Don’t come after my people — I call out Instagram trolls

Well, good morning everybody.

It's Saturday morning.

I thought I'd venture over here to the recording studio this morning.

As you can see, it is a normal workday on the farm, but I wanted to just take a few minutes and go through our reflection episode of the week.

Well, let's start first with the best of the week.

These are the things that I really felt like were the best part of this week's show.

And again, if you missed any of them, you can go right to becoming financiallyconfident.com and you can see all of our episodes there.

Well, let's start off first with a couple who paid cash for a house.

And I remember when I told this story, I, I got to give you a little bit more color to this because this was an interesting scenario.

I remember this couple came in, they were first time clients of mine, this first time that I ever met them.

And they were just beaming about how wonderful it was that they had bought this house with cash.

And as soon as I heard that, you know, of course the radar goes off in my mind.

My antenna went up because I'm thinking, you know, what is this really going to look like?

And then when I saw that IRA distribution, I just knew at that moment this was not going to be good.

But this is one of those things where it makes sense for you to talk to somebody, talk to an advisor.

It amazes me sometimes how many people aren't willing to spend a couple bucks for a consultation in this particular case, I mean, this was amazing.

And I remember what the wife said, she was crying at the time.

She said, we didn't, why didn't our financial advisor tell us this?

And the problem was it wasn't just to tax.

I mean, tax was bad enough, they had to go and get a second mortgage.

But in addition to that because of the IRMAA adjustment.

Now let me explain for a second way IRMAA works.

So Medicare is based on your income.

So once you turn 65 and you go on Medicare, you have to pay a portion of that premium.

It's a little over $200 right now.

But the problem is when your income goes up, the, the, the Congress, you know, has created this situation called irmaa.

So it's basically an adjustment to your Medicare premiums and it can triple.

And the problem is that lasts for two years.

They do what's called a two year look back period.

So, but the big takeaway for me on that one is if you are going to make a big financial decision.

And listen, folks, deciding to take 300,000 plus dollars out of your retirement account is a big financial decision.

Reach out to me, reach out to somebody that you trust.

You can always book a call with me by going to becoming financially confident and there's a little icon that says book a call.

Now.

The second big thing of this week, the best of the week, was actually me canceling the iPhone pre order.

Now I gotta be honest with you, I'm one of these folks that wants the latest and the greatest right away.

Ever since I started with the iPhone, I've always wanted the latest and greatest.

I was kind of disappointed when it first happened because normally they start this, you know, they start you can buy it at 8am and I was on there at 8am and even though I did a pre order, they put my original estimated ship date in December.

So I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed by that.

I'm still fighting a little cold.

I apologize if you hear me pause there every once in a while.

I'm still fighting this, this husky voice, Ralph.

But anyway, what I was saying is they even, even with the pre order, they had it in December.

And then I noticed on social media, and listen, I'm a big Apple fan.

My whole atmosphere here on my computers are Apple computers.

I would use an iPhone, I have an iPad, EarPods, you, you name it.

I like the Apple CarPlay.

But when I started to see some social media posts about this folding phone just breaking, I thought for myself, you know what, this is so important to me because this is one of the things that I use every day.

And it's so easy for all of us to say, well, let me go get the latest and the greatest.

But the problem is if you rely on that, and in so many ways, I think so many of us, you know, it's funny, we've been out shopping for houses and some of the older homes we look at actually have places where they had telephone lines in the house.

And now, you know, I don't even know if they're even wiring houses for that.

But if your iPhone or your Android phone, whatever it is, if it's mission critical for you, you know, think about, are you going to upgrade to the latest, are you going to let it play out a little bit?

So I'm really happy that I did it.

But it was one of those things where when I saw those things crack and I said, you know what, maybe I'll wait till after they get the bugs worked out.

And honestly, to be blunt, when I thought about it, do I really need a phone that Folds.

Would I really use it?

I have an iPad and it would really be sufficient.

And you know what's funny about that?

It's interesting when you think about that.

Now I also had some reminiscing this week.

One of the closest relationships I've ever had to a human being was my grandfather.

Now his name was Otis.

Him and I share the same middle name, Victor.

But I can remember and it's kind of interesting.

My farm here, where it's located in Delaware, this is a place where I never would have expected, but this is a place that my grandfather used to take me all the time.

We used to sit and walk whittle Wood and we'd sit along the canal and just kind of relax.

And it made me remember something that, and that is, you know, we get so hung up on money.

This show's all about money and how to manage your money.

But when it comes down to it, the things that you remember, the things that really matter are really the things that don't cost you a thing.

And I think about that now because we get so tied up in knots chasing after this and working hard for that to, to go buy stuff.

And I'm not saying that it's not good to go buy stuff and I think there's a lot of value in buying stuff.

But I also think we have to be willing to accept that.

You know what, sometimes it's those times which as an example, like just about an hour ago this morning, my wife and I on Saturday mornings we always go and pick up groceries and my son and daughter in law gave us a FaceTime call and we got to do some, some time with our grandson.

