From Service to Scams: Navigating Financial Threats and Empowering Veterans Through Gaming and Education

Chapters

• 0:00 Debt Relief Scams Targeting Veterans
• 18:52 Federal Workforce Changes and Veteran Scams
• 32:33 Veterans Launching Podcasts and Money Advice
• 45:45 Financial Education and Support for Veterans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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Speaker 2: 0:41

and the threats to our nations? They don't't sleep. They're watching our every move Iran, russia, china, north Korea, isis, al-qaeda. They may be watching this right now.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Our military should not be mistaken for our cable news dad-fest show. We don't care what you look like. We don't care who you voted for, who you worship, what you worship, who you love it doesn't matter if your dad left you millions when he died, or if you knew who your father was.

Speaker 2: 1:16

We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you. We will not be intimidated, we will not right back sons and daughters Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice.

Speaker 3: 1:57

Find us on the web at mvradious. 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 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 4: 2:39

So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy when it comes to finances. Please welcome the fire social worker, joey Laswell.

Speaker 5: 2:52

All right, hello everyone, welcome, welcome. I hope you guys can hear me. Ok, I got a new microphone and you know just been off for a couple of weeks. You know just been off for a couple of weeks, so thank you for being patient. Got some new background stuff that I'm messing around with, so excited to be here. We already got some comments coming in. We got looks like Joel MBR talk is here. Rh train. Yeah, so can you hear me? Okay, thumbs up? Okay, I hope so. I think I can. Seems like if you guys couldn't hear me, somebody would let me know, but I appreciate it Got a little late start to today.

Speaker 5: 3:37

What do you guys think about the new camera? So, I'm using the Canon M50 Mark II with the 18 to 35 millimeter lens. Uh, just, you know, trying it out, do something different. Um, and uh, yeah, and then microphones it's, it's not new to me or it's new to me, but uh, it's, uh, it's a pod mic, a road pod mic. Um, just wanted to upgrade a little bit. It's not anything crazy. I think it cost me like a hundred bucks used. So, um, yeah, so I'm just excited. You know a lot of stuff going on. Um, you know, behind the scenes with uh, with MBR.

Speaker 5: 4:16

We're working on um, doing a uh, some video game streaming, which we did a test run, me and Joel, a few weeks ago, or I guess it's been like a week ago now. So, yeah, I'm going to be doing some gaming, some live game streaming, and the idea was really just to. I enjoy gaming and you know I'm also looking into this. Geek therapy is a thing. I don't know if you guys are aware of that, but it's a certification process that uses kind of like geeky, nerdy things and you provide therapy while doing it or while you know. It's like play therapy, but it's just something different and obviously I'm a pretty big, big geek, so this is that's like right up my alley. So I'm going to start, you know, messing around with that, playing, playing games and I'm hoping that people will jump in the stream with me, ask questions. We can talk. It would be. You know, I wouldn't be, obviously I would. I wouldn't be giving licensed therapy, but I am a licensed therapist so I can at least provide somebody to talk to.

Speaker 5: 5:34

The idea here is that we're trying to incorporate gaming into the NBR platform because it's huge's. It's huge, you know there's there's tons of people who are gamers. A lot of veterans are gamers and you know we just want to reach them. We want to provide other veterans. If you're interested in being a live streamer on MBR, come, come, join us. You know, you, we have a growing audience of veterans and non veterans soeterans so just, you know, really excited about what MBR has got coming down the pipeline. So, you know, stay tuned. We appreciate everybody that's been joining us so far. It's just been really cool watching MBR grow. You know we got podcasters that are kind of getting called up to the big leagues, which is kind of cool, like, um, you know a big grizz shout out to big grizz gonna be picked up by a another station, uh, which is bittersweet, you know. But um, you know we're we're happy to see him like flourish and go and and and do great things. He was doing great things before and he's just going to continue doing that on a different platform. So kind of bittersweet but at the same time, yeah, we're excited for him. And, you know, just goes to show that with MBR, you know like there's a lot of cool things you could do with this platform and, you know, just excited to be here.

Speaker 5: 7:07

With all that being said, one thing we were going to talk about, or H wanted me to address, is some of these debt companies that are targeting veterans. I did a little bit of research into them and I guess and we'll go into it a little bit later on but but yeah, I do I do want to talk about some of these kind of shady debt relief companies that are targeting veterans. You might have seen the Facebook ads. Like you know, if you have $200,000 in debt or one hundred thousand dollars in debt and you're a veteran, you know it's like it's kind of feels weird because it's like they're they're there, definitely seems like they're advertising in a way that's like maybe not predatory, but at least it's. It's it's trying to reach a vulnerable population. So we'll definitely talk about that a little bit later, but yeah, so I mean, this is kind of a.

