FIRE Social Worker Show
Welcome to The FIRE Social Worker Show, where financial independence meets compassion and purpose. Hosted by Joey Laswell, a Certified Financial Social Worker and military veteran, this podcast is your guide to building a brighter financial future while staying true to your values.
Join us for candid conversations, actionable money tips, and inspiring stories from industry experts, military members, and everyday changemakers. Whether you’re a social worker, part of the military community, or simply seeking financial freedom, this show is here to empower you.
It’s time to ignite your financial independence and create a lasting impact. Start your journey with The FIRE Social Worker Show!
FIRE Social Worker Show
From Airwaves to Assets: Joey Laswell on Veteran Empowerment Through Gaming and Finance
Discover the intricate dance between finance, gaming, and veteran empowerment in our latest episode with Joey Laswell, a certified financial social worker and former Air Force member. Joey shares his expert insights on personal finance management, highlighting the psychological factors that influence financial decision-making. Explore the innovative efforts of Military Broadcast Radio (MBR), a Denver-based nonprofit that's revolutionizing veteran support through podcasting and gaming. Joey helps us unpack the timeless benefits of gaming for veterans, while breaking down misconceptions and spotlighting the profound community-building it fosters.
Embark on a journey through the whirlwind world of penny stocks and cryptocurrency trading. We'll tackle the pros and cons of penny stocks and how platforms like E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and Acorns can simplify your trading experience. Joey offers his take on the tumultuous crypto market, referencing memorable events like Tom Brady's infamous trade, and how political shifts leave imprints. Our exploration doesn't stop there; we dive into the role of media and streaming services versus traditional cable, and how these affect veterans in more ways than one.
In our final segment, we honor veterans by amplifying their voices and stories—shedding light on their unique experiences and challenges. Joey opens up about his personal journey with ADHD and brain injuries, setting the stage for future endeavors in gaming and personal growth. We delve into strategies for building a supportive community that tackles serious issues like veteran suicides through meaningful communication. As we look ahead to 2025, exciting plans unfold for expanding gaming and streaming content to platforms like Twitch and Roku, providing veterans with more opportunities for empowerment and connection.
#MBR, #MilitaryBroadcastRadio
Please join me on my different platforms and follow along my journey towards FIRE.
https://laswell.veteran.cards/
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Speaker 3:Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice.
Speaker 5:Find us on the web at mbradious. I'm a certified financial social worker. I was in the Air Force for 14 years and then I paid off $20,000 of debt while I was active duty within three years as an E3. So that's kind of like I got really into personal finance and so I've been really passionate about that ever since. And that was 10, 12 years ago now. So since then I became a social worker and now I'm a 12 years ago now. So since then I became a social worker and now I'm a certified financial social worker. So we kind of get into, you know, dealing with finances, but then also kind of dealing with the psychology behind finances, like the you know, the mental side of things.
Speaker 3:So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy when it comes to finances. Please welcome the fire social worker, joey Laswell.
Speaker 6:Hey, hey, hey, the fire social worker is in the house.
Speaker 7:We have H-Train. I made it on the show again.
Speaker 6:Military broadcast radio. He's the man, the myth, the legend. Joel H-Train is in the house. This is money in the military and, um, you know, we're just going to have a fun little session today. We're going to talk about a few things on that are on the horizon for mbr. Um, mbr for those of you who are uninitiated is military broadcast radio, non-profit, out of denver, and basically they helped me create this podcast and and their basically mission is to give veterans a voice by helping them create podcasts. So I just want to say a big shout out for H train. He's the man, the wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain, and now he's. He's pulled the curtain down and he's showing his, his lovely face. So appreciate you, joel, for jumping on.
Speaker 7:Hey, yeah, no problem, you know. I just want to reiterate that. You know we're very lucky that we have. He's a friend of mine, he's from the UK, his name is Kevin, I just call him Kevin, I don't really say his last name. So I reached out to Kevin and you know I told him look, then this was a long time ago. I'm like, look, you know, if we're going to give app, a long time ago was the live message to where you could go on the app. You go on the live message, you can record something and then you can send it. Now, this new update that's coming up, this new update, not only are you going to be able to see video for the audio radio station, like DJ Clado and stuff, but now for talk radio we're connected onto the Roku. So we have MBTV going on 24 hours a day, nice, and when we come on we interrupt their broadcasts and there we go and then you know we have this gaming channel you know, the one thing that I want to reiterate with the gaming channel.
Speaker 7:This is the reason why I created the gaming channel. Joey, now, you know me, I I'm not a gamer, okay, but as as far as me and you, I know that you've been helping veterans for at least a year, maybe even two, maybe even longer, okay, and you know one thing that I've learned is a lot of them play games, yes, a lot of them play games and their wives and their girlfriends get upset with them and everything. And you know, I wanted to create a channel so that it kind of spotlighted, hey, you know what, just because it doesn't do nothing for you, it's an outlet for him.
Speaker 7:You know, not everybody can be he-man or superman you know, not everybody can be a sports athlete, not everybody can have a, you know, space for video, right, and not everybody, just like me, doesn't really have a voice for the radio. But what they do have is they have that outlet, that game. And if they're going to do something that's going to be beneficial, well then we should do something beneficial by bringing the veterans together. Do something beneficial by bringing the veterans together because I tell you, I started, I started posting that meme about a week ago. Instead of the 22, you know, you know, suicides a day.
