Building Financial Resilience in Military Life

Chapters

• 0:00 Military Broadcast Radio
• 10:55 Common Financial Mistakes in the Military
• 27:09 Military Financial Challenges and Strategies
• 36:29 Financial Wellness and Discipline
• 41:37 Learning From Financial Failures
• 57:44 Honoring Military Veterans Through Podcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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Speaker 2: 0:35

This entire military is one cohesive, dedicated force. And the threats to our nations? They don'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 gab fest show. We don't care what you look like. We don't care who you voted for. 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 be intimidated. We will not back down. We don't want war, but if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me God, someone else will raise your sons and daughters.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving veterans a voice.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Find us on the web at mbradious.

Speaker 4: 1:59

I'm a certified financial social worker. I was in the Air Force for 14 years 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 3: 2:38

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

Speaker 5: 2:52

Oh, hello everybody, Perfect timing. My name is Joey Laswell and this is Money in the Military, on Military Broadcast Radio, where we're giving veterans a voice, where we're giving veterans a voice, and this is the whole organization is built around having people, having veterans and first responders learn how to make podcasts. So that's kind of how I got started here. About a little over a year ago is when I sent the initial email out to MBR. And now here I am doing a podcast. So it's really cool, a really great group of people. If you're interested in being on the show as a guest, if you want to have your own show, if you were doing gaming now, so if you want to do like a live grant, live gaming, that's, that's an option now too. And music, so we have DJs playing music at all hours of the night. So, yeah, look up mbr mbradious and, yeah, we're just, uh just excited to be here. We're supposed to have a guest, um, mr Michael S Wells Esquire, and so he is a lawyer based out of let's see, it looks like it is Idaho so we're supposed to have him on the show and I guess we're going to have to just kind of hang out and wait, um, because, uh, joel set this up for us and, uh, you know, we're just making sure that he's able to join in. But in the meantime, uh, we're going to just talk about, um, money items in the military, um, yeah, so I brought up a few different topics to discuss and, you know, always ready for anything, just in case. And then if we have any people jump in on the stream and ask questions, that's always fine too. All right. So, as you can see, we have a little bit of a new setup, got a new camera. I'm still working on the settings, but I think it looks okay, all right. And then, yeah, we're going to be having some gaming soon. I'm trying to set that up myself, so I'm going to try to do, yeah, do some gaming, free money advice. We're just going to talk about money, talk about veteran life, civilian life. So, yeah, this is going to be something for everybody. Um should be having that soon. And um, also, I guess I'll go ahead and um throw it out there for anyone who's listening, either via podcast or live stream or um watching it on the tail end. Yeah, so I mean, you know, I'm a financial social worker, I have a side business and you know. If anyone is interested in getting personalized financial counseling, coaching, let me know, shoot me a message, we'll set something up. I'm pretty much doing like a sliding scale at this point, so I'm going to take your situation into consideration and we'll just kind of take it from there. But yeah, so we're waiting on Michael Wells and in the meantime we're going to catch up.

Speaker 5: 6:21

So I pulled up some different topics that we could talk about. For money in the military, just in general, um, you know, because money is already complicated and you throw in the military side of things and it gets even more complicated. Um, but here's a few topics that we could talk about. The military pay system explained. This is probably more suited for a brand new airman or soldier coming in. So that's probably more your first duty station, your first supervisor, somebody that can kind of walk you through that in a little bit better detail.

Speaker 5: 7:04

Saving money while in the service this one is, I would say, pretty important because of the unpredictability of the military. You're going to need money for TDYs, pcss, random things that come up. So, yeah, you need to have a you know, a security blanket in place. So saving money on the service can look like all kinds of different things. It could be as simple as when you pcs you see a lot of people throwing away really good stuff on the side of the road. Maybe you could flip that or make it better and sell it. You know a little side hustle action. The other things that you could do is an actual side hustle while you're in the military.

