12/19/25 Jackpots, 60/40, and the Money Mistakes Holding You Back

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, December 19th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: Michael George, Safe 1 Credit Union Bakersfield The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Michael George and their company are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the second floor of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield, here is Money Wise. Call or text into the show 661-396-1000.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me?

• 0:30Speaker 02

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise.

• 0:42Speaker 03

  Welcome, welcome to the Money Wise Show, the Friday edition of the Money Wise Show. And what's even better, it's the last live show of the year before we go into the holidays. So I'm very happy to bring you into the final show of the year. Welcome, live from the second floor of the historic Woolworths Building downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you'll be getting your fill of all things Money Wise and finance here on KGO Money Talk. Get it? Money Talk instead of sports talk. See what I did there? I see you. 12:30 a.m., 101.1 FM. As always, streaming at themoneywiseguys.com on the interwebs.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000, 661-396-1000. I'm your host, Justin Leland, here with... Seth Perry, so glad to be with you, sir, for the final show of the year. Absolutely. Yes, we've got some best ofs that Stephen is spooling as we speak to be ready to to cut up and chop up some great best of shows for the rest of the year. But right now, we're taking you into the weekend, into the Christmas holiday spirit, live today from the Woolworths Building. We've got a great show ahead of for us. We've got Mike George in the house today. We're going to be talking about all of the things, you know,

• 2:10Speaker 03

  kind of get down to basics on budgeting and the things that keep us paycheck to paycheck and, you know, what we can do to maybe alleviate that pressure. We'll get down to that when we get back from the break. So he'll be joining us here shortly. But what we're going to do, we're going to do what we do. We're going to get down to some numbers. What happened in the markets today? We might talk a little bit of Powerball and, you know, and it gets to some questions. So Seth, what happened to the markets today? It was kind of a kind of an off day, not really a lot happening. It was an up day, but kind of low volume. It was an up day after a handful of down days. So I think this is nice going into the weekend and.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  But a low volume day, right? It was an up day, but low, low volume, not a lot of people on the, on the old street, right? Yeah. So S and P is up nine tenths of a percent. Dow Jones up four tenths of a percent, 0.4%. And the NASDAQ came up 1.3 and it's kind of has me scratching my head, Justin, because, you know, Oracle. Up 7% today. Right? Oracle got hammered and then they go out and they, you know, they lose financing on this huge mega warehouse in Texas, right? And they plummet, but they just so happened to help fund a deal with TikTok and they announced that today. And magically their stock bounces back up. So. All the way back up to pre where it was pre, uh, pre-loss of the deal.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  No, this is, this is the, this is the dichotomy and the weirdness that happens in the tech sector. So it's not uncommon for things like this to happen on the NASDAQ. So the NASDAQ, you know, is obviously the, the tech heavy side of the stock market, right? And so you have Oracle, you have Nvidia, Microsoft, you know, a lot of that is, is handled there on the NASDAQ. And so you'll see these wild swings where like, you know, what was it? Oracle at one point, you know, uh, what was it about a week and a half ago? Was it down 20? It was down like 50.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like in one day it was down like 12%, right? And then if, you know, for a couple of days it had dropped and dropped, dropped, dropped. And then all of a sudden today it's up like 7% in a single day, right? So it's, it's relatively normal. I don't want to say it's, it's commonplace, but it's relatively normal for stocks on the NASDAQ to have these kind of wild swings.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Um, pretty normally, right? It's, you know, uh, ups and downs and sometimes with the same stock. Yeah. Like we see with Oracle. So it's interesting how that happened. But yeah, the, the NASDAQ was up over 1% today, about 1.4% today. Um, last week we were talking about the, the kind of the role out of AI. Mm hmm. Money leaving the NASDAQ and going to more value companies, right? This capitulation and moving away from Mm hmm. the growth stocks and the, the momentum stocks going towards value. Now we're seeing the opposite go. They're coming right back. Right? It's like, hey, everything dropped. Okay, now back, everybody back into the pool. Water's fine, you know?

• 5:31Speaker 03

  It, it, it's crazy, isn't it? I mean, yeah. It is kind of a, a crazy time right now, but, uh, yeah, you know, um, A, and, uh, so what is the, uh, what's the Powerball up to at this point in time? I want to make sure that I've got my numbers in. I don't know the, the jackpot, but I do know the odds, which leads us to a wonderful comment. Now, guys, when you're driving and you're listening to us, make sure. Both hands on the wheel. Both hands on the wheel. Don't get too big of a drink of coffee in your mouth, because this could have been you. It says, I love the show and spit out my Java. Hopefully they weren't, hopefully they were spitting out Starbucks and not Reverb Coffee. Cause. Yeah. Reverb is so awesome.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Uh, a hot coffee. It was both, hopefully it was an ice. It says, when I spit out my coffee, when I heard the chances of winning the lottery in a past show, I read someone here locally won twice and in all caps. Now what are those cra- Crazy chances. And a little, a little research said that it is the same odds winning twice, something that's so crazy, because it's 92, um, uh, million, you'd have to get struck twice by lightning while holding the lottery ticket. There's some like crazy, like some crazy internet way of figuring the probability of that. So the jackpot right now for the Powerball is 1.5 billion dollars, 1.5 billion. Did you say million with an M?

