Ever been puzzled by the paradox of earning plenty yet still struggling to make ends meet? Aaron Banks joins me, KJ, to unravel this enigma and arm high earners caught in the paycheck-to-paycheck trap with actionable insights. We're not just talking about tightening those purse strings; we're discussing how to merge passion with side hustles, make your mark in job interviews by presenting your unique value, and the fine art of salary negotiation. Get ready to redefine financial success on your own terms and leave the dangerous game of comparison behind.
Navigating life's transitions, like welcoming a new family member, while keeping your finances afloat can feel like sailing in stormy seas. That's where our deep dive into advocating for yourself in the workforce comes in, providing you with the compass to steer towards better pay and hours. We also chart the course through the burgeoning online income world, with a critical look at platforms like Free Cash, and offer strategies for managing debt responsibly. Our mission is to propel you towards financial stability with the skills and confidence to make informed decisions.
Finally, we plot a course for financial literacy with the introduction of our "Roadmap to Financial Literacy, Workbook." This isn't just another guide; it's your personal finance GPS, assisting you in setting goals, tracking progress, and making life choices that resonate with your values. Whether you're deciding between the city buzz or countryside serenity, renting or buying, or seeking multiple income streams, this episode is your ticket to breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and embarking on a journey to financial freedom. So set sail with Aaron and me, and let's chart a path to a future where your finances are as robust as your dreams.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share it with a friend or two!
Ever been puzzled by the paradox of earning plenty yet still struggling to make ends meet? Aaron Banks joins me, KJ, to unravel this enigma and arm high earners caught in the paycheck-to-paycheck trap with actionable insights. We're not just talking about tightening those purse strings; we're discussing how to merge passion with side hustles, make your mark in job interviews by presenting your unique value, and the fine art of salary negotiation. Get ready to redefine financial success on your own terms and leave the dangerous game of comparison behind.
Navigating life's transitions, like welcoming a new family member, while keeping your finances afloat can feel like sailing in stormy seas. That's where our deep dive into advocating for yourself in the workforce comes in, providing you with the compass to steer towards better pay and hours. We also chart the course through the burgeoning online income world, with a critical look at platforms like Free Cash, and offer strategies for managing debt responsibly. Our mission is to propel you towards financial stability with the skills and confidence to make informed decisions.
Finally, we plot a course for financial literacy with the introduction of our "Roadmap to Financial Literacy, Workbook." This isn't just another guide; it's your personal finance GPS, assisting you in setting goals, tracking progress, and making life choices that resonate with your values. Whether you're deciding between the city buzz or countryside serenity, renting or buying, or seeking multiple income streams, this episode is your ticket to breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and embarking on a journey to financial freedom. So set sail with Aaron and me, and let's chart a path to a future where your finances are as robust as your dreams.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share it with a friend or two!
Hello everybody, Welcome back to money conversations with KJ. On your host KJ. This is the money talk series with Mr Aaron Banks joining. How you doing, Aaron?
Speaker 2:Doing well. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I think last week went really well. How'd you feel about that?
Speaker 2:You know, I thought it was helpful, especially for those who are listening for the first time or trying to get their finances in order. What a great start.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what I want to go over today is I put a couple of notes here together that we can talk about some topics here just a couple of them, and we'll dive in how we can. But the first one is we want to talk about last week we talked about people making six figures and still living paycheck to paycheck Right, and so let's talk about how we can, the solutions to stop doing that Right. Um, we talked last week that people just weren't taught, so they're just trying to learn along the way and they're just not doing all right. So I think we have some solutions here that hopefully can help some of you guys that are out there listening and cause.
Speaker 1:Everybody has options, different options out there to them, and whatever is comfortable for you. Remember, guys, this roadmap, this creating lifestyle by design, is your life, it's how you want to live it. So never try to compare yourself to anybody. And how you're living your life financially it's up to you and there's no wrong or right answers Whenever you get to the point that you feel comfortable and you succeeded. So one of the first ones I was looking online is you know, in a lot of people and we've heard the term side hustle, right, we talked about how, back in our day, we didn't call it a side hustle, we would call it a second job, and there is a difference, though, between a side hustle and a second job, and I think we've talked about this before. Which is a second job is you're actually going to clock in and out for somebody else. It's just two jobs, and for years and years, people work multiple jobs, right? Uh, not usually cause they want to, but usually cause they have to.
Speaker 1:In today's world in the last really, the internet brought it along was side hustles, meaning it's not anything that you have to do, it's something that you're going to follow a passion, or you're going to learn something new, to make some money, typically online. Most side hustles are online, but not all of them, um, so I want to get into that little bit. Uh, sometimes it's your job, right? Um, we were talking before here how, listen, if you've been at your job a number of years, however many, two, three, five, 10, it doesn't matter that you are topped out. You hit the shelf, you've hit the ceiling on that pay. Whatever they're going to pay you for that particular position in your lifestyle requires more money. It's time for a new job, would you agree?
Speaker 2:I would agree, and I would also add something. If you are in a situation where you have children, or maybe maybe your, your spouse, doesn't work, that's another avenue. You know, you pick up that second income that could help. You know, even if your spouse ends up picking up a part time job instead of a full time job, you want a situation where you have income, you have flexibility so you can bring in additional income if needed.
Speaker 1:Yes and again. But our expenses, listen, I'm 62, you're 66, seven, seven. And listen, we know our expenses change all the time. They're. Never can you remember in your lifetime would your expenses stayed the same for any length of time. They were just always changing, whether you accrued more debt, less debt, made more money, made less money, right? So we have to, we have to always be able to adjust, right.
