How to Protect Your Money During Economic Uncertainty (Financial Literacy Series Pt 2

Gas is over $5. Amazon is adding tariff fees. Delta is raising baggage costs. The economy feels chaotic — and people are panicking.

📊 FINANCIAL LITERACY SERIES - PART 2 OF 4:

In Part 1, we covered the foundations (emergency savings, budgeting, insurance). In Part 2, LP is back to help you navigate economic chaos without losing your mind or your money.

🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE:

LP (Rollins Breion) is the founder of TRG Financial and co-owner of The Hive. He manages individual and institutional portfolios, and he's walking us through what to do when the economy feels like it's falling apart — tariffs, inflation, market volatility, and all.

💭 WE EXPLORE:

Why pulling your money out of the market during volatility is a mistake (you're pricing in your losses). The difference between market gains and inflation (and why your pockets don't feel richer even when stocks go up). How tariffs and trade conflicts are already affecting everyday consumers (Amazon fees, Delta baggage costs, gas prices). What "rebalancing your portfolio" actually means (international equity, emerging markets, sovereign debt explained). How to audit your spending during uncertain economic times. Why the people who make money don't like to lose it (and what that means for the market). How capitalism creates millionaires during crises (COVID example: Zoom, Microsoft Teams). Why you should stop watching American cable news for economic information (it's entertainment, not facts). LP's trusted news sources: Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Malcolm Nance's Black Man Spy. Teaching your kids about spending habits (they're watching and copying everything you do). The psychology of the checkout line and why 90 cents adds up to hundreds a month. Why coffee shops, convenience fees, and impulse buys are wealth killers. How to balance quality of life with financial discipline (you don't have to martyr yourself). LP's final message: Money doesn't have a side  stop choosing sides and start making strategic decisions.

 THE TAKEAWAY:

The economy is volatile. The news is designed to scare you. But panic is not a strategy. LP's advice is simple: don't pull your money out of the market, rebalance your portfolio for the times we're in, audit your spending to make sure you're not bleeding money on convenience fees and impulse buys, and stop watching cable news that treats economics like a reality TV show. Get your information from unbiased sources. Make strategic decisions. And remember  crisis creates opportunity if you're paying attention.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

He's gonna do part two. We just didn't know when it was gonna happen. This is a ripe time to do it, so I'm grateful to be back on the pod. So I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Man, appreciate all the game that you gave. I learned a lot too. So no, last week I was like, oh, I'm not that good at finances. This week I'm better. But that's the journey though. Even if you don't know, you learn as you go. Absolutely. Um but man, with everything that's going on, you know, Trump's out here with the wars and everything, and a lot of people are afraid, you know, with their money not knowing if their job is still gonna be around. Yeah. You know, how does that look from you from a uh financial perspective?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, so the the fear is real. Uh I would say that um this is probably one of the more anxiety-ridden times for not only the American economy, but also the global economy. Right. Um, because you know, people float around like world war and all these things. But even if it's not a conflict that happens with, you know, guns and and bullets, it's still a conflict of economies. Yep. And who has control of what, who controls what piece of technology, what piece of land, what piece of the water, all of those things make a play into what impacts us on a day-to-day basis. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Because let me tell you, I have never in my life seen gas at $5 and a cute.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Man, that's that yeah, it's been a wild time. Like I um we're at we're at LA prices, and in LA it's probably like six, seven dollars. And that's what's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah. Good luck, y'all. Yeah, and it's like now we're trying to figure out a lot of people are uncertain, like, what should I do with my money? Yeah, what should I do to prepare for the worst?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, so the way I look at it, and I've been talking to a lot of people because during this time, there's hey, should I pull all my money out of the market? And I think we talked about that some the previous episode. If you do that, you're kind of just pricing in your losses. The market has weathered pretty much everything. Remember, we've had depressions, we've had 9-11, we've had 2008. Typically, the people who like to make the money don't like to lose it. So the equity market and our market will somewhat maybe not be stable, but my guess it'll recover as it always has. The challenges that we're gonna run into is what you mentioned is the inflation.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Because just because people are making money in the stock market doesn't mean that that's hitting our pockets to where we go buy our groceries, our gas, our clothing. All of those things will be a more expensive probably here in the near future. It already is. Yeah, yeah. And I and I and I think that um this, I mean, I don't our president doesn't like to call it a war, but this war it has definitely impacted the way we get goods and services, and also how goods and services are priced here in America. I don't know if you saw Amazon is already putting a new fee on top of their tariff fee already, based on what's happening with this conflict. So it's already impacting the American consumer. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Even I seen it the other day, Delta said they're raising some prices, some fee, their baggage fee. It's like 45 bucks now.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, it and they almost have to do that because if as a company you have shareholders, yeah, those shareholders are expecting you to make profit, and in order for you to make profit, you got to pass those costs on to the consumer.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

With no no uh excuses.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

But yeah, I mean that that's that's what a capitalist society does. Right. That's that I mean, that's the only way you have capitalism is by you know backing into, well, someone's gotta pay for this, it's gonna be the ending consumer at the end.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Okay. Yeah. So what as a consumer, what should I be doing right now? What advice? This is not free. Yes, not financial advice. Yeah, yeah. It's just a discussion. I'm glad you had to link up. Hey, you gotta do it. Yeah, yeah. What would be what would be some ideal things that somebody could look into? Let me say like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, so right now there's probably um if you're sitting down with people or you're trying to figure out your budget, what I've encouraged people to do is really look at how you spend.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Because how you spend may determine where your investments may go over the next three, six, nine months. Because I think we're gonna be in a volatile period up until about the midterms and maybe shortly after.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Because a lot of this volatility would be happening anyway in an election year, but even more so because this is a consequential year. So if I was to give people um some thoughts on what I've been looking at, it's not necessarily that you need to make changes in your portfolio. You need to make sure your portfolio is balanced correctly. And let me give you an example of what I mean. If you you sit down with someone, they may say, hey, well, right now you might have too little international equity in your portfolio because some of these emerging markets may start to grow now after this conflict's end. So let's rebalance and make sure you're in international equity enough. You may have too much, you know, sovereign debt in your, and I'm using some terms that you know some of you may get, but just ways where you need to rebalance your dollars to make sure you're making the most use out of what's happening in the market.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Stay off Uber Eats.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, hey, hey, I you know, but that's that's gonna be you sitting down and determining right where you're spending your money because you might have money that you can and and it's sad to say benefit from the conflict, but that is true. There will be people who make a lot of money off of war.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Absolutely. That's just how it works. That's any situation. There I even COVID created millionaires.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and and that's the that's capitalism, though. Again, that that is capitalism. Like in times of crisis, there will be people who hedge that crisis and make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Because if you think about it, who was really talking about Microsoft Teams or Zoom or Google Meets before 2020?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I never heard of Zoom. Never, I had never heard of Zoom until COVID.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

