3/6/26 Riding Donkeys, Blue Cheese and Fighting the Good Fight

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, March 6th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: Ashley Voorhees, Executive Director for CASA of Kern County website: https://kerncasa.org/ 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. Ashley Voorhees and CASA of Kern County are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic World War's Building in downtown Bakersfield. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Hey, welcome to the Friday edition of the Money Wise Guys Show. Here from the basement in the World War's Building in downtown Bakersfield. Beautiful day outside today. For the next hour here on KGO, we are money talk. 1230 AM, 101.1 FM, and as always, streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show. We got quite a few texts that came in over the last couple of days. We're going to go ahead and get to a bunch of those here in a moment.

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Sounds good to me.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  But we call into the show, text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. That's 661-396-1000. We are your hosts today. I am Justin Leland here with...

• 1:26Speaker 03

  I am Dustin Weaver.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Dustin Weaver is in the house. How you doing?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  You know, it's good to be here.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  It is good to be here, and not that there hasn't been anything that's happened at all this week.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Nothing at all.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Nothing's happened at all in the markets, or the jobs report, or anything. Just pay no attention.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  You know, I think Stephen might be excited. They sold a little piece of the...

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Did you see that story? It's insane, the amount of money that Stephen Ross has got for 1%.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  So he sold 1% of the Dolphins for 125 million bucks?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Putting the valuation at

• 2:04Speaker 02

  12 billion.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  12 billion dollars.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  And of course, they had to mention the little F1 involved with that and it's not just the Dolphins. It was more of the, uh, the actual stadium.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  What a, that's

• 2:17Speaker 02

  The whole

• 2:17Speaker 00

  It's a pretty penny.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Whole kit and caboodle.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  For 1%.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  It's

• 2:20Speaker 00

  I mean, how much does Justin own of the Lakers or the Lakers, the Packers?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  I, I own less than 1% of the Packers and in fact, I don't even have, uh, I barely have voting rights. So.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  But if they were to sell it, would you get, you know, pennies on the dollar?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  I'd get zero is what I would get. There's that. I, I would, I would get to keep the piece of paper that says I am an owner.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  That's all you need.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's all I need. But yeah, no, it's, uh, it's going to be a great show today. We're going to get into some numbers here, but we have a, uh, great show because we have the executive director for CASA of Kern County, joining us in the, uh, the next, uh, segment. That's Ashley Voorhees. Um, she's awesome.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  So we'll get to learn about, uh, CASA and what they do for the community.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Absolutely. They do a lot.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  To do that. They do a ton. A ton, but

• 3:12Speaker 02

  being that we are money guys, we probably should talk about what happened in the markets over the past couple of days. We did get the jobs number that came in today and it was not good.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  By not good, how far off were we?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  A lot. So basically the jobs number came in for, for February and, uh, the US economy lost 92,000 jobs. Meaning that there's 92,000 jobs that, uh, don't, no longer exist.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  And the numbers we're talking about is this February?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  This is February. Now, January, where we had a gain of over a hundred thousand jobs, I think it was closer to like 140,000 jobs. That was downwardly revised. So that was downly downward revised down to 126,000 jobs that were created uh, in January and then December, which was Last year, December's jobs numbers were positive, were positive. The downward revision means that now December's jobs numbers shows that we lost 17,000 jobs in December of last year.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  So two out of three months.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, two out of the last three months, we've lost jobs and three out of the last three months, we've had a downward revision. Right? So it's, we're basically getting kind of in a position that we were talking, Dustin and I were talking off air about how we're basically getting a little bit whipsawed.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Little whipsaw.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Little whipsaw there.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  So we're losing jobs, adding jobs, losing jobs, adding jobs. And that's basically been the trend for the past, well, since last May or June. June, I think, was the first month where we actually had a jobs loss number. After we had done some revisions and everything. But those numbers have basically,

• 4:59Speaker 02

  they've been all over the place, right? Up, down, sideways. What's also more concerning than just the jobs numbers itself is the unemployment number did go up from 4.3% to 4.4%.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  And obviously the markets reacted to that.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so today, the S and P 500, which is one we look at quite a bit, is 500 of the largest US companies, as a reminder, down 1.33% today. The Dow 30 is down right at 1%. So about 453 points.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  The Russell 2000, which takes into account some of those middle and small size companies, down 2.33%. The NASDAQ, which is a little more weighted towards tech, down about 1.6% today.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  And the other thing that is going on right now is oil prices. If you haven't heard, we're having a little bit of a skirmish going on with our, across the globe in Iran.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  And the Straits of Hormuz have been shut down, which 20% of the world's oil flows through that small little pocket of waterway.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Oil prices in the last five days have gone from $75 a barrel to $93 a barrel. What do you think that's going to do to the price of the pump?

