5/22/25 Smart from the Start, Savvy Through the Storm: Bonds, Bills, and Budgets

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, May 22nd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Manageme instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise.

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  Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Money, money, money, money.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Ah, listen to that laugh. We miss it. Still get to hear it every once in a while. Got to hear it at a Dodger game with Mr. Ellis. Welcome to the Money Wise Show. This is the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway. I'm your host today, Chris Pelster, joined with?

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Seth Perry. Glad to be here, guys.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Mr. Seth Perry, thank you so much for stepping out of a pretty crazy week, crazy schedule. Really excited. I would love to be in this padded radio room more often. But you know what? Clients are numero uno.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  You can call the show or text the show. Just put 661 in front of it if you're going to text. So 661-396-1000.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Look at that. Golden voice. The golden voice. Yeah, so Mr. Ellis got to go to Dodger Stadium for the first time since everything happened, and he appeared to have a magnificent time other than the scoreboard.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Was that, was that his first game?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  That was his first game, yeah.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Oh, right on.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Yep, yep. And he, he was a little frustrated.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  He had, he had some, you know, some, some gurglings under his breath about the bullpen and about a couple of different things. That was the fourth straight loss for the Dodgers. They turned it around game two and three of this Arizona series. So, just love to share that with you listeners and some of the people who've been around for a while kind of know what Garo's situation is. And, and so it was a really, really great week in that front. But it has made this week busy.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Didn't you say something about like every game, there was some? And made a goal to watch every single game something.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, so people ask me.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  He's a serious fan.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  He's a very serious fan and I forget what year it was, but he's always been a big fan. He, he, what brought him out to California was the, being in the movies and a couple of different things, Hollywood type thing. And uh, so he became a Dodger fan right off the bat. And a few years ago, he's like, I'm going to watch every single Dodger game. And this was pre 2020. And so that this was when, I mean, we were so lucky and so blessed that a lot of people that had season tickets gave season tickets. Like, hey, I got four tickets. And we went to, I think we went in person to five or six games, which is more games than I'd been to in my entire life. In one season. And then he, he like really tried to make it an effort to, have the game on either in his office or actually move around his schedule. And I think he watched every single game that year.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Of course, they didn't win the World Series that year or anything like that. But, but uh, so I was watching a lot more than normal. My wife ended up, you know, kind of getting into the games and, and knowing who everybody was. And so we became Dodger fans ourselves, my wife even more so than me. So thanks a lot, Gero. Um, but uh, but yeah, yeah, I love the Dodgers. I liked it when I was a kid and, Oral Herschiser and back in the day.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  See, and I grew up the same time, Mike Piazza and all those days.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  But uh, was it Vin Scully night?

• 3:30Speaker 00

  It was Vin Scully night. So we came home with some bobbleheads. And uh, so yeah, it was, it was great. And that was all courtesy and, and generous, uh, gift from Sharice Grell, who's a friend of Money Wise and she does business consulting. She's come in and done a few things for us. And a great friend and a great community leader here and does a lot of wonderful things. So thank you, Sharice. If you're out there listening. It was absolutely magnificent. So I'm not sure. Have you guys even talked about it?

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Uh, Jared talked about it a little bit, but.

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  Jared got to go with us.

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  He's not a sports guy. So he was like, you know, that guy in the thing.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  There was like three touchdowns. No, I'm just kidding.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  But no, he, he did say it was uh, you could feel the, the vibe at the Dodger game because they'd been on, a losing streak at that time. So he said they can feel the vibe, but I, I was watching that game because I knew you guys were there and, I believe there was five or six home runs in that game.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. And most of them were not Dodgers.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Not, not by the Dodgers.

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  I think, I think, well, Mookie hit two home runs.

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  Mookie hit two and Otani hit one.

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  Nice. And that still wasn't enough? We had three home runs?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  I mean, it could be worse. The Padres lost last night 14 to 0.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, both the Southern Cal teams are just too ragged, but Dodgers ended up, you know, obviously turning the corner and winning the Arizona series. And so we'll see.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Luckily, there's only like 150 games left.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what's crazy. I still sit here and I go, Mr. October and October in the playoffs. It's like, that is a long season and they're playing every night. I mean, they, I mean, they barely make any money, most of them?

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. We're getting to that, we're getting to that tough part of a sports fan season, man, where it's only baseball for a long time.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Only baseball? Why do you say it like that?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

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  Are we, are we gonna do this on air right now? Are we?