See, because it was a demand for it, though. It was something that was like, okay, people are stuck at home. I'm about to capitalize on it. And I worked remote pre-COVID. Yeah. There wasn't no Zoom. We picked up the phone and called each other.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Or or you probably used um, man, there used to be an old school one. Um it it barely even works now. And I'm gonna look that up because it's gonna bother me.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Go to meeting.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

GoToMeeting was one, but there was another one that um they had like came around and they had been around for a while. And then Zoom, and then the next thing you know, Microsoft, and the next thing you go, Skype. Yeah, so Skype, Skype had the game.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

They had it, they had it. It's kind of like Blockbuster when uh Netflix and stuff came in.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Absolutely, but Skype should have been the one. Like if you think about it, Skype, they were the first really in the market, but maybe they weren't ready to scale when COVID happened.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I don't think well, nobody was really prepared for that.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Zoom felt prepared though.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

They they did capitalize. You see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Like it felt like almost like they knew this was gonna happen. I was getting ready to say that. Like someone like, how did y'all know? Because it makes no sense to me. It went straight into it. It was it was perfect timing for them to be a small player in San Francisco to now a national, hell, international player in the market. Like, so whoever had Zoom stock at that time, congrats to you. Yeah, congrats to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Because I'm thinking, but it also I'm thinking of like this too, because they were so small, they had way more room to grow than Skype, who was already kind of established in their way.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

No, that that makes sense, yeah. I mean, you know, if I but even still, Skype, I mean, they it's maybe marketing and advertising. Something made Zoom be the digital platform of choice during COVID, and they've been since.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

They just now started getting real competition with the new services from Microsoft, the new services from Google, but Zoom had a good runway for about man, about four years.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

They have, many years. 90% of the calls I get on is Zoom.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

I mean, they had a good run.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I mean, if you, and I know this is kind of off tangent of what we were talking about, but there there will be people just like that now, especially with the advance of AI where we can all kind of build our own tools. There's gonna be the next Zoom that comes out of this conflict. Oh, absolutely. Something of that nature that'll carry someone forward out of this conflict for sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So you bring a circle around. This is your opportunity. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah, without question. I know a lot of people are gonna be moving off of fear, but this is literally an opportunity. If you see it, if you can find it. Um, AI, I build a lot of stuff with AI. Me too, all the time. 15 minutes, quick thoughts. So use the resources that you have now to create that financial future because this is not gonna happen forever, it's gonna end at some point. Not at all. Yeah, when you get to the end of it, you're gonna be like, what happened? Because COVID, I'm so mad at myself. Yeah, I think a lot of us were. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We didn't take advantage of COVID like we should have. Yeah, and I was at home, like, shit we ain't gotta do nothing.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

We just here, but but that's because we were working already. So we we looked at it more of a respite. Yeah, yeah, instead of, oh, I should go more this time. But get a hobby because you're at home. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

So speaking of that, like what about the entrepreneurs, you know, who are you know trying to run their businesses and all this is happening? You know, I know a lot of companies are suffering because like the tariffs and the prices to get their goods and stuff are going up.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, yeah. So there's there's kind of two things that I've seen that's really impacted, and I'll go on the smaller end of businesses. You know, a hundred employees or less, you know, might be in a position to where they've got some W-2, some contract work. What's happening now, a lot of that contract labor is starting to get let go.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Because companies are determining that, hey, if I'm already paying more for the goods and services that we provide, or the cost of my use facility is getting more expensive, or the licensing fees or whatever that I have to use to run my business are getting more expensive. You have started to see some attrition in their workforce. So that is a real thing. So that's one type of business. The second type of business that I've seen are your service-based businesses, where they would typically rely on more consumers coming in, i.e., the hive is one of those. We've seen people pull back from some of those type of projects. Hey, we might have had a passion project for someone over a two-month period, where now they may say, hey, that doesn't fit within my budget now. Right. So there's a trickle, like what I don't think our politicians consider, they're always thinking about the wealthiest. And if that you see what I'm saying, it's one of those where if they're considering that the wealthiest, the people who are their donors, the people who lobby them, right, aren't complaining. It doesn't matter what's happening to us here at the lower end of the scale. It's because all of us are experiencing that. Both service and the people who are providing products to people are both experiencing a restriction right now.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah. Because I see somebody said it the other day. If the politicians had to live like the everyday people, they would complain about it too and make changes.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

But what's crazy is they had to at one point. Yeah. Or at least, or at least the politicians, or I would say your house of reps.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Like the the purpose of the house of reps was it's supposed to be more of your common person who was associated with that district, right? Who knew the people in that district who are supposed to be there for two years to be able to maintain a relationship with the district. But what happens is the districts get gerrymandered so much that person never has to concern about their job again.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Right. And I think some people, when they get the money, they forget what it felt like not to have it.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I don't even know how that's possible, man. That that's crazy. Like, give me the money. Like, please. I'm gonna remember how it felt. It don't feel good. Yeah, I'm gonna remember how it felt. You know, I um in managing people's money, like I'm very uh, you know, I'm a fiduciary, so I'm doing everything in the best interest of someone that I manage. And and there are several times where I'm having conversations, like, man, we you probably shouldn't do this. Right, it'll benefit me, you doing whatever we're talking about. Right, but it does not benefit you at all, and you have to be comfortable in my environment to say things like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

You do, um, because there are some people who will take advantage of you. Absolutely, yeah. To have that heart posture of saying, like, okay, I know I can see the win from you making this mistake, but I don't want you to make it because even that does smear your name too.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

My my my dude told me to do this, and I did it and they failed. And they're like, now you people hearing that.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, and I'm and I'm gonna have failures. See that that's the thing. So it's not one of those where, you know, I'm batting a thousand, but I'm going to do what I feel like is, or I'm gonna give advice, I'm gonna give recommendations to what I feel like is in best interest of you, even if it is to the detriment of me.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

You know, there's a lot of things that I would like to write. You know, I had something I was going the other day, I was like, man, you know what? I'd love to take this money from you, right? But I don't feel like it's sound right now. So let's do another option, let's work our plan this way. It will get to your investment later on.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yeah, and that speaks to your character, though. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, you have to have good character. I got you working with me. I can say it. I tell people anytime they act, like I'm building this by myself. So the little people who are helping me have a little, but the few people who are helping me, you know, in little areas, I'm like, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Nah, yeah, it uh I and like we've we've talked about this before, maybe off camera. Like you can go far alone. You you really can, but it's gonna be fast and there's gonna be a lot of burnout, yeah. But you can go much further together, and that it's gonna be a slower process, but the rewards at the end of it will be much greater.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

