E556 Caleb Hammer

Caleb Hammer is a financial advisor and content creator known for his popular show “Financial Audit” where he interviews real people about their spending habits. Caleb Hammer joins Theo to talk about the origins of his show “Financial Audit” (and how it sprung from his own money issues), the number one thing Gen-Z is going into debt over, and his advice for finding your own financial security. Caleb Hammer: https://www.instagram.com/calebhammercomposer/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% your first month. Shopify: Go to http://shopify.com/theo to sign up for your $1-per-month trial period. Liquid IV: Go to http://liquidiv.com/theo at checkout 20% off your first order. Factor: Go to http://factormeals.com/theo50off and use code theo50off to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Theo Von?

  We have added a second show in Nashville, baby. On May 3rd. It's an early show, 4pm at the Bridgestone Arena. And I can't even believe that. And thank you guys so much for all the love and support and I'm honored to be performing here in Nashville. We also have tickets remaining for East Lansing, Michigan. Victoria, BC in the Canada. College Station, Texas. Giggum, Belton, Texas. Oxford, Mississippi. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Winnipeg in the Canada and Calgary in the Canada. Get all your tickets at theovon.com/TOUR.

• 0:45Theo Von?

  Today's guest is a financial advisor for generations Z and millennials. He's a YouTuber, he's a businessman and he's based in Austin, Texas, which is where we're taping today. You may have seen his popular show, Financial Audit, where he takes people to task over their spending habits. I had a great time learning about him and his world. Today's guest is Caleb Hammer.

• 1:23Theo Von?

  Caleb Hammer, man, thanks for catching up, dude.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's up, buddy? Nice to meet you.

• 1:27Theo Von?

  Not much, yeah, nice to meet you too, man. Hammer, Caleb Hammer, that's a good name.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's powerful.

• 1:34Theo Von?

  It is. Is that Russian Hammer? Hammer?

• 1:37Speaker 01

  I think I'm British and native.

• 1:38Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  So a little conquering, you know, of the United States a little.

• 1:42Theo Von?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, so no matter what side of the bed you wake up on, you're gonna draw a weapon, probably.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 1:49Theo Von?

  That's wild. Native Ameri- Native American?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, like 25%.

• 1:53Theo Von?

  Oh, that's great. That's a good amount.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Not too heavy, but...

• 1:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Chilling.

• 1:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Enough to feel a little, little tan.

• 2:01Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Little minority, yeah.

• 2:03Theo Von?

  Oh, enough too to fucking know how to make a good fry bread too, I bet.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07Theo Von?

  Um, I, I noticed that, so you're kind of this financial guy.

• 2:13Theo Von?

  Um, or financial liaison even uh to like Gen Z or millennials. I mean, it could be anyone, but I feel like that's kind of like, um, it seems to me like that's kind of like the world that you work with.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's who got attached to it. We age range in that like 18 to 35. That's our big group. That's where our metrics are right now.

• 2:34Theo Von?

  And you're helping people with their finances. Like what kind of qualified you to become sort of this, um, this uh, this like uh, person who's offering suggestions to, to uh, others?

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, since the stuff I talk about is so basic, I was a dumbass enough like back in the day to overcome all that debt. Uh, get control of my spending, learning how to budget, get kind of obsessed with the personal finance space. Uh, build a pretty successful net worth before I started YouTube and just sitting down and talking to the people in the worst of the worst. Yeah. Since I was there, felt like those are the people I could talk to. Not talking to the, to the Theo Von's, not helping you with your investments, but you know, we're talking about the lady who has tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, some car she can't afford and getting repo'd left and right.

• 3:28Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you kind of have this like Jerry Springer meets finances kind of energy, you know, which is, it's awesome.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  We call it Caleb Springer. That's our, that's what we call it.

• 3:36Theo Von?

  Really?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:37Theo Von?

  Oh, I didn't even know that. Oh, that's great, man. Yeah. It's, it's uh, it's super fascinating, but like, so what was your financial problem? Just so I know, like, where did you start where you're like, oh, okay, I'm in a bad spot?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  College was, I was so dumb in college, man. Just starting to go into it. I was going into a major that wasn't going to make any money. I wanted to go into music and of course, if you're going to go into music, you have to have like a $50,000 computer or whatever. It's some nice, beautiful iMac. So max out a credit card with that. Got to have an electric piano. You gotta be cool, you know, it gotta be like the other music majors. Max out a credit card with that. Uh, why cook when you're tired from school? Go to McDonald's every day. And that's before I was even a fat fuck. Like, you know, the, I was able to consume those and still be skinny, but max out a credit card with that. Got to get around. So I maxed out, I got like a 10, $11,000 car loan, but I couldn't afford the down payment.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Of course I didn't know anything about money. So I borrowed like $5,000 from the grandparents just to get a down payment on a car. It's the same stuff we're seeing on the show.

• 4:42Theo Von?

  So you were just in a bad spot?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Bad spot, private student loans too, man. It was rough.

• 4:46Theo Von?

  And had you been getting advice from anybody or you were just?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  No, this was generational. My parents, even though they are better now, I'll give them credit there.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  We grew up definitely lower middle-class foreclosure notices, that kind of stuff. And at that point, when the people who would teach you about that kind of stuff, because our school system really doesn't, at least in Michigan, and I don't think Texas either. At that point, you rely on them to teach you, but they didn't know anything. So I was just continuing that cycle. Every time you see people coming from a lower-middle-class background or a poverty background, it's that endless cycle because you can't learn from anywhere. And you have to get that drive somehow.

• 5:24Theo Von?

  Right. That's a great point. Yeah, I was always kind of amazed that they didn't teach us in school. Like if you didn't have a strategy, like they would have people come for, like, parents would come or people with, like people in our community that had jobs would come and talk to us, but they never had like people that had really fucked up. You know, they never had like a crack addict come and talk to the class for 20 minutes and be like, this is how this happened, right? Or they never had anybody that was selling leg or selling cooter or whatever on the street tell, you know, like, hey, this is how things fell apart. Like they never had that other side of somebody who was like in a second bankruptcy or somebody who'd been abused in a marriage. You know, it's like you never really got, you always just got the like, I'm a fireman, you know?

• 6:09Theo Von?

  And the kids would be like, awesome, you know? And the guy would let you play with his axe or whatever. It's like, but you never got like the other side of it. It's kind of crazy that they don't have that, just in like kind of elementary education, you know?

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Dude, it's crazy. I think it's like a one-week subject in the class where they also spend like two weeks showing you birthing videos.

• 6:26Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  You know, this is something that passes over real quick.

• 6:31Theo Von?

  Okay, so you were bad off?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Real bad.

• 6:34Theo Von?

  And how did you get unbad off?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  I just started becoming obsessed with, well, I was always interested in the world of real estate. So like HGTV, I ate that shit up. I don't know why. This is that weird kid who loved HGTV. So you know, the, all the different home shows. I was interested in real estate and that's kind of just a decent connection and segue over to personal finances. So eventually, once I started realizing, yo, can't afford rent. I started just Googling some things and I found some other creators, some other podcasts, like BiggerPockets Podcast is really good. Um, I think I started-

• 7:06Theo Von?

  BiggerPockets it's called?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really good. Those in real estate. Now, do you know Graham Stephan? Finance Youtuber?

• 7:11Theo Von?

  Uh, let's see a picture of him.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, little, little short dude.

• 7:16Theo Von?

  Graham Stephan? Nope, I don't know him.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  He's one of the OG finance Youtubers and I think I started watching him when he was up and coming. I was like, wow, I can't believe how absolutely stupid I am with finances. I didn't even know there was this other world. And then to accomplish the things I dream of accomplishing, it's gonna take actually marking the goals I want to get to in the different steps that are required to get there. And that's where I started to actually focus on building the income, not just the hobby stuff, you know? I was doing music composition and you know, I was making like 30,000 hours a year off of that in college and dropped out of college. But, um, from there, I just knew I had to go get stronger income, actually build myself a budget. And that's when I started, you know, looking to move in different areas and I got a connection down in Austin. And that's when,

• 8:01Speaker 01

  like, I actually started putting the focus in pointing my money in the right direction, building a budget for the first time. And it's been, it's been good since then.

• 8:11Theo Von?

  Yeah. Okay. So you started to put your money back together? Like you started, I mean, did you pay off some of those things? Did you get rid of the car? You said you dropped out of school. So-

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:18Theo Von?

  I'm assuming that you just realized it wasn't for you or?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Okay, it's gonna sound like the most arrogant, country thing ever. And, but like, I was actually making more on my music compositions than my own professors did on their own compositions. So I was like, why am I spending more money to go in school? So that's when I dropped out.

• 8:34Theo Von?

  Okay, you already felt like you'd kind of been able to learn what they were gonna teach you over a course of a long time?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Kind of. I mean, I, I liked the lessons and stuff, but then I still had to go to all these other classes that don't matter and I had to spend money on that.

• 8:44Theo Von?

  Right.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Or at least things that were going for the degree. But at that point, I still knew nothing about personal finances. Once I moved to Austin- I wanted to get a job that focused on me being my own business, essentially. That's what I was doing with music composition. And one of the best jobs that just like you and I could go get today if we wanted to were your own business is sales.

