What It Costs Me: I Didn't Save for Retirement Until I Was 47

On October 1st, grocery money for millions of households gets recalculated. For some families, the benefit is going to go up and the check goes down in the very same month. So we'll show you exactly which side you land on.Ground beef just hit almost $7 a pound. So we'll tell you the one category actually worth fighting. Medicare's most important Six weeks of the year are about to open.Then we're also going to cover scam of the week. You pay for a car, drive over to get it, and the dealership has actually never heard of you. How does that work?And what's the one habit that you can do to stop it? Plus, we're going to get into a section called what It Cost Me. And it's when we dive deep into Ralph's own story. Stick around.At least one of these things impact you right now. Welcome to becoming financially confident. Breaking free from money Shame. One conversation at a time.We're live every Monday through Friday from 11:30am to 12:30pm Eastern.

And hello, I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I'm a licensed public accountant with 30 years of experience.

And I'm Juliet. I'm just a regular person asking Ralph all the questions because you might have them, too.

Yeah, we're two very different people having conversations about the things that affect our money and your money. I just want to remind everybody we got a house rule here. No shaming anybody about money.And nobody's going to be judged for what they didn't know yesterday. Today's a brand new day, and our goal is to help you get a little bit farther ahead today.

This is a live show and we want everybody to be able to participate. If you have a question that you want us to have a conversation about, send it to us@becomingfinanciallyconfident.com, no question, is off limits.

Yeah. And wherever you're on your financial journey, understand you're not alone in that.And as we're going to talk about today, on what it costs me, you're going to find that even the accountant who's been doing this for a long time doesn't always make the best decisions.

Let's get into the first headline. We're talking about SNAP benefits in 29 days. That's October 1st. The grocery money for millions of household gets recalculated.And for some families, the benefit goes down in the same month the headline number goes up. So, Ralph, how can that be true at the same time?

Yeah, this is one of those things that affects people that are on government assistance, what we're talking about here is snap benefits. When I saw this come through, I say we probably should mention this. I don't know how many of our audience are affected by this, but it's a big deal.So what actually is changing on October 1st, the family of four, maximum amount of benefits is going to rise to $1,023, which, that sounds good because you're going to actually qualify for more benef. But here's the thing that a lot of people aren't talking about. They're also widening a work rule.And what this basically means is that they are now requiring up to age 64 you have to work. Now what they're basically saying here is, and this is a new thing on the clock, what it means is you have to have 80 hours a month.It also affects, we've talked about this the last couple days, the lihepay, that's utility deduction and how households benefit. So this is a big deal.You gotta understand the change here because this, this is one of those things you might not know a whole lot about, but if it affects you, it's going to affect you, especially the work requirement.

Oh, so that's like the biggest change is like if something happens, changes for your work requirements, then you have to pay attention to this, right?

Yeah. So in the past, the way I understand it, and I am not an expert on this, I'm going to be very clear about this.My understanding was the work requirement used to be up to age 54. And what they've done is they've now made that up to age 64. And you have to work at least 80 hours a month. And there's a benefit cap of three months.So this is the hard part to this one.So if you're affected by this, understand that this is a change and this change is going to require you to make some changes on the way you look at things.Especially if you went, if you, before you were in that age gap where you didn't have that requirement, now all of a sudden you do have that requirement.

Yeah, pay attention to that. Before we get into the next headline, though, I just want to shout out Duchess for saying good morning to us in the chat.Good morning to you guys, too. Okay, where are we now? So right now we're going to talk about ground beef. Ground beef just hit $6.89 a pound. That's not a story about inflation.That's a story about what you're going to have for Tuesday night dinner. Ralph, the government says Groceries are up only about 2.5%. So what's happening? How do you read this?

Yeah, so I know a little bit about this because I actually raise Black Angus beef here on my farm, and I have a farmhand who helps. And we were having a convers the other day. And what's going on right now with ground beef is we are at the lowest herd level.H E R D meaning that the herds have shrunk to such an amount where there is a scarcity of beef right now. And with anything in the economy, if there's a scarcity of something, what happens? The price goes up.So Right now, in 2026 alone, you're seeing anywhere from 9.4 to 16.6% increase in beef. And that's part of this issue. Now, my farmhand was explaining to me there's some ideas of how to get more meat to market.There's a whole lot of things that are going on, but this is one of those things where it's not going to correct itself overnight. If you're thinking, oh, in a couple weeks, beef is going to be back up to where it is, it doesn't work that way. A herd takes years to rebuild.And so what happened was the herd started to deplete. I don't know exactly why that happened, but this is one of those things where it's not like, hey, this week beef is high.Next week I can go back to beef again. I think this is one of those things that's going to take some time to recover. So buckle up. And we talked a little bit about this yesterday.This is one of those areas where think about some practical swaps. If beef is costing more, maybe you go to pork, maybe you go to, you know, chicken.You know, plan your dinners ahead of time so that by the time you get to the store, you're not struggling around to figure out what happens. I don't know about you, Juliet, but that's been a big struggle for me my entire life.Don't ever go to the store hungry because you'll buy more than you need.

That's very, very true.And the practical swaps, I mean, I will say, like, when I hear this headline, I'm thinking about, well, it kind of makes sense to me that the beef herd is going down because it's harder to raise animals in this climate. It's like this environmental change. There's so many changes happening. Right.So, I mean, down the line of that, like reasoning, practical swaps are super, super helpful to know. So you could still get all the proteins and the calories and all of that that you need without spending a fortun.

