6/9/25 Wedding Sticker Shock, Tax Mistakes, and Why College Grads Are Struggling to Find Jobs

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, June 9th 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. 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. Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and?

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Sammy Abiyawi. This is a, an interesting day in the markets today. I don't know if you saw this, but we're about just over 2% below the S and P 500 all-time high. Just like a little-

• 1:22Speaker 00

  So we've recovered some ground.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  We've recovered a lot of ground. If you look at a chart on the S and P 500 where it was, you know, just a, just a few months ago, just, just before-

• 1:32Speaker 00

  April 7th, Liberation Day?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Yes, before then. It looks like we peaked, we peaked around February in the S and P 500, about 6,143. So about mid-February is where the S and P 500 peaked. It dropped down from there to its low, its recent low of about 4,900 on April 7th. But since April 7th to, to now, it's almost a 20% increase in the S and P 500. That's, that's remarkable.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  It is. I mean, April 7th where June 9th-

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  That's just, just two months?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Just barely two months. We've seen a-

• 2:17Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  20%. I'll take 20% in two months. Right. It's not bad.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  It's not bad at all.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I think.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  20% appreciation?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  I mean, we're still just 2% below the all-time high of the S and P 500. But I've got to say, this is just a good example of you only have to go back two months before there were a lot of people, you know, really worried about what was going on in the world, very concerned about some of the policies that were being passed or not being passed. And there was just a lot of fear. And what we were shouting at that time here at Money Wise was-

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Don't try to time the market.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Stay the course. If you have a strategy, stick to it.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Things will work out.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  And this will pass. These types of events always pass. And you can go back in history, and there's so many times where you, I guarantee you or your neighbor felt like the sky was falling. There was just, you know, doom and gloom. And, you know, the fortunate thing about time is that it will, it will help heal some of those, that pain that happens. And, and if you, as long as you don't go off course and just, you know, stick to your plan in terms of, you know, long-term investing, people pull through it.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  So I just, you know, I read that this morning. I thought, wow, okay, yeah, you know, looking at S and P 500 now, now just over, at about 6,000. And I think that's good news. Not that, now, this could all change very quickly. We could have another pullback. But we had some good economic data come out last week, employment numbers. And there was several headlines saying, oh, you know, recession averted.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Soft landing accomplished.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. Which I always chuckle at that because it's like, I mean, that's just as annoying as a headline that says a recession is on its way, you know, as, as one's saying, hell, we've averted a recession. Well, we've averted it for a while.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  You have to, recessions are built into the, into the, into the economy. And they're just an inevitable part of a free market capitalistic system.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  And but we'll take the wins and you know, today we had, I think, you know, so much of the over the last several months of the market has been driven headline driven by tariff talk and trade talk and today is no different where there was talk between President Trump and and Chinese President Xi Jinping and that is apparently going well. We'll see. It's so hard to to know these days about what's what is actually happening behind the scenes, but we definitely need China. China needs us. We want that. We want that to smooth out as much as possible and

• 5:17Speaker 00

  For market to stabilize and just go on our merry ways.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Good stuff. Good news, man.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is good news. I'm happy. I'm happy for the markets.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  And we have a few listener questions or at least a listener question.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. Good morning. I listened to the podcast and really enjoyed that I can send a message in and I know you will get it. Some shows say you can message them, but they never cover it. But my question is, how do they? How do day traders avoid the wash sales?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Good question. So let's talk about the wash sale. I think it's been a while since we've mentioned what wash sale rule is. So the main, the main aspect to this, this is an IRS regulation that essentially is preventing taxpayers from being able to claim a loss from selling an asset while maintaining essentially the same investment. That's, that's obviously what makes sense, right? Like you, you can't, in, in the stock world, you can't sell a stock for a loss and then turn around and just immediately buy that same stock and go, oh, well, there's my loss. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to use

• 6:33Speaker 01

  those losses to offset, you know, the other gains or gains that I have inside my portfolio. And so what the IRS has done is you, you have 30 days before and 30 days after. So essentially a 61 day total window that this rule Applies. This means you can't go and buy the same investment, can't buy the same stock after, after, you know, selling it like that. And, and, and having a loss and you can't claim that loss. You've got to wait those, those either 30 days before or after that, that loss sale before you can buy that same security. Now, the question is, how, how do you avoid that? How do you avoid the, the wash sale?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And there's a few ways, and this is, these aren't loopholes. These are legitimate, legal ways that you can avoid the wash sale. The first way, obviously, is just wait the time period.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  So instead of 30 days, wait 31 days?