• 9:04Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  You know, you are your business. You're out there building the client base. And that's what I ended up doing. And with that, I reached the top of the sales team immediately.

• 9:13Theo Von?

  Selling?

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, selling it was trading education, you know, like stock trading and some memberships and stuff like that.

• 9:19Theo Von?

  Okay, so no, I'm not, I'm not familiar with what you're talking about.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Like stock market.

• 9:23Theo Von?

  Okay, do it, so you became an investor?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  No, I was selling classes that taught people how to become day traders and stuff.

• 9:31Theo Von?

  Okay, so day trading courses?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Really bad products, I'll be honest, but.

• 9:34Theo Von?

  Really?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  You know, I just had to, you know, I was taking the job that would hire.

• 9:39Theo Von?

  Okay, so the, but the, the actual product wasn't a good product or it just, you thought it was?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It was fine, just people shouldn't be day traders, that's the thing.

• 9:46Theo Von?

  Oh, I see.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  It's like 90% lose money. It's not that the people that were teaching were bad or the education itself was bad. It's just like, that's probably too risky for your average person to get into.

• 9:57Theo Von?

  So it's just a risky thing to get into?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Risky to get into, but luckily the people I was selling to, they were with people with too much money, too much time.

• 10:02Theo Von?

  Oh, they were?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't like.

• 10:04Theo Von?

  You were selling it to children or whatever?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  No, no. Uh, especially since, I mean, I think you have to be 18 to open a brokerage, if I'm, or at least to open those kind of accounts, if I'm not mistaken. But actually being able to build that, like personal business, personal brands and getting to the top of the sales team, eventually getting to the place, you know, bringing in six figures.

• 10:21Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Uh, grinding for a couple of years, I focused on paying off the pa- uh, my grandparents first. Because it's family debt, it's a little emotional. That's probably not what I would necessarily suggest today, uh, to people that I'm talking to, but that's what felt right in that moment. And then the credit cards.

• 10:39Theo Von?

  Is what, paying off your grandparents, you mean?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 10:41Theo Von?

  Well, yeah, because you have to see them, you still have to answer their calls and you have to hear the, the timbre in your grandmother's voice. You know, knowing that they're concerned about their future because they're missing a little bit of their nest egg.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And they were nice enough to give me that money in a hard time. I gotta be nice enough to prioritize paying it back.

• 10:57Theo Von?

  Right.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And then the 30%, couple 30% credit cards I had from there about. Ten thousand hours total on credit card debt. And Sally Mae, you know that bitch?

• 11:05Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, the loan specialist?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, she's not. She's not great. So I had some like twelve percent interest, private student loan debt, maybe fifteen percent. It just kept ballooning. So I focused on paying that off after that.

• 11:16Theo Von?

  But those are private ones, right? There's ones you get from the state that are lower percentage?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Okay, I had federal backed student loans. I still do because I'm not going to pay them off because they're only four percent. And actually mine are like three percent. So I'd rather invest instead. So I'm just doing my minimum monthly's there. But, uh, yeah, so because Sally and her fifteen percent were just so crappy. I focused on paying those off next and and then eventually my car debt as well because that was also like eleven percent for a Nissan Altima. Two thousand thirteen. I don't know if you're a Nissan Altima girlie, but their transmissions, they all die immediately. It was like sixty thousand miles and the transmission was dying. So and I already owed debt on it.

• 11:55Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, Altima is definitely, um, a lot of Latinos would drive them, I know. And then my ex-girlfriend drove one.

• 12:05Theo Von?

  Okay, so so you started to get out of debt. You were got some. You got some money going. You found out that, okay, you realized maybe this could the direction you were going in at school wasn't for you. It sounded like you started to make some kind of like severe choices, right?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, big life choices, moving across the country, packing up the sedan, you know, going from Michigan to Texas. I guess it's not across the country. But it was a big move for me and, uh, focused on paying off that debt. And that's, once I got my emergency fund, which is what we prioritize after paying off high interest debt. That's where I was like, I can finally start accomplishing the dreams I wanted to. And I was putting ten percent down on a house here in Austin.

• 12:37Theo Von?

  Oh, wow.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  And that was my big goal.

• 12:39Theo Von?

  And were you still doing sales at that point?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, I was still doing sales and I started moving in the world of like product management in the tech world, um, but.

• 12:49Theo Von?

  Like, what does that mean?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  So it was kind of like fake product manager. I'll be honest for all those that know product management out there, but I was like overseeing memberships at that company that I was talking about and trying to improve their products. And I was just kind of overseeing that, working with different teams, but. I was transitioning to that world because again, I just like the, I like running some things. That's why I like building out the company that we have now. And having management over products and just making a better experience for the clients.

• 13:16Theo Von?

  Okay. And is the product you sell now to people, is that a more helpful product you think than the first one, the other?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 13:23Theo Von?

  Day trading stuff?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, because what we're doing now, like our simpler budget app, like that is an app that people can use and actually follow a budget, hit the goals that they're trying to do. It's things that actually help people. Instead of like, hey, there's a 10% chance you might be successful in this field. Good luck.

• 13:41Theo Von?

  Right.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  That was kind of the products back then. But yeah, so people can actually, you know, finally take control over their destiny.

• 13:47Theo Von?

  Okay. What is, I, I, you talk a lot. Okay. So I feel like I have a decent understanding now of how you kinda got to where you are.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:54Theo Von?

  Like a lot of it sounds like you're like, okay, college isn't for me. I need to change that. These are the high interest things that I need to, I need to, I need to get a job or find a field. You found sales. It's working well for me. So, and then I need to find out the specific, the higher interest things I need to get out of those first. The lower interest things I can keep because if I can invest at a slightly higher interest rate, then I'm gonna be hypothetically, or hopefully paying those off over time, assuming I can make more than the three or four percent.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:22Theo Von?

  Okay, so now you, now you have a YouTube channel where you kind of talk, it seems like to a lot of like Gen Z. Is that kind of safe to say?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Z millennial.

• 14:30Theo Von?

  Okay. What is the number one thing that they are going into debt over now?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  In America, cars, man. Cars. Everything's drivable infrastructure here. So you have no choice but to get a car. You need a car to get a job to pay for the car.

• 14:44Theo Von?

  Right. They kind of locked us into that, huh?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:46Theo Von?

  What's that? Is there a theory that they, that they did that on purpose? That a lot of that's done on purpose, you think? That we had, that they created like this car economy? Can you look up, just see what you find on that?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Well, I know in the 1950s, right? That's where they start passing like the highway infrastructure bill. And that, it's a lot of it for inter, intercontinental connection, uh, especially for military safety, being able to move things back and forth across cities. But with that, they came into the cities like Dallas and Houston and LA, and they bulldozed massive communities and just built highways throughout. Then you had white flight from the cities. To the suburbs and then in order to get to the city where the jobs are, gotta drive on the highway and it's a cycle from there.

• 15:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think you pretty much just answered it. That's what it seems like a lot of that is. It was like, yeah, people wanted to also live in the suburbs. They didn't want to be in the place, maybe right, you know, in a, around a bunch of building stuff. You want to have a yard, you want to have a little bit more space.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  And cities went to shit after that, too. It really did.

• 15:42Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Whether it's funding or just the job opportunities, like they went to shit. Like New York in the eighties was a shithole, right? So that's, yeah.

• 15:50Theo Von?

  Yeah. And then I think you have a lot of people, like if people want to have a yard and want to have an environment they take care of, then they kind of, if they take that energy out of the city, then that's not in the city anymore.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  People want to live in the city now, though. People are giving up their car and in my age range, you know, and the audience's age range. They want to live in those more walkable communities. I move into a walkable community. I love to not have to drive.

• 16:11Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. It's a nightmare. Yeah, kind of like my parents, it was a thing where they wanted to drive into work and drive home. That was part of like the commute, you know, it was almost part of their lifestyle.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:21Theo Von?

  You know, I think that was like a big part of the lifestyle then. Um, let me see, commuting as we know it today with people regularly traveling significant distance between home and work, uh, became prominent during the mid 19th century, primarily due to the industrial revolution, which led to large population shifts towards urban areas and the development of suburban communities accessible by newly newly established rail systems, allowing people to live further from their workplace and commute into work regularly. The term commute itself originates from this era of early rail travel where people paid a commuted fare for regular travel to the city. Oh, wow. So I guess if you were one, like a person that came every day for their job into like, you know, rural New York into the New York, into New York City, um, then you paid a commuted fare.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I'm honestly not against like the driving if you want to or living with more space. I'm not against that at all. Like I actually like that. The community I'm moving to is kind of like that. It's a hybrid. But what I don't like, dude, I, I don't know how much you know about zoning in the US, but it's crazy. You know, we're supposed to be like this capitalist bastion of freedom, but we don't let anyone build what they want on their property. So you live in a neighborhood and In order to get a coffee, you have to drive 10 minutes because no one can build a coffee shop in the neighborhood.

• 17:36Theo Von?

  Right.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Because we tell people what they have to build instead of letting the people determine the market and the market determining what gets built in places. That's what I want to see, a more freedom-esque uh living situation where people can build their communities.

• 17:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think that that's fair, but then I guess what if you had a, you have a place you finally call home, you love it. And then somebody next door builds like a neon light shop or something.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Theo Von?