The best the best structures are built slowly. Uh agreed, completely. Yeah, completely agree. Now we live in that microwave society where everybody wants it now. Nobody wants to season and um what's the thing? I lost the word that quick. No, I know what you're saying. Yeah. Nobody wants to season and marinate the food. Yeah. Everybody just wants to throw it in there and eat it now.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And that's in the investment world too. I mean, I get, you know, I I guess the content and your shows and other content that I've been on, I'll get the DM of, well, man, I got this thousand. How can we turn it to 10? And I'd be like, hey, brother, that that's not what I do. Like, you know, because if I could do that, I don't need you. Like I'm good, I'm just gonna turn every thousand I got to ten and not be working right now. You know, so I think people don't understand there's a long game to this as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, that's street lingo. It is.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I'm gonna come buy this product and I'm gonna flip it. Yeah, yeah. I I've been getting a lot of DMs of man, you well, you know, I got you know, this two two bands. Let's figure out how to make it 20. Oh, so you want a thousand percent return for everybody, which is which is unrealistic. Yeah, like but people do present opportunities to people that's a thousand percent return.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I wouldn't trust any of those though.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

It happens, you'll be surprised, man. Oh, you'll be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

People take it, but oh really, because it's it's that hunger for money in it, because it's how can we help people to see that money is a uh resource and not the source?

SPEAKER_00 14:38

It well, I think first we got to get them out of scarcity.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

So I think a lot of you know, there's a lot of financial literacy and a lot of financial education, and I'm not trying to act like I'm above the fray of this. But most of the time when people are in like a scarce situation, it don't matter what you tell them, they're just trying to make it to the next bill cycle. Right. You know, they're trying to make it to the next car payment. But once you can get people out of that, then you can talk about how you can use money for a resource, you can use money to propel you moving forward versus just living. Right. But it but I think that scarcity, it it's it's tough, man. You know, every a lot of us are in scarcity, even people that you don't consider to be, they're in scarcity. They may have a nice car, they may have a good job, but at the end of the month, they may be down to $2.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah. I spoke with a guy the other day. He asked, he was trying to be a client of mine, and I was like, at the end of your bills, like current day, like how much do you have? He was like, Oh, I have like $200. Yeah. And I'm like, you work seven, six, seven days a week, and that's all you have at the end.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Man, you'll be so I think I don't think we may have gotten to this last time, and if we didn't, I'll I'll bring it up again. The average American in hell, put me an average right now, you know. But the average American can't afford an emergency of over $400.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah. So I always hear a thousand.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

It's it's $400.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

That the the number, a thousand is probably household.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

But if, like, just say you need to go get two tires right now, I'm gonna just use you as the avatar, you might be putting those tires on credit. You may not have the cash to just be like, hey, I need to go get those. And then now when you put them on credit, you've got some interest that you're gonna be responsible for if you're not able to pay that in a certain period of time. Right. So now you've not only compounded the tire situation, you've also taken on debt. But you know what, man, I need my car.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, I gotta get to work. I gotta get to work, I gotta get to this meeting, I gotta take it to go out, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, you know, so um it we end up in a rat race, and that's why to me planning is so important.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah, because some credit cards can be a devil.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Man, trust me. You know, any any debt can be the devil that's unsecured. Yeah. Because secured debt typically will give you better rates, longer terms. It's a collateralized product, so hell, if if if all hell fails, they can come pick up or get whatever it was, but that unsecured, man, that's that's the you're stuck. Still cleaning those. It's tough. Yeah, that's tough.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

How does like give for people who don't know, what is the difference between a secured and unsecured?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah, no, no, great question. So secured debts are things like your vehicle, your home. If you've purchased a piece of equipment for a business, um, uh, and then an unsecured would be basically you making a personal guarantee. So the security is only you. Right. So a credit card is typically an unsecured debt. Um, sometimes you can get a personal loan from a bank or a line of credit. Those are typically unsecured. There always will be more short-term, higher interest. The secured things will be more long-term, lower interest rates. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Because I've seen somebody get a home, I'm gonna say that's the store. Get a store card, they bought like maybe $2,000 worth of stuff. Yeah. And they paid that minimum for like two or three years. And I say you bought that item about four times.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Absolutely, if not more. And and it's not that, and see, this is so that's why, you know, I'm a cash flow person. So, hey, it's not a big deal that you went and bought that and used that credit card. Right. But if your cash flow isn't able to sustain more than that minimum payment, then it may not be the time right now to buy what you just bought.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

But that's a hard thing for people to swallow. Oh, it is because we want what we want when we want it.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

And you can't tell me I can't have that.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

You cannot and and delayed gratification is we I think we may have talked about this last time, is one of the best skills you can have. It's a hard concept to learn, though. For sure. Man, man. It might be the hardest concept. Because if you can delay that gratification for something greater, the rewards are they they never miss. They never miss.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah. Because you always had that thought like, okay, if I'm what if I don't make it to the end?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Well, you didn't. I mean, that's how you mean it. It is what it is. You know, you don't even know. So, I mean, that because life is layered, man. Like, we could not be here tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

But you won't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

You won't.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

So what does it matter? Like, I mean, do do the best, and that's what also makes people spin frivolously too. Because they'll say, What if I'm not here tomorrow? Like you're saying. Well, that nihilism doesn't help you either. Like, if your only thoughts are, well, this, I gotta only live once.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I can't take it with me. Then then you're not doing a service for yourself there either. So it's more of a mind shift shift, like, okay, I might not be here tomorrow, but you might be.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Correct. And and and and actually anchoring on, well, hey, if it's not about me, maybe it's for my kids. Yeah, if it's not about me, maybe it's for someone that I mentor. Like you should always try to bake in something greater than yourself.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Absolutely. That's the why. Why are you doing this every day? Why are you getting up? Because a lot of us, I mean a lot of people are doing jobs that they don't like. Absolutely. Um, and it's because they want to take care of their families. But see, I I see a lot of like when people pass away, you always see those gunfuck, go go fund me so they pop up. Yeah. Um, and and you can tell, like, okay, this person probably didn't have a life insurance policy. We talked about that last week. Yeah. Go back and watch the last episode if you need to know more information about that. Or that the person spent so much money that when they passed away, they didn't have anything.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, I mean, most of us will pass with zero assets.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I'm not trying to pass.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

No, but but that's a real thing, especially in the black and brown community. Oh, yeah. Most of us will pass with zero assets and be in debt. Gone are the days of where you know you might have had a grandparent or two that had a property in an area that started getting gentrified. And like I talked about at the end, hey, go buy those properties, go try to find those people who would prefer to sell it to someone who looks like us.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Because gone are the days, because housing isn't even affordable really anymore.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

It's not.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

I mean, I can remember um, you know, I'm showing my age. The first house that I bought was $94,000. I wish. Two bed. That's what I'm saying. Two bed, too bath.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Really?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Jacksonville, Florida.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Hmm. Really?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yes. Now, mind you, I'm I'm about to be 46.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

