Carl Nassib, who came out as the first openly gay National Football League player on Monday, has strict rules when it comes to his money.
The Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Raiders in March 2020. Yet the 28-year-old lives below his means and saves for his future by using easily accessible investment choices, like index funds and individual retirement accounts.
“Being young we have a much larger time span to invest,” Nassib told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” in 2019.
“With long-term investing, index funds are a great tool.”
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He is also philanthropic. On Monday he announced that he is donating $10,000 to The Trevor Project. The nonprofit provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth.
“I’m a pretty private person so I hope you guys know that I’m not doing this for attention,” Nassib said in an Instagram post. “I just think that representation and visibility are so important.”
He also believes helping others understand their finances is critical. In the 2018 season of the HBO reality sports documentary “Hard Knocks,” he imparted advice to his Cleveland Browns teammates. He played for the team in 2016 and 2017, before moving to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for two seasons.
During the show, he was seen teaching players about compound interest, which is essentially interest on interest. It’s calculated on the initial principal and the accumulated interest over the years.
“This is the easiest equation to make you rich,” he said on the show. “It’s crazy.”
His interest in finance began after he was drafted by the NFL in 2016.
“I didn’t want to pay someone to manage my own money, so it took a while, but I educated myself,” he said.
He told CNBC he has a strict monthly budget.
During the football season, Nassib’s budget is $3,500 and covers food, rent and bills. Off season, he has a higher budget of $5,500, because he travels more to see friends and family and no longer has meals provided by the team.
“I try to get at least to where I have $400 or $500 miscellaneous spending, and then everything else is accounted for,” Nassib explained.
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