12/20/24 Comedy, Kern County, and Beast Games: Dan Betts on The Well Comedy Club and MrBeast’s Amazon Prime Show

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, December 20th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guest: Dan Betts, Comedian, Veteran and Owner of, "The Well Comedy Club" website: www.thewellcomedyclub.com instagram: @thewellcomedyclub Beast Games

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 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?

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  Securities offered through S E F Securities, Inc., member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through S E F Investment Advisors, Inc. S E F Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:44Speaker 03

  That's right. Let's start the Money Wise Show. This is Chris Pelster. I'm your host today with Dustin Weaver. Mr. Weaver's joining us on a Friday here and we're gonna get down to business. We have a great show for you today.

• 1:01Speaker 03

  Friday. It is Getting Down to Business Friday. What is Getting to Business Friday? You kind of asked that question. It's like, what's the difference? Well, so today, we're gonna be getting down to business with Daniel Betts, owner, operator, some way, shape, or form, The Well, which some knew it as maybe a bar. 2020 COVID made that a difficult endeavor. Changed hands where Mr. Betts took some of the promoting he was doing here in town with comedy and married it together, met Mr. Cobb, who was running The Well at the time. So made that introduction and actually had a little bit to do with the radio show, Mr. Steven over there.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  So it was kind of cool to make that introduction and he's been now kind of turning it into a dedicated comedy club.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Have you been there since?

• 1:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:51Speaker 00

  It is really nice.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  The last time I was there, it was still POD played there.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Okay. What was that called? B- Riders?

• 2:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Yes, I remember that.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, way back in the day. And then we went to the

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  We went to The Well when Cobb was on the show and we went and Garret Ellis cleaned them out of chicken wings.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was the first weekday opened. Yep.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were gonna order more and he looked back in the kitchen. The kitchen's like, you know, giving the whole, uh, you know, the, the, the hand across the neck thing like, no, we're, we're out, we're done. So that's what Garrett else can do. He can wipe your restaurant out of, uh,

• 2:28Speaker 04

  So this is a white lane near Gosford, right?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yep. Used to be, uh, there used to be like a remote control

• 2:36Speaker 03

  track in the back.

• 2:37Speaker 04

  RC track.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. That was, that's my childhood, man. I'd roller blade over there.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Even one of those locations, a lot of people don't realize this, was a, uh, slot car, uh, endeavor. Where you could do the little slot cars on the track, you know, like the really fast ones.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  When I said RV, that, I, I meant that.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  What RV?

• 2:54Speaker 04

  RC, not RV.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  RC.

• 2:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, not RC cars.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Remote control and slot cars.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  So there were two different businesses, but man, you talk about being a kid, being able to throw my roller blades and go over and, uh, look at remote control cars and, uh, slot cars was open there for a while, which there's some new life being breathed into those areas here in town. So, um, anyways, long story short, we're gonna get down to business with, uh, Daniel Betts. He's got some upcoming events. And the reason why we call it getting down to business is we wanna not only just get kinda like updates on stuff going on, but also kinda get the, the business side of it and, uh, hopefully, uh, spur on some local entrepreneurs or people thinking about opening up a business or hearing other people's stories of what they have done, uh, to get business and things going on here in town. Maybe it convinces somebody else to give her a try. So,

• 3:43Speaker 03

  um, if you have any questions or comments, you can always jump in 661-396-1000. We did have a few questions come in that we'll jump, uh, into in just a second, but first, before we do that, we're gonna go over the markets a little bit. Been a little bit of a crazy week, wouldn't you say?

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, definitely. A lot of, a lot of volatility. It's like up one day, down the next.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think ultimately we, we've been on a little bit of a downtrend, even though we've had a little jump here at the end of the week. Um, you know, it's, it's kind of one of those things where doing a daily show like sometimes you're staring so close at like what's going on today. It's hard to remember where we've come from. Um, it is always scary when the market starts to slide. There was definitely a little bullish kind of a push. Melting up, we kind of refer to it as when the market was already headed in a really positive direction, kind of, kind of, uh, you know, going up and then the elections made it melt up, we call it. Um, one of the things that I always like to do is perspective. Okay?

• 4:43Speaker 03

  So even if you're bullish or confident or, or excited about some of the things that maybe a new presidency might bring to the economy, to the table. Um, you have to remember that go back at the end of 2022. When the market pulled back a little bit because of inflation, rearing its ugly head, and we've all felt the pains of inflation over the last couple of years. But feds raised the interest rates fast and abrupt, more so than they've done in a long, long time. The market didn't like that. The market pulled back. So for perspective, I just want to remind people. One of the major indexes that we always talk about, the S and P 500, it is a broad look at the 500 largest companies of the exchange or

• 5:26Speaker 03

  of, of the US economy that are trading. It's not necessarily a fund that you invest in, although you can buy an ETF or participate in those 500 companies. But technically the S and P 500 is just an index. It's just a scoreboard. Uh, Standard and Poor's is a company that does, um, financials and stuff like that for businesses. And so they came up with the S and P 500 years ago. As just a way to kind of, hey, what's the market doing today? I can look at those 500 companies, one number. And know what overall, kind of what all 500 companies did. Some are up, some are down. Overall, it was up this day or down that day. Long story short, I just wanted to give perspective. I always like to do this. So after 2022, market pulled back a little bit. Where did we close 2022 and start 2023?