Speaker 7:I encourage everybody just to just to go by saying you know, eight-minute conversation can change a lot Absolutely. And the reason why I bring that up is because you know Magic Mike and me, other than this year we didn't talk. And I don't know if that's how Battle Buddies work sometimes. I know that I got my battle buddy Sarpo that's in Minnesota. I know that we don't talk, but as soon as he like calls me or he writes me, I don't even ask man.
Speaker 7:I just show up unannounced, because if he's reached now that means. Hey, we, we need some quality time and that's Okay. I would rather a soldier come and call me or come and like, kidnap me and take Me to lunch and text me, okay, but anyways, I don't mean to go off the rails. I think people need to understand that gaming is very rehabilitational, for some people.
Speaker 7:You know some people. They do it and they get rid of Culpertone or whatever it's called. Some people do it and they get Culpertone. I mean, it's an outlet and if your husband or your boyfriend or your veteran plays games, it doesn't matter if he plays in 28 hours a day. I'm telling you you'd rather him play those 18 hours a day than him not playing them at all.
Speaker 6:Yeah, ooh, yeah, that's heavy right there, but that's just right on the money though, because, um, you know, like one thing I've learned about the veteran community is that we do need that outreach. Sometimes we need that physical, you know, nudge in the right direction, and whether it's like, hey, somebody it's gone radio silent from so and so, so I'm going to reach out. So I appreciate you bringing that up. And yeah, the gaming platform is just another way of connecting with your fellow veterans, and I've actually been recently doing research into video game therapy as a therapist. I saw that, yeah, there's an actual.
Speaker 7:That's awesome, yeah, so I'm going to try.
Speaker 6:There's an actual awesome yeah. So I'm going to try to get certified in video game therapy and so I mean I'm not licensed yet in the in that specific thing.
Speaker 7:Look, I tell you what it's better to have somebody that's willing.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 7:To talk to you and give you conversation, rather than somebody that's just doing it to because they want to check the box you know, yeah, I mean, I know there's a lot of good therapists for VA, but let's face it, they do get paid, okay, and when you talk to a friend or a battle they don't get paid. If you're annoying, they'll just hang up on you.
Speaker 1:You know, they don't care.
Speaker 7:So you know that they'll just hang up on you. They don't care. So you know that they're there because they want to help you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, and I would be doing this all pro bono. I'm not going to be charging anybody. So if anyone wants to jump on my stream and talk about stuff, it doesn't have to be even finance related, it can just be like, hey, I need a battle buddy to talk to, so I will step up and be your, you guys's, battle buddy. Uh, you know, I am a licensed master social worker, I'm a therapist now. So, like I'm, I'm, I'm equipped to handle some of these situations and uh, you know, but at the same time I know I'm not going to be perfect. So, but I'm just wanting to provide an outlet and then encourage other veterans who maybe, if you're already a streamer, a video game streamer, and you want to jump on mbr, then you know, hit us up. Well, how would they want to do that? If they wanted to do that, joel, how would, how would you encourage somebody to jump in and become a video game streamer for mbr?
Speaker 7:well, you know, the first thing is first, is you know course, like our page. Subscribe today there you go. But we have an advertisement that we sent out on TikTok and we sent out on some other social media platforms and shown your Discord that you created and look, this is the thing. Okay, any veteran, any person, can go anywhere that they want in this world. Look at Elon Musk he's not a veteran, but look, he took a rocket up into space and came back.
Speaker 7:You know, so that should show you, no matter how much hate you got for the guy, that should show you that if you can't get something done, then you make it happen you pave that road and you create that path and and people will help you. You know I was. I was telling veterans talk to the show before here that you know you just have to carry that boulder like halfway up the hill because, sooner or later, people's gonna see the progress.
Speaker 7:They're gonna see that you want to help. They're gonna notice and then they're gonna help. Why do you think that? Uh, a person? Because I've been through it so many times. Uh, when a person is in a wheelchair, do you realize? Until we get to that Cement portion, we never get a person to come over and say, hey, you want me to roll you up that hill.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 7:But you wouldn't know that unless you experience that, and I experienced that For a good year and a half. So, I've learned you have to take two steps forward before somebody will make it step forward themselves.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and then it's also like the pay it forward, the chain reaction of positivity. You know, like if you see, if you're helping veterans and somebody sees you helping veterans, then maybe they'll be inspired to do the same thing, and so it'll hopefully cause a chain reaction of of like just support for, for the veterans in our lives. So yeah, so yeah. This, this is part of the mbr mission. It's evolving, it's, it's changing, it's growing, it's. It's been really cool, like I was just thinking about this, like it was almost like a year ago in this period of time, when that email went out from the va I know, know right and it's so crazy.
Speaker 6:I was on that email immediately. I filled out the sheet and I was like this is something I got to do. So now look at us, almost a year later.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and what's so surprising is we haven't changed a little bit. We've changed a lot in one year. That's what's insane that's crazy.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I love it. I love it and, and you know there's just more to come from mbr, we're, you know, we're like a little ragtag group of, of, uh, veterans. You know, this is all non-profit, like this is all volunteer.
Speaker 7:Let you know, we're not getting paid for any of this right, and you know and amber has a question, real quick, she says um, I'll do this in the, in a narrative voice okay joey, what would you do think of dollar stocks and what company is breast to trade with? Thank you, I'll hang up and listen.
