Financial Freedom- Breaking Generational Poverty with Jasper Smith

In this episode of ABC's of Parenting Adult Children, host James Moffitt speaks with financial expert Jasper Smith about the importance of financial literacy, communication in financial matters, and strategies to disrupt generational poverty. They discuss the significance of teaching financial responsibility to children, the psychological aspects of debt, and the necessity of having open conversations about finances in relationships. Jasper shares his journey into financial planning and emphasizes the need for accountability and progress in achieving financial goals.

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:03.342)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. Today is Wednesday, January the 22nd, 2025 and where we're at here in the Charleston area is Charleston, South Carolina. We had snowmageddon yesterday. We had about three inches of snow land on us, which means it crippled the entire state of South Carolina. We just don't know what to do with that white powdery crap that

keeps coming out of the sky. And, I wound up having to, unbury my front door to let the dogs out this morning or last night. And, it was, it was pretty comical. The dogs looked up at me, looked at the snow, looked up at me and went, hell no. They were like, we ain't doing this anyway. Today our guest speaker is Jasper Smith. He's joining us on this, episode. Hey Jasper, thanks for being here. Hey, pleasure to be here.

Hey, go ahead and introduce yourself to our listening audience, please. Yeah. So I'm Jasper Smith. Let's call it 18 years in the financial services industry. title. I've had a lot of them. I use financial planner, advisor, coach. I'm the money guy. I'm the guy you need on your team. but I really have a passion for really helping like to educate people on the various financial things that exist.

Unfortunately, a lot of us have received a lot of bad information or maybe we haven't received the information at all. But one of my taglines, and I really stand on this, is that I'm tirelessly each day to help people disrupt generational poverty for their families and community. And when I say that, it's not about one specific product or solution that's going to make that a reality, but it's more so how do we have this conversation?

because a lot of people unfortunately are afraid to have the talk. And so I pride myself on getting people to open up and sharing things with me that they don't share to their spouse, to their friends, to their family. And it's amazing what happens when somebody is willing to kind of open up and share some of those inner thoughts. And it just helps them to get over some of those hurdles that may have been holding them back financially.

James Moffitt (02:25.1)
Well, when I read your bio, the tagline, let's disrupt generational poverty, really, it really grabbed my attention. And my wife and I have been married 34 years going on 35. We've had four children. We're empty nesters now. So I'm probably a little further down the road than some folks. But I know that when it comes to marriage relationships, there are some key things.

that are very pivotal when it comes to disrupting a marriage relationship, even a dating relationship. And I bet you could probably guess what two of those are. Yeah. Money. Money's one. And I'll say the spark, the fire, the passion could be the other. Infidelity is probably the number one reason people get

that break up, it's a dating relationship or a marriage relationship. Infidelity is number one. Number two is a biggie is money problems. Money problems cause more stress than almost anything. so, you know, one of the one of the reoccurring topics for our podcast is financial literacy, not only financial literacy for the parents, but teaching that financial literacy.

to the kids. And we have parents that have pre-teens at 12 years old all the way through teenagers and 18 and above, know, adults, young adults. So as you said, if parents don't have a good grasp on financial literacy, it's going to be very, very difficult for them to pass that down to the next generation. And I know looking back, I was raised in the 70s and 80s.

And I remember looking back at that and I know my dad, he handled all the bill paying and what did he do? He grabbed the checkbook every month. I guess he paid the bills by the month or whatever. And he wrote out all the checks, stuck them in an envelope, looked and sticked a stamp and off to the mailbox he went. And so I knew that my parents were very good at finances because they paid off a 30 year note on their house in 15 years.

James Moffitt (04:52.941)
You know, made all their car payments on time, made your mortgage payment on time. We always had food to eat. Lights were never cut off. You know, so I know my parents were really good at money management. However, for whatever reasons, they didn't teach us anything about it. They didn't teach us about budgeting. They didn't teach us about nothing, not anything. So I I'm out in the world, 18, 19, 20 years of age. And I have no clue what to do when I get my paycheck. You know, I'm

Buying cigarettes and beer and partying and you know, wondering why the lights are cut off and why the landlord's at the door with his handout wanting his rent, you know? And so, so I had to learn through the school of hard knocks, how to manage my budget, how to, how to actually create a budget, like on an, you know, an Excel spreadsheet. There's multiple ways that you can do it, but you gotta, you gotta figure out what your bills are.

and figure out how much money you're bringing in the house. And you gotta pay those utilities and necessities first before you can do anything else. And so I want the parents and the listening audience who may be struggling in this area to be able to listen to some of your solutions. Yeah. Well, first, you definitely said a word there. I find that interesting too that

there were parents similar to yours who like had a system, but they didn't leave you or provide you with the playbook of said system. So I think that's more common than not, right? My parents did okay, I didn't, there's a disconnect. And I think it stems back to, we don't openly have these conversations with the folks in our house. So if they're,

Like when I speak to my parents, you know, it was, this is growing folks business. you said, we take care of stuff, but they weren't giving them the details. so I now have clients as adults who were like, well, nobody ever told me I was supposed to do this. And I was like, well, it was happening, but they just didn't tell you what they were doing to take care of business. And so I think that the first step for a lot of people is be courageous enough to have the conversation.