• 6:59Speaker 03

  B, B, B, billion with a B, uh, which would still, if you won that, you would still be, uh, even after taxes, one six hundredth, uh, as rich as, uh, Elon Musk. Um, so.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Come on. Um, yeah. So the Elon Musk, the first person to be worth 600 billion. This jackpot is a measly 1.5. Um, but, uh, yeah. So 1.5, pretty decent. Put that into perspective, folks. You have a stack of hundred dollar bills. That's a million tall, right? Yeah. You have a, a million dollar stack of C notes and you multiply that by 1500.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  That's a lot of C notes. You know what I mean? Wow. That's a lot. That's a lot of dollar bills. Uh, buy a lot of coffee with that. Hey, joking aside, I had it brought up in a meeting. I don't know what we were talking about this week. Or how it got brought up with some clients, but how are, uh, big winnings like this taxed? And it's, it's taxes, ordinary income. Is there, there's not a special, um, Nope. lottery tax, a surplus or anything? There's, so it's 50 cents on the dollar because you, it throws you up into the highest bracket. Oh yeah. You are, you are in the, you are in the stratosphere, uh, both federally and state.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Um, this is why I say that, uh, if you are the one that gets the Willy Wonka golden ticket and you wind up winning this deal and you're listening to, as you should, the Money Wise Guys podcast, uh, and you win that, uh, that 1.5 billion dollar jackpot. Um, you should be, first things first, uh, make sure that you're calling and putting together your team. It may cost you a little bit of money to have that team put together, but trust me, it's going to save you in the long run to have the, the attorneys, the CPAs, the financial advisors, you know, all of the, the team ahead of you

• 9:10Speaker 03

  to put together, um, the trusts, the, the corporate interests, the whatever needs to be done to protect and distribute and disperse and, and save as much of that money as, as legally possible. You know, and, and also protect you as the individual, protect you, the person from your long lost Uncle Billy, twice removed from Ohio that nobody's ever heard of making a claim on that ticket.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Now, on that same vein, I do not want to equate a lottery winner with someone who is inheriting money. However, we experience this every single week, almost every day with this great transfer of wealth. Folks that are inheriting large sums of money, or property, or properties, it's the same dream team, right, Justin? They need an advisor, a qualified CPA, and an estate planning attorney, and some, "Well, I don't want to spend those dollars, but I'm telling you, it's gonna pay off, right?" Yeah, in the long run, the cost for putting together that level of expertise is invaluable.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  And, you know, it is one of those things that, yes, when you look at it, you know, in a vacuum, yes, you can look at it and say, "Oh, it's expensive."

• 10:38Speaker 03

  What is more expensive is losing all of that money in a lawsuit, because you didn't protect it properly, losing all that money because of a bad investment, or an ill-thought-out investment, or, you know, any number of things, pitfalls that can happen. You know, this is...

• 10:59Speaker 03

  One thing I will say is this, when you're inheriting money, or you win a lottery, or you do something like that, it is your first time having that kind of money at your disposal. It is not our first rodeo, dealing with somebody with that much money at their disposal, right? We've seen the things, we've been through it, we've lived through it, and so we can guide you through what those pitfalls may be. And there's no shame or dishonor in it either. Some people, they almost even an embarrassment, "Oh, I've gotta sell this house, I've never done this before." Yeah, you know what? A lot

• 11:40Speaker 03

  of people have it, and that's normal. That's why you gotta lean on the experts. And a real-life story, I used to do my own taxes when I used to work for Halliburton. When I first started, I thought I knew what I was doing, get TurboTax, and, you know, do my stuff. Right. And then I started seeing a professional, Mr. Ryan Alexander here in Bakersfield. Yeah. Awesome guy, right? Good dude. Yeah. Very good dude. And he, he came back to me and said, you know, we need to amend the previous three years returns you do because you didn't, you, you owe, you were owed more money. Yeah. Because those softwares. All of these returns. Yeah, we don't give tax advice here at MoneyWise, right? No, no. Right. However, those softwares are designed to be ultra-conservative so that they can avoid any type of issues, right? And so I was able to get my money back and, and you pay a little bit more when you work with a CPA.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  But again, you get what you pay for and, and you have to invest in, in, in it in order to get that money back. Yeah. So if you're that winner, you wind up knocking down that 1.5 billion. Trust me, you're going to be in a very high tax bracket. It's gonna hurt. And guys, honestly, like. The IRS is gonna make sure it hurts. Yeah, you, you just call down here, ask for Seth Perry again. That is S E T. Now, if you, if you win that, trust me, you're going to be working with a team of advisors. No, that's, that's actually a peek behind the curtain of, of advisors, you know, like, especially in some of the big cities. If they, they can land one deal or work with one client or a famous athlete and basically just manage one person's entire portfolio and Yeah. be set themselves, right?