And that's something we probably should talk about. You know, I've been on a very interesting health journey, and like, I never really thought about it before.It was always, you know, I was trained in, well, count your calories, Ralph. I joined weight Watchers. They ran me out of there. I tried nutrisystem. I tried Jenny Craig. I've tried them all.And finally, what finally worked for me, and I'm almost down £200 at this point. What worked for me is really paying attention to what went into the body.And part of that is making sure I get enough protein, making sure I get enough of the nutrients that I need. I know Dutches and John just launched a new show about this very issue.So this is one of those things where don't just cut corners and say, well, I'm just gonna cut the proteins out. You gotta think about other proteins. Beef, you know, not beef, but, you know, beans and other types of.I'm not a big vegetarian type person, but I know there are some out there that you can get into. But this is one of those things that I thought we should talk about because this is a big deal.

Yeah, yeah.

And I said a question. Let me. Let me pop this on here to the screen. But won't the cost of swap start increasing as well? Sure, absolutely. I think that's true.I think you're going to see that. And thank you for bringing. Bringing that to our attention, Duchess. You're right. I think that's exactly what's going to happen.So I think in general, you just have to margin this. This is going. Groceries cost more.

Yeah, yeah. And I will say, maybe, Ralph, in the future, I can introduce some vegetarian dishes or restaurants as you travel that you can try out.

Uh. Oh, you're. You're going to try to make me a vegetarian? Is that where we're going here?

No, no, no. This is not about making you turn into a vegetarian. It's about expanding your palate and see what's out there.

So I'm going to tell a story here. So we.I mentioned that Juliet and I were in Charlotte together for a confere, and we went to dinner with a bunch of colleagues, and it was not the kind of restaurant that I would normally go to. And I said to Juliet, I said, okay, what is this? Like I've said on the show before, I'm a meat and potatoes kind of fellow.And she's like, well, you should try this. And Try this. And we're talking about different sauces and all that sort of thing, so I'll take you up on that.I think that's a great idea to figure out something besides the normal stuff. So I'd definitely take it. Maybe we could talk about that on the show at one point.

If you or your parents are on Medicare, the single most expensive 15 minutes of your year is coming in about six weeks, and most people skip it entirely. Ralph, what is this about?

So what we're talking about here is called open enrollment. So buckle up.You're fixing to see all those commercials that I don't know about you, but they frustrate me, you know, with the, the elderly folks who are saying, you know, don't forget about your, your enrollment for Medicare. So what happens with this? And I have a little bit of experience with this. Some of my clients have gone through this. My own mother went through this.But what they're going to be doing is they're changing the premium.So we talked about, I think in one of our pre shows, we talked about Social Security and how they figure out what the percentage of is Social Security. Well, they do the exact same thing with Medicare premiums. And what happens.And a lot of people overlook this because most people who have Medicare are on Social Security. And what happens is that Medicare premium comes right out of their Social Security benefits. So this is one of those things where they don't see it.So one of the things that I recommend here is if you do nothing, you're just going to accept what they give you. There are other plans out there. There are things you could do.Again, I am not a Medicare insurance expert, but just understand there is a window, and that window is you have to do it within that timeframe. If you miss that window, then you're going to be paying whatever they want to charge you, to be blunt.

Yeah. And we don't want that to happen. So that is the open enrollment October 15th to December 7th.

Yeah. And what we're talking about here is this what what they're suggesting is going to be.So right now, and this is a tiered thing to pay based on your income. But the bottom tier right now, Medicare costs the average person $202.90 per month.And what they're proposing here, what most people have said to projected is going to be 209.50amonth. So you might be thinking, well, we're going to get a cost of living increase for our Social Security, but they're going to take that back.They're going to call that back with Medicare.And there are some private forecasts that said this number could actually go up to 216 to $219 a month, which, you know, they give you 3% cost of living adjustment. And then they kind of hit you with a hammer on the backside to go and say, okay, well, we're not going to do it this way.

I feel like that's always what's happening. So, you know, be aware of that. Know your dates. Open enrollment starts October 15th. If you need.If you have Medicare, pay attention to what the plans are, figure out what your options, what you need, and then you can make an informed decision.

Absolutely. And we're going to get to our scam of the week in a moment.But first, I want to talk about something that most of us don't even think about a lot of times, because so many things are electronic now. We don't pay our bills, you know, by sending a check anymore. So a lot of us have to go find that stamp.I just had this conversation with my wife the other day. I said, do you have a stamp? I need to mail something. I was over at the house, and she says, oh, I just get them from the grocery store.But if you're like most people, you only mail things a couple times a year. And that's why we've partnered with a company called stamps.com with stamps.com and we have an affiliate relationship with them.You can sign up for their service and you can actually print the postage right from your own home with your own printer. If you're interested in finding out more information, you can go to becoming financiallyconfident.com stamps again.That's becoming financially confident.com stamps. That is an affiliate link, which basically means we earn a commission, but it doesn't cost you anything else.So that's one of the things that I think is a great idea.

All right, right now, we're going to talk about car dealership scams. So you negotiate online, you send the deposit, and then you drive over to pick up your car, and the dealership has no idea who you are.This is one of the newer FTC alert alerts on scams. And so before we get Ralph's take on this, I think the first section of that first sentence gave me pause. Like, negotiating online.That's like the biggest red flag to me. But, Ralph, what do you want?

You know what, Julia? But it's not that big of a red flag, because when Covid came around, it was very common for car dealerships to not at least where I'm at in Delaware.A lot of car dealerships were all remote. And the way it worked is you went to their website, you looked at what you wanted to buy, they did all the paperwork online.So during COVID they really opened up this to this online buying of cars. And I remember I bought a Corvette a few years ago and I did it at a dealership that was in another state. And so I actually did this myself.So it's not as uncommon as you would think.

So wait, wait, wait. Ralph, did you buy that Corvette online and you didn't test drive it at all?