Speaker 6:Alright, so I'm actually going to try out my little custom chat GPT that I'm making and I'm going to basically put it through its paces a little bit, and actually I can probably just stream this and just put it on screen, just because I just want to show, kind of behind the scenes, see how it works.
Speaker 7:Go to present of behind the scenes see how it works. Yeah, go to present Head to the bottom. Go to share screen and then it's either a Chrome tab or maybe it's your window, and there you go, you're on like a bad rash.
Speaker 6:There we go. All right, what do you think of Dollar Stocks? And then, what was the best company? Let's see.
Speaker 7:Oh dollar stocks. What's the best company to trade with?
Speaker 6:All right. So moment of truth, let's see what it says. Dollar stocks, also known as penny stocks, are are shares of small company typically trading for less than five dollars per share. They are attractive for their low price, which makes them seem like an opportunity to earn significant returns with small investments. However, they come with high risk due to limited liquidity, potential for fraud and the volatility of the businesses behind them. All All right, so yeah, I haven't really touched on penny stocks or dollar stocks very much in my shows, but, yeah, ultimately, you know you can trade on any platform. You know E-Trade, td America Trade, td Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers. So wherever, whatever your choice of you know, I don't have any specific recommendation for platform, but it's really just like where you buy your stocks, yeah so, yeah, that's basically you know what I think, joey?
Speaker 7:what I think she's talking about is like say you know what I got? I got fifty dollars at the end of the month that I know that's not going anywhere. How do I take that fifty dollars? And you know, today we have the phone apps and everything Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 7:How do we take that fifty dollars and what program do we go into a phone app and like how do we set that $50 and what program do we go into a phone app and how do we set that up Taking $50. It's like Acorns Is Acorns a good app?
Speaker 6:I was actually going to say. That made me think of Acorns. It's kind of like a way to trick yourself into investing in really small amounts. So for those of you who don't know acorns, this is not a sponsor, but hey, acorns, if you're listening. Um, just saying um yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7:So acorns, yeah, what do you think about?
Speaker 6:I'm sorry, I was gonna say acorns. Basically is like a. It's an investment type of platform that will take money from your, your debit card. So let's say you just spent, um, you know, 15 and 17 cents at the at the gas station. Well, you can have it set up to where it rounds up that that surplus to the next dollar uh, so that would be like 83 cents that it gets put into account and then you can automatically invest from there. You know so, um, so that's actually a pretty. I've heard a lot of people have success with that, with just a psychological thing. You know, it's like they know they're investing, it's coming out of their like what are they're already spending, and it's just kind of an automatic background thing that you can set up. You know, um, so a lot of people like that, because a lot of some people don't have the discipline to put the money aside manually and then invest. So this is kind of like a backhanded way.
Speaker 7:Have you ever did Acorn before, Joey?
Speaker 6:I have. I experimented when it first came out and I enjoyed it, but I ended up just trying it out for a couple of months and then just went my separate ways. You know, just went my my separate ways with it. But I mean it is a good platform for sure, um.
Speaker 7:Especially. I mean you don't have to have the platform forever, but if you have that platform for just a year, I mean that kind of gets you in the routine to save that. You know, I always think the money and financial stuff is almost like buying a car Everybody's scared, you know. You eat French fries and crackers for, you know, two weeks until you finally get in the routine of the payment. I think I told you this before, though.
Speaker 6:Yeah, you might have. It's been a year, man. There's been a lot of conversations we've had that I don't even remember anymore, oh man.
Speaker 7:But okay, and then she asked about Robinhood.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and what?
Speaker 7:I was going to ask with Robinhood, there's that other program like Coinbase Coinbase, yeah what's the? Difference Is one crypto. What is crypto? I know it's not Smoking Rock or anything like that.
Speaker 6:Right yeah, coinbase, I think is is crypto. Coinbase is I know it's not Smoking Rock or anything like that Right? Yeah, coinbase, I think, is mostly crypto. I do have Coinbase and I've only recently I'll admit, I've only recently started dabbling into Bitcoin. I missed the Bitcoin train a long time ago and I'm kicking myself all day, but, yeah, I'm trying to learn about it.
Speaker 7:It well, you can't kick yourself because that stuff went way down, okay I don't know if you remember but, like, tom brady threw some kind of pass or whatever and he gave it out to a fan and it just so happens that that you remember the story, yeah it so happens that that fan traded him that football for like.
Speaker 6:For like one crypto or ten yeah, it was something like 800 000 or something like that yeah, and then it was almost like as soon as trump took office bam, like crypto, everything fell, everything fell yeah, and I think part of that was the maturing of the bitcoin marketplace, because, you know, it was the wild west for a while and there was a lot of these kind of shady crypto marketplaces that popped up and people were losing their money left and right because it was unregulated. And, uh, you know, like there's there's a lot to that's where I need to learn more about it, like regulations and like what are the tax implications? Because a lot of people got hit with some pretty big tax bills when they went to go cash out. They were like, oh yeah, I guess technically, this is uh a gain. You know, like, you know something? I just read an article today about a guy who put 10k into bitcoin and he's not, you know, basically he's a millionaire now, um, or she I don't know if I don't know but yeah, they are a millionaire based off of $10,000 Bitcoin investment, and when they did that, they everyone thought they were crazy. So this was earlier on in the in the in the phase.