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Probably not going down.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  It's not going down. Immediately, the oil prices jumped to about, I think, a national average right now. Retail gasoline hit $3.32 yesterday.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  And so with the disruption in the, in the, the supply chains, coming from Iran, coming from the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia, you know, all of these different nations. That disruption in the supply chain is causing a ripple effect around the globe. And so you're seeing this. The Dow was down, what, 450 points today is what you were saying, Dustin?

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, Dow, 450, and then the S and P down about 90 points.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  So the Dow has fallen just this week. It's the worst week for the Dow since April of last year. What was happening in the April of last year? It's when we were getting all of the tariffs being announced.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Right? Major, major things going on. So it's, it is interesting to see how the markets are reacting. And also additionally to that, there's been a bond sell-off. So not just the stock market that has been under pressure, but the bond market, the US bond market's under pressure as well. And they're both, they're both trending in the same direction at the same time, which is not usually normal.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  And when we see that, this is why we've seen an uptick in the volatility index.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  The VIX, it's up about 25% today, meaning volatility is up. More activity, more trading. But in the long run, right, we look at the six-month numbers on some of these things. Things have looked pretty good.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  You know, the Dow is up 4.6% in the last six months. So yeah, some recent volatility, which doesn't mean, you know, sell and go to cash, go to the sidelines.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Right, no, no, no, yeah, that's not, that's nothing. Now, the question I would have for you, Dustin, is this, is that?

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Do you believe that the markets have been artificially held high? And that there's that there were there's a there's a more and more pronounced possibility of a correction in the market regardless of what's going on globally?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  So there's a couple of questions there.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Artificial aspect of it, which it would be hard to determine. When it comes to long-term valuations, that's one thing that a lot of these analysts are tracking. We say valuations, you and I know it's the price to earnings.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Comparison that they're looking at.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Because earnings ultimately drive markets up.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  That's the fundamentals. Yeah. How much did you make last quarter?

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Right. Companies are making money and that's why they talk about that in the headlines. Right? We're looking at the numbers, right? The quarterly numbers that come out. They want to know the financials of all these big companies to see at the end of the day, are they making money?

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  So if our consumer driven economy that we're in, you know, goods and services are being provided as long as that continues and we see the prices go up over time, that usually means those earnings go up over time, too. And that's what we've seen with the S and P. You know, the last five years earnings are up, what, in 87 to 100%?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  However, markets have gone up significantly and valuations do look a little bit, a little bit rich.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  But that doesn't mean that we just, you know.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Throw the baby out of the bath water kind of a thing. No. And so, but it's, it's one of those things where I think as, as investors, we also have to, we're always looking at things in the, with the long-term scope. Right? We don't want to be looking at things in myopic view where we're looking at just like this today or tomorrow or this week. We're looking at things six months, a year, five years, 10 years down the road. And when the valuations get high like this, and if you start looking at the, what is it, the Schiller curve or whatever, I won't get into that. But basically you start looking at, at the valuations of the US stock market and you kind of see that we're, we're in an overvalued state.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Any little thing, and I mean little thing, can be that black swan that causes the market to come back to normal, right, to come back to a reasonable valuation before then going back up again. And that would be what we would consider like a correction, like a 10% or a 15% move down to to correct for how high we are right now. How realistic is it to believe that what's going on in Iran could be that black swan that causes this to happen over the next two to three weeks?

• 11:03Speaker 03

  You know, anytime I've seen somebody try and predict it.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  They're wrong, exactly. So don't do what I just did. Good point.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Hindsight's 2020.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Exactly. So nobody knows what the black swan's gonna look like or when it's gonna come, right?