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  3,008.39.

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  Three thousand eight thirty-nine and today.

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  It's at?

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  Five thousand nine thirty and eighty-five.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Five thousand nine thirty. So folks, since 2023, even with a down week, even with some, some pressure against the markets, we ended 2022, went into 2023 at three thousand eight thirty-nine, started 2024 at four thousand seven forty-two, couple of weeks left right now in 2024, we are at five thousand nine thirty. I always bring this up just to kind of remind folks and get perspective, where we have all seen our accounts, if we are stock-based or have a good portion of our accounts and stocks, we've seen some growth. We've all seen our accounts do well. If you're retired and you have stocks in your account, you have been able to take monthly distributions possibly and

• 7:05Speaker 03

  realize a lot of these gains over the last few years as you're a retiree, pulling your money out every single month.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  And still maintain a balance?

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Still maintaining a balance, right. So sometimes people will say, well, I'm retired, I can't afford to take risk, or I can't afford to have my account go down. The last two years, and what your account has been doing is what will help you actually do much better than if you had much, much lower risk.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Right?

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

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  You're getting to realize all these gains over the last few years with your monthly withdrawal. Now, the bad news is, yes, there's volatility. We might have a down week, we might even have a down year, might have a down quarter. So that quarter, yes, your monthly distribution will be impacted, but as long as you have a diversified portfolio, you rebalance on a regular basis and have some sort of plan around that, and you stick with your plan, guess what? In the long run, much better off, much better off, right? I mean, it's tried and true. It's been proven multiple times and, you know, through all kinds of realities and global pandemics, and I even bring back like historical, I mean, president assassinations and, and actually recently, attempted.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  You know, ex-president, soon to be new president, you know, all these different factors that can cause a lot of fear and panic and different things. These 500 companies, the United States Stock Exchange continues to show its resilience as companies want to make money, and I'm pretty sure I've noticed people like to spend money.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  That is the truth.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Isn't it? Right? I mean, I tell people like, it's not like I just am like pie in the sky and I only talk positive about this stuff because this is what I do for a living, but I have noticed that no matter what's going on, people still go to baseball games and people still spend money. And they still wanna hi- hit their financial goals and do different things. And so I am bullish on the sense that I think no matter what's going on, people are gonna keep doing what they're doing, even though just 20 years ago, we didn't even really know what this, you know, the internet was.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  And now look at how commerce is using the internet and all the factors that it's changed. And so, yes, it's a dynamic economy. It's always changing. You can't just bury your head in the sand. But as far as kinda saying, hey, if you're gonna set aside money or try to create income off of your money, um, there's nothing like being in a portfolio that you're confident is gonna help you reach your goals. You can weather the storms, you can enjoy the ups. And one of the biases we talk about a lot as an investor is our ability to like hyper-focus on our losses. And really discount our gains. And a lot of times, you know, sometimes that's where like a good advisor is gonna sit down and help you understand that. Hopefully not candy coat things or, or talk over your head, but really try to help you understand, yes, nobody's happy when it's down.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  But you have had these gains that is also going to actually allow your money to last longer.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  Well, and you've said a couple of key words there, diversification, portfolio, right? One of the things you and I talk about a lot is buckets of money, this bucketing strategy.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  Uh, what's the 32nd on that? What would you tell folks about bucketing?

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, so having buckets, you, you can be strategic about when you sell what, right? Or when you're gonna replenish your conservative bucket. Um, right now, actually, you're wanting to use a little bit more of your aggressive buckets. Well, you know, maybe not this last couple of weeks, but I would still say, you know, going back to where the S and P 500 was in 2023 and where we're at now, um, these are the times you're trimming back a little bit of those stocks that have been doing much, much better than some of the other parts of your portfolios or your bonds. And you're replenishing into those bonds, which by the way, now we're paying higher yields because the feds have raised interest rates. So you shift things around, right? You can be strategic, uh, To try to minimize the impact that the market fluctuations have. So, you know, just kind of split

• 10:52Speaker 03

  it up into a growth bucket, moderate level bucket and a conservative bucket. What that looks like is kind of dependent on each person's risk profile, right?

• 11:01Speaker 04

  Oh, exactly.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, another way I've seen it is most people are looking for some combination of three things. They need income for today, income later, which we like to call growth, and then, you know, capital preservation or keep this money safe. I don't want to have to go back to work and earn it again, right?

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, and a lot of times, again, that that whole, people think that if my account ever goes down, then I'm going to have to go back to work. A solid plan, it's not, it's not like a bank account. And I try to explain and help people understand that, that your account balance is going to fluctuate on a regular basis. So you can't get to, another bias here, anchored to certain numbers.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  You know, sometimes the the big ones, like if somebody gets close to a million, man, you really see investor behavior ramp up because you're like, oh, above a million, below a million, above a million, you know, and it creates, and in reality, it's the same movements that it was when it was $500,000, right? But that number psychologically really messes with you. But again, that's one of those things where we have a tendency to to treat our investments like a bank account, where bank account is, it's a ledger, right? You put money in, you take money out. Historically, over the last decade or so, we have not been getting very much income off of those. We're getting a little bit more, but most of us, if we have most of our cash sitting in savings accounts or checking accounts, you're still not getting anything.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  But money markets and some of those options have got a little bit more attractive. But anyways, I wanted to jump into the comments. Stephen, should we take a break real quick and come back to those?