Speaker 6:But, yeah, I think Bitcoin is maturing, it's it's becoming more commonplace and I think it is going to be the future as far as like how, how we do business, you know. So I'm going to start doing more research into Bitcoin and, and, uh, you know, maybe I'll, I'll even accept Bitcoin as a as a form of payment somewhere down the road. You know, why not? You know, just to give people the option If're, if you're into bitcoin, hit me up like we'll. We'll have a whole bitcoin show. You know, like, um, I've actually been been looking for people to jump on and talk about that, just because I I need to be educated on it, you know hey, you know, I'm telling you what we.
Speaker 7:I I think we should make a, or maybe you should, because you'd be the expert at it. You know, I honestly think there's a lot of veterans, there's a lot of people out there that don't have the whole investment just because you know they don't have that routine or they have a hard time setting it up. And, let's face it, we all have a hard time setting up iCloud at one time. Okay.
Speaker 7:And we got to remember that there's people that just haven't done this before, so there's not very many tutorials. I can help you set this up for later, but it'd be kind of cool for you to set up a tutorial on what is the best setup for somebody for $50 a month to do some kind of a savings thing on their phone app.
Speaker 6:Okay, yeah, that's a great idea I think we could work on. Maybe we can collaborate on that and like, because I'm going to, I would need help on creating a you know like what you've been doing, which is like you're recording your sessions and basically creating like a digital product like that. So so, yeah, we can definitely collaborate on that. That's a great idea, you know just to kind of like, you know, give people the baby steps, because some people, legitimately, are financially illiterate and it's not their fault. I'm not giving any shade on anybody.
Speaker 7:Some people are just technology Impairment. They just can't do stuff. My dad is. When it comes to technology, my dad's really bad. But when it comes to technology, my dad's really bad. But when it comes to, like engine work, dude, I've seen I I've seen him put duct tape around a wheel thing just to get it back home.
Speaker 7:He's a genius when it comes to mechanic and stuff, but when it comes to computers like my dad had a hard time getting alexa set up and I can't I can't share screen with you know yeah, with him on his phone right I think we forget that, that there's a lot of uh, a lot of people out there that would love to support us, but like they have no idea where the year went right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6:No, that's a great point. Like we basically from what I've been learning about marketing and development things like that, whereas we want to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible so make it as easy as possible for people to basically find us and and in our case, like we want people to donate to us, so we need to like funnel people to that donate button, you know, but we got Amber from into the weeds podcast says that's a great idea, joel, so we got we got one person already ready to buy in and maybe we can all collaborate. That's awesome, yeah, so so I guess we'll probably need to take a little bit of a musical break.
Speaker 7:Oh yeah, probably. See, we lost the conversation. This is why I can't be a guest. I feel like I somehow take over people's shows and I don't mean to.
Speaker 6:No, no, you're injecting some life and everything to the show. So I really appreciate that. And then your perspective. As you know, the head of mbr, like you know, I'm always I'm always amazed by everything that you're pulling off so well when we come back from break, if you don't have anything else to follow.
Speaker 7:when we come back from break, there's a. There's a guy that's just started TikTok. You might have seen him. It's that private jet arm, that, colin, and he talks about how his business, which he's over $8 billion business now- Wow. I'll look at it. I'll send you the link while we're on break so you can kind of see what I'm talking about. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. We'll hit that I'll. I'm talking about. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll hit that. I'll look at it now.
Speaker 6:Okay, Sounds good. All right, we're going to listen to uh, my usual intro musical guest, which is Noah Peterson, the United States Marine Corps veteran based out of San Antonio. He's kind of starting to blow up. Hopefully we'll get some more ears and eyeballs on his music. This is Noah Peterson.
Speaker 3:We'll be right back, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, military broadcast radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice find us on the web at mv radious opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 6:All right, we are back. This is Money in the Military on Military Broadcast Radio. I am Joey Laswell. This is Money in the Military on Military Broadcast Radio. I am Joey Laswell.
Speaker 7:This is where we show you the money.
Speaker 6:Show you the money, yes, Show you all the different ways of saving money and investing and all this other stuff. But yes, I'm a certified financial social worker, Air Force veteran and basically just passionate about helping people with their finances. So we got the head honcho of MBR on the show today, Joel Hunt. He is called the H-Train. He is the man, the myth, the legend. He has basically helped me launch this podcast and his whole mission in life now is to help other veterans launch podcasts. So basically, I wouldn't be here without Joel and this initiative that he's put forth. And we were just talking about it earlier. It was like a year ago around this time when the VA sent out your email blast about MBR and then now you went from I don't know how many shows to what's the numbers on that from the initial blast of the email.
Speaker 7:Well, right now, because we're on holiday break from November 1st to February 3rd, I try to encourage every veteran, every host, every DJ to kind of take a break at least one week off, one week on, because the way news goes and the way stations go and the way everything goes, you can get burnt out real bad during this time and that's one of the reasons why I mean even radio show hosts and stuff.
Speaker 7:Like you know, they play reruns and shit. You know they play christmas music. There's a reason for that, even though they get paid for it you know, that's nice, they get paid for it right, but you know still it does. It takes a lot out of it and you know you can ask every veteran here. I'm sure that every veteran will say as soon as they get done with their show they can knock out and go to sleep within like two hours yeah, no, it's true, like it's.
Speaker 6:Like you it's something, you don't realize it and you're put on. You're basically putting on a show for an hour or, in case you know it's for us it's an hour and yeah, I mean that you're on, you're on for that whole hour and it can be draining. You know so, but you know we're. I think everyone on the NBR platform is just super passionate about telling their stories and helping other veterans and just showing what, what's what we're capable of. You know, and the diversity of all the different channels that we have is just growing and, and you know, yeah, we're going to be a media empire.