• 11:16Speaker 03

  So it's almost like a long-term perspective diversified professionally managed portfolios.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Bingo. Might be the way to go. Don't try to time it. Don't try to do that. Don't time it. Yeah. So I mean, it's when you see the jobs numbers, you know, being a little bit softened, bad jobs reports, issues going on, you know, this is the way normal life is. We can always look at a time in in our history where there's things that are good, the things that are bad. We always stay invested, period.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah, there's lots of charts out there that that have that, you know, basically it what it comes down to is if you look at the newspaper every day or read the news, there's always.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  There's always a reason to pull out of the market.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Always a reason to pull out.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Right. And yet, over time, history has shown us it's.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  It's the wrong thing.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Time in the market, not trying to time the market.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. So hopefully, we got that. Did we have one or two questions we wanted to hit before we take a quick break and then we bring in Ashley? Did we have a good question there?

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's let's pull that up.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  They're all good, Justin. They're all good. They're all good questions. Let's do this. Let's see. Okay. I see one here says, speaking of the population, has Kern County hit 1 million yet? I know we're getting close.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Good question.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  That is a good question. I want to say we're still we're still sitting around 909. I don't know. What happens when we have that that U-Haul truck that moves into Kern County and we get to the million? Do we have like a parade?

• 12:57Speaker 03

  So, so the quick AI overview says that as of 2024 estimated population of Calif- uh Kern County at least, that's 922,529.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Well, that was 18 months ago. That could have been like, yeah, you know.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  It's very, we're very close. Let's just put it this way. We're close. I don't know if we've actually hit the number.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  There's some people moving in, some people moving out, so.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Right. Who knows? Kids being born, those types of things. Maybe, maybe we're there, maybe we're not.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  The next one said, "A personal training, trainers of your financial future. The Money Wise Guys. Love it." That is obviously a Frank show. He was talking about how.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Lifting weights.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Being a financial advisor is kind of like being a personal trainer.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I, yeah, I can see that. I definitely see that. I, I definitely do. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we have Ashley Voorhees from CASA joining us.

• 13:52Speaker 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.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Welcome back to the Friday edition of the Money Wise Show.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Welcome, welcome.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Welcome, welcome.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Any good plans for the weekend there, Dustin?

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Relax.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Relax. It's a beautiful, it's gonna be a beautiful weekend weather wise.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  I, I didn't look. What?

• 14:30Speaker 02

  It's gonna be mid eighties. It'll be like nice.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  That'll be nice.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  You know?

• 14:34Speaker 03

  I'll enjoy it before it becomes 105 here in a few months.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got like a week and a half before that happens, so.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Don't say that. They can hear you.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  And we lose an hour of sleep this weekend.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right. Sunday, 2 a.m. It becomes 3 a.m., right?

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  I thought we voted to get rid of that.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Did we vote, I know we voted to get rid of that, right?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Arizona doesn't listen, do they?

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't care. Yeah, they, there's part, like the northeastern corner of Arizona does it and everybody else doesn't.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  That's gotta be weird.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. But it works.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  No, no, it doesn't. That's why we voted it out. That's the point.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Well, no, I mean, it works for them and it could work for us to get, ignore it.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't know. Anyhow, we are joined right now by Ashley Voorhees. She's the executive director for CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates. Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, it's great to have you. So tell us what's going on.

• 15:35Speaker 04

  You know, just supporting them through advocacy. We have a responsibility not only to the child that we've been appointed to, but we also have a responsibility to the judge. That was why we were initially created in 1977, which is to be the eyes and ears. So that at the time when the judge makes, you know, a decision over a child's life, that they have all the information at the table. And we see it time and time again where our CASAs provide really important information that just, you know, is important to the judge so that when they, you know, come time, they feel comfortable.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Making that, that ruling, right?

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  So,

• 16:15Speaker 02

  you know, what does it take for an individual to go through this program to become a CASA, to be that advocate for that child?

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  What, what is the process?

• 16:27Speaker 04

  So it's really, it's, it's, it's a tough world. It really is. So, I mean, you know, gotta have a little bit of thick skin and, you know, some disposable time. But most importantly, heart. That's really, you know, at the basis of it all is, is that you want to be part of what, of the change. But, you know, from like general, general qualifications, you have to be 21 years of age. You know, obviously no criminal history, but you don't have to have any kind of degree. You know, we train you and we, you know, cover so much over a six week period. Roughly thirty-five hours of training that we put you through. So it pretty, you know, it is intensive, but it's important to build that foundation on the things that you are going

• 17:12Speaker 04

  to experience when you advocate for a child. And then at the end that you you graduate as a sworn in officer of the court.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Wow, okay.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I mean, it's a pretty big deal.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  We have the judge come and swear you in, you know, and take an oath. And then after that, you know, you hit the ground running and with support of our team, we walk you the whole way through from start to finish. And sometimes finish can be eighteen months, and sometimes it can be a handful of years.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  So I have a question about numbers. So in general, what what does the need look like? Like, how many kids out there need an advocate? And how are we keeping up with those numbers? How's that looking in 2026?