I did not. Absolutely not. No. I just. Look, here's the deal. So I'm gonna make a funny story, right?So it's funny if you look around, who actually can afford Corvettes? It's like middle aged guys wearing New Balance sneakers. So I was that middle aged guy wearing the New Balance sneakers. And the car looked cool.It was a bright red. I actually got a picture on my shelf, second shelf back there. You see the Corvette. It was a really cool car. But here's the problem.I get to the car dealership. We're gonna take a. This can be a Ralph rant for a second. It's okay. This. So I get to the car dealership, like you said, I hadn't driven the thing.So I roll up to the car dealership. It's in like middle Pennsylvania. So it was like a two hour drive. My wife and I went up. She, she. She says, look, this is on you.She dropped me off and she's back, going back to Delaware. We had a little lunch. So I go into the car dealers. I'm the clown who's here to pick up the red Corvette because you gotta have red, right?So I go in there. He goes, well, do you want to look at the car? I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So this is no lie, Juliet.I go outside and I sit and I'm like, okay. So I figure out finally how to open the door. Because it had like these crazy doors that kind of. They weren't butterfly doors, but they open up wide.And I'm thinking, now at the time, I'm 200 pounds heavier. So like fat man in a little car. And I'm thinking, how do I get in this car? And the guy goes, okay, he says, I'm going to show you how to do this.He says, you got to watch these YouTube videos about how old men. And I'm not that old, but how old men get into Corvettes. So anyway, to answer your question, so I. So what you do is you.You open up the door and you kind of back into it, and then you sit down and then you swing your legs around. But anyway, so but I get in this car and I'm like, well, once I got in, it was fine. I mean, it was very comfortable.It felt, you know, sleek and all that kind of stuff. But getting to that point, oh my gosh, what was I thinking?I didn't keep the car long, Juliet, because rolling in and out of it by going on the ground first is not comfortable for a 50 plus year old man.

Got it.

So anyway, but getting back to the point. The point here is that it's not uncommon for people to now be doing these type of deals online. It's just not.

But you weren't. You weren't. I'm gonna shout out Duchess because Dutchess says 100% facts on the New Balance sneaker. So, you know, perfect target market right there.

Yeah, but they're super comfortable Dutches. That's the thing people don't understand. I mean, I might have. I want to put my foot up on the camera, but I think I got a pair on right now.Like, these are very comfortable sneakers.

I also have a pair of New Balance sneakers, but I am also Asian, so I don't wear shoes in the house. That's crazy to me, right?

Oh, that's a whole nother discussion point.

Yeah. Oh, Duchess also asked how was getting out of the vet?

Yeah. So that was an equal chore. So getting in and out was the challenge. You know, once you're in there, it's like, okay, another story. Here we go.So this car was fast. I'm talking about super fast. So, like, once I got in there, I was like, boom.I was down the route, going, but getting out of it again, you roll in and you roll out. It's kind of like you remember when you were a kid and he used to say, if you're ever in a fire, roll, Dick, roll.That was like the thing Dick Van Dyke did. These guys. I'm totally dating myself at this point, but he would say to you, if you're on fire, the thing you do is you drop to your.To the ground and you roll to roll the fire. Well, getting it out of a Corvette was the exact same scenario. We have taken this off the rails at this point.

But anyway, I wanted to ask you, Ralph, like, were you never worried that, like, the car dealership was scamming you because you hadn't seen the Car first. Because I assume like that's kind of the mechanism that these scams are working too.

Well. Yeah. I'm gonna go back to something that you didn't mention, but I think you were alluding to. And that is the word. You send the deposit.That's the big difference here. So I didn't send a deposit. I said to them, hey, I'm interested.And in fact, I think what I had to do because it was kind of one of those cards didn't have many of. I think I had to give them a credit card over the phone.So I wasn't too worried about that because with a credit card you've got a ton of protections. So I wasn't too worried about doing it. But in this particular scam, people are actually sending like Venmo and they're sending cash app.So going back to what you said. Yeah, it should raise the red flag if you're sending Venmo or cash app to buy a car. We got a problem here.

All right. So I think what I'm learning is it is more common to shop for cars online.But be really careful, like if you're spending or like sending money over before you see the car.

Yeah, I think you need to pay attention, check the dealer, make sure they're a legitimate dealer, all that sort of thing. Because it's super easy. I want to get into the mechanics a little bit. We talked about this.I think it was yesterday or the day before days run together because we do this and we have so much fun doing this. But AI, literally you can go out to your Claude, your Claude, AI, and you can say, go build me a website. And you can say, go to this website.I want it to look exactly like that and it will do it. And that's what's going on here.So you need to make sure you're at the actual website because they can spoof a phone, they can spoof an email, they put fake testimonials. And here's the thing, they lure a lot of people.And this is interesting because my Corvette story actually matches here a lot of rare muscle cars and hard to find classics, which you're not going to find those at the standard dealerships. So that's where you got to really pay attention and make sure.And that's one of those things where you probably don't want to do that type of deal unless you are aware of this person. Look at their references, make sure they're legit, because that's a big deal and you can get yourself in A whole lot of trouble quickly.

Yeah. Are there any other tips that you have for people who could potentially find themselves in a car dealer?

Yeah, absolutely. Number one thing, don't wire money. Don't wire money. Don't cash app them money or venmo or any PayPal or anything like that.If they say to you, hey, you got to pay your deposit with gift cards. Yeah, no, not a good.

We said that yesterday. Gift cards. No, no, no, no.

Yeah. There are some car dealers now that are taking crypto.So I'm going to back off that a little bit because some of the car dealers are around here are actually taking crypto now. So that's something that. Yeah, again, but here's the big kill switch is call and verify the VIN number of the vehicle.And what you can do is you can ask them to give you the VIN number, and then you can go on to one of these websites where you can verify the VIN number and make sure that that VIN number actually exists. So this is a tough one. You know, the thing is a funny thing. Like, I used to work in bank security.I was the president of the Delaware association for Bank Security. We used to talk about banks getting robbed all the time. People don't do that anymore because it's easier to just rob you by scamming you.It's easier to rob you by sending out spoof emails and all that sort of thing. So just pay attention. And, you know, it's one of those things. If it doesn't. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.And you gotta really watch that.