Speaker 7:Before this is all said and done oh yeah, you know I was talking to the guys about this yesterday. You know, uh, jersey mike's the location here that sponsored us like sales wise. They're doing like exceptionally well and they have a. They have a non-profit fundraiser that they've been doing forever. I was talking to one of the employees and she's like, yeah, you know, if MBR gets to be in that place at one time, like the minimum that they make for that nonprofit because they have 2,159 Jersey Mike locations and what they do for that whole one day. They donate all everything the proceeds, the food, the money, everything.
Speaker 7:They don't take a cut at all and she said that it's usually around five five million dollars for one day of sales for one day of sales. Wow, and I'm like wow yeah and you know, I, I told the, I told the sports crew this wednesday and he's exactly right. He's like man. With five million dollars we could really get a lot of sound gear for the veterans.
Speaker 7:That are because, like right now, I mean right now it's great because you have a screen, but tell everybody like d, are you in a studio d or is a wall in front of you? I mean you're in your house I'm in my house, yeah yeah, and I think people fail to realize that, you know, not only is this a opportunity, but you know, we we're lucky that we get this privilege to, to, to have this chance to be able to do it, because this wouldn't have happened five years ago no it wouldn't have not even yeah.
Speaker 6:So I mean it's, it's, I mean honestly it's like the future, I think of programming and entertainment and all this other stuff. So I mean, you know, we're just kind of lucky enough to hopefully get caught up in the wave and, you know, just have a good ride.
Speaker 7:Especially since they're charging for streaming, like you know. They told us hey, you know, cut Comcast, cut the cords. So, the majority of Americans, we cut Comcast, we cut the cords, cords. The majority of americans, we cut comcast, we cut the cords. And then these mother guggers guys, they, they started. Hulu has a package yeah he has a package now like everybody wants their cut and they're like picking at it and it's like it's not even fair, it doesn't even. I don't even benefit from watching right.
Speaker 6:Well, you know what's interesting and I'd be. I'd be curious to do a little bit of research on this. But, like you know, we used to complain about the cable packages and how expensive they were. I'm curious just to know how much are people actually spending compared to what they were spending with the cable package? You know, with all the streaming services it's probably more right now.
Speaker 7:You know the average household right now streaming packages. Last time I checked the average was and we can do the chat gpt yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask the average. The last time I checked the average was 175 a month for usually six uh six streaming platforms okay and that's not. That's not even counting streaming. That's counting like even streaming like stream yard. You know you gotta, you gotta count that as a thing, because there's so much you can do on stream yard yeah, stream yard has been really cool, cool.
Speaker 6:I've definitely grown to appreciate it more and more. Alright, so we got the question is American household subscription services for streaming services? And I did that all wrong, but anyways. Let's see households subscribe to an average of approximately three streaming services, up to four. Let's see this. One says in 2024, well, that's actually more than I thought $42.38, indicating a decrease over the years. And then early reports noted higher expenditures when the average was $55 a month. I'm above the average because we, you know, between Hulu and Disney yeah, that's way off.
Speaker 6:I mean, I would be curious to poll the audience. You know, like, how much do you think you're spending on just streaming, subscribe, like just to watch content? How much are the average American spending? You know that would be interesting to get the data on that. But but yeah, you're right, you know it's, it's crazy how everyone now like, if you want to watch a movie I was just talking about somebody the other day they're like, oh, I was trying to to get a clip from the cosby show, you know, and she wanted to show it to an audience of like a class in a classroom setting and she was like, I just want this one episode and she had to go and find it on Amazon Prime and basically pay two bucks for just that one episode.
Speaker 6:So it's just like it's so hard to find content and then you're just struggling to try to pay for it all now, right, but yeah, I guess that's the financial reality that we're in. You know, I think, uh, between Hulu and now Hulu and uh and disney, like they're in the hundreds, like over a hundred dollars, I think, for like the ad free, you know, premium subscription, it's it's like over a hundred dollars, I think.
Speaker 7:Um, so, well, I went well when I said 174 and then you said like 50 and I'm like, oh well, I guess I was way off then no, you're not.
Speaker 6:I mean not for me, not from my, my we're. We're definitely on the higher end because I mean we do like watching a lot of movies and shows and TV and things like that Myspace. I'm sorry I left you for Facebook.
Speaker 7:Tom never left us, he never left us he never left us.
Speaker 6:He stayed true. Yeah, I actually wrote a post about my Blockbuster days recently, because I used to work at Blockbuster back in 2000, like 2003 period, like while I was in college, and man, those are like some of the best memories I have of just working at blockbuster, watching movies, playing video games for free. Oh man, I could, I could go back to that time period in a heartbeat, you know. But we were talking about it too the other day with like just movies, like the whole movie going. Experience has changed because it used to be, you know, back in my day, you know you, you would go to the movie store and you would like it was like the search was part of the fun, you know you. You'd be like, oh, what are we going to, what are we going to pick, you know, and then you talk about the movies and like there was a whole social element to it. Now it's just like you're just on your couch like flipping through the different uh subscription services and you know it's just not the same.
Speaker 7:I had an uncle when I was younger that he had probably four or five, six walls full of VHS tapes. Those things are useless now.