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, so right now, we have a waitlist of fifty-five children, which is okay. I mean, you know, we've seen it much higher and, you know, but the judges judges are also, you know, carefully selecting who they appoint us to because we don't have volunteers banging on our doors to help. So but we see the most critical cases that come through their, you know, the juvenile courtrooms. And so, yeah, I mean, there's, you know, there's over twenty-two hundred kids in care right now. I'm sure many of them could use an advocate, but at this point right now, we have a waitlist of fifty-five.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Wow. And so then now, what is the process with working with this child? Is that child basically housed with this CASA for that period of time? Are they housed still in their foster situation in the CASA there? Is there to, you know, interview or, you know, follow up and check up on that child? What's that look like?

• 18:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, so there's a lot of boundaries to being a CASA. So you can't take a child home with you. You can't interact, you know, have them interact with any of your family members or, you know, unless obviously that individual that you're associated with is another court-appointed special advocate. There's a lot of confidentiality when it comes to children in foster care.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, obviously.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  So, you know, we uphold that with the most respect, you know, for The child's sake and the court's sake. And so, but you know, you come in, you read a case file. You learn all about what you can about what has occurred to the child upon the time of meeting them, remembering that they're not their circumstances, but you know, helping them navigate just life in general, whether it be school, you know, friendships, whatever that might be. Also, you know, just following up on all their, their medical, dental, just to make sure that they're receiving the services that they need in order to thrive. And then at the end of the six month period, you write a court report and you report it all to the judge and then they proceed from there.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  And it just, you know, you know, getting to know the child and being sometimes you're that only child's constant individual in their life.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Right, because yeah. Now, what is the age group really for some of these children? Are you talking from, from infants all the way till say 16, 18 years old? You know, what is the, the majority of the ages that you see?

• 20:17Speaker 04

  I would say anywhere probably from like eight to 17 is generally what we see. We do have like one young one right now, and that's just kind of a specialized case. But generally the ones that we have, the majority of them are youth. Those are the most kind of troubled. And so, but you know, we do have younger ones as well. But it's a lot of our, our youth really need help, need a, someone to come alongside them. And you know, sometimes they don't want to go to court either. And so, you know, if, if you can help be that voice in the courtroom on their behalf, you know, the, the amount of respect that they have for you is, is incredible.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  That's awesome. So what events do you have coming up? I mean, it's been a, you know, we're starting out the year. What's, what's going on?

• 21:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, so April, we have Child Abuse Awareness Month. So that's going to be a big splash that we're making. We got a lot of things planned and we're going to actually be partnering with Houchen Blood Bank. And so that's going to be a really exciting opportunity. We've got some girls' clubs that are going to be running in support of child abuse awareness. We have Some other activities, but there's going to be various things that we're going to be doing throughout the month. We also have a T-shirt that we're selling. Just it's it's states on there, no child stands alone.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  And so, you know, just kind of making a splash that, you know, we as a community are with our children. And then, May 2nd actually is our annual Casa Derby event and so excited about that.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Everybody with the hats.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  So, yeah, Derby, like the horse racing kind of Derby, right?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Do you have your outfit, Dustin?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Ready to go.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Do you?

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Ready to go. He's got the big floppy hat and everything.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  He's got this mint julep all ready to go.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Don't laugh at me, Justin.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm laughing with you.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  It'll be a great time. Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  No, it's certainly great.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Looking forward to that. So as we hear about some of these numbers, and obviously you've got events coming up. So, and there's a waitlist, right, of 55 kids currently. You have people that stand up and say, hey, I want to become a Casa. And you've talked about what that process looks like and there's training involved. You get them fully ready. Is there a financial commitment for a Casa? And then the other question to that is there's other ways that people can support. If they don't have the time to be a Casa, they can help support one. Is that right?

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  So I guess there's two questions and one there. So, does it, is there a financial cost to be a Casa?