Speaker 5: 8:10

You know we're doing a live Q&A session. So if you guys have any finance related questions, you know, shoot them my way. I'm here to just talk money. If it's a military related, that's, that's obviously we're winning the military. But you know, if, even if it's just a general money question, shoot it, shoot it in the chat and yeah, we'll kind of take it from there. But I do have just a backup topics to discuss just in case if we don't have a whole lot of crowd engagement, which is fine.

Speaker 5: 8:47

But yeah, just you know kind of wanted to do a pulse check, see how everyone was doing. You know we got a lot of stuff going on in the world and you know everyone's kind of worried about their finances. I think a little bit, and understandably, you know, with the federal workers. I know a few federal workers that are a little stressed right now. So, but this also goes into the financial management piece of you know, kind of being prepared, expecting the unexpected. So, yeah, having a good emergency fund, having, you know in this, in some situations, just having available credit. You know, for some people you know they're already hurting on the credit side of things and you know an unexpected job loss will will make it even worse. So so you know, my death, my heart goes out to those people who are struggling financially. Um, you know I'm I'm looking into just giving, you know, free financial counseling to, uh, to veterans and and federal workers who might be affected. Uh, you know, if anything, um, I've also been contemplating doing like, um, like a support group, you know, just for people who are struggling financially, you, you know, having like a weekly group call that we could, that we can talk about some of these financial problems together in kind of a safe environment.

Speaker 5: 10:14

So H-Train asks on the chat how much will the tariffs affect us? And man, that that is. That's a great question. Obviously it's top of mind for a lot of people. It is too early to say honestly, and there's so many moving parts that it's really going to be tough to really just, you know, put a price point or a percentage of you know, because we're dealing with eggs which is due to, I think, uh, bird flu. So I mean that you know there's just there's a lot of moving parts, um, but I mean it is going to affect us in in probably a number of different ways. Small businesses might get affected by having to pay more for raw materials or more just for general things. So you know they might have to have to bring those costs to the customer, so things might go up.

Speaker 5: 11:11

As far as what industries are going to be affected the most, yeah, it's really hard to say and with all the global politics going on too, it's really going to be interesting, honestly, because I'm not really sure how it's going to pan out, but I think in the short term there's definitely going to be some increases in prices. So I wish I had a better crystal ball number for you guys. I wish I had a better crystal ball number for you guys. But, yeah, we'll do some deep dives into that too and just kind of, you know, try to sift to deal with so. But yeah, it's, it's going to be. It's potentially going to be bumpy, but hopefully, you know, things will settle down and we won't get to be too impacted by the terrorists. But, but, to be continued, we'll, we'll definitely do some, some research into you know, like, how, how is that going to affect everyday consumers and what do you think is going to be impacted the most? So, good question, and keep them coming.

Speaker 5: 12:33

But it's crazy time in a lot of ways where there's a lot of uncertainty. But that, um, you know that's, that's what you know. We're social worker. I'm a social worker and I know a lot of social workers that I talk to are, you know they're, they're ready to to basically help out. You know that's what we do. So, um, you know, any every social worker that I've talked to is like is like I'm, I'm here, I'm going to, you know, like the, my social worker friends at the VA, you know they're like I'm not going anywhere and and so, yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's going to be an interesting time and I hope that we all can kind of come together and really just, you know, be Americans and and really find that that middle ground that we can all kind of agree on.

Speaker 5: 13:22

And yeah, I'm just, I'm just really tired of all the, all the negativity and all the, the, uh, the noise. So, hopefully, you know, let's, let's have some real conversations about money and about these types of things without like, wanting to, um, you know, bite each other's head off, um, so, yeah, that's that's kind of where, where the the I mean the tariffs are obviously a very, very complicated issue and there's not going to be a real like easy, easy answer, easy solution for um for how that's going to impact it. So it's going to take some time. And then the tariffs usually it does take like almost a year to 18 months to really start to feel the impacts. But but, yeah, that's, that's the, that's as far as I've seen, the tariffs, that's, that's what.