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yes, just wait just past that and then go, okay, go knock yourself out, you know, do, do what you need to do. And then you can, you can essentially, you know, avoid that, that penalty or that problem. The other thing is that you can buy a substantially identical or, or something that is, is close, but is not the same stock. So take, for example, you had Pepsi stock and you sold it for a loss. You could go around and this turn around and buy Coca-Cola. It's a different, it's a different company. It's in the same sector, but because it's a different company, okay, go ahead, you know, you can, you can do that.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  And that's what a lot of institutional traders will do is they will, you know, buy, buy a substitute for a substantially identical. Not substantially identical, but a, a, one that is similar enough that you're still staying within that sector. You can obviously, if you're day trading, that's a very different beast than if you're using, you know, more diversified, long, long-term hold strategies, which usually involves using ETFs or mutual funds. That's another way to avoid the wash sale, I guess, is just avoid day trading.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Buying individual, individual stocks. So, you know, that's the, that's kind of the, the short answer to it. And hopefully that helps.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's good. I'm glad we addressed it. Thanks for the listener's question and keep them coming, please.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  We had, today was a big day for Apple, the company which is trading first place is the world's most valuable company between Microsoft and Nvidia. There's kind of a back and forth there, but today, Apple had their worldwide conference, Worldwide Developer Conference. This happens, I think it's just once a year that Apple does this. This time around is to talk about their new operating system. I usually, in the past, I've always been kind of excited about this, but it just seems like the iPhone has been pretty much the iPhone, static. You and I were just talking about this, because you just upgraded your phone.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  I just upgraded. I went from an iPhone 13 to an iPhone 16, and I'll be honest with you.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  You were like, eh, yeah, right.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Maybe with the AI thing, but other than that.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Seriously, the same, almost.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  No, I'm not a techie, like these young guys, and they use some apps, and maybe I don't know how to access 100% of the capability of the iPhone, but for an average person like me, it looks the same.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  It's just my speaker, the speaker on my phone was bad. That's probably the reason number one. It was out of warranty. I needed, you know.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, like when you spoke, like making calls on the speaker and that?

• 10:32Speaker 00

  It was very staticky, and I was like, no, I got, I need, I need a new phone. Sometimes it was, it'd freeze too, from time to time. So I was like, I can't be in a meeting, and then this thing just freezes on me, just not professional. So that's the main reason why I changed it.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  I gave it to my son, though.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I, that's what I've done too.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  If it freezes, it's okay for him.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that was, that was our, our operation in our household, in our family, was I, I would, I would have a phone, and then when it started to act up or give me problems, okay, it's time to hand it down to the kids.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  It's a good money saver, though.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  It's great to have minions.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Right. Take my old stuff.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  No, that's, I mean, that's, that's, that's me, but I bet you the AI connoisseurs or Apple connoisseurs, but no, it's different.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Operating system does this and does that. And I'm like, okay, good for you, brother.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. It's, it's, it is such a, a, I'm just shocked at how we've become used to just buying regularly a thousand dollar cellphone.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  So, I, I mean, I, I changed carriers and I got a free phone. That's me. The other reason why I was able to and wanted to do it because I didn't have to fork a thousand bucks.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  What, you switched actual carriers, huh? Can you, are you comfortable talking about what happened?

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  So, who did you dump and where'd you go?

• 11:56Speaker 00

  I went from Verizon to T-Mobile and, and I had T-Mobile years ago and it's a lot easier when you travel internationally, especially to Europe. T-Mobile is awesome.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Because you have access to your texts, to your data and limited.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  You didn't have that with Verizon?