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, let's take a break. We have some great comments and questions that came in. So again, you can join always here at Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Are you an employee with a company sponsored retirement plan? Do you fully understand how you're invested and whether or not you are maximizing your retirement plan's options? For more information on a free assessment, contact Money Wise's 401k specialist, Justin Leland, at 661-847-1000. That's 661-847-1000.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Oh. The POD. Now, is this, is this considered classic rock now? Oh, yeah. And then, and then like the 70s and 80s is ancient rock? Pretty much. I mean, are we, are we? Man, POD, that was, I feel like I'm in a car headed to go snowboarding.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  So true. 2002. Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show. We had a couple of great questions and comments come in, so thank you very much for those. It is what makes the show great. Steven, you mind reading that first one?

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Sure. Let me get it. Um. The first one says, what is the difference between 401A and 401K?

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Great question. A lot of times people don't realize there's kind of some of these other things, and sometimes people use these synonymously, or like think they're totally different. Well, um, the fancy word of 401K, the only thing it is, it's not super fancy, that's just literally where you find it in the IRS code. So the tax code, you go to section 401, you go down to 401K, and it talks about company-sponsored retirement plans, mainly in the private sector when we're talking about a 401K.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  And then when you ask about a 401A, now we're talking more in this, in the world of, um, public sector. So like think churches, hospitals, um, a little bit of a different caveat to a 401K. But it's all under that employer-sponsored plan portion of the IRS tax code. So section 401A, 401K, some of you have, might have heard of a 403B, so go down a few lines in the IRS tax code. 457. Yeah, a 457 deferred comp. So they're all under the guidelines and the IRS code for company-sponsored plans, and there's just a little bit of nuances and differences between public sector, private sector, um, you know, different plans, but all of it.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  So, and then what gets really confusing is people will say, well, my 401K is different than your 401K. Well, yes, because each 401K can have its own description of what that 401K is like. Things it allows, things that it doesn't allow.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Does it allow for early withdrawals? Does it allow for 401K loans? Some do, some don't. But all those ultimately have to go back and follow the rules in the IRS tax code. So you can't do anything outside of what the IRS has outlined, but that's where you get the IRS rules on those different types of plans.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wanted to add to that. You know, most of those are employer sponsored plans. And so you're going to get information from your employer, from HR, from the outside vendor that's servicing that account. And they'll give you the specific details for that plan, right? Cause there are differences between plans.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the one thing I'll caution listeners on is 401K as a topic is a huge clickbait word. Because most people know retirement planning, retirement plans as 401K. So I constantly see headlines that say things like, is the 401K dead? The 401K is a ripoff, 401K this, 401K that. Well, it's like everybody's 401K is so different and there's so many different things to consider. And anybody who's saying that, I immediately red flags go up to me.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Because it is one of the best savings tools that you can use as an investor. Now, am I saying do that and then bury your head in the sand? No, I mean, if you're an entrepreneur, yes, there's other ways you can build wealth. You can business, grow a business or, you know, build a business. You can dabble in real estate and all these different things. But if you have a job and you're making a decent income and you can get to the point where you can start setting aside some of your paycheck for the future. 401K is a phenomenal one. You can do it directly through your payroll. A lot of times, an employer might match you.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  You might get a, you know, yeah. So if you're put in 3% at least, they match you 3%, which means that's a hundred percent return. Last time I checked, that's a phenomenal rate of return. Yeah. So anytime somebody's saying that stuff, you just have to red flags or a little bit, you know, be cautious because they're trying to teach you something else that you didn't know about. And a lot of times it's like they're just trying to sell you something else that they're benefiting from somehow.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds like they might be trying to teach you something, but you know, what's really happening?

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, like everybody's fooling you into thinking a 401k is it. Now, like I said, you know, if you want to build a business, humongous wealth has been built by small business owners in real estate. Can you do great in real estate? Yes, you can. But then to say that the 401k is a ripoff or somehow broken or something like that. And then you do have to be careful because you could be in a 401k that has not had a lot of attention. And maybe you don't have great performing funds inside of there. And they're expensive, possibly the expense ratios on them. You might actually be an agent of change at your business. If you were to say, hey, this 401k doesn't seem like it's doing its job, and you should put some pressure on your business or the company you work for possibly to maybe have that reevaluated. So just some things to

