Everyone that’s serious about getting into this business should see what I have to say, right?

They should whether or not they fall lockstep into that. Yeah, and you know that yeah You if someone says a little bit of what about this financial planner or this guru you might say go listen Everything he has to say take it all with a grain of salt figure out what’s right wrong I do take umbrage with this one thing at least you’re gathering knowledge Everyone says I want to buy a laundromat, right?

That’s not the only option. In fact, it’s the worst option. Let me ask you, who would sell a successful cash business? Well, most of the time

[00:38:23] Bob Wheeler: nobody, and I mean, but there are reasons you would sell, right? Excuses. Yeah, I guess.

[00:38:29] Danny D’Angelo: But wait, if they’re selling it because it’s successful, right? Then they built it to get an exit, didn’t they?

So why would you buy it? You need to figure out how they got into the business and do that. Right. It’s like this, everybody knows how to flip houses, right? Three sentences. How do you flip a house? Buy a house at a low cost. Put some money into it. Sell it. There you go. Love it. No run on sentences. Have you ever done it?

No,

[00:38:55] Bob Wheeler: because it’s not my cup of

[00:38:56] Danny D’Angelo: tea. So you know that thing, because every channel on television has a version of it. So you’re watching them make a coffee table out of plywood and it’s all horseshit, but I’m being serious. Right. My three sentences are Find the worst house in the best neighborhood. Right.

Buy the place because the poor sucker lost his mortgage. Right. Fix it up and sell it before your mortgage comes due. Right. Now everyone knows that but what you’re saying when you buy a laundromat, if you’re trying to make money, mm hmm, in the business. Yeah. Let’s just talk about it and you don’t want to be like me and just salt in the earth.

If you’re trying to make money with a laundromat, why would you buy someone’s existing store? That’s like buying a house on a hill with a white picket fence, a negative edge pool, and saying, I’m going to flip that house tomorrow. Right. Doesn’t make sense. The only good stores that you should buy are built by distributors, and they’re trying to sell all the equipment in place as a showcase.

Right. Do you hear what I said? You shouldn’t. That’s the only good store you should buy because it might potentially profit, but you shouldn’t buy that one either. If you’re not willing to do the work… Right. In my learned opinion, if you’re not willing to do the work, scout the stores. And you can’t ask Siri where the shitty laundromats are.

Right. They don’t usually tell she won’t tell you because they’re literally not in the phone book. Yeah Well, I think sometimes people

[00:40:22] Bob Wheeler: are looking for a quick win, right? So if I buy this it’s already working I’ve got a winner sure and I don’t have to do the work, right? But the bottom line is no matter what you go into you got to do the work You’re not

[00:40:32] Danny D’Angelo: gonna find people holding up their phone either Bob and saying hey We bought this laundromat six months ago, and it’s a complete and utter dump.

It’s a failure I have a dozen of those conversations On my channel that are heartbreaking, that are disgusting, they’re difficult to watch. A couple of them are no longer published because those people saw them and they said, I know I gave you permission, but please take that down. Right. And I tell them, no one’s gonna know it’s you, we can take your name, please take it down.

And I do. And say it’s not important for me to crush somebody’s feelings. You go to a cocktail party, hey that’s the money guy, Bob, let’s go talk to him about what he thinks. And hey, make me rich, it’s like being a comic, make me laugh. Right. Nobody is going to say at that cocktail party, man, I got a total dog.

I bought a laundromat, right? So those conversations never proliferate, right? And therefore. No one hears about failed laundromats red people bought.

[00:41:24] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, most people are not out toting, um, their, uh, their failures. Look, I mean, I messed up over here. I’ve invested poorly over here. Look how terrible I am with everything.

Yeah, it’s not very inspiring and people

[00:41:36] Danny D’Angelo: like to tell you that you’re wrong, right? And like to tell you that you shouldn’t buy gold or silver because they never did. You know how it is. Yeah, it’s absolutely that.

[00:41:44] Bob Wheeler: That’s right. Get in the game. Get in the game, sucker. Get in the game. All right. Well, we are at the, uh, Eminem moment, our, our sweet spot, money and motivation.

Can you share with the listeners a practical tip or a piece of wealth wisdom, something that you do now, um, besides giving everything to your wife to handle? Right. Like what’s, like, what’s something that you do? I mean, I know you say you don’t worry. Um, but is there anything else, like, for people out there?

[00:42:09] Danny D’Angelo: Invest. Invest. I don’t think I coined this, but I could go on and on ad nauseum about it. Poor people, who are not listening to this, so we won’t hurt their feelings, poor people spend money. Right. We could go on with other caveats, right? It’s not their money, it’s borrowed money. But the short version is poor people spend money, the middle class save it, and the rich invest it.

Right. And again, the middle class, they might be saving in the wrong place. Right. Looking for love, but the rich, they’re mostly not even investing their own money. So at the end of the day, I would say the one word is invest, and understand, you want to be the rich side. Yeah, for sure. And if that’s the, whatever Rich, whatever the definition is, to never worry about anything, to be able to write a check.

I was invited to some event and they were inviting laundromat influencers. Yes, they exist, right? It was a great story. It’s a long story, but I’ll make it short. This email thread had ten people in it. Mm hmm. And then the guy who was putting the event on, a beautiful resort in San Diego, he said, bring your editor, bring your wife.

So the list rose to 22 people. Mm hmm. I have three videographers that are coming to the event, but they’re going to eat in the lobby. They’re going to be filming this event. Now the next thing happens, and this goes back to the poor kid in me. Everyone starts talking about who’s going to pay the check, right?

I can’t stand that, Bob. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it because I remember going out, never Italian food. D’Angelo, but I remember going out to dinner with my family and my aunts, uncles, my parents, all the way home, they’re bitching about that check, right? But when the check came, they’re arguing and kibitzing over who had what and who had the glass of wine.