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Now, it would be, it would be a situation where like, yeah, honestly, the, the team effort here, it would be, it would be a team effort.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Anyhow, so we did get another message here says, I missed part of the show yesterday, but can you break down what a 60 40 portfolio means? Seth, I'll give you the first crack at that one. Sure. Yeah, I could talk for hours, but this one's a, this one's a good one. Absolutely. And forgive us if, if we didn't explain that well enough. So basically that first number is the amount of, uh, growth within the portfolio, which is usually stocks or equities, right? And the second portion is is the fixed income portion or bonds. And it could be equated that the equities are kind of your gas pedal. That's how you grow. That's how you get places, right? And then the bonds is more of the the brakes and the suspension to kind of help you through the ride.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Now, that doesn't mean that all stocks are risky and it doesn't mean that all bonds are safe. That's not the case, right? Right, no, and that's that's a great way to put it. You know, when you're looking at a sixty forty portfolio, it just means in in essence, you're looking at a well diversified, moderately moderately balanced portfolio of both stocks, bonds and and and broadly diversified amongst all all different asset classes, right? And, you know, when you're looking at it in those terms, you know, that's basically a percentage. So sixty percent of your portfolio would be in equities and forty percent of your portfolio would be in fixed income.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  You know, and, you know, getting deeper into it, you know, the the we've talked about it before on this show. But when you're looking at stocks and bonds, you know, they there's what's known as an inverse relationship between the two. When stocks are up, bonds tend to be down, not always the case, but bonds tend to be down. And then the vice versa is true. When stocks are down, bonds tend to be up, right? And so people would say, well, why are you investing in both? Right, because, you know, invest in the thing that's going up, right? Invest in the stocks because they're going up. Well, how are you going to know year by year, quarter by quarter, which one of those is going to be the case? Right? That's why you have the diversification and you kind of play that against each other.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Because what happens is that sixty forty portfolio, let's say that the growth really does well. The stock market does really, really well. And now, all of a sudden, that sixty percent that's in equities is now about seventy percent. This is where we then rebalance the portfolio and get back to sixty forty. And so what we're doing is we're institutionalizing the buy low and sell high, rebalancing that portfolio back to that strategy of sixty forty. I that was a really long winded answer. That was good one. I hope that really kind of brings it home that that's what we really want to do is strategically building a portfolio that we can rebalance back to, and that becomes the strategy as a whole. It's not for everybody, right?

• 16:16Speaker 03

  So we don't, we don't, it's not a cookie cutter answer that everybody gets. Some people are more aggressive than others. This is a more balanced portfolio, but a really conservative portfolio might be flip flopped. It might be forty sixty, right? Or even twenty eighty. It absolutely totally depends on the person's individual needs. But that's the breakdown of what a sixty forty portfolio means. And these, yeah, these nuts and bolts questions of of what we do and what we talk about, you know, we can get caught up in the jargon ourselves sometimes. So so please continue to send in any question that you can possibly think of. And we'll almost always try to get them answered on the air for you. By all means, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, Michael George from Safe One Credit Union, we're going to chat with you

• 16:59Speaker 03

  about all the the money habits that keep you on a paycheck to paycheck, you know, hamster wheel, if you will, when we come back.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Need to get your financial fix on the go? If so, subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast and catch up on all past shows whenever.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  Welcome back, everybody. Yes, welcome, welcome back to the Money Wise Show. We're joined right now by Mike George, Senior VP over there at Safe One Credit Union. How you doing, Mike?

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Good, thank you for having me on. It's always great to be on the show.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Nice, you know, it's, it's always good to have you on the show. A frequent, frequent guest and love having you on. Hey, um, so how are things going on over there at Safe One right now?

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Things at Safe One are great. We're having a great year. We're going to have a great year in numbers. I was really turned on by. The Raiders commercial leading into us on the show here as a Raiders fan.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Eight straight losses.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Eight straight. That's like, that's the hype. That's the build up. Watch, listen to this team because they've lost eight straight.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel for the Raider fans out there, man. That's unfortunate. It's funny, as you know, it says losers of eight straight. And I said, you know, they didn't have to finish the, the, the sentence. All they needed to do is say losers.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  They didn't, they didn't need to finish and say of eight straight. They just needed to stop right there at losers. I was listening to the early bird special this morning, man. They were chopping it up, man. Talking about the line and man, that's, guys, if you don't catch that show, I don't know what's wrong with you. Seth, 9 a.m. The early, the early bird special, right? Uh, hey Seth, we got a quick question, message that popped in there, uh, here on the old interwebs. Uh, you want to go ahead and read that real quick?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  See here, what did we get? Did he freeze? I think he might have froze.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  I got it. You got it? I got it. It says, uh, my good friend with a nice chunk of a cash in a, in a lottery four years ago. And is still fighting family members off. He tells me all the time how ugly people can get when they think they can get some money.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Hmm. You know what? Philosophically, I can tell you this from, uh, experience. And I think I, I had this conversation with, uh, an individual, I think earlier this week, um, specifically about, um,

• 19:28Speaker 03

  the, you know, whether it's, whether it's, uh, inheritance or lottery winnings or, or anything of the fact is that, you know, the, uh, uh, money, money does change people, right? There, there's, uh, the money can, if, if done improperly,