• 12:12Speaker 00

  No, Verizon, you have to pay either the day rate or you do like a one month type of thing.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  And it was not cheap.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  And frankly, the coverage was very identical as far as coverage. T-Mobile lacked behind Verizon 10 years ago. I don't think that's the case anymore, personally, in my experience.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I'm sure there's still a difference between the major carriers, but now that there, there are these, I don't know what they're called, but they're like smaller companies that.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  They use the same.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  They use the same.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Same towers.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Spectrum uses Verizon towers and you can get a $25 plan through Spectrum. Maybe it's even cheaper when you bundle the family and.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  But you're using Verizon towers.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  This was.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  And you get a free phone.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  This was part of the government's antitrust.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Work in breaking up like AT&T and breaking up these big telecommunications companies. And one of the ways that they did that was they required them to keep some room there for these different companies, smaller companies that can come in, use their services, but they do the, they do the marketing.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, like Metro, Metro, Metro PCS.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Cricket.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Cricket and all that. I mean, they used to like really be sucky. I think now Metro uses the T-Mobile towers.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a company, I think was purchased or now is a, is a subsidy of, of T-Mobile.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Well, to me, when, when I travel to Europe and even North Africa, you, you get to use T-Mobile, it's a lot cheaper than Verizon.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  And their customer service is really good. I mean, I know I'm giving them a lot of, but that's, that's my experience.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  So you didn't have to pay anything for the phone?

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Nope. Zero.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Just signed up for a plan?

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Twenty-four, twenty-four, twenty-four month plan and they, even if I had, like, this, this deal was a really good deal. Even if I had money owed on my phone with Verizon, they would have paid it off and then gave me a new phone. My phone was paid off. So it was an easy switch for me.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Nice. Nice.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, it was good. I'm happy with it. So.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Well, good. Why don't we do this, Sammy? We'll take our first break of the day. We come back, I want to talk about weddings and the cost of weddings.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Wedding cakes and wedding cookies. Yes.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 14:36Speaker 02

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

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Thanks for tuning in. We're the Money Wise Show.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Rest in peace Sly Stone. This news just came out. Sly Stone from Sly and the Family Stone passed away. He was a pioneer in, uh, in music. He in soul psychedelic rock and gospel kind of all mixed together. Uh, he was, uh, eighty-two, I believe. When, yep, just passed away, eighty-two. Uh, Sammy, of course, you would know Everyday People or the song, uh, I Want to Take You Higher. Those are some, some of their big hits. Their number one, several number one singles. Uh, California Boy, right up here, grew up in Vallejo.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Actually went to high school with my, uh, my uncle and my father-in-law up there at Vallejo High School. So, uh,

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Rest in peace.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Rest in peace, yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  He was great. I just, there was a really good documentary on, uh, one of the streaming services just came out, I don't know, a few months ago, and I just happened to watch it and it was like, wow, impressive. Anytime somebody comes into the, into like the music world and just does their own thing and just kind of innovates, it's, it's, it's super impressive.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. The, the, the art of music is not an easy one. I mean, the creativity and all that, especially when you come up with some type of a single or an album that just hits it, hits it off. How are you gonna follow that?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's exactly what happened to him. Like just like hit it just with these hits and, uh, you know, performed at, uh, Woodstock and there was just, you know, it was just the top of their game. And then, you know, other, other musicians and bands started to come about and, and do similar, you know, psychedelic funk. And then he just kind of got washed out there and then had a, a, a very long struggle with substance abuse.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  And which is also really common in that world and, um, so yeah, it's a, it's a sad, sad day. Also, kind of speaking of celebrities, have you heard of Mr. Beast?

• 17:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  So, huge.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  My son talks about him all the time. He's got a chocolate bar that now sells at Walmart.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, and my son's like, hey, can I have the Mr. Beast chocolate bar? And I'm like, who's Mr. Beast? And he told me who, and I'm like, uh-uh, I'm not paying $7 for that.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  He has 400, over 400 million subscribers on his YouTube channels. He's one of those, like, huge.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's got a Prime show.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Our buddy Dan was on it.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Dan Betts, yeah.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Was it, are we talking about the one where it was, people were?

• 17:44Speaker 02

  It was like a, um...

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Competition.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Where you could win 110 million or something like that?