• 18:29Speaker 03

  consider, but, but by and large, the 401k is a great tool for most savers. As a matter of fact, I think it is one of the first or most popular accounts that people hit the million dollar mark. When you talk about becoming a millionaire.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  By and large, a lot of people do that through their 401k.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  Good question.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. So another question came in. We talked about this a little bit. So Dustin can handle this one. It says, what should homeowners consider before refinancing, especially between conventional and FHA and VA loans? Thank you, MW Money Wise.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Oh, good question. So definitely not going to pretend to be a mortgage loan officer, but definitely as financial advisors, we come across these questions a lot. What are some of the reasons somebody might look to refinance? Well, they might be trying to get a lower interest rate is a main one, which right now likely isn't happening. Most folks are in, you know, two and a half, three and a half percent kind of rates. And you know, rates are a lot higher than that right now, you know, north of six, sometimes seven percent, depending on the situation you're in. But lowering interest rates or reducing your payments, sometimes I've seen where someone has a balloon payment, or if they had like one of these hard money notes that, you know, they had to pay off after

• 19:47Speaker 04

  a certain timeframe, five or 10 years, could be a reason to to look around. But always having a good mortgage broker that can shop around for you, the different companies and the different loan types, when it comes to FHA and VA and in conventional, there are different rules for each one. I've had several loan officers tell me that VA loans are about the best you can get, because it's regulated by the government on, you know, limiting the fees that you pay. And that's really, at the end of the day, one of the things to do is to sit down and and look at, okay, what benefit am I getting by doing this? And what's the cost associated with that? Right?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  What's it going to cost me? And when do I see a benefit? Is it right away? Is it over a long run? And what's a break even point?

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  Does it take me a year to get my money back for the cost, or three years, or five? You know?

• 20:34Speaker 03

  And one of the things, I guess, to to expand that discussion now and go, okay, so, we're not necessarily seeing a ton of refis, because of the situation where a lot of the loans on the books are those low, low rates. So if you're somebody new, what do you think one of the things that that people should be doing that want to enter into the world of homeownership? I mean, it's, we're kind of in this unique situation where interest rates are really high, or higher than normal that we're used to, I should say, because historically, it's still not astronomically high. You know, I know we have some listeners that probably have lived through times of eight plus, even up to 15%.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Obviously, home prices were lower back then, but they were paying a huge amount of interest. So, I mean, it's just one of those things where you have to really begin a process of having a plan to build up whatever down payment would be needed.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Right. And the credit to go with it.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Yep. And then train yourself to start to understand what your payment would look like after you have that loan, and start living like you have that loan already. That's what's going to help you save up that money for that down payment. And it's very hard to do. I don't discount that. If you're renting right now, rents are high. So there's not a lot of left, you know, meat left on the bone to start doing that. But that is what you need to start doing. If you are not yet a homeowner and want to start to, you know, maybe think about that. Start putting that extra $500 a month away like, this may eventually be my payment when I have a loan. So I'm going to start paying it right now and that $500 is going to start going towards saving up for that down payment. And it's not easy to do. Uh, but it is one of those things where if you can put together a plan and cross that bridge,

• 22:13Speaker 03

  eventually those rents will keep going up where your mortgage that you've locked in now will stay level. And it is a very hard hill to climb. Um, we've all kind of been there, but uh, hopefully that helps you uh, think about that a little bit. If you're one of those ones that's thinking about uh, trying to do that in the next couple of years. This is a great little tidbit somebody shared with us. Grandson, show me the official Santa tracker for any of you guys to share with the kiddos. So uh, there's a, there's a website where you can track the Santa. So we can put it on our podcast. Uh, information and get that out to social media. You can go to the website uh, and look that up. So if you want to share a little uh, Santa tracker with the kiddos,

• 22:55Speaker 03

  um, you can do that. Steven will take care of that for us. And then just had another one come in here.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  It says, what is a good budget for a high school student that will help them save or learn a budget? Have you used any with your kids? Merry Christmas. Um, I, you know, we didn't use too many. Like real, like some people like really did a good job with budgeting with their kiddos. But I will say, one of the ones we've talked about a lot on the show, um, is the uh, 50, 30, 20 rule. Um, which has been talked about a lot. It's basically a budget where 50% of your income goes towards food, transportation and school supplies. 30% towards once, like entertainment, eating out and 20% will go towards college fund or future goals.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  So say you, you know, just to make it easy for math, say you give your, your high school student a hundred bucks a month. Right. Fifty dollars can go towards food, transportation, and school supplies. Thirty bucks will go towards entertainment and eating out, which by the way, I'm sitting here saying that and it's like, it's not a very big budget for a kiddo. So usually it's probably your credit card that you're giving. But that would be a way that if you wanted to bite the bullet and to say, okay, I'm going to make this happen for uh, starting to do some planning, I'm going to give my student 400 bucks a month or 300 bucks a month. And then start to help them understand this 50, 30, 20 rule where they're setting aside a little bit for future. They're using a little bit for the fun, food, transportation, and then the bulk of it is going towards

• 24:26Speaker 03

  food, transportation, and uh, school supplies, which would eventually be much like what we do as adults, right?

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  A big chunk of our monthly goes towards responsibilities and different things.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  You know, I don't, I don't know that I've heard it as 50, 30, 20, but I've heard it as needs, wants, and wishes, or needs, wants, and savings sometimes, right?

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  The idea of having different buckets in your mind, right? Um, because as an adult, it might look a little different as being a high schooler, but you know, you give some, you save some, and you live on what's left.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  Right?

