For Steppers Only: Raw, Uncut, and Unedited
Welcome to the For Steppers Only podcast—the spot where real ones from all walks of life link up to chop it up about everything under the sun. We’re talking relationships, careers, education, sports, the supernatural, sexuality, personal growth, entrepreneurship, family vibes—you name it. With a mix of laughs, raw conversations, and deep dives, this podcast is all about learning, leveling up, and hearing voices you might not come across every day. Pull up and vibe with us as we break it all down and celebrate the journey of life from every angle. Let’s step into something real together.
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For Steppers Only: Raw, Uncut, and Unedited
I’m FKing for somewhere to SLEEP
Financial survival sometimes feels like a high-wire act without a safety net. Ever had that sinking feeling when you discover your car wasn't stolen—it was repossessed? That moment of panic when you realize you've lost your transportation, your independence, and possibly your dignity all at once?
This raw, unflinching conversation dives deep into the economic pressures crushing everyday Americans. When Tesla vehicles can now repo themselves and drive back to the dealership, we've entered a new era of financial humiliation. But beyond the technology, it's the human cost that matters—the shame of sitting across from someone who scolds you like a child while you scramble to get your life back on track.
The numbers tell a stark story: $215,000 annually for a family to live "comfortably" in Atlanta. College professors moonlighting at grocery stores just to make rent. Young adults with jobs who can't afford to move out. What happened to the American dream? We're examining how the gap between income and cost of living forces impossible choices—including people staying in unhealthy relationships purely for financial security.
Child support presents another complex dimension, where well-intentioned parents sometimes find themselves labeled "deadbeats" while struggling to support themselves on what remains after payments. The quick social media judgments miss the nuanced reality many face trying to fulfill obligations to multiple households on insufficient income.
Ready for an honest conversation about survival economics? Listen in, and maybe you'll feel less alone in your own financial struggles. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is push pride aside and acknowledge we weren't "designed in this life to be here by ourselves."
And now our feature presentation. Yo, oh, I'm going to dump it. You like a? Yeah, hey, you know we got to listen to that YN R&B. If you don't know what that YN R&B is, that means you ain't never done something like that. If I up this case, I'm dumping it everybody. I'm talking about everybody. Hey, welcome to four only. Hey, I'm that little nigga that y'all know in real life I'm Jack. Why the hell am I holding my hot sauce in my other hand like it's a fucking beer? But anyway, I want to welcome y'all to four only.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we cooking over here. We got fried fish. You know we got to put a little hot sauce on the fried fish. This is not Tabasco. By the way, this is not Tabasco. You do not got to do like like. We got to do like that shit, like graciously here on Four Steps Only. But anyway, welcome to Four Steps Only.
Speaker 1:Hey, man, I just got one question. I don't hear been hearing this wild ass shit about these tesla trucks and these teslas. How about them repoing themselves, man? I heard I was reading this article the other day where the tesla truck backed out the driveway while the guy was walking out to his car and drove itself back to the dealership. Do you know how disappointing that shit that should have make you be? Do you know how shit that? Because you were a couple payments behind?
Speaker 1:I know a lot of y'all don't know how the fuck that feels, but I know how that shit feels because I done had some shit repo before man, I done walked outside my shit was gone. I thought somebody stole my shit. I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, my shit gone, my shit gone, man. I'm calling the police. They're gonna tell it's depressing when the police tell you no, sir, your shit wasn't stolen, it was actually repoed. It's like what, like what is your response back to that? To where you, they tell you and disrespectful to you, to let you know they want to laugh under their breath at you because you having a whole panic attack you, you about to damn near cry. You don't know how you're gonna get to work. You don't know how you're gonna get the baby some goddamn food. Your, your shit just got repoed. Well, what do you say? Oh, appreciate it. Oh, oh, let me go find my shit. Let me call these folks.
