Pod Insights The Moneywise Guys 1/28/26 Strong Finances, Strong Foundations: Budgeting, Emergency Funds & The Basement About this episode The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Wednesday, January 28th 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 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.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.
0:09 Speaker 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?
0:29 Speaker 02 Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
0:37 Speaker 00 Now, let's start the MoneyWise Show.
0:40 Speaker 03 That's right, we are the MoneyWise Show. Welcome, welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you're on KGO Money Talk, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts, I'm Sharad Waite and...
1:05 Speaker 00 I'm Stephen Nicholas.
1:07 Speaker 03 This is something I've been looking forward to for a while, Stephen. I know it's...
1:11 Speaker 00 It's rare.
1:11 Speaker 03 It's rare, but maybe that's why it's just so sweet.
1:15 Speaker 00 It is, it is.
1:16 Speaker 03 I love the view that I have too here in the new studio where you remind me of that neighbor in that...
1:24 Speaker 00 Home Improvement?
1:24 Speaker 03 Yes. Home Improvement.
1:26 Speaker 00 Al, or whatever his name was.
1:28 Speaker 03 Where you could just see like his eyes above the fence line.
1:34 Speaker 03 Well, it's great to be here. There actually is so much to cover. I want to start the show, though, out by talking about a couple of things that are going on here at the building, here at Woolworths. There is, this weekend, the grand opening of the basement. And now, the basement here at the Woolworths is this, it was the last part of our construction remodeling project to be completed. So, we had a grand opening a few months ago for the luncheonette and for basically, you know, the part of the building and the luncheonette. It was awesome, it was incredible, it was a block party. But we weren't able to open up the basement because we hadn't completed our elevator.
2:19 Speaker 03 And there were some other things that were kind of keeping, holding us up from being able to open up the basement. But now, finally, we've got everything in line and we have an incredible event coming up this Saturday. And it is a ticketed event. We're gonna have live musicians and a host and it's just gonna be an incredible, incredible event. So if you like live music, or if you're just curious about what's going on down here in the basement, you can find out more on our Instagram page, thebasement@woolworth. So Instagram and Facebook.
3:00 Speaker 03 You can find us out by just doing a search for thebasement@woolworth and there's where you can find tickets. It's really, really gonna be an incredible event. David Davis, Nico Rubio, a couple of really incredible musicians and artists will be headlining along with Monty Byram. Of course, Monty is the best. I mean, Monty's just an incredible, incredible artist. A local gem here in town. Of course, nationally, Monty's amazing. Jennifer Keel, John Ranger, Keen D'Var, Jadaiah, Ryan Colter, Danny Hill will be hosting. And of course, the Basement's House Band.
3:44 Speaker 03 This is a group of top musicians, top artists. And I'm so proud of what Emily has done and you, Stephen, you've been involved in this and putting together a house band for the basement. Did you hear any of them rehearsing yesterday? Oh, yeah. It's just... It's awesome. Yeah. It's gonna be really, really great. Tickets are available. Again, look us up on Instagram or Facebook. If you're looking for a good time, looking to, you know, see what's going on down here, come to the grand opening. You'll be able to tell your kids and grandkids you went to the grand opening. Opening 50 years from now, which is our goal is to really create something here in
4:25 Speaker 03 town that is sustainable. We want to add to the music scene and the art scene that is happening in downtown. Yesterday, we had, if you missed yesterday's show, go listen to it, podcast format. You can find us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen to your podcasts. But we had Daniel Betts, the owner of The Well Comedy Club on yesterday. Another gem in downtown. There's just so many things happening here. Moo Creamery opening up and, and The Well, the basement here, Woolworths, you know, there's, there's just some really fun, exciting things going on in downtown, downtown. So, you know, come, come check
5:04 Speaker 03 us out, get tickets and, and support the basement. There is a, as usual, we like to encourage our listeners to send in questions or comments. And literally, you can do it 24 hours a day. It is 661-396-1000. That's the number that you can call or text at any time. And we love getting questions and comments. And we have a couple right now.
5:33 Speaker 00 We'll start off the first one?
5:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, please.
5:35 Speaker 00 So it says, 11 years ago, I had zero to crappy credit and zero saved. So we got a few credit cards and zero interest for 24 months. So we could buy appliances, etc. I, I owe nothing on my cards and wish I could cancel at least two of my five I currently have, but I'm afraid it will adversely affect my credit. Hearing you yesterday discuss this, but none of them have annual fees. How badly would my 800 credit rating be affected by canceling a few? Sorry if I was confused by the answer.
6:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, thank you for that listener. And I read this, this question. I thought, man, I feel so bad that maybe I wasn't, I didn't explain it well enough yesterday, or whenever we answered this before. Cause it is, it is very confusing. It's not, it's not easy to sort of, you know, know about this, about how credit scores work, and especially knowing about credit cards. Because credit cards on, you know, can be viewed as
6:42 Speaker 03 Bad, and they are bad sometimes. They're terrible. And they're certainly terrible for certain people. But they are not, they're not terrible for everybody. And one factor that is really important when it comes to your credit score. In fact, it's the second most important factor of what determines your credit score. And that is your amount of money that you owe. So the amount of debt that you owe compared to the amount of credit or amount of loans that are available to you. So in real simple terms, if you have a credit card and it's worth $10,000,
7:27 Speaker 03 it has a $10,000 limit on it. And you have only used $1,000 of that. That means you have, you're basically a 10% utilization of your credit. So again, you've got $10,000 available to you and a loan via a credit card. If you only used $1,000, okay, 10%, that's good. That's excellent. If it gets above that and now you have, let's say, $3,000 or you owe $5,000 on a $10,000 limit credit card. Now the credit card, now the credit agencies and FICO, who gives, one of the organizations that gives you a score will say,
8:12 Speaker 03 hmm, this isn't great because you're using up your credit that's available to you. So this is the harm in closing down and getting rid of credit that is available to you that you are not using. Because it immediately lowers that utilization. It's now you're getting rid of that $10,000 of credit that's available to you that you aren't using. You're getting rid of that. And so whatever debt you do have is now increasing that percentage of utilization. And that is detrimental to your score. Score. It's 30% of your score makes up the credit utilization.
8:57 Speaker 03 The only thing that makes up your credit score more is your payment history. Meaning, are you paying on time? Or are there any late charges? Or do you have a bankruptcy? Those are the things that hurt your credit score the most. And that's 35% of your score. Just underneath that is how much you're using of your credit. That's 30% of your score. So the rule of thumb is that you don't want to be using more than 10% of your available credit that is available to you. So if you get rid of those cards, you could be hurting your score for a while. It's hard to say how much,
9:38 Speaker 03 but it could be something that could hurt your score. And so that is why yesterday I was saying, don't, just don't, don't close the account out. As long as there is not an annual fee attached to it and you don't have any charges that are being incurred by the card, then just get rid of the card. You can literally just cut up the card and throw it away or just store it somewhere safe and don't ever use it. And now you still get the benefit without doing anything of having at least the credit agencies think that you have that available to you,
10:23 Speaker 03 but you're not using it and they like that. It's, that's, your credit capacity is just, is important. So, what, so that's the, that's the, the, the, the best way I think that I can explain it. Does, does anything about that, Stephen, make any sense? Or not make any sense to you?
10:45 Speaker 00 No, it makes more sense understanding how the credit score is added and where it really comes from in the utilization that you're, what you're using and what you would be missing out if you close that card.
10:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, and now, so generally speaking, you don't want to close the, you don't want to close your credit card that you're not using, but let me explain where you would want to close the card if you've got an annual fee. So there's really, you know, there's no really, it's not gonna, it's not worth keeping your credit score, you know, higher because of, and then still paying some annual charge. That's, that doesn't make it worth it. The other issue is, and this isn't, this is for anybody who's using credit cards, is if you're overspending when you have that credit available to you. It's so easy, I think Sammy and I were talking about this on the show a couple of days ago, how it's so easy when
11:43 Speaker 03 you're first starting out, you know, when you, when you leave your parents' house, or you're just, you know, get your first job, or you're going to college, you think, oh, wow, I got a thousand bucks here I can just spend from your new credit card that just came in the mail. It's easy to think of that as a, as a savings account, but you'll get yourself in trouble real quick. If you don't learn those lessons and you tend to continue to overspend on those credits, then, credit cards, then it's not worth having a credit card. If it's, if it's your, so I think those are the main reasons why you'd want to close a credit card. If you don't have any of those as, as an issue, then consider
12:27 Speaker 03 keeping it open, putting away, don't using it. The other thing is, put your card, this is, this is for all credit cards. Make sure you have it on auto pay. I know this might be really hard for some people, but you can just at least have the minimum amount set on auto pay, because oftentimes just missing one payment, and then paying the interest on that money, or paying a late fee, or it eventually may be getting on your credit score, it just, now you've, now you've done more harm to yourself. And so, protect yourself by having your credit card on auto pay, at least the minimum payment, so that you don't
13:08 Speaker 03 Forget about something. I have heard some people that have had a credit card and they didn't realize it had an annual fee. And so they just, you know, they threw the card away and then didn't, you know, didn't get the memo or didn't get the, the letter in the mail that said, hey, you're late on your payment. And then there were, there were issues. So, you know, have it set up on auto pay and then get rid of it. Just in case there's something. And then of course, if you're using that card, just put it on auto pay so that you know at worst case scenario, the minimum amount is going to be paid and you won't have that hurt or impact your credit score. So, great question. Thank you for sending
13:49 Speaker 03 that our way. Got another question and comment here. Steven?