• 5:18Speaker 01

  I mean, we can if you, we, there was a great basketball and hockey game last night. Both of them were, you know, history-making games. So it's still, I mean, it's not football season, but there's stuff to watch.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, you know, hockey is one of those sports. If you don't watch it on a regular basis, it is hard to know what in the heck's going on. And there's whistles when the puck goes certain places and you're like, why, why, why are they blowing the whistles right now? And icing and, you know, some, some hockey fans out there and like, Chris, it's really easy to understand, dude. Just watch a game and pay attention. But, uh, yeah. So anyways, thanks for always giving some love to G. And so, uh, great, great day. But before we do what we do, before we jump in and talk about different things, uh, we do like to go over the markets a little bit. Um, kind of a, a wild year. If you've been paying attention for a while, we've been talking about this. Uh, we, we, uh, had a positive quarter, um,

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  went into a major slide going into the second quarter. Um, some people panicked, some people, you know, thought this was the end. It definitely came at the helm of some very aggressive, uh, tariff talk, uh, from El Presidente. And, uh, and it, it spooked a lot of people and it's another one of those examples of why you don't want to be making decisions in the middle of, right after the market goes down. Think about how people were feeling right after the market went down and the tariff talk and all that stuff. Then he backed pedaled off that. There's still some tariffs going in place, some are not. And, and the market has basically recovered everything that it lost, um, during that pullback. And I think you mentioned on the year.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Just slightly negative?

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Slightly negative, half a percent.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yep. So when we talk about the markets, or I say that, we're talking about this one specifically, the S and P 500, there's other indexes and other investments. Many of you may be in bonds or different types of stocks or small mid-cap stocks. S and P 500 is the 500 largest companies that that trade on the, on the New York Stock Exchange or the Stock Exchange. And, and that's just kind of a scoreboard that we use to kind of talk about what is going on. So it's basically flat for the year. And if you look in the rearview mirror over the last 12 months, it's at about 10 and a half percent.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. It's not bad.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. Or 10 and a half percent in four weeks.

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  Four weeks.

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  Four weeks.

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  Four weeks it's up.

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  What's the, what's the 12 month? Did you look at that?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  I want to say it's around 10%.

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  So.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  I was talking with someone today and I was remembering, it was just not that long ago. I remember, I think we were on the radio and I don't remember it ever going down so fast in one, one or two days.

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  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  And here it is, right?

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  Big moves.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Right back to even.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Yep. And I'm not saying that that, you know, doesn't make people, oh, like you say this stuff and it makes me feel better. I mean, that is the beauty though, of trying to have a solid financial plan in place, checking some of the boxes of, of a solid financial situation. Then when the chaos gets going and the, the media's up in arms and the market feels like it's out of control, hopefully you have a, a solid plan in place that you can have confidence in and not lose sleep like people talk about. And you don't have to worry about that stuff. And if you're running to listen to the news and the media in the middle of the mess or the storm, man, they are not going to convince you to be a better investor and to make smart financial decisions. They're just not going to. They're

• 8:44Speaker 00

  going to fear and greed, one or the other. They're going to make you feel like you're missing out, fear of missing out, FOMO, or they're going to make you feel like you need to sell everything and, you know, move to the hills or buy gold or whatever it is. So just, you know, just to kind of let you know where we're at, that's where the markets are at. It's been a wild week. I think we ended up negative today a little bit, but because we've had such a big run for the last three or four weeks, coming off the lows when we hit the second quarter, that's where we're at with that. So if there's any questions, obviously join the show. You are who make the show what it is. One of the things that was big today in the news was, I don't know how to say it right appropriately.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  The big, beautiful bill.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  The big, one, one.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  One big, beautiful.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  One big, beautiful bill. And so, uh, we're not gonna try that too many times as far as our Trump. Yeah, that was bad. Yeah. But it did pass early this morning, so, um, I, I think a very fitting name for a bill that, that Trump wants to put a stamp on, it is the one big, beautiful bill. And, uh, so I did wanna just break down a little bit about some of the things that are in this bill. Um, obviously, you could, you know, it could make your head spin if you really tried to dive into these things, they're so overwhelming. Um, but a few notables or a, a few key things that come out of this, um, if you haven't, uh, looked into this prior to it being passed, um, one of the big ones that, that's interesting or has caught some news is, is the senior bonus.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Senior bonus is a $4,000 tax deduction for seniors. Uh, it does phase out for individuals at $75,000 of annual income, $150,000 per couple. But so for those folks, under those, uh, income restrictions, there is an additional $4,000 deduction that they will get. Um, it also permanently extends the 2017 Trump-era tax cuts, uh, which a lot of people, like I told people, if that, if that wouldn't have been renewed, everybody would have been probably paying another two, three, four, on average, uh, dollars a month in taxes. And so that would have hurt. Um, that went away when, when there was some Trump, uh, his previous presidency.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Um, and it does include the $20 deduction for small businesses. Um, there's a couple of new tax exemptions for tips and overtime pay. Um, everybody's kinda been talking about that, so for tips and overtime pay, there's some, some, uh, interesting things where you're not paying taxes on it. And so if you're in those industries, that overtime pay and tips is a big deal.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Now, how many people, Chris, I was in the restaurant business for a little bit. How many people are claiming their tips out there? Truly?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Everybody.