Speaker 2:Well, and when you say adjust, are you saying and I guess this is just a topic of discussion for those out there who are listening are you saying you have changed your spending habits? Are you saying that's one way.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, sometimes that's what needs to be happened. That happened right and again. And we're talking about people who are struggling with money. And then, when people are on the other side of the coin, hey, you start to make more money, you have the extra money, and then they start what do I do with it? And I think human nature says, well, let me go spend it. You know, I want a better car, a bigger house, more clothing, whatever, versus hey, I have more money to put to work, and we talked about that last week.
Speaker 1:But I want to talk about you know why you would need a new job? Right, cause you've you've hit the shelf, the ceiling I call them less the shelf, but the ceiling of what your employer is willing to pay you for that said position, or your skill set, or your skill set. You know you need to improve your skill set. Maybe your boss says, hey, bob, I could pay more money, but I need you to learn XYZ in order for me to pay you more money. And you thought, well, I didn't know that I could do XYZ.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, if you learn XYZ, I'll pay you, you know, five bucks, five dollars an hour, more, you know type of thing, or whatever the case may be. But he's expecting you to learn something to give more value to where you work. Right, and so new job, new position, something along those lines is is what you can do to solve the problem of hey, I don't make enough money and I'm living paycheck to paycheck, right, that's one solution. Again, asking for a raise. You know there's there's a lot of people in and you're one place of employment for your whole career, but there's a lot of people out there that won't give you a raise If you don't ask well, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You say that because there's an old saying it says a closed mouth and never gets fed. If you don't speak up for yourself, who's going to speak up for you? When you're in a family situation, you have your loved ones just around to buy. When you're on the job, you have to speak up for yourself, and it also comes with understanding what the pay structure is. When you start a job and you sit down for an interview and you want this job and the employer says I need you for this job, you have to look ahead and say, okay, so this is the job. What is the upside? You know, what is the opportunity for me to make more money? What is the opportunity that it's going to give me a chance to grow in the company? If you aren't asking yourselves that question, then these types of podcasts will allow people to sit down, get their head right before they go in for the interview. So when you go in there, you're asking. You're speaking on your behalf.
Speaker 1:You bring up a great point and my kids I still sit with my kids when they're ready to go get a new position wherever, and we sit down and we brainstorm it out what are you looking for, what do you want to do? And I coached them through an interview prior to it happening. I've been doing this for my kids and my nephews for years and years and I'll tell you a quick story. I remember with my nephew and this is I don't know 15 years ago. He was up and coming in his field and he was at one particular hotel making a dollar amount in another hotel headhunted him like hurt through the. You know, he heard hey, this is a young guy who's doing really good job over there, we could use him on our team. Let's go try to recruit him Right, cause recruiting happens all the time. Had they call him headhunters they go find better talent, right, that they want to bring over to their, to their companies. And so he was headhunted and recruited by another hotel here in town and he came to me and he says well, I make dollar X and I'm I'm not sure. All right, they've already told me they're going to offer me, you know, dollar Y here, but I really want this number and so I sat with them, we rehearsed it and I know how to negotiate with money. And after we sat and had this conversation and he went to the interview, in the interview when, exactly as him and I had practiced it, and the outcome came out exactly the same and he ended up getting 10% more than what they offered because I showed him how to leverage his skill set and why hey, you came looking for me, I didn't come looking for you, you know I have value, right. And so because we sat down and we had that brainstorm and rehearsed that conversation he was going to have in that set interview, it actually made him an extra $10,000 a year back then, right, and he has since gone on. And then, cause, I taught him how to negotiate and he's done that for himself now a couple, two or three times and he does very well for himself.
Speaker 1:But the point is that, guys, when you're going on these interviews and I've interviewed plenty of people and I think you've interviewed in your career back in the day that people don't realize this young generation today, how important an interview is on how you hold yourself, continue yourself. Uh, even my youngest daughter, who's 24, she was hot doing the hiring for uh for positions where she was at a couple of years ago, and she would come home cause I, I taught her how to interview, right. And she would come home and say, dad, I can't even believe how these people show up to these interviews. They, they will show up late and not even call me and tell me they're going to be late. A lot of no shows, number one.
Speaker 1:And then they would show up dressed like you're in the middle of an interview for a job here and you came dressed like you're going to the gym, right, or you just walk your dog or just you just weren't dressed properly. And then the verbiage that comes out of their mouths is I don't know like they. Well, she says they don't care, they don't care if they got the job or not, they're just going through the motions, kind of a thing. And so you, when you guys are out there and you need to make more money and you're going to go find a new job, do your homework before you go. Sit in front of someone, right the old saying you never get a second chance to make a first impression. An interview tip is your first impression time You've got to make somebody. When you leave, walk out of that room from an interview, you want them to say wow, that is one heck of an individual. I think we need them on our team right.
Speaker 2:Well, as you say that, I'm thinking to myself. You know, as many times as you know, you figure young people or even in your 30 something or 20 something, and you say to yourself you know, is this a job or is this a career? And you always have to say before you even go in there, if it's just a job let's just say a small fast food restaurant. You know your expectations of what's required to be a server or a person working in a fast fast food restaurant. Your salary is going to reflect the skills that you need at that fast food restaurant. But if you decide that you want to make money, you probably going to look in terms of what can I offer a potential employer, what can I offer them that's going to bring me the most return, most income for that particular position that I'm interviewing for. If you don't take the steps necessary, maybe podcasts like this will help out.
Speaker 2:Someone's out there thinking to themselves you know I'll take this job. I don't really don't want it. But you know, if you're going to take that attitude toward it, you're wasting the time that you could be spending on getting a job that's going to get you ahead instead of just paying the basics on it. You know they talk about increasing the minimum wage and the minimum wage is not a living wage and you say, well, yeah, the job is a job that can put me to work and I can start making money, but can you live off of it?