  And they're just huge and they're put billboards up in their yard, like that kind of thing I feel like would lead to war.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's more like HOA, you know, so like I'm okay with like small communities coming together and deciding what's good for their community. But a whole state or a city saying, no, you know, you're 40 minutes from city hall, you can't build a bakery there.

• 18:18Theo Von?

  Right.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Sorry, a highway has to go there.

• 18:20Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  So.

• 18:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, I guess sometimes you don't know what a city's overall strategies are too. It's like sometimes this is a regular citizen, even though you may think that we do. Maybe we wouldn't know sometimes what their overall strategies are.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  There's this crazy concept uh where Austin, we built housing, you know, which is allowed developers and capitalism to take place. So we built housing, guess what's been the largest rent decrease in the nation? Austin, who would have thought?

• 18:43Theo Von?

  The largest rent decrease? Why? Because it's extra housing?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we built so much housing.

• 18:47Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Cause we just let capitalism happen.

• 18:50Theo Von?

  But so you saying that's the bad side of it?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Well, it sucks for people, I guess, property values or landlords, but.

• 18:56Theo Von?

  But it's also a blessing for people that can live.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:58Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, well, one of the worst things that happens in a lot of places is the artists and stuff are the first to have to leave an area because they're the ones who can't afford to live there anymore. You know, I think that happens in a lot of cities where um you know, rent prices start to go up. And then the guy who's like just doing his best to make ends meet, who plays a saxophone or you know, who runs an art studio. They can't afford to keep their, you know, they're kind of the first to go a lot of times.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, gentrification is weird because like honestly, you kind of go in there, you do get better restaurants, you get better amenities. Things do become nicer and safer, but then there is like that dude who gets pushed out. So there's like, there's positive, gentrification is a bad word. Kind of a swear word, you know?

• 19:37Theo Von?

  Cause what does gentrification mean? It means white people moving in and moving people out?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  I think it's more. Money and development, but people do associate it with that.

• 19:44Theo Von?

  Yeah. So yeah. So gentrification is the process whereby characters of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people. Moving in, improving housing and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants of the process. Right. So they're kind of, you lose a lot of culture.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:59Theo Von?

  Because you.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Well, you develop new culture too, but you, you, you lose like the old culture, right? Uh, that's where I want more access like homeownership because if someone owns a home in that area and gentrification happens, you know, they can make a lot of money. So I want the people who are already there to have access to be able to get into the home and buy it. It's the renters that get pushed out, like the saxophone guy. He's, he'd be the one that gets pushed out and that sucks.

• 20:19Theo Von?

  Yeah. You lose a lot of authenticity there too. You lose people who know the lore of the neighborhood. Um, and then everything just starts to be a Panera bread too, which really starts to suck.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Chain, yeah.

• 20:28Theo Von?

  That's one thing that starts to happen in a lot of places is you just run a lot of the same. And a lot of, um, a lot of cities start to look the same.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:35Theo Von?

  And then you don't have any, there's no reason to even go to another city. You're like, why do I want to go there? If it's just going to be another restaurant that's just next door to me.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think they're called like five by ones, like all the buildings that you see everywhere where they're like five story apartment complexes with the same chains on every floor. This is the cheapest to build. That's usually what the, again, the city messes it up by only zoning for that. Because everything has to be one size fits all.

• 20:59Theo Von?

  Yeah. Nashville's ruined. They have a great area there called 12 South. And it has all these like great little shops and stores. And then, um, now it's just been, it has like a rag and, but it just like, it had like quaint vibes. You could walk down. It just felt like you were in like a neat pocket. And then now it just feels like you, you can barely tell the difference between there. And if you're walking down like, um, South Congress in a way.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you're still in Nashville. You ever going to move to Austin?

• 21:25Theo Von?

  I might. I'm thinking about it, you know? I'm thinking about if I could afford to get a home here and keep a home here, you know?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Oh, you could.

• 21:31Theo Von?

  Then I would be able to, um, go back and forth, you know?

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Oh, if I financially audited your statements, I know you could get a home here.

• 21:38Theo Von?

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• 22:23Theo Von?

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• 23:08Theo Von?

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• 23:51Theo Von?

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• 24:31Speaker 01

  Well, car debt for sure. That's what every American faces.

• 24:33Theo Von?

  It's car debt?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  It's, yeah. Again, you have the car so you can get to work to get the paycheck to pay for the car.

• 24:39Theo Von?

  That's the first thing my mom said. She's like, okay, you're gonna get a car to get to work to pay for your car.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:44Theo Von?

  And it really was the truth, kind of.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 24:46Theo Von?

  But also having that freedom was great, you know?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yes, and I want to like, just kind of correct what I said. Like, I'm totally for driving anywhere if you want to. Just wish there's more options. It's kind of, you're forced to drive.

• 24:57Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  So that's pretty much it.

• 24:59Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, they won't even let you, um, take a scooter or a lime on the interstate.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:07Theo Von?

  You know, which is crazy. Like, there might be one state allows it. What state allows scooters on the interstate? Can you bring that up?

• 25:14Speaker 01

  What state is allowing you to scooter on a highway?

• 25:18Theo Von?

  It might be New Hampshire or something. They don't give a fuck, dude. As long as you're an organ donor, they'll let you fucking do whatever you want, bro. As long as you are donating, uh, plant-based organs back to society.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 25:31Theo Von?

  Um, so, uh, when I was a kid, they had, you felt like you had to have a job, right? And my mom, or my, um, you know, I was raised by my mom, she always had a job. She had a job, like, I don't think she only had, like, She just, it was always work, you know? And parents would have been ashamed if they didn't have a job. Do, do the younger generations feel that same way? Like people that you're talking to, do they have that same feeling about work?

• 25:58Speaker 01

  No, there's something really interesting happening in our culture right now that I cannot define super well. I always mess up with the words. Infat- infantilization.

• 26:09Theo Von?

  Infantilization?

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Infantilization, yes.

• 26:12Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Thank you. A lot of people, I don't know. Everyone's like, I'm nineteen, I'm still a child. There's a lot of that conversations that I'm having on my show. And honestly, I didn't notice it too much until I started my, doing my show. And then, you know, being a little active on Reddit or Twitter. It's like, everyone's really acting like they're a kid until they're like twenty-five now.

• 26:33Theo Von?

  A tall baby syndrome kinda?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was so excited to be eighteen and have my freedom and just go make money, do what I want, go to college, figure it out. And there's so many learning lessons you get during that time period. But now it's like, I'm a child. Not everyone, but it definitely feels like a cultural shift. You know those predator like beating videos online?

• 26:53Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, there's so many of them now.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, one thing that's, I, I just saw yesterday on Twitter, or X, that was just kinda demonstrating what happens when Gen Z meets with those predator beating videos. They lured someone, you know, as usual, to meet an underage person to beat the crap out of the person. But the Gen Z people lured a twenty-one-year-old to meet an eighteen-year-old. And beat the shit out of the twenty-one-year-old for meeting an eighteen-year-old because it's a huge, crazy underage eighteen-year-old who's a child.

• 27:29Theo Von?

  Right.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  So we must beat the crap out of the twenty-one. It's really weird.

• 27:32Theo Von?

  Like, what are you saying? Like, that was just, like, they can't even do that, right? You're saying, like?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  No, it's just, it's, it's thinking that.

• 27:40Theo Von?

  Oh, I see. It says, it says five worst, sir? Worst s- worst sister, worst sister.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Oh, Brandon's on it.

• 27:48Theo Von?

  Students charged after mob beats up falsely accused child predator and that's in Worcester. Oh, I'm sorry. I know this place Worcester, Mass. Five students from Assumption University in Worcester are facing charges of kidnapping and assaulting a man for a TikTok inspired to catch a predator. Police are saying that the man did nothing wrong as court documents state the man went to meet a woman who was listed as 18 years old online. So, so what are we saying here? Are we saying the school would not say what disciplinary action if any may take? First of all, the math department should take action against these, against these fucking predators.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:23Theo Von?

  Because you have to at least be a predator.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:27Theo Von?

  You can't just, I mean, it's so hard to meet people now. And this guy finally comes out of his house to meet somebody and he gets jumped.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  It's crazy, but no, you're seeing it all over social media right now.

• 28:38Theo Von?

  But what are you saying about this?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  I'm saying that they think you're still a child at 18 and 19 and 20.

• 28:43Theo Von?

  Oh, I see. You're saying so that you think part of that was this?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they're talking about age gaps. If you're dating with someone two years, like over two years. People are freaking out now online. It's crazy. The pearl clutching is wild online right now. Lots of just like over sensationalize just everything right now. But I'm seeing that in these conversations where people are like 20 and they think they're still a child. They don't have to, there's no responsibility yet. They can just lean on everyone around them, their family, and they just don't have to take care of anything yet. And that, it's kind of hard to see, but that case that we just saw is further demonstrating that impacting other parts of the culture as well. Like we're seeing it across the board.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  There's also this, on TikTok especially, there's like this victim Olympic stuff going on where people are trying to over victimize, like I'm more of a victim than you from this thing. And it's like, it's just, it's an always over, just stepping over each other on who's the biggest victim.

• 29:44Theo Von?