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, and um, you know, one, another budgeting tool, like, you know, Dave Ramsey, we don't necessarily see eye to eye on everything, but he does have some good budgeting things. And the one thing that I do love about uh, Dave Ramsey, when he talks about this concept is if, if you don't tell every dollar every month where to go, it will find somewhere to go. And so I always try to have a zero-based budget where every single dollar that comes in, that I have a plan for where to go. Now, it may go into a fund that then is kind of wishy-washy because stuff comes up and it gets spent in kind of a random way. But I still have told every dollar where to go. Like this one's going towards these bills.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  This one's going towards, I mean, I have, um, you know, this is more maybe adulthood, but uh, I mean, I, I have the zero-based budget and then I have sinking funds. Uh, because you know, different things, if, we all have these emergencies, but like, it always cracks me up when it's like, oh. I have an emergency, you know, my cars need, you know, my car needs new tires. It's like, well, technically that's not an emergency. That's maintenance of a car and I understand maybe you didn't think about that or whatever, but that's where a sinking fund comes in. Where it's like, I'm going to throw 200 bucks a month or a hundred bucks a month into a car fund because I know randomly there's going to be some car need or need. So it then is not an emergency and I understand there's only so many dollars in the month.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  There's only so many dollars to do that with, but trying to start that process together and then you start to have a good understanding of how much you are having to throw towards car maintenance and maybe 150 bucks a month is enough and you don't use it for a few months and then all of a sudden a $300 car bill comes up. You have that money sitting inside of that sinking fund.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  It's so important to have that sinking fund or a what if fund or, I mean, emergency fund. A lot of people call it, right? Cause you might tell that dollar what to do, but life will tell you something else.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you know what's funny is I have a sinking, I have a sinking fund for car maintenance and you know, as a dad with, with three daughters, two are adults and out of there now. So they're off the payroll kind of, which is awesome. But what's funny is I find myself occasionally I'll look at one of my funds that's a sinking fund and I'll be like, oh, hey, it's growing. And that's sure enough. That's when all of a sudden I'll get like a call from my wife or something to be like, hey, I'm going to go buy the mechanic and, and so it's funny.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  Or what's happened to you is, oh, congratulations, your wife or your daughter's getting married.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, the sinking, the sinking fund for the car though, I'm telling you like, as soon as I noticed that it's getting a little bit big, something will go wrong with the car. And I'm like, that's why it's there. Now it's upsetting because there's probably something else I'd rather like to do with that $1,200 that just got built up. But it's again, it's like where when you start to see that stuff happen and, and be used effectively where it's like, then you're not freaking out because yeah, we have to throw new tires on this car. Luckily, you know, I was building it up in this fund because I have an idea that it's usually about say 300 bucks a month, right? Or 250 bucks a month on car. Have that sinking fund grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. Try to not use it for anything else. Or else you'll, you'll go through that phase of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  And I've been there. That's what I've told people. That's why people hate the B word, the budget word, because life is chaotic. And it really is hard because as soon as you put your foot down and say, I'm gonna have a budget or I'm gonna do this. Life is gonna throw so many things at you, but you keep doing it. You keep fighting and low and behold, you turn around and you go, hey, it's actually working. Hey, I'm actually starting to win at this a little bit. I'm starting to build some wealth. My investments are starting to look, you know, and grow. And so it is neat to look back and start to see those things start to, to take place and grow. So, um, hopefully that helps you out. Merry Christmas to you too. Thanks for, uh, joining the show. We are gonna take a break right now and when we do come back, we are gonna have Mr. Daniel Betts come in, talk about the well and some upcoming events. We'll be right back.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Are you nearing retirement and currently working with a financial advisor? Are you not sure if you're invested appropriately? Call our offices at 661-847-1000 to sit down with a Money Wise financial advisor for a no obligation assessment.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Welcome back.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Who's the theme song? Is this you?

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Who are you playing this for? Daniel's on, so you got the Grinch playing? What's, what's it do? Welcome back to Money Wise. Uh, we're getting down to business Friday. We got Mr. Dan Betts here, comedian, veteran owner of the Well Comedy Club. Um, we're gonna talk about some of the upcoming events. Really, really excited. So, so thanks for joining us.

• 29:49Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. I love coming here, by the way, and I don't, I don't just, uh, I don't just say that. I love being here with you guys.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I know Stephen is a fan, um, and goes probably more than anybody here in the office. He's taken other people from the office to the, uh, comedy club. And a lot of people don't realize, uh, we're, we're pretty, pretty unique to have what we have here as far as the, the comedy scene and, and in a dedicated space, right?