• 19:50Speaker 03

  money can really, uh, corrupt or change people, uh, in, in, in either positive or negative ways, right? Most, most of the time it winds up being negative in, in a lot of ways. And I, and in my experience, I've been doing this for a long time. No money corrupts or changes people more drastically or more ugly than money that they didn't earn.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Right? So if if they have the chance or they see that there's money that is out there that that that wasn't theirs to begin with, but they have the opportunity to get it. It nothing, nothing becomes more ugly than that than that right there. Um, i- i- and so, yeah, that was, um, yeah, that's a very poignant question or a comment there of of, you know, sorry, your family's still fighting off those family members, but man, this is why you put the team together, man, so you can protect it.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  And just you remember, you may recall one time we talked about winning the lottery on the show and and the first thing you do, and I mean this was all sincerity, is keep your mouth shut. If you win the lottery, you tell nobody.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Nobody. You don't even tell your wife.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Hey, that's right.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  You heard it here first, people.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  That's right. I mean, i- i- you wonder why, like, it could be, you know, at four months, six months before someone claims uh, their lottery winnings, it's because they're doing all the things you guys talked about, doing the right things. Getting the, the, getting the tax expert, getting the financial planner. They get all that in place before they even turn in the ticket. And so, yeah, you tell nobody, you keep your mouth shut, and you get all your ducks in a row.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  I, you know, I've told this pe- to people before, the first thing I do is I get a, uh, I sign the back of the ticket with my signature.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  I get a photo on my phone. I take a picture of the front and back of that ticket and I save it in a secure folder on my phone. I go to the bank and I get a secured uh, safety deposit box and the ticket goes in there. Right? And it's gone. It is out, it is out of my hands. It's in a bank and a vault. Nobody can get to it but me, right?

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Exactly. And then you got, you got the backup, like you said, where you're, you're saving it on your, uh, uh, your hardware.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  I've got it. I've got it on my phone. It's there and it's in the secure folder. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting it in the, do they still do safe deposit boxes? Do they still have them?

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, they're, they're not as common as they used to be because, you know, uh, banks and credians or sizes have become smaller, but you can still find them, absolutely. And Justin's right, you put that in a safe deposit box and uh,

• 22:20Speaker 03

  It's in the vault. It is not going anywhere.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Don't, don't go looking at it every third day either. Just leave it there and just, just don't worry about it.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  It is out of my hands and I at least, you know, and then then now you've got the the photo of it. So you can actually have proof that you can go to the attorney, you can go to, you can show them like, hey, I've got this thing. It's it's in an undisclosed location.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Right?

• 22:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're just spot on.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  You know, and you just you do your thing. So, hey, Mr. George, Mr. Michael George, so we've got the ten money habits. And we're going to take us into the the Christmas break, the winter season. With the ten money habits that tend to keep us all.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, last time I was on, we talked about a ten common habits of self made millionaires. And this is kind of the opposite, but we're going to put a positive spin. It's it's ten money habits to keep you poor, but we're also going to, you know, give you some advice on how to overcome. Because, you know, we all live, a lot of people, we live paycheck to paycheck. A lot of times at the end of the month, people wonder who don't do planning especially, they want to like, where did all my money go this month? Well.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  The what's important is we're going to give you some steps to where, you know, you're going to be able to better analyze where the struggle is coming from, you know? So you can make those necessary changes, reverse your fortune. Because regardless of your income, good money habits help to build your wealth. You know, they set you up for financial success and the bad ones, they do the opposite. They dwindle your savings and create a vicious cycle of not being able to save. So the main thing that we'll talk about today is a lot of people, they don't even know where these money habits that are acting to their detriment may come from. So we're going to talk about that and and have a little discussion on it.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Awesome, sounds good. So here's the first, you know.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Let's let's hit it off. The first one is, man, this one is.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  If if there's any one that is like the the quintessential, this is the one that keeps you in the poor house.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  This one.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  And it is not having and sticking to. Any semblance of a budget.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  You're you're spot on. I mean, as you mentioned, this is like, you know, financial management 101. You know, you got to create a budget. Uh, it's the, like you said, it's really the first step in achieving the financial independence. It involves in understanding your income and expenses, tracking your spending and setting realistic limits. Uh, you know, you do so you can identify the areas where you can cut back on expenses, thereby increasing your savings. And doing it also helps to avoid spending money on impulse purchases. And again, going back to what I said, wondering at the end of the month, where did all my money go?

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  It it really helps you set your financial goals. You make a budget, you stick to it. My budget, uh, my wife always says budgets are made to be broken, but I'll tell you this right now. I know.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  I tell her this all the time. I can, I can tell you right now, the difference between those who create a budget, stick to it, and those who do not. The ones that do it, they have financial success.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  They get more things out of life.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Financial freedom, right.

• 25:29Speaker 04

  Before the show, Justin, was the discipline piece, which will come out as we talk about these. But so people that say budgets are made to be broken or don't follow budgets, let them go work for the government because that's how, see how well that works, you know? For all of us, tax payers doesn't work very well, does it? No, you have to have a budget. You gotta stick to it. Um, and you you gotta start, you know, with the very basics, no doubt.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  The big thing I think too i- is people think, oh, if I'm going to budget, then there goes all my freedom and this and the other. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. So it's the other way around. Exactly. You give yourself freedom. You give yourself permission. It it literally, I know I'm kind of a money nerd, a numbers nerd, but I couldn't, I would have so much anxiety not having a budget. Not having a big picture of where my checks are going each month. That's crazy to me. You're absolutely right, because I, you know, I look at this and I say the the same thing where it's like, you know, people will say to me, well, you know, a a budget is such a constriction, right? Like you feel like you have these walls and you're constricted. It's absolutely the opposite.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Because if you know where the money is going, anything that's left over now, you have complete and other, like unfettered freedom to be able to do whatever it is you need to do with that ex, the the money that's not already spoken for.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Right?