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  Everyone.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  All right, let's move on.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, I don't know. Uh, I mean, it's been so long.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  For those who are, and I know a lot of companies have to, they, they have to claim it and write it down before they hand it out. It's gonna save a lot of money, man.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's been, it's been a while since you've been in, in the, uh, in the food industry. And, uh, back in the day, Seth, they used cash.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Nowadays, it's the magical little pin that gets turned around and faced towards you to say, pay your... So, when it, when it goes through the pay system, I imagine there's less getting around it.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Right? Back in the day, if it was cash in your pocket, it was cash in your pocket. And, uh, you know...

• 12:05Speaker 02

  It was the biggest motivator. I used to work at, uh, Kelly's Coffee and Fudge, and then out at Mesa Marin. And I think that's how, and, and the Snowshack. These were, these were my first jobs, right? And I believe that's how, not that I'm good now, but I think that's how I learned how to communicate to people, not because I wanted to get better. I wanted money.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  And it was a great motivator. And the more, uh, jokes I could tell and talk to people and get to know them, the more tips I got, so.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  Have you ever thought about doing like a shaved ice day for the office with all those skills that you accumulated back in the day, like? I mean, I, you got some tiger's blood, can you make?

• 12:38Speaker 02

  You know what? I kept a little bit of the USA, which was, which is coconut, red rat, what was it? Red raspberry and blue raspberry. I could bring in a little tea blood.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  We can make this happen.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  There you go. There you go. A, a true entrepreneur, all the way back to the days of, which by the way, they're, they moved their location here in town, Shaved Ice.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  They're, they're everywhere.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, they, they had a building, though.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Oh, they did have a building. They moved it?

• 13:01Speaker 00

  They moved it, I believe, and I think it's getting fixed, because my kids were talking about wanting to go get one the other day.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  I believe the AC was messed up.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  Adult kids.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  I believe the AC went down last summer. It's not, that's not good in a shaved ice place.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Not in a shaved ice place.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Not good.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Nope. Would you like, uh, flavored water?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  That senior deduction is huge, though, and I think part of it was, you know, Trump was proposing eliminating taxes on social security during his campaign, but that clearly wasn't practical or feasible. But this is big. If, if you're on a fixed income, you're, you're, you know, thousand, two thousand in social security, this is a big win for you.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Yep. Uh, so, there is also... It raises state and local tax deductions cap forty thousand for taxpayers earning under five hundred thousand dollars annual. There's another one that I don't know too much about, but the MAGA savings account, providing a thousand dollars per child for parents. So maybe we can dig a little bit deeper into that, the MAGA savings account. It also a five percent tax on remittances, money sent abroad. So some people come here and send money elsewhere. So yeah, five percent tax on the monies sitting, being sent abroad. So

• 14:13Speaker 02

  As awesome as some of these things are, Chris, it has a price tag. I overlooked it, but it is, it is huge. Huge.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's good. I mean, the deficit that's been ran or some of the Doge cuts and different things has made a big difference as far as our budget and some of these different things. But, but obviously making some of these cuts is going to decrease how much taxes we're getting paid or increase expenses possibly. So I mean, kind of a, all that it says will increase the federal deficit by three point four trillion dollars by 2034. So the Congressional Budget Office, that's what their projection is. So 2034, three point four trillion. Hopefully, some of the spending is going down and it will stimulate economic growth. But obviously,

• 15:03Speaker 00

  critics are saying that it disproportionately benefits wealthier households and could lead to significant cuts in essential social programs. So, proof is in the pudding. I mean, it's one of those things where sometimes there's unintended consequences or things don't work out the way it is. But there's some of the good, bad, and the ugly of that. So

• 15:23Speaker 02

  I know it has the bond market up in arms. The bond market's moving around quite a bit. They're not quite sure what's going to happen, you know, with all of this being paid for. So, it'll be interesting to see, but it's funny how tariffs are tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. And that's

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Kind of fizzled out.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  There you go. So that's the one big beautiful bill, little radio breakdown. We've had some great questions come in that I think are going to give some substantial information and stuff for you guys to go over. So stick around after the break and we're going to go over those questions.

• 15:52Speaker 01

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

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Welcome back. This is the Money Wise Show. You guys are what make the show great, our wonderful clients and our wonderful listeners. And we really appreciate you and we get some great questions that come in that a lot of times guide our our discussions and obviously we want to address the things that are on your minds or concerned to try to help you become more money wise. So we did have a question come in.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  But before you read that, check this out.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Chris and Seth from Money Wise, talking about the one big beautiful bill.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  That's awesome, man. It's not weird?