Speaker 1:Let me ask y'all a question how many of y'all have actually had some shit repoed? Because that shit, that's some depressing ass shit. Because I remember that time when my shit got repoed oh my God I'm talking about. I had shit that I needed in the car, but they won't tell you where the car is until you're able to pay for it, unless you want to come get some of your stuff or some of your property out the car. And sometimes you better hope to god you got an honest motherfucker repo in your shit because they might take some shit out there. I hope to god you ain't got no cash. Hope to god you ain't got nothing valuable in that motherfucker, because while they going through it, they shifting through it, they gonna be taking some of your shit. I'm just letting you know that this is this some real deal shit. I'm just letting you know if, if, if I was a repo man and you left some cash or some coins or some you know some jingle jingles in that motherfucker, I'm taking your shit. I'm just, I'm just gonna let you know and you better, I pray, I pray to god.
Speaker 1:These repo men don't smoke or no, no, no, no, reefer nothing, because I know half, I know a lot of y'all out there leave roaches and goddamn blunts in y'all's cars while y'all are, like you, smoking in traffic. Because I mean, I've been on 85 before. I'm talking about 85 goddamn flying Car fly past me. Only thing I smell is marijuana coming through that motherfucker. Only thing I can think is, god damn, if we on 85 and I know that shit potent, I know damn well the police can smell it if they pull up beside you. So y'all, some brave motherfuckers, will do so.
Speaker 1:But just for a hint, just for y'all repo men, hey man, I'm going to tell y'all like this right now, I done seen too many folks goddamn been lacing and sprinkling fairy dust, talking about it's a fairy blunt that they smoking. A fairy blunt. What the fuck is a fairy blunt? That motherfucker ain't got no glitter in that bitch. That motherfucker got some goddamn. That motherfucker got some toot toot in that motherfucker. You hear me that motherfucker got them 30-30ot in that motherfucker. You hear me that motherfucker got them 30, 30s in that motherfucker. That motherfucker might got some fentanyl in that motherfucker. But that just tells you right there that you cannot smoke with everybody. You can't do shit with everybody. That that does certain habits or you think does the same shit that you do.
Speaker 1:But anyway, let's get back to this repo shit. Man, when my shit got repoed, I'm calling around. I call the goddamn folks. Yeah, you can get your car back if you got. Um, they hit me with like 3800. I said 3800, I know I ain't behind that far, bro. They put taxes, fees, toes, everything else on top of that, motherfucker, just to get some extra shit out you, just because they were inconvenienced. Nah, motherfucker, I had to call an Uber or call my mama to bring me up, this motherfucker, just to get my shit back. Man, I'm going to tell you like this that's some depressing ass shit that you'll ever do. I'm talking about depressing, depressing Shit.
Speaker 1:I remember oh, another folks, my cousin called me one time. I am not going to put his business out there, but my cousin, like my locked in cousin, not the cousin that you don't fuck with, really not the cousin that's a junkie, the cousin that you actually fuck with, that actually calls you every day and y'all just chop it up and y'all talk. So he done, he done hit me up someone's on, bro, my car gone, my car gone. I don't know what the fuck happened. Tell me why. Somebody done sold him a car with a lien on it. He ain't know it had a lien on it. When, I think, when them car loan places had a lien on them title max places?
Speaker 1:Yeah, boy, that motherfucker told my son. He told him he woke up at eight o'clock in the morning freaking the fuck out. Tell my son, bro, bro, I'm just about to go buy me a goddamn cigar from the store and my car gone. Bro. I said I'm stressed out over here, bro, shit, what the fuck I'm supposed to do? Bro, they, they took his car for five hundred dollars, five, five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1:And that shit's depressing because I mean, if you, if you, if your cousin ain't never been through it, they're gonna be judgmental as fuck, unless you got a cousin that's been through some shit and he's gonna be like this hey, bro, shit, it's gonna be all right, this shit didn't happen to me before. It's fucked up, but we're gonna work through it. We're gonna figure out what the fuck did it take to get your, get your car back. As long as it ain't an astronomical amount, shit, we're gonna get that motherfucker back, brother, there's no worries. And if they cause any damage to it, shit, you're gonna get that motherfucker back and you're gonna get some shit out of him. So he ended up getting his car back. I got my car back also, but it's just the hoops and hurdles that you have to go through to get it back.