• 30:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's the first and only full-time comedy club in the entire Central Valley.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  Um, so pretty cool that we get to, you know, first one through the door gets shot sometime. So it's been a labor of love, obviously, but it's going really well. Just been working my butt off and hopefully it appears easy to everybody else, but I'm grinding myself to a stump little by little.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 05

  How many years now has this been open? Uh, we took ownership July 1st of 22 and we never shut the doors, but our official grand opening was December 1st. So sort of officially just past two years here, it's more like two and a half.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Got you. Good deal. So, um, talk a little bit about, uh, so before we get into the events coming up and stuff like that, you recently like had some run ins with Mr. Beast. For those of you who don't know, ask your child or grandchild. Probably one of the, I mean, I don't know if he's still the top of the food chain.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  The number one YouTuber in the world.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, YouTube. Yep.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. There's been some controversy recently, not only related to Beast Games, which is what you're talking about that I was a part of. Um, and I think just when you hit it big, remember when like Joe Rogan went to Spotify and all of a sudden it was mainstream media and Fox and CNN were talking about it. It's a little bit like that, I suppose, but, uh, they've been coming after him a little bit. So it slowed his rate of growth to a mere two to three million new subscribers per month. But he was at 12 million subscribers per month.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 31:32Speaker 05

  Isn't that insane? So they launched this show Beast Games. It's supposed to be the biggest game show in history. Biggest cash prize in history, most cameras for anything ever done or whatever. There's like something like 250 Guinness Book of World Records, records that they broke.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Really?

• 31:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. When we were in Toronto, there were, um, 1,107 cameras on us.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  So is that the, is that the premise of the games is to like to get regular people to just try to break a Guinness Book of World Records? Or what, what, what is it?

• 32:01Speaker 05

  If you're, so I didn't really know a lot about the guy, if I'm honest, right? My kids, I got a 12 year old and a seven year old and, and they were all, you know, all about Mr. Beast. So, uh, a casting agent sent me this and I share things out to comics in the Central Valley. So I just kind of shared it out. And I looked at it. I was like, wait a minute, Mr. Beast, my kids love Mr. Beast. What is this? I texted her and she said, yeah, you should try out for it. So I did it. Uh, and Mr. Beast's kind of whole thing is, I don't know if it's his whole thing, but a lot of what he does on YouTube is these insane challenges. And, and they go from the ridiculous to the sublime. So like you could be sitting in a hot tub full of cereal. Is one of them and it's like who can sit there the longest and last longest or who you put your hands on a Ferrari and the last one to take theirs off gets the Ferrari. So people might stand there for 50 hours straight or something. So I had no idea really what I was

• 32:46Speaker 05

  signing up for. I didn't read all the emails. I didn't read all the disclosures. I just signed my life away, made a, made a submission video, got selected and we went to Vegas and we filmed at Allegiant Stadium where the Raiders played for a few days. And then there was 2,000 of us, 2,000 contestants. And I made it through that. A thousand of us went to Toronto and then filmed there. And I think by the time, actually I shouldn't say the next part. So anyway,

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Don't say anything. We're only two episodes in.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  We're only two episodes in.

• 33:13Speaker 05

  I did read some of the non-disclosure agreements, Stephen. I'll, I'll keep that part to myself. But, uh, yeah, had a blast. And, um, so there's already the, on his YouTube channel, it shows the first 2,000 of us. And then on, uh, Prime, they released the first two episodes and I'm in all three of those. And then I guess there's a couple of behind the scenes, uh, videos, a couple of like big YouTubers or whatever did some behind the scenes stuff with him and I'm in, uh, both of those. So, uh, there's, it's possible you're going to see a meme or a gif or jif if you're a jerk about it. But, uh, a gif or jif, I don't know. You'll see one of those about me. So I got a fair bit of airtime.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  I did say, uh, I told them before the show started, the, uh, the trailer, me and, uh, my son watched last night and the beginning of it, you know, this Mr. Beast guy is standing on $5 million.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  And he talks about all the crazy stuff. I believe he says there's a thousand or 2,000 contestants, but it, uh, it, it looks insane.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think back in the day, one of the videos that like really blew him up was when he did the elephant toothpaste.

• 34:16Speaker 05

  Didn't see that one.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Did you hear of that?

• 34:18Speaker 05

  I think if I'm not mistaken, his, this is how hilarious, by the way. Here I am, I don't know, more than a decade into comedy, right? I've traveled the country a bit. I've toured and own a club and I've gone to Afghanistan, all these things. I got diddly squat for social media followers and this dude counted to 100,000 and that's what initially went viral.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Really?

• 34:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think that's the, the impetus of Mr. Beast blowing up.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  He counted to 100,000?

• 34:41Speaker 05

  Counted 100,000. Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  And everybody's just like watching. Yeah, I mean, he's one of the early ones to it. So he he kind of was ahead of everybody, but you have to learn the algorithm, how long the videos need to be, how long people, I mean, he, he, he like was the one of the ones that really understood it from the very beginning. But I think one of them was elephant toothpaste, which is some sort of like scientific compound. And I think they did it in a, in a pool and it like, they like rented somebody's pool and they gave him the go ahead for this. And it like explodes, it like covers the whole entire house with this stuff and like spilling out over the, because it was like on the side of a hill, like in Beverly Hills or somewhere. And so it was just so funny. And it's like, man, it's like, he's doing literally what everybody wants to do, making tons of money doing it. And to whereas if you were doing that stuff in high school,