There's something that you mentioned there that I did not know. I didn't know. You can check a VIN number.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's carfax. There's a bunch of different ones.You can actually go in even Kelley Blue Book, you can just put a VIN number in there and it'll tell you, like, does this car match the kind of car you think it is? So that's definitely a good thing to do.

Oh, by the way, if anybody doesn't know what VIN number, it's a acronym. VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number.

If I'm correct, a bunch it's letters and numbers.So the VIN number, now you have to be careful of that, too, because some dealers might not want to give you the VIN number because you could use that to, like, make fake, potentially. I mean, there are other issues. It's kind of like a Social Security number, but not quite that secure.But what I always tell People have em send you the window sticker because the window sticker will actually have the VIN number on it. It'll have, you know, all those type of details.Look, when you're buying a car, I think I mentioned this the other day, you're in the driver's seat, literally. So don't be afraid to ask questions, don't be afraid to push back and say, hey, wait a second, what are you doing here?But the problem is a lot of these, and I see a of scams in this is these muscle cars, these people who one offs, like these people, these people who collect muscle cars are pretty cool, but like they will drive for days to find the car that they want. So just be aware. Buyer beware, I guess, in all things.

Yeah. One more thing, one more question that popped up. Window sticker. Are you talking about, like, I've only bought Toyotas in my life, the window sticker.You're talking about the literal sticker on the lot where you go up to the car.

Yeah, so correct. And, and just so you understand, I bought too many cars.Like I said, Julianne, the dealer has a electronic copy of that as well, so you can ask them to email you that.But basically the window sticker, and I'm not sure if it's a federal regulation, I think it might be, they have to disclose where the car was made, they have to disclose the VIN number, they have to disclose the engine type, the horsepower. I know nothing about cars, obviously, but they have to disclose all of those things and that's what it'll tell you.What, you know, accessories and all that sort of thing on there. So ask for that. I ask for that all the time anyway because I want to see what the dealer.And just so we understand each other, we're taking a deep dive. The sticker doesn't necessarily mean when it says this is what the price is. That doesn't mean that it's actually what the dealer paid for it.That's sort of a suggested retail price. So if you ever have a dealer say, but the sticker says it's, you know, $74,000. Yeah, that sounds good, but that doesn't really mean a whole lot.

Yeah, yeah. And I think the last thing that we also talked about. Oh, wait, sorry, somebody in the comment.Annie, I'm curious if Julia has had any experiences with scams and if so, what you learned from it. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, Annie, great question.

Should we get into it right now?

Let's do it. Let's do it. We're talking about Scams is a great time to do it.

Bring back the To Cam. I don't want to be like, single shot on this. I have been scammed. I have been scammed or attempted scam twice in my life.One time was in college because I was trying to make quick buck. And I.That was when I realized, like, if you have a college board, that it is possible for people to try to take advantage of college students who are trying to make money. And then I actually got.

I want to pause you for one second because you just said a keyword.

Yeah.

Quick money.

Quick money. Yeah.

Whenever something is quick, whenever somebody is putting pressure on you to do something right away, first red flag. But continue on Julia.

Oh, you know, I actually want to talk about that real quick. It's like anything, I think, okay, I've been scammed twice. I learned my lesson better the second time.But anytime you feel like you're being emotionally hijacked, emotionally manipulated, just back off, right? Because it's like, if you need to buy this.If you really want to buy this car and they're putting pressure on you, hey, maybe they're trying to get something out of it more. Like, they need something more out of it versus you. Right. Like, you can obviously shop around and find another red Corvette.So I think emotional manipulation, hijacking. Pay attention to that. When you're in a situation, who do.

You think you're fooling? I've been wanting to play that. That's a good one.

And then emotional.

Emotional and immediacy are one of the two main red flags, the biggest ones.

Like, I think that's a common thread in all of the scams that we talk about on this show.

It absolutely is.

Yeah. And then the second time I almost got scammed was actually through Facebook Marketplace, because I was trying to sell a bunch of stuff. And it was.It was. I was trying to sell technology. It was have, like, a. A bunch of old. What are they called? Like, routers. And routers. A lot of routers.And what they did at that time was, oh, they wanted to send money. Oh, this is related to Zelle. They wanted to send money through Zelle. And I said, we're not scheduled to meet in, like, two days.I don't want your money right now because I want to see the person to do this, right? And then they go, oops, actually, I just already sent it, so, like, then can you give the money back? And I go, look.And I'm like, I didn't get anything. And then they. Again, emotional manipulation. They're like, oh, my God, this is really bad thing.I'm going to call my bank account right now and there's like a whole problem. You have to ask your bank to, like, return the money. That is not how Zelle works. I think we need to have another conversation about that.That is not how Zelle works. Okay. Zelle does not have a customer support line. Your bank doesn't take any. Take any.What is it, like, accountability, Responsibility for mistakes that happen through Zelle. And so I basically got caught up in this three hour conversation with these scammers.And afterwards I was like, nah, I feel like once I got to calm down, I was like, I feel like you guys are manipulating me right now. And so it' not true. Goodbye. And then all the messages stopped. Everything stopped.