Speaker 2:So before you go in for a job interview, I just say this for those who are out there who are listening say to yourself it's going to pay me so much money, it's going to pay me so much money per hour, it's going to pay me so much money per month. Can I live off of that? Is my goal in taking this job is to live off of that. If it's not, maybe rechecked what you're doing, maybe recheck the path that you're going down and maybe you need a roadmap that's going to guide you towards something that's going to give you a living wage. If you don't have the skills I know you're going to get into a couple of the points here about skill level what can you do to improve your skill level? What can you tell an employer that you offer that if they hire you for the job and it's going to pay that living wage that you're after, what do you need to do? What do you not have that you need to have.
Speaker 1:Great points. And again, depending, okay, entry job. For most people, entry job can be a fast food, mcdonald's, burger King, whatever but you can go to Burger King or McDonald's today and see a 50 year old person working back there, and I don't think they aspired at 40 or 50 years old to be working at there.
Speaker 1:But even a management position at McDonald's actually pays pretty good. Right, and my understanding, because I talked to a few people there you can grow pretty fast at McDonald's into a management position because the turnover is so high. Right, because you have these young folks who know it's not their career. Obviously no, it doesn't make enough money to pay all of their bills. They need some sort of, but they don't have a lot of bills when you're young. But for the folks that are there that are 40 plus years of age, working right, you're wondering yourself how is this person making it Working over here? That's likely just above minimum wage and, like you said, minimum, even the minimum wage is not enough. In today's world with prices of everything and we've got into that last week it's not enough.
Speaker 1:So but as you go to these job interviews, guys, if you read in the paper or where you know, online, a job interview over here, I need an XYZ position and you feel like, hey, I'm qualified to do that, and it says in there that, hey, this position pays. A lot of times I noticed it's a range and let's just say it says 15 to $25 an hour. Right, that's a $10 an hour spread. Well, what do you think they're going to pay you based on your interview, based on your interview, how you ask, answer the questions, the questions you actually ask them, because I think a lot of folks who go out there, who are not prepared, don't even ask questions, let alone the right questions. So you're not just wasting your time, but you're not wasting that set company's time correct and so you would want to negotiate. If I seen a job position that was between 15 and 25, I know I need to make minimum 20, 22, 23. I know I'm going to, I'm going to be in line to to hopefully put some money away and not just live paycheck to paycheck. So now you're going to go in there, put on your best foot forward.
Speaker 1:Right, I have a saying and it's on, it's on my sign off, on my email, which says and I learned this years ago how you do anything is how you do everything. And when someone's interviewing you, when I interview people, when I taught my daughters how to interview people, however, they're acting right there in front of you. It's likely who they are and that's how they're always going to be. If they're acting lazy and, you know, not proactive about asking good questions and telling you things. That's probably how they're going to be at work, and this is how and why people make positions now decisions on hiring people. So you got to go in there and act in a manner of I could be a valuable team member at this organization. I can help you in the position that you want. You got to sell yourself to them. That's what they're looking for assertive people. They can do that. So you have to train. Like you said, you got to train how to do that. If you're, if you're, if you're going to get into a new career path of some sorts and you've got to do a bunch of training on your own. Believe me, in today's world, online, you can learn how to do anything for free. You just got to put the time and effort in right. So get in there.
Speaker 1:Do these job interviews ask for more money. If you have your existing job, go to your boss. Hey, boss, you know I I'm having a baby. I'm going to have more expenses. I need to make more money. What do you have here that I can do, that I can learn to make more money? Go ask. Don't just be stuck in your position that you have. Make it in whatever you're making. That's not quite enough, only for you. And now you're going to. You know you got other expenses coming in. You've got. You've got to ask right, or more hours?
Speaker 1:We talked about more hours. I know in today's world you're required in most states to provide insurance for your workers. If they are full time, 40 hours a week and or more, it's required that you have to give insurance. So what? So what these businesses do out there to get around that, the loophole, so to speak, is guess what? I'll hire you, but it's 32 hours a week. You don't get 40, because if I give you 40, I got to pay your insurance and I can't afford to pay your insurance. So, yes, you can work here, Even though it'll make you another dollar or two an hour to offset the cost of not having to pay you for the 40 hours. But you won't get 40 hours. So that means you have more time. So you could ask for more time. You could go spend more time on a second job. You could spend more time on a side hustle and we're going to talk about the different side hustles here in a minute. But I don't think you and I had those types of opportunities where we are in our 20s and 30s.
Speaker 2:Well, and if we did, did we take advantage of it? I can tell you right now, just based on the comments you've just made there, for those who are listening, he's making a point. But if you don't go into the interview with the mindset that you're valuable and for those out there, by the time you're ready to sit down or you walk through the door and you're sitting in front of someone who's going to be interviewing you, you have to think to yourself what do they want from me? What is the expectation, what are they looking for and why would I be a valuable member of their team if they hired me? If you ask those questions before you go in, you'll be on the right track and getting yourself in a situation where you can at least comfortably say you know, I just did an interview, did I do well? And you're asking yourself this question Did I do well? Did they think highly of me? Can I get out of this, what I want to get out of this and, in turn, give this employer something that they'll be happy with? You're a finished product, you know. Do you offer value to this interviewer or to the potential employer?
Speaker 2:If you aren't asking yourselves those questions, you're not going to get in a situation where you're happy when you leave the interview. Remember there's two parts to it. You want the potential employer to say you know, I'd love to have this person as part of my new team or part of our employee employee. Or am I, the potential employee, going to be happy working for these people? Do they have what it takes to make me successful? Because it's a two way street, kevin. You cannot go into a job and think that it's all about me. You can't go into the job where the employer goes man, I see if I can get this person in here for the least amount of impact or least amount of money or financial outlay. So it's a two way street.