  I, I, it's so funny you say that. I saw something like this. I love, I love where you're at, man, because even some of the things you're saying, it's like things that I couldn't. Um, you're just at this really unique intersection, I think. Um, I just wanted to say that. I'm just realizing that more as I talk to you. Um, but yeah, I'll see things. It's like, yeah, the fires are really bad, but realizing that it's been 11 days since your boyfriend texted you back, right? And you're like. And someone will be walking down the street with flames in the back. But they're making it about them and their boyfriend or something, you know?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 30:17Theo Von?

  Or hope my DoorDash is okay.

• 30:21Theo Von?

  It looks dangerous out here today. And they'll be from their balcony looking for their taco order. And there's buildings on fire. Like, what are we fucking?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  I don't know, man.

• 30:31Theo Von?

  Turn on your stove. And also leave and go rescue yourself. You're gonna risk it all for some raviolis?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:41Theo Von?

  It's just, it's almost like people don't even feel like they're gonna die. It's almost like.

• 30:48Theo Von?

  Yeah, some, before we get, before I go off on too much of a tangent. Whose fault do you think that is that there's some of that mentality, right? Is it the parents or is it just society? Who's, where are you finding the fault of that, you know?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  I haven't seen parents like talk about it. So I don't see them doing it. I'm sure there's always an impact, right? But I think a lot of the TikTok-ification of things. And I love TikTok. I mean, we got a billion views on TikTok last year, you know?

• 31:15Theo Von?

  Congratulations, man.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. But like, even still, there's, I've seen videos of examples of people talking about a story from their past and they're just sharing a story about something that was just, you know, slightly inconvenient. And then people go in their comment sections and say, no, actually, you're a victim. You're a victim of all this, that, this, that. Like, there, there was some TikTok I was watching, I don't know. I think I was watching a reaction to it. Someone was talking about how they had an awkward handholding experience when they were in high school. And people were going through the comments like, no, you were raped. And it's like, fuck me. And they're just, I don't know, it's just this enabling.

• 31:54Theo Von?

  Thumb raped or knuckle raped, shit like, stuff like that. You're like, that's. What, are you gonna do a swab kit now on my hand, you know?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  It's very interesting. So people, it's, it's this kind of this reoccurring thing where just everyone's trying to one up each other on the victim scale, but also trying to tell other people that they're victims. It's really interesting. But we're also starting to see a little bit of a cultural shift in it, I feel like, where like. Now, everyone's like respected immediately who comes out of the gate and just like, you know, tries to act like this big victim.

• 32:23Theo Von?

  Right.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  All the time, especially other creators that try to come out and be like, I'm a big victim from this other creator who like said something bad about me. And then you can clearly see when you like, look at their social blade and that video they made was their most popular video of all time. And like, oh, I wonder why they did that.

• 32:38Theo Von?

  Right. So now they're, oh, if somebody gets, uh, views off of victimhood.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, in some ways, I mean, but.

• 32:43Theo Von?

  I think you saw, go ahead.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Well, shitty part is that actually diminishes like real victims.

• 32:47Theo Von?

  Oh, for sure. Well, I think you saw, I saw this with Mark Zuckerberg the other day. He was on Joe Rogan's, um, show and he was talking about, bring up some of the clips. He was talking about, um, how Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan podcast Biden administration tried to censor memes in surprise episode.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse. And it's like, these documents are, it's all kind of out there.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Did you record any of those phone calls?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  I don't, no, I don't think, I don't think we were, but, but I think.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  I want to listen.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  I mean, there are emails, the, the emails are published. It's all, it's all kind of out there. And, um, and they're like, and basically it just got to this point where we were like, no, we're not gonna, we're not gonna take down things that are true. That's ridiculous. Um, they wanted us to take down this meme of Leonardo DiCaprio looking at a TV, talking about how 10 years from now or something, um, you know, you're gonna see an ad that says, okay, if you took a COVID vaccine, you're, um, eligible, you know, like, uh, for, for this kind of payment, like sort of like class action lawsuit type meme. And they're like, no, you have to take that down. We said, no, we're not, we're not to take, take down humor and satire.

• 34:03Theo Von?

  That's good. And I, first of all, I believe you will probably see things like that because it's a lot how the drug, how drug companies work, right?

• 34:13Theo Von?

  But I think this is exactly what he's doing. He's because they had like there was they admitted before to like um only putting certain stuff up during like um deciding them deciding what it was misinformation or not, right?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:28Theo Von?

  Which which is just it's a it's awkward for a platform to decide, right?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:33Theo Von?

  Kind of like unless something is, you know, um sexual violent, things like that. I don't think that should be on, you know? But for them to decide um for them to decide what was misinformation, but I feel like that's what he's doing here. Now he's playing the victim here. He's trying to say

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Oh, I see what you're saying.

• 34:50Theo Von?

  That, oh, we didn't there they were telling us to do stuff instead of him saying we were doing these things, right?

• 34:57Speaker 01

  They're calling and swearing.

• 34:59Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Oh, no, not swearing.

• 35:00Theo Von?

  Right.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 35:01Theo Von?

  Right. He's just trying to say, oh, we were we were a victim of all this and you're almost playing now. You're pointing fingers at a sinking ship since the Biden is first of all, um, you know, he's he's not. It's not fair to communicate with him. I don't think and probably hasn't been for a bit because he's just not mentally well, right? Um, and no judgment against his party or but just to me, I've I've always felt like they were taking advantage of a senior citizen, right? Like if that were my father or grandfather, I'd be kind of upset, you know, that people are marching him out every day because he believes what you're telling him, right? He believes that he's fully capable and competent, right?

• 35:35Speaker 01

  All right.

• 35:35Theo Von?

  Um, but yeah, in this instance, that that's exactly you say that there's creators doing that. I think this is one of the biggest creators uh doing exactly what you're saying.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we had a prime example. We called the episode. Our our titles are wild, but someone finally walks off financial audit. I guess that's actually not that.

• 35:52Theo Von?

  Someone finally what you said.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Walks off financial audit.

• 35:55Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  And uh, one of her big like she was a perpetual victim throughout her life. Uh, one of her big things is she sat down and we were talking about creating a better income for her and she said, my therapist told me I can't have a boss. So she can't work ever because she's not able to have any kind of authority around her because it would make her to feel too.

• 36:19Theo Von?

  Triggered or something.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:20Theo Von?

  Right.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  So she just couldn't have a boss ever.

• 36:22Theo Von?

  Right.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Also, she can't do any physical activity or labor or anything. So has to sit down and do her veterinary stuff from her house, but won't get hired. And half of her resume, by the way, was like activist stuff anyway. So like

• 36:36Theo Von?

  Right.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Someone you'd be a little afraid of hiring because you don't know what they're gonna gonna do to the culture

• 36:40Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  of the company. So it's not gonna get hired, but she also can't have a boss.

• 36:44Theo Von?

  Right. But she kind of low key does have a boss if she's listening to her therapist because then the therapist is like, well, you're gonna pay me. And you're you almost become an employee of your therapist. In some ways, I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but sometimes that will happen to people. And then, yeah, people are like, I can't lift anything heavy because like in a past life, I was a weightlifter or something who was injured. And you're like, well, fucking, we gotta get the boxes on the shelves. Okay, like.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  It is difficult. Yeah. And she may have had a physical disability with that.

• 37:10Theo Von?

  Agreed.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  But not having not not being able to have a boss like you can't just but then complain about how everything's bad. And I, let's be honest, there's no way her therapist told her she shouldn't have a boss.

• 37:22Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  A therapist wouldn't say that.

• 37:23Theo Von?

  Yeah. Well, that's times you'll pay and then you you'll but that but that kind of becomes a um like an emotional race card in a way sometimes where people are like, uh, yeah, my therapist said that, you know?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she she was lost all over the place, so I'm not surprised. But again, she was also another victim kind of in her relationship. She was dating a dude for eight years. They got married, but she decided two weeks into her marriage, she wants to try titties, you know, just on the other side.

• 37:52Theo Von?

  Date women, you mean?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:53Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, just go to the other side and hang out a little bit. Uh, he didn't want to. So he's a bad person for leaving her because she wanted to, you know, date women two weeks into marriage.

• 38:03Theo Von?

  Right. You can't just be funding lesbianism if you don't want to be. Yeah, it's like,

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:07Theo Von?

  You can support it, but if your wife leaves you, you shouldn't still have to be the guy funding it.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, or if you don't want to be open, especially, yeah.

• 38:14Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, you want to commit a relationship.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  So he's the bad guy because

• 38:17Theo Von?

  Right, so a lot of blame.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, two weeks into marriage.

• 38:21Theo Von?

  What do you, um, what do you think is the number one thing that's preventing, uh, Gen Z ears from working? Or do you think we already talked about that? Let me see where we're at right now.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, honestly, uh, 60 to 70% of Americans say that they're, you know, they report feeling stressed about money. 60 to 65 say they are living paycheck to paycheck. 50 to 60% can't cover a $1,000 emergency. One in four have no retirement savings. Median 401k balance is 30,000. Like, I mean, there's a lot of things that people got to catch up on. And the big thing that kind of sucks, and this is where I do feel bad for any younger generation, where college is getting more expensive, life gets more expensive. I mean, that's what happens. You need to start saving as early as you can because like income's not your biggest wealth building tool, as Dave Ramsey says. I'd say that time is because you need time in the market to let it grow.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  If you put a dollar in at 20, it's worth so much more than a dollar in at 30. But the more expensive things are and the, the more we treat you like a child who doesn't have to work and it's okay to take your time after college and it's okay to go into debt and it's okay to do all this stuff. The further you are from not only putting money towards retirement, but covering the $1,000 emergency or paying off the debt that's eating 30% interest by year.