Speaker 5: 7:54

Nowadays you can do all kinds of things. You have to get approval with your command in most situations, but yeah, you can. You can do Uber, you can do all kinds of different things to make extra money and you can put that in savings because that's going to. You're going to need that and whether it's in the short term, midterm or longterm, you're going to need that money. So you might as well put some money away while you're in the service because, as any veteran can tell you, once you transition it's not always easy and or cheap to get out of the military. Uh, then you're also losing out on regular paycheck, um, insurance for your family and you. You know like all that stuff really adds up. So while you're in the service, really do the numbers, crunching the numbers, and determine okay, how much am I going to need on the outside world. You can go to tap class and they'll try to tell you that you can. You know there's all kinds of different ways to to determine how much you're going to pay in the civilian world. But yeah, in the meantime, we've got some comments.

Speaker 5: 9:18

Charles Dietz, the second oh, I didn't know you were second Keep up the good work, thank you. Thank you, so now we have. Okay, I see your LinkedIn and your. Well, you're doing double work, so I appreciate that, charles, thank you, thank you. Yeah, so, part of the NBR family, charles is actually in charge of the donations, I believe. And yeah, so I mean we're constantly looking for donations. So I'll go ahead and do a little shameless plug for MBR. There's a way to donate to us directly on PayPal. But, yeah, I mean, we're all volunteer based. We don't get any salaries for this, so any money that you donate to the platform comes back to us. So we really appreciate it and appreciate what Charles has been up to with trying to uh, encourage more people to regularly donate. Um, but yeah, so, uh, thank you for the comments, charles, appreciate that, but, yeah, so, thank you for the comments, charles, appreciate that, and so, yeah, so we were talking about saving money while in service, and your future self will thank you when it comes time to separate. Even if you just have like 500 bucks in your checking account, whatever you have more than what you need. Your future self will thank you and your present self probably will thank you.

Speaker 5: 10:55

So the other topics that we can talk about are debt and credit management. Obviously, that's kind of a big one for me. I learned a lot about personal finance while getting out of debt while I was in service. Yeah, financial mistakes service members make We've talked about it on so many different shows, but just some common pitfalls that some financial mistakes that service members make, service member or financial mistakes that service members make um, I was talking to another veteran and he was telling me about how, in basic training, when you first got to go to like the bx or the whatever your branch calls it, um, like they, they would go out and buy, like you know, basically their whole check worth of either video game stuff or whatever, or junk food and uh, yeah, so I mean people you know, 19 year old, first job out of school, and they're buying PlayStation.

Speaker 5: 11:54

I guess by this point we're talking PSPs. So, yeah, so that was a, that was a thing. People were in basic training spending their whole paycheck. Yeah, so I mean it's definitely a common theme. I mean you also got to chalk it up to.

Speaker 5: 12:18

You're talking about 18, 19, 20-year-old young adults. Everyone who has been at that age knows that it's always easy to look at it from the other side and say, oh well, you shouldn't spend that money. But when you're in it, you're 18, 19, your buddies are going to go Burger King, you're going to go. It's just, I mean, unless you have really strong discipline, you're probably going to go with your buddies and spend money that you probably don't need to spend. But that's part of it.

Speaker 5: 12:47

You know, I I'm I'm very much of the mindset to to give people grace and to not get hard on them, and because I know that I've made mistakes too. So, yeah, it's very much a judgment-free zone. Any of my clients they can all attest to. You know it's a judgment-free zone. It's not trying to make you feel bad about anything. You'll probably already feel bad enough as it is with some of your financial decisions. So, yeah, when it comes to debt, credit management, let know that that's. That's a marathon, not a sprint. You can do sprinting, like things, but generally speaking, you know you're you're paying off your debts slowly but surely. Ideally you can get aggressive. That would be great too. But yeah, I mean those are just some of the common you know.

Speaker 5: 13:47

Buying the car, the 20% car, you know, like all the different common mistakes that you might see on a military base, especially one where there's basic Chinese or first term first base young soldiers and airmen, yeah, so I mean, there's some interesting ways to spend your money on base. I think my brother and I were talking about the military star card, how that's kind of a common financial mistake that service members make and they make pretty good money off of the StarCard, I imagine. But yeah, that is usually service members' first line of credit is the StarCard and then they get you with that 10% discount on your first day. Charles comments. I think my biggest purchase in basic training was foot powder. You got to keep the feet dry, absolutely, yeah, yeah, that was a huge purchase in basic training for sure. Oh man, that brings back some memories. Keep the feet dry. Yeah, processed, and you didn't. You know you had, you just had money to burn, uh, yeah. So I mean it'd be nice to get back to that simple time, uh, just buying snacks and stuff, all right.