Speaker 1:It is a two way street. I could share with you my experience and I've employed people for 30 years and I know and I share this with new business owners, you know it you have to go through roughly 20 employees to find one good one, one that sticks. A good, solid person who has great work, ethic, grows, their skill set is respected, respects. You know you and the company that they work for. There. They have pride in, in, in what they do. It's very difficult to find a good employee. It really is, and I think that's why most people who are out there and they you know oh man, we've got a new division to our company and we need to go hire 25 people. Well, they're going to go interview, interview 200 people to, or more to hire 25. And and where do they want? They want 25 of the best that they could find. But even they know the reality is, you'll hire someone, they'll come to work because some people are really good. I'll say actors, right, they'll put on a great dog and pony show at an interview. And then you hire them and they start work and you're like well, that's not the person that was in the interview, right, they don't perform well.
Speaker 1:So how you do anything, how you do everything is is such a great motto to live by. You know. Do you make your bed every day in the morning? No, I don't. Well, that means I know you're not a good starter. You're not a good starter if you don't make your bed every day in the morning. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So there's just simple things that we can, that we do on our personal life. That Falls over and spills over into our work life. This is how your life is. This is how you run your life. Are you, do you follow up and follow through? Right, some people follow up and don't follow through. There's a big difference between those two things. Right, follow up, follow through. So Know your skill sets before you go. Know your skill sets before you know the job that you want to do.
Speaker 1:Some people are not Savvy people skills. They don't like to communicate with people. They're better to be in a, in a, in a, in a cubby hole with their computer and leave me alone. Let me just do my job. I don't like to converse with other people. And then there's the opposite. Like I cannot sit in an office all day long. I need to be out there conversing with people all day long. So know who you are For the position that you want to go, find that you could best give value, because businesses need both all different types of personalities. They need them all, and so which one are you going for?
Speaker 1:So back to why the solutions of you're not making enough money. You live in paycheck to paycheck. Where are you working? Is this the right place? Do I need to change my job? Do I need to go make more money? Because I'm young, I'm getting ready to get married, maybe I'm gonna have a dual income household now, or a baby's coming, or just whatever the reasons are why you need to make more money, you need to know where you're gonna go work and I make that money there. Don't waste time, so be careful on when you do those things. So I want to get into Some of the ways to solve the problem.
Speaker 1:We talked about a side hustles, right and, and you can find these, and I found this one online, and they're always listed. This one here is the top 50 for 2024. Anyway, the top 50 Side hustles that you can do right, and I've seen this one a lot. Number one here says get paid up to 140 dollars a month, just for sharing your honest opinion. These are surveyors. So there are companies out there that pay you to take a survey and on average, these surveys take like 15 minutes and they may pay 20 bucks.
Speaker 1:Like okay, now some people, I go, well, that's not very much money. I'm like, wait a minute, that's more than a dollar a minute. You're right. So if you work for an hour and you're making, you got a job that pays you 25 bucks an hour You're thinking, hey, I make 25 an hour, that's pretty good, that's not a dollar a minute, that's less than 30 cents a minute. So if you can do a survey and make more than a dollar a minute, now it's up to you, these companies.
Speaker 1:Hey, how many surveys a day do you want to do? I've I've seen a red and I don't personally know the people, but I've read people here that that'll do surveys for four hour, five hours a day and Make a couple 300 bucks a day just by doing surveys. These are the people that don't want to talk to people, right? These are the people that like, let me just go do my time on my computer but, boom, knock it out for four or five hours every day or every other day.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is, how much money you need it's, but you get to control it. It's a throttle right? Hey, I have more time today I got a full-time job, but this is my two days off, and today I'm gonna do three hours, to tomorrow I'm gonna do four hours. That's total of seven hours of surveys. I just made an extra 500 bucks. Boom. Is that getting you out of debt? Is that getting you to Reach a goal that you've been trying to reach? Absolutely so, guys, check those out. Those are that. Those are so. How easy can that be? Banks?
Speaker 2:Oh pretty, doggone easy.
Speaker 1:These are surveys, which is means it's your opinion. There's no right or wrong answer. It's a survey, right? Let's see? Amazon is one. Let's see this one here says get up to $50,000 from this company.
Speaker 1:Every month you make payments towards your credit card debt, but you never seem to make a dent. It's all because those sky how rock. And interest rates as much 24%. But Fiona that's the common could help you find Offers to cut your interest rate by 70% as soon as tomorrow. So they're money lenders, right? So don't pay credit card companies 20, whatever percent. There are people out there.
Speaker 1:Role, let's just say is it? Let's use an example. Let's say you have four credit cards for 20,000 bucks. Average, say, $5,000 each. Well, there's, the interest rates are slightly different on each of those cards, but they're 21 at 20, 22, 24, 26 percent. Or you can go to a company like Fiona. It says hey, let's consolidate, we'll give you a $20,000 loan at this. One right here says 5.2% APR. Look how much money you just saved. And then you have one payment instead of four, right? So there's what that's. You just save money there. Saving money is making money. Okay, here we go. Earn as much as $1,000 a month doing simple online task now Years ago, I would look at this and say I can't do that. I'm terrible online, I'm terrible on the computer. I can't do it today I could, but so maybe we need to learn some skill sets out there on the computer, right? What's what's been your learning curve on the computer?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to get in there and you have to be hands-on. You know, you have tutorials on literally every program or app that says you know, and this is what we offer, this is how you benefit from it and this is how you maximize your use of my app. If you aren't taking advantage of those tutorials and any other tools that might be available to help you enhance your skill set, then Read, think that, go back and say I am not good at, let's just say, researching information, and there's a lot of tools out there that help you research, and some of them are today's modern world, I mean with the internet. Then I, you know, we, you know our age kind of shows. When I think back, if I wanted to do research on something, I had to go to the encyclopedia Britannica.