13:55 Speaker 00 The, the next one says, I'm 46, got a mortgage, kids, and not a lot of extra room in the budget. What should be my top retirement priority right now if I can't max out everything?
14:08 Speaker 03 I, I love this question too. And congratulations if you're 46 with kids and you still have anything left over. You're doing something right. I know how difficult it can be raising a family. It's not easy. You got a mortgage, you got kids. I know how it could, it can be really difficult to have anything left over to save or anything. Let me, let me answer the question by explaining how I think your investments, your savings should be prioritized. If your employer offer, offers a match of any kind, that is almost non-negotiable. You,
14:48 Speaker 03 you should, you should take that. There's very, I don't know that there's any scenarios where you wouldn't, you, you, you wouldn't want to receive that free money that your employer is offering you. Now, some people will say, well, I know it's just do my 401k and then I gotta pull it out and then I gotta pay taxes and a penalty on it. You're still getting free money. Even if the dollar that you put into your 401k and let's say your employer matches. You know, five, five percent. So you get five cents at a free five cents contributed to your 401k. So now you have a dollar five in there.
15:30 Speaker 03 Even if you go and you end up pulling that money out and you pay the 10% penalty because you're under 59 and a half, and then you pay taxes on that or whatever that is, you're still going to have something left from that five cents. So you're still going to have a dollar in something that is, it's not going to eat up all of that. And so it's still free money. It's a little bit like saying, you know, Steven, I'm, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you 200 bucks, but you might have to give 150 bucks back to me. Would you take that?
16:09 Speaker 00 I mean, yeah.
16:10 Speaker 03 Why not? Right? Like a worst case scenario, you just get, you get 50 bucks. It just sounds worse. Like if I just said, hey, I'll give you 50 bucks, no strings attached. You'd be like, yeah, sure. I'll take it.
16:19 Speaker 00 Yeah.
16:19 Speaker 03 Well, what's wrong with saying, I'll give you 200 bucks, but you might have to give me 150 bucks back. Later.
16:25 Speaker 00 It's not like the other ones that are giving you, we'll give you 150, but we want 200 back.
16:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, no, no, no, no. This is, this is in the, in the case of a 401k and your employer matching, they're giving you that money. It's yours. Some employers will put a vesting schedule on it though. So I guess you do need to be aware that a vesting schedule is the employer says, we're going to match your money that you go into this, but you aren't entitled to that until you are working with this for a certain number of, of years. Sometimes it's five, you know, three to five years is, is pretty normal. Sometimes there's no vesting schedule at all.
17:00 Speaker 00 So what happens if you don't stay with that company for that long?
17:03 Speaker 03 Well, then you only, you won't get that. You won't get the match or you have to, you know, you have to.
17:07 Speaker 00 At all?
17:08 Speaker 03 At all. Yeah. Or a percentage of it. It just depends on what the, what the plan is. Every employer has it written different, but you, you, you could potentially forfeit all of it if there is a vesting schedule, but I still don't think you have anything to lose. I still, and it is still encouraging you to save for the long term by contributing to your 401k. So that's the first thing to answer our listeners question saying, asking, there's not a lot of extra room in the budget. What should his top priority be for retirement savings? I would first start with that employer match. Next is funding a Roth IRA.
17:49 Speaker 03 This is particularly interesting because a Roth IRA compared to a traditional IRA allows you to pull the money out that you contributed to that Roth IRA at any time without any penalty or taxes or anything. The amount of money that you put in, you can pull out. Now, what happens though is if that money grows, you cannot pull out that gains or the growth of that account until you are over 59 and a half. Otherwise, you do have penalties and taxes and so on.
18:34 Speaker 03 But the contribution, the amount of money that goes into that Roth, you can pull that money out and you are safe. You don't have a penalty. You don't have taxes. And so I hate to say this, but a Roth IRA can be somewhat of a savings account, almost an emergency savings account for you. I'm not encouraging people to use it for that because there may be some other ways to do it, but it is a way, it's like a gateway savings for people. It's like a gateway drug. This is like a gateway savings, like a Roth. And so, you know, you can consider that. And I'm speaking to the dad here who, you know, sent in the question.
19:19 Speaker 03 It's a nice sort of savings account. I'm also assuming that our listener has already saved up some emergency funds. That is the, that I would, I would encourage anybody to have emergency fund savings set up before they even consider contributing to their retirement account. Because like when you gotta pay your bills, you have an emergency comes up, you gotta get new tires, or you gotta fix the air conditioning.
19:46 Speaker 00 Kid breaks their leg or something.
19:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, like you don't want to have to tap into your retirement account. It'll, it'll, it could cost you, it could, it could be problematic. So make your priority first to save for the emergency fund so that you've got something that you can access and you can get to if you need to. Now, why don't we do this, I'm gonna take a break. When we come back, I want to give, I want to give some more advice in terms of how we can, how anybody can manage their household assets, how they can handle their, their, their income and, and budget and figure out a way to, you know, get by with, with, you
20:31 Speaker 03 know, minimal, minimal means. And I'm gonna give some tricks and some tips, some things that I've picked up over the decades that I've been working as a financial advisor. So we're gonna cover that when I come back. I'm Sharad Wait, we're Money Wise, we'll be right back.
20:45 Speaker 00 Money Wise Wealth Management is the only locally owned independent firm that uses a comprehensive wealth tax and estate approach, working closely with a highly trusted CPA and attorney. For information on how Money Wise can help you invest and plan for your future, call 661-847-1000. That's 661-847-1000.
21:13 Speaker 03 Thanks for tuning in. We're Money Wise.
21:20 Speaker 03 Again, I want to give a big plug to the grand opening of the basement at the Woolworths coming this Saturday. You can find out more on the basement at Woolworths Instagram or Facebook page. If you search for the basement at Woolworths, you'll find it there. Coming up this Saturday, we had a listener question that came in that was asking about this. It says, "Congratulations. Being a business owner downtown myself, I'm sure you're very grateful for things to be finished. Is there still a plan for condos to be on the third floor or something different?" We get this question frequently. The Woolworths building's a three-story building. It was really four if you count the basement. I always like
22:03 Speaker 03 to count the basement. Here in Bakersfield, it's such a novelty, I think, to have a basement. We don't do basements in Bakersfield. I know there's still some. I grew up in a house, an old English Tudor house in the Sunset Oleander area, and we had a little basement, but it wasn't furnished. There weren't walls. It was almost like a wine cellar. There wasn't wine in there, but it was just like this storage area. It was creepy, old town thing. But it was freaking cool to have a basement as a kid.
22:35 Speaker 00 That is my, one of my favorite neighborhoods in town is the Oleander area. Those houses are so beautiful.
22:41 Speaker 03 They're amazing, yeah. It's very similar to some of the houses in Westchester. And so I've always had an affinity. And then we had cousins that were in different parts of the country and different towns. And when we'd visit them, if they had a basement, I had a great-grandma who had a basement. It was just the coolest thing. There's something cool about basements. Figuratively and literally, basements are cool.
23:02 Speaker 00 And I mean, this basement is huge considering, I mean, when I was growing up, my dad had a music studio below Front Porch, the Front Porch Music. And considering the size, I mean, obviously with different corners. I know there's a tattoo shop up the street on 19th, and they have a basement they use for a garage studio type thing. And this one is massive, man. You guys are gonna have to come down and see it.
23:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, definitely. You should come down, check out the basement. It is... Each floor in this building is 11,000 square feet. So you have 11,000 square foot basement. But our listeners are asking about our attic, which I've started calling it the attic. Cause I think it's cool. We got an attic and we got a basement. So it's like our house. And the attic here in the Woolworths building is also 11,000 square feet. And we did not complete construction up there. And so what we did have initially, we had plans for condos to go up there, including condos
24:07 Speaker 03 that could go, that would have a staircase that went up through the roof and into a penthouse up on the rooftop. And those were, that was our original, you know, grandiose, you know, hoping for the best plans, right? When we bought the building. This was just over four years ago. And so this was, it was at a time when we were dealing with, still dealing with COVID. We were still dealing with supply, many, many supply chain issues. We were dealing with all kinds of problems, especially the supply chain issues, especially we're disrupting electrical panels and switchgear. Like those were a year out. So, and then prices were just going up.
24:52 Speaker 03 And so it was something that we had to cut out of, of the original construction. We still have plans or the availability to do something up there on the third floor. We just don't know what it will be and certainly don't know if it will ever be condos. For the time being, I think it's a great space that we could rent out for events because it's just, it's just beautiful up there. I mean, it's exposed concrete, high ceilings, beam ceilings, all exposed and open. And then the windows are just gorgeous. You got a great view of downtown. You can see the mountains and you can see the valley. The way that the, where Woolworths is positioned here downtown on 19th and K, we're at a high
25:37 Speaker 03 point. 19th street is sort of a high elevation point for downtown. It goes downhill. If you look, if you look north and south down Chester from 19th Street, it goes down. So it's like a little bit of a hill, basically. It's subtle, but it there, we're at a high point elevation wise downtown. So we actually, even though our building isn't higher than the, than the, um, I can't remember the name where Sage Equities built their new housing, um, four-story building. Their, their building is higher than ours. Like elevation wise, it's, I mean, height of the building is taller than the Wors building, but we almost
26:18 Speaker 03 look down at it from where we are because we're, we're at a higher elevation point in terms of, like, the, the ground is higher here. And so it like, looks like we're higher, but it's not a taller building than, than the Sage Equities place over there. But thank you, downtown business owner. Uh, I'm glad you're downtown. I'm glad we're all downtown. We did a bunch of interviews this morning, Stephen. It was media day this morning with, uh, Channel 23. Uh, they came in and so we have
26:49 Speaker 00 29.