Speaker 5: 15:33

So, car speaking, of car buying, we're gonna um, talk real quick about some of the pitfalls about buying a car on near base, and I just found this online, but it's like a wow, this is really old actually, from fort benning, the jag office, um, judge advocate. So it put out like a fact sheet for for buying cars, because apparently they had so many problems for buying cars, because apparently they had so many problems with, you know, young people not understanding what they were getting into when they were buying a car that they had to put out something. Let me see if I can pull it up real quick, all right. So for those that can see, general carmine tips fact sheet and this is from 2013,. So keep that with a grain of salt, I guess. But I mean, they're just general terms and concepts that, from a legal perspective, you know they have a lot of these problems on a military basis, so that's why they had to put out this fact sheet. But it's really meant to be for people that don't have any buying experience and this is just a little bit of good information to have. Probably, if you've been around cars enough, you've bought enough cars.

Speaker 5: 17:10

All this is pretty self-explanatory, but let's just say that you agree to buy the sale price of $5,500. But then when you look at the contract, it says $6,000. So that's where you get into. You know, you got to read your contract. It's a legal contract and, um, you know what you sign. You know, once it's, once that signature is dry, then that's usually pretty much it.

Speaker 5: 17:38

But uh, but yeah, this whole thing is meant to kind of like dispel some myths. You know, one common myth is that there's a three day or 72 hour rule and I've always thought, heard this to be called like the um, the cooling off period, where you can essentially give a car back within that 72 hour period because you had second thoughts or um, but yeah, apparently that's actually not really a thing. Um, once you, once you sign the contract, you're, you know, you're pretty much on on the hook, um. But that being said, I do have some experiences, personal experiences, with kind of expressing that sentiment that I'm basically not going to take this car. So there are different things that you could do.

Speaker 5: 18:33

Obviously, nowadays is probably way different, but you know, this is just a great resource or just a template on not going into a car purchase blind, but I would hope that you would have a wingman or somebody that knows what they're talking about. When it comes to cars, and if you're buying a new car, yeah, please take somebody with you. Take you someone that knows what they're doing, ideally. All right. So that was a little bit of an insight into the JAG office in Fort Benning, georgia, 2013. So that's what they wanted to talk to you about when it comes to buying a car for the first time.

Speaker 5: 19:26

All right, so that's pretty much going to get us to our first commercial break and, let's see, I think we're going to go with our usual mr noah peterson uh, he's still, uh, still blowing up a little slowly, but surely he's getting there. And san antonio uh, us air for us marine, sorry, um, veteran and he does a lot of up-tempo jazz, new modern stuff. Uh, he's, he's just really cool, really cool guy. I've been playing his stuff for a while and if you're a veteran and you've got a musical background, shoot us a demo. We'll try to put something on the air for you. All right, so we'll play some music real quick and we'll be right back.

Speaker 2: 22:34

This is Noah Peterson.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Thank you. 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.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Find us on the web at mbradious.

Speaker 5: 22:50

All right, we are back. This is Money in the Military on Military Broadcast Radio. My name is Joey Laswell. I'm a social worker, financial social worker, really just nerdy about money, started this show to basically just have an excuse to talk about money with people. So I've interviewed a bunch of veterans, business owners, entrepreneurs. So if you're interested in being part of the show, you got something to share with the military community from a financial perspective. Yeah, thursdays at 7 pm Eastern Time Pretty much stream every Thursday. So, yes, please come join the show, share your wisdom, your nuggets, share your wisdom, your nuggets. Or if you just like to talk about money in regards to the finances of the military members, then by all means come and chat with me.