Yeah.I think the big thing with this and then we'll move on is that understand that if they're trying to hold you hostage emotionally, that's where it's immediate, it's emotional. And the other thing is, I'm going to be honest with you. I am not a huge fan of any of the cash apps.When I sell stuff on Facebook, Marketplace, show me the green money. That's what I want to see. Because I don't have time for cash apps. I don't have time for this, that, or the other thing. So I think that's a big deal.But thank you for your question. It was Ann correct. Annie, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate live questions. That's the whole point of why we do what we do.But while we're talking about that, we mentioned this on the show yesterday. I want you to honestly answer something. When's the last time you looked at your credit score? We've talked about credit a lot.We talked about freezing your credit or homework this week. For a lot of people, the answer is it hasn't been for a long time.And I've seen people not look at their credit because they're afraid of what they were going to see. The problem with that is one in four people have an error on their credit report that's costing them money. So we have an affiliate.It's called WalletHub. WalletHub is free. It's not a trial. It's free.It allows you to update your score daily, get credit monitoring around the clock, and it tells you in plain language, even language that Ralph can understand, what's actually pulling your number down. So if you're interested in our affiliate link, that's because we're going to earn a small commission. Doesn't cost you an extra dime.Go to becomingfinanciallyconfident.com wallet. Again, that's becomingfinanciallyconfident.community. And check out WalletHub, because you will find them to be a great company to work with.

Okay, this next segment is we're just gonna dive deep into Ralph's stories because he has a breadth of experience. I've known Ralph for a short amount of time, and every time I'm just like, tell me more. This is how I'm gonna learn about finances.So, Ralph, the story that you have prepared today, I'm sure the audience and myself are really excited to hear about it. What are you gonna talk to us about?

Yeah, and this one's a little hard because one of the things that I decided when I was gonna launch this show is I wanted to make sure that I was going to be transparent, because all of us. Hear me on this. All of us make financial mistakes. I'm the accountant. I spent 30 years telling people what to do.I spent 30 years telling people to save early start for retirement. Well, here's a true confession. I didn't put a dollar away from my own retirement TILL I was 47 years old.And so today I want to talk about what that cost me, because you might say, oh, wow, Ralph didn't do that either. I got a call the other day from a client, and they said, ralph, I really need to start putting money into retirement. Is it too late?So we're going to talk about that here in a few minutes. But that's really the truth. You know, I was 47 years old, and to be blunt.And I'll talk about this next Thursday when I talk about getting on the same page as your spouse when it comes to money. But my wife was just constantly on me about this. She said, ralph, you know, we need to figure this out. In fact, I'm going to be very candid with you.It led to us separating in our marriage, and it was because she felt like I wasn't protecting her. I wasn't giving her the security that she needed. Now, my argument always was, well, I'm building a business. I'm a sole proprietor.I'm running this business. I had every reason not to do it, but those reasons just weren't good enough.

Can I ask a question here? So it just sounded like your wife was saying, you know, I need to feel protected. And it was about money. It's.I think what I'm getting, what I'm picking up is you as the Accountant weren't having those conversations with your wife the way that she expected you to. And it's, It's. It's interesting because you are the accountant.

Yeah. So you would assume. Well, as the accountant, you would know the right things to do. And I do know the right things to do.But, you know, I really told myself three lies, and I want to get into those because those are the lies I tell them. And listen, there's no judgment on this show.

Yeah.

This is on me. Like, this is me talking. Here's the first lie I sold to myself. And you may be thinking the same thing. I'll get to it. You know, it'll happen.I'm just a young guy at this point, and the years were just ticking. And, you know, I never decided to save. I didn't decide not to save. I just never decided to do it.

Yeah.

So if you're in that same feeling right now, I want you to hear me loud and clear. Someday is not a date. It's not a date you can put on your calendar. It's never going to show up on your calendar. So that's the first lie.And I told myself this lie for many years. I've made good money since I was 20 some years old.I'm going to show you some charts here in a few minutes, and we'll share the charge to our community. But that's the first. First line, second line. And I bet a lot of people raise their hands right now because I used to say this every month.My wife would say to me, hey, are we putting anything into retirement? Yeah. You know, there's just not anything extra this month. We're raising two young kids. Well, here's the truth.There's never going to be anything extra.

Yeah.

Extra is not a thing. Extra is something you create. It's something you intentionalize. It's say, I am going to do this. It's not going to be something that arrives.There's no right period of that. And the thing that I found in my practice, the people who actually save aren't the people with extra.The people who save are people who build a pattern. They build a habit. And that's the difference. And I kept saying to myself, oh, you know, there's nothing extra this month.You know, the kids need this, and we need this, and we just never got to that point.

Yeah.

Now the third lie. And then I'm going to let Juliet ask some questions. Here is.And this was a tough one for me, too, because I shared with you my health journey type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure. I didn't really care about my physical being because I was like, I'm living for today.So the third lie I told myself is I might not even live that long. I wasn't planning to go away, but in a lot of ways I was gambling and I was betting against myself.And one thing, if you go on about gambling, don't ever bet against yourself. Yeah, that's true.And here's the thing, and I'll share some of these numbers here in a second, but a 65 year old man today, if you're 65, you're listening to me or watching me right now. If you're 65, you could live another 17 and a half years. One in four people who reach 65 are going to live past 90 now. And that's a great thing.That's a fantastic thing. Yeah, the risk was never dying at 70. The risk is living to 92 and not having anything to show for it.

That's a true thing.So I think my first question is, when you made your first, when you saved for the first time in your life at age 47, do you remember how much you put towards. And yeah, that's the first question. How much did you put?

Yeah, so let me just show you a couple. I'm going to pop in here in a slide.If you're listening to us, go check us out on our becomingfinanciallyconfident.com community because I want to go through a couple slides because this will really go to what you're talking about. And so the first one I want to share, and this was the bet, so the bet I was making. And this is a really interesting thought if you think about it.So when people reach 65, most men can expect to live another 18.1 years. Now if you're a woman, you're even better off. You're going to live another 20.7 years. So roughly. Yeah.So what they talk about is your actual, you know, the expected life expectancy for a man is 83, a woman is 86. But the odds are reaching 91 in four men and one in three women.So the risk is dying, you know, not dying before you, you know, not have enough money, but running out of money.

Yeah.