Speaker 2:Library yeah, or I had to go to the library, you know. But today you know, if you don't have access to a computer, guess what? The library offers computer access. Now you can. There's a tool that took away your reason for enhancing your skills or picking up with something that's going to benefit you as you move forward. Take advantage of those skills. It you know.
Speaker 2:It's funny because the computer generation of today's you know rapid information, talking to your phone and getting answers that you want. It's a huge advantage for youngsters out there who are trying to get themselves going. For example, we were talking about living paycheck to paycheck. Let's just suppose you know I make good money and I'm living paycheck to paycheck and I'm saying to myself Well, I need to pick up some additional things that are going to bring me more money in, because my habits have put me in the situation where I am living paycheck to paycheck. So obviously I can just offer a solution from that.
Speaker 2:As we go into this from a technology standpoint, write it down, use the note on your phone, the notes on your phone, write down things that you feel Are preventing you from living paycheck to paycheck and what might that be.
Speaker 2:And sometime when, just looking at something that you've written down or that you've keyed into your notes on your phone or your iPad. You just look and you say to yourself that's me, and if I didn't do a or B, then maybe I would have an opportunity to take advantage of things like Enhancing my skill set, finding out more information, such as you described about doing additional things to bring an income. It's more passive than it is physically going and doing something and I Just me thinking out loud. I don't mind passive income if it just be giving my time and I'm exchanging my time for those dollar bills and Right now that I'm in need of those hundred and forty, two hundred and forty five hundred dollars, then Take the boxing gloves off, go go, don't fight with yourself anymore. Use the tools and put them in front of you and let them fight for you.
Speaker 1:Let me share one right here with you here. This is number four. It says earn as much as a thousand dollars doing something online tasks, right? It says is there such a thing as easy money? If you know your way around the web, there certainly is. So we were just talking about that and that term, easy money. You guys got to be careful of that term because the other term, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is right. But let's get into this one. It says here finding these companies can be time-consuming on your own, but a company called free cash has compiled all sorts of quick cash tasks From about a dozen advertisers and market research companies thirsty for more data.
Speaker 1:Free cash has paid out over 13 million to users since 2019. That's a lot of money. You can pick up and choose your own task and complete them at your own convenience. The coins you earned from each completed task can be converted into things like visa gift cards, amazon gift cards, cryptocurrency or cold hard PayPal cash. So this is something that you can do on your own, on the side, on your time, on your terms. So they're telling you they paid out 13 million dollars since 2019.
Speaker 1:It's this beginning of 2024. So you're talking four years. That's a lot of money for. So for you guys out there that, hey, I need an extra 200 a week or 200 a month or whatever your number is, this is something else where you can control the throttle. How much do I need? It tells me right here. Almost as much as you want to make, it'll let you do it. And often times, more and more, especially young people are getting out of their brick-and-mortar jobs Whatever that may be, retail, fast food, whatever and doing these online and for less time spent, making twice the money, right? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:and people are listening. Let's put this together here. You are speaking in terms of bringing in additional income without physically having to be somewhere Other than your home, maybe, or your apartment or wherever that you live. Take advantage of this because, as the technology continues to evolve, there's going to be more and more kind of Work at your own pace type opportunities to increase some income. If if you came into this podcast and you hadn't learned anything, pick up this little bit of tip. The tip is you can work and earn money without physically having to be somewhere by just using technology and the way technology is evolving nowadays with, and soon to be involving even more as this AI continues to advance. The key thing for AI, at least to the enhanced AI, is data, and as you get on these websites, you're providing something that these employers value very much. If anything you can take with you is the data that you have, the information that you have. They want to know your opinions. Give them your opinions, make money by it why not?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, data is the highest form of currency going right now. Data, data, data AI is useless. Without data it's useless. It all relies on data and when social media came around in, zuckerberg knew Data was what was going to control his social media Facebook at that time. But all social media is do it now. They all want data. They have so much data. That's why they've they've written these algorithms to follow us based on what we are doing. That's data.
Speaker 1:You can't even talk about something you need to. You don't have to type it in. If you were talking, trust me, your phone, your computer, your Alexa at home on the counter if it's on it's listening, test it. Go have a conversation about something you never talk about around Alexa or your computer and I promise you, within hours not days, but hours the next thing you start see popping up on when you open your computer or your social media is that subject that you just started talking about. Let's say it's time to buy a new car. I'm ready, I wanna go car shopping and you have a conversation with someone for 20 minutes. Hey, I really like the I don't know. Pick a car, a new Chevy or whatever. Right, you're gonna start seeing Chevy commercials because the algorithm found you. It heard you. You don't even have to. You used to have the type stuff in for the algorithm to find you. You don't anymore. The algorithm hears you. It literally hears us. Our phones are on, they are listening, so be careful what you say.
Speaker 1:So here's another one. This one says 10,000 or more in debt. Question mark. Most people don't realize this option exists. Now, that's kind of an average number out there. I think the average number or the dollar amount of debt out there in America is just under $7,000, right, that's a lot of money. So here's one that says 10,000 or more. Here's what it is. It says you're not an extravagant spender. That's why it feels so surreal to be in so much debt. But with higher inflation and rising costs of everyday purchases, so many of us have had to rely more on credit cards just to keep up with just our basic needs.
Speaker 1:The good news is a company called National Debt Relief wants to help by negotiating with your creditors to resolve your debt. This is for people If you've had debt you can't pay it back, you can't pay the minimums anymore or you've only been paying the minimums for a year or longer. You gotta go negotiate Guys, you gotta negotiate. And if you followed me for any length of time, you understand I talk about when I talk my lessons on credit cards. Guys, the credit cards companies make their money. When you swipe your card, they get paid a percentage of what you just purchased and that's how they make the bulk of their money. So these guys, this National Debt Relief company, can go out there and negotiate on your behalf with these creditors.