• 26:43Speaker 04

  You gotta have it.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  And be patient with it. It takes about ninety days for a new budget to start working because you can guess and estimate, but it takes a good two or three months for you to go, okay, this is really what I'm spending a guess. This is really what we're using to eat out. So be patient with it. Don't just give up after two weeks.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  That's what I tell people. Guys, I see sometimes I tell people. I'm sorry, Russell.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got another point on this where when we get to the point on credit, you know, there's, there's another point to this, but you know, um, that we'll get to. But you know, the, the budgeting piece is the paramount piece to a, a, a, a good financial plan.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  Period, full stop.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Yep, absolutely. You, you got, sometimes you gotta give up the ham sandwich today in order to have the steak dinner tomorrow. That's, that's what, that's what it's about, man.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Right. What's number, what's the second one? What I guess the number two actually really does kind of, it's like one and one A.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally true, totally true. And, and you're totally right. It's the budgeting and the second was not, you know, uh, uh, the, one thing that can keep you poor is not keeping a record of your money. So it totally ties into the budget. It's one necessity in this whole process of it's knowing where you spend your money. So for some people, it might be as simple as writing down your, your bills and your utilities expenses. For others like myself, I have a spreadsheet that serves the same purpose. Uh, but no matter what you decide or how you do it, you gotta have it documented. Cause how are you gonna know where you're spending money that you can save? If you don't have it written down and documented, otherwise you're not gonna know where your money goes. So, uh, you might be aware of your major expenditures, but it's sometimes those smaller ones that are causing the problems. Uh, and so that's why, you know, keeping track of, of the expenses,

• 28:22Speaker 04

  it's essential to your financial wellbeing. Uh, it's essential to proper budgeting and, and breaking habits from you achieving your goals. In fact, I have a friend that's listening, shot me a text, Miguel. Uh, he, he, uh, so me and my wife, I, I have this budget and I have this spreadsheet I go by. And whenever I see Miguel, he hits me up, hey, I gotta, I gotta develop one of those spreadsheets. Yeah, you did it, man. I'll sit down with you and we will do it.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Here's what you do to help Miguel out. Take your spreadsheet, Mike. Delete all the numbers out of it, save it as a template and email it to him and here's your spreadsheet. Now you get to start.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Fill it in.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  I've done that before. Yep.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  And, and wherever you see red, that's called bad. So.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  So here's the third one, and this is the one where I think that, you know, this is. By by far, I think what a lot of people tend to rely on who are, you know, maybe not budget constrained. And then they think, oh, I'm just gonna put it out on the credit card. This is the part where people rely relying too heavily on credit.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  And this is a huge problem.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  So it's it's a big problem. Um, you know, having a access to credit, like say a credit card. That can be a good thing, but if you're not paying it off, and we talked about this on the show, if you're not paying it off monthly, um, or making late payments, that has a dramatic impact on your money. Um, if you're not paying it off monthly, you know, that credit card balance, you're paying full with an annual percentage rate.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  And that grows monthly thanks to compound interest. So I'll just give a brief example.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Daily.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  Let's say you have a credit card balance of sixty two hundred dollars, which according to studies, that's what the average American has. And according to the Federal Reserve, the average rate on this, which is high to me, uh, but it is the average on a credit card APR, sixteen point six. So to just to give you a scenario, now if you pay it off at the end of the month, then you're not gonna pay anything in accumulated interest.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  You take minimum payments for five years, you're paying twenty two hundred dollars in accumulated interest. Minimum payments for ten years is sixty five hundred dollars. And minimum payments for fifteen years, you're paying over ten thousand six hundred dollars in accumulated interest. So after five years, from the interest you're paying, that's more than what your original balance was. And if you miss a late payment, well, expect to pay even more due to fees, so.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Well, not even that, because once you do a late payment, they increase your interest rate. You're you're you're now in the the twenty five percent interest rate, because you're now a bad risk.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that goes to that small print on the disclosure that nobody reads.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Right, nobody ever reads that part. So here's the thing, though, that that uh, the point that I was gonna make on the credit part is, so let's say that you're a person who already has a budget, right? Let's say you've done the the first part first, and you you've now got a budget, right? But.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  You are utilizing credit in a way that is maybe unhealthy. And you're paying the minimums and you're just like, oh, well, I'm just gonna put that on the credit card. Oh, it's still within my budget because that's it's it's within my budget. I'm just gonna pay it on the credit card. Well, and then you keep paying the minimums event and you just stop and you're just not looking at the statements, right? You just, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at this and all of a sudden you open the statement. You're like, oh crap.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Now what? Because now you've accumulated this bill. And now you gotta pay the piper and now it's no longer in your budget.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Now you've gotta pay it all back plus the interest and that and so now you've blown up your budget. And maybe your income hasn't changed and gotten better, but now your budget now has to reflect it.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Listeners are getting it too. Listener messages in Lotto tickets, eating out and paying for all these streaming apps. Is what is hurting this generation. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, not just this generation, all generations. Like who's the who's out there paying for cable anymore?