Speaker 5: 23:51

I'm excited about next week. I have Rob and Becky Salazar. They're old friends from Vegas I'm not stationed out there and they basically reached out to me and they said they wanted to do a little bit of some financial coaching and I was like, yes, please, I was excited to see them. I haven't seen them in probably some years now and basically what we're going to do, we're going to do a series of of episodes. I called it couple edition. Um, yes, the last week, but really I mean, yeah, couples, couples, finances is definitely something. Uh, I haven't really had a whole lot of direct experience. I've, I've I've counseled some couples on their finances, but I wouldn't say it's like my specialty, um. But yeah, I mean, if you're a couple you're interested in talking about your finances, we can do like a case study, um, and or you can follow along with becky and rob, um, we'll be doing that next week, probably at least three or four sessions, and yeah, the idea is to. I mean, they're putting their dirt, their financial dirty laundry out there, which I give them lots of credit for, um, but yeah, they're putting their stuff on blast and basically through our discussions we'll try to figure out a way forward and hopefully have some laughs along the way. Rob's a pretty funny guy, becky's really sweet, she's a teacher, he works at a car factory, I think in Texas, yeah. But yeah, good people, and you know he's a veteran, but yeah, good people, and he's a veteran. We worked together in Creech, aka the desert, but yeah, so stay tuned for next week we're going to have them back on and we're going to talk a couple finances and they're just wanting to get more ahead of themselves. I think it sounds like they've got some good things going, but they just want to optimize and make things a little bit better. So I'm excited about that. Next week, for the next couple of weeks, we'll have them on and yeah, so that's pretty much kind of a catch-up of the shows. I've been kind of off and on with the show, but trying to stay on the pattern, I guess, all right. So I guess we're still waiting for Michael Wells, attorney at law for MBR, but it looks like we just have one of those scheduling things that comes up. It is what it is. This is live podcast radio. I don't know, I guess. But yeah, I'm excited.

Speaker 5: 27:09

We were talking about before the break, talking about car buying different things that the military members have to face we talked a little bit about last week, about scams for military members, like this debt consolidation stuff is all over the place. So we're not going to go over the scam stuff as much, but just keep that stuff in your mind. When you see something that's geared towards veterans, I would say err on the side of caution, Not to say that there aren't legitimate organizations that help vets with their finances. I just, I would just err on the side of caution. That's just me. I would rather you do your homework, talk to a trusted friend or family member and try to figure it out on your own before you make any rash decisions. So yeah, I mean, that's what I think about when it comes to scams in the military.

Speaker 5: 28:23

If you do feel like you've fallen for a scam or you have fallen for a scam, please tell somebody. I mean, you're already probably going through the embarrassment and the shame. I get that. But if you don't tell anybody, it's never going to get fixed, it's never going to get addressed. So just tell at least your direct supervisor and keep them in the loop. You might have to talk to your first sergeant or somebody else.

Speaker 5: 28:57

Basically, you need somebody in your corner. You don't want to? Um, I guess, yeah, you. Just you don't want to suffer in silence. So that's, that's my thing. There would be somebody out there that'd be willing to sit you down with a piece of paper and a pen and basically help you with your finances. You just got to find them, and if you're still active duty, they usually have An office With financial counselors there On site. Now, granted, you're probably going to have to wait a while, because they are Only one or two, usually in a very large Pool of people, but yeah, that's pretty much.

Speaker 5: 29:48

Well, let's see what else we got All right. So budgeting on an E3 salary so I'm probably going to have to do this one in a blog post. I still have, I think I have one of my original E3 alias leavings and earns statement, so that's basically your paycheck for the military members and yeah, so I want to say my paychecks were around $735 for an E3. Um, yeah, so I mean I was making around 1500 a month, uh, as an E3 in the dorms and yeah, and then I also had free food in the uh, food in the dining facility while I was in the dorms and I was usually pretty good about eating in the dorms.

Speaker 5: 30:49

I was trying to pay off debts but yeah, definitely the debt payoff process on an E3 budget was not easy. It's not fun, but it's doable, and especially helpful when you know you don't have family, you don't have any major responsibilities financially. So I mean, getting out of debt while you're in the dorms is really easy, I think. Well, not easy, but it's doable, doable. I think in the well, not easy, but it's it's doable, doable. I mean I say that just from direct experience because I did it. I was in the dorms. I paid off twenty thousand dollars within three years and you know it was not necessarily fun or easy, but I did.