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Not at all. Not at all.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Dad?

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh. Aye, thanks.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Thanks, brother.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Can it say anything you want it to say?

• 17:09Speaker 03

  I'm pretty sure.

• 17:10Speaker 00

  No, yeah. Well, he'll show us the rest of it after the show then.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  Can you, can you, if I gave you some audio of my wife's voice, could you make up like a compilation of her like respecting me and

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Complimenting you.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Complimenting me?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  I'm not stepping into that one.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Oh, technology.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Alright, alright.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Okay, back to

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, back to it. We had a message that came in and it did say, and by the way, if you want to shoot a text message or join in, 661-396-1000, join the show. Is it true higher income means higher credit score? My grandmother continues to push that saying on me. Also, can you share if there is a good checking app or bank that will be helpful to teach my teenagers? Thank you, guys. Well, first off, higher income does not mean higher score. Um, there's probably a reason why a lot of people would think this. Um, you know, uh, one of the reasons is the three things that affect your credit score

• 18:14Speaker 00

  could be easier with higher income. And what do I mean when I say that? Well, what affects your credit score? Paying bills on time is 35% of your score. Well, if you have higher income, it should be easier to pay bills on time, correct? So this is why some people might think this, but it does not necessarily mean direct, yes, you have higher income, you have a higher score because people can make a mess of it. But anyways, another part of yours is credit card balances, uh, is your utilization ratio. So if your credit card balances are low, you have more room or utilization on your cards or your credit lines, and that should help keep your score low. I mean, I'm sorry, higher, make it go higher.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  The other one is, uh, over reliance on credit. So meaning like if people don't have income and you're relying on credit to make the end of the month and to do this and to do that, and you're constantly using credit, it affects those other two things. It might be more likely then that you're not going to pay your bill on time. It might be more likely that you have a bad utilization ratio, which is going to bring your credit score lower. So in, in one sense, higher income could mean a higher score. But the thing that I will tell you in my experience is that sometimes as you start to increase in income, you start to increase your lifestyle. It's called lifestyle creep.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  And I'll tell you one thing that, that a lot of people don't realize. You keep a lot more of your first $75,000 of annual income. Then when you jump to now you're making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of annual income because of the way our tax brackets work. So a lot of people think, man, if I'm making seventy-five, imagine how much money I could spend and enjoy if I'm making one fifty.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  I can buy two times as much stuff.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Correct. But the way that our credit or the way that our tax brackets work, you keep less of that next seventy-five.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  It's progressive.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  It's progressive. So it doesn't mean that, man, if I could double my income, I'm gonna have double the spending money because Uncle Sam takes more of your second seventy-five. If that's, hopefully that's easy enough to understand, even, you know, I don't have a whiteboard or nothing that I can go over this with you on, but it's like, yes, higher income should make it easier to do all these things, but many, many times, you get to have higher income, you start getting involved in more activities and more things and more sports or whatever else it is, and next thing you know, you're spending more money, next thing you know, you're using credit cards more liberally because, oh, I have income to pay it off. And you can get yourself in trouble, and even though you have higher income, you actually, uh, you know, didn't manage it well.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think if a lot of people could go up and down their street, you know, and peek behind the, the curtain of what's really going on in people's homes, they would be surprised, you know, the, the couples that have the, the brand-new cars and all the flashy stuff, the, you know, just got the pool redid, did this, went on this trip, you know, a lot of them are broke, broke, like, flat-out broke. That's one thing that, that boggles people's minds is, while applying for a credit card, they're gonna wanna know your income and prove yourself, but as far as your credit score alone, it has absolutely nothing to do with your income. You could make ten, ten thousand bucks a year, a million bucks a year, and they could both have a six fifty. It doesn't take that into account. And I just wanted to add on, one thing I used to encourage, you know, when I was over at West High, um, and I wasn't aware of it, but I had a student who was seventeen, and

• 21:42Speaker 02

  I said, "Mr. Perry, look, I've got a seven-hundred-and-thirty credit score," or whatever it was, it was over seven-hundred. I'm like, "Okay, how does that work?" you know, and I looked at him, he's like, "Yeah, my, my parents added me on when I was little," and sure enough, you know, if someone's willing to do that, they can add you as an authorized user, and basically, you can start to get your credit built without doing a whole lot, but you gotta be careful.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Well, I'll just tell you the funny thing about the, on this discussion. So on the flip side, congratulations, sir, you have a credit score of seven-thirty. Guess what you have to tell lenders if you wanted to actually borrow money? Your income. How much income was your high school student making at West High?