• 32:06Speaker 04

  You know, it's funny, it's funny.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  I have not paid for cable in like 15 years. Same with movies. Who's watching movies? The the they've the stream streamers have taken over. There's a Matt Damon, Ben Affleck movie coming out and I'm like, oh, sweet. I might go see that. And then it's like available on Netflix or whatever the service was. I'm like, wow, that's not even going to the box office anymore.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  It's funny you say it because, you know, a lot of people got rid of cable because I can save money. I can get these streaming services and then they get so many streaming services that they're paying more than what their cable was. I mean, I mean, remember that Bruce Springsteen song 57 channels and nothing on? Well, it's about 157 at my house and there's still nothing on. It's just, it's crazy.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Like 1,057 channels.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's insane. It's insane, man.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. So now we got through the budgeting. We got through the, uh, the, the, the, you know, tracking your money where it goes and then now the credit. Uh, what what do we got next on this list here at Mr. Michael George?

• 32:59Speaker 04

  The the next thing is is prioritizing the wrong thing. So saving money and building wealth, you know, it doesn't come without sacrifice. So if you want to take a vacation, make home improvements, buy an investment property, then you have to control your expenses in other areas and it requires. What we talked about before the show, Justin, that's disappointing. So instead of going to Starbucks or Dutch Brothers or what's another one Dunkin' Donuts for your coffee, maybe you have to brew that coffee at home.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, you're okay with going with a reverb. You don't go to Starbucks. You can go to reverb. Reverb's fine.

• 33:31Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, that's the only acceptable one then. All right. And, you know, instead of throwing out the leftovers that you bring home from the restaurant, maybe that becomes a second meal. In fact, I think we talked on the show, it's amazing, Americans, we throw away about thirty-three percent of our food, whether it's from a restaurant or even what we buy at the supermarket and bring home.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Unbelievable.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  You know, those changes like coffee leftovers, they may seem small and insignificant, but they do add up and they can help turn your financial goals into reality. So you gotta be clear about your goals, but more importantly, you gotta take small steps to make them happen. These are two small steps and there's many others.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  And this is not saying something like, you know, when you're saying prioritizing the wrong things, it's not saying like, don't have a hobby.

• 34:12Speaker 04

  No, not at all.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  It's not saying like, because let's face it. Just find a free one. If you truly have a cool, cool hobby, hobbies are expensive.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Yes, they are.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Many, many hobbies can be very expensive. It's not saying that because you all, you also need a mental break from what it, what life is. I mean, let's just say the last five years, it's been a dumpster fire and we need to put out the dumpster fire. So everybody needs a hobby and a mental break. So here, here's kind of, you know, it's not saying that we need to get rid of that. But prioritizing some of the wrong things, like you're saying, is maybe some of the things that are maybe not the most healthy.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  You know, it's okay to treat yourself every once in a while, but if you're going to Starbucks or Dutch Bros, you know, twice a day.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  I think we may have a problem. Yeah, I try to keep the, I've dialed down the reverb two to three times a week. And then we got, you know, we got some wonderful K-cups here. We got the K-cup at the house and you'll be surprised, man. It goes quick. It does, it does.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  The thing is with the. You don't want to get away from your passion. Definitely live your passion.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, the passions, the hobbies, those types of things. Yes, there's, there's money that's spent on those things. But those are for the mental health side of things too.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Exactly. Absolutely.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Uh, the next one here, so we've got those four. The fifth one here is, is. This is hilarious. This one's hilarious. This is what people do. A lot of people are like, oh, I go into debt and then I just ignore that exists.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  That's like me saying, you know what? I have a full head of hair, man. Right. I haven't checked my hair in a while, but I think it looks pretty good. Seth, man, Seth, that flow is looking fly, man. I wish I had the Frank flow. We got a lot of nice hair in the office these days, but, but either way, well, tell us about number five.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Well, it goes back to what Jesse, you were just talking about where you open up that, that credit card statement. You're like, uh, what?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Uh, this is what?

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  The only thing worse than racking up debt is, is then ignoring it and forgetting about it when it comes time to pay off. And, you know, when that does happen, it becomes overwhelming for a lot of people. And that means that a lot of times you ignore it even more. You, you really just don't want it to spiral out of control. So rather than, you know, when this happens, rather than sticking your head in the sand, you have to address your debt before it begins controlling more aspects of your life than just your finances. Cause if you don't handle it, it will all the way down to your health.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Control your debt before it controls you is what you're saying, right?

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Exactly. So, uh, you know, consulting your debt as well as paying off a small amount in regular intervals. It might be a way to assist in these efforts. And another thing is that there are debt professionals and debt relief attorneys out there should you get to that point. And their mission is to assist you. So debt settlements can be made with creditors. That doesn't do damage to your credit and you end up paying a lot less than what you owe. So there are those options out there, but hopefully you never get to that point. Cause as you just said, just the main thing is that, you know, you gotta get on top of your debt before it gets on top of you and then you end up losing it all. So

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, if you, if you get the debt, take care of it quickly.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  There's good debt, there's bad debt, right? Good debt, house is like a home, you know, that's obviously something.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  You know, maybe a car, you know, a, a car is good debt if it's reasonable. I mean, you're not buying a brand new seven series BMW. You know, it's transportation to get back and forth to work is one thing. Getting a lease on a seven series, probably not the best idea. Yeah. Is it an appreciating asset? Is it going, is whatever you borrowed against, is it going up in value? Or is it like most cars and they're not? Or even then, if you are borrowing money to get a car, is it putting money back in your pocket? Right? Is it taking you to work and is it paying for itself? Right?