James Moffitt (07:09.654)
And when I say be courageous, I mean that in all sincerity because some people are flat out afraid to talk. They're just afraid. You bring up money, investing, retirement, whatever financial topic. I mean, they just cringe. It's like, not going to do it. Right. Right. And that's a scary thing to your point. A lot of men, was usually the man was the breadwinner taking care of everything. And now, you know, the wife is here. You know, life is fine until the husband dies. And so they're

by countless stories of the woman, the wife, who knows where nothing is. And I've met these women in real life. And I was like, so you've gone 40, 50 years with this guy and never knew your bank account number. Like basic stuff, like, oh my goodness. And so some of those things, I think for the time where we were in this country, I guess that was accepted.

But today is just, we have to get past that unwillingness to have this conversation with our significant others or our spouses. And even to your point, even with our children. And so depending on how you want to run your household, like I think about it like a business, whether you are an entrepreneur or a corporate warrior or a combination of the two, like you gotta treat that household like a business. And if it's good for the business, that means it's good for everybody who's a part of that business.

What I would recommend, and this is something that my wife and I do, we've been married going on three years. And so we have quarterly meetings and it's scheduled and we can't reschedule. Like it goes on the calendar and it's our financial conversation. And we talk about everything. Like every financial topic gets addressed. Like where are we? What don't we have yet? What do we need to get? Who do we need to like?

fine to help us with said issue, whatever that issue or challenge might be. But that's every quarter, like clockwork, we do it. So we did it right before the new year. We sat down, you we'll have a nice drink and let's just talk it out. We talk about different goals we want to do or set or achieve. And so we have this open dialogue. So when we leave that meeting, there's a record and usually somebody's taking notes or we type it up and it just sits there.

James Moffitt (09:34.481)
on somebody's computer or we print it out and put it on the wall. Right. And just say, look, next quarter, I'm going to ask you about what you just told me in this meeting. And so what it does, it allows us to be totally transparent. And it also helps us to keep each other accountable. So the couple that's listening to this right now, somebody's got to take the step to schedule the meeting.

One of you, if you can't flip a coin, but we've got to first schedule that meeting to have the discussion. You know, I tell people all the time, you don't need me yet. If you can't talk to the person in your house, you're doomed. You don't need to hire Jasper yet. Have the talk first, because if you're having the talk with your significant other or your spouse, it makes the meeting with me that much more fruitful because now you're coming in with some ideas about what you want to do, maybe what you need to do.

And then as a practitioner, can help kind of guide you based on what you tell me. So I think the first key is you got to schedule that meeting. And I say quarterly, that's our normal cadence. But if you need to start with like monthly to build some momentum, to have the talk, like you mentioned the budget at a minimum check in, can be 10, 15 minutes. are all the bills. Here's the fixed stuff. Here's the variable stuff. We good. Yes or no. And the numbers will show that. And so

whatever you are most comfortable doing, I'm going to say do it, but don't keep waiting for this perfect day, the perfect weather. You gotta just schedule it and address those concerns head on. And the problem with not talking and not communicating is that things fall through the cracks, mistakes are made. And that kind of, in the financial world, that kind of stuff snowballs quickly.

And it can, it can cause a huge mountain of problem that, that, you know, right now you're, your financial problems, maybe this size, you know, something that y'all can both grab ahold of with both hands and turn it around and toss it around and look at it and figure out what color it is and figure out how many bumps and sharp edges it's got on it. And then you can figure out how to round those edges off.

James Moffitt (11:57.893)
You can figure out how to make that little snowball much, I'm using snow snowball, right? Because I got nothing but snow outside, but she can take that snowball and make it much more manageable. And, so yeah, communications in any type of relationship, whether it be husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, boss to coworker to worker or coworkers to coworkers, or any relationship that you think about in life.

communications is key and good communications can make or break the conversation. They can make him make or break the project or it can make him break a budget or whatever. Right. So, not talking is the worst thing you can do. So how, how would you, how would you suggest or how would you encourage, let's say the man of the family,

Assuming that he is in charge of the finances or let's say he's not in charge of the finances and the wife is, and he's clueless and he doesn't know what's going on. Well, how would you encourage somebody to, to, step into that kind of a conversation? Yeah. What I have people do is I first would ask them to write down the top three financial challenges they want to address. Just three.