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And it's just like they do this, you know, slow process of elimination of all of these people.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I'm trying to remember the name of the actual original show that it's based on. It's the, um...

• 18:03Speaker 00

  It's like Survivor?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  No, it's kind of like, it's a big show on Netflix where they, they start with 100 people and they do like some types of games and as people get eliminated, you know, the, the harder the game gets and, you know, they cut it down to one person, but that's what Mr. Beast did. He, he was, he blew up on this game. He, he actually, um, had 1,000 people, I believe, that started with it and a couple local. We had Dan Betts on the show that came on and talked about it.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was crazy.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  It's really fascinating because it's sort of like, it's sort of a new, fairly new arena, these influencers and YouTubers that can just go, you know, into the stratosphere. Last year, Mr. Beast Industry had a, a business that was valued at just under $500 million. He's a 27-year-old and his real name's Jimmy Donaldson, by the way. And this is, the reason I'm bringing this up is because Mr. Beast has announced recently, about six months ago, that he's engaged to another YouTuber and they, uh, they got engaged on Chris

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And he is openly mentioned that he is borrowing money from his mother to pay for the wedding. And his explanation is that he is investing, he's personally, quote, "I personally have every little money. I have very little money because I reinvest everything." So that's his, that's his reasoning behind borrowing money from mom to pay for his wedding. He's forecasted this year for his company to bring in revenues of nearly $900 million.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  And he's borrowing money from mama?

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's borrowing money from mom for his wedding. I have no idea how much he's planning on.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Do you think the future wife is rethinking the relationship? Based on this announcement?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Well, you know, this, this, as Sammy, we were talking about this, the show today, I thought, oh, this is perfect because it's been a while since we've talked about the correlation between how much people spend on their weddings.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  And how many of those go, end up in divorce. So in, in real simple terms, there was a research that was done by Emory University just a few years ago, and they examined over 3,000 married couples in the United States. And they found that there was a clear inverse relationship between how much they were spending on the weddings and how long these weddings lasted. So research has found that spending more than $20,000 on the wedding ups the odds of divorce by three and a half times compared to somebody who spends between $5,000 and $10,000.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  So, so the reason one for divorce in the United States is a financial reason? Do you think if they had saved that money and put it in a money market account or a CD and they had some savings, it would, the, the marriage would have worked better?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  I, I, I think it would drastically increase the odds.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  I would say definitely would have worked better.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yes. I, well, certainly it, it doesn't help the wed, it's not, there's no proof that it's going to help the success of a wedding by having a big expensive wedding.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  No.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  It might be fun.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  A bunch of people coming in, eating your food, dancing on your music, maybe giving it, taking a give, take away with them or something, and then they're gonna complain about something. Oh, the food was drab. The bread was not there. I'm like, come on.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know if you're like this, but I I I'm okay going to some weddings, but sometimes it's just, it's like, it like, it's kind of a pain.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  I like fun weddings. Fun weddings where you go, you eat and you get up and dance.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  You know those sit down weddings where people are like all uptight, wearing these dark suits and stuff? That's not for me. That's why I like Moroccan weddings. Cause you go, you eat and you go to the dance floor and burn every calorie you just ate. I love that.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  You know, I have, I I've been to weddings here in the United States and there is like some fun weddings.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  And they, and and I'll be honest with you, some of the friends that got married and have had done this, this weddings, they did not spend a lot of money. They just made it unique.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  And they did a lot of the stuff themselves.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  It's not about the money you spend. You're not gonna impress anybody, in my opinion.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Right. You had some, you had some statistics, I don't know if you still have them, but it shocked me what the average.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the average, the average wedding costs between thirty three to thirty six thousand dollars depending. But if you go to states like New Jersey, New York and and DC, that's between fifty to seventy thousand dollars. And and and and the breakdown is just mind.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  The venue and the catering, twelve thousand dollars. Photographer, almost three thousand dollars. Videographer, twenty three hundred bucks. Flowers, twenty seven hundred dollars. Wedding bane, twenty nine hundred bucks. Then the cake, the hair, the makeup and all that stuff.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Right? Costing you thirty, thirty three, thirty five thousand dollars. That's a down payment on a house.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Now you're starting your life and you got no savings, but you had a great wedding.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Or you owe mom money.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Oh, you owe mom, Mr. Beast owes mama money, you know? It's, it's, it's, it's interesting and and and culturally, it's also interesting, sure. So when I, when you go to Indian weddings, for instance, you know, they they last three, five days.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Talk about an adventure.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wonder what they average cost is.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  So, so, so I don't have that info, but when I was a banker, I was invited to a couple Indian weddings and some of them were overseas. This client invited people to go to Thailand for the wedding, shared. It was a four hundred bedroom hotel that got, he, he, he leased that whole thing for, for a week for his guests.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:05Speaker 00