• 35:25Speaker 03

  all your teachers and everybody would be telling you, you know, can't do that, you're a loser, you're going to go nowhere. It's like, no, I'm going to blow this thing up or I'm going to count to a hundred thousand. And everybody would look at you like you're just wasting time. And lo and behold, he made a, a fortune off.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think they give away a fortune too. That's part of what kept.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Well, that, that, that's why probably like when you, because you, everybody does stuff to try to be an influencer now and this and that. And it's like, he has said that like, he has to keep upping the ante. And it costs more and more money to keep doing what he's doing. So it's like, he's getting ahead, but he's also spending more and more and more. I'm sure he's socked away some money, but he's saying to continue to get big numbers, you have to keep going bigger and bigger and bigger. Because now there's 500,000 other people that are still doing what you're, what you did that was popular. So you have to up the game, which means you have to spend more money. So.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, this was a, this was a blue sky budget. I think the budget was over a hundred million dollars. I mean, which is like borderline, you know, an Avengers movie.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Budget. I mean, it was absolutely insane, the magnitude of seeing 2000 of us or a thousand of us there.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  He's going to have to sell a lot of chocolate candy bars.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  We, I never want to eat a feastable again until the day I die. Because here's what would happen too, like when we were in a legion, everybody's exhausted and you're shooting for these like long days, long hours, whatever. And we're not eating enough and, and some of the, some of the stuff is physical, whatever. So they're, you know, they're changing out sets and they're getting the crews ready and having their production meetings and whatever. And then they're getting ready to come out and film us again. And out come the feastables every time. And once you started to figure out, they're like, oh, they're trying to get us hopped up on sugar. So we don't look so lethargic and exhausted. Once the cameras start rolling in. So once the feastables come out, like, all right, we're getting ready to film. Everybody go to the bathroom, their cameras are coming out, but.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  That was your little energy bars they were giving to you?

• 37:12Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Right on. Cool. Well, um, tell us a little bit about then what's coming up, uh, at the well. So anybody can, uh, kind of know what the, uh, what the plan of event is for this weekend or?

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Sure. Tonight we got a guy named Dante, probably a 35 year comic, one of these guys that all the comics know who he is. Not a big name. Uh, and so maybe not a huge draw in that way, but a great show. So Dante's there tonight. That's going to be a real fun one. Tomorrow night we got the Comedy Store takeover, a bunch of past comics and door guys and stuff from the Comedy Store coming up and doing kind of a takeover of the club.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  I'll be at that one.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  You'll be at that one?

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. So they, on the website, they don't tell you who is on, uh, the set list. So I was, uh, kind of wondering.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  I'm not telling you either.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  Damn. Well, we did give away some tickets, uh, yesterday, uh, on the show for Dante's show tonight. So, hopefully the listener is listening and, uh, will let us know more about that show. Um, they were super pumped and I guess they've heard of Dante as well.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. He's a great, great comic actor. I think he does magic as well too. Um, I've known him for a little while. I did an industry panel with him in, in Arizona recently. That's when we're all hanging out at kind of an Airbnb drink and I was like, yeah, I'll book you. Uh, so Dante's coming. Uh, and then we have the, uh, New Year's Eve comedy show and DJ after party bash, whatever you want to call it coming up. Obviously on the 31st and that's fun. That'll be three years in a row and it's always a good time because in Southwest Bakersfield, there's not a ton of bars to go and hang out at. You don't want to go downtown and deal with the, it's a hundred and $50 for a wristband and the, and the drinks are watered down and it takes two hours to get one. So you gotta order four at a time. DUI checkpoints and drunk drivers. It's obnoxious. Come Southwest Bakersfield.

• 38:54Speaker 05

  You could come to the show and then stay for the DJ after party or come for just one or the other. So that'll be fun. They were really successful the last two years. I think this year will be successful as well. And then, uh, we've been kind of investing into the business and growing it a little bit over the slow seasons, kind of summertime and Bakersfield's kind of slow for live entertainment. So, uh, we were 162 seats. We just got to, uh, what are we now? 182, I think. And we'll be 200, uh, early next year by probably like mid to late January of next year. We added a VIP lounge, uh, which has like a custom booth that we put in, uh, velvet robes. There'll be bottle service or table service for that. Uh, we got the new neon sign up.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  And the Fox Theater, the historic Bakersfield Fox Theater donated their retired stage curtains to us, which I think is cool that we have a little piece of history in the building. So the stage mains just went up and, and window treatments and blah, blah, blah. And chandeliers, my wife, Lindsay, shout out to Lindsay Betts, would, would be remiss if I didn't say that she was right. The chandeliers look great. I'm glad I let her spend the money on them.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Good deal. Hey, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll finish up talking about some of the upcoming events. And I have a couple of questions about kind of the business side of, of, of running the well and, and the challenges you face. We'll be right back.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Don't forget, Money Wise is more than a radio show. We're an independently owned, local wealth management firm with 60 plus years of collective experience. Our financial advisors are here to help you, Kern County. Together, let's be smart, be safe, be money wise.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Welcome back. That is the Christmas song by none other than Mr. Gero Ellis. Mr. Betts was just talking about, he's, you know, like first show that Gero's not going to be singing back from the intros. So fitting that Gero's song was our intro. So song coming back in. So wishing you well, Gero, thinking about you.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  I didn't know that was him, by the way. As I was listening to it, I was like, oh, Gero would for sure be singing along with this. What a goof I am. I didn't know that was him. Great selection, Steve.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. He, he wrote that song a long time ago. And then like a few years ago, he's like, I'm going to put it to, uh, put it to recording. And he ended up, I forget who he worked with, but a couple of locals and stuff.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Some buckaroos, I believe.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Put it all together and, and gave it a go. I think it, you know, I think he's, you know, he's made like 12 or 13 cents off iTunes. So he's really, you know, well, actually we should probably check. We should probably check. He hasn't, you know, he hasn't been able to check his account here. Maybe, who knows? Maybe it took off this year.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  What a Renaissance man. Yeah. You just got him another couple of cents right there.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  There you go. Well, good though, the thing I was gonna ask you is, um, you know, I, I, I guess to an extent, you know, there's not a Central Valley comedy show venue like ours, which I'm really proud of, and I'm really happy to see, but probably maybe a little bit because there's not a huge need, or maybe not as much people thinking that that's not for them. So like, what is one hurdle that you think of, of getting people that wouldn't normally go to that scene, or think that that's a scene for them? And I imagine it's a little even intimidating, because it's like, there's a whole culture with the comedy scene and stuff like that. So what would you tell like Bakersfield residents who've never been to a show, or how to get them to cross that threshold?