Most people have way more than that, but if the individual can do that first before they go kind of reach out to have the talk, it's just, hey, here are the three things I think we should focus on or that I'm unclear about or that I need some more education around. I got three things. And then you take that to the partner and say, hey, look, I need you to jot down your top three priorities. That right there, that activity in all of my life as a financial planner.

the top three things have never matched. From every couple that I've had a conversation with, you will never have the exact same three, or will never be in the same order. And what that does is now they immediately understand we are way off base or we're pretty close.

James Moffitt (14:12.675)
And generally it's more of the, pretty close because normally you kind of know what's going on in your house. Even if you're not talking about it, you kind of, you kind of have an idea of where you need to focus. And typically, although they're not in the exact same order or the exact same three, usually you'll find one or two out of three in most cases, in most cases. So I think you have to be willing to ask yourself that question. What are the top three?

financial challenges or priorities I want to focus on. And then you go ask your significant other or your spouse to do the same thing. And then you have the conversation. It's literally answering one question, is how you start this process. And somebody again has got to take the stand up. I'm going to begin and I'm going do my.

Gotcha. Um, so you said you'd been married three years. Yes, sir. So you're not even past your honeymoon, right? Five years, five years is the magic Mark. And what I understand you make it past that fifth year, then your, your, honeymoon's over and you you're on the road to success. Right? A lot of, a lot of relationships don't last that magical five year Mark. Uh, so, so I'm assuming that you're relatively young.

You're probably a little bit younger than me, right? I'll be 40 this year. I'll be 40. Okay. Yeah. All right. um, tell us how, how did you get into the financial planning world? Yeah. So come out of college, had no clue what I wanted to do. I knew I could, you know, having a business degree would afford me the opportunity to get a job, but had no clue.

I will fall into this space specifically. And so my first job out of college, I worked at a financial firm in Philadelphia. I'm actually, I'm from North Carolina originally. So the whole snow thing is fun. My family has been texting me a lot of photos about fun in the snow. so being raised in the South and then moving to Philadelphia after college at a financial firm, it was just this curiosity of like, how does money work?

James Moffitt (16:31.688)
Like, know, the stock market is talked about every day on the news. know, certain channels always have a ticker in the bottom corner. And it's like, what is that? Like, what is this? What is that thing? And so going through college, you know, I learned a little bit about what it is, but I was still kind of thirsty for like, I need to know more because no matter what people do in life, it always comes back to this, well, is there enough money to do this or not do this? And so,

For me, it was just this curiosity that led me to, okay, I need to learn as much as I can because my family, we didn't talk openly about money. I understood to your point, like things were getting done. I knew my parents had financial people in their lives, but I didn't know what questions to ask as a child. going through college, getting that first job, I I learned so much in that first year that I then would go back and ask my parents, hey, did you know this?

Did know about this product? you know about this thing, this investment? And then it became more of a conversation I would have where they were like, yeah, you we've been doing that for a long time. And the fact that you're talking about this at 21, you're light years ahead of us. Cause most 21 year olds fresh out of college aren't thinking about saving, investing, retirement. It's not a part of the conversation. Now to your point, I also partied a lot and you realize how fast money goes when you're a good time.

And at some point, it was probably when I moved to California, I knew I had to change. being out of college and having all that fun, spending all this money, I was like, how do I sustain this for 40 years? At the rate I was going, it wasn't possible. But I started asking and for me it was just, there are people in my office who know what they're doing financially.

let me go ask them, what should I be doing as a 21 year old? had no debt out of college, thank God. I said, what should I be doing? And I interviewed, like senior managers, financial advisors, just all these people who had cool titles, who I knew were doing well. And all of them said, save as much money as you can. You should start now, because it's always gonna be a rainy day. You should learn about investing, not.

James Moffitt (18:57.778)
Not saying you gotta become like a day trader. You don't need to be fanatical, but you need to invest in the markets because over time you will just have a lot of money if you can set up an investment and keep adding to it over time. You don't need a lot of money, but you gotta start because time is your friend. The third, you are young. Generally younger people are healthier. You should look into the various types of insurance, whether it's life, disability, because...

People tend to wait, especially on the insurance front, we tend to wait years until we're adult, have the house, the car, the family, and then we want to consider looking more into insurance. And they were like, it's going be way more affordable if you just lock it in right now. And I didn't understand that, but I was like, okay, whatever, insurance. And then I got laid off in 2008. And then I started my career as a financial planner, like in a recession, right?

So I learned firsthand like, So it started to kind of click. They told me what a 21 year old should do with no kids and single. It only becomes more complicated. You earn more, you accumulate more stuff, but who is helping you to manage all of that? And for most people to your point earlier, we weren't given this playbook when it comes to money. Like you don't take a money class in school.