  The giveaway at the end of the wedding was a gold coin valued at about twenty five hundred bucks.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:11Speaker 00

  I'm not kidding you. This is, this is real.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Okay, so I, I just did a quick search. Indian American weddings are significantly more expensive than the average American wedding. The average cost for an Indian wedding in America between three hundred and three hundred and twenty five guests is, get this, roughly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We're talking like five times more.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Yes, so, so, so I've been to a Jordanian wedding.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  People from Jordan.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Dude.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Same, same kind of thing.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Same kind of thing. The bottles of, of alcohol served at that table was blue label. And if you don't want whiskey, you can have vodka. We had, they had that gray goose.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  And then, and then the wine was some like really, really up, up there wine. And as soon as the bottle ends, the server comes running with another one.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  I'm not kidding.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Wow. Uh, uh, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars though for a wedding?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, I think that wedding that I attended was a little bit more than that.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  That is.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Judging by what I saw.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  And, and is it, is it, do you have any experience in knowing if it's like they're paying cash for this? Or is like the family going into debt for this? Or is this something like culturally is just saved up for and it's known?

• 25:30Speaker 00

  It's the father and the mother of the parents of both the bride and the groom that pay.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  They both pay for it.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  It was an experience though. I mean, live music, the band was from Jordan. They flew here to do the traditional music and stuff. It was a fun, fun event. I'm not gonna, it was fun.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  I'll bet. I'll bet it was fun.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Food was excellent. Oh, yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  The, the show, Mr. Beast's show is Beast Games. It's like Squid Games, but no one dies.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  On Prime?

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. Have you seen, have you seen any of it?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  No, but I, I, I read that it's been so successful that they renewed the show for season number two and even season number three on Prime.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I only saw a couple of episodes, the first couple of episodes, and it is pretty fascinating because really what it's talking about is how people's relationship with money, what they're willing to do or not do, because they give them all kinds of incentives. Look, you can stay in the game, or you can walk away right now with this money, but if you walk away, then you screw everybody else that's right by you, right? So you're making these weird social.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Experiments.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Experiments. Yeah, it's a huge social experiment on people's value of money, what's important to them, how they justify certain actions to get paid.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  It was hard to watch. I watched a couple of episodes with the family and after seeing how people reacted and crying and the world is ending if I don't get this one, I'm like, you didn't have the money in the beginning.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  It's just relax.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yep. And this leads us right into what our next topic's going to be. We're going to take a break, but we come back. There is a huge rise in the use of BNPL. BNPL, you know what that stands for?