Speaker 5: 31:42

I did a lot of the things that I talk about now. I sold items. I set up a Amazon seller account and I just sold things Like I sold, uh, old books, dvds, video games, whatever I wasn't using. I was like, well, this is worth 20 bucks, I'm not using it and I sold it for 20 bucks and then I would use that money towards paying off my debts. So it was very much the Dave Ramsey my hair was on fire mentality, but but yeah, it was. Uh, it was a great learning experience. I was basically in the library all the time reading books on finance and um, and yeah, now here I am, like 10, 12 years later, still nerding out about finances. But that's just how I roll. I'm not going to apologize for being in love with finances and stuff.

Speaker 5: 32:51

Okay, so Charles actually added another couple other comments. So he says the buyer's remorse three day yeah, so that's the whole cool down period for some people. I guess they don't really do that anymore. But and then it's like he says also good if you're at a, if you're there at a base, or at base, see who's getting ready to ship overseas. They can't take their vehicle with them. You can normally get it at a steep discount, yes, that's.

Speaker 5: 33:24

Another great element is car buying. Whenever you're, you know, one of those mistakes that a lot of young people make is they buy that 20% Dodge Charger that has a lot of miles on. It't been very well maintained, yeah. So that's usually the kind of car that they end up with. The smart, the smart person goes out and looks at the lemon lot or wherever, like you know, a friend of a friend, kind of thing. Like, oh yeah, I heard that you're trying to get rid of your cars. Well, that's, that's, that's, it's a great idea. You can, you can I mean yard sales. For days Now you got to be careful, hoarding and just accumulating extra stuff that you don't need. That's, that's going to do more harm than good, probably. And then, when it comes time to PCS, you're going to have to get rid of a lot of that stuff anyway. So just be careful when it comes to accumulating things like that. But yeah, you can get a really good deal on not just cars, but, like you know, sometimes people buy things without realizing they're going overseas Like a trampoline or something, I don't know, just anything, and you might be surprised. Yeah, you can make a deal for some of these things. But yeah, thank you, charles for jumping in again, appreciate the interjections and advice. So, yeah, I mean we got a lot of great.

Speaker 5: 35:00

And this is the thing that I talk about with even people in NBR is that, you know, a lot of people really downplay their financial skill set. I guess, if you want to call it that, I think people have this weird chip on their shoulder about finances and how they're like oh, I'm horrible with finances, and you know it's almost like this thing where it's like you know, some people think they're not good at math and you know it's almost like this thing where it's like you know, some people think they're not good at math and you know, in some cases they might be, but it's also like a programming thing where they've, you know, they've basically built up this idea in their head that they're not good with X, y, z, and so then they're not. And I think that a lot of people have that trouble with money is they just think I'm not good with money. It's like a script that is running through their heads and when they're not good with money, when something happens that validates them and they're like oh yeah, I told you I wasn't good with money, but when they are good with money, they don't get any credit or no one acknowledges that. So, yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge that I think more people are better with money than they realize, or at least they're not as inept as they might think. They are as well. I think most people are somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 5: 36:29

Honestly, that's just my observations. I think people, yeah, they treat finances with a 10-foot pole. They're like I don't want to deal with it, like put their fingers in their ears, just everything that they can think of, to not think about money. But I mean, it's just like any life skill. You're going to have to just learn how to deal with it. You know, I mean I was financially illiterate. I became literate. It was a skill, it was a muscle that I had to learn to pump up to whatever you know, and I think that that's where I would sell everyone.

Speaker 5: 37:19

Just like you can get healthy physically, you guys can get healthy financially and I think, giving yourself some grace and not being so hard on yourself for your financial decisions, because I mean, let's be real, like financial mistakes can linger for a long time, and I mean maybe I'm projecting here, but I still have financial regrets from decades ago, things that I'm like why did I buy that? I didn't need that? And then it usually ends up being like a domino effect of like, because I bought this one thing, it messed up this thing, my, my checking account did this weird thing, and now I'm like overdraft or whatever this you know, um, that's, that's a common human oversight thing. That's not anything to really get get in your head about. But yeah, I do. I do feel like people are really hard on themselves for their finances and, um, I just trying to get people to change that, that dialogue in their head.