Speaker 1:I'll just use round numbers. So you got a credit card, $1,000 balance on it, and you just can't. You're just paying the minimum payment, $22 or whatever. It is Like I'm never gonna pay this thing off at this rate. You're like, you're right, you're not. But you can go in there and negotiate hey, you've been paying. I see you've been paying the minimum for 12, 14 months, whatever the time I may be. Let's negotiate down to $500. Remember, the other company said hey, let's consolidate. So it's a combination consolidate, negotiate, get that debt possibly cut more than half, cut 70 to 80% of that debt down, take a smaller loan, pay that stuff off and have one no payment done. That's how you can get yourself out of debt that way, much, much faster. Right On top of that, using the other effects the snowballing system to pay multiple debts off.
Speaker 1:So, guys, there's ways out there. There's so many people that wanna help you. Here's one add $500 to your wallet for trying out apps. Our smart phones are the world's greatest time killers. You can browse Facebook, play a game, download a new app. You're doing this all anyway. Why not get paid for it With a website called CashKick cash. With a K, k-a-s-h, k-i-c-k, you can get paid for things like answering survey questions or downloading and playing games up to $500 in your first month. So do you know what the average time a person spends daily on their phone, surfing and doing whatever?
Speaker 2:I have no idea.
Speaker 1:It's like four and a half hours.
Speaker 2:A day.
Speaker 1:Every day. So if you're gonna be spending all that time on your phone, your minds well make money. You're paid for it. Doing what? Playing games and taking surveys. Scroll on Facebook for 10 minutes, go do a survey for another 15 minutes, then go back and scroll on it again or whatever, because if you're scrolling, you're probably reading and learning a lot of stuff where the surveys are gonna come across. You're gonna be able to answer these questions. Maybe turn surfing social media as homework because I do surveys, because I have to answer questions and you get to see people's habits that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1:Again, there's 50 of them. There's so many here, anywhere from a couple of hundred a month to thousands a month, that you can make. Just go out, just go to Google, just type it in. That's all I did. This one's called on the Penny Hoarder 50 legal ways they emphasize legal to boost your bank account right away. A lot of these things right away. People need money when Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday. I don't need it in two. I don't need to work and get money in two weeks. I need money yesterday. A lot of these things sign up, do it and you get paid right away. You can literally get money that fast. Let's move on to, as you know, I wrote that book we talked about it last week a little bit Breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle, available now either on my website, moneymasterinstitutecom, and or Amazon.
Speaker 1:It's selling pretty well right now. I think people are obviously relating to it. I mean having 62% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. It's a great book. It's a financial literacy book and teaching you how to get on a path of how to work with your money correctly.
Speaker 1:I also have another product that just hit, which is called Notebook Roadmap to Financial Literacy. They go hand in hand together Banks. I created this notebook and I have it here For those of you that will go watch this on YouTube, you'll be able to see it, and or go to the website You'll see it there. Also the Roadmap to Financial Literacy notebook. I'm going to scroll through this with you for a few minutes. It's 56 pages. You can buy it on my website for $10. This is your literal roadmap that you could fill out and put yourself on the right path, because most of you guys out there aren't even on a path. You're just flying blind, right? So this is a very valuable tool that you can use. And when I was pricing it out, you know talking with my wife, what do you think? What's the value? I have a lot of time put into this thing to help you guys. A lot of research, hundreds and hundreds of hours, and what this, what this is. So look at here and again. If you're if you're on the podcast listening, you can't see it. So I'll just kind of do some explanation here of it so we can see here banks.
Speaker 1:I'll just go through the table of contents real quick. There's a self assessment that you'll do. That's the first section here, because where are you? You got to know where you are. If you're on a roadmap, where do you start? Right? There's a. There's a beginning and an end to any given roadmap. I am at point A. I want to go to point B.
Speaker 1:Point A here in this exercise is your self assessment. You have to know where you're at right, and that just takes a couple of pages to fill out. From there, you're going to go to setting financial goals, right? You know where you're at Now. Where are you going, what's your destination? And that's what setting goals is all about. And then it goes into your lifestyle wish list. What's your lifestyle wish list, right? Let's scroll to that page 14 real quick and just see what that says. And and, guys, when you buy this, it comes two different ways. I put this together where it's an online fillable document, or you could print it out and just fill it out with your pen. I see I'm looking for page 14. Coming up?
Speaker 2:on it.
Speaker 1:Here we go. Those are your long, short, midterm and long goals. Oh, I had a past 14. I also have in here where some of the apps that you guys can use to help best fit your needs. I have gold gold tracking apps. There's an app out there called ClickUp, strides, weekdonde, coach Me, joe's Goals all these different goals setting apps that you can follow, because most people don't like to write stuff down but they want to be on their phones or the computers. These are all apps you can just so, if you're sitting wherever killing time, go on your app. What are your goals? Check them out. Right, I have suggested books to read in here too, if you can scroll through there. Your lifestyle wish list. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Your lifestyle wish list is.
Speaker 1:That contains five pages of questions. I'll just give you an example of the first question Do you want to live where you are now or somewhere else, because that can have a huge impact on your finances? Would you agree? You lived in multiple places in your career, in your lifetime.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of what I have to do with family. If you have a situation where you're setting roots up and you said I want to work somewhere near where I, maybe my kids are going to school or where my wife works, or I want to work in a particular live in a particular location, if you don't set a goal, if you haven't targeted where that location is, then how do you get there, how do you reach that point?