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Buy now, pay later?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Buy now, pay later. And it's kind of talks about, we hit on this with the Beast Games, you know, what people, what happens to us psychologically when we, when we already, already are thinking we need or we deserve something. There's some really interesting studies on this. You're not going to want to miss it. We're Money Wise and we'll be right back.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Welcome back. We're Money Wise. Kung Fu Kenny. That's Sammy. I'm Sharad. We're your hosts today. You know, it's clear Sammy that people are not just using buy now, pay later for designer bags or big games. They're using it for like that candy bar at the grocery store. They're using it for just little things.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  That's ridiculous, but also scary. When I hear things like that, that could be an indication where the economy is, especially some people having difficulties, you know, meeting and meeting just regular things like groceries for their families.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  And that's the scary part.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Now, if that's the case, we know that there's a lot of challenges. You and I attended the Cap K event last weekend and their mission is to help people and have food security. When I hear this, is that's what we're having? One of the most developed countries in the world and we have people here starving.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  That's the scary part. Now, if you're using it just because you can't afford something and you still want it, let's talk about that.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  And the ramifications of it.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  It's alarming to me too, because if you're financing your basic necessities, you're essentially borrowing from their future income to pay for your current needs. And this can create, and you and I have seen this over and over, a cycle where each paycheck is already committed to past purchases.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  And that makes it really hard for the average consumer to understand where they sit financially. So it creates this cycle and this spiral, this death spiral with debt and with, you know, managing your money. So the problem is getting worse. Forty-one percent of buy now, pay later users made a late payment in the past year. It was, that's up from thirty-four percent the previous year. So we've seen a significant increase in the number of people that are essentially late or defaulting on their buy now, pay later purchases. You know, you start defaulting on that.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  And you're defaulting essentially on paying for things that are necessities like groceries. And now we could have a serious problem. We have a serious problem on our hands.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, so companies like Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay. What they rate you on, what... So, once you start using the service, buy now, pay later, and you sign up for a payment schedule at a high interest rate.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  They grade on a curve. So, their algorithm already calculated what the losses are going to be.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  And they're okay with that.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Because, let's say you and I go to the store and we both use the service, and you decide not to pay, or for some reason you're not able to pay, but I am paying. And even if you just made one payment, your one payment and my consecutive payments, they're okay. They're already getting their money back because the interest rate is so high. So, they're grading on a curve. So, they're not gonna lose money.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 31:20Speaker 00

  Because the sample here is millions of people using the service.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  And conversely, because the credit card companies have already baked in to this, into their formula, that there's a certain number of people are just gonna run away.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  They're not gonna pay it back. There is also the incentives that they give for those who are responsible with their debt are getting better and better. Like, there are more points and credits and rewards out there. But, of course, none of those rewards or those points or credits are gonna outweigh the interest that you pay, or the fees that you pay if you're not paying off your debt every month or regularly. And so, they also know, the credit card companies also know that people are gonna get hooked on thinking they're getting some points, getting airline miles or whatever. Because they think that that way they can justify carrying the debt on a credit card,

• 32:19Speaker 01

  which, don't do that. Don't do that. But you can win the game if you don't pay any fees, don't pay any interest. Now you're part of that minority of cardholders that the credit card company doesn't want. But they know there will also be there. There'll be a small percentage of those people that actually do that.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  So Walmart recently broke up with Capital One. This was they had a, you know, an agreement, their Walmart credit card, where you could get discounts, you know, when you and rewards by purchasing things at Walmart or Walmart.com. So Walmart broke up with Capital One and then created and invested in their own fintech, in their own company, or at least their majority owner in their company, which is called One Pay. And now Walmart is getting ready to issue its new credit card that is all linked to this, their company that they also own, the fintech company One Pay.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  And that is going to, they're going to be using this as a way for people to incentivize people to just keep on spending and keep on paying for things.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  That makes financial sense for Walmart because the credit card fee that they could be saving could be substantial for them throughout all how many thousands of stores they have in the United States and abroad.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Because if you have your own credit card and you can manage that fee, that credit card fee that gets collected every time somebody swipes at the terminal, then that could be huge dollars.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Oh, it is. It's huge. Walmart card program had 10 million customers and roughly eight and a half billion dollars in loans outstanding last year. Can you believe that, Sammy? It's essentially like a bank.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  It's a bank.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Walmart Bank.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  And they're just, people just carrying those balance on that eight and a half billion dollars. They're getting, you know, interest rates, double-digit interest rates from people.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  It's just, wow.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it makes sense to them to facilitate all this because they want the traffic. They want the sales of the inventory. They want inventory turnover. So it makes sense.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  Now, what it does not make sense is, you know... Average Joe going to Walmart and using the buy now, pay later to buy, you know, a half pound of ground beef.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  That just doesn't make sense. Again, unless I'm not underst- situational. So some people might not be able to and they have five, six kids and one person is working, the other one is dis- there's a lot of circumstances.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  If that's the circumstance, I understand.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Why the challenge and I hope these people figure out something.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Well, th- this is the same argument that we have against payday loans, which is a payday loan is like, okay, it's a, it's a lender of last resorts. I get it. There's a population of people that are desperate, right?