And most States don't have any requirements from a high school or below. Like there's no, there's no financial literacy in our curriculums, right? That's crazy. It is. And so there it's improving, but there's still a lot of States where it's not mandatory. There's some spots in every state where it's optional or is non-existent, but the fact that it's not like the law means, well, don't have to, if they want to learn about money, let them do it on their own.

And so I just started to kind of consume all of this stuff. And I was like, no wonder people struggle with money their whole lives. Wasn't in school, family doesn't talk about it. They don't think they need a financial planner. And I started going down this list of all these different things. And I was like, that's why a particular family may struggle generation after generation, because nobody kind of stood up and said, I don't think this is right, y'all. Right. And it's a simple.

James Moffitt (21:21.396)
I mean, it sounds simple, but it isn't. But it's like, who's going to do something different?

It's a question I ask a lot of my clients. One of the things you said kind of brought up a memory. You were talking about partying and spending money on, you know, going to the bars and chasing women and drinking and doing all those crazy things that we do when we're young, right? many moons ago, I spent some time in law enforcement and security and I did one of my extra jobs was working

security at bars and dance clubs and stuff like that in Houston, Texas, downtown. Nice. And I remember, I don't know, was having a conversation with one of the bar owners one night and I asked him about how he stays afloat. said, how do you, how do you keep this thing afloat? How do you, how do you, know, how do you, what's your, what is your, I didn't know ROI or any of that, you know, I didn't understand any of that, but I just was like, you know, how can you afford to do this from day in and day out?

And he, you know, they, these, these bar owners know what to do. They, they pack those places out, you know, get DJs and play music and blah, blah, blah. I'm far removed from that scene now. But, uh, he said one thing that kind of followed me the rest of my life. He has answered to me was disposable income.

And I was like, excuse me. He says, yeah, disposable income. I said, what do you mean by that? He said, look at all these kids out here, just dancing and drinking and having fun. He said, they don't have a mortgage. They probably don't have a car payment. They don't have car insurance because mom and dad's paying for all that. Right. And so they take their paycheck at the end of the week and they blow it on partying, know, disposable income. And well, as soon as you get into a relationship or have kids or buy a house and pay for cars and insurance and that disposable income is gone.

James Moffitt (23:20.476)
There is no such thing as disposable income. However, unless you, unless you learn lessons early, you kind of treat your paycheck as disposable income when it's not. So, so part of your, I'm gonna read some of the stuff from your bio that says, simply help people change the way they think and feel about money. I do it in a manner that's easy to digest mixed with a bit of humor.

Financial planning can be made easy and it's not just for rich people. like that. Everyone dreams about being financially successful and I help people begin living the life they dream about. And I I've read so many articles and listened to podcasts and basically people say that if you have financial freedom, you're free to do pretty much anything you want. Right. That,

financial freedom allows you to do so many things in life and allows you to enjoy, you know, life, you know, and, and I don't really know what, I personally don't know what financial freedom is. I haven't quite arrived at that point. I got the theory down, but getting to that, getting to that point, I haven't arrived yet. Uh, and, and my wife and I, um,

James Moffitt (24:48.998)
Let's just say we were idiots and we, didn't plan. We didn't plan for retirement. You know, when you're, when you're in your twenties and thirties, you're healthy. You're having kids or enjoying life. You both probably have your own, you know, your own careers, you know, and everything's everything's hunky dory. But then all of a sudden in a blink of an eye, you're you're in your sixties, which we are. And this little thing called healthcare and retirement keeps popping its ugly head up.

Right. The older you get, the more, more times you get to go visit the doctor. Sometimes that's because you didn't take care your body when you're younger. And sometimes it's just a natural process of aging. You know, the, you know, the check-in, the light comes on and all of a sudden you got to, you got a new pain and you're like, Jesus, I'm just trying to get out of bed. My ankle hurts. I mean, what's, what's going on here? You know? And so health insurance becomes very important when you're, when you're older and,

Being able to retire is important as well. And you said, you said a key thing to the end. This is still an issue today. Young people can't see themselves getting old. Like that's a real psychological. They've done studies about why people don't put money into their retirement accounts when they're younger is because they can't see literally in their head. They cannot see themselves being the 60 year old person. You're like, eh, I'm not paying that person. That person is you.

It's just you can't in your brain, it doesn't connect that you need to do this. And so what I also experienced was having conversations with my elders, just in my family, my community, and they would tell me that. It was always the person who would say the same thing you said. I wish I would have, and then you feeling like save more, invest more, whatever it was, it's always I wish I would have. And when I talk to people,

Like I can't even scare them now. Like the internet has enough scary stuff out there, but when I'm having that conversation, it's just, you don't have to take my word for it. I just talked to enough people who are, who have lived long enough to know that you should sign up right now. Like there shouldn't be any, I should think of, no, no, no. Today is the best day to take that step or else you're going to continue to have these, again, these families who wait.