And here's the big, here's the big thing I want to explain because this is what you're talking about.If I had started at age 27 and I put $500 a month into a retirement account and let's just assume a 7% annual retirement in 40 years at age 67, I would have $1,310,000. That's a big number now because I waited to start till 47.If I put that same $500 a month in at 7%, 20 years, compounding to 67, guess how much money I have then? $260,000. So this decision to not start till I was 47 cost me $1,050,000. That's the real number.

That sounds really nice if you know you had a million additional in your savings.

Exactly. And think about it. Now, I'm going to throw up one more slide here because it's going to be relevant to this. And this one is 20 years skipped.So had I put $500 a month into retirement for 20 years, I would have taken out of my pocket $120,000. That's what it would have cost me at $500 a month for 20 years.

Yep.

But it would have grown to 1,053,000.

Yep.

So that $120,000 decision wasn't $120,000. It was well over a million dollars.

Yeah.

And that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. So this is the thing I'm really speaking about today, is understanding what compound looks.And I throw another slide up here because I think this one really nails it for people to think about this. If you have an average return of 7%, $1 invested after 40 years at 7% is worth $15. So think about it.It's like basically $1 compounds to 15, but if you take that same dollar at age 47, 20 years, compounding, it only goes to $4. That's where the. Yeah, that's where the compounding. And I got one more slide, and that's this one, because this really answers your question.So that $500 a month that I could have done at age 27, if I want to get back up to the level of having enough in savings to match that. Buckle up, Juliet. Here's a number. I would then have to put in $2,500 a month for 20 years to make up for the difference. So five times to catch up.Now, the good news about that is I haven't told you you can't catch up.

Up.

Yeah, but you understand that the reality here, and this isn't a judgment, the reality is you're going to be in a tough situation here.

I. This, this.There's this, like, phrase, or maybe, maybe people, other people say it, where it's like the best time to start was yesterday, but the next Best time is now.

Exactly.So if you're sitting there right now and you're thinking, like I said, I had this client say to me the other day, you know, Ralph, I haven't really done much for retiring. I say, okay, I get it. It been there, done that. But you can start today.

Yeah.

And you can start with $25 a week. You can start with $50 a week. You can start with whatever works for you. It's all about building up that habit. It's kind of like exercise.I remember when I first wanted to start losing weight, if I got up and walked across the room, I got out of air like I was just gassed out. So my doctor said, ralph, here's what I want you to do. I want you to start every day. Walk to the mailbox.

Yeah.

And that's what I did. And I just started that habit. Well, you can do the same thing with your finances.

Yeah. I'm curious.I'm going to throw a question to the audience and would love you guys to respond is like, if you have a habit of saving or you haven't done it yet. Right. But if you do have a habit of saving, I'm so curious as to what frequency are you doing it on a weekly basis? Do you know that number?On a weekly basis? A daily basis. Maybe it's monthly, maybe it's quarterly. Maybe it's annually, like weekly. What makes you guys feel comfortable? How frequent you save.Right. And then for. I want to keep this ambiguous. So, like, people don't know whether you actually save or not. Right.But if you do want to get into the habit of saving, what do you think is going to be the right frequency for you? Is it making it a daily practice before turning it into a weekly practice and a monthly practice? Would love to know.

Yeah. I love what jennifeinance put in the chat. She says the eighth wonder of the world is compound growth.

Beautiful. It's true.

It's true. It's time to today. I mean, that's the truth.I mean, if you teach, you know, we've talked about teaching your children, your young folks, teach them compound interest, because that is a skill that if they understand it can be amazing. It really can, Ralph.

Oh, yes, I totally agree with you, Ralph.I'm wondering, like, through your clients who do start saving, like, how do they, from your experience, what makes them turn the switch to be like, yes, it's never too late to start now. And then the next thing is, do they come back to you and be like, oh, my God, Ralph, I saved. I put $10 away this week.Like, do they come back with you with those stories?

Yeah, they do, because it really becomes this. It's an interesting thing. It's almost like lighting a fire. When you first start the fire, you just got a little flame.But if you keep that flame going, you add a little bit more to it, and you add a little bit more to it, then that flame becomes a bigger fire and a bigger fire.And what you find, and I've seen this in my own practice, what you find is then people catch on fire for this, and that's a good thing, because they start to see the value of this. Now, I'm gonna answer your question. You ask to the audience. I honestly think the best way to do it.And there's a thing out there called pay yourself first. I'm a huge proponent of that. I think whenever you get paid, whether it's weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatever that is, Right.The first thing you do is carve out your savings percentage from the top.

And this is. This is, you know, after the. You plan for taxes, right?

Yeah, well, yes. I mean, I think that's fair, but honestly, I think I could make the argument that maybe you should do that even before taxes.

Okay.

Because who's the most important thing in that now? Listen, don't. The IRS gonna come knocking at my door like. Ralph, did you just tell people not to pay their taxes? No, that's not what I said.

Said, still pay your taxes, please.

But it's about being intentional, you know, and I see what PR shows. A compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it. Yeah, that's right.That's exactly right. No, it's true, though. And that's the big difference.So I would say, you know, one of the big things I talk about all the time when I counsel individual people is have a money meeting with yourself once a week.

Okay.

And in that money meeting, look at what came in this week and what went out this week. And then talk about what is your intention to make it better?

What is your intention to make what better?

Your financial situation. Right. Yeah. What is your. To get better than where you are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I gotta be honest, if you're starting late, it's going to be harder.

Yeah.

It's just true.

Yeah.

Late money's gonna buy a smaller number, but a smaller number is not 0, and 0 is not failure.

Yes.