Speaker 7:But, you know, six walls of VHS tapes, right, and it used to piss me off. I went in there to, like you know, because I'm a little kid, I want to browse. You know, cause I, you know, I'm a little kid, I want to browse, you know, browse. And it used to piss me off because my uncle at the time he had this all nice organized chart but the numbers, what? What movie do you want to watch? You know?
Speaker 1:he wouldn't let me see the clipboards.
Speaker 7:He would say what movie do you want to watch? Oh I don't know. You know it's just um, yeah, I got irritated, but there was a lot of people that had that, something like that.
Speaker 6:I kind of had something like that with dvds yeah, dvds, I definitely had a dvd collection and then kind of sort of got into blu-rays. But, um, I actually a tragic as a lover. A tragic story is that when I was in, when I was like early 20s, we had an apartment fire and I lost my whole DVD collection and I had some pretty cool collector's editions, like really hard to find movies. So I definitely miss those movies and I'm slowly trying to build up my collection again. But it's more of a hobby now, you know, trying to trying to read. You know, because you know, like I was mentioned earlier with the subscription stuff, there are some movies that are not online, like you have to like illegally download them if you want to find them. So the other alternative, which a lot of people are turning to, is just going out and buying their dvds and blu-rays and then you just have the physical. You just have the movie, you know like you don't have to worry about like can I tell you what I do?
Speaker 7:yeah I don't know if it's a naughty thing, but it's. It's what I do. Okay, and yes, I'm keeping it appropriate. I'm teasing. What I used to do was I used to rent it from red box or whatever. Okay. And then I have this different, this software that would decode it to where that I could make it into an MP4. Okay, now you're probably thinking well, you know that's illegal. It's not illegal unless you're making money on it.
Speaker 7:Right, if you're doing redistributing or distributing, right, you're just doing it for yourself, you're good? Yeah, so I have a plex account I can share with you. It's an account. It has over 7 000 movies holy crap, I'll bring it up real quick. Yeah, that's awesome, yeah that is.
Speaker 6:That is a labor of love. I actually have also lost my digital movie collection over the years of different moves and things like that. I never did like a cloud backup or anything, so I had a pretty I was doing the same thing. I will admit that I definitely did some DVD ripping in my days.
Speaker 6:And you know, like did you have a deployed shared drive or like a deploy Like man, whenever, whenever they had those hard drives that were out like people were just like back when you can actually plug in a USB drive into a government computer. But anyways, we're showing our age here, but anyways, yeah, it was good. It was good times, like the, what they call it the morale drive. You know where you had like just movies, just like people were just ripping the movies, put them on the morale drive. You know where you had like just movies, just like people were just ripping the movies, put them on the morale drive and then you could just watch them. You know, like um at your computer, so little, little little tricks of the trade there that I don't know if they do that anymore. Probably not because every, all the networks are like really, uh, really secure now.
Speaker 7:But so here is my thing and this is the reason why I bring this up is, with plex, you can literally grab the movies, put it in before you can upload it and see I have all these movies and the thing about all these movies is, like my interns anybody that's a part of mbr.
Speaker 7:All I have to do is give them an email and they're going to be able to go to this drive and they're going to be able to watch these movies just like netflix. Nice, one of the. That's one of the benefits of being a part of mbr yeah we also supply canva Pro and StreamYard, so being part of NBR it's kind of a no-brainer, but there's a lot of people that just don't have time.
Speaker 6:I mean, it is commitment in the sense that you basically get your own time slot eventually and then you have to work your way up to that point. But even if you just want to jump on some streams and maybe kind of get a feel for it, like, uh, you know, I'm definitely willing to have perspective, I don't know, maybe we can do that. It'd be like an audition thing where we just have, like, you know, the, the established podcasters who can interview, like you know, on air, basically like all right, what's your pitch? Like tell you know like shark tank for podcast, you know, um you can do your own like shark tank.
Speaker 7:You know fire tank well fire tank, we'll call it fire tank and you? Know, what they come up with, a uh, some kind of like a financial plan investing, and you look into it and you find, you find little, a little maybe mistakes, hey you know, maybe you shouldn't be doing this, because or yeah, I like that, or maybe not mistakes. But like some improvements or some optimization, play changes. My quarterback don't get sacked.
Speaker 6:Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, we, we're just, we're just full of ideas, good ideas today, and you know, like, obviously, you know this is money in the military, but you know this, this show wouldn't be here without an MBR. So you know, this is kind of a, you know, a kind of a it's for me it's it's a, it's a really almost heartwarming idea of, like, almost a year ago, this time period like was was when this whole journey started. Um, so, yeah, this is, you know, it's just just a, it's a fun, fun thing to do.
Speaker 6:Like, honestly, I've met so many I say met, you know virtually met so many people during this and you know, I've literally, like learned new things. I've I've been exposed to new ways of thinking or like different perspectives and seeing different skills of other veterans, and I'm just like this is amazing, you know, I'm just like, and I'm a sponge, so like I I learn from everybody. So every guest that I have on, I do my research, I I find out what their deal is and then I like talk to them and then I go after. The fact a lot of people don't know this is that I will keep in contact with a lot of my guests and you know, basically just have a really almost like a relationship from that, you know. So I still want to have, like my first ever guest, alistair Mercado. I've been keeping up with him.
Speaker 7:He's doing some crazy awesome things In the Philippines and you know he's my first guest. I haven't called CG for a while, but tell CG that my my Facebook account got Suspended. Why it got suspended, I have no idea.
Speaker 6:We really don't know. That's crazy.
