They Started a War...You're Paying For It | Let's Get Real Ep. 33

We took a road trip for spring break. Flights were outrageous. Gas was fine. Made sense.

But I built in the seasonal spike. I always do. Spring break demand, summer blend switchover, refineries making the switch... I planned for all of it.

What I didn't plan for was a war.

A war that nobody voted for. A war launched while this country was already behind on mortgages, behind on student loans, behind on car notes... and bleeding jobs at a pace we haven't seen since World War II.

In Episode 33, I'm getting into all of it. The gas prices hitting families right now during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. The delinquency numbers that were already at historical highs before the first bomb dropped. The 300,000+ federal jobs gone and the unemployment rate that's now past 4% and climbing. And the one thing war has always been really good at... distraction.

This isn't political. This is financial. This is real.

War is hell at home. War is hell on your wallet. And the people absorbing the cost aren't in the Situation Room.

They're at the pump. They're 90 days behind on a mortgage. They're refreshing their email waiting to hear back on a job application.

I'm Stoy Hall, and this is Let's Get Real. No guests. No filter. Just facts, finance, and what you can actually do about it.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2EHdfqGSEm0

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Transcript

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The Spring Break Road Trip That Changed

Stoy Hall 0:00

Yeah, they're around story time. This story is about the halls who decided to take a road trip during spring break. Now, obviously we decided to do that because flights were outrageous. I think it was gonna be like $500 a ticket. Hey, let's go on a road trip. Fuel prices are fine. We're gonna end up not spending as much, I think ended up saving like $1,200. But that, that thing in my chest, that that thing in my brain that always tells me during spring break, gas prices always go higher as they take advantage of Americans going on spring break. 'cause we all have a spring break within like two or three weeks. Take advantage of the kids doing spring break. All of it. All of it. Wrapped around that. So obviously naturally it's gonna go higher. Me being a financial planner, obviously I'm going to build that in. But what I did not build in was a war. Was a war. Not only. With

The War We Didn't Vote For

Stoy Hall 0:45

Harran, but them being the ones that control 2020 5% of oil supply when it comes through the strait of Hamus. So here we are with a war that we didn't vote for. Now don't come at me with this political bullshit. You guys probably know where I stand, but I wanna focus on the facts. Facts are, we didn't all vote for this war. This war is gonna cause many, many issues, mostly deaths to Iranians. There's gonna be deaths at home, which we've already seen a few, but we're also gonna have fuel prices during one of the most busiest time times ever, which is always going to put a strain on everyone's pocketbooks anyway, worst part is we just had the state of union where Trump

State of the Union vs. State of the Pump

Stoy Hall 1:20

decided to say, Hey, I'm gonna brag about, uh, fuel and gas prices being at $2 and 30 cents. Now look where we're at and how is that gonna continue on to hurt us as we go forward. We are already at historical highs in terms of delinquencies with mortgages, student loans, car notes, and all these job losses. Think about that. What comes next? If our everyday costs, let alone in gas, let alone logistics, and the long term of this entire war, which we don't know the end to, what is that gonna look like to us Americans? We're already dealing with a bunch of crap. We're already behind. That's where we currently sit as America before the war. What happens after the, again,

Delinquencies, Debt, and the Real Numbers

Stoy Hall 2:00

not really politically state. These are facts. This is, let's get real. I am bringing you what the facts are out there and how, and what things we can talk about and discuss, but also what can change. I'll get to that point when we talk about the job situation as the jobs report just came out for February, and I'm pretty sure we just lost another 90 something thousand jobs, like, come on now. They didn't just leave. They were fired. World War II makes sense. We had to ramp up everything because, well, guess what? We are in a World War. This was purely just because we had a Doge system that came in and fired everyone. We're feeling those effects. We're feeling those effects. When it comes to the IRS, we're feeling those effects. The SBA loans and in general, that much that many people laid off and not making money, has now created an unemployment rate that's over 4% and it will continue to get worse because there's not that many people hiring. Everyone's getting laid off. Hi everyone.

DOGE, Job Losses, and the February Report

Stoy Hall 2:50

A lot of people are getting laid off and now we have AI driv driving that war is, has and will always be one of the biggest distractions and always take over all the new cycles and outlets. It will, one, because for some reason specifically in America, we love gore and we love action. And we love apparently always spending our money on defense, I should say offense. Um, and dealing with war machines. Globally, it always is because it's talking about death and disruption of a country. Many countries supplies oil who name, name the thing. It's out there. Don't let it distract you from what's going on in our own country. Don't even get me started on Epstein files. That might be a whole nother one, a whole nother one that we don't have time for at least today. But don't

War Is the Oldest Distraction in the Book

Stoy Hall 3:30

let it distract from the fact that people are losing their jobs. All the delinquencies that are going on and now. At a time of reprieve where a lot of, uh, a lot of the country's getting into nice weather, able to get out of their homes and get some sun, get some free clarity, and have that optimism that comes with spring and the changing of the seasons. And now we have to pay 20, 30% more at the pump, 50% more in areas or how long this last. What can we do about that? What we can do is we can talk about it. Whether I'm calling out the bullshit or providing you with resources and facts that are going on. I'm not a news anchor. I'm not any of that, but I'm speaking it from my side of the aisle, and that's the money side. What can we do financially to deal with these things? Obviously, if you have a job, gotta

What You Can Actually Do Right Now

Stoy Hall 4:10

advise you to set a little more aside. Prepare for that variability. If you don't have a job, it's time to start looking. It's time to start. Making sure that you have maybe a side gig, maybe you can do some ai, maybe you can do some article work, but more importantly, all of the above. It is the most important thing to understand that we're in this together. We're in this thing together, have grace and have some peace with each other. Everyone's going through a lot right now, and there's not a lot of money to be. Flying around to everyone. It will take us time to recover. It'll take us 12 to 24 months to recover when this war ends. These policies end or we see the other side and we are not there yet. We are at a downturn. We are where mortgages, not mortgages, sorry.

We're in This Together

Stoy Hall 4:50

The, the cost of real estate is high. Yeah. Interest rates are coming down, but that's not gonna, that's a silver bullet. There's no money for people to use and spend, right? So right now we're at a time where we need to understand where everyone is at, come together and support each other and really truly be a community. So it's another, let's get real episode. This is war. War is hell and it's hell at home. It's hell abroad and ultimately it's hell on us as humans and individuals, it is not hell on governments as much. So remember that when shit's going on, people are talking shit. Everything's happening on the internet, that we are humans and this is hard on us, and we're in this thing together, period.