• 35:14Speaker 00

  It's, as an ex-banker, I think that's predatory.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Predatory.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  But personally.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I agree. I mean, when you're paying 300% or whatever it is on the.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Yes. And I, I don't, I don't understand how we're actually allowing that.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  No, 15 years ago, 10 years, 10 years within, with my tenure in banking, Union Bank bought a.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Payday loan.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Oh, one of those companies because they saw the benefit.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, like you said, I mean, Walmart knows what they're doing. They're, they know how to make money. They know how to make squeeze out more money from their customers.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's good for them, but it's not, it's not, it may not be great for you, you know.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  As a consumer, you want to definitely think twice before. So, um, we have a question shared. I don't know if you want to do it now or after the break.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Oh, let's go for it.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Uh, I learned after my first marriage not to, to not spend all of our savings for the wedding. Took us five years to pay off the wedding. My second wedding was a fun trip with friends in Vegas and spent more on our honeymoon. Dollars well spent. You know what? Hallelujah, man.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Or, or, or, or woman, I'm sorry. Great. Good job. I'm very proud of you. That's exactly what I want to hear.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  And I would agree, like, you know, I, if I had to spend a bunch of money, I'd rather spend it on the honeymoon than on, you know, the party that I'm having for one night, you know, with a bunch of people. Yeah, that's great.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Go elope. Go elope in Vegas with your friends.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  And the second one is, um, great topic. I always stayed away from those programs. They make me nervous like early paycheck places. How about the app Chime?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  I'm not familiar with Chime, but is it like the, what did you just mention?

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Klarna?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  And so it's sort of like a, you know, buy now, pay later, you know, financial service company?

• 37:08Speaker 00

  It sounds like it. And frankly, anything that says, that has those initials, buy now, pay later, it's, to me, just, unless you have certain, you know, circumstances, you know, you live paycheck to paycheck, something came up, your kid needs to go and have some medical emergency, then yes, I can understand. But going and buying, like you said at the beginning, a chocolate bar and half pound of meat, using this.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Paying 20% interest on it. So a couple of strategies that, you know, we would recommend is start building towards that financial stability. I know that can sound overwhelming when you're thinking, I can't, I can't come up with the money to pay my PG and E bill. How am I gonna put away money on the side? Well, start very small with your emergency fund. You know, make it a goal to get $25, $50, just to start out, just to break that cycle of financing and, and, and have a place where you can go toward, go to for those unexpected expenses. You have to start tracking your spending in some way, somehow. There's a lot of great technologies

• 38:21Speaker 01

  that can help you do that, but don't be afraid to just go with the good old fashioned, don't use credit card, don't use debit card, use cash and keep that cash in envelopes or jars, separated based on what you know you're gonna have to spend it on, because it's okay. We're human and sometimes psychologically, some of us just don't do well when we have access to money that's just digital. It makes sense to use, go, go old school and find a way to trick yourself and to start saving towards that emergency fund.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  I really like what you're saying, Sherrod. We talked about this on the show last week with Troy, the importance of budgeting. Just use a simple budget thing and be very honest with yourself what you're spending the money on so you can budget correctly and definitely have some savings on the side.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  There you have it. Hopefully you've learned something there. We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we want to talk about what the workforce, what the job market looks like for graduates, college graduates that are all happening right now. What's it look like out there? We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 39:28Speaker 02