Speaker 1:But even on top of that, it's the, the bullshit. How you got to look at them folks faces when you got to sit down with them and they and they got to talk to you, like you, a parent, like they got to scold you. When they talking to you it's like, oh, you know, if you would have kept up with your payments, uh shit, this wouldn't happen. No, no, shit, motherfucker, shit happens. This is called life.
Speaker 1:I might, I might have had to pay a little extra over here to pay a little extra over here. I might have got flim flam out of some money. I might I might have been fucked up at work. There's no telling what the fuck I would have to do to get my shit back. So what do I do? What, what, what, how? How can you sit here and scold me? Just give me my shit back. Y'all done took it. Give me back, that's all I want. Give me back so I can get the fuck on, because I can pay all the rest of these motherfucking goddamn coins that I got to pay you so I can get the fuck on.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying just don't sit up there and make me feel worse than what I already got to do, because I already got to goddamn figure out how the fuck I'm about to pay you this extra on top of some extra if I ain't already got it in the tuck. I'm just saying but that's, that's the problem, that's the, that's the times that we facing, because I mean, shit is fucked up out here, shit is hard out here, shit is expensive out here, because it's like like I was. I was talking to a guy the other day. He is a professor at athens tech. This guy is over there working a part-time job at Kroger just to make ends meet. A professor at Athens Tech.
Speaker 1:How how do you say that I don't make enough as a professor and and now I gotta sit up here and go work a bullshit job? I'm sorry not to call croco bullshit job, but I mean it's a low skill job where I gotta put minimal effort in just to do a job. A lot of jobs out here are are what I call bullshit, but and they, they can, they can they tell you that you don't have experience. But it takes ojt, which is on the job, training to get you up to speed, because every job isn't the same. You have the basics down. I mean a lot of jobs out here. You can teach a fucking monkey to do. You could teach a 16 year old to do. You can teach a 17 year old to do. But where do you go from and what do you, what do you derive from to to get those certain things to get you where you gotta go? Because if I don't have the skills and you're telling me that I need the skills to do this how do I get the skills, how do I get the expertise in this job field to grow? But you're telling me I saw something funny like a motherfucker it was a meme saying oh, you need a bachelor's degree and four years experience to work at mcdonald's.
Speaker 1:And it should make me bust out laughing because, honestly, that's how the world is now, because some people don't even make enough to work at like I. Oh, change the subject. I remember when I was growing up and I heard people say that $500 was a lot of money to pay for rent. Shit. $500? $500 for a three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse man, you would have thought you were doing it up. You would have thought you were big dick money. I'm talking about big dick Now. Shit, that shit won't even get you a box to live in. I mean shit. You gotta go get a damn uh, four walls with no bathroom, no, nothing. Just to make, just to cut that for five hundred dollars. I mean shit. Like you think about it, if you got.
Speaker 1:They said that the statistic the other day for atlanta was that you had for a two-parent household and one child not two children, one child was $215,000 a year to live comfortably, comfortably. How many people did you know that actually cleared that amount that work? Nine-to-fives that ain't out here scamming, that ain't out here doing some fuck shit. That actually have climbed through the ranks a lot of jobs ain't paying you that amount of money for one person's salary that, like we are divided by two. You gotta. You gotta make what 107, 107 000 just to make that amount of money to clear, just to live comfortably.
Speaker 1:What's your definition of comfortably? A car, no car insurance, rent lights, water bill, gas bill? I mean that's not even including none of the amenities and some of the extra shit that you want to do in life. That's just the bullshit that you want to do so. I mean, what do you want to do? What do you expect us to do? How do you expect us to thrive in this society? How do you expect us to even? How do you expect us to thrive in this society? How do you expect us to even grow and go even further? What we are right now, because it's this shit is hard out here. This shit is hard to where it's like.