• 39:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, the more you have that, the more that that mentality is accepted and nurtured and becomes like a habit, then surely the further you are from, if you're not even taking care of your responsibilities or, you know, hitting like a bottom line or breaking even, um, then yeah, you're certainly not going to be investing.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 39:58Theo Von?

  Do you see that nepotism is an issue? Cause you know, there's a lot of like, there was always this idea of like Reaganomics where like the top so percent will have the money and there'll be this trickle down, right?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09Theo Von?

  But that's never really kind of happened, it felt like.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Right. It's interesting, yeah.

• 40:14Theo Von?

  Do you think nepotism, um, just how big of an issue is nepotism? Do you feel like you hear a lot, like you hear a lot about these days about like nepo babies, right?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:23Theo Von?

  I just wonder if, if you, if you hear a lot about that in like the financial world, like, oh, you're just like a, um, trust fund baby or. Something like that, you know?

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Honestly, you don't see too much of that in my world. We've seen people that get like a big sum of money. I just talked to someone the other day. She got almost a quarter million dollars from a pass away relative, but she went into that pile of money without any behavior, knowledge of how to utilize money. She's only been in debt throughout her entire life, only just blows all her money, more than she makes. So the moment she got that, well, of course, does it get saved or invested or pay off debt? No, it's gone in five years, just blowing it on fun stuff. So there is, I'm okay if someone can prove themselves, you know, that they have the talent to be known and of we all, do you have any kids?

• 41:10Theo Von?

  I don't have any children. I would like to have some.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you probably want the best future for them.

• 41:14Theo Von?

  Right. You do want the best future for your children, for sure.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  You'd probably be willing to utilize some of your connections to help if you can.

• 41:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  And I'm okay with that, but it should also be based on skill. So give them the opportunity, but if they fuck up the opportunity, you know, okay, like good luck.

• 41:28Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  So I'm good with Nepo as long as they're proving it a little, but you gotta treat, uh, teach that behavior. Teach that behavior so they don't just blow through what you give them.

• 41:38Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. I was talking a little boozy one time. Um, he's a rapper, if you're not familiar with him. And he was talking about how like the hardest thing to teach is your hustle to your children, right? Like your same energy for, um, like if you didn't have a certain things growing up, he's like, it is so hard to transfer that energy to your children.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 41:58Theo Von?

  And at the same time, want to give them just, you know, the basic needs even, you know? And the basic needs sometimes will be fancier because there, you have more money to spend. Um, take me through a couple of examples, if you can, Caleb, of like, um, Gen Z'ers or millennials and some of the issues, like just specific things that they showed up with on your show. Um.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. Um, we had, uh, this is a couple. We just talked.

• 42:22Theo Von?

  Cause it's so entertaining. Like this is what, one thing that's so great. It's like. It really is. It's just like, yeah, it's a financial Jerry Springer. And it's so funny that you had already coined that term for you for you guys selves.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Well, people use it as an insult, but it's not. So I just accepted it.

• 42:36Theo Von?

  I don't think so at all.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  I think as long as people are actually getting help and we connect them with resources and they a million percent know what they're getting into. I think it's just like the most fun thing ever. And then they have fun. Then the audience has fun. And what's crazy is like, we could sit down and we could just like do the most boring finance content ever and 50,000 people watch it or something. And some people learn something, or we could do this like true, real show that is also just also really entertaining hundreds of thousands, millions of people watch it. And then we've calculated about 20,000 people at least have, which is based on comments and things have gotten out of debt, saved for an emergency fund. I've actually changed their life just because of watching this show that has gotten to them that they're interested in.

• 43:15Theo Von?

  Yeah. And I think it's almost you, you, I can almost see this happening where we will get to like to catch a predator videos of like you pulling up on somebody. Or not even you, just the way society is, right? Cause you're kind of at this perfect section of like capitalism and like voyeurism, right?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:34Theo Von?

  Where I could see there almost being like a to catch a predator of somebody like buying something that they can't afford and you pull up on them on the spot. You know, it's almost like you're catching them in a transaction.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:45Theo Von?

  And it's like, you know, you can't afford this, man. What are you doing? You know?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Chop up their credit card on the spot.

• 43:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, totally. Like I, I just, I, I feel like that that's where we're headed, you know?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Some people could use it.

• 43:56Theo Von?

  Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. There's someone walking around a mall right now that should not be in there. That is pretending, you know, to probably has empty bags in their hands that weights in them.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Theo Von?

  Some very light weights or old clothes and it's just pretending this illusion of like living in some fantasy, you know?

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, like cities like Austin and I, you know, Nashville is kind of similar in Austin. So I wouldn't be surprised if Nashville as well. It's like the richer someone looks likely the poorer they are. Cause they're really compensating, you know, driving a slightly nicer car, nicer clothes. They're usually in mountains of debt. Where you just have a dude like Zuckerberg. Well, now he looks a little, you know, he's gone carrot head and everything or broccoli head. But you know, before he looked like he was like poverty, but he's a billionaire. So.

• 44:42Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  That's a compensation.

• 44:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, he kind of has that autism billionaire vibe, you know?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:47Theo Von?

  Which I think is like kind of the new, a lot of billionaires are autistic now. You know, it's like the new thing, you know? So who knows what they're gonna do, some of them. He looks like he doesn't even eat or anything. Could you imagine him eating a meal? I couldn't.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's gaining, man. He's getting those gains.

• 45:05Theo Von?

  I, I know, I'm not saying he's not healthy or something. I just think it's ver- he, he gives off a computer energy to me sometimes.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  I mean, look up that surfing photo, the, I mean,

• 45:15Theo Von?

  Oh, that's a good point, actually.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Dude has a dump truck, you know? You don't get that not eating. There it is, look at that thing. Good for him.

• 45:24Theo Von?

  And he's in whiteface there, so obviously they were reprogramming him or something. You know, and they, they had to put his face in the shop for a week or something.

• 45:34Theo Von?

  No, certainly an amazing creator, but I just, I do think there's this very strong link between autism and, and technological advancement that I think we'll figure out in the future.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  That'd be nice, I, I think I have a bit of autism, but probably not enough autism to get to the three, the three comma club.

• 45:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  It's a bummer.

• 45:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's okay, but still, you get grace with a little.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the two comma club.

• 45:55Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, I beat it. I barely beat it, dude. You know, and they said it was very close in our area.

• 46:03Theo Von?

  Can you take me through a couple of examples of, just so, just so my listeners can know like some of the stuff that's on your show, right?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, do you want them to pull up some shorts even?

• 46:11Theo Von?

  Um, yeah, I mean, I know we have a couple, um.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. We were just talking to this, uh, this couple, uh, they're both, uh,

• 46:23Speaker 01

  okay, try not to get cancelled, I guess, lesbian couple. And they-

• 46:26Theo Von?

  Oh no, we know what lesbians are.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:28Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  They just, they're obsessed with Disney. Lots of Disney adults are, and they're Gen Z, and they are obsessed with birthday months. I hear birthday month so much with Gen Z and girl math, and they're-

• 46:41Theo Von?

  What is your birthday month, that thing?

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Birthday month, so you have to celebrate. So for their birthday month, they spent $2,000 on Disney exclusive passes and then went to Disney World, spent a lot of money on that. Then they're going to Disney World two times next month, and then one time in the summer for different birthdays, different birthday months. And they spent, what did I have? I had $21,000 in one month when they make $7,000 a month.

• 47:05Theo Von?

  And what is it? It's not like on like, is it like lessons to talk like characters? Like how far? Like what are they getting into?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. They live in Arizona and they drive to LA to just have their little special birthday month. It's their birthday. I can go into debt and fuck my life. It's my birthday.

• 47:18Theo Von?

  Oh, I see. So something as simple as your birthday, they can go 20 grand in a day?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole month.

• 47:23Theo Von?

  Let's see this right here. And this is some of it.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Two Disneys in these last couple of months, two Disneys next month. You guys are literally poor.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  We only went for one day in November.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  You still traveled there, bought a gillion dollars of food.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Took our nephew for his birthday.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  His birthday?

• 47:40Speaker 04

  And then we went for my birthday.

• 47:41Theo Von?

  Oh, if I hear one more thing about lesbians and their nephew, you know?

• 47:45Speaker 01

  His birthday? I don't give a shit about birthdays. What is this obsession with birthdays? How are you guys getting there from Mesa?

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Getting one, getting.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  It's in LA, so it costs money to get there.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, we drive. We drive there.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  So you're getting places to live? Does it cover the place to live when you're there?

• 48:02Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  So you're spending money to spend more money?

• 48:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Do you get the free food while you're in there and free drinks?

• 48:07Speaker 04

  No, we pay for that too separately.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  What the fuck are you talking about?

• 48:09Speaker 04

  10% off merch.

• 48:11Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  This is not fucking crazy?