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Um, that kind of a thing. But you know, if you're, if you're using it for Uber Eats, you know, to, to buy food and spend a bunch of money that is going back on your credit card, probably not the best idea. So, hey, we're going to take a very quick break, uh, get to, but we got a couple more items here on the things that are keeping us from our financial freedom when we come back.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000 or email [email protected] for more information.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. Joined today by Mr. Michael George from Safe One Credit Union. I'm your host, Justin Leland, here with Mr. Seth Perry and as always, Mr. Stephen Nicholas on the old, the mixer over there, taking care of all the business. We got a message came in on, on the break there. Seth, we want to read that there? Yeah, let's do it. It says, I love playing poker and I've been to the new Hard Rock a bit too much. Love it. That used to be me. But my wife and I made a deal. I can go once a week. You guys are so right when it comes to debt. It's fun spending until you can't afford to pay it back. Thank you. No kidding. Well said. It's a lot of fun to spend it, not so fun to pay it back.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  It's like eating sugar, you know, it's so cool while it's happening, but then five, 10 minutes later, you know?

• 39:19Speaker 04

  There's a crash.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Especially this holiday season, it's just, it's been rough. It's like for, for those of us with lactose intolerance, it's like ice cream is great until it's not.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Taste great. Nope. Not worth the pain. Right? So anyhow, so let's get back to it. So, uh, we've already talked about building the budget, recording what you're spending, um, making sure we're not, uh, you know, forgetting the debts that we've already got. Now let's get down to the nitty gritty on the last five items here.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Poor shopping etiquette. What does that mean?

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, the main thing on this is that, you know, we all respond to stress and adversity a little bit differently. Some people go to the gym, some take a ride in the car, some go to a place, I think Superman used to go to the Fortress of Solitude, right?

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Right. But I go to the Jack in the Box drive through.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  There you go, there you go.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  French toast sticks? Yeah, you know what I just heard?

• 40:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, two tacos for a buck, they're delicious.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Uh, we don't even know what they're made of, but they're, they are delicious. So no need, I can tell that. Uh, but another thing, uh, but what you talk about, that's totally true. They, some people just go shopping.

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Um, and I'm not talking about the, the shopping for the essentials in life. I'm talking impulse shopping.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  How much have you heard of the term, and this is an actual term, retail therapy? People have actually used it as a term, retail therapy.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  Yep, that's totally it.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  That's not ideal.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  It's not. It, they're short-term fulfillment, but you know, long-term consequences. Okay. So according to data, the average American spends about a hundred fifty dollars per month on impulse purchases like this.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  I think that's light.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  It's gonna vary, it's gonna vary depending on who you are.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  But even at the light, and you know, you're spending eighteen hundred, two thousand dollars a year on things that you don't need.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Put two thousand dollars extra into your 401K or into some retirement account. Uh, you know, so impulse shopping, especially for those that, of course, you like my mother, who's a rabid purchaser. Uh, it, it's a money habit that can keep you poor. And so, uh, you know, again, it goes back to what we talked about, it's discipline. And this is an area where, you know, again, it's not where you have a passion or something that you, a hobby that you really like. This is just going out and purchasing things frivolously.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  Just be conscious of it.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Which then you kind of alluded to it before, which is the next one, which is not putting money into savings. So if you're not spending the money in frivolous ways, uh, retail therapy wise, or just spending the money, you know, and not even recognizing that you spent the money, right? You have no idea.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Totally true.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Right? What about taking that money and putting it and having the discipline to put that into savings?

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Exactly, and that's another key point. So. One of the main difference between people or poor people or people who aren't able to save versus self-made millionaires is that the latter, the self-made millionaires, they make a conscious effort to save regularly. And so there's just three steps that I tell people about this. If you're trying to save one, first step is don't try to save everything at once.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, how do you eat an elephant, right? How do you eat an elephant?

• 42:24Speaker 04

  One bite at a time.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Right. You don't start by swallowing the whole thing whole.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  Exactly. So you got, you gotta just set a goal that you can achieve in sixty days. For some people, it's a hundred bucks. For some people, it's five hundred dollars. But whatever it is, step one is set the goal. Set, step two is that, once you achieve that goal, add to it. So that one hundred bucks could become two fifty, the five hundred can become seven fifty or a thousand. And third, and this is the most important one, is you gotta pay yourself first. You know, you, you pay yourself this money at the beginning of your pay period when you first get that paycheck. Don't ever say, I'm just gonna save whatever I have at the end of my paycheck or my pay period. I guarantee you that never works. It's gone. It's not gonna work. You gotta, you gotta save it now. You gotta start today. And as you tell people in your financial planning, I'm sure is that when you're younger, the earlier you start saving, especially for retirement, the better off you're gonna be when that day comes.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Start early and often. Start early and often. And this is the, this is the time of year too, guys, where a lot of folks are getting a cost of living raise. Hopefully, you know, if not, okay, but maybe you're getting even a modest two to four percent raise. So it's very wise, if you're not used, if you're used to living on the money you're living on now, use one percent of that four percent and, and start saving that and then just ratchet up that way. You barely even notice the difference, right? You won't even notice the difference and you're still giving yourself a raise.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  Yep, that's totally true. Totally true. So, you know, to, to your point, just not to jump too far ahead, but one of them is that, you know, one of the problems, people will spend more as their money increases. But if you, you know, so if you get a pay increase, it doesn't mean that your spending has to increase. If you've been making ends meet, um, and doing all the right things, when you get a pay increase, uh, you can, you can still keep that same budget and that same expense level because then you are gonna have more money to save and do the things that you need. So.