And he hits funny.

He's wearing all a.

An orange outfit today for Halloween.

And it's just amazing.

Those experiences, those times of just doing absolutely nothing is what really matters in life.

So as much as we get hung up on money and we get hung up on the stuff of life, I'm going to encourage you this week.

Just take a look at what else is going on around you.

Think about the, the experiences that you're going to have.

Now another thing I'm going to tell you this week was a big week for me is I shared it on the show.

I lost a lot of money on this Hummer deal this ev I had.

It was one of those things where I really didn't need another suv and I decided to get rid of it.

Decided to chart to trade it in.

Yeah, sometimes we make bad decisions and when I look back at it, it was probably a really bad decision.

I make the bad decisions, too.

So sometimes, as I shared on the show, you just have to stop the bleeding.

I know that doesn't sound easy, but it's.

Sometimes it's what you have to do, and then you got to go figure it out.

So in this particular case, honest, I bought out this lease.

It cost me quite a bit of money to do it, but it's saving me money in the long run.

I'm not paying interest on the lease.

I'm not paying insurance on it.

I'm not paying maintenance costs.

So that's a good thing for this week, probably the best of the week.

Well, let's get to the hardest things of the week.

The hardest thing of the week for me was the same thing I'm dealing with right now, and that's feeling a congestion.

I mentioned it on the show a couple times, Ralph the Frog, and I think on Thursday and Friday, I must have hit the.

I don't really have a cough button, but I just get kind of gave myself a break and didn't do that.

But that's been tough.

And even through, like, the whole wins of the week part, the whole time we're talking about wins of the week, I'm like, man, I can hardly get through this.

The other thing that was really kind of the tough time this week, or the hardest thing of the week, was that unplanned Instagram comment.

It's one thing to come after me, and I'm totally cool with that.

I have stick skin.

But don't come after other people on the show.

Don't come after my kids.

Don't come other people who are making comments about what they're going through.

This show and this movement that I'm trying to start is all about no shame and no judgment.

I always want to be a voice of encouragement for people because so many times people feel like they're stuck in this anxiety.

They feel like they're in this overwhelm.

They don't know the first thing to do, and this show needs to be that for them.

I was talking about not buying another Mercedes because of the cost of maintenance and actually getting rid of my Rolex watch and just wearing the good old Apple watch.

It got over 50,000 views on Instagram, and there's been a lot of engagement in that.

And I just encourage everybody to use this as a place for positivity.

We all make mistakes.

We all make mistakes when it comes to our finances.

There are times when we're all going to, you know what?

They stumble and Stub your toe.

That's what happens.

But we can't sit there and constantly judge each other.

We can't tell each other that we're stupid or how could you make that decision?

That is never going to get us anywhere.

And the people that hear that, you know what happens, they just shut down.

They just shut down.

And that's important.

Now, one of the other things that I honestly forgot about on Thursday and Friday, with everything else going on, I forgot about our money move.

So I want to just take a minute and talk about this whole plan for the money move.

Now, normally we do a money move that's a weekly thing.

We've done things like write down all your debts.

We've done things like set up a separate account.

Well, this one we really want to focus on a month.

One of the things that.

That I've noticed is that so many people don't have that emergency buffer.

And that emergency buffer, honestly, is the difference between chaos and crisis and acts.

What we strive for on the show, and that's financial confidence.

So this month, our goal has been to put $250 aside now in a separate account, call it your emergency fund.

In the first week, we talked about how do we find $25?

Where does that $25 that we can grab to get that momentum Starting as Juliet talked about on this show, it's all about building those financial muscles.

It's all about taking one step at a time.

So that was our first week.

Now this week, we looked to find $7 a day, and I encouraged everybody to really go look for that $7 a day.

Now, I could sit here and I could pick on coffee, and I could pick on Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or stopping at Wawa, but really take a look at where your money's going.

It's your money, and we have to be intentional with it.

We have to be intentional with where we're spending our money.

You know, I talk about on the show sometimes the dollar job framework, giving every dollar a job.

If you went to work tomorrow, let's just say you worked a regular job, and if you went to work and your boss gave you nothing to do, there would be nothing accomplished, right?

Well, you got to do the same thing with your money.

Now let's talk about the stories with numbers worth retelling.

One of the really tough parts I've seen, and we talked about this on the show, it's either Thursday or Friday.

We talked about what happens when you get that raise.

But it seems like, hey, no matter what, what happens I'm going in the other directions.

And we said the debt payments were up to $57 a month per worker and 52 cents of every dollar gain went to that.

Those payments have grown by almost 15% against income, only growing at 1.7%.

So as Julia talked about, she mentioned when she got pulled into the, the end of the year discussion about, hey, everybody's going to get a raise.

And that sounds good.

Just like we talked about the beginning of the week, this Social Security cost of living adjustment of 3.6%.