Speaker 5: 38:39

Yeah, charles jumps in and says it's all about discipline. Yeah, cause I mean having, you know, even just having lots of money, it doesn't mean that you're good with money, so you could be. You know, scrooge McDuck have all this money Sorry, I've been watching cartoons lately, but yeah, so I mean you know, having all that money doesn't make him happy necessarily, and I think that's where we as humans also need to find out that sweet spot. You know it's all about discipline too. You know, like sometimes, yeah, you, you can't afford to buy a new drone or a new 3d printer. I'm just talking about what's in my head. But yeah, very well, easily could probably afford those things, but do I really need them? And you know, that's where the discipline comes into play. Is that like, yes, somewhere down the road I might end up buying some of those types of things, but for now I'm going to show discipline and just not not buy it it's going to be.

Speaker 5: 39:48

Um, and I've been on both sides of that coin. I've been on the impulsive shopper side and I've been on the walking out of the store empty handed, discipline type, where I'm like you know what, I don't need this and I'm not going to spend the money. Uh, doesn't always work that way, way, but, like I said, I'm human. I've been on both sides of that coin. I've been a consumer, I've been a saver, been a spender, and I think that's one of those like. Your finances is also like a spectrum where you might be a spender in one period of your life and then, as you get older, you turn into a saver, or vice versa.

Speaker 5: 40:33

I've seen it. I've seen it the reverse of that, where somebody was a saver their whole life and then they get into this whole thing of like, all right, I'm yellow now and I'm gonna, I'm gonna spend all my money. I've been guilty of that too, and some in some part, um, I'm going to spend all my money. I've been guilty of that too in some part. But yeah, charles actually has got some really good stuff today, well, always. But it's no fun becoming a slave to payments. You want the nice thing or that nice thing it's a lot less stressful. If you save up and buy it, then you finance everything.

Speaker 5: 41:04

Yes absolutely being slave to the payments. I find that a lot of people are struggling with that lately of financing everything because it's so easy. And then you know like the A firm stuff you know for payments, for easy payments, that whole thing. You know like they're getting a lot of people with that, especially younger generation. So be careful with those easy payment plan things because those add up really quickly.

Speaker 5: 41:37

But yes, it's no fun to becoming a slave to payments. And then there's also a weird thing of like when you save up and buy for something and pay for it in cash. There's something really satisfying about that. Honestly, it's almost like a goal unlocked where you're just like, oh yeah, I had patience and discipline and I saved up for that thing and then I'm gonna buy it. So you get the satisfaction of buying it, you get the satisfaction of buying it, you get the satisfaction of delayed gratification and you know you get to basically have a little mini Christmas right there. It's a win-win-win for everybody. But yeah, thank you, Charles, for all your insights. We're just going to have to have you on the show man and just talk Because, mean you're, you're fundraising for, uh, for us. So obviously you have some good financial um, foundations that we could probably talk about. So, if you're interested, we definitely want to have have you on the show at some point.

Speaker 5: 42:44

Because the other thing that I was thinking about too and this is reminding me is that all of us veterans, while we might not think of ourselves as financial experts, we've all been through a lot of financial stuff, you know. I mean just going through basic training, going through tech schools and then getting to your base and then learning about all these different allowances that you're supposed to get. So, yeah, I mean, we've all been through it. I feel like have a different perspective on money, and maybe even you know they could, they, they can handle it more or better than than others, I don't know, but then again, we're all humans. I've seen veterans that are really good with their money and then veterans who are not so good with their money, and then most everyone is kind of somewhere in the middle. Veterans who are not so good with their money, and then most everyone is kind of somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 5: 43:51

Um, but yeah, so what I was, what I was getting at was in this I'm trying to instill in this like almost like um, financial avengers where, like all these people are strong in something, in saving, investing, investing, whatever but they don't brag about it, they don't talk about it. So they're secretly. They're like the secret millionaire next door. You've got people like that. You've got like the E5 in your office that is sitting on half a million dollars. You don't know that, but they're like a secret day trader or something like that. Those are the type of people that I want you to find, pick their brains and just learn from, because they're they're already doing advanced what most people are doing.