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

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Welcome back. We're Money Wise. That's Sammy and I'm Sharad. We're your hosts today. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've missed this or any of our past shows, you can find us wherever you stream your podcasts. We appreciate the comments and questions. You can send them 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Sammy, there's a lot of graduations happening right now, especially college graduations.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  A lot of them happened last week and the week before. And each time this happens, each year, you start to see a lot of headlines that say something to the effect of college graduates are entering the worst market in blank, whatever, call it, five, 10, 20 years, whatever. This is happening now. We're seeing a lot of news about the gloom that is facing the college graduates right now. And, you know, I'm always a little skeptical of this because I think you and I were talking before and you said, it's always hard.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  It's always hard.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  For college grads.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  I seem like, or I feel like, we'll always read an article at the end or right before people graduate. And it was like, this is the worst job market for graduates. And I've been hearing this since I graduated from college, like 20 years ago.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  26 years ago.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  So if you go back to when records started to be kept on this topic, they started keeping track of this in the early 1980s, which was, what's the unemployment rate compared to the unemployment? What's the general population unemployment rate compared to those that are 22 to 27 year old that just got their bachelor's degree? And it's true that for the first time since they started keeping track of this, the unemployment rate is higher the for college graduates than it is on the national unemployment rate. And there's been a shakeup and a change in the job market, especially since COVID.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Entry level hiring is down 23% compared to March of 2020. And young men in particular face a high unemployment rate of nearly 9.6% currently on a national average. There's a lot of reasons for this, and some of them are complex, but some that come to my mind right away is the displacement of some of these jobs by artificial intelligence or whatever.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  And the unknown, a lot of companies are holding off on hiring because they want to see where this thing is going to go before they commit to hiring more people.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  That's that that comes to my mind.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  I think that most recently is the is is a big factor because these companies are not only putting on hold hiring new because of AI, they're doing it because they're unsure of their supply chain, they're unsure of the of what the impact of the tariffs could be on their on their business. And, you know, employers want to be a little bit more secure before they start hiring a bunch of new people.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  So here's a question for you, Sherrod. I mean, we we have this 6% unemployment rate amongst the new graduates.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  With that being said, there are companies like Apple and the likes of Apple that say, hey, we cannot find skilled workers in the United States and we have to go overseas.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  So are we sending our kids to the wrong, you know, colleges and and and subjects or matters that they need to to to study?

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Like, we are in high need of CPAs, for instance.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  We're in high needs need of of nurses.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Electricians.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  And electricians. And is it time for us to shift the focus? Maybe college is not the answer, maybe, you know, skilled trade schools.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Yes. I know I know locally through the efforts of our local school districts, we have the ROC and the I forget the name out there that.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  CTEC.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  The, the high school that is more focused on some of these other trades. And I agree, I mean, as, as, if, if I were, if my kids were younger and they were in, you know, elementary and high school, I would certainly be bringing up to them the shortage of workers in some of these fields.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, the new millionaires are going to be electricians and plumbers.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  My kid spent some time with Steven's dad this morning fixing some stuff around my house and Steven's dad gave him a little bit of, you know, training onsite on my house. Dude, and he was like, he was so happy that he learned a couple of things from him.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  It's, it's amazing because you, I think the perception is that if you, you know, if you're a plumber, you're just, you know, you're just dirty and you're, you know, you're just, you're, it's hard manual labor and the truth is you get good at that trade and you can create your own business, you can be self-employed, you can have employees, you can really be quite successful if you're good at what you're doing, you're good at managing people, can be a very rewarding career. Only 20% of college graduates work in the job that's closely related to their major.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  What's, what?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  27%. So, so three quarters of college graduates don't even go into the field that's around what they got their degree in.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying. A lot of the college, college kids, they go to college and they do this, I don't know, some, some subject that is not relevant and it's really hard to find a job with, with that, with that.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  I mean, how many historians do we need?

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, we do need some for sure, but it's going to be very competitive. Like, you know, getting, getting right out of college, you don't have, generally, you don't have the experience that you should have. Colleges are getting better, making sure there's internships and, and things like that, but you, you really want to have some real world experience as much as you can.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  So, good luck, good luck. It's, it's tough out there. Good luck.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Don't, don't give up though.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Don't give up. There, there's, you know, a, a degree is, is good, it's nice, but there are those soft skills that can be learned. Investing your own capital beyond your just, your college degree can pay enormous dividends. So, don't, don't get discouraged. There's, there's hope out there and, and so hang in there.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Well, thanks so much. Thanks, Sammy. Thanks for tuning in. All of our listeners, if you missed this or any of our previous shows, you can go and subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast. It's commercial free and all podcast formats like iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Remember these three things: be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 46:21Speaker 03

  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.