• 42:24Speaker 05

  I think, uh, I think it's a perfect date night for folks, which is one thing, right? Uh, most comedy clubs have terrible food. Obviously, I'm biased, it's my place, but, um, our food's fantastic. We get lots of great reviews about the food. People compare our fish and chips to Mossman's, which is apparently quite high praise around here as well. Um, so we have an extensive menu. We have a full bar, full kitchen, right?

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:46Speaker 05

  And a 90-minute comedy show, hour-long doors. If you're getting a babysitter, maybe get them for three hours just in case, or show up close to showtime and skedaddle out of there pretty quick and get away with it in, uh, two hours. I think one of the hurdles is, uh, comedy has kind of shifted over the years where, um, people, uh, with TikTok and Instagram started posting the kind of the heckler takedown, or the crowd work stuff. And really, that's just a function of, um, social media was a great way to get popular, get attention, get a big following, kind of blow up your career. But if you post your material, your actual jokes, your 60-second, 90-second bits or whatever, you've kind of burned them. Now you can't really perform that at a comedy club, and it can take years to develop a good bit sometimes. So, uh, instead,

• 43:30Speaker 05

  what you posted is these off-the-cuff kind of, uh, improv-y moments that happen, and then you burn them, but it became really popular. So there's, there's this whole sort of genre of like the heckler takedown, and just like trashing an audience member. And I think people that haven't ever been to a comedy club or a comedy show think that that's what they're gonna get. It's like, I don't want to go out there and have somebody make fun of me. You know what I mean? And that, that rarely happens in a live performance. Obviously, there's certain- Comedians, you go there for that specifically.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:57Speaker 05

  Um, yeah. And also recently, uh, we're, we're getting ready to add some, some more late shows. And I think in terms of those, we're going to do a lower ticket price. We're going to do some food and drink specials. And try to grab some younger audience. I think about kind of the college age kids where you might be 21, but your girlfriend's 20. And where, where are you guys going to go? Where can you hang out that you can have a drink? She can't have a drink, but you could still hang out, talk, have fun. And so I think we're going to see a little bit more of that. We'll do, um, discounts for folks with active, uh, college IDs and things like that. So, you know, kind of trying to span the, the, um, uh, what do you call it? The gambit here a little bit, I guess, in terms of, uh, the demographics we'll cater to.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, uh, tell me a little bit about like, are certain nights, uh, you know, cause I'm a huge fan of, of comedy. Uh, but I definitely would say I lean towards like the, the cleaner comics, you know, that, that, uh, kind of, you know, it's not a ton of cuss words, not a ton of raunchier topics. And so do you guys cater to that? Do you guys, it's, it's kind of like there's mix and match all night long. There's a couple clean, couple not. How, how do you kind of let listeners know what, what, what the rating is of the night?

• 45:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Tonight's PG 13.

• 45:09Speaker 05

  We do need to do more of that because folks have come out and, and said, hey, it was just too much for me or, you know, that was offensive and they left or whatever. I get it. It's not for everybody, you know, there, there's not a movie that's for everybody either. Right? We have a guy named Chris Munch coming up soon, uh, who's a Christian guy, clean comic. We'll do some more dry bar comics and we need to, sometimes we have clean shows. We just don't market it or bill it as a clean show. And we absolutely should because to your point, folks will come out for that.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. You could have a dry bar night that's not dry.

• 45:38Speaker 05

  Yes. Yes.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  You can still get drinks, but it's gonna be, yeah. Cause dry bar comics, I, I like watching a lot of that stuff. So, yeah. And I mean, like I said, it just, sometimes people are intimidated by that. So they won't even go to begin with. So,

• 45:49Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Really, really appreciate what you're doing for our community because it is neat to have the only San Joaquin Valley, uh, comic club. So keep doing what you're doing. Go out and check out the well comedy club if you can. And also thanks for making Money Wise what it is. So, uh, thanks for joining the show. Have a wonderful weekend. Most importantly, be safe, be smart and be money wise.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Securities offered through SCF Securities, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SCF Investment Advisors, Inc. SCF Securities, Inc. And Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.