Speaker 5: 44:49

And the other surprising thing that people might not realize is that those people want to help other people with their finances. They're just usually kind of quiet or shy about it. You know, it's almost like the whole don't look at me thing, like, oh, you know, it's almost like the whole don't look at me thing, like, oh, you know who am I. But you know like I've seen people who are active duty, who are on the verge or basically already millionaires and and you would never guess it. So yeah, we got some more comments from Charles. He says I don't know why, but for some reason I seem to learn more from my failures with my finances and other things in my life than I do with my successes. That's actually that hits pretty pretty close to home too, charles. So, yeah, you know that's a common argument that most failures in life, or most lessons learned, are through failures, and you usually end up learning the better lessons through actually failing.

Speaker 5: 46:11

And I think that's where, even when I was giving my financial advice to a 19-year-old, it was falling on deaf ears and I. It was falling on deaf ears and I knew it was falling on deaf ears, um, but I still had to say it, you know, because I wish at 19 that I had somebody to kind of stop me from doing some of the things that I was probably going to do anyways. But, like you said, some things are best learned the hard way and, honestly, some of my even my best financial failures were just horrible mistakes that I made and I had to pay for them. But I'm also a big proponent of you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So if somebody has already been down this very bumpy road, I personally don't necessarily want to go down that same road Like, okay, give me some lessons, give me some better shoes or something. I don't want to have to suffer the same exact way you did. So if I'm learning this new thing, I'm going to take the advice of somebody who's been down that path and you know can can save me some considerable time and energy and effort. But yeah, I don't know, there's something there, something about the failures and just the. The data seems to show that it sticks more whenever you're, whenever you're failing, like it's almost like you level up, each failure turns into a new skill that you unlocked.

Speaker 5: 47:41

But, um, but yeah, that's a great, uh, great point, charles. I mean honestly, uh, I think that's pretty common and I would say pretty. I mean, I resonate with it for sure. Um, all of my best financial mistakes have been some of my best lessons, and that's usually when I'm um, like when I'm counseling someone, like I have to be, I have to basically be careful, because I'm like I can't really criticize this person for what they're doing or what they've done, because I literally have done the same thing to. You know, I have to give myself some a break and realize, okay, I was once 19, I made some poor decisions financially and you know that's part of life. No, into the weeds.

Speaker 5: 48:39

So we got amber and Charles doing double duty on my show. So I appreciate you guys. I think, amber, you've been under weather so I hope you get to feeling better. Uh, it's been going around, but, um, yeah, we're me and Charles. We're just kind of talking, talking finances, um, but yeah, it's been, uh, it's been a great little, uh mini adventure we got, um, hopefully we'll have Charles on the show soon so we can talk some. You know, maybe we can even talk about some of the fundraising things that he's been able to implement, and then we can just talk about some of our future endeavors regarding MBR. But, yeah, charles has been keeping me company, and now Amber, so I appreciate you guys, and we also have Rocket in the background, who is always keeping me company as well. Alright, so I mean, at this point, we got about five or six minutes before I have to wrap up everything, but just everyone, thank you for joining in, thank you for Charles and Amber for interjecting. And, yeah, I mean, at this point I guess we can talk about some.

Speaker 5: 50:03

I guess some just random topics that are trending right now. I know that I do want to do a series on the thrift savings plan. I'm probably going to do a whole video series on that at some point. Um, I'm not, probably not going to touch real estate investing, because that's you know, there's all kinds of guys that are already doing that. Veterans and entrepreneurship I definitely have covered that, um, but I'm also always down to learn, and so if you're a successful entrepreneur, veteran, um, I'm definitely willing to have you on the show and tell your story and learn, because I learned something from every one of my guests, no matter what, and I love that, um, yeah. So then we also have military skills for side hustles, so you can do freelancing, consulting, digital opportunities. I've even seen some military members being a social media stars. Essentially, I don't know how that works with their command, but, um, yeah, I think they're, they're allowed to do that up to a certain point. All right.