Speaker 1:Well, this is kind of an open-ended question, because do you want to live where you are now or somewhere else? Could mean the particular home you're in, you want to stay in the same city, just different home, or it could be. I need, I need slash, want to change cities. Right, I want to go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Or in the case of someone who rents maybe they, maybe some of the listeners out there are renting an apartment and you know you say yourself, you know I, one of my goals would be to get out of this apartment and have my own home, absolutely you know. So you have to sit down with yourself. Maybe take a program like this roadmap. This notebook is a great tool for someone to use to say here, where, what exactly do I want? And you give them some great opportunities.
Speaker 1:Well, I've listed here it's. The second question is do you want to live in a city or the country? Do you want to live in the US or another country? Some people listen. A lot of people leave in the US. They don't want to live here anymore. Do you want to live in the mountains or near the ocean? What type of living situation do you see yourself in? Right, are you interested in downsizing?
Speaker 1:Some people need to downsize or wanting downsize. Do you want to own or rent? Some people don't want to own a house anymore these days banks because they don't want all of the hassles and headaches that come with being a homeowner. All the maintenance and upkeep you know, repairs that every house has. Right, they don't all stay perfect forever. Stuff breaks down and so if you rent, something breaks, you call the landlord hey, the toilet went out, I need a new one. All right, we'll send someone over. Right? Are there passions you want to seek? Are there new hobbies you're interested in? Is there anything you want to learn more about? All these questions I put in here that help trigger your mindset of what it is that you want to do that's likely going to have some sort of a monetary attachment to it right as you're creating your roadmap. So after that it transitions right into building a budget, tracking your expenses. Who likes doing a budget? Banks like next to nobody.
Speaker 2:That's like going to the dentist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people like doing it, but there's so many apps out there. But I put this book together to get you guys started on it and really understanding where you are. If you don't know where you are with your money, how are you going to know when you finally get where you want to be? You don't, so you need to know where you're at, and so tracking your expenses is key. It's like I've used this analogy before with you. Even think of budgeting. Like we just watched some really good football games yesterday. Right, if you're watching a sports game, what are you always keeping your eye on?
Speaker 2:So you go to scoreboard and the impact player scores because they're going to give you the score.
Speaker 1:Right, you're always looking at. What score is it? I walked away to go make a sandwich. You look back, oh, someone scored, right. You're like, oh, now the score is if your team's up or down, whatever it is, you know the score. You need, you want to know the score, so it makes it. You root for your team, like catch up or stay up ahead, right. And so that's what budgeting is. What's the score in your life, with your money? What's your? Where are you at? Are you winning in the game of money or are you losing? Well, if you don't have a budget, you don't know. And picture and imagine watching those games. Yesterday If you had no clue what the score was. You walked away to use the restroom or make a sandwich and you didn't see them score touchdown or a field goal. You would know what score, who's winning. I don't know. All I know is they're out there playing. I'm watching good plays, but I don't know who's winning. I can't root correctly, right.
Speaker 1:But all of these costs and there's so many costs that people don't realize that we have and I can promise everybody out there, you will never have the same expenditures month to month. You, most of the time there's more, sometimes there's less because life happens, right, and so you can't say my monthly budget is a store number out there $2,000 a month. That's my budget, that's what I live on, like. No, you don't. You live on plus or minus $2,000 a month, right, it's never exactly $2,000 a month because stuff happens. You maybe did more driving that month. You spent more money on gas, maybe an extra gas tank $75. Right, hey, you know what? I needed tires. Last month I had to buy tires. That was an expense. Or this month everything went perfect. I actually spent $200 less this month because I had no extra expenditures. Great, but you need to know these things. You need to know these things, right.
Speaker 1:This book also shows you the strategy of how to pay off debt, the snowball procedure, how to do that, and I also have in here a credit and debt plan worksheet that guides you through all of this, lets you know where you're at with your credit and your debt, all fillable stuff. And again, when you buy it for $10, it's all. It is $10. 56 pages. You can do it. When you buy it, you get both versions. You get the online fillable, so you can just do it right online, whether it's on your phone or your computer at home, or laptop or whatever, or you can print it out, right, either, or whatever you're comfortable with Right.
Speaker 1:And then your income source tracker. You know one of the first questions I like to ask young people. You've heard people ask the question well, how much money do you, or how many streams of income do you have? And I get people to give me a funny look Like what do you mean? I have a job. I'm like, okay, you got a job, your job pays you. Whatever it pays, that's one stream of income. Is that all you have? Like yeah, they're dumbfounded. Like you mean, I'm supposed to have more. Absolutely, you should have multiple streams of income.
Speaker 1:So I have a section in here called the income source tracker. Right, it's not just about wages. Hey, maybe you got a job that pays you quarterly bonuses. That's extra income, right, maybe you have money working, you have dividends coming. Maybe you have your side hustle. That's another source of income. Maybe you have two side hustles, I don't know Right, there's all different ways for sources of income. Child support for the late, you know, mostly ladies, sometimes it's the guys that'll get child support. But hey, that's a source of income. So you have your regular job and your other sources child support right, tax refund that's a source of income for those real estate investors out there. They got rental properties. That's a source of income. So try to have a mindset of not having one source of income, because if you only had one source of income banks and you got hurt, what would happen?
Speaker 2:That source of income would dry up.
Speaker 1:It would just not dry up, it just stops. The faucet just got shut off, right, I share with one of my daughters who does a hairdresser for a living, so she works with her hands. I go what would happen if you broke your hand like you're out skiing or something, and you broke your hand, what would?
Speaker 1:you do, I'd be screwed. I know right, cause you work with your hands and you hurt your hands and you need two hands to cut someone's hair, Not one she's like yeah, that's why it's important to have multiple streams of income, and so it's an income source tracker here. And then we have a retirement planning checklist. How old should you be when you want to fill out a retirement planning checklist?