Speaker 7:Yeah, so there's a bunch of people that think that I I wrote them off and I didn't write them off. My account suspended oh man.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's the fun part about social media now is that you're at the mercy of these either algorithms or bots that basically say, oh no, what you said was against our policies and it's not even a human that made the decision, you know. So that's just kind of a frustrating element to this whole social media world we live in now. But you know, we're just here to have fun, here to share stories. You know, on a lot of my shows I will tell people a lot of my financial mistakes that I made, so that I'm hoping that I'm talking to like an E3 that's like about to do something and then they hear my little, my little voice of like, don't do that because you're going to end up paying.
Speaker 6:You know, like. You know, basically like a little money mentor in their mind. You know, like I'm just hoping that that we can somehow change the you know a few people's minds and be like all right yeah, and change the narrative, but then also, like, change people's minds about, like okay, well, it's one of those things too. It's like a diet, you know, like a lot of people know when they're eating something bad or they're doing something bad for their body, but they just they can't help it, you know.
Speaker 7:And the same thing with spending you know you, and that's a good point that you bring that up. What do you think about? What do you think about the new report? That surgeon says now that alcohol causes cancer and I'm thinking to myself if you didn't think that a long time ago, where the hell are you Right, you know, that's that ago. Where the hell are your heads, right, you know?
Speaker 6:That's not really a big surprise.
Speaker 7:I was like hey, ladies, and gentlemen, the scientists found out that poop tastes like shit. You know it's like why.
Speaker 6:Or even when smoking was like oh, smoking causes cancer. Everyone was like yeah, we knew that already, you know. Thanks for his cancer.
Speaker 7:Everyone was like uh yeah, we knew that already, you know thanks for. Before we close, I want to let everybody know that right after us oscar mike radio.
Speaker 7:Yes, he welcomes lauren burns, who shares her compelling life story. Despite not serving in the military, lauren's experiences resonate deeply with themes of resilience and redemption. She recounts her parents' divorce, her father's kidnapping Of her to Jordan and the ensuing culture shock and trauma. Lauren discusses her emotional journey, the rescue mission conducted by US military veterans that brought Her back in her path to healing Through faith and community support. If you want to find out more About this podcast, keep watching right here, because they are on next at the top of the hour and I will try my best not to uh jump on their stream or their, their platform.
Speaker 6:But yes, oscar mike I I you know, I've been watching his stuff and off and on for a lot a while now. Man like he does some amazing interviews, like he goes into like great detail, he does a lot of research, like man, he's the OG, he's the champ. So shout out to Oscar Mike man. I don't know if I could keep up with him, but I would love to be on his show someday.
Speaker 7:Oh, we can make that happen. We can make that happen. You know, 2025 is going to be a fantastic year because when everybody comes back, when everybody comes back from their shows, joey, I'm telling you, we are going to have a total of 47 shows by February 4th. We have a couple of people that aren't even on the script yet, you know, but they're going to be there. Big Grizz is going to be back, dog Tag Diva, everybody's going to be back, and then everybody just watch as much as you can, because November 1st we go through the same thing Always a dead, always at least three months or four months always dead, you know because, nobody works after November.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, you're right, everyone needs a little bit of a breather from time to time. And you know, like, you know you've been really flexible with me Like, hey, I need to take a radio day, and you know, like, so I think one thing I would like to you're you're, you've been really flexible with me Like, hey, I need to take a radio day, and, and you know, like, so I think one thing I would like to you know, express to people is that you know, don't feel like you, like you said before, you don't, there's no obligation to like, oh, you have to do it every week, every day, you know, every every one day, a week, kind of thing. So, so, yeah, we're, we're definitely flexible, I think, in that regard. And, um, you know, just, yeah, I'm excited. You know this is this 2025 is already kicking off to be a great year and, uh, looking forward to the different partnerships.
Speaker 6:And you know, the gaming thing, like, I'm genuinely like excited now, like I'm going to pull, I'm going to pull my PlayStation into my computer room and I'm going to start streaming. Um, just basically, yeah, be given free financial advice or or even just, uh, therapy, I don't know like, I have to get licensed. I don't have to look into that licensing thing. But, um, but yeah, just trying to do my part to you know, be a good social worker, be a good veteran, uh, mentor and advocate and all this other stuff, because you know, that's, that's what I was put on here on the earth for, I think you know, just to help help the veterans and help people as much as possible.
Speaker 7:So Just think, joey, you don't need a certification If you don't plan to make them cry. Oh, there's going to be some tears.
Speaker 6:I know that's what I mean At least they'll be crying in the comfort of their own homes, you know, and not on stream or anything, I don't, yeah. So so, yeah, I think we'll be, it'll be fun. So if anyone has ideas on games they would like for me to stream, you know I'm down to play. You know I'm a. I'm a. I'm a gamer in the sense that, like, I've been playing games since the Nintendo entertainment system.
Speaker 7:Game man has been telling me 25, that college game. He's telling me that that, that's, that's, that's fire right now.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, All right. Well, I like fire, you know, as, as we, he's a gamer.
Speaker 7:I tell you what and I tell you he just got a new job. He's pretty young and he's a military brat. You might check with him and maybe you can help him. You know that would be like your first prodigy. Yeah, there we go. You know he got to start somewhere.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, that would be cool. I'm definitely down for that, um, and you know, like, if anyone has any games they would like for me to play, uh, I accept donations. If you want to, you know, send me a, a code or something, I'll definitely play it because, uh, you know, money is definitely uh not free, so those games aren't free.