Speaker 5: 14:13

What I've been, the chatter that I've been hearing and you know as it might change, you know like we could end up, you know, negotiating some better, better rates for the all these industries that are that might be affected.

Speaker 5: 14:30

So so, stay tuned, don't lose hope, don't get, don't get all all you know.

Speaker 5: 14:38

Try to stay away from some of the media nowadays, just in general, because, yeah, just do your research, find some trusted sources and, you know, just don't try not to be, try not to get all negative on me, you know, don't, let's not lose each other here, okay, but yeah, so this is, you know, this is the current environment that we're in, and you know we're just going to have to deal with it, write it out and figure out how to work together and that's the idea.

Speaker 5: 15:14

All right, well, we're going to take a little bit of a quick media break and let's see what we got. So Noah Peterson has been my go-to start-off and I'm I'm still going to go with him, but he does have a new album that seems to be gaining some traction. I follow him on Facebook and, yeah, he's starting to get some, starting to get some some plays and some some venues and some shows. So, you know, if you're a veteran, want to be featured on on MBR, then let us know. We'll try to put you on on on air. So get your word out, get your music out there. So this is Noah Peterson.

Speaker 7: 17:57

USMC veteran based out of San Antonio. Here we go, thank you, thank you. So opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Find us on the web at mbradious.

Speaker 5: 18:20

All right, we are back and we have a surprise guest. We got H-Train. I'm going to go ahead and call you.

Speaker 6: 18:32

Hey man, How's it going? I was just thinking of stuff.

Speaker 5: 18:36

Okay, I didn't know if you wanted to jump in or not, but I figured out. It's like a wild Pokemon enters the arena and it's H-Train, but yeah how are things going, man?

Speaker 6: 18:50

They're going good, man, they're going good. I'm really excited about this game thing that we were talking about. I'm really excited because you can pick a game, nbr will buy it, and then two veterans can sit there and play that game and they don't have to worry about oh well, you know I'm gonna spend 70 on this. You know it's gonna be one of those things where, hey, you know, I want to play this game and it's gonna be a nice, uh, togetherness thing yeah, I'm looking forward to, uh, to, really honestly, I I want to play some of the fans and some of the other podcast hosts.

Speaker 5: 19:27

I want to play Tony in some NCAA. Maybe he would destroy me, probably, but just a little bit of friendly trash talking maybe. But yeah, I think it'll be cool for us to, even as NBR, to kind of game with each other and all that stuff. So, yeah, that's that's. It's exciting. Got some people jumping in from NBR talk.

Speaker 6: 19:52

It is, it is, and you know I'm gonna. I'm gonna let you control your show, cause I don't want to take the thunder, but I did want to let you know something that you might want to talk about. It's Did want to let you know something that you might want to talk about. It's something that recently happened like an update the federal workforce overhaul. In the initial weeks following Trump's second inauguration, the federal workforce has experienced significant changes under the direction of government efficiency, doge initiative Led by Elon Musk. Actions taken include the insurance of 26 Executive orders aimed at Reconstructing federal Agencies, implementing a federal Hiring freeze, mandating a return to office for Employees, canceling numerous Contracts, government contracts, particularly those related To diversity, equity and inclusion Initiatives. These rapid transformations have led to legal challenges, employee demoration and over 20,000 federal employees Opting for a deferred resignation program. So I didn't know if you Wanted to talk about that, but you know that is something that's going On and you know I'll tell you Everybody.

Speaker 6: 21:10

You can watch TikTok. You can watch Instagram. You know everybody says this isn't what the you know, the main media Wants to watch, and I don't think it's that. I think it's they're too quick To let the picture Play out. You know, and sometimes, when you don't know what's going on and you, like you know, you'll walk in the middle of the room and there's something going on. You have no idea. Think of it as so I. I encourage everybody that's watching this don't don't, don't get all mad. Don't don't don't get upset. Wait, just wait till it plays out, because usually what they say is gonna happen doesn't happen. Look at tiktok, yeah. With that being said, I want to scream out of here. Thank you for letting me crash your show, joey, yeah yeah, you're doing amazing, thank you.