So this is 18 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

That that same house now is worth like $400,000. You see what I'm saying? So that is a it is a starter house. It is a it is like a it's not a condo, but it's like in a duplex unit, but it's it's like a we still had a yard and things like that. Not worth $400,000.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Really?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

But since we're not making any more land near downtown Jacksonville, right, near the landing where it's prime location now. Uh oh, now, you know, they they got an NFL team around the corner from there. They had a Super Bowl there. Like it's it's all kinds of stuff that's happening. Housing isn't affordable. So, where does that first time home buyer go? They gotta be in programs or they need to get connected to someone to support them or get an affordable house or a house hack. It just makes it more difficult. American dream looks way different than it did our people 50 years prior.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Oh yeah. Now we try to survive most places. Let's say somebody does need um like assistance. They're trying to buy a house right now. Oh I ain't gonna say that. But yeah, nah. Like what does that process look like? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Absolutely. Yeah. So I I think there's kind of three things that I would say if you're looking to purchase a home. One, know your numbers. And I'm and I'm I'm gonna be very specific with this. Um, you really have to know what you can afford. Right. So that first thing to do is get that pre-approval, figure out what you need to do with your credit profile, andor what you need to do with your income profile. Right. But then after that, you've now you've got, hey, you may only got approved for $100,000. And then let's go see what programs are available. There's NACA, NACA. NACA will go in, it's a program where you go through some classes, you go through some education. Hey, man, they'll help you with down payment assistance. They'll also help you with um your your first year of your mortgage and things like that. Okay, you can also back into the city of Houston has programs if you're here in a Houstonian. If there's a local government, yeah, you yeah, hey, you can go to the Affordable Housing Commission and work with them. There's Operation Hope, there's Black Men by Houses, the organization that I'm involved in. There are plenty of people that want you in a property that will do what they can to make sure that you qualify and in a property that you could sustain. The challenge that we had in our community before, if you remember 08-09, people were getting in houses that they couldn't sustain. And then that scared away a lot of us. That scared away a lot of us from getting back in the housing market because a lot of us lost those houses from about 08 to about 2015.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Like it just was a period of time where either you had an arm loan, which is an adjusted rate mortgage, where, hey, I was able to get in at 6%, but in five years, I didn't realize it was going to balloon to 12%. And then now my payment went from $1,000 a month that I could afford to $2,400. I can't do this anymore. I gotta I'm losing the house. You know, so it's things like that that we were subjected to that we didn't realize as a community that now there should be enough information education out there to get you in a program. So I would say figure out your numbers first, get you some assistance from a place, and then also get you a mentor who has purchased houses before. Because even if it's a single family, that person can walk you through, oh man, I did this, I did that. You should avoid this, avoid this area, don't do those things, don't go at it alone. There's enough of us that's been in this process long enough to get you through this steps.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, and that's part of the problem as black and brown people. We don't want to ask for help. Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah. In any area, not even just money, but we do not want to ask for help for something.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

And that's your industry. Why do we do that?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Pride. A lot of pride, that makes sense. Yeah, a lot of people from like in their childhood area, they were let down when they got to ask for help. Think about it like if as a kid, you go ask your mother for help and you get fussed at it, or something like that. It that kind of lingers. We don't see it.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Um, but it it well, we don't recognize it, but it comes up.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

It does. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider that, but you're right. Like, there probably is some conditioning from us. Like, you know, one thing I always used to say is if you grew up like in a church um and you had a talent, you know, there may be people in church that were like, Oh, you think you're special. And that kind of sits with you. Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

And you're like, well, maybe I'm not special. You probably were because they make it, they make it seem like a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

They do make it seem like a bad thing when really you probably were special, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:36

That was probably your gift. That probably now your gift is gone because I don't think it really leaves. I just think you gotta pick it back up.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Man, that's hard though. But that's your industry.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

It is hard. You gotta try it. You definitely have to. Yeah, that's your industry. Love, I like for me, cooking was always my thing. I was that kid, like when I wasn't at school, uh, like kindergarten, okay. I was watching the food channel. Even to this day, I'm always cooking. And there was a time and period when I did it, but when I picked it back up, I was like, oh, so you still had the muscle then? Yes, gotcha. Okay. But it was the initial, like, okay, I gotta pick it back up. Yeah, how do I pick this back up? Um, but I forgot why I was going with this one. No, you good. You go. Oh, no. I wish I would have known that about housing when I first bought, because nobody taught me any of that stuff. I just kind of just did it. And one thing I learned is that number that they approve you for doesn't mean you can afford it.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Absolutely not. Yeah, yeah. Because remember, banks are in it to make money. Oh, yeah. Like, oh yeah. Hey, push it more because they also know everything goes wrong. I can foreclose on them.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yep, I get a house.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

I'ma sell it. And you know, they may sell it in the open market, they may not get exactly what they lent back, but they were able to collect interest from you, they were able to collect payments from you, and then now they've got a physical asset. So the banks they don't want to be in a position to lose. So they're trying to, you know, ramp that up. There's fees, there's closing costs, there's all kinds of things that make sense for the bank to lend you this money to purchase this home.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, and attorneys and uh real estate agents ain't gonna say nothing. Absolutely not. Some of them will. We got some good ones. Yeah, but but it but it's that that's not their position. Yeah, most of the time they're just like, okay, you want to find a house, let me find it for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

And and they're they get a commission. Fact check. That 3%, I'm gonna get you in a bigger house too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

I get that nice three percent.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Even so we even when we know you're gonna have a dollar at the end of the month, we're we're still pushing that as well because that's just the nature of the game. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

You gotta finances is really well, really, the world is a whole game. You gotta learn how to play it.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Absolutely. I think um money is a game for sure. Like it just really is because it gets printed in thin air.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Like it just gets printed.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

It and then it's for me. I had to sit back one day and I thought about it. I said, money is we think of money as this physical paper, but then if you think about it, when you put it in the bank, it doesn't go anywhere. You just see this number.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

But so then it's like, okay, I have all this money, but it's really you don't really have all this money.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, I mean the number can change, it can change at any time. And keep in mind, when you put it in the bank, the bank is using it for their benefit.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

They get an interest off of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

No, even more. They're lending it to people.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Oh, yeah, that too.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, yeah. Like, so not only the interest hopefully flows some to you, if you've got it in, you know, savings accounts that earn high yield, things like that, so you can benefit also alongside the bank. But the way the bank stays afloat is you put in on-demand deposits. Well, I'm let me stop using it. You put your money in the bank. They need to learn these terms. They're able to take a portion of that money and lend it to consumers based on their consumer products. That goes back to that number. And that goes back to that number that you're paying for, but you have protection of your bank, and then the government comes in with FDIC insurance to make sure that if anything happens to that bank, a certain portion of your money is guaranteed to come back to you. And and that's the game. The game is that.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

I always wonder, well, what if you have more money in that account than that insurance covers?