James Moffitt (27:10.35)
And I can't figure out what we're waiting for because I know you would say to yourself, if you could pull back your younger self, hey, younger self, save a few dollars. You can party. So here's the dilemma. I'm a millennial. And so we were raised a certain way. We're educated. We got jobs, whatever. But we're horrible with money. A lot of us are. And so what I would tell people is you can do both. You can have the fun and party. And you can save and invest.

But the trick is you gotta automate the systems. See, we're trying to think about, did I do it? Should I do it? Can I do it? Versus when you get that paycheck, and I'm assuming, again, these are the folks who have a stable income, set it up. Direct deposit to your savings account, your 401Ks, your 403Bs, those are automatically funded every.

two weeks you get paid or whatever your payment cycle is. If you automated a lot of the, even your credit card payments, your mortgage, like all of these things, if we have enough income and we can automate some of these bills that we're paying the, and I like a good bill, like investing and saving. Those are bills. Those are just good bills that I like to pay. But if I can automate those, I never have to think whether or not I saved money. And to this day, I still get the question, well, how do I save money?

And my response is always put it on autopilot. I don't care if it's $5. $5 is better than a zebra. But if you're doing $5 every two weeks, I know you're away $10 a month. That is, we should celebrate. The problem is we don't celebrate some of these smaller victories, but it's those small victories or those quick wins that add up to a big win. So if you did a $5 every pay period, let's say you did it for six months. Well, look at six months.

I'm gonna ask you as your advisor, I'm gonna say, hey, can we bump that up to like $10? Cause $10 won't scare you because you've been doing 10 a month, and I just want you to do 10 every paycheck. And so it's this gradual process where, yeah, it'd be nice if we could do a hundred. We're not there. We have too many other responsibilities and bills. So let's not, let's not get crazy here. the, let's get crazies and stuff you see on the internet, right? We want this boom in your face. I need a lot of money. No, you need a plan.

James Moffitt (29:31.27)
and you need to execute said plan. So what I would ask of any of your listeners, what is the plan? And just, I would pause there, what's your plan? And if you cannot figure that out on your own, that's where somebody like myself or that friend who you know wants to help you, who you have avoided. I have those same friends. They know what I do. I've been doing it for years. I have not changed careers.

And they still avoid me. the wild thing is I occasionally share stories on social media about success that I'm having, or I tell stories about, you know, experiences that I've had as an advisor. And even that doesn't get them to take action. And they have my number. Like they have, they can call me right now and say, Jasper, will you help? The answer is yes. And that's going to cost you because I don't work for free. the help you're looking for is probably within an arm's reach.

Be willing to ask for that help if you cannot do the plan and execute it on your own. That's why I am in the career field that I'm in is because I literally serve as an accountability partner. Yes, I'm licensed to do insurance and investments and all this stuff, but really I'm here to hold you accountable, make sure that what James told me, wanted to do X, Y, and Z, well, I'm a hold him to it. And unless he changes those three goals,

I'm holding James to what he said he wants to do. And if I can't service him, I'm gonna find the solution for him somewhere. Maybe it's not even with me, but my job as an advisor is really to help people to, I just want people to crush it, James, just crush it. Because I want us to feel what it's like. And you kind of said this, to have that freedom. And freedom doesn't mean you need $10 million, right? Right.

it will vary depending on where you live in the country. Like I need more money because I live in California now, but my parents live a great retired life because they're in North Carolina. Cost of living is not bad. You know, the health is good. They're good. But in California, add a couple of zeros, right? So, so understanding where you want to live and how you want to live will dictate what your plan or dictate how your plan should look.

James Moffitt (31:56.69)
So if you have a lifestyle that you love and it's a little, you're on the luxury side of things, well, let's plan to live that luxurious life, but it's gonna take some work. It's possible, but we gotta be willing to do a little bit of work.

One of the things I learned at a very early age, especially when it came to figuring out how to budget my money was there's two different things. One's called a need and one's called a Hey, there we go. Speak to them. You need, you need to pay your rent. You need to pay your car payment. You need to pay your insurance. You need to pay your light bill. You need to pay your mortgage because the reality of not doing that is stuff will get cut off.

And somebody will come with a big shiny red truck with a hook on the back of it. And he will steal that thing at three o'clock in the morning while you're asleep. So, so I had, it was a pretty painful lesson, discovering my needs versus my wants. And I think if any of us were, were brutally honest with one another, I think everybody, maybe not even, maybe not you, cause you're a financial advisor, but I think a lot of us could say, yeah, I got some wants in my life that.