• 22:48Speaker 04

  No, there's no financial obligation. I mean, obviously you are, you are visiting the child on a, you know, weekly basis. So, you know, we don't ask you to spend any money. Sometimes Casas do, but we do ask that you keep it minimal just because, again, you know, being a sworn in officer of the court. There's that responsibility to not be gifting things and whatnot to keep it as neutral as possible. So, no, no financial commitment that we ask of the Casa. But then in support of, you know, how do you, how do you support our organization and the mission? If you can't be a Casa, which, I mean, obviously we'll take your money. So.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Nice. So how would they do that then?

• 23:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  So donations and everything like that. How would somebody do that?

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Easily, they can go to our website, kerncasa.org. They can call into our office. We can take credit card information over the phone or send a check. I will come personally pick it up from your home. If it's large enough. So I mean, you know, fundraisers, we do what all, whatever we can.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  And showing up to the Derby with, you know, some generosity in your pocket.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, too.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Exactly. Couple of extra bills in your pocket.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  And you can buy tickets online at kerncasa.org. So, you know, if you want to participate and join in at our fun Derby event, there will be mint juleps, galore, and some Derby racing and live and silent auction. So it's always a good time.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  I'd love to see Dustin as a jockey. Get him on top of a horse.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  I think they're normally short and very thin. So it might not work out too well.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Not work out so well.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  My horse wouldn't be running very fast.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  No, no, maybe not.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Better you than me.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  We can get you a donkey.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Donkey.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  That's funny. I, there's actually a story around that. I rode a donkey when we went horseback riding on, on our honeymoon in Mexico. I'll save the story for another day.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Oh, no, please. I gotta hear this.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Well, there was no seat and so that was a very uncomfortable hour. Let's just say.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Oh, geez. No, thank you. Hey, Ashley, with that note, thank you so much for joining us today. For, we will make sure that all of those will be, the notes and everything will be in the podcast notes for how to get involved with CASA, how to become a CASA. Go to, you know, kerncasa.org and check out their website and see how you can get involved, how you might possibly, if you're listening to this and it's, and it's grabbing you at the heartstrings, that you want to maybe be that person, give them a call. Definitely reach out and see if you can't be a CASA because they definitely need more advocates for these children. Absolutely need it.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's get that.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Ashley, thank you so much.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  Thank you, Justin and Justin. I appreciate it.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Are you an employee with a company-sponsored retirement plan? Do you fully understand how you're invested and whether Not you are maximizing your retirement plans options for more information on a free assessment contact MoneyWise's 401k specialist Justin Leland at 661-847-1000 that's 661-847-1000.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Welcome back.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  I might have.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  I can, I can scream that. Well, I won't.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  I'm so proud of Dustin, man. He just, he just adapts with everything I play. I love it.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  I, you know.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Trust me, I've known Dustin a long time. I've never seen him, um, yeah, bob his head like that. That was awesome.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Why don't you make it fun for us?

• 26:39Speaker 00

  That was a request.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, pulling, pulling out all the stops. Yeah, a little system of the down for you before going.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  I waited. I didn't want to scare our guests.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, good call. Good call.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  What a great guest.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love Ashley. She's awesome.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  We got a comment, actually, it says Casa is such a great group and always appreciate you guys spotlighting our local organizations. Do they still plan on doing their annual run? Well, she took off, but I know they do the run annually. They just had it towards the end of the year. So, um, look for it later this year.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Um, we're going to go through, we had a couple of other questions. I think this is actually a really good time to do this, but, um, we kind of just brought it up, but the one that I did want to talk about Dustin was, there was a question that came in a couple of days ago, it looks like it says, uh, would a tariff rollback impact investment strategy or is it mostly noise?

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Two questions there.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  There is two questions.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Right. Is it noise or is it going to change the strategy? Now, what would you say to that Dustin? What's your, what's your take?

• 27:45Speaker 03

  It always starts with the goals.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  It always starts with, it depends.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Yes, it depends. Oh gosh, you can answer that really for almost any question we get. That's financially related.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Depends.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  But I mean, we talked about this a little bit, not specific to tariffs, but

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  You know, earlier in the show, um, when it comes to headlines in general, it's, it's noise. The, for a long-term portfolio.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Right. If you, if you're looking at things long, long-term, these types of changes, while it might impact you currently, uh, let's, let's go back to April 2nd of last year. That was, uh, liberation day, right? That's when all the tariffs were announced and, um, the markets swooned, you know, almost immediately, uh, for a period of a few days.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  What happened to that?

