- My girlfriend and I,
we had a really nice vacation in Italy.
You know, it was a magical trip, you know,
a trip we talk about every day probably, but yeah.
I spent like 30k on that trip.
What's up GQ Sports?
I'm Solomon Thomas.
And this is how I made,
saved and spent my first million dollars.
We found a financial advisor before I got drafted.
Being a 21-year-old and getting, you know,
millions of dollars,
it's like a lot of pressure and a lot of work.
Obviously a big blessing to be like, okay,
what do I do with it now?
You know, Terry, you know,
knows our goals and he takes care of them,
and helps me invest,
helps me make the right decisions,
where to put my money.
So, you know, having a financial advisor was huge for me
and someone that we really thought was very important.
You can see the details of my rookie contract right here.
All right, we talked about how I made and saved my money.
Let's talk about how I spent my money.
Very first thing I bought, you know, coming in the NFL,
you always see guys pregame really dressed out in suits,
swagged out.
And I wanted to, you know, be professional
and, you know, be looking nice, be looking sharp
and never really spent money on clothes in my life.
And I finally had some money so I was like,
you know, let's, let's look sharp, let's get spiffy.
So I probably bought like $20,000 in suits.
The suits from my rookie year, 20k.
There's a place in Dallas called Lombardo Custom Apparel.
I used them.
They were great.
And then, you know, my girl Sammy from Elevate,
she always hooked me up.
All my four years, but yeah,
she's been someone I used for a while.
Best dressed teammate.
Marquise Goodwin was always swagged out.
He was always looking good.
Another one was Arik Armstead.
Always, always got good style.
Same with Deforest Buckner.
Who's also dressed by Sammy.
Worst dressed.
I'm gonna say my man, Nick Bosa.
[laughs]
Nick doesn't care.
He's casual.
He's just there to play ball.
And you know, he looks good.
He was in his stuff,
but he's, he's very, very, very casual.
Probably sweatpants and a T-shirt.
So after the suits, I bought myself a car.
I bought a Tesla Model X.
So yeah, I was very--
It was my dream car.
I'm not too into cars, but I was like,
this car is cool as hell.
And you know,
it's electric and rides like kind of a spaceship.
And that was like 130,000.
Brand new Tesla, 130k.
I kinda customized it on the website and, you know,
talked with some of the Tesla dealership near Palo Alto
and, you know, find the one that I wanted.
And I got it all tinted out and got a little wrap on it.
Not too much, but yeah, just some,
some spots to make it a little more, a little cool.
One of my buddies drove it down to Vegas for me and yeah.
So now, now I have it out here, which is nice.
After the Tesla,
I remodeled my parents' bathrooms in the house.
You know, my parents have sacrificed everything for me,
just so I could play this game.
So always wanted to give back to them.
So that's gonna be a little bit of a theme here.
So it was about a 100k to remodel
their bathrooms in the house.
Renovations for mom and dad's house, 100k.
It was actually a Christmas gift.
One of my mom's best friends is an interior designer.
And so I had her help me out and she shipped out some tiles
and I wrapped them up
and I kind of gave them to them for Christmas and was like,
I'm remodeling your bathrooms
and had all the catalogs in them.
So yeah, it was a little bit of a surprise, yeah.
So they were very excited.
So next I bought my mom her dream car.
So I got her a model S Tesla.
So I shipped that down for her for her birthday
and surprised her at her school with it
and made a cute little video.
So yeah, she got her, her dream car as well.
Tesla for mom, 120k.
My uncle was the first one in our family to get a Tesla.
And after that, we all kind of geeked out over them
cause he loved it so much.
And you know,
you can tell yourself it's good for the environment
and you know, it's a really cool car.
So, it was the best of both worlds.
So, you know, it just kind of became my whole family's
dream car afterwards.
I also got my dad a Tesla model 3.
So that was about 60k and I surprised that for him
for Father's day.
Tesla for my dad, 60k.
Actually my grandma has a Tesla as well.
I didn't buy it for her, but she has a model three as well.
It felt amazing to be able to give back to my parents
for all they've given to me, you know,
drive me to practice, feeding me meals,
taking care of my training.
Everything that they've done for me has been
led me to this point.
So, you know, I've always wanted to give back for them
for all the sacrifices they've given to me.
So, you know, it was an amazing feeling
and my parents are super supportive.
I don't know if my dad's missed more than
three of my football games in my lifetime.
And you know,
just always been there for me, you know.
Same with my mom, you know, there every game,
just screaming and cheering me on, you know,
through injuries, you know, through loss,
through ups and downs, you know,
they've been the most supportive.
You know I'm very into like fitness and training
and recovery.
So, you know, I spent a lot of money, you know,
creating like a home gym kind of wherever I'm at.
So my parents' house can have a home gym, you know,
my house in San Francisco and here in Vegas.
My home gym probably about, you know, 30k total
and then probably about 20k
in all the recovery equipment I have,
like from a hyperbaric chamber to a sauna.