Speaker 5: 22:13

All right, okay, so uh, yeah, we got, I mean, obviously there's a lot of stuff going on, um, in the federal government and that's affecting people's finances. You got veterans, you know, who are now like, okay, do I take the severance, do I um, do I stick with it? Or you know, like, so I mean it's legitimate concerns that a lot of people have. And you know, like, uh, I actually know one, one person who, uh, who has basically taken the, the um, the, the buyout or whatever you want to call it, uh, and you know they're just doing that out of out of necessity. You know they want to just get, basically get, um, you know it's it's their choice and that's what they want to do, and so that's what they're going to do. And you know it's it's their choice and that's what they want to do, and so that's what they're going to do. And you know, like 20, I think 20,000 people have already signed up to do that. You know so um, it is. You know that's the situation. Everyone's situation is different.

Speaker 5: 23:08

I mean, finances obviously are very personal. So, um, you know, I don't, I don't fault anyone for, uh, for jumping ship Um, and you gotta do what you gotta do. You know so um, but uh, but yeah, like if, if anyone is a federal employee or you know um is is affected by this, yeah, we can jump on the stream or you can ask um ask a question, or you know um, tell us what it's like, uh, in the trenches right now. So, but yeah, so there is there's other stuff going on too, with, like the tariffs. See, we have you know, canada.

Speaker 5: 23:50

You know there's kind of some going back and forth, going on with Canada, like they're basically saying that they're going to, you know, stop buying American goods, or things like that. So I think it's obviously a tense time but, like I said before, we're going to need to try to work something out, figure something out and work together, yeah. So let's just try to work this stuff out if we can, all right. So we're going to talk a little bit about what we talked about the current event stuff. But as far as military finances goes, obviously the military lifestyle is chaotic. It can be crazy, but there's a lot of. We were going to talk about financial scams and I wanted to just highlight that.

Speaker 5: 24:48

These veteran debt relief companies. You've got to be really, really careful with them. They might have good intentions, but if they're promising you something that obviously you know if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Um, but yeah, so so there are some scams involving veterans. Um, they basically so this is I'm pulling this up from USA Today but you know, they're talking about the different programs that are, at the very least, they're, misleading, you know. So let's see, there was a veteran loans online loan refinance program that's actually backed by the Department of Veteran Affairs. So there are some actual, like legitimately good programs. You just got to do your research. You know, just like with anything, and anytime you're you're parting with your money, you you want to make sure you've done your due diligence and, yeah, if it does sound too good to be true, then yeah, probably it is.

Speaker 5: 26:01

But you got to be careful of the predatory side of things, where you know if you're already in a tough financial spot, you might be more prone to you know being desperate or being. You know you're in a vulnerable spot. You know being desperate or or or or being. You know you're in a vulnerable spot. You know, emotionally, probably you feel, feel down on yourself, all these things, so, um, so that's where these, these kind of companies can really try to scam you is is in through that vulnerability and um and so, yeah, you just got to be careful that I mean this, it's a marketing thing ultimately. So just be mindful of you know they have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, and a lot of these like, if you do, if you're actually a victim of one of these types of scams, and please make sure that you tell like you report them to the CFPB, because otherwise they're just going to keep doing what they're doing, you know. So you want to, you want to make sure that you're also you're protecting yourself, but then you could also protect other veterans by reporting any of these kinds of scams, so yeah, so there's a few different ones I'm looking at and you've probably seen a number of them on Facebook.

Speaker 5: 27:33

They seem to like Facebook advertising, but there's Lower my Bills, veteran loans online, uh, and yeah, a number there's. There's actually quite a bit out there. So, uh, I'll probably do a whole blog post about this and just kind of like like a public service announcement. You know, just really talk about what. What are these? What are programs are good? You know, some of them might legitimately be good and then others obviously are going to be really bad, and maybe there's some in the middle there.

Speaker 5: 28:12

But anytime you deal with a debt consolidation or anything like that, just be, be mindful that um, there are some unscrupulous people out there that are willing to take your money and have you sign the dotted line and you don't even truly understand what you, what you signed up for. But, um, uh, that's you know like. So I, as an as a veteran veteran in the financial space, I'm always looking for different ways to try to protect veterans, because some people just don't know better and they just think, oh well, yeah, I have all this debt and this program is going to consolidate it for me, just kind of do your due diligence and read the dotted line. Kind of do your due diligence and read the dotted line, and yeah. So so that's, we'll talk a little bit more about that.