• 48:12Theo Von?

  So yeah, it's like, you would think especially, you can find deals nowadays where they probably could have got some free food vouchers or something like that.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just stayed off campus and, you know, went, I'm okay if they go like once, once a year. They're go, they have like five planned trips already.

• 48:27Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  For Disney.

• 48:28Theo Von?

  And what does that give them? I think strippers and lesbians love Disneyland, right? I noticed that. Lesbians also love this, it's our nephew's birthday, right? Cause for a lot of lesbians, it's probably as close as they'll get to having a child, right? Just because of science, math or whatever. And nowadays that's changing some, but for a long time, a lot of lesbians are like, we gotta get our, you know, our nephew, you know? It was like, that's like the biggest, craziest thing, you know? So there's a lot of nephew obsession. Um, in the lesbian community as well, you know?

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Theo Von?

  Um, but that's a lot of money on Disney.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 49:03Theo Von?

  And not much return. You get a, a return, but you're an adult also.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but unlike most lesbians, I think they're gonna last forever though, because they're on the same page. And usually couples that aren't on the same page about money, that's where they divorce. But them, they're on the same page about wanting to ruin their lives for Disney. So it's okay. They'll, they'll be fine.

• 49:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, they need to have a Disney. Now, I wish Disney had a hostel or kind of like a, um, section eight area.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they should.

• 49:32Theo Von?

  Cause that would be very magical if you ended up like in the trenches.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, instead of the monorail, you get a little spray painted one, just a little sketchy, someone tweaking out in there.

• 49:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, but it has somebody's put like, like Elsa likes to on the side or something, you know?

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:46Theo Von?

  Or just spray painted some wild shit on it. That thing, that could be kind of interesting. Um, okay. So you're talking to people that are wasting too much money.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Usually lots of debt.

• 49:55Theo Von?

  Okay, a lot of debt. What are some other ones that you're seeing?

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Well, lots, we had this dude, uh, we frustrated incel buys women instead of dating was the title.

• 50:05Theo Von?

  Ooh.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Uh, he went into eight thousand hours of credit card debt, just so he could go to strip clubs. He sacrificed eating, so he had more money to go to strip clubs.

• 50:15Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Two thousand hours a week on strip clubs and his quote was, I'm a sigma male. I can just go to the strip club and get some booty that way.

• 50:23Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I guess it's easier for him. He was a little disappointed though, that he couldn't liquor bite them though. That was his one complaint.

• 50:31Theo Von?

  Okay. So he's not, he did, he didn't get the, um, fluid pass or whatever. I don't know what there's a.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  That was another one of our guests that got the fluid pass.

• 50:39Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:40Theo Von?

  Yeah. Well, strippers is that age old kind of bait and switch. It's the illusion, you know? That's why they always catch men like masturbating in their cars outside of strip clubs because they're, you know, they've built up this whole illusion. Um, that's a lot of money to spend on stripping. Now I do, I respect the fact that he was going without eating though.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:01Theo Von?

  A lot of people are just like, yeah, I'm gonna snack and whatever and still waste this money.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, he picked it up in the military. I guess that's what they were all doing overseas.

• 51:08Theo Von?

  Visiting strippers and stuff?

• 51:09Speaker 01

  I guess. That's how they made it through.

• 51:10Theo Von?

  Dieting and visiting strippers? Yeah, I could see that. Um, there was another one you had, what was the one? Um, bring up one of the ones that we had pulled up.

• 51:22Theo Von?

  The guy in the red suit was an interesting guy.

• 51:26Speaker 05

  I took the loan out to fund my emergency fund.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Where's this emergency fund?

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I saw about a thousand dollars.

• 51:32Theo Von?

  Stop it real quick. So this guy took a loan out to fund his emergency fund.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, like 20% interest, too. By the way, drop from 2,500.

• 51:40Speaker 05

  Uh, I spent some of it.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  On what emergency?

• 51:44Speaker 05

  Uh, learning how to do hair extensions.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Okay. That's an emergency?

• 51:48Speaker 05

  I wouldn't say it's an emergency.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  What do you think an emergency fund is for?

• 51:51Speaker 05

  Out of the emergency fund to buy a class for extensions.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  The interest rate on this is 28.64%.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 52:00Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  Okay, so originally it wasn't for the emergency fund. I just thought that that would be a good idea.

• 52:04Theo Von?

  Okay, so let's stop it there. So this is the kind of stuff that you're running into.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely, all the time.

• 52:09Theo Von?

  And this is a young man. He took money out at 28.64% interest to learn hair extension lessons. And that was considered an emergency.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Well, first the fund is emergency fund, so he takes out 28%, even though like the best thing you get in a high-yield savings is 4% right now, something like that. So you're losing a net 23%, but even so, then he just drains it from the emergency fund to learn hair extensions, which invest in yourself, invest in your skills. We like that.

• 52:36Theo Von?

  Right.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  At 30%, I don't know, no one would say, go get a degree for 30% interest. So learning hair extensions of that doesn't make sense, but he wants to move to Thailand to escape it, though. So I think that that's his out.

• 52:50Theo Von?

  To escape the debt, you mean?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Uh, to escape capitalism is what he specifically said, yeah.

• 52:55Theo Von?

  Do you see a lot of that? I'm gonna fly away to another country. That seems like a very fairy tale type of energy.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Honestly, no, surprisingly, a lot of people, when they just get overwhelmed by their finances, they really just put their head in the sand. And they just forget about it until it all comes and bites them in the ass. And that's usually when they come on our show, they realize they've had too much and they watch one of our episodes and they're like, oh shit, I gotta apply. And that, that's when we usually see them is when they've realized it's too much and they're in the most dire situation, but they haven't fully awakened to why. So they're still defensive on things. I'm sure they're nervous on camera. They're just normal people off the street, but that's why they're still defensive and they're trying to understand like what is going on and there's. Lots of cope talk, lots of cope talk across the table for me.

• 53:39Theo Von?

  And what does cope talk mean when you use that term?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like I, I, I was allowed to do it. It was my birthday month. It's okay.

• 53:46Theo Von?

  Excuses.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was okay to go to school for 12 years and take out private student loans to pay for an expensive apartment. I was just trying to survive.

• 53:56Theo Von?

  So a lot of people trying to, it seems like deflect the reality of the world. Like, how can, what can I do? Take, what class can I take? What school can I stay in longer? What can I do to not have to face the fact every day? That I have to be the one to survive myself.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I was there too. It just takes that moment, takes that moment for everything. I haven't, I haven't hit it for going to the gym or dieting. But it takes that moment for plunging into the deep end. There's usually something. For me, it might be a heart attack. But for my finances, it was, you know, shit, I can't pay this month's rent. I'm continuing the cycle of foreclosure notices. So they usually find their moment, but they just don't know why things are bad. But that's when they come on. We meet them at the bottom. Usually, some need a little further to go. And that sucks to see. But people that have come on our show though, uh, the median guest pays off $10,000 in 10 months.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  So it does work. Like it works really well. They just need that wake up call, a little of that adult moment where the, it's the first time someone's given them like the real shit without, without just trying to skate around.

• 55:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, because then also after you have a piece of reality that's really like a moment, like this is, these are real moments with people who've made some mistakes or, we've all been there. I mean, I remember I had a cell phone. I was like, I'm not paying Verizon. They don't know me. That was my thought. These fuckers don't know me, right? And I was on a bicycle at the time. You know, I was on my bike, on the cell phone. You know, just eating up minutes or whatever, just running up a tab.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 55:35Theo Von?

  And I was like, these motherfuckers don't know who I am. You know what I'm saying? I like to see him come get this fucking money, right? And my friend's house who I was living at, his dad was like, get fucked, pay the shit.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:46Theo Von?

  You know, and then I, I think that's when it started hitting me like, oh shit. It hit my credit, right? And next, I didn't even know I had credit. I didn't even know I had credit until they called like, hey, your credit's bad. I'm like, what is it?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:57Theo Von?

  And like, your credit? And I was like, yeah.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 56:00Theo Von?

  Put him on. And they're like, no, your credit's bad. And they're like, you owe eleven hundred dollars to Verizon. I thought you could just run away from it. You can't. But that was like, kind of a bottom for me. I was like, oh shit is really real, right? So I think moments like this are really real to people. And then you have a gentleman here. Who seems to be kind of fluid, sexually fluid, I'll say maybe, I have no idea. He's dressing up like, he kind of has a look of, he's like, the arch nemesis of like, the Monopoly guy or whatever, right? Or kind of like a Christmas sort of. Like a.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 56:29Theo Von?

  Like, kind of like a, um.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Carmen Sandiego.

• 56:31Theo Von?

  Yes, yes. Yes, like, hey, like, like, kind of like Carl Sandiego, right? So I feel like he has this, like, and it's a good energy. I like, so obviously, he's, he's brave to do. To have his own vibe, right? You can tell that, right?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  He's confident.

• 56:47Theo Von?

  Confident.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  He's a business owner, this guy.

• 56:50Theo Von?

  He is? Wow.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Wannabe business owner.

• 56:53Theo Von?