Speaker 5: 51:12

So other quick things that we could talk about so, yeah, we're gonna do a thrift savings plan deep dive VA loans and we can talk a little bit about just the VA loans in general, like yeah just the do's and don'ts, things like that, how to leverage those loans effectively, because I mean the, the va loans or the gi bill loan or that sorry, the va loans can be really, really helpful for anybody, you know, trying to buy a house. House, because you don't have to worry about paying PMI, which is private mortgage insurance, I think. So you, basically you don't have to pay that, which can be hundreds of dollars a month. You don't have to put money down necessarily, so that saves you money in the long run, and generally the rates are lower or at least competitive. And generally the rates are lower or at least competitive. So if you can get a VA loan, you're going to do okay, it's not the end. All everything is not like okay, well, if you don't get a VA loan, then you're screwed. No, I think it's just a tool, just like the GI Bill, vr&e and all these different programs. They're there for you, they work for some people and they don't work for others. But you want to do your due diligence and be informed, and the VA loan is just another one of those things. You have to be informed about your benefits, take use of it and be smart about it, because that has a lot of implications. As far as the loan implications, obviously this is a 15-year commitment or a 30-year commitment, depending on which direction you go, but if you compare a regular traditional loan versus the VA loan, then, if I remember correctly, you're going to be saving you hundreds of dollars in the same house. So definitely use your VA loans. All right, yeah, so we got. Man Charles is on fire today.

Speaker 5: 53:39

Always make sure when you buy a home with the VA loan or any other loan, not to buy the most expensive one you can afford, because everyone falls on hard times eventually and cannot be said True words cannot be said. Any homeowner who has had home for more than a couple of years, or even just right at the gate. I've heard of homeowners sign in the dotted line and then the roof caves in the next day. So all that to say is that, yeah, your point is very well taken, because whether it's a VA loan or not, you don't want to buy, you don't want to be house poor, you want to live in a modest house that you can afford and you also want to have money aside for emergencies, for house emergencies. So that's all another. We can probably do a whole another series, yeah, on just home loaner, home ownership and all that other stuff. But yeah, great, great perspectives on on the ve loans and or just in general home ownership.

Speaker 5: 54:41

Don't buy at the high end, just like being carport. You know, like if you go into a dealership you say, oh, I want to spend 600, they're going to get you in a 600 car, but you don't, you don't necessarily need that maybe. So that's where you gotta be strong. As I go into the dealership the color dealership, like you want to go in with a good wingman, um, um, stay firm. But you know you gotta. This is a major purchase. You can't just rush into it, you know, which is probably a good thing they don't. But, um, but yeah, once again, charles, dropping those knowledge, wisdom, uh, knowledge nuggets on us, nuggets on us, but I think that's that's gonna be cutting it. Cut the close for our time, kind of a chill session. So I appreciate you guys. You know, like we're supposed to have Michael Wells, attorney at law for MBR, but just didn't work out this time. Not the first time, won't be the last, but he's just excited To talk money and Charles stepped up In full Regalia of Work there. So I appreciate it, charles.

Speaker 5: 56:04

But, yeah, that's pretty much going to be the show Tune in next week. We got Rob and Becky Salazar. We're going to be going through their finances together. You know, make it a spouse dating thing, like, take your spouse, watch it on TV because it's on Roku and on Amazon Firestick or YouTube. So, yeah, watch us as a couple and, you know, maybe it could be a good way to have a discussion about your finances together.

Speaker 5: 56:42

So, yeah, that's my pitch next Thursday at 7 Eastern. So, all right, at 7 Eastern, alright, well, yeah, charles, man, throwing in, you make me feel, you make me all fluttery inside. We appreciate you too, joey. You're doing a great job and have a lot of wisdom. You're making me blush, but thank you Charles, thank you Amber, I appreciate you guys. You guys have been amazing throughout this whole journey.

Speaker 5: 57:10

So, uh, so, thank you. Um, that's pretty much going to be the show for the day. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Um, thank you for tuning in to MBR. Please share and like and subscribe and all that good stuff. But, uh, yeah, you're, you're, uh, you're helping a veteran. This is part of my therapy, just so you know that my weekly therapy is doing this with you guys. So, so, thank you for being a part of my, my therapeutic journey on this uh, crazy blue ball colder. But yes, thank you so much and that's going to be it for this episode. Thank you again, again, and we will catch you guys on the next stream ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to military broadcast radio.

Speaker 3: 58:00

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.