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Maybe nothing?

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  So, it's, it's a combination.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  But it speeds them up if they're coming out of college and they've already got a 700.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  If he managed it well, he's going to be ahead of the game, especially if he starts to get income. But again, uh, credit score does not mean financial health. And that's what I want to always remind people. Your credit score is your, uh, basically how big of a risk you are to the, to the credit card company. So, um, uh, credit, uh, lenders do consider your income, not just the score. So that's what I was saying is the guy you were talking about, it was the opposite. He had a great credit score, but no income. They do, they do look at your income. So if you have income, they're going to be probably more willing to lend you money or to lend you a line of credit. But that's what I mean to say where that can end up, if you don't manage it well, you can actually get yourself in trouble.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  So just to, just to reiterate, high incomers can, uh, high income earners can still have bad credit because they can obviously make late payments. They can max out their credit cards. They can miss payments where they get sent to collections. Even if you have high income, all these things can still be true, which will greatly impact your credit score. Um, also if you have too many, uh, inquiries in the tank, meaning you're going out there and getting credit at every store you go to. And so sometimes people are not thinking about it like, hey, you can get $250 off today. If you're, you know, buy this on a new card, you open up a new card. Well, if you have all these new credit cards being opened up, you can have a low credit score, even if you have high income.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  It looks really sketchy, you know, to, to lenders because here's somebody coming along. Why is he getting all this credit is, you know, what's really going on?

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the risk is that many people do, if they're spiraling the drain, they're going around opening up credit everywhere. They, they run up those things and then they file bankruptcy. So again, that's, that's some of the behind the scenes.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  Yep. Here comes the repo man.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Here's the other thing to remember, low income individuals can have great credit scores. Because you could be a modest earner, you pay all your bills on time, you keep your balances low, you live within your means, and you could maintain a phenomenal, uh, credit score. And so unfortunately, if you don't have a lot of income, you can't go out and then just get a ton of credit maybe, because they're going to look at your ability to pay off if you wanted to extend credit lines or get another loan. But at the same time, you can have a phenomenal credit score. So hopefully that helps answer, uh, that question.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Kind of on topic, one of the services we provide here at MoneyWise, a complimentary financial review. And part of that is if you have a few different debts, you know, we'd be happy to put those in our system and kind of give you a strategy on how to best get out of those debts.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  There you go. So, the other part of this question was asking about credit, or I'm sorry, checking accounts for teens and stuff. And so, we'll follow up with that right after this break.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  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 MoneyWise financial advisor for a no obligation assessment.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  Wow. So, the high pitched.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  So, if we want Seth, if we want Seth piping up, we gotta put the high pitched songs on.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  I got you.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  That gets, alright, we know it now. We know if we want, sweet. By the way, just finishing that up and doing my research, there was this little blurb that was talking about income and credit scores. And it says, "A six-figure salary might make your wallet thicker, but it won't lift your credit score unless you manage your debt responsibly." Credit scores are about habits, not about how much you earn. Boom. So, just remember that, you know, credit scores, good credit scores are about good habits. And if, you know, you've got a lot of money and you have good habits, you're gonna have a good credit score. If you have median income, lower income, and you're making, you know, good, good, good decisions, good habits with, with how you handle your money, you're gonna have a great credit score. So, keep it up. If you're doing it, make the changes if needed. The other

• 26:24Speaker 00

  question, part of that question had to do with checking accounts for teens. A lot of people wanting to get their kids started. And so, there's a few that I can kind of mention. There's, there's one that's a paid app. And we can talk a little bit about that and kind of some of the things to consider. And then a lot now, banks are starting to offer more of these tools. So, what I tell people is sometimes, like, the large banks... Make money off having you have money sitting in their accounts and not paying you anything. And then they use it for banking stuff. And so some big banks are not great if you're looking for a high savings rate or a savings account or something like that.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  But because they're humongous banks, they offer certain tools and resources. Some even have to do with credit scores. Some of them offer credit, um, free credit scores or credit reporting and different things through your banks. Um, and a couple of other ones that do have accounts. So if you do, if you have a Capital One account or use Capital One for anything, they do have what's called money teen checking. Um, it's a free account, good option for teens, 13 and older. It's a full-fledged checking account experience. It offers a debit card, ATM access and mobile banking, along with some parental controls. Um, so you can kind of put some parameters on it and oversee it. Uh, but it is your teen's checking account, full-on checking account.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  So, uh, Chase Bank also offers, uh, First Banking, it's called. Uh, if you're a Chase cover customer, it's a, it's a good, um, it offers a good balance of features for younger teens and parental controls that you can put on the account. So they can't just go crazy. Uh, you might be able to spend, you know, limit how much they spend per day or, or something like that. Um, and you can also have a little bit on this one, you can have a little bit of chore and allowance management. So they do the chores, the allowance gets paid in there, um, that kind of a thing. The one that's probably more robust and I've heard more about, uh, i- is, is Greenlight. Um, it's an app and it's a strong contender for overall features, financial literacy tools.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  It offers debit card, parental controls, chore allowance and management. And it also has a little bit more on the side of educational resources. So, um, you know, you could probably sit down on a regular basis, talk about things with your kids. If you're doing that or your teens and go over some of their educational resources. Um, it is probably a, a paid option. So the other ones might be free with your banking, but there's just some options like that, that you can kind of look into if you want to get. You know, start getting started with your kids or have some sort of, because I mean, some people just nowadays, everybody's using, from what I've seen, it's like Zelle or