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Then you're not gonna get it back unless you go through some litigation. Now, there's ways to get the money, but that FDIC insurance is pretty locked standard. Um, you you'll you'll be a list of debts that the bank will be responsible for. Like, for example, if they fold, so by the time they get to you, you may not get any money because they're gonna be creditors, there's gonna be uh there's gonna be a lot of people down that line. So you may get that first portion, but you may not get it all. I could be having some misinformation right here, but from my understanding, that's how it should work.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Okay, yeah. So, what's the difference for those who don't know um between like a regular savings account and a high yield?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, no, no, that that's a great question. So, um, and I'll and I'll just want to go through bank accounts in general. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Because I think I think there's some misnomers on what people should do with their accounts. Right. That's why I always preach you need three accounts. Okay. Um, you need one account that's purely for your expenses. Okay. And the reason is like what? Um your um month-to-month expenses, like things that you can't defer: living, transportation, um, food, you know, things like that. Makes like bills. Absolutely. You you need an account there, and that's typically going to be your checking account.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

The the purpose of that, we don't write physical checks anymore, but the purpose of that account was that you could have that checkbook balanced to what you spent every month.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Right. I think that's a lost art.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

We oh, I don't know anyone who keeps a ledger anymore. And I think that helped a lot of people. Oh, absolutely. It made it let you know what you couldn't spend. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Now they want you to get QuickBooks.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah, yeah. There's always the technology. Yeah, there is. But but that was the purpose of that. Like that's why we had home ec in in school. Did I teach that anymore? I don't know. Someone might be able to tell us. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Put that in the comments.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah. But that's why they had it to learn how to balance a household. Like, hey, this money comes in, it needs to be zeroed out at the end of the month, or what balance is left over, we move that into a savings account. Right. Now, the standard savings account are for things that may be more emergency related. Okay. Money that, hey, we're we're building this account, but we know we may go into this because you know, the human experience, emergencies happen all the time.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Especially if you see not me accidents you see in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

And then that that also, that account also can be built up for tax obligations.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Because what else are we doing? There's only two things guaranteed as an American: death and taxes. For sure. Uncle Sam coming from here. Yeah, nothing, nothing else is guaranteed as an American. You you're going to die, you're going to pay taxes. Your freedom is not a guaranteed here. Right. And we're learning that during some of this administration. Exactly. Okay. And then that third account is where we start to get a little creative, and that's more of like that high yield savings account. Okay. And what a high yield savings account does, it's invested is probably the wrong word, but you're paid interest on the money that you put into the bank based on what the bank is doing. Okay. So, you know, they may, and it's based on the interest rates that are set by the Fed. Okay. Because there's the the Fed is setting the rate that the banks borrow off of.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

And if there's a delta or a gap in between that, oh, well, there's a yield that can also be paid to people who are putting money in these accounts. I I encourage anyone to get a high yield. It's not going to be a lot of money. It might be, you know, 3 to 5%, depending upon what's going on with market rates versus what's going on with the bank versus what's going on with the economy. But it's a useful account to have because then you get comfortable with seeing your money grow. The regular savings account, you're not getting any interesting. If you don't touch it. If you don't touch it. Yeah. But you have to be committed to not touching that account.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

There goes the big glass. That's the paid gratification.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

The other two, you know we're going to we're going to use these. You know, I'm going to use this checking. I'm going to have a ledger. At the end of the month, I know, hey, I zeroed out the $3,200 that we spend. Right. This account, ah, man, great. We've got our 90 days of emergency expense and we've got our tax liability potential at the end of this year. This one right here, oh, we're going to grow this. We might start converting this into an IRA or something like that over a period of time. Okay. This gets you comfortable with what interest feels like. And once you start to see money go into an account that you didn't put in, it make you're like, hey, how can I do more of this? That's where the magic of investing comes in. The more you put in, the more you get. Absolutely. Or, but you could also lose. See, that's where you know, you can always lose money, not in the high yield, but once you start doing investing.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

I was talking about for the high yield.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, for the high yield. Now you you shouldn't lose anything in a high yield savings account. All they'll do is they'll dip the yield. So it might be one year at 5%. The next year you'll get a statement in the mail if the interest rates change. They may say, hey, now we're only paying 3%. It's things like that. That's all you have. The rank is going down. For what? Yeah, and that it and it's based on what's happening with the interest rates in the economy. Okay. So what about like money markets and like CDs and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Great. So a CD is just a certificate of deposit. So that's almost just like depositing money to the bank, but you're just doing it almost in a function where they're going to give you a percentage of interest based on that. The money market is basically the cash portion of the equity market. Okay. So money markets somewhat invest similar to mutual funds that are out in the market, but they're positions that you can take money out on an easier basis. Because typically when you have your money in the market, it's more restrictive to take it out. Money markets are kind of like cash positions that you can get in and out of at a time, but they can participate in the market at the same. And then you'll even go a layer above, like a money market, and you might start looking at ETF, like exchange traded funds. So it's kind of the you know, same investment vehicles that are there, but a little more liquidity, a little more flexibility in getting those dollars out of those markets.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Okay. Going a little bit of debt of what a mutual fund is in the ETF.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, great, great. So what a mutual fund is, is just a collection of investments. Okay. So let's say that you're into technology. So what a mutual fund may do, uh, there's gonna be mutual fund managers. Okay. Let's say we're gonna use Fidelity. That's a name everybody would know. Everybody. They're gonna have a mutual fund that will combine, let's say, the top 50 tech investments at a fractional piece in there. So you might have a portion of Nvidia, a portion of Tesla, a portion of Amazon, a portion of Facebook, Meta, etc., all in one investment. So your dollar, it might get split 50 ways.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Because you're investing in all of them. So let's say Tesla has a poor year, but the other 49 did well, your entire investment doesn't tank. Okay. And you're benefiting from all of those investments that are in that one bucket of money.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

So like less risk.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, you're you're you're almost hedging your risk, so to speak. Okay. There's still risk because the market has risk, but much less risk if you say, hey, I'm riding it all on Nvidia. I believe in semiconductor chips, I believe in AI. Every dollar I'm investing in Nvidia. Well, they may go bankrupt tomorrow. They might and you're bankrupt now. Because you put all your dollars in that one. So that's how mutual funds work.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

All your oranges in one basket.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Absolutely. Yeah, but but you know, that's where you start getting into your philosophy on how you like to invest, also how liquid you want the money that you invest. Because some things, you know, you you may want it to sit longer and get a dividend and things like that, okay, versus, hey, this is just only for me to buy a boat. I'm gonna put this money in this um account for a period of time. We're taking it out for the boat purchase.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Essentially assigning your uh money a job.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. So there's different ways that you can definitely have a philosophy on investing.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Okay. Hmm. That got me thinking.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, yeah. Hey, people, and and that's and that's what you know, when I sit down and talk to someone, you know, one of the first things I'm doing is just seeing how risk averse they are. Right. Like what's your risk profile? Because then that'll let me know what type of conversations we can have around your your how risky you want to be. You you might not want to do a mutual fund, you might be a route it all out person. And you know what? If you're that way, you might not be the client for me.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Because I'm more risk averse.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

You know, so how can someone tell their risk level?