I can't really afford, you know, like, like I, had to cut, we had to cut the cable, you know, our, our cable bill was like $500 every month. I kept looking at that and I kept having to break up the payments on to the cable company. And I just finally, one day I looked at my wife and I said, man, I, well, she was at work and I actually just unhooked the stupid cable box. I drove to Xfinity in North Charleston and I handed to the lady. said, I'm cutting the cable.

She didn't even know what I said. She didn't know what I mean. like, what? I said, I'm cutting the cable. can't afford this anymore. I said, this is like an albatross hanging around my neck every month. So I handed that thing in and I cut my, I cut my bill to them from 500 down to like 125 just for internet. Yeah. You know, I was like, thing, the thing people forget is some of this stuff is temporary. So temporarily I need to cut back my cable. Right.

James Moffitt (34:07.028)
until I can figure out other parts of my plan. And then I can add it later. I think it's just this, we can't wait anymore. Like I want to get it now. So I charge and put things on my credit card or I borrow money. And it's just, if we could be a little bit more patient, we would have a lot more success. But also because we don't have a plan to reference, we're just shooting from the hip. I'm gonna do this now, do this now, do this now. Versus if we just take a step back and look at everything.

And this is how I think about every engagement, no matter what somebody tells me they want to talk about in terms of planning topics, my brain is always thinking, how does this one thing that they're concerned about impact everything else that we're not maybe going to talk about that day? Because as a planner, I want to make sure that the move you are about to make is actually the move you should be making. I want to do a lot of things I can't.

So let me not worry about the things that I can't work on. What can I do? That's where I should focus my energy. And hopefully, wherever I'm focusing that energy, that should also be the top priority on that to-do list. that's where all this conversation comes into play where I find a lot of people have, they have a plan that they've kind of thought about. And then I just say, let me check your work.

And I say it just like, let me check your word. Let me just make sure, cause I need to ask some follow up questions. And what I normally find is that eight out of 10, the priorities aren't in order. So they're worried about something that's not important. Like I'll give you an example. This is always a big one. I'm worried about paying my student loan off, which is, know, let's just call it a hundred thousand dollars. And yet they'll have a credit card with a balance of like a thousand dollars. And they'll be so transfixed on

man, that $100,000 I owe it is so bad. I'm just like, but you got a small credit card bill with a higher interest rate that you can probably play off a lot quicker than that $100,000. And it's almost, when I say that, James, it's like they have this aha moment. Cause all I did was I got them to take a step back because when you're in it, you're not thinking clearly. And it takes that other set of eyes. It's like,

James Moffitt (36:26.82)
sports is why they always have let's check the game field here's what you're doing but here's what you should have did or here's where it went wrong and so when they when they can step back i'm just like tell me if this makes sense so you want to pay down let's say you had that thousand dollars today and you want to put a thousand dollars on the student loan so it goes from 100 000 to 99 you still gonna feel like crap right yeah but but you can go from a thousand to zero you're gonna feel like a champ

Cause now that's one less person you owe. And it's just that psychological place. When I talk about changing how people think and feel, you feel bad that you owe all this debt, but I bet you you'll feel better if you knock out one of them. Right. And that's why you have a lot of these financial coaches and gurus who preach the, you know, the debt snowball technique because it works. I know mathematically the interest rate sometimes is neglected, but from a human standpoint,

We need that victory. Like seeing the progress of it go down is great, but if I can knock you off my list, I feel a thousand times better. Progress is progress in my book. And so I'm not gonna tell you what you have to do, you know, in terms of making progress. I just wanna see it. And I wanna see it consistently. That's it. If, if, if you're willing to go on a journey with me.

I always say, I can't use the guaranteed word because when you're dealing with investments, you can't say that word. But I guarantee if you can sit down with somebody and have an honest conversation about your financial situation and they genuinely can help you, I guarantee within three to six months, you'll be a totally different person, completely different. Because what you would have done at three to six month timeframe, you will have rewired your brain, right? They say it takes what?

forget how long it takes to build a new habit. So I just say, give me three to six months with some consistent check-in and follow-up. You will be a completely different person.

James Moffitt (38:39.41)
Yeah. And it requires, it requires not only accountability, but the, know, people won't change unless they want to change. Ooh, you said it. Ooh, know, yes, they can come to you and you can give them the best plan, the best plan on the planet. But if they don't want to do it, or if they're not, if they're doing it, have hearted, you know, they got it. They gotta have the, they gotta have the motivation to want to make a change. Like you have, you have to identify the problem.

And then you have to figure out a game plan on how to fix the problem. And then, and then once the plan is formulated, then you got to jump into it with both feet and take action and do something, do something. Something is better than nothing. And I think, I think some, sometimes people are afraid of the goal because it just looks so monumental that they don't, you can't eat an elephant all at once, but you can eat it one tiny bite at a time. And it might take you 10 years to eat that elephant.