And I just want to throw something out there, because this is Something that one of my, I'll say proponents or other guys in the sphere is Dave Ramsey. Yeah. And this is where we're not Dave Ramsey. You notice I have not one time said to shame a single person.I'm not going to tell you you're stupid because you haven't saved for retirement. There's a, there's a. I'm not calling Dave Ramsey a clown, but I've heard him say it. Well, you're stupid. You've made dumb decisions.You will never hear that from this show. This show is all about helping you go from where you are.And for so many people, they hear that and they get into this cycle of shame and it keeps them from going forward because they figure, well, why bother at this point? I've already done this. You know, I've already gone too far.

I feel shameful already.

I didn't mean to get on my high horse there, but it just drives me crazy when I hear these quote, financial gurus out there talking about, well, you should have done this and you should have done that. That sounds great, but shoulda, woulda, coulda, auta didn't get me anywhere. But today I'm saying to you, you can change the dynamic here.

There are some comments that I want to shout out real quick. Duchess of New Jersey saying saving has been so difficult. I only recently started an account with Fidelity. First of all, yay. Opening the Fidelity.Opening a savings account is just the start of it and you're making moves. So we're super excited about that.Ralph, I'm thinking like maybe we should have maybe like a month long challenge where we just every everybody who joins in on the challenge, we can put a little money savings away and everybody gets to win at the end of the month or something like that. I don't know.

I think you've just named our October challenge.

Oh, that means I have to participate in it.

See, Juliet is an active participant in the show. I love it. Let's do that. Abby is our producer. She's behind the scenes.Abby is going to put together an October challenge for us and I will participate as well. And we're going to see how much we can save in the month of October.

Yeah. And then we have another comment from PR Shield. You know what?I have found myself more mindful my money situation just from the one simple step of listening into this conversation every day. I'm so happy to hear that because honestly, that's like one of the reasons I wanted to be the co host of this show as well.Because I Wanted to be more mindful of my own money. It's vulnerable, I'm sure. Ralph, you. Thank you for sharing your story. I still have a lot of questions for you.But as vulnerable, talking about money, because it's, like, uncomfortable, you know?

Oh, it's. Yeah. And especially for me. Think about it. And I'm not trying to call myself anybody. People pay me for my guidance.

Yeah.

You know, and. And they come to me and they're like, oh, Ralph, you have all the secrets. Yeah. I had all the secrets for everybody.

For everybody.

But I didn't do them for myself.

Back to that mindset, though. I. What was it for you that made you be like, the time is now. I will save money. Right. Because you've had those conversations.You've given that advice to your clients before. You've had that hard. Hard conversations. Multiple conversations, I'm sure, with your wife.But internally, what was the thing that made you actually change your behavior?

I'll tell you. It's because a client. Actually, what happened was I was meeting with a client, husband and wife.And the husband had just gotten diagnosed with early onset dementia. So he had Alzheimer's. And him and his wife had saved nothing. I'm talking about, they are 65, 66 years old. They were relying 100% on Social Security.Now, fortunately, they had their house paid off.

Okay.

But they sat at my desk, and here the husband. And nothing he did to cause it. It was just one of those things. And the wife just sat there and sobbed.And she said, ralph, for so many years, we went on trips, we bought what we wanted. We helped this one out, we helped that one out, but we never put away for ourselves. And she said, now I'm sitting here. And I was crying, too.Like, that's the kind of person I am. And she goes, my husband needs to go into a facility because I can't help him anymore.And she says, the only thing we can do is sell our home and use everything that we have so that we can spend it all down so he can qualify for Medicaid.

Wow.

And when she said that to me, I said, ralph, here you are. I was like, 47, 46 years old. You make good money, dude. Like, why are you putting yourself into this position?So that was the thing that really changed me because I saw it all around me, but yet I hadn't done anything about it. And like I said, this is a very vulnerable thing. And listen, money things are vulnerable. I get it. It.

Yeah.

I tell people this all the time. People share with me stuff that they don't share with their spouses. People share with me intimate details of their life.

Yeah.

We're gonna have a relationship expert on next Friday. Talk about how this breaks down marriages. I'm gonna talk about my personal story next Thursday, so make sure you check it out.But this is a big deal and it causes so much stress. Not just for you, but the people around you.

Yeah. Duchess of New Jersey said my nightmare, having absolutely nothing to survive on. Yes.And you know, like when I was younger, I also, I wouldn't say like frivolously spend, but it was very much like, oh, I have money now. And then you get tempted by so many things like, I don't know, fomo, which is, if you don't know FOMO is fear of missing out.So you see like social media influencers, they're like, oh my God, they're buying this or go on these trips. I have some money coming in. And I would also spend my money. I saved, but I also spent more than I am happy about now that I'm thinking about it.

No, absolutely true. And the thing is, it's funny you said fomo. I had to look that up one day, one of my kids sent me a text with these.What is up with the text with the three letters? You got to try to go discern it. I need a dictionary. What in the world are you even saying to me? But anyway, I missed that one.But we don't have a whole lot of time left and I want to talk about some prevention things because the one thing I want to spend a few minutes talking about about is how do you prevent this? It's all about that compound interest. And if I could go back to my 27 year old self, I would say, ralph, do it now. Because think about it.I could have put away $500 a month. Could I have found 500? No, maybe not. Maybe I could have found $100 a month. Even $100 a month would have given me a big number.I don't have the number right here in front of me. But. So that's the thing. What could you have done? The sooner you start, the better.So if you're listening to me right now, if you're watching us right now, do something today.

Yeah.

It could be a simple Savings account. Put $10 in it a week, put $5 in it a week, you are going to find it.Once you start that habit, you're going to find it's really going to grow from there. It truly will.

Right. And also say, like duchess of NJ when you opened your Fidelity account. That's just step one. Right.Like, you don't even have to think about maybe, oh, I need to have X of money to put in. Right.Like, even the act of opening an account right now, where you're like, this is where my money's going to go to perfect a move in the right direction. And that's all you need.