Speaker 5: 29:06

Probably, like I said, I'm going to do a whole blog post about it. And if, if there's anything, anything else that comes up you know that you're, maybe that goes, your spidey sense goes off then me know, because I want to also hear about these different programs too that might be targeting and then draw, draw spotlight to them. You know, basically, you know, like sunlight is the best disinfectant for some of these programs, so if people know about them, then they might be protected against them in the future. So all right. So I guess we're going to take another quick media break and we'll be back with any kind of user questions or you know we'll just we'll talk a little bit more about some military finances. So we're going to keep going with Noah Peterson. I think this is one of his newer songs, yeah, off the new album.

Speaker 4: 32:25

So Noah Peterson, usmc veteran, and we'll be right back, thank you.

Speaker 7: 32:33

Thank you, military broadcast radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice find us on the web at mbradious 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 5: 33:07

All right, Hello, hello everyone, Welcome back to Money in the Military. This is Military Broadcast Radio and we are giving veterans a voice and basically it's a nonprofit that's helping veterans launch podcasts. So I started this journey basically about a year, a little over a year ago, I got an email from the VA that basically this nonprofit was like hey, we help veterans launch podcasts. So I was like yes, please, and signed up and they kind of helped me get through the initial, like initial process of getting a podcast up and running and they've just been a great group of people all veterans, all first responders that are just trying to help each other and it's a great community, All right. So we got a comment from Average Asia. I like that name as a half Asian man. So, hello, from YouTubes, Thank you for joining us. So, yeah, this is, you know, this is my podcast. That has been, you know, like a whole evolving, growing thing ever since the day we started it. But you know, I interview veterans on here that are, you know, either going through their own financial problems or, you know, maybe they've got some success and they want to share their success with people, with other veterans, other military veterans or military members, other military veterans or military members. So, actually, for some programming next week, we're going to try to get an old friend of mine named Robbie Salazar. We were stationed together back in 2000, mid to late 2000s in Las Vegas. We were at Creece Air Force Base together and we worked with the drones, the Predators. But yeah, we're going to have him on the show, him and his wife, and we're going to kind of do like a little bit of a case study and talk about their situation, his transition out of the military, some of the things that he's done right and maybe a few things that he's done not so great that he wants to share with everyone. So, uh, you know, if you have a similar story or if you want to be a case study on on the show, uh, that would be. You know, just, just, um, reach out to me and we'll, we'll get you on the show, Cause, you know, part part of the whole reasoning behind this show was to help people, you know, on air with their finances.

Speaker 5: 35:40

So, you know, I was imagining like a Dave Ramsey type of show, but instead of like being yelled at, you know, you actually have somebody that's being nice to you and understanding your situation. Um, because I I've I've made my share of poor financial decisions, and we're all human. So why do you want to be yelled at for a decision that you made? Maybe it wasn't the right decision, but I don't know, that's just me. I don't like to yell. I don't like to be yelled at, but I mean, I respect Dave Ramsey, Don't get me wrong. I basically got out of debt because of his book, the Total Money. His camp I definitely respect.

Speaker 5: 36:45

He's one of the OGs of the personal finance world, and the interesting thing about finances is that it is very personal and so what worked for some people might not necessarily work for everybody else. So so that's the other thing about not comparing yourself to anybody your peers or your family, your friends like don't, don't do it. Just don't compare yourself to your peers. You know, even if you're, even if you're looking down, like, if you're at a better, better position, don't, don't do that either. You know, like just just kind of, you know, staying, staying in your, in your wheelhouse, stay in your lane and just focus on yourself and everything will, kind of like, eventually work out. But but yeah, excited to have Robbie on the show next week and his wife Becky, and it'll be cool to catch up, because I haven't seen his pretty face and in in quite a few years now, cause I haven't seen his pretty face and in in quite a few years now. So but yeah, looking forward to that. And as far as on the horizon, you know, I've got a few things, a few irons in the fire. I do have a, a graphic novel that I've been working on, publishing that on sub stack every week and basically getting down to the wire. It's going to be a 10 chapter graphic novel and it's called the social worker, and I'll go ahead and do a little self self promotion, but yeah, it's just this little, uh, you know, fun little project that I that I started working on and I just wanted to. I wanted representation of social workers to be different, so I, I basically created a social worker superhero kind of thing where this social worker gets superpowers, and yeah, so it's just been a fun little project and I'm working on the second to last chapter and so two more weeks will be the final or the finale. So, uh, excited about that it's. It's nothing, you know, nothing too crazy, nothing to it, you know, but it's just been kind of a labor of love, a passion project. But, uh, stay tuned for the thrilling climax of of the the social worker graphic novel.