26:49 Speaker 03 Oh, 29, I'm sorry.
26:50 Speaker 00 23 is Friday.
26:51 Speaker 03 Uh, 23, uh, yeah. I mean, there's a lot.
26:53 Speaker 00 Yes.
26:54 Speaker 03 There's, there's some
26:55 Speaker 00 But it is media day.
26:55 Speaker 03 It's media day. So we, we, we've been doing a lot of media today promoting, um, the, the basement and the things that are going to go on with the grand opening. But we always get questions about, you know, how it's been being downtown as a business and whether or not we'd recommend other businesses. And I, I have to say I'm biased because we're here. You know, we, we like, we have to make this work.
27:18 Speaker 00 Well, I was gonna ask you, I mean, what was it? 10, 15 years off of Stockton Highway, off the padded radio room off Stockton Highway.
27:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:25 Speaker 00 I mean, I, I was not nervous, but I was, you know, expecting big changes and the changes have been all plus.
27:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:34 Speaker 00 You know, everything, you know, there's always been, you know, the homeless or this or that and the parking and blah, blah, blah. Personally, uh, I've taken it in stride and I've loved every bit of it.
27:44 Speaker 03 Yeah. And I, I appreciate that. Uh, other, other of our coworkers and cohorts at Moneywise have said the same thing. I mean, Very, very few complaints.
27:55 Speaker 00 I see. My only problem is what to eat because you can throw a rock and hit so much good food, not only the diner above me. But I mean, every day I'll, I'll take a walk, a jog around the area and find new things and you know, I grew up with like the substation. There's a substation down the street. I totally forgot about it. You know, the Jerry's Pizza is the, I mean, there's so much good food downtown.
28:21 Speaker 03 Two fat sandwiches. Two fat. I always forget how great Two Fat is. Sancho's, June BBQ. Have you been to June BBQ?
28:29 Speaker 00 No, I haven't.
28:29 Speaker 03 Oh, boy. I mean, I've known about them for a long time when they were just a, a, a truck, like a food cart. Um, and it's the only place in town. I think you can get soup dumplings. Have you ever had soup dumplings?
28:40 Speaker 00 I haven't.
28:41 Speaker 03 I mean, um, I bet you would love them. I bet you'd absolutely love them. That's what I had for lunch today. I walked, I walked down to June BBQ.
28:48 Speaker 00 Where's this at? Where's this at?
28:49 Speaker 03 It's over, it's next to Compo.
28:51 Speaker 00 Okay.
28:52 Speaker 03 Which is, you know, um, right by, behind the post office on 18th and, um, what is it? I don't know, east of H. I mean, west of H. So behind the post office on 18th Street.
29:06 Speaker 00 Definitely have to check that out.
29:07 Speaker 03 And, and Compo is also great. Have you ever been to Compo?
29:09 Speaker 00 I haven't.
29:10 Speaker 03 It's a wine bar. Um, it's, it's fantastic. Willie Rivera and Molly.
29:15 Speaker 00 What's the place next? Sammy's been pushing me to go that it's right across the street. I think it's Thai next to Jerry's?
29:21 Speaker 03 Oh, yes. Jasmine and the New Taste. Jasmine and the New Taste is the best Thai in town.
29:27 Speaker 00 See?
29:28 Speaker 03 By far, it is the best Thai. I mean, we, I don't think we have any bad Thai in town.
29:32 Speaker 00 And see, we didn't even prep, but we just listed 10 great food items here in, in downtown. So.
29:38 Speaker 03 Have you been to the new Moo?
29:40 Speaker 00 I haven't. Me and Richard were talking about that yesterday.
29:42 Speaker 03 I'd love to go with Richard. That would be sweet.
29:44 Speaker 00 He said he's gonna give it a little bit of time for it to slow down because he doesn't want to get, you know, bombarded, but I, I love Moo Creamery, so.
29:53 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh. It's, it's unbelievable that what they've done to the, um, the, the building there. I think it's 18th and Q. It's the. Chinese style brick building. It's an old building. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I agree, I'm also would recommend, you know, we're still working out kinks at the luncheonette. At the Woolworths Luncheonette, we're now three, almost just over three months open, right?
30:20 Speaker 00 Yep.