  Uh, wannabe business owner. But then he also has this emergency fund. And I think a lot of people sometimes when they. They'll create an emergency fund. A lot of fluid people would be very like, you know, like. Oh, you're, this jacket doesn't fit. It's an emergency. You know, the emergencies can be very, it's like. Is that a real emergency type of thing?

• 57:12Speaker 01

  They see it as a pile of money.

• 57:13Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  And that pile of money needs to be spent, of course.

• 57:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Honestly, though, that's still a better mindset than where a lot of people come to. A lot of people will come on the show and they really haven't heard of emergency funds. And they say their credit card is their emergency fund. And that's, I mean, well, he, again, he took a, a high interest loan for it. So I guess that's pretty similar. But at least he understood he needed an emergency fund. Some people think if anything happens, you put it on our credit card. Now, a lot of people don't have an option. So they do do that, but then, you know, we try to help them pay off the credit card as quick as possible.

• 57:45Theo Von?

  Yeah. What do you see a lot of, is there a lot of flexing still? Like, I know that's a thing where people are like, I'm gonna appear this way, right?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 57:54Theo Von?

  Is that a big thing you're seeing still with like millennials and Gen Z is like the appearance of things? Or are some people more going to like the emo hole of like, I don't have anything, I have nothing, I live in a Chipotle, deep inside of a Chipotle type of vibe?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  No, there's still lots of flexing and lots of cope spending too. The flexing, I mean, we have people come on with, you know, that outfit I think was a couple thousand bucks.

• 58:16Theo Von?

  No way, really?

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was very expensive. I didn't think it was. But even, he had red sunglasses too, they were like a few hundred bucks. It was crazy.

• 58:23Theo Von?

  Hats like that, those hats are kind of costly, I know.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we've had a dude come on with, you know, crazy rings on every single finger, but he had nothing to his name. I remember he had kids and they were basically growing up in poverty, but at least he has the rings. So there's always lots of flexing. People care about what the person next to them at the stoplight thinks about their car.

• 58:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  You know, even though that person will never remember them 30 seconds from then.

• 58:47Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Uh, I've had lots of people that I talked to where I tried to get them out of a $40,000 car loan when they make $30,000 that they can't afford and I'm like, let's just try to get you into a $10,000 car. And then they scoffed, "A $10,000 car? Like, I'm gonna be seen in a $10,000 car." That mindset's kind of gross, honestly.

• 59:05Theo Von?

  Right, because it's not even a rea-, because you're not living in your own reality then. It's like, yeah, I think that was a blessing about having a shitty car when I was a kid. I could, I earned the money, I bought the car, it was a piece of shit. Someone stole the passenger seat. Um, but I drove it, you know? People would get in and just had to get in immediately in the backseat.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:26Theo Von?

  You know, but it was like, I drove, but it was...

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Well, you learn the value of it.

• 59:29Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  And that's the important part. So many people that can just lean on others and especially those get it enabled. We see so much enablement where they get into a hard time, but then their parents bail them out. There's nothing wrong with the heart of wanting to help someone out, but they never learned their lesson. And then they never understand the value of a thousand dollars even, or just a dollar, just a dollar. But like, there's so many instances where I'm talking about $300 that they're spending on something, and that means nothing to them. Like $300 isn't a lot of money when it could be make or break for these people just making a necessary payment, avoiding a repo, but then $300 is nothing to them. They just don't understand the value of a dollar because they never had to.

• 1:00:09Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Because you had that car, you had to put money into fixing that car probably multiple times.

• 1:00:14Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Or being terrified of it just bottoming out on the street. You understood the value of it. So you're not just like being disrespectful with your car purchases going forward. You understand it.

• 1:00:25Theo Von?

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• 1:01:05Theo Von?

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• 1:01:50Theo Von?

  You know, sometimes you, you want to get therapy. Something's going on. And I've had friends that have needed help and not gotten it.

• 1:02:00Theo Von?

  And it's scary. Life can be that way. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to just make sure you're aware. You know, sometimes we can be dealing with stuff and we don't even notice it, you know? So I just want you to make sure you're taking care of yourself. And if you're afraid to try therapy, one-on-one, in person, then BetterHelp, they can help. That's right. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. You can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. And you can switch easily from one therapist to another. Visit betterhelp.com/ Theo to get 10% off your first month.

• 1:02:43Theo Von?

  That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash T H E O. And if you've been struggling, man, we've all been there, or woman, we've all been there and um, this too shall pass. Are there a lot of um, get rich now type of energy out there?

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:03:04Theo Von?

  Is there?

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  And that kind of goes back to TikTok and YouTube.

• 1:03:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, take me to some of that. What do you think? Um, what is some of that? What is, yeah, what is some of that get rich now? Yeah.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  So many pyramid schemes.

• 1:03:15Theo Von?

  What is that?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Pyramid schemes people are falling into? I had someone going into a ball python pyramid scheme that I just talked to.

• 1:03:21Theo Von?

  No way.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he buys 10 baby ball pythons from his friend. But how do you make money off of these ball pythons that are supposed to breed?

• 1:03:31Theo Von?

  Okay, so hold on. You get 10 baby ball pythons. And then you pay somebody, you get the 10 baby ball pythons. Okay. And now what do I do with these baby ball pythons? How do I get pyramid in?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Well, how do you make money? What would you, what would you do to make money off of baby?

• 1:03:45Theo Von?

  I think you'd have to mate them and then sell 10 to somebody else.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now who's buying them?

• 1:03:51Theo Von?

  People you know.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  No, people that wanna buy them so that they can breed them, to sell them to people who breed them. Okay. Cause people aren't buying them for pets. You go to a pet smart for that. No one's buying from these guys.

• 1:04:03Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  You buy the baby ball pythons hoping they make kids. So that you can sell them to others who wanna make kids and sell to others. And he got sucked into that, tens of thousands of dollars. And his 90 day fiancee, wife from somewhere in Central America is like freaking out about this. She moved here, sacrificed everything. And this dude's blowing all his money on this. And also like a million other side hustles. He's trying to do the power washing. He's trying to do the car detailing. Anything that is a TikTok get rich quick type of thing, or even just the side hustle things that some people do make work. He is just falling into it. And the python says this is most recent example. But the pythons he bought have gone down 50% in value because apparently you can day trade. You can day trade the ball pythons on like a little market app.

• 1:04:49Theo Von?

  There's a market app for day trading ball bot.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Theo Von?

  So, so not only has somebody created a pyramid scheme of ball pythoning, right? So you're ball pythoning, you're, you're, you know, you're, you're selling a few grams of ball python here. You know, an eight, an eight ball python here. And then you, but then the whole time, somebody's also, whoever engineered this fucking thing. Also creating an app where there's like almost a ball python coin market. So that's going up and down as well.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Theo Von?

  So you're basically driving around town with a backseat full of ball pythons, waiting for the market to go up enough.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Theo Von?

  So you can pull over and drive and put a couple of ball pythons on somebody's tab.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:32Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  That's my exit strategy.

• 1:05:34Theo Von?

  Bring that up. What the fuck? What in the fuck is happening, man?

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  That's Hawk2's next pump and dump.

• 1:05:42Theo Von?

  I know, huh? Where's she been at?

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  She went to bed.

• 1:05:47Theo Von?

  Somebody said she went to Barbados or something and she moved out of the country. Um, okay. But so, so that's a new thing that's going on. Um.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Apparently.

• 1:05:55Theo Von?

  What's another one that's going on?

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 1:05:59Theo Von?

  Any other pyramid schemes?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Lots of people getting into the knives pyramid schemes. They're buying, you know, I, I don't even know what they're called. I've never joined them, but they buy knives to sell to other people. So lots of those, lots of people getting into the day trading life, crypto life.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  We had some old guy with no retirement, poor dude. I felt so bad. Actually, he like blew through a million bucks somehow. I filmed it a couple of years ago and super nice dude, but he fell into this pyramid scheme of you like buy these nutrients that people can take and then, but you hope they come to a storefront to step in a body scanner that tells them how healthy they are, then they buy your nutrients, but I asked if we could come by and tour his business like a couple of months after that. He kind of fell off the face of the earth. I feel like his shop doesn't exist anywhere on Google Maps. So I think that pyramid scheme collapsed. Well, the reality is though, the reality is in retirement, again, we already talked about 15 to 25, 20% are actually

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  able to, or actually 15 to 20% of people take early withdrawals before even 60. And at the median 401k balance is 30,000, but it's low and slow. That's all it is. You know, you're cooking a nice piece of meat. It's low and slow. That's what your retirement funding needs to be. You're just hoping it doubles like every seven years or so in the market. Uh, it just gotta be investing like 20% a year, 20% a year.

• 1:07:23Theo Von?

  20% a year is a lot.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  It's a lot, but if you accurately budget, it can be relatively decent.

• 1:07:30Theo Von?

  We have $5 a week is a, is a great amount.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Starting anywhere is great. Starting anywhere. I mean, that's why we focus on getting out of debt first so that you have more to invest.

• 1:07:37Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  You know, out of the high interest debt, but what a lot of people suggest is 50, 30, 20, 50% on needs, 30% on wants, because you want to be able to live. What's the point of being here if we're not having fun? And then 20% to investing. So it's still the smallest percentage.

• 1:07:49Theo Von?

  Okay. Say if you have a debt, right?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Theo Von?

  And you could save $5 every week.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  What's the debt?