Well, that sounds fantastic until you look at what the actual costs in the economy are right now.

So, friends, we are actually, we're actually going in the wrong direction.

We said, September, actual wages, I think it fell by 0.3%.

That's a big deal.

And then, of course, we also had that very, very difficult discussion about Social Security this, this week and that plain math, we talked about how payroll taxes, why we get to 2032, are only going to cover about 78%.

Now, again, I didn't say on the show that I had an answer.

I didn't say on the show that I had some fantastic idea.

But friends, listen to me.

Something's gotta be done.

We've gotta reach out to our people that we elect and send to Congress and say, we got to fix this.

There's a lot of difficult decisions that need to be made, but we've got to stop just kicking the can down the road.

And I'm not saying Republicans, I'm not saying Independents, I'm not saying Democrats, all of us need to get together and fix this.

Can you imagine a place where our government is unable to pay the full amount of what we promised people on Social Security?

That's a big deal.

And if we don't do something about it, and this is Social Security itself saying by 2032, we are going to have an issue.

We've got to do something about this.

We can't continue to say, well, somebody else is going to handle it.

Well, somebody else is going to handle it because the real numbers, if we've got to cut benefits to 78%, just think about it.

We had a 3.6% cost of living adjustment this, this coming up for next year.

What if we said to everybody who's on Social Security right now, you're going to lose 22% of your benefits?

Now, I don't say that to scare anybody because honestly, my solution or what I think is going to happen is what normally happens with government, they just increase taxes.

But that's going to cost you money as well.

So we've got to come up with a resolution for this.

While we're talking about tough situations, this is one of the hard numbers of the week as well.

A lot of my small business friends, a lot of my small business clients get stuck in this cash advance trap.

We talked on the show about how it starts off and you borrow a hundred thousand, but they only give you 80,000.

That's $20,000 of interest up front before you pay a dime.

And then what happens?

Just like the buy now, pay, pay later things, they start to stack up and then the money keeps on coming out of your account and before long you end up in bankruptcy court because you just can't afford to make the payments again.

Even for my small business friends, you've got to be intentional with your spending.

I say on the show so many times, the biggest problem for most small businesses, and these are people who do side hustles and just small businesses in general, the biggest problem is cash flow.

And this kind of thing looks like it solves the cash flow problem because you get this infusion of money, but the repayment on that is brutal.

So that's one of those things to be aware of.

Let's talk about some things that are worth elaborating on.

Well, like I said, the Hummer full math exit negative equity.

Again.

I created that problem for myself when I traded in cars to buy the Hummer in the first place.

And we've talked about that on the show a couple times now, the last couple weeks.

There are a lot of people that are on.

I think the number that we use was just under 10, $7,000 of people that are rolling negative equity into their next vehicle.

And I'm guilty of doing that myself.

But what you have to realize is that just continues to put the money ahead.

When you buy a new vehicle, I think the average is it loses about 20% in value when you drive it off the lot.

Well, if you roll in negative equity to it in the first place, you're in a really bad situation.

So that's the thing you need to understand is take a look at every single decision you make.

We talk about exercising our bodies, and I've been through a metamorphosis change in my life.

I've really been focused on my health.

I've been focused on exercise.

But we also have to exercise our financial bodies.

And one of the best ways we can do that was this week's challenge.

Just find $7 a day that can be your daily rep.

But if you really build financial fitness in as a daily practice, you're going to find it's going to get easier.

And that little voice in your head, maybe it's Ralph talking, maybe it's just your own.

You're sitting starting to say, well, you know what, I got to start thinking about this.

But you practice that every single day.

And when you practice that every single day, what happens is you start to get stronger and you'll have those opportunities when you can say, you know what?

I can do this.

I can be successful in this.

Because the truth is, most people's biggest struggle when it comes to finances is, is yourself.

You're blocking yourself.

And I know this is hard to hear sometimes, but I've had to say this to myself.

You got to look in the mirror and realize that you're the problem.

You can't keep blaming other people.

You've got to take control of this because if you don't take control of it, what's going to happen is it's going to take care.

Now don't forget we've got a great show, a great week of shows coming up.

We're going to launch our new information for our side Hustle week is what we've got coming on next week.

We're also going to continue our Christmas bonus and if you haven't entered that, I'm going to encourage you.

Tell your friends, go enter every single day.

Becoming financiallyconfident.com giveaway.

I almost forgot about it.

It's becoming financiallyconfident.com giveaway.

And don't forget on Monday we're going to be rebuilding our whole brand on our live show.

We've got our band that's already recorded the music.

You are going to absolutely love it and I can't wait to share it with you.

So thank you.

My friends, I want to encourage you on this Halloween Saturday, take care of yourselves and realize this whole show is about building that financial confidence one conversation at a time.

So be well my friends.

Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you on Monday morning with our brand new branding.

And I'm telling you what, it is going to be fantastic and you're going to love it.

Have a great weekend everybody.