30:21 Speaker 03 And, and there's still a lot of kinks to work out. I'm not quite to the point where I'm telling my friends, "Come on, it's, you know, we got it all worked. It's, you know, perfectly like a fine tuned machine." Like, I'm not, like, you, you still need to expect some, some things.
30:36 Speaker 00 Richard's soup of the day. Sammy had me try those.
30:39 Speaker 03 That you can't go wrong.
30:40 Speaker 00 I had the, the Mexican meatball.
30:43 Speaker 03 Albóndigas?
30:44 Speaker 00 Oh my gosh. That was so good. I'd never even heard of it before. I had it with Sammy with the grilled cheese. It was so good.
30:51 Speaker 03 Soups are the best.
30:52 Speaker 00 Yes.
30:52 Speaker 03 The soups are the best. And that's the other thing about the luncheonette is we really put a lot of thought into it, especially our chef, our executive chef, Richard Yoshimura, put an enormous amount of time and thought into the menu, making sure that we stayed true to burgers, fries and shakes, which we have amazing burgers, fries and shakes. But I know me personally, I can't have a burger more than once every, once a week, maybe.
31:16 Speaker 00 At most.
31:17 Speaker 03 A couple of weeks at most. It, not that I don't like burgers, it's just, I just don't really crave it that much. It's just, it's a lot. And so I don't eat a lot of hamburgers. But we have other amazing menu items, great salads.
31:31 Speaker 00 Happy hours.
31:32 Speaker 03 The happy hour stuff, the chili chili bang bangs are good. There's, the fries are great. But the soups, the daily soups that rotate, the specials, the, the, the secret items, you know, like the Rachel and, and the, a lot of people are into getting the salads with pastrami. I forget what they call it, but there's, there's all kinds of like secret menu items. So if you're ever thinking of coming to Woolworths Luncheonette and you're like, "I'm not down for a burger and fries right now." No, no, no, no, there's so much more. There's so much more. And we've got a great lineup of beers. Great beers. This has been something that I personally have made sure that we had. Beer, which is the local Kern River Brewery Company's beer, just outstanding.
32:18 Speaker 03 My opinion, the, the best beer that we have, best local beer.
32:21 Speaker 00 See, I'm biased. I, I like the Dionysus.
32:23 Speaker 03 We have Dionysus too, uh, and we, we try to give as much love as we can to our, our, our great local brewery scene. Um, and so good beers, great beers and on tap, we have PBR on tap, which I, I think is cool. Uh, you know, you don't usually get PBR on tap. You don't usually probably, you're looking at me like you don't usually get PBR in general.
32:47 Speaker 00 I don't personally. I've heard of it.
32:51 Speaker 03 Give it a shot, man. Yeah, it's great.
32:53 Speaker 00 Is it light?
32:54 Speaker 03 It's light. Yeah, definitely. It's just like, it's like a lager.
32:57 Speaker 00 Everybody's always like pushing me to try this and that, and it's dark. I, I don't care for dark beer.
33:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:02 Speaker 00 Uh.
33:03 Speaker 03 Yeah. Well, then you don't like Guinness?
33:06 Speaker 00 No.
33:06 Speaker 03 It, it is deceptively light. It, don't let the, don't let the, um.
33:12 Speaker 00 The vision, the view of it?
33:14 Speaker 03 Definitely don't.
33:15 Speaker 00 Oh gosh, that is dark.
33:17 Speaker 03 They have what they call Snake Bites, which is a, uh, it's Guinness and like, I can't remember what they, what they put in there. It's, it's like a mix of Guinness and another, um, beer?
33:30 Speaker 00 Another ale or something?
33:31 Speaker 03 I can't remember what they put in it. They're very popular, but it, I'm gonna have a Guinness with you.
33:38 Speaker 03 You got, you've never had a Guinness? You gotta try it.
33:40 Speaker 00 I haven't.
33:40 Speaker 03 Hugely popular in Europe. Uh, they're popular here. Guinness is huge.
33:46 Speaker 00 The people are, it, it's so different because like when we were growing up, there was, I mean, I'm sure there was a, a lot of different types. And I mean, I believe there's seven to 10 beers on tap?
33:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:58 Speaker 00 Upstairs or?
33:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, we have 10, 10 beers on tap.
34:01 Speaker 00 That, that's a lot of different types of beers and it kinda hits whatever type of beer you like. And I like that a lot of it is all local.
34:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:10 Speaker 00 Um, but yeah, my older brother is into this. He likes the sour beers or, you know, the seasonal types of beers.
34:17 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:18 Speaker 00 Me personally, I've just always kept with, you know, the light eight oh fives or the, I forget what the Dionysus one is. I've recently tried upstairs. I, I think it's all good.
34:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:30 Speaker 00 But yeah, I mean, there's that's the best thing about being downtown. You know, you can have a burger here or you can go across the street and have Thai if you want.
34:37 Speaker 03 That's right.
34:37 Speaker 00 It's everything and all within walking, you know, distance.
34:41 Speaker 03 Best food in town is definitely downtown. There's other great things. There's other great, great restaurants around. It's not just downtown, but you can't miss if you come downtown. And Luigi's is downtown, you know, obviously, you know, landmark, but you head west from Luigi's and stay on 19th Street. You can't go wrong. There's so many 19th or 18th Street. There's so many great food, so many great food options. Another message here that says, great, how much are tickets for this weekend's show? And do you have prices for renting the venue out for company parties? Does it come staffed or with food? Yes, it does. It comes staffed. It comes with food.
35:20 Speaker 03 And the pricing depends on what you need. The pricing, you know, think of any other similar, not similar, but any other venue space that are that we have in town. We have many wonderful, great venue places in town. So, you know, we're, I think we're right in the ballpark where it's just as good, good of a deal as anywhere else you go. But as you need more services than that, that obviously tacks on to the cost. But our hope is that down here in the basement, we're not just doing public events. We're not just doing live music and performances. But we're also doing and offering it up for private events and for corporate events and for quinceañeras and for weddings.
36:01 Speaker 03 And all of those, we have different prices and different, different packages depending on what you're looking for. This, this weekend again, being the grand opening is a great opportunity to just kind of come see what it would look like for, you know, an event like this, you know, a live event. We can, we can see, we can have over 300 people in the basement. In the attic, we can have up to 500 people up in the attic. And so there's lots of different options for renting. There are tickets still available for the, the grand opening. I know they're not asking about how much the tickets are. But the prices for the, for the grand opening this weekend are about Twenty bucks. I just looked it up. Twenty-two bucks for a
36:43 Speaker 00 Get them while they're there.
36:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. Um, let's, let me take one more break and when we come back, I want to talk about this budgeting thing and kind of give some tips for households that are maybe struggling to even come up with a way to save at all. I get it, but maybe there's some tips here for you. So we're Money Wise. We're going to cover that when we come back.
37:03 Speaker 00 Are you curious to learn more about how you can be money wise? Check out the Money Wise website at moneywiseguys.com to get more info about what we do.
37:21 Speaker 03 Welcome to Money Wise. There's Monty, right? This is Monty Byram.
37:28 Speaker 03 You can come here and play at the basement of the Warriors. Monty the legend. No longer the myth. He is still out and about. That guy has a youthful soul. I love Monty. Thanks for tuning into Money Wise. We like to give advice on this show, financial advice. We've been doing it for a little while. Been doing it for a few decades now here in town. And so we picked up a little bit of knowledge along the way. I love shortcuts and shorthands for people to use to try to get their household finances in order. And one of them is, one of my favorites is a budget, a budget tool. And it's real simple. It's real easy.
38:11 Speaker 03 And I'm a firm believer that if you're going to have a budget, make it as simple as possible, or you just, it could be too complicated and take too much time that you won't follow it. So you want your budget to be simple and straightforward. This is the 50/30/20 budget. We didn't come up with this. This is, I don't know who came up with it. But probably several people came up with it. But I think it provides a really good framework and give you an idea of where your dollars should be going towards. 50%, 30%, and 20%. 50% of your money should go towards your needs. These are things that are non-negotiables. Your rent, your mortgage, utilities, your groceries, your insurance.
38:53 Speaker 03 Those are the things that you have to pay for. Transportation, your car, your gas. 50% of your income should be going towards those needs. 30% of your income should go toward your wants, your quality of life. These are optional, but they're what makes life enjoyable and livable. Think about things like going out to eat, streaming services, so your TV. Vacations, kids' activities, like sports lessons and things like that. Upgrades, like maybe you want a nicer car, better phone, hobbies. 30%, lump all those in. 30% of your income should be going towards that.
39:37 Speaker 03 And that leaves 20% left. 20% is for your savings or your future. And I love to lump those two things together because savings and your future you, those are the same things. Now, you have your examples of this. Obviously, we talked about earlier in the show 401ks, your IRA. That would be part of this 20%. But also paying off extra debt. So beyond the minimum payments of debt, that's paying yourself. Get rid of that. So that's part of that 20%. College savings, emergency fund. That's part of that 20%.
40:16 Speaker 03 And that is something that if you were in the ballpark here with these three numbers, 50, 30, 20, then you're in good shape. You're at least going in the right direction. Now, if it's 60, 25, 15, you're probably normal. That's probably closer if, you know, to what the average would be, or let's call it normal. That would be 60% going towards your needs. That would be 25% going towards your wants. And then 15% going towards your savings or future.