Speaker 1:A lot of people are like what's the fucking point of me working if I can work, if I'm still struggling? But you see, folks that are on all these lavish trips this, that and the third they go in this place, they go in that place, and these motherfuckers, these motherfuckers are got them living their best life. Ain't got a job to first. How are they surviving? That's what I keep asking myself. Then, on top of that, I'm going to take you the other route. I'm going to take you the other route. How is it that I sit back and I see certain individuals smoking every day, popping pills every day, drinking brews? They enjoying their best life, they working a bullshit, bullshit Burger King or some shit like that, and that's how they surviving. Well, how the fuck do they make it? And I'm over here trying to got them two pennies together just to spark a match, just to keep my make sure my lights on, just to make sure my water still running, and that shit get hectic, that shit get real.
Speaker 1:But it's like when I there was hopes for me, when I became 18 and got out there in the work field. Right now, shit, my son, shit. Shout out to Zai. Shit, congratulations, man, you did your shit, you graduated, bro. Shit, that shit wasn't in the cards at first, man, but you did it. Congratulations, bro. And shit, I know you over there laughing at my ass because your daddy almost teared up like two to three times while we were, while we were sitting up there waiting and you were walking and I had all these big ass balloons and it's then the third and I was tearing up.
Speaker 1:But back to the back to the story, back to the notion. How is it that I can tell him now go out here and be a successful adult when he doesn't have the experience in for the workforce to do that? Now he wants to go to school and it's like, yeah, you can go to school and do this, that and the third now be going be great. And it's like he can't even move out of my house yet because of how high everything is and the expectation about everything. Now he has to go work two and three jobs to make sure he ends up ends me, make ends meet. And it's like my sister said.
Speaker 1:Told me one day, not too long ago, well, a couple of months ago, she said that when it was last year year. It's been last year, yeah, she told me. Uh, she was proud of me. I said proud of me for what she said, that she was proud that I didn't have to live, live and depend on a female to keep my lights, on a female that I did not like or did not see myself with, to keep my lights on, to keep a house, a roof over my head. I was like damn motherfuckers really out here fucking for a place to stay. Motherfuckers really out here fucking for a scooby snack? Damn, that's, that's, that's some kind of fuck, that shit, ain't it? Well, when you, when you think about it, some people out here fuck for survival. Some people out here sucking dick, they're just to make sure they can keep gas in their car. I mean, some people out here just fucking to keep food on their table.
Speaker 1:So, because I heard about a story when I was in my mid-20s, which is crazy. This dude I went to school with and this older gentleman I think he was retired from A school district and my mother told me this story Like and I found this shit funny. But this dude was saying that he was dealing with this older gentleman and this older gentleman propositioned him to pay his child support. But there's a catch to pay his child support. The catch is you have to sleep with that man. That means that man will be the bottom and that younger gentleman that was working at McDonald's at the time would be the top, and it was just to make sure his child support was paid, that he would do these extravagant things but he would still portray as a straight man because he didn't want to get those things about him said out there into the masses because he had an image to portray. And that's crazy and and. But that's that's where a lot of people get killed and get hurt because they, they, their image has been sullied.
Speaker 1:It's like what would you do for I mean, what? Honestly? What would you do for a klondike bar? I'm sorry I didn't say that, right, what would you do for a klondike bar. But I mean that's. I mean that's where we're at in society. It's like, bro, where's your moral compass? Where's's your, where's your? Where are the funds in your pocket coming from? Because I mean shit.
Speaker 1:I know I'm prideful, I know I'm not going to ask for help unless I really really need it. I know I will. I will find myself struggling before I will put myself down low enough to ask for help, which is a bad thing, because I mean shit. It's like put your pride to the side. Sometimes you got to, sometimes you got to suck that shit up and say, hey, man, I need help. Sometimes you and and and us as men, sometimes don't understand that. So sometimes us, because we.