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Venmo.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Venmo and you're just Venmoing your kids' money and I mean, that's one way to do it, but of course, it's not necessarily truly teaching banking.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  And then they can go in, they can consolidate their accounts, they can see the money coming in and out and I'll be honest, Chris, I didn't know much about Greenlight and so just doing a little homework here and you know, you need your, you know, date of birth for you and the child, you'll need social security numbers, but it looks like they have a game that is free called Greenlight Level Up and you can play with your kids and so it's a, I guess it's making financial literacy cool, which is awesome. I think the advice I got a long time ago and I'm trying to do more of with my kids is, is just get them involved in an adult, an adult type activities, you know, so I think we went into Forgot's to get some to go, or no, to buy a gift card. And so I handed, I handed my credit card to my son,

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Beckham, who's eight, who is at an awards ceremony that unfortunately I'm missing, but I knew he was gonna win an awesome award, I can't wait to hear about it. Anyway, I said, hey bud, go in there and ask for whatever, $50 gift card, whatever it was. And, and I just kinda looked at him and he looked at me like, really dad? So he walked in and I walked in behind him and I kinda gave the lady a look and she said too, she's like, yeah, that's such a great idea, you know, I've been doing that with my daughter and he handled it like a boss, but that helps him to start to get the feel for how money works.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Yep, there you go.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Right on. So hopefully that helps you explore a couple of options for getting those teens started. And the one thing I'll say too, is it's great to teach them about banking and credit scores. Seth and I have actually worked on a couple of cases and client situations this week where we were crunching numbers where parents were wanting to be very aggressive with getting their kids set up for their future and even thinking about their kids' retirement. And it is amazing when you have time and the power of compounding interest. If you just start to set aside a little bit of money for the kiddos, custodial Roths or Roth IRAs, once they have to be 18 Have earned income, but you can get them started in that direction and it is amazing.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  When you think about the power of compounding interest from investing at 18 until age 60, 65, it starts to get ridiculous what your investments do over time. So many people don't get frustrated with investing because most people wait until they're 25, 35, 45, and then you only have a short amount of time to build up your investments and you don't get to take advantage of the most amazing thing, which is compounding interest. So, so get them started young, get them going down this path, even if they don't understand everything. Uh, start to throw a little money to some investments in too, so they even start to think about that as well. So, uh, so yeah, hopefully that dials that in.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Um, the other question that came in from another individual, so again, we, we really, really appreciate your questions. This is a great topic. Uh, I used to be an educator, Seth himself was an educator, so we think deeply about some of these things that we're going to talk about right now. And what is that? Uh, question came in or a comment said, I know you guys mentioned that we are, uh, we need more plumbers as well as major jobs that we need. But I know we also need more welders. I've been a welder for 25 plus years and make good money, but it's hard to find people to take welding jobs. Amen.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  I think it goes with a lot of the skilled trades. It's kind of a, a dying art. There's a lot of reasons for it. A lot of people are retiring out of it. I personally, having worked in a public high school, think a ton of it has to do with the fact that kids just don't want to actually physically work. This has kind of been ingrained in them through the education system, through the participation ribbon generation. You show up and you're breathing, so good, good job, right? And so to actually go out and physically work. But if you can, you know, encourage your kids or your grandkids to go out there and get, you know, one of these jobs where your hands on, um, you can make a ton of money. You can be a business owner. That's the other thing is it takes risk. They're scared of failing, you know? And so, um, but for those who want to persevere, you can make an insane amount of money.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, we've talked about it before. I, I think honestly, it's, it's one of the hugest opportunities for somebody that's young right now. If you could jump into a trade and get good at that trade, maybe the goal is I don't, you know, to be a, a welder for the rest of your life. You know, maybe you don't want to do that for 30 years and I can understand that, especially some tough welding jobs. You're rolling around on the ground, you're, you know, heavy equipment, heavy, heavy steel and different things and I could understand that. But if you get in there and you get good at a trade, that can springboard you into the business world. Because any business, you have to have a good or a service that other people want.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  And what we're having right now is the baton is not being passed from talented welders like this individual that, that's sent in here.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Great question.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Plumbers and, and, and electricians and these different folks, air conditioning companies, like the baton is not getting passed. And what's, what's happening right now too is, is even Wall Street's getting involved because they understand how critical these jobs are. So they're going around and buying up all these mom and pop, plumber companies and, and this and that. And eventually, there's going to be a lack of people that are going to want to go to work to these companies that some Wall Street, you know, venture capital company owns, you know, and, and the, the days of, you know, this is a company run family and it's a family and yeah, plumbing may not seem like a super sexy career, but it's like, man, you're doing a great service to people that need help. You, you could make great money doing it. And hopefully there's some great companies out there that you could work for.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Or if you get talented at the skill and have the drive to want to run a company, how great is it when you're the boss, but you also know how to change and, and work on the toilet yourself?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Yep. And I reached out to a family member, uh, who is in the plumbing industry and I said, hey man, can you give me, uh, some of those positive things you love about your job? And, and this is his list. There's high demand, which we're talking about. There's security with that high demand. As long as you go in and do a great job, just try to outwork everybody. There's potential high earnings. Uh, this is one I love the most. Everything, every day is something different, you know? A lot of people's jobs, they same thing over and over, but you're always going to have a different job, something different breaks, different system, different house, same with welding. Uh, helping people is rewarding. And lastly, he says, you're self-managed for, for the most part. Once you get trained up under apprentice, you go out and you do your own thing. They're not telling you exactly how to do things. You get to, you get to do it yourself. It's cool.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  I, uh, I'll, I'll tell you, one of the, one of the things that, um, I I don't know if jealous is the right word, but when I think about like plumbers and welders and stuff like that, the sense of completion that you have to get at the end of a project.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  It's done.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like, it's like you take raw steel or whatever, or plumbing, it's this framed house that needs plumbing and ran all through it so that it works. And as stressful and as crappy as that is, it's like you, you, you jump into that project, you get fast and efficient as much as possible so that you're, you're making your money and you're leaving. If you're hourly, maybe you're not as convinced to work quickly, but that's where, when you jump over into the owner world and start thinking like an owner, man, if we could knock out these houses, you know, you start to do those number crunches. But that's the one thing that I will tell you, like as a financial advisor that works on an ongoing basis with clients, like there's, there's not really a sense of completion. It's always moving and different