Speaker 5: 38:57

Um, but yeah, I'm also working behind the scenes. The financial independence counseling is my, I guess my umbrella company and so I've been providing financial counseling and coaching under that umbrella and we're going to do kind of like a rebrand, a relaunch, um, so we got got some things going there which is really exciting. And yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot, a lot of cool things happening. I'm trying to sell my house and working on that took. I basically got an offer and we're going to. We're going to try to move forward with that and, as part of my financial picture, having this house has been, you know, a money drain. So I'm really looking forward to getting out from under this house and making a little bit of money on the side to basically help me pay off my debts, because I still have debts. You know, going back to school, I have debts and so that's the thing. Even as a financial coach, I have my own personal financial situation that I'm trying to deal with and I just bring that to the table whenever I'm working with my clients.

Speaker 5: 40:14

So, if you are interested, I generally don't advertise for myself because I just I don't know, I feel weird about it. But you know, at the same time, you know I've been told that I do need to just throw it out there every once in a while, because you never know who might need to hear this or who might need to. You know they can reach out to me and it's just like a free consultation, um, and just we talk money, we talk about your situation, we try to figure out like, okay, where, where are you? Where are you trying to go? Where? Where are you at right now? And then we come up with a game plan to try to get you there. So it's no pressure, it's no like.

Speaker 5: 40:57

Like I said, I'm I'm not the type to to, uh, give you a hard time Maybe, maybe ingest a little bit, but ultimately, um, I'm here to support, I'm a financial social worker, um, and a licensed social worker. So, um, you know, this is this is what I was made for. So, if you're interested, hit me up, dm me. You know we can do a free consultation, all that good stuff. But all that to say is that you know I'm passionate looking at getting my certification in AFCPE, which is another form of financial coaching, counseling. So I'm trying to, you know, beef up the. You know the three letter acronyms on my, on my name, but ultimately, all that to say is that I do care about helping people with their finances. And you know that's that's kind of like my I mentioned in a previous episode but my Ikigai, it's a Japanese concept where you basically have your skills and your, you know your strengths, and it's also something that people want to pay for and that you know. So it's like a whole confluence of all these different factors that come into play.

Speaker 5: 42:28

And I think this is my icky guy, you know, like helping people with their finances or even just talking about finances with people. Like I'm one of those nerdy types that will literally, you know, just talk stuff with, talk finances with people, you know. So, even if you don't want to, you know, use my services. You can at least pick my brain, and I love talking finances. So if you're a finance nerd, hit me up and you know, maybe we can have have you on the, you on the show, Cause, uh, like I said, I'm I'm always down to learn, I'm always down to grow and develop and I, oh, every time I have a guest on here, I always learn something or I always like find some new rabbit hole to learn about.

Speaker 5: 43:14

So it's just been one of the great things about podcasting, honestly, has just been how much I've learned along this journey with all the people that I've interviewed and the questions that I've taken on air. So, just, you know, I'm just happy, happy to be doing this and excited to see what the next chapter brings. You know this is season two. I guess we're taught we're calling it season two now, you know this is season two. I guess we're taught we're calling it season two. Now, um, and you know, like we're, we're just having fun.

Speaker 5: 43:46

You know, I I'm making my as you might as you probably can see if you've watched the show before is got some new background stuff. I actually switched offices. So this is my new office location and, you know, just wanted to spruce up a little bit, you know, and add a little bit of flair to it, maybe some personalization. So, yeah, give me some feedback. Obviously, it's still a work in progress and I'm still working on the video side of things. I kind of want to get it tweaked, just right, but any feedback is greatly appreciated. I think I've been going on a rant for the last couple of minutes, so I apologize, but you know we're live. This is truly a live broadcast. So it is now 6.51 pm and, yeah, we're um, cut, cut. We're actually counting down the time. We've only got about eight or nine minutes left and, um, you know, just wanted to throw this out there as as a as a helping professional, you know, uh, we're. You know, well, the helping professionals are here to help, obviously, but uh, you know we're not going anywhere.