Speaker 7:So those games are like 130 bucks now, aren't they? Yeah?
Speaker 6:well, I mean you throw in, I mean, man, you can. I can go all day about the gaming industry but like, essentially it's they just nickel and dime. You now, like it used to be, 60 bucks was the game and that's the game. But now it's like 60 bucks for, like, the base game, and then you have the deluxe game is like 90 bucks and then you have all the, all the DLCs and yeah, it's, it's crazy and that's how the games work.
Speaker 7:Are they on discs now or do you play the?
Speaker 6:they're still on discs but a lot of people will are just downloads. Only now you know they don't even have discs anymore, like some of the new consoles don't even have disc readers built into them, so it's all digital disc readers built into them.
Speaker 7:So it's all digital, you know.
Speaker 6:So you buy the game, you just don't have the hard thing, right? Yeah, you just basically download it onto your hard drive, on your, on your console, um, and it just lives there. So yeah, I mean, which is convenient sometimes because like you don't have to wait in line at walmart or your favorite retailer, uh, to to buy the game physically and then go take it home, right?
Speaker 7:but if it crashes you're kind of screwed. That's like a 48-hour talk with customer service.
Speaker 6:I don't even get to talk to my mother-in-law for that long, oh man, but yeah, a lot of. I mean I could literally just talk about the gaming industry for probably a whole stream. But, yeah, any advice or feedback or criticisms? Just let me know. We're going to try to do this on Twitch, right? Is that going to be the truth?
Speaker 7:Yeah, we're going to start on Twitch. And then you know how we were doing the talk shows on the video on the first year on MBR. Yeah, well, we're gonna have a video like that also. So they're gonna be able to see the video and they're gonna be able to see the twitch. And once we get 48 45 Gamers you know, I probably would be about 30 gamers Once we get about 30 gamers, then we'll talk to our sponsors and we'll get a Roku channel for the NBR gaming thing.
Speaker 6:Nice, I like it. I like it. You're thinking like 3, 4, 5 steps ahead. I like it.
Speaker 7:I'm always thinking 4 or 5 steps ahead. You know me, dude, I don't sleep.
Speaker 6:I'm the same way. Lately, man, lately this whole year, I've basically come to the understanding that I do have ADHD and I'm actually going to get evaluated for it next month. So we will find out for sure.
Speaker 7:But I realize you might have ADHD or you might have brain. I don't know, because you have a brain? I don't know if you've been an explosion. I know. Look, I know a lot of us have brain undiagnostic, brain issues, because who hasn't went to jump for a basketball and then land on the basketball floor with your head? Ooh, ooh, ouch, you've done it. Everybody's done it at least once.
Speaker 6:I got kicked in the face playing soccer as a goalie and I had to get reconstructive surgery on my face.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, You've got a little bit of brain injury especially if you blacked out for, you know, three minutes yeah, I, from what I remember I definitely blacked out, or from what people told me so. So, yeah, I mean there's definitely the line in the line of duty. That's definitely a thing with the, with the military world is, is that, uh, sometimes we do get injured, and it's not always in the line of duty per se, but it is while we're working. But yeah, so we're lower coming up on the top of the hour, so I want to be mindful of the time and make sure that Oscar Mike gets his full hour as he does.
Speaker 7:Thank, you for having me on your show again. I really enjoy talking to you. I really enjoy being on your show. Absolutely I know, sometimes I can, I can take the wheel. At times I'm really bad at that, so I apologize.
Speaker 6:No, you're good, You're good. I always love our shows. We've had a number of them now, or at least you know. You've jumped in on a couple of streams and I think I've had you as a full guest a couple of times. But but yeah, I mean, like I said, I wouldn't be here without you, man, and you know, like, just wanted to give you or just highlight what what MBR has been doing, what it has done in the past year, what the future holds for us.
Speaker 7:Just so you know. When that update does come out, it's going to look like oh I'm sorry, it's going to look Shoot Really.
Speaker 6:Oh man. I can kind of see it.
Speaker 7:Golly. Anyways, it's going to be like that and the way to change screens is you're going to move your finger halfway. So after you pick the station, you're going to move the app halfway and when you move the halfway you're going to get that menu for all that stuff, for NBR Live Gamer Audio. And make sure you check out DJj clado show every friday. It's music and it's videos and we pay royalties for it, so it's going to be good shit nice, yeah, all right.
Speaker 6:Yeah, even even better. Like we have yeah, we have actual djs, you know, like literal djs playing music. So we have everything that you could ever ask for in an entertainment platform. So this is, yeah, this has been a great show. This is Money in the Military, and I am Joey Laswell, this is Joel Hunt H-Train, the legendary H-Train, and you know, just keep an eye on mbr and please donate and call a veteran for eight minutes at least. Right, all right. Well, that's going to take us out.
Speaker 3:Um, thanks again for everybody that joined in and we'll talk to you guys on the next stream see you next thursday ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Military Broadcast Radio as we wrap up today's show, we want to remind you that the podcast of today's episode will be available right after we go off the air, so if you missed any part of the show or want to listen again, be sure to check it out. And remember we're here to support and honor our veterans. Your stories and experiences matter and we are committed to giving you a platform to share them. That's right. We're here to give our veterans a voice, so don't forget to catch the podcast and stay connected with us Giving our veterans a voice. So don't forget to catch the podcast and stay connected with us Giving our veterans a voice.
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