• 44:08Speaker 03

  Within the industry, we, we refer to that as lifestyle creep.

• 44:12Speaker 04

  Exactly. And I can tell you, one of the keys to anybody's happiness and success is to live below your means.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  Like I tell my wife, the happiness in this marriage is going to be when you lower your expectations of me.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  I don't think her expectations can get any lower.

• 44:35Speaker 04

  Shoot low and you will be fine.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Shoot low. You have to start digging.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly. So we just jumped ahead on that one. But another one that ties to the savings is not investing. I mean, saving money is one thing, but that's only going to take you so far. So whether it's stock, bonds, exchange traded funds, all of that. It's important to invest. And that's why I always tell people, when you do this, you seek the assistance of a financial planner, like someone from MoneyWise. You know, one of the several common habits of self-made millionaires is they invest, is they invest. They invest some of their money. And the way they invest is that they generally have those funds taken right out of their paycheck, taken right out of, from their account. Before they even see it. So if they don't even see it, they don't miss it. Now, self-made millionaires tend to do around 20%.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  It does not mean that everyone has to start at 20%. You can start at 5%, make it minimal and work your way up. And the reason I say, anything, exactly. And the reason I say to get with a financial planner, like guys from MoneyWise, because they're going to help you understand your money psychology, you know, what your natural financial tendencies are, what your risk tolerance is here. What your risk tolerance is. It's just going to help you. And I can tell you, this is something self-made millionaires do. And they're self-made because they started just like me and you. So through the assistance of a financial planner, they're going to get you where you need to be.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  Right, absolutely. And, you know, by all means, the, the investment piece, the first thing we always tell people is, start with your savings account first. At the bare minimum, you need to have three to six months' worth of money saved up in that emergency savings account.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  But once you've got that built, now we are, we're moving on to the next goal and the next goal and the next goal. So, you know, these are all great things to talk about. Now, we already talked about spending more than what you're in, as your income increases. We talked about the lifestyle creep. And we also did talk about the last one here, which is the living beyond our means.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  You know. I I I always kind of liken this, it's it's not, it's it's kind of part and parcel with the one before, which is the, you know, uh, the lifestyle creep, but you know, if we're always consistently trying to keep up with the Joneses, you know, I I kind of made the joke before about, you know, uh, the good debt and bad debt. And it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna lease that brand new seven series, you know, BMW. Well, because Sally next door just bought herself a, you know, a brand new Mercedes. I'm gonna one up them by getting the BMW or whatever. Um, what are you doing? What are you actually accomplishing in doing that?

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  Other than putting yourself in a really bad financial hole.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, you look good for three minutes.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, for appearances only, right?

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Um, and and let's, and we've all been guilty of this, uh, but learn from it. You know, and and people say, what does it mean like to live beyond your means? Well, it's like you just said, I mean, it it goes back to everything we talked about. You set a budget, which is the first thing we talked about. And you put aside your mortgage or your rent, your car payments bills. And after you've done this, if you don't have enough money left for food and basic necessities, then guess what? You're living beyond your means.

• 47:54Speaker 03

  So I'll ask you this question, Mike.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  You know, name, name me the person that's better off. A person making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or a person making seventy five thousand dollars a year. Okay, the person making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year has a budget of two hundred thousand dollars a year. They're spending two hundred thousand dollars a year. Or the person making seventy five thousand dollars a year and is perfectly happy living off a sixty. Which one's better off?

• 48:24Speaker 04

  The the uh, B, the seventy five, living below your means. Yes.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Exactly. So just because you make more money, doesn't necessarily make you happier. Because you make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, but your lifestyle says you have to spend two hundred, you're miserable.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  You're constantly on the hamster wheel trying to make that extra fifty grand.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  And what you're, and what you're doing is something you talked about earlier is you're, they're probably using. Some of that credit to make make ends meet and we know that's a downward spiral, man.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  You are on the hamster wheel and you're never getting off.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Exactly, exactly.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  So, hey, Mike, thank you so much for joining us. I mean,

• 49:00Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  You know, these are the types of conversations that take us back to basics. We love these back to basics kind of conversations because, you know, we always kind of, we can get into these other conversations about, you know, the Fed and the labor market. These are the type of conversations that get us back to basics and, you know, really help get people to really think about their own personal finances. I don't care who you are. I'm an advisor by trade and yet this has been beneficial for me just being reminded of a few of these things that, you know, there's there's certain areas that can creep in on all of us. Right, absolutely. I can, I can look at my own budget and be like, yeah, should I really be spending that much money at Reverb? Yes, I should. Yes, we should.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  That goes back to your passion, right?

• 49:42Speaker 03

  Right. Nineteenth and K. Absolutely love it. But, you know, I could probably, I could probably dial it back a touch, but, you know, hey. Anyhow, Merry Christmas to everybody listening to my voice. Merry Christmas to you, Mike. Merry Christmas to you, Seth and Steven. Be smart, be safe, be money wise. Happy New Year. We'll see you.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.