Yeah. I say this all the time. It's all about the first step. Take that first step. And because when you take that first step, you're going to start to feel.Because so many people live in this lie that they tell themselves, well, I'm just not good with money. I can never save. You can save. You can find it.

Yeah.

Like Juliet shared, you know, she said, you know, sometimes she spends frivolously. Me too. Raise my hand twice. It happens. So the truth is, most of us have margin. What I mean by margins?We have a little extra weekend and we don't do that, that Starbucks run, or we don't do this or we don't do that. Find something and start to build that habit, because you're going to find it's going to be a dynamic improvement in.It's not necessarily your finances, but in how you feel about yourself and when you've. Because here's the thing about money. Most money issues are not about math. This is an accountant saying this. I'm an accountant that hates math.But, you know, I love. I love people and I love relationships, and I know this. Your relationship with money is an emotional relationship.

Yeah.

That's what you need to cure.

Yeah.

When you can figure that out. And we're going to help you on this show figure that out. Because most of the people that are struggling with money issues, it's because of fear.It's because of overwhelm. It's a whole bunch of. Not anything related to money, anything related to math. It's about things related to emotions.

Yes. Before we go into the next segment, I just want to do what my takeaways from this conversation with you is about. Right.The first thing, if you have never saved, it doesn't matter what age you are, you're never too late. You can start now. Right. And all we're saying is, is take one step. It could be, hey, oh, I have a $5 bill. This is going to go into my savings account.Right. Or it could be what Duchess did. Open an account with Duchess chose Fidelity. I have Marcus.We can talk about, you know, those options in a future money move, perhaps, or our October challenge. And then the third thing I would say is, what did you say? I did not even write this down. Oh, my God.

They look back at the show notes.

We're going to have. You know what? I'll do this in the this week Saturday's wrap up where we do highlights. I'll think about it. Okay? But those are the two things.If you have never saved and you want to start saving, great, kudos. Emotionally, you're ready to go, right?And then just do one thing for yourself, whether like one actual step, whether it's opening account out or finding dollar some money on the side and just being like, I'm not touching this money. I'm not spending it on whatever you usually spend it on. This is going to go straight into my savings and I'm going to give.

You a third piece to this.

Okay?

Celebrate that. Celebrate yourself. You've made a decision. I don't care what size it is. I don't care the impact of that. Celebrate yourself.Now, don't go celebrate it by buying stuff, but celebrate the wins. We're gonna talk about wins of the week. Yeah, it's an emotional one, but we're gonna talk about wins of the week tomorrow. But celebrate those things.That's how you keep this momentum going. Celebrate, celebrate. I'm gonna break in the. I'm gonna break into rhyme here. We're gonna have a celebration time. Come on.But anyway, I'm just telling you that you got to celebrate those little wins because those little wins turn into this. And to turn this. Now I'm gonna say something. Dutchess just cracked me up. She says I celebrate by shopping. A lot of us do that.So it's an emotional thing. It's an emotional thing Again, it's that dopamine thing. You want that dopamine high. But don't celebrate by shopping.Celebrate by saying, you know what? I'm not bid with money. I can save. I can do these things.

Celebrate by saying, I am doing this for me.

Absolutely.

I'm doing this for me. Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow is Friday, so we do have a money move. Ralph, can you remind us what our money move for this week is?

Yes. So what we want to do this week is we want to make sure we're putting a lock on all three of our. No. Excuse me. No.The money move this week is make one phone call. If you know someone. Your house is on snap, call your state office and ask a single question. What is that recertification date?That date of October 1st. Understand the math. And what I was also going to mention is don't forget your homework for this week, which we're going to to.We're going to check your homework. Remember when you were in school and the teacher would come in, okay, let's take a look at your homework.We're going to do that tomorrow and we're going to talk about did you put that freeze on all three of your credit bureaus? That's a super important thing to do.

Yep, yep. I'm still in the process of doing that. I have two more still left to go. So, yeah, that's on my homework, homework to do list for today.

And I got one more thing I want to talk about today. And we talked about, you know, Ralph may not live that long and all that sort of thing. And I've sat with families who didn't prepare for that.One of the statistics I mentioned on the show the other day, 70% of people don't have a will. If you don't have a will right now we've got an affiliate with a company called easywell. I'm going to encourage you to go check them out.It's a way you go onto their website, they walk you through the questions just in one sitting. And for $149, you'll get a will. You get a durable power of attorney and a health care directive.All of these are attorney reviewed and built for your state. Now, I'm an accountant. I'm not an attorney. I'm not giving you legal advice. But I know what the absence of this document costs.So if you're interested in taking a look at our affiliate link, it's becoming financiallyconfident.comezwill Again, that's becomingfinanciallyconfident.comezwill that's an affiliate link. So we do earn a commission, but it costs you nothing else.So this is one of those things that if you don't have a will and a big number of people don't have it, make sure you check out Easy will by going to becomingfinanciallyconfident.com easywill.

All right, that is it for today's episode of becoming financially confident. I will just say tomorrow is Friday. We ralph talked about we're going to be doing wins of the week.I encourage everybody in the audience to come with your wins of the week and it could be even something emotional. Right? Like maybe you are a shopaholic and you're like, I did not give into that. Right.Or you did open a savings account or you finished this week's money move, the homework of freezing all your credit reports. Bring those wins of the week tomorrow, and we can all celebrate together.

And one more thing, if you'd like to record a message for us, we'd be happy to play it on the show. You go to becomingfinanciallyconfident.com voicemail. It's really that simple.You go to that website, you click record, and we will play on the show because we'd like to hear from you. So again, I'm Ralph Eastep, Jr. And I'm Juliet. And we're going to see you tomorrow on this show.And remember, our whole show is about breaking free from money shame one conversation at a time. And I feel like we had a really good conversation today. So make sure you come back and join us for tomorrow tomorrow show.Have a great day, everybody.

Bye.