• 36:43Speaker 00

  people's situations. Obviously, long, long-term or big picture would be if I had a client for 20 plus years and they unfortunately pass on and the money goes down to their kids. And I remember talking about putting their kids on as beneficiaries. That is definitely rewarding and, and we've seen that and we do that for folks. I mean, that baton being passed in their personal finances and their estate. But, uh, you know, just, just, man, I, I do kind of look at those and go, man, it must be so nice just to like knock out a project in four days and you move on to the next one. You knock that project out and you're getting better and you know, the first few are probably so overwhelming and you're above your pay grade, maybe a little bit, but then little by little you get better and better and better and you just, we can knock this out.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  I got that at Halliburton when we would go out and as, as an engineer, we'd go out and help, you know, help drill the well. And then when we're done and you close up your unit, you put your lock on it, you know, and you drive away, you're done.

• 37:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, you feel great.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  You feel great. It was nothing to take home.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, there you go. So hopefully younger people will see this as an opportunity, get out there and get to work. I mean, unfortunately our education system doesn't have as many opportunities for those kids to home ec and some of these different hands-on things. Uh, but man, there's a great opportunity for those that are willing to jump out there and get their hands dirty. So, uh, we're going to take one more break and we'll close out the day.

• 37:57Speaker 01

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

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Higher, higher.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, this feels like when I was getting bullied in high school. You baited me, dude. This isn't fun.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  Alright, we know how to get Seth singing now, so. Uh, thank you guys for making the show what it is. You may want to jump in on this conversation. Uh, the last, uh, topic of the trades and welding and getting people into those jobs. It's very difficult. Um, proud to say, my nephew won awards for his welding in welding school in Tennessee.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  And so for a few years in a row, he was like the welding champion. And so he leaves high school being able to throw down a mean bead. I mean, ready to rock.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  He really left his mark, he did, huh?