SPEAKER_00 37:51

So there's several things. There's surveys that I like to use. Okay. Or I can know if if I see what someone spends in 60 days, I have a pretty good idea how risky they are.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Can you give me an example of that? I don't want to make sure it's not me. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

There's no first off, all of us are in this together. So there's no one bad way or no good way. Um like if I see like a lot of lottery ticket purchases or um I thought that's a scam. But but even even but I'm just talking about the profile of the Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

When people say lottery, I'd be like a scam.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Or if I see like um, you know, DraftKings. Oh gambling, basically. If if I see, or or if I see real expensive um, you know, maybe clothing that doesn't match the income. At the galleria. Yeah, stuff like that. Yeah, you know, I it I can I can determine that, hey, this person thinks that they'll always make the money back. Okay. Like I I can I can think about that pretty quickly. And then with a series of questions, I can come up with a pretty good profile and say, hey, you know, like I'll give you a question, for example. Okay, I'll give you a risk question now. So we're doing this live. Let's let's see what you would think. All right, so if I gave you a thousand dollars right now, all right, we're gonna walk out this room, regardless, you're walking out with this thousand dollars. All right. Okay, period. Okay. But in order to get this thousand dollars, you have to pick one of these two scenarios. Okay. All right. First scenario is when you walk out this room, regardless, there's gonna be someone waiting there and they're taking 50% of that thousand.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Regardless. So you're walking out the room with a thousand.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

But the first scenario you're gonna pick, there's gonna be someone out there they're robbing you for 50% of it. You nothing you can do, so you're only gonna have 500 left. You might die trying, but nothing you can do. Nothing you can do. Second scenario is before you leave this room, I'm gonna let you flip a coin for a chance to win $2,500 now.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

But if that coin flip goes against you, I'm taking the thousand from you.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

So either walk out with some guaranteed money or leave here with nothing.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

No. Or you can leave here with $2,500. Or nothing. Okay. So what are you gonna do? See, you're already gonna ride it out. See, I can't. So flip the coin. I know. So that means that you're less risk averse than some people. Well, I would flip the coin. That's what I'm saying. You're less risk averse. Okay. Like, so you're you're you you take risk. Okay. You're willing to, man, I'm gonna ride it all. Why not just take the 500? What's your rationale to not take the 500?

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Because I I have a mindset of like, I know most people think, okay, what if I lose all the money, but my mindset is what if I win all the money?

SPEAKER_00 40:46

And then that's a person who's willing to take risk. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

See, you see what I'm saying? I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

So I can I can do those type of questions, okay, and then that helps me come up with an investment profile for you. All right, so we sit down and I may say, hey, um, I've got this aggressive suite of investments where uh we run some scenarios. You could have an average return of, you know, 18% all the way down to 2%. Right. Or I can say, hey, we've got this moderate set of returns that's gonna average 6%.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Or I've got this conservative, where man, we gonna we're gonna be at 4%, but it's it's there's no such thing as a guarantee. But it's gonna be hard for us to to lose this 4%. Right, less risk. And that's where you start having a conversation with someone. And and you're sitting down and you're that's the that's the marriage of an advisor and a client.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Okay. So high risk. I would, I don't know. For me, I I wouldn't feel right at home like somebody took my half of my money. That's just me.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

But but see, me, I'm taking half the money. Why though? That that's I'm I'm risk averse. Okay, like I'm I'm risky in things that I can control. Okay. Like, so if I feel like if it's like an athletic, like lifting weight or something, okay. I I know for a fact I can bet on myself in certain environments in an athletic competition that I can control that outcome. I can't control the person that was gonna come out here and take my money, or I can't control this coin.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

So let me take what I can control that's leaving with $500.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Okay. See, you had to fight me. But I guess I mean it's it can be a blessing and a curse to have that type of mindset because you can lose it then to be a watch before you get it back, but you can also just walk out of here with the money. But I don't think 500 is a lot, though. Okay, so then for someone like you, I change the scenario to 25,000.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

I'd probably still take the scenario. So you tell me leave a 12,500 or you're flipping the coin for the 50.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

It's my money and I want it now.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So now you JG Wilfer. Nah, like, see, to me, I think um, but you know, the the biggest risk that I've probably taken, and we'll see if it plays off or not, has probably been the hive.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Like that's probably the biggest risk I've ever taken in my life on anything that I've ever done. I feel like it's working for you. Well, it we're we have some, we have the bones of it working. You know, it just takes time, you know. Businesses are, you know, slow and steady, wins the race. But I would say that if there's ever been a risk I've taken, it's probably been this. Yeah, that this is by far the bigger. Typically, I'm more I'm a pragmatic person. That's that's how you become an advisor. Oh, yeah. You know, you're pragmatic. You you you sit for exams, you sit for client meetings, you sit for the mark, like everything is waiting and sitting. Right. This is probably the only thing that I've done where all right, we're gonna we're gonna see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I can't wait and sit too much. I I can. I yeah, see, see, I'm I'm real comfortable in silence. I mean, I'm I've gotten comfortable in silence, but it's just I don't know. I I like to have movement. I'm real comfortable being silent. I'm gonna get into my silent phase where I can sit there and just be like, all right, cool.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Man, I I am real comfortable with just I'm not complacent, right? But I am real comfortable with just being still.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

So, how did you get to this point though? To take this chance. Um or to the to the point where you're just so okay with the slow burn.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

I I think it um I think it just kind of was my personality. If I I I'm probably, you know, I'm a middle child, so there was a lot of activity above me and a lot of activity below me. So I was able to kind of like flow in between. And once I realized what I was somewhat good at, I was comfortable being good at those things. You know, I was good at, I think I'm a decent communicator. I think I'm a decent collaborator. I think I'm a decent community builder. And once I realized that those were kind of the things that I was good at, I didn't try to go stretch myself for much more.

unknown 44:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Now, some people they'll start to, oh, I gotta do more, more, more. Mine more was just adding to my community, adding to how I communicated, adding to how I collaborated. So I never really felt like I needed to, I could I could just sit because I felt like I was doing what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

So there's a good way to do things and a bad way to do things, basically. Well, I wouldn't say bad.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