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. So let's say.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Markets ended up in positive territory at the end of the year by nearly 20%.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  So for the person that saw the headline and thought, I'm going to make a decision based on the headline.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  They were just tickled, delighted and happy for about three, four days, right?

• 28:53Speaker 02

  And then really irritated.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Yes. And then it's, you know, if you get lucky timing like that, when, when do you get lucky timing on the other end? When you come back in? Usually, it's once there's already euphoria and things are already so far high up that your confidence level's back to get you back invested and it's usually missed opportunity.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  And this goes back to, and I'll, I'll go back to our, our great founder, Gero Ellis. He would talk about the greed, the fear and greed cycle, right? So when the news comes out and they're talking about all these tariffs, if your initial reaction is,

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Like, and you start pulling all your money out of the market and going to cash. That's the fear driving that decision. The other side of the coin is what happens if, like, right now, where markets are at or near all-time highs? I know we've come back a little bit from, from the all-time high. But if, if the markets are at all-time highs and they're continuing to hit that all-time high seemingly every other day, right? And it just continues to go up and up and up. How many people are in the, in the cash and they keep seeing on the news that the markets are hitting these all-time highs? Does that not create FOMO, the fear of missing out? And so then that greed part takes in. We can use the same thing with like Bitcoin or any of the other cryptos.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  It's like when, when it hits a hundred thousand, all of a sudden, everybody's like buying crypto. And I'm having 80-year-old clients asking me about crypto. And it's like, no, that's not a, that's not a good plan, right? And so it's, it's all dependent upon your own situation. But going back to the original question here. Tariffs are going to have an effect long-term for the economy. Is it going to directly affect the actual underlying cost of that stock? Or that bond or that investment that you have? Probably not as much as you think it will.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  It's, it's the knee-jerk reaction that's going to cause that initial shock, but then it'll be noise.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  And if you look around what's happening around the world in general, there's always events and things happening that you can anchor to. Or, or not.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Right, that are gonna, that are gonna cause issues for you. So, you know, don't, as Dustin has said before, it's like, you know, if you're looking at it, you have a long-term crystal, a long-term lens that you're looking at your life. Don't make your decision based upon one singular headline or one singular event, or even a multitude of events.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  I'll tell you, we're, you know, we're coming up on 20 years or so here.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Doing this. Um, I've, I feel like the question comes up a lot as people are nearing towards retirement. And say you're, you know, a year, two years, three years, five years out from retirement. You know, I feel like a lot of times the question comes up, should I be making changes now because I'm close to retirement? But what a lot of those folks are not really necessarily thinking of is how long is my retirement going to be?

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Right? When we're talking long term, we're talking periods of 10 plus years.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  So if your retirement can be 15, 20, 25, maybe even 30 years.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  We still have a long time horizon. We don't want to be making drastic changes, you know, assuming we had an appropriate portfolio to start with.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  We don't want to be making drastic changes.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  And just because of a headline.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then going back to what Dustin is saying is basically if you're 65 and you're retiring, that money's got to last until you're probably close to 90.

• 32:29Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's, there's a lot of married couples, right?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Everybody's married, but for a married couple, it's over 50% likelihood that.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Somebody's going to make it to their 90s.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Yes. At least one of you makes it to 90.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's, that's a, that's a big stat right there.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  So I hope that answers the question about the tariffs, right? Like we can look at things on a singular level and say, yeah, that's going to affect things currently right this minute. But if you have a long-term approach, it's not going to mean worth a hill of beans. It's just, right? It's, it's the beans that are missing from Richard's chili. Right? There's no beans in the chili at Woolworth's, um, which I still.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  It's good chili.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  It is great chili. I had it for lunch. I love it. I wish there were some beans in it. I'm, I'm a chili bean guy, but.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Well, and that's the thing. It's chili. It's not chili beans. I had somebody correct me on this.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Is there cornbread?

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Chili.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  I don't care if there's beans or not, as long as it's cornbread.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  As long as there's cornbread, right?