40:58 Speaker 03 That would be normal, still workable if you're within that range, even if it's 65, 2015. Now, it might be a warning sign if it's 70, 2010. There might be some warning signs there. And not necessarily that it's all bad, but if 70% of your income is going towards your needs and 20% towards your wants, and this leaving 10% for the future, there could be some issues going on in there. Try to think of the 50, 30, 20 rule as maybe a guide or a gauge as to where you might be landing. And this is again, the simple part is coming up with
41:42 Speaker 03 how things should be, like 50, 30, 20. The hard part comes down to now, how do you track it? And that is different for everybody. I would highly encourage you to follow what makes, what works for you. And that is the most important factor is finding something that works for you. Otherwise, if you find something that you just don't, can't grab on to, you're never going to follow it. So there's just now it completely becomes pointless. So work out a way to track that money with how it works for you. Some people really like the envelope method or the jar method, or they, each time they get their paycheck, they pull out the cash and they put it in the envelopes.
42:25 Speaker 03 And then they only pull that money out from the envelopes to pay for those things that they, that they need to pay for from those envelopes so that they can track how much they have left. And sometimes people put a little ledger where they can keep what the balance is inside that envelope or you know, box, or however you want to do it. I prefer sort of the digital version of that, which is you can have. You can have separate accounts or bank accounts, or even your bank account itself within your own one bank account. Sort of you can track out what's going there. That can all be done digitally. It can be done now through AI and through your most banks now offer some sort of budgeting
43:09 Speaker 03 tool where the bank can recognize what you're spending your money on and put it automatically into that category so that you can then see how close in line you are to that 50%, 30%, 20% rule. And that gives you an idea. There's even some services, most of them are free, but some of them you pay, you have to pay for it. And but they can alert you when you're getting, you know, spending too much in certain areas. I think it's incredibly helpful for a lot of people and and you know, lean in on the technologies that can that can make this all easier for us.
43:48 Speaker 03 I think it's the biggest issue that we have when it comes to people's finances is just coming up with a way to be disciplined and just being able to track it is is generally the hardest part. So there you go. That's our Money Wise tip. That's our financial tip for the day. I mean, we've given plenty of tips, but that's something that I'd like to bring up and remind people of. We had a lot of earnings going on today. So we're of course, we're always in earnings season, but today in particular, we had a few earnings publicly traded companies that had announced their earnings. Something that's really interesting is Starbucks announced their earnings today. Starbucks has been going through a rough patch here lately. Ever since Reverb opened or?
44:32 Speaker 03 Ever since Reverb opened up in the Woolworths. Starbucks just doesn't know what to do. They late last, the previous quarter, they closed more than 600 stores across the country. They also had to do, I guess, with the 1,000 unionized baristas that went on strike in mid-November. That only affected about 65 stores in. Forty cities. So, you know, really a drop in the bucket compared to how many stores they have total. Really wasn't much of an issue. In fact, in today's earnings call, their CEO had brought Mr. Nickel.
45:15 Speaker 03 Mentioned, didn't even mention the strike as being an impact on, on the, on the stores earnings. But it was, it was a fairly rosy outlook for Starbucks. They say that the sales in their US stores were up about 4% compared to last year. So it's moving in the right direction. They think that the worst of the impact from higher coffee costs and tariffs is going to peak this quarter. And they think that the impact from them laying off, closing down the stores and laying off some of the executives that in the, in the corporate office is going to start paying off for the company as well.
45:58 Speaker 03 But they mentioned something I was going to ask you, Stephen. Did you know that they, they got rid of, they got rid of a bunch of their food items? They're trying to simplify it, but then they're also trying to catch up to some of these other coffee shops. Like I think Dutch Brothers and Dunkin' Donuts have these energy, like focused on these energy drinks, like energy coffee. Yeah. So they're, they're gonna, they're planning on having more.
46:23 Speaker 00 Less food, more energy?
46:24 Speaker 03 Less food, more energy. And, and then these things called protein cold foam toppings. They, they claim that these are, these are selling well. Vanilla protein lattes. People love protein. So people, don't they, Stephen? They just love protein.
46:46 Speaker 00 Let them go through their resolutions and give them a couple of months. But protein is a big deal. A lot of people are.
46:52 Speaker 03 A lot of people like talking about protein.
46:55 Speaker 00 Crapping protein mills, protein shakes.
46:58 Speaker 03 Putting protein in their shakes, putting protein in everything. It's like, can we lay off on the protein people? Do we really need that much protein? I don't think it, maybe it tastes great, I don't know. But yeah, so that, you know, good luck Starbucks. If you're not near Starbucks, come to Reverb Coffee, corner of 19K. Some say it's on the corner of History and Hope. There's great coffee there. And as we leave today, I'd like to remind all of our listeners of these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.
47:41 Speaker 02 Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
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