I might be doing things bad. I just feel like I do things to keep my sanity. What works for you works for you. Yeah. And I earned and I learned that early, probably being a middle child, because you know, when you're in a house with and there's four boys, we're all my size. Right. Like every yeah we we fighting for resources in the house. You know, it's one thing if we had like, you know, so we're all athletes, we're all trying to matriculate our way, you know, in some form. You know, God bless my parents. I don't know how they did it. Right. You know, I got two now and they kicking my butt. They had four of us, you know. So um I just think, you know, I learned a lot of patience. I learned a lot of, hey, people may not have time for you. You make the time for yourself. You you have to anchor yourself in something, and that's just kind of something I stood on.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Man, you know, you made me think about something. These schools be taxing. Oh, absolutely. My son, my kids come home maybe three, four, three times a month, really, with some kind of fundraiser where, hey, we're paying for, I need you to pay for this. Can you pay for this? And the kids don't know. They're just like, hey, I want to do this.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

They have no clue. Yeah, they they have no clue that the use the kids to get you. Yeah, they do because that's on remember, schools are underfunded too.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Especially if they're in the public, they're underfunded, you know, and depending on the area too. Even in the good areas, they're underfunded. The only problem is the parents are willing to kick in. Yeah. You know, that's the difference. Every school is underfunded, just the parents in the areas are willing to kick in.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Because they come home all the time. Oh, whatever. $50 here, $100 there. Well, $100. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

And we know we don't know where that money goes.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

At my kids' school now, they implemented this thing called Fun Food Fridays. Oh, they got it.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

They're getting over. All right, they get over.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

They're getting over. All the kids show up with all this money buying snacks.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But to the school, that's probably a part of their budget at this point. It probably is. And we gotta get them kids to come in with fun food. Like it's part of their budget. Yeah. Just put them in your bag.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Absolutely. But like you said, comparison last time. Yeah. They want to go buy it because their friends are buying it.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah, you you can't be the only kid nothing going to the snack bar. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Y'all think your parents are broke.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

No, yeah. Yes, we're broke. That's I tell my dad, hey, we're in we're in a moment right now. Like you'll figure it out after. Don't worry. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Like, because back in my pre-Jesus days, yeah. Yeah, yeah. When I was like traveling heavy, you know, just spending money here and there. So we were at nice hotels on the water and stuff. My son still talks about that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

It's gonna be a core memory for about before.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

So we haven't been to a hotel. So we're not in that season right now.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Yeah, we're gonna get there.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

We're gonna go. Yeah. But right now, we're not in that season.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Yeah, yeah. And kids, and kids are resilient. So they'll they'll understand that very adaptable. As long as you're honest with them. That's why I think we talked about this before last time, too. If I'm working with a family, I like to have what I call family governance included in the conversation. If the kid is 12 or older, they need to be in these conversations too, to a degree.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Because you want them to start making decisions about money. So, to your point about that hotel, I do this activity a lot with families. Hey, we're planning our summer vacation this year. I I I got y'all four hotel options. Let's talk to Caleb or Johnny or whatever, you know, Sheila, whatever the kid's name is. What do y'all think that these options are right now? You heard us talking about money, and you know what? Kids are smart. They'll be like, well, you know, I want to really do the activities, so why don't we stay at this one that's $200 less a night? And then maybe you give me $50 for the activities. They will suss that out.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Really?

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Because I want to try with my kids. But you've got to, you've already had to start having the conversations though. They won't do it the first time. Yeah, so if you do that, they won't do it the first time.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

First time it's gonna be, I want to be on the beach. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

My kids want to go to Nickelodeon resort. And I and I'm like, man, y'all dream big. I love it. But um, your pockets is deeper than your mind. I mean, it's shallower than your mind.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

But it's a good activity. It is. If you give your kids, and I encourage parents to do this, I do it a lot. But they gotta be about, I mean, you might be able to go as low as 10, but about 12. Because 12, they probably spent some of their own money for real. You know, maybe they've had an allowance, maybe they've had to make a decision at the store or something. And if you've been having conversations, talk about what the summer plans are. Hey, we're, I know you want to go to this camp. Um, here's some options of where we might stay at the camp. Okay. But if we do this, you can only do two days of the camp. If we stay here, you can do four. They're gonna look at it, they're gonna come back with a good option. I I I've seen it happen more often than not.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Because I've I already have like money conversations with them. Um, because they be like, hey, can we buy pizza? Yeah, okay. You know we planning a trip. Would you rather save your money for that trip or get the pizza now that you're not gonna remember and they're delayed gravitation.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

And they I'm gonna save it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

It'll it'll surprise you. Like, uh, because like in we probably had this experience. Most people don't even know as a kid what your family situation is unless they're exposed to environments where there's extreme like wealth around them. Right. Like they definitely know when they walk into a mansion. Oh, yeah. What they can't differentiate is the house down the block versus the house in the neighborhood across the street. That that all feels the same to them. Right. You know, River Oaks feels different than third ward. Absolutely. But food is on the table every night.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

In both places.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

In both places. And that's kind of what kids experience. It's when they have so much scarcity that they can't eat or they don't have clothing or things like or their power gets shut off or stuff like that. That's when they start having to dip into their resilience. But most of the time they don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

I was reading a book and somebody said she said she didn't know she was broke until she went to her friend's house.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

That's how it works.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Like, huh? Because I didn't know anything about our parents' finances. I just knew food was there. And and you you could go in the fridge, you had you probably had a room or you shared a room with a sibling. I shared a room with my my middle brother for I'm the youngest, so I shared a room with my middle brother for a while until my oldest one moved out.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Yeah, so so that's that's most of our experience. You know, share the room, hand-me-down clothes.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

No, I hate hand-me-downs.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Um, but you had them. Yeah, you know, I had them too. And you some of those hand-me-downs, I had I wanted to wear that Tommy. Yeah, like I was looking forward to wearing that.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

There was some that I was peeking at, but now kids, they they have no, they don't even experience that. They don't experience a hand-me-down. My kids are spoiled.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Oh man, my matter of fact, I'm changing that today now that I think about that. You're gonna be. I just thought about that. Yeah, yeah. They wearing my clothes now. I'm handing them down that way. Yeah, yeah. So now I'm thinking about that. I'm treating them wrong. I gotta change it up.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Yeah, I got it. The oldest girl, she's growing out of stuff, so I still got my my little girl coming up. I'm like, we're gonna keep something.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Absolutely. Yeah, man. It's in good condition for sure. It it's uh, but kids are more rough on things than I ever was nowadays. These nowadays kids, and they don't even go outside like that. They don't, which is crazy to me. It's they're just rough on stuff. They be pulling on their clothes and stuff. It it it is. It's uh, yeah, I don't I don't know what changed. Something changed. We don't have the same collective experiences as we used to. So I think these kids just they're in a world of their own, but it's a blessing because hopefully they take us to the next generation for sure. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

Yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

No, pray for us. We're the ones that they got to take care of us at our old year age. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 52:41

So be nice to your kids.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Absolutely. Yeah, they there's a lot of us caring for aging parents right now. And some of y'all are caring for your parent with resentment. No, I want my kids to be like, I got dad, you know, I got moms. I don't want them to feel like they don't want to be around me. Yeah, so that matters.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Healing, that's my department. Yeah, that's your department. That is your department. Healing is important because it bleeds everywhere in any every part of your lives, even if you don't realize it. Because if you've if you're looking for something to fix, watch your kids have it. Because they pick up on everything.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

And sometimes they'll do something you'll see yourself in it, like, oh, I gotta stop doing that.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Yeah, and and it usually starts with cursing. Yeah. Well, because you'll hear that kid curse. Yeah. And you'll be like, Where'd you get that from?