Oh yeah. So that dinner, I wrote in that email thread before we even got there, I said, I’ll pay for dinner. It was almost 8, 000. One person said, thank you. Yeah. But to me. I didn’t want to deal with it. That was the end of it. Yeah, no, I talk a lot

[00:44:15] Bob Wheeler: about splitting checks with large groups of people because it’s funny to watch

[00:44:18] Danny D’Angelo: people go insane.

Yeah. Because they do. I don’t want to be the crazy one. There’s lots of crazies. You can’t tell them ahead of time you’re going to pay either, because you should have seen the wine list. Oh, you

[00:44:28] Bob Wheeler: bet. Then everybody’s getting premium drinks. So, Danny, um, I just, like, one of the things that you were, when you were talking about investing and some different things, sort of what came up for me, even though we didn’t say this specifically, Or maybe we did, but I don’t think we did.

Do the homework. Like, do your research. Whether it’s the laundromat, check out everything Danny has to say. Decide you’re on board, not on board. You know, I know for a lot of people it’s hard to get to that place of not worrying. Look, if you’re making 20 million, you’re making 50 million, you’re making 20, 000.

As long as you live within your means, then there’ll be plenty to do whatever you need to do. And hopefully then some, because I don’t think you have to be making 50 million to be able to travel, uh, to be able to have relationships with people, to be able to, you know, whatever it is, you can do it on any

[00:45:14] Danny D’Angelo: level.

Happy camping. Yeah. You know, they’re just thrilled to be laying on the floor. Sleep in the tent. Yeah. And that costs next to nothing. Yep. Personally, I’m going to build a cabin. I’m going to have air conditioning. I’m getting older. But again, what are we talking about? We’re not talking about money. We’re talking about happiness.

Exactly. And

[00:45:35] Bob Wheeler: I think that’s the key. It’s money doesn’t buy happiness, and we can think that it does, but actually focusing on happiness will probably

[00:45:44] Danny D’Angelo: all be a lot happier. Yeah, the grind. Part of my property ladder in Mexico is buying the penthouse. Owning it outright, paying cash, and when we go down there, I’m a guy, if you care to hear this, I ripped the front door off of my condo last time, and I was refinishing it.

I set the kids and the wife up on the beach. I’m not a sit on the beach guy. Right. Can’t do it. I want to own something so that I can work on it. When we rent or lease, I’m going, you know, what am I going to do? Right. Other than drink heavily, what is there to do? So I ripped the front door off the house, and I’m refinishing it, and the neighbor walks by.

And he’s a sit on the beach guy, you know what I mean? God bless him. He says, what are you doing? I’m water skiing, what do you think I’m doing? He says, you know, there’s any number of guys that’ll do that for 10. Right. Because it’s a foreign country. Right. Okay, well, should I really explain? He’s still walking, you know?

Right. Go f yourself is probably what I said, but hey, the beer tastes better to me. And it’s inherent in me. I would, I would, it does, at the end of the day, job well done. Yeah, that’s just the way that I am. Yeah, and not

[00:46:52] Bob Wheeler: look know what you are. I’m not a beach person like I could play maybe for two hours But the rest of the time I’m gonna be

[00:46:59] Danny D’Angelo: hiking or whatever cuz I’m back from vacation and you’re beat You’re beats but

[00:47:06] Bob Wheeler: fulfilled right and for me fulfilled Where can people find you online social media and where

[00:47:12] Danny D’Angelo: can they find out about your course?

Don’t find out about the course. Don’t find out. Watch the YouTube. Yeah, I call it the silly course, but if you’re serious about getting into coin laundromats, get the course. YouTube. Yeah, YouTube. All right, start with YouTube. King of Laundry. King of Laundry. I’m easy to find. I am on Instagram. All right. I have a TikTok account.

It’s silly. I don’t dance or twerk. I only have

[00:47:34] Bob Wheeler: 20 videos

[00:47:34] Danny D’Angelo: a day. Like, oh. Oh, gee, come on, Danny. I’m a little… I’m a little disappointed. I don’t give two shits about clicks, likes, follows, all that type of thing, but it does help me to get into people’s mindset and be in the forefront. There are fans. I have people that are fans and that’s pretty cool.

But at the end of the day, it’s king of laundry. I’m self proclaimed. I always say that. I probably didn’t. I don’t think I’m the king of it. So you don’t have a royal laundry blood in you. It’s it’s you’re the first king. All right. Yeah, that’s good. And I have no sons. So bastards aside, there will be no heiress.

The kingdom of wash. Yeah. All right. Well, Danny, I appreciate you taking the

[00:48:16] Bob Wheeler: time today. We’re here in Los Angeles. You get to go back to Arizona where it’s even hotter.

[00:48:20] Danny D’Angelo: Bob started talking about the weather and my joke is that we run out of shit to talk about. We’ve run

[00:48:24] Bob Wheeler: out, unfortunately, you know, Angelenos.

[00:48:28] Danny D’Angelo: But you think it’s a hot year. It is not hot here. We’re not, no. We’re very spoiled. Yeah. We are very spoiled. Other than the weather, we are all nuts. Exactly. Thanks for having me, Bob. Absolutely.

That’s

[00:48:45] Bob Wheeler: all we have time for today, folks. Thanks so much for tuning in and being part of the conversation. Before we go, I want to invite you to begin exploring your own money story. My book, The Money Nerve, Navigating the Emotions of Money, is available now for just 1. What if 1 could change your financial future?

Visit dollarbookdeal. com or click on the link in the show notes to get your copy today. This has been Money You Should Ask. Join me next week as we dive deeper into transforming our money stories and mindsets. Until then, nurture your money nerve and think about what new money story you want to write.