Right. And you might weigh 400 pounds when you're done, but the task is, the task is accomplished. Right. Yeah. what, what I literally just put this in a, I do a newsletter every week just to kind of give people, you know, tidbits, advice, things I'm working on, but I put this quote in here and this is, really, it hits home and it's not just financial. It's just really like in life, but the quote says, if it's important to you, you will find a way.

If not, you will find an excuse. And I see that happening and not just with financial related matters, but just in life in general, where when it's important, people show up, they don't make any excuses, it gets done. When it's not important, they no show for meetings, they're late, they don't follow through, they don't communicate. You see this as kind of like this theme in people's lives where

They complain about what's going wrong. It's always bad, you know, very pessimistic. And it's like, man, if you just changed what you thought about it and have this list that was gonna help you to focus your efforts, you wouldn't make all these excuses about what's going wrong because you'd be too busy focused on what's going right. Because when you're making progress, even when you have setbacks, the fact that you're seeing yourself go forward despite the setbacks continues to encourage you to keep going.

James Moffitt (41:07.27)
Right. One of the slogans I like to use, is progress, not perfection. Denzel Washington uses that and all of his, is, where are those, where those movies he's down, but he, that he created God, can't think of it for action movies. Yeah. what was that maybe? there's like three of them. There's three of them.

can't think anyway, equalizer, equalizer, equalizer. Yeah. I've seen all three of them. And, uh, I think, I think it's kind of like the John Wick saga. think they're kind of wearing it out now. John Wick 45 episode, episode 45 and 46, you know, like, like, kill bill, you know, they had like how many of those, anyway, he uses, you know, one of, in one of the movies he's helping this guy wants to become a security guard. He's a big guy.

He needs to lose some weight. He's got the requirement is to get down to a certain amount of weight so that he can take the test, blah, blah, blah. And so Denzel's got him out at the football field and he's flipping this big giant tire and he just can't hardly do it. And, uh, he's like, do you, do you, do you want to, you want to take that test? You want to be a security guard? Well, then you, gotta work at it. You gotta work and get work for that goal. And he uses project, not progress, not perfection. And I use that.

I use that slogan a lot in a lot of different areas of life because you know, slow, but sure progress beats inactivity failure. If you do nothing, you're not going to gain anything. You're not going to reach your goal. Just baby steps, take little tiny baby steps. And I use that like in weight loss. You know, I've lost 80 pounds in the last two and a half years. I'm diabetic. You know, I was forced into learning how to lose weight.

because of health issues, progress, not perfection. And I tell people that I'm like, just get off the couch, go, go walk out to the end of your driveway and back. The next day you walked 10 feet past that driveway, 20 feet, 30 feet. And I went from walking, you know, I was lucky if I walked 1500 steps a day to, about, you know, nine or 12,000 steps a day over the last two and a half years. Right.

James Moffitt (43:28.286)
And it, doesn't happen all at once, just like money management. don't happen all at once. It's like, don't, you don't get fat overnight. You don't lose weight overnight either. You know, you wake up one day and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm 380 pounds. When did that happen? You know, well, you look back 10 years in the rear and you see all these bad, bad health issues and you see all these bad habits that you have and you got to break those habits.

You do. And what I hope you got me thinking, and this is why I think for our youth is really important for the parents to, again, to be making progress to do better because the kids are watching and the kids are, they're taking note when you respond a certain way or when they hear certain words or language around money. They're paying attention more than we know. And so one of the things that I'm working on, have a

My daughter is two, she'll be three this year. And so we started her financial plan three months after she was born. And people are like, what are you doing? I said, I'm getting a head start on life for her. And people were just like, what are you doing? And was like, and then I told my family, I told both sets of grandparents, I said, look, she won't understand what we're doing, not yet. But as she gets older, I mean, she inherited me as her father. So I'm gonna teach her.

when she can understand like, here's what we did for you. And so her job is just, you can maintain it, you can blow it, but I'm gonna make sure you got this great head start. So then if it ends up not working out, it's on her. And we wanna have more kids. So now there's this, we did this to help support you, to help you launch into the world, whatever you wanna do, to give you those options, that freedom.

Well, you can blow it on doing some silly stuff or you can blow a little bit, but still be working towards something different. And so that's the goal that my wife and I have, you know, that's the goal for our daughter is I want to make sure she has options. Now we both went to school. I'm cool if she wants to go to school, wants to be an entrepreneur. My wife is also an entrepreneur, but I'm like, maybe she wants to go to school and have that school experience. You know, I don't know if she'll be in the sports. I don't know what she's going to want to do at 18.