SPEAKER_01 53:24

You, you, you know what the oldest at two said sugar honey iced tea. And I looked at my wife, I said, That's all you.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

So in the house, that was she, sugar honey, iced tea, and you that was she just always said it. Okay, she can hit her toast. The kid, the kid gonna pick that up. She picked it up quickly. Yep, and and you don't know, and they don't know what they're saying. They don't, they just know, hey, it's an expression that moms likes. So I'm like mom.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

I'm trying to be like mom. Especially girls, yeah, girls. I'm trying to be like mom and boys, is like I'm trying to be like dad.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

So I'm gonna say it loud and proud. And then when they get in trouble, like, what I do, absolutely what you did. And that's usually where that first behavior, at least from what I've seen, at least in my house, the first behavior is that curse. Ah, I shouldn't be saying that around. But they also learn it from school, too. True, true. But I still think the home is the biggest influence. Oh, yeah, absolutely. That is the home the biggest influence.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Because if you have a good foundation at home, the outside world isn't going to impact them as much as it can versus a kid who doesn't have that love and things at home, they can go to the streets and get it.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah, I would tell a joke right now that I like my part of my stand-up set, but we'll we'll save it for off the camera. It's about home versus school, but we'll save it off the camera. I can't wait to hear this one. It's a good joke, too. I think it's I think it's a good start to my um one-minute comedy special. So yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

But even with back to finance, kids pick up on spending habits. They do. They should have. I I've it took me a while, maybe like four years ago. I realized I will always go into the store and grab a candy bar or something. And I never never could think about why I did it. Like, why why am I keep doing this? I don't really want it. And I realized my dad was doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

And and that conditioning becomes so natural. Just it just yeah. You like you said, you didn't even know why you were doing it.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Just knew I wanted it.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Yeah, you just knew that a part of my routine when I go to the store, this this front console, which they know, put it right there, but plays right into the register. Psychology. It they know that. Behavioral finance. Yeah, their goal is to put places and things in the grocery store, in the comedian store that attract you in a certain way to get the brain to say, well, you know what, this ain't this ain't that big deal. Go ahead and put it in. 90 cents. And and that 90 cents adds up. Now, do I want people to um sacrifice themselves for something 90 cents? No. No. But if it's in every day, now you're at $5 a week.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

You're at $60 a smart box. You know, you start to add up.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

Yeah. Coffees. Yeah. You can make coffee at home type things. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yeah, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

Yeah. And then and in that, it affects your health. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's in my department.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

And that help it, and that health being wealth for real. Oh, yeah. Like being of a, you know, my goal is to make it to both my daughters. Um, and I can't say wedding, because I don't know what they'll do, but at least both my daughters, peak of whatever their education is. Okay. I want to be around to see what they decide, decide that their life is gonna be. You know, I I and and that's you know, I've got a four-year-old, so you know, I had a I had one of those COVID babies. So I gotta, I have to be a fan. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. They are different. They're different. COVID babies got they're resilient. They are some. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They they got some chromosome we don't have. I can promise you.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Something.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Yeah, I can promise you. My four-year-old walks around like she runs the house. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I got a crazy story about, you know, just my wife and I being in the hospital um during that time and me having to deliver my second daughter because our traveling um doctor was not available, the traveling nurse was not available. It was just us at the hospital where no one else could be in because of COVID.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

That was peaceful though.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Man, it was wild for me.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

It was wild, it was wild because I almost almost had to deliver mine too.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

I had to.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

The nurses came here right when she was coming out.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

So at the minimum, at the minimum, my wife, I don't care what I do. Uh, you know, I'm standing on, hey, I delivered, I can do what I want.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

I was the first one to hold out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

I have authority. Yeah, you you can't say nothing to me. Like I but and then I get yelled at.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

So you don't avoid that as much as I can. They try stuff and then they're like, all right, I'm just playing. I'm just playing.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Yeah, it doesn't, it does not work. It does not work.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

In in rapping, man, is there any last final words you have?

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Yeah, I I would tell people that, you know, in this, I want to come back because there's some other stuff that we can get into. But what I would tell people is, especially we started with the conflict, um, get away from American cable news. To get the real story of what's happening, you have to find it in other sources. So I want to give a few that I find um comfortable. Um I like Al Jazeera, um, non-biased, in my opinion, just presenting the facts. Okay. Um, there are YouTube channels that I'll give you a few as well, that will uh tell the story. There's a guy named Malcolm Nance. He's his um show is called Black Man Spy. Okay. He was um a military professional for over 40 years, worked his way through the government, who does things in a way where there's no opinion. Okay. Because what we get a lot to make you scared of the economy, make you scared of gas prices, make you scared of what's happening in the administration, some of that is to scare the world. Yeah. And it's not always factual. So I I like to give people more places where they can get resources. Right. And then for me, if the gold standard of financial information, or at least in my opinion, is Bloomberg. So if you're watching like Bloomberg Watch versus CNBC, which has a lot of performances on it, you got to go to the places that are boring, that are just presenting the facts because that's where your real information will come from. Because entertainment grabs attention, and that's what all the cable news is it's it's opinion and entertainment, and you don't need to choose a side. I have a side, but money doesn't have a side.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

It doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

And and if you're only watching the entertainment, you're gonna choose a side that's counter to your ultimate goals.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

So you heard it first. Yeah. Um again, and this episode is definitely brought to you by TRG Financial. If you need somebody or somebody right here, um check out those those um resources in the show notes. Um remember, your money is important, your health is important. Um don't buy the little candy at the at the register. You could be one Snickers away from uh diabetes. That's my department. But remember, guys, continue to learn education is important. Get out of the media, the mass media, because they're trying to scare you. Um and ask questions. We have to be willing to ask help, ask for help, um, and to be open to receive that help because that's important too. But until next time, keep rising, kings.