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. With the honey butter on the side.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Or you just slather the chili on top of french fries and. Get you some salt.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  I got a grilled cheese the other day with a side of chili and that was really very good combo.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  I did the grilled cheese with Sammy and their soup. I'm not even going to try to say the name of it, the soup, but it was really good. Yes, it was really good. It's the first time I ever had it. And I'll still never say that word because I'm, I'll mess it up. But what was the burger combo while we're talking?

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. So I had the burger combo was the double cheeseburger, add bacon, but have blue cheese and Swiss instead of your normal like cheddar, American kind of cheese. I did the blue cheese crumbles and Swiss.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  I'm gonna try that.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  With a side of an afternoon nap.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Yes, pretty much. Yes. Uh, so yes, come on down to Woolworths, uh, join us and, uh, and have yourself a burger. Uh, we're going to take a quick break right now. When we come back, we have the one more question we want to hit and that's, uh, it's a good one. You'll want to stay tuned.

• 34:20Speaker 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.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Welcome back. Chuckling at one of the questions that just popped in that, uh, Stephen threw in there.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't see it.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  You'll chuckle when you see it.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Uh, welcome back to the Money Wise Show. Uh, love our listeners.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  I see it.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Uh, you want to hit it? Hit that question. We'll get to the other ones here.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  My family did a trip a few years ago. I was too nervous to get on a horse, so they made me ride a donkey. I will never hear the end of that one. Right there with you.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, I love it. We had another one here says, uh, this is a good question, but, uh, with war looming, uh, and I am only a couple of years away from retirement, should I be worried? I know you guys would know best. Blue cheese is disgusting. Uh, that's the one I was chuckling at. Both of them were good, but both of them were good. But blue cheese is fabulous, especially on a melted burger. Uh, it's, yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  It's each their own.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  I like mild blue, but when it gets that, you know, green.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  I didn't ask for roquefort.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  That's the.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  That's the really blue. Yeah. No. So, um,

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, the question there with the war looming and being only a couple of years away from retirement, should I be worried now? Should we be worried on a financial level? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, it's, it's as anything, right? We just talked about long-term long-term viewpoint. Should we be worried locally? You know, I don't know. I mean, with the oil prices going up to $93 a barrel, that's for WTI, that's Brent crude. $93 a barrel is pretty darn good. So economically here in Kern County, that might be a boon, but for the rest of the nation, it might not be, right? So it's a double edged sword when oil prices spike like they have.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  You're trying to say it depends.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  It depends again. I'm, you know, I'm going to continually ride that fence.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Right? So, you know, the question of should I worry? Here's the, here's the thing. We have always been the, of the belief that we should worry about the things of which we can control. Can you control whether or not we are at war with Iran, or if that war escalates, or if that war spills over to other locations? No, absolutely not. We have no control over that. You have no control over that. Right? So why worry about it? Right? To a certain degree. I mean, we all worry about our, you know, military and folks

• 37:22Speaker 02

  like that. But I'm saying worry in the, in the, the general sense for yourself. If you can't control it, why worry about it? What you can control is how you react to those stimuli. So if the war is something that worries you and you're wanting to reevaluate your, your financial position, that is a strategic move that you can control and your, your mindset has to be around that, not what's going on externally. So if you feel like, hey, maybe I do feel like I probably should be a bit more conservative. I'm getting close

• 38:02Speaker 02

  to retirement. I really don't want to risk this portfolio. What's the sequence of events? If I retire and all of a sudden we have another 2008 style crash, the minute that I retire, how will my portfolio react? How will I react if that were the case? Right? This is where you need to sit down with a financial advisor. Call Money Wise, talk to Dustin, call me, we'll talk you through it. We can run through the numbers. We can actually even stress test it. If we can look at it and say, hey, if when you retire, the stock market drops by 30%, are you still on track?

• 38:41Speaker 03

  That stress, stress test is so good.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  It is such a great tool.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Such great feedback on that. Cause we look at.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Not just that, we look at social security. We look at inflation. We look at medical costs. What if I lived to 95 as opposed to 89?

• 38:57Speaker 03

  What if inflation continues to be higher?

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  What if taxes go up?

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Right. So all of those things are great. So definitely give us a call.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  I'll just add to that briefly. As you're thinking about retirement, you know, most people are looking for some combination of three things is what I've seen. They need income. Cause that's how we pay our bills. They need growth.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Because you need to make sure that the money is going to still be there longer term.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Well, that's future income, right?