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh. So, the cool thing is, is I, I mean, that's why I am so proud of the C-Tech Center. Getting some actual like, I mean, and I don't say actual. Some people that aren't going to go the route of edu- education and, and, and, uh, those things. They leave with certificates and on the job training and, and hands on skills. Um, you know, if you want to be a firefighter, you can leave there ready to basically apply for jobs.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Cosmetology.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  All kinds of things. I mean, it's like, so, so some of that is swinging back to that direction. Really proud of what Kern County has here in town with, with Kern High School District. Uh, but you know, I just was thinking about my nephew that's entering the workforce now with, um, with, uh, with, with the ability to, to weld. And I think he's already putting it to work in a, some sort of rock quarry or something. Sounds wild, but again, if he stays diligent, uh, you know, maybe you can use that as a springboard. Own a business or whatever, but we were talking a little bit about then about some of our first jobs and so, uh, so yeah, first and foremost, we wanted to know Mr. Stevese. What was job number one?

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Oh, sweet.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. That was definitely in my, my first few jobs. Yeah?

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Oh, hello.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Did you, did you make, did you make them money or did you eat all the profit? Yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  You get sick of it?

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Oh, oh.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Cinnabon Secrets, huh?

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Somebody right now is headed for Cinnabon, dude. They just changed their mind. They, they wouldn't hire me at Cinnabon. They looked at me, they're like, no.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Hey, it's a liability.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  So, uh, I, I actually, my very first job was, uh, was mowing lawns with my dad. He was a firefighter. So on his days off, back in the day, you know, it was not maybe quite as lucrative or, or maybe pay was a little lower. Um, and so he, on his days off, was, was grinding away and, and mowing lawns. And so, um, I would help him do those, uh, lawn mowing jobs. And then the big one that I had was at our church, which was Panama Baptist Church on Tapp Highway, which is now Daybreak Baptist. So, cool. And, uh, so I actually rode the riding lawnmower on the big old grass out front. And, uh, the, the, the, the benefit was, it was kinda like a go-kart, right? So it was work, but, and he made me work, man, and I love it. I look back and I'm so glad I had those work ethics

• 41:30Speaker 00

  because he would make me, uh, scoop up all the, um, the dirt from the, the gophers. A lot of people might just run over them or whatever. He made me go and scoop them all up, put them in a, you know, wheelbarrow and wheelbarrow them off and, and it was, it was, it was great. So, uh, that was basically the first job. I also worked in agriculture a little bit with a family farm, uh, friends that owned a family farm. Um, and then I too, uh, coached a couple of teams through N O R and, and, uh, and so, uh, yeah, yeah, coached some basketball for N O R. What about you, Mr. Perry?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Well, unofficial job was selling candy out of my backpack. We'd go to Smart and Final in the morning, get a box, a couple of boxes of candy and sell it out of my backpack at school. My first W two job was Snowshack. It was Snowshack, man. And I remember you made me think of my grandpa. He would make me drive nails. We'd get a, we'd get old dusty, old, uh, two by four and, and use nails and I would just sit and drive nails. And I'll tell you what, man, like you learn a lot doing that. And those are good skills we can all be doing with our kids and grandkids.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  That's funny you say that, cause my older brother, I was a freshman, he was a senior and he did half days, so.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  You know, I did half days my freshman year. I was like, okay. So he would go to Smart and Final and he would fill up his backpack with these, the caramel apple pops that were a big thing in high school and he would sell them five for a dollar, one for a quarter, five for a dollar. And he would come and that was how we made our lunch money.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Little hustlers, man. Yeah, I remembered there was a girl in some of my classes and she would bring fresh baked cookies, man. She'd sell those things out. And I remember she got so popular that they ended up like having to tell her like, you can't do that anymore and this and that. So you're kind of breaking rules. But so it's like, how do you push that entrepreneur spirit, but, but also follow the guidelines and not have it be a major distraction?

• 43:18Speaker 02

  They sell different cookies in high school now. I can tell you.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Certainly. Yep. Different brand of cookies. So.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  Uh, they help with sleeping.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  I looked up, I was just curious, Warren Buffett's first job, he had a paper route.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  So that's some inspiration right there, man.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. Donald Trump, obviously. We looked up that. He was obviously employed at his father's real estate company in, in Brook, Brooklyn and Queens. And what they basically did was they bought lower income houses and turned them into co-ops. So I'm not sure how young he started and what he was doing, but that was, that was his first rule.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Elon Musk tended vegetables and shoveled grain on his cousin's farm in Canada, which I think has worked out for him.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  There you go. Well, again, you guys, thank you so much for making the Money Wise Show what it is. Your guys' questions, your guys' comments, tuning in and, and sharing the show. We didn't have a guest today, so we wanted to bring some information and some news. And they were born out of great questions that were, were on your guys' minds. So send them in if you can. We did talk about the big, beautiful bill. It is passed. And so hopefully you guys can dive into it and know how it's going to affect your situation. And hopefully it does bring some, some good economic reality to our future. But continue to be money wise. Be smart, be safe. Most of all, be money wise.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  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.