Speaker 1:It's like man, I'm supposed to be a provider, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that, I'm supposed to be strong. I'm man, I'm supposed to be a provider, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that, I'm supposed to be strong, I'm supposed to be da-da-da-da and you can. Why not? Because this is where I'm at, this is where the world has placed me, to where I'm sitting here struggling trying to figure out where the fuck my next meal coming from. Because I'm gonna tell y'all something. I'm gonna tell y'all some straight-up truth.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was working at Kmart and my check was fucked up so I had to overdraw my account just to make ends meet. Just until the next two weeks I got paid. The crazy part about it is my check was so short that next time I got paid I was still in a negative and it's like what the fuck am I gonna do? I gotta make it another two weeks. I gotta drive to work. I got shit I want to do. What am I? What am I forced to do? So I mean shit.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you got to push that pride to the side. I mean, thank god I had my mama and my, I had my stepfather uh, jimmy Ho, rest his soul. That had my back 10 times out of 10. Because a lot of people don't understand that aspect of life, don't understand that aspect of reality, to where sometimes we gotta soak that shit the fuck up and ask for that help, reach out that hand, because we were not designed in this life to be here by ourselves. We were. We were here to depend on others and others to help us, but this is the problem. So many people have will make fun of you and talk behind your back or post shit about you on social media, because I saw I saw this shit the other day, man, and well, not to earlier today.
Speaker 1:Honestly, what is what this girl was talking about? Her ain't shit, baby daddy, blah, blah, he, he, he got them behind on child support. He only obligated two, two hundred dollars and some change, and she cleared up over a hundred thousand a year and blah, blah, blah, bro. To be honest, why the fuck are you putting that shit out though? Honestly, because it ain't nobody's business the struggles that y'all, y'all go through, except for y'all's own, because shit, whoo that shit easy as fuck to get behind on child support. You fucking I mean you acting like nobody don't lose a job, you acting like you don't change jobs. I understand that the motherfucker man is up to saying, hey man, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying to get back right, because I mean, shit happens every day.
Speaker 1:But as soon as you see some shit like that, y'all quick as fuck to call the man a deadbeat dad or something like that, when maybe that's not the real reality about it. Maybe that's the painting that they're drawing about this individual and that's the only thing that will come forth about this individual Is the miserableness being portrayed about him. Or I'm going to tell you like this I'm going to be honest there's always two sides to a story Well, three, but there's always two sides to a coin. Sometimes you do have those ain't shit baby daddies and sometimes you had those, those baby daddies or those fathers that actually try, they actually give a fuck, they actually want to be in their child's lives and they do everything and above to make sure they are okay and make sure everything that they get is what they get and make sure the things that they get to survive is what they really need, because sometimes we think we need certain things in life and we really don't. We think we need certain items in life when we really don't and it's like live, live, live. Within your means so you can make sure you got them ducats and coins to make sure all your shit is straight. Your means, so you could make sure you got them ducats and coins to make sure all your shit is straight.
Speaker 1:Because, I mean, I remember once upon a time, shit I was paying what? 1600 a month and child support. And that shit was gruesome, it's like. And I and I told my um, my ex-wife at the time, my wife, um, I said, shit, hell, I could make more unemployment and stay in my ass at home than I make it at working at a job. I just put in more more, um, I just paid out taxes, insurance and child support and barely brought home 200. And it's it's like, how is that right? Damn the father, damn the way he eat.
Speaker 1:Y'all just got to make sure the other side of the other family's over there straight, even though he might have a family over here he got to take care of. Now you've putting in, putting him in position to where he has to rely on a female to to to live. Now he's. Now he's looked at it like a leech. Now you're looking at him like, oh, you can't pay shit over there because you got too much responsibility over here. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Man, that ain't even the case. Not when you, not when you open a book and you look at the situation, not when you put the, the individual situation on a piece of paper. So what do you? Do you? You still gonna be judgmental off of them. You still gonna judge them because, hey, we listen and we don't judge, and that's all I got to say for four steppers only we out, peace. I'm finna, eat some of them motherfucking fish. Fuck you, man, feel good. I'm finna, eat some of them motherfucking fish. What the fuck you mean Feel good? Outro Music.