James Moffitt (45:50.054)
But at 18, she will have a little bit of money behind her name, but I want to share with her, here's how you'd be responsible with it. And it's gonna be an easy conversation for me to have because I was the kid that had quite a few dollars when he graduated college and I blew it. And it's a part of my story. I just blew it. And I met my dad's financial planner right when I graduated college. So I didn't say that earlier, but I graduated, no debt.

a little bit of money to my name and I blew it all within, I don't know, a year and a half, give or take, but I had fun. And so I laugh now. And so I didn't tell my mom I blew that money until I was 26. I told my dad right away. My mom to this day is still mad at me. Like that was supposed to be my, you know, could have bought it down, paying for a house or, you know, your business stuff. And my dad is like, I guess you learned a very expensive lesson and be thankful that you did it when it was just you.

And so my, my, my, one of my goals now is to really stress to parents, you have to get it together financially for the sake of your children or your child, because if not, you're going to end up repeating this cycle of struggle. This generation where we just can't get over that hump. You know, we have to take out student loans for college. No, student loans are optional if people just started early enough. We hope the child gets scholarships and grants, but I told my wife.

I am going to do the best I can. My wife said we will do the best we can as now a couple. We will enlist the help of our elders. So if James, if you want to contribute to my daughter's college fund, I will send you her information once we finish. But I'm making it known that I want people to fund my daughter's future. So when she gets to a certain age, she has that freedom of choice. It's the same thing for people who are nearing retirement.

A lot of people would retire tomorrow if the numbers were right. If they had enough to maintain their lifestyle, cover their healthcare costs, you know, know, cover their, their Medicare premiums. They had enough money to just say, know what? can live. They would, they would even give two weeks notice. They would just say, here's all my stuff. Y'all can, I don't want this computer. I would disappear so fast. They thought I won the lottery. Well, I were wait, has anybody seen James? He's supposed to be at work.

James Moffitt (48:13.084)
We haven't heard from him. Don't know where he's at. He's not answering his emails. James, James gone, but James, it is a, and I have some clients who are in there, you know, mid sixties getting close to retirement. Some haven't been able to retire because they just didn't save and invest enough or, and this is the big one. It's a tough one. They're not willing to adjust their lifestyle.

That's the harm. The numbers are what they are. The stock market, your savings, all that. But when you're not willing to make those adjustments, you're telling me that you're okay with continuing to work. And that's fine. I'm cool if you want to work until your last day is on this earth, but I'd rather you be working because you want to, not because you have to. And I have a guy, I'll tell you his last story about retirement. One of my, one of my old elder gentlemen, he's, I'll say he's semi-retired.

But one of his jobs was working at the stadium. So we've lost the Oakland A's now, they're gonna leave. But he was working the games and he said, Jasper, I get to watch 40 plus baseball, 40, 50 baseball games a year. And all I do is tell people where to go sit. So as a part of his semi-retirement, he was like, I don't make a lot, it's not even about the money. It was just, love baseball and they need people to work these tickets, these, these.

It was the like, my, all his kids were grown. And he was like, my wife does her thing with her friend. He was like, I don't want to be in the house bored. And I love baseball. So he got a job working at the stadium. And I said, that is a quality. meets incredible people. Cause you're in a baseball game, right? You're in a sporting event. But he was like, I have enough money. just, I don't want to be bored. So I work a little bit to keep me vibrant. said, that's like, it's those types of stories that I would hope people can say, you know what?

I am leaving this maybe career on my own terms and I will work if I want to not because I have to and I have enough, you know, in terms of assets to support the lifestyle that I desire.

James Moffitt (50:24.552)
Good stuff. All right. We're, getting towards the end of our interview here. So I want to, I want to tell the listening audience, if you're watching this on Spotify, you're watching the video, you'll see, Jasper has these, QR codes that you can scan and grab a copy of his book. And, you got a goal. can help you crush, scan me. And I'm sure that will lead you to a resource or a way to contact Jasper and he can, he can start helping you.

So I want to thank my listening audience for the privilege of their time. You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Amazon music, iHeart radio, Apple podcasts, and public radio. If you have a Spotify app, you can watch the video portion of this and scan those QR codes. And if you're listening on Amazon, iHeart, Apple, or public radio, you're going to be listening to the audio version of that. On Spotify, you'll see a link to my podcast website.

you to go to the, to the website. You can find my contact information. You can send me email. If you're listening to podcast episodes, please leave a review. there's an upcoming show schedule that's there that tells you what all the, every Friday, a new, a new episode comes out. And, I want to thank you for listening to this podcast episode and Jasper, thank you for being here and sharing all that wonderful information with our viewers.

Yeah, James, it's been my pleasure. Thank you so much for allowing me to spend a few, few minutes on your platform. Amen. All right. Everybody have a good, have a blessed day and we'll talk to you later.