Speaker 2:As early as you know about it, there's no set answer and for all of you out there who are listening, the retirement comes back to paying yourself. If you aren't using the goal setting part of this notebook, then go back and look at it, Because if you don't have the goal that at some point in your life you'd like to retire, you'll never get to this final page or this final section. The retirement planning starts way back when you're doing your goal setting early.
Speaker 1:I mean 20, early there doing it 20, doing it 18, the earlier do it, the better. Now I do have a list here and it's categorized retirement planning checklist, but you and I both know that's not the term I like. Anyway, right, I'm all about financial independence. So putting together your retirement planning checklist is like reaching financial independence, right, when your money makes enough money to support your lifestyle. So this is a great section also. And then we have the estate planning checklist. This is the part that 80% of you are interested in.
Speaker 1:So you have to have a state planning checklist. You have to have a state planning checklist. We're all going to die one day and when we die, we have stuff, we have assets. If we don't tell anybody where it goes, guess who gets it State they get all your stuff and then they go burden your family for the taxes on it, right? So there's a list here. You got to create a trust or a will. You've got a point, a power of attorney. You have to nominate a health care proxy. You have to establish an advanced directive and file it with your health care provider. You have to nominate primary and contingent beneficiaries for your life insurance policies, If you have them. And if you have kids, you definitely, or a spouse, you should definitely have life insurance.
Speaker 1:Selected guardianship of minor children. Hey, maybe the unfortunate happens and your kids are still minors. If you don't have that document telling who you want to take care of your kids, guess where they go to the state to foster homes and your family's like, wait a minute, I'll take care of them. No, they did not have an estate planning checklist. The law says they go to over here, and then you got to go to court and battle and fight and a lot of times you'll probably get it to happen. But what a headache. But you know you would have had this paperwork done, You'd have been fine. Create um, um, recorded listings, assets, accounts, insurance policies, location of related documents. Somebody needs to know where all these documents are in the event something happens.
Speaker 1:So this notebook here is an A to Z roadmap that's why it's called roadmap to financial literacy creating a lifestyle by design. This is your life. These answers in here are not right or wrong. These answers are your life. You fill it out the first time and then you revisit this at minimum twice a year, If not every time. You get rid of debt, add debt, you need to go in there and change up your numbers. That's why I update it, that's why I made it a fillable one online, which really easy to go in there and refill and and just push the recalculate button and boom, it'll tell you where you're at. So this book here, it's $10. Is that value?
Speaker 2:Very much so when it's especially when you stop and say you're starting with an assessment of where you are right now, if you're 25, if you're 35, if you're 65, if you have a need for organization, if you want to have, you know a how to, so to speak. Why not a roadmap? Why not? It starts with a self assessment, set goals and then, along the way, you have to have a budget. You you can't just reach your goal without having a plan. You know there's the same as it says most people don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan. But with this roadmap for $10, there's your ability to organize, to get yourself in a position where you can budget and you've set goals and you have targets, and these targets are measurable. You can measure if you're on track. If you're not on track, you make adjustments. I think it's a great idea, kevin.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I really struggled. I wanted to give it away, I didn't even want to charge for it. But guess what One of my mentors shared with me years ago if people don't have skin in the game, they won't do it. And so I'm asking for a little, very, very little bit of skin here $10. I mean. You can't even go get a burger and a Coke for $10 into that anymore.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. So for $10, you could change your life right here. Life changing, life changing. Pick up the book for $14.97, $15, $25. If you invest the three hours it takes to read the book, another two hours here, five hours, 30 bucks. You are now on your way to having a mindset shift, of learning how to think and act with your time and money.
Speaker 2:And I would add this, kevin you know a lot of people who've had success in life I mean the Warren Buffetts, you can go on down the line. It's because they had a mentor. And a lot of folks I hear listening to this podcast don't have a mentor or didn't have a mentor, and now what you're basically offering them for $10, $25, is a chance to have a written or a visual mentor. That's available to you and here's the thing about it you can revisit it. You don't just set goals or, you know, have targets and then not go and update them. If you're making more money, you have to change your spreadsheet that reflect the additional income you know. Keep track of things. It helps you stay organized. Who doesn't want to be more organized? Kevin?
Speaker 1:You know what, Believe it or not. Most people don't want to be. It's craziness to me. Remember how you do. Anything is how you do everything.
Speaker 2:Words of wisdom.
Speaker 1:They're true words. Live by them. I've been living by them for long, long time. You know, and, and whether you work. And then you know we have a hobby. We love to play golf. I play golf as hard as I work. I want to play, I want to win. Right, we just had a good weekend of golf, didn't?
Speaker 2:we, yes, we did.
Speaker 1:Another good weekend. Another good weekend, right? Another good weekend coming up Busy weekend that's coming up of golf. Thanks, I got four days in a row of golf, but that's another. That's another topic.
Speaker 1:So, listen, guys, thanks for coming out and giving us your time today. I hope that we shared some great value with you guys. Give you some food for thought. Go to the website moneymasterinstitutecom. Both of these items are available there for you, along with a bunch of other content for you to get out there and put yourself on the right path. Let's, let's.
Speaker 1:We've got to break the paycheck to paycheck cycle, and the only way you're going to do that is knowing where you're going. It's the only reason you're living paycheck to paycheck is because you don't know where you're going. You're getting up, you're going to work, you're spending your money, but you don't know where you're going. So do me a favor If you're on the podcast and the first time here, please subscribe to it. If you're on YouTube, push that like button. Subscribe to my YouTube channel also, and Banks and I are going to keep putting these up for you every week or so and just keep bringing value. Get you guys on track, all right, until then, if you need to message me. There's a place on my website that you can send me a message, or or on the YouTube channel there. All right, all right, guys, take care, we'll see you next week.