Speaker 5: 45:06

Um, but um you know well, the helping professionals are here to help, obviously, but you know we're not going anywhere. But you know like I hope that you can. If you know a social worker, you know a therapist, you know somebody in your life who's a helping professional, you know, say thanks. It's always nice to be appreciated and I think you know we're starting to see more and more of that. And you know the social work community is is really broad. But you know we're we're here to help. So, and as a financial social work, I'm here to help not just with the actual numbers but the actual psychology and the feelings behind finance. Because, let's be real, a lot of people just don't know how to feel about finances. Let's just talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 5: 45:57

Most of us learn our financial programming by the time where, I think, we're like six, seven years old. We already learn about finances from our parents and our family. So a lot of this stuff is deeply ingrained and we don't even realize why we do the financial things that we do, even like how we look at investing or how we look at spending, or some people see their paycheck is like I got to spend it Otherwise. You know, like if it's there, I'm going to spend it, and other people see their money as well. I need to save this for a rainy day, you know. So that just goes to show the spectrum of, like, some people are natural savers, some people are natural spenders, and I think there is a good chunk of people who are somewhere in between. Um, I think there's also people that and I'm guilty of this where you'll do really good for like a week or a couple of weeks or a month, like you. You know, it's almost like being on a diet where you're like, okay, yeah, I'm not spending any money this week, and then you go two weeks, three weeks, whatever, and then you kind of you kind of have a, a moment of weakness, and maybe amazon, it may be walmart, but, uh, target we, we all have our weaknesses sometimes. So if that happens to you, you know, just be, be kind to yourself and don't, don't, don't be so, so hard on yourself, I guess, um, but if you're, if you're obviously doing it too much, then yeah, maybe you need help, maybe you need to talk to somebody, a trusted friend or coworker, or just anybody that you know is decent with finances. Uh, that's one of the things that I basically try to preach to people is that you don't have to seek out a financial professional. You just seek out somebody who's more experienced with finances than you. That's really what it comes down to.

Speaker 5: 48:01

One thing I learned in the Air Force was there's a whole lot of people out there that have very, very advanced knowledge on finances, but they kind of keep it to themselves sometimes. So when I started doing my briefings and stuff, I saw I noticed that there were, there were some people nodding their heads and they were like yeah, okay, yeah, that's. But then I also realized, or I noticed, that there, you know, after the the briefings, people would want to talk to me like offline and you know, like so, so, um, yeah, like, if you know somebody who's really savvy with money, most times they want to share that knowledge too. So, uh, you would be surprised how many, how many people who are self-taught, either millionaires or they're about to be millionaires down the road, and they, they're just, they just want to share that knowledge. So, um, if you have a rich uncle, you know, don't, don't act like, don't, don't go up to them saying you're gonna, you know you want money, but you know, teach, basically teach person how to fish kind of thing. Like teach me what you know about finances so that I can learn and basically do what you do. So yeah, so that's that's kind of my advice and, like I said before, you're always welcome to hit me up, send me a message and I will probably jump on a call with you and just just talk, um, so yeah, so that's pretty much the show. Um, you know, like, uh, we covered a little bit of everything current events, um, some top, you know, just general topics about finance. So, uh, thank you for everybody who's who's joined in, uh, and who might watch on the tail end.

Speaker 5: 49:49

I know that watching an hour-long stream is difficult these days, so be on lookout for the. I use Opus Clips. I'll just be honest. Opus Clips is like an AI tool that does all the video editing for me, and I just can't be bothered to do that right now, but it works for the most part and so, yeah, hopefully we'll get some bite-sized clips out of this.

Speaker 5: 50:17

And you know, if you're interested in being part of a future show, you can direct message me, find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Instagram, all the different platforms, and yeah, so I really, really appreciate everyone's time and you know, if you're watching on the MBR app, which is a new app, and I would encourage you to update if you already have the app, because we did. We did do a pretty cool update for the MBR app. We're also on all the different platforms, like you can see up there MBRadio, on Roku, on Fire TV, instagram, facebook X all those cool places. So I'm being mindful of my time, I don't want to step on anyone's toes and I want to make sure that we keep it a nice tight time frame there. So, so, yeah, thank you everyone for joining. Please check out all the different NBR content out there into the weeds.

Speaker 5: 51:23

And just reached a thousand subscribers. So congrats, amber, for that. That's awesome. Um, yeah, so help help us grow MBR. We're here and we're not going anywhere. So, and then, keep an eye out for the video game streaming. Um, I'll be probably streaming under the MBR uh account. So, uh, so that's pretty much all I got. So thanks everybody for joining in. Take care and watch your finances If. If you don't watch them, then let me watch them for you. Okay, all right, we'll talk to you guys later, thanks.

Speaker 4: 52:00

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.