• 39:22Speaker 02

  The future income.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  But then there's that, you know, I need a bucket of money that I don't want to have to go back to work. Let's protect this.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Right?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  So it's about finding that right combination that works for you so that you can sleep at night, knowing that you don't need to worry. And that you have a good strategy for a long term.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's awesome. And so that's, you're absolutely right. So with that, we had one other question here that popped in and Dustin, I want to ask you this because we do get to ask this quite a bit. But what does it take to become a financial advisor?

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I could talk to you about that for an hour.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Exactly. Is this something that can be done at BC or Cal State? I'm going to be 20 in May and I've been interested in doing this for a long time. Great question. So Dustin. How do you become, you're talking to two guys that, well, you didn't make a mid-career change like I did. Mine was more of a mid-career change. Get to the age of 33, 34, 35 and was like, ahh, time for a change. I need to do something different. I've always wanted to do finance and here I am. Right. Here, you know, I won't say how many years later, uh, cause then you can do math.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  And then I, I think I started at 25.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  24, 25.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  And so this person.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  In the same age range.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  20 and thinking about it. There's a lot of different ways to get in.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Lot of avenues.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Definitely. And I don't know that there's a, a bad one.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Because it'll give you an opportunity to come in and learn from whatever role that you're able to get. What I mean by that is take, take whatever path you're able to, if that's what you're trying to pursue, as you're figuring out what you really want to do and you learn more about the industry.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  And what I mean by that, there, you can work in the life and disability insurance kind of world. You could work property casualty. You know, you're giving financial advice about insurance in those, but it's still helping you with the skillset of interviewing people, finding needs and filling the needs.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Right? There's brokerage places like Charles Schwab and there's a lot, a lot more of them.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Wire houses and stuff.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  You know, um, virtual, there's a lot of remote positions popping up too. There's independent offices like ours.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Right? Moneywise. There's lots and lots of different avenues. There's accounting places that you can work, you know, uh, big tech is, is big and there's a lot of upcoming tools and, uh, programs and even apps that are financial related. So I got, like I said, I could talk to you about this for an hour. There's so many different ways to get in, but just showing an interest is a good start. And really my encouragement to you or anybody else that's thinking about it is really look at who you are and what your skillset is and what your soft skills and, you know, intellectual interests are. Are you strong in math and problem solving or not? Right? You really want to look at who you are and, and where that might

• 42:22Speaker 03

  be a good fit. What would you add to that?

• 42:24Speaker 02

  One thing I might add, and this might seem boring, but.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  I would get up and I would watch CNBC or Bloomberg in the morning for the opening bell.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  You're going to catch some of the lingo. You're going to catch some of the language. You're also going to pick up on certain trends of, you know, how the economy works, right? I would definitely make sure that if you're in in college, that you're taking economics courses. Those are extremely important.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Specifically macroeconomics. Microeconomics is great as well, but I like, I really dug macroeconomics.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Those are really kind of what you would say is like nerdy. You're kind of nerding out on stuff like that, but you catch the lingo. You start to understand the causational effects of if this moves, then that moves and and all of those things. And and that's all on top of what Dustin just said about knowing who you are as a person. What are your soft skills? Do you know, are you personable? Are you going to be able to have that conversation with somebody sitting across from you? And letting them know that you're going to be okay, or hey, this is not sustainable where you're at. You know, because you have to have both. You have to be able to have both conversations.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Right? I have I have had those conversations more times than I can count of, hey, you're going to be fine. You can retire. Congratulations. Your last day is two weeks from now, right?

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Then you also have others.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  I have the others where it's like you're spending too much money. This is going to run out. It's you're an adult. You can make your own decision. But it's my job to let you know that this is not sustainable.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Here's a couple more years of savings in your future.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  And here's why I recommend that.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  You gotta be able to tell someone that.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Exactly. And you have to be able to do both. And that sometimes can be hard. So you have to know who you are when you're doing that. So by all means.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Little thick skin.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to have that thick skin. By all means, do it. I, you know, I, the water's fine. Come on in, right?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Anytime. Well, thank you very much, Dustin, for the show. Thank you to Ashley and Casa for joining us. That was a great show. A it's going to be a beautiful weekend out there. Go get some sun. Go get a hike in. Do something. Be smart, be safe, be money wise. See you next week.

• 44:43Speaker 01

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