I have a rack, you know, Keiser machine,
VersaClimber, you know, Peloton,
you know, salt bike, you know.
I'm really big into kinda like getting my own workout
whenever I want.
So kind of spend a good amount of money on that.
Probably about 50k total in like, you know,
making sure I have my home recovery set up at all times.
50k home gym set up.
You can work out whenever you want.
Obviously if you're not being smart and overdoing it
and not performing as well,
they're gonna get mad at you
and be like, hey, why are you so sluggish or tired?
But you know,
it's definitely, you know,
you wanna be able to get your own grind in too,
cause you know, sometimes you don't have all the time
in the world to fit in everything at facility,
if you wanna go home, get some extra work in,
work on your weaknesses a little more.
Some people like the private grind, you know,
I kinda like to grind, you know,
I call my all my gyms a dungeon,
just like a place I kinda go from alter ego
and, you know, work on whatever I need to work on.
During the season, it's hard to, you know,
keep your off season body, you know,
we always call it season body or whatever you wanna say.
Like it's just hard to work out as much and, you know,
keep all the muscle on.
You know, we have practice all day.
We have lists, we have recovery, film.
It's hard to, you know, keep, you know,
that kinda work you're doing off season
up throughout the whole season.
So you gotta find ways to maintain,
you know, get your recovery in and all that kinda stuff.
My girlfriend and I,
we had a really nice vacation to Italy
and you know, I hadn't traveled much, you know,
throughout my time in the league.
And you know, it was my first vacation to splurge
and Italy was a place I really wanted to go
and, you know, really, you know, have a really good time.
And we went for like 12 days,
went and like stay at the nicest spots
and you know, it was a magical trip, you know,
a trip we talk about every day probably but yeah,
I spent like 30k on that trip.
Vacation with my girlfriend, 30k.
We did everything.
Like we tried to get it all in, in the 12 days.
We were in Rome, Florence and Ravello.
Her favorite place was Ravello.
Just, it was just so beautiful.
My favorite was Florence.
You know, I just love, you know, all the architecture there,
the buildings, the food, you know,
just all the hills and everything.
Went to Rome,
we like we saw the Vatican, went to the Coliseum,
you know, did all those like tours and everything, you know,
had a little boat ride out in Positano and Amalfi Coast.
And, you know, we were kicking up, living life.
It was probably the vacation of a lifetime for sure.
My sister died by suicide in 2018.
So, you know,
mental health is a huge kinda part of my life.
And, you know,
I try to be an advocate for mental health
and, you know, try to, you know, normalize it.
And, you know,
one of those efforts I do is
by donating money to certain foundations.
And I also created my own nonprofit
with my family and my cousin Ray.
And so I put a lot of money towards that as well,
around like 75k in donations to start the Defensive Line
and get it running off the ground,
which is my family's organization.
So yeah, probably like, yeah, 75k in that.
75k in starting my foundation, the Defensive Line.
Yeah, I bought a house in San Francisco after, you know,
I got drafted there, probably my second year on the team.
And, you know, it's an area that I love, you know,
area that I kinda spent a lot of time in, close to college,
you know, around a lot of close family friends, you know,
private, beautiful area.
And, you know,
I was very blessed and fortunate to be able to buy the house
and a little modern house, but it's very open,
a lot of light, you know,
just a place where you can kind of relax and a lot of
happy vibes, you know, good feng shui.
And then furniture for the house was, you know, was a lot.
And I wanted to make it very comfortable.
You know, I'm a big guy.
I might have my teammates over,
I wanna have comfortable furniture, you know,
I got this couch from Restoration Hardware called the cloud
that you can legit sleep in like a bed,
got a really nice bed from McRoskey Mattresses
in San Francisco.
My first house purchase was one very meaningful
to me in a house I love a lot.
And an area that I love a lot.
Furniture for my new house, 200k.
The house was about $3 million
but my down payment was about 10% of that.
Ran out of money cause I spent more than a million,
but you guys can just add it in right here.
I feel pretty good about it, you know,
probably could have done, you know, without, you know,
20k in suits or, you know, some of the things.
And, but, you know, I think I've done,
done well with my money.
You know, I've been meaningful with it, you know,
got to see places around the world and see new cultures
and, you know, give back to my parents,
give to certain organizations and, you know,
have a, you know, a beautiful home to live in, you know,
so I'm happy about how I spent money, you know, definitely,
you know, some ups, some downs, but it's part of, you know,
having money and learning how to deal with it.
The advice I would give, you know,
a young Stanford guy coming up to me, you know,
I'll tell him to live like he's still at Stanford,
but also, you know, take care of himself
like he's an NFL football player and to invest in his body
and, you know, you know,
save money for investments coming up.
Cause he's gonna have a lot of alums come to him with
opportunities to invest in certain Stanford companies
or Stanford startups.
To be smart but you know, also, you know,
take care of yourself
and make sure that you're setting yourself up for your job
and to have the best job.
Yeah.
That was it guys.
Thank you for listening to me on
how I spent my first million.
I'll see you on the field soon.