• 1:07:56Theo Von?

  You could save, um, say you have, say you're $10,000 in debt.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:01Theo Von?

  And you're 25 years old.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:02Theo Von?

  And you could save $20 a week, right? Would you rather you put that $20 a week towards paying off the debt or is it better to take that 20? And put it towards just like a long-term investment?

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Well, a couple of qualifications, like what would you say the interest rate of the debt is and what is the debt?

• 1:08:15Theo Von?

  That's a good point. I would say the interest rate of the debt is probably going to be about 14% or something.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Debt immediately. Cause one, it's probably not even an asset, like at least a car is an asset, even if. Consider appreciating one, but let's just say it's a credit card or a private student loan. You know, that's not going to benefit anything at that.

• 1:08:30Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  So pay that off. And then the other question is, there's also the third category. Do you have an emergency fund? If you don't have an emergency fund, then at that point, we're still funding the emergency fund over investing. Because you need to protect yourself in case of the rainy day, and the rainy day always comes.

• 1:08:45Theo Von?

  Cause there's this mentality, I think sometimes like, oh, I'm not going to pay off that credit card. I'm going to invest, I'm going to save this money and invest, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm going to invest in instead, but you're really just reverse engineering a nightmare, kind of.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Best thing you're going to get, if you're just buying into the overall US stock market is an eight percent return averaged out. Cause that's what it's been all up years, down years since the beginning has been eight percent. So if you have 15% debt, you know, you're, you're just not making the difference.

• 1:09:07Theo Von?

  Right. Is, is college still considered a normal path for a lot of Gen Z?

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be college. People just do college in a really stupid way, though. People go to the dream school that has the sports team they want for the major that doesn't make money. So it's not that college is the bad thing. It's you can do it the right way. Get your gen ads out of the way at a community college, something, you know, ACC here, super cheap. You can go over a couple hundred bucks a semester and get some credits.

• 1:09:35Theo Von?

  Lot of diversity too at those colleges. You want to meet some, uh, you know what I'm saying? An Asian girl or guy or something?

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Theo Von?

  Do it.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  And larger class sizes as well. So there's a benefit. Uh, instead of a big hall that you get in university. So you get more one-on-one time with professors at community college. It's actually usually just kind of better education, just also statistically, the people that are going to community college are also more likely to drop out. So that's why some of the metrics are a little bit skewed.

• 1:09:59Theo Von?

  If you're going to drop out, then you're dropping out there at a cheaper, uh,

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:10:02Theo Von?

  At a cheaper rate.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  But then you don't have to go out of state. You don't have to go to the private college. You don't have to go to the college that has your favorite sports team. That's going to go in the, you know, going to win a national championship in football. You don't need that.

• 1:10:13Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  And then also when you're going to college, is it going to have a return on the investment for the degree you're actually trying to get to? And if you don't know what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with taking a year off between high school and college to figure some things out. Maybe do a trade, look, or look at a trade. So if you're interested in that, take a career.

• 1:10:29Theo Von?

  A trade, you mean?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, just look and see if that's something you're interested in. And then you can go to trade school in a smart and dumb way as well. There's expensive ones out there. And there's just average ones. And I don't want you to focus all your money and time on something you don't even want to do just because it like, oh, plumber, they make great money these days, you know, the medians, whatever it is, but it's like pretty good. If you don't have any interest in getting on your hands and knees and doing that shit, you know, maybe we're not doing that.

• 1:10:53Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah, you want to have a, you want to have some interest in what you're doing for sure. And you want to find something. I mean, that's one nice thing sometimes about going to a community college or going to a college. Is taking on some different, uh, courses and seeing like, well, what might I be interested in, you know? You know, I know I like something about this, but I don't know what it is yet. Let me get at least into that realm of classes.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you have to remember, people that go to college, forty percent, forty percent drop out. So this is not a guaranteed thing. People think just because they're going to go to college, okay, my life is set now. Forty percent who take out student loans drop out of college.

• 1:11:25Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  I was one of them. I dropped out forty thousand dollars of federal student loans and twelve thousand private.

• 1:11:30Theo Von?

  Wow, really?

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, it took me, I think, eleven years or something, or ten and a half, or ten and six fifths, five, six years, almost, yeah, like eleven years, I think, to do college.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it happens.

• 1:11:41Theo Von?

  And it costs money. Dude, I took a couple of classes, like you already took this class and all those, I remember being like, yeah, I know, I'm good at it. I'm gonna fucking take it again.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:11:50Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Doubling up the degree?

• 1:11:53Theo Von?

  Yeah, and just like, and I remember one time this teacher gave me a B. I went and took her class again to fucking prove to her I could get an A.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Did you prove to her?

• 1:12:00Theo Von?

  Hmm, I think she got laid off. She was dealing with like, uh, addiction, pill addiction.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:12:05Theo Von?

  But I, I did a good, you know, I did my best, that's for sure. Um, what are, what are some things, say somebody's, they don't know what they're doing right now, right? They don't know. What are, uh, some, let's go over some, like, blue collar and the non-blue collar jobs that people could do. You could start at home. I've always said pressure washing. I grew up in a neighborhood where

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Theo Von?

  if you wanted to get a leg up, you could get a pressure washer, a couple hundred dollars.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:12:35Theo Von?

  You know, you can get a nice one for like five, six hundred bucks. Now, you have to get that money first, but

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:39Theo Von?

  it's realistic. And then you can start pressure, you can go to a wealthy person's area and be like, hey, I'll pressure wash it, and you can do a good job. What are some other jobs like that that you, um, recommend to people to get started? Uh, if they don't really have anything?

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with dropping some McFries, you know, just to try to pay the bills. People look down on that. There's nothing wrong with these, these extra, you know, for the fast food jobs even, just while you're trying to pay your way through school. Um, I mean, Summer Moon Coffee Shop, I like, you know, their, their moon milk creamer. I basically lactate that shit.

• 1:13:15Theo Von?

  Summer Moon, it's called?

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Theo Von?

  I just went to a place called Two Hands.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Okay, also good, I think.

• 1:13:20Theo Von?

  They have nice people that work there.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they were hiring just a barista. The, the manager was talking to me, he was like, dude, get someone on your show to come work for me. I need to hire people. Eighteen bucks an hour. You know, that's not bad. Austin's pretty expensive, but eighteen bucks an hour is not bad. And that's a great place to just start, get your foot in the door. There's nothing wrong with the side hustles either, kind of like the power washing. A lot of people view that as like a side hustle, hopefully turning into a full hustle at some point. What I caution a lot of people though, is a lot of people go into that and they're like, okay, now I need the pressure washer. But I need the nice pressure washer. Oh wait, I need the truck to be able to move it around. That was the guy that we just, the ball python guy, he had to buy a truck so that he could move his pressure washer around. So that's.

• 1:14:00Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't want to show up with ten snakes in a fucking Ford Festiva and a Dodge Neon, you know?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Theo Von?

  Like, these snakes deserve a classy automobile. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about, dude?

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, people get more excited about the, the actual job, the journey, the entrepreneurship more than the actual grind.

• 1:14:17Theo Von?

  Ah, yeah. That is a huge trap, isn't it?

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, I'm gonna look the part so much, but you still have to do the part.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's nothing with, just get into a bank as well. Get into a bank, work as a teller.

• 1:14:29Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Uh, sit down and just talk, uh, talk, talk different loans to people as well. I mean, there's lots of jobs that don't necessarily require a degree that you can get into.

• 1:14:38Theo Von?

  I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles, we put up flyers everywhere. We would do refrigerator cleaning, right? Nobody wants to clean their refrigerator.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Theo Von?

  And for two hundred bucks, we'd come and clean your refrigerator. And we'd just take every, just clean, I mean, clean it good.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:52Theo Von?

  And bro, I was shocked at how many people were like, I will, in a heartbeat, come clean this bitch. A lot of perverts too, trying to fucking touch your back or whatever while you were cleaning.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:15:02Theo Von?

  But you fucking chalk it up to the two hundred. Have a have somebody on watch while you clean back and forth.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:15:10Theo Von?

  But uh, dog walking, that was another thing, something you could do, right? Car cleaning, I remember um, if you liked cleaning cars, you like cleaning your car. If you do something well, somebody will pay you to do that well for them, right? That's one thing that I always think.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  We used to have a uh, on the street audit show that we did just back in the day when I was testing things out. And I met this dude.

• 1:15:30Theo Von?

  Like take me to that on the street audit show, that sounds really cool.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  I'd just walk up to people, you know, those kind of camera in the face things, but I would just ask them money questions about their finances and then just kind of get my thoughts on it. But we met this dude who, you know Rover?

• 1:15:44Theo Von?

  Rover?

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  The app.

• 1:15:45Theo Von?

  Like Rover Wade or whatever?

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  No, so it's the dog walking that you were mentioning, so you can hire dog watchers, walkers, or anything off of Rover and.

• 1:15:54Theo Von?

  Oh wow, beautiful animals on there. Is that a corgi?

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  He's making a hundred seventy-five thousand dollars a year doing that.

• 1:16:00Theo Von?

  No, he's not. Walking dogs?

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Uh, house-sitting dogs, but because it's just house-sitting, he can also work his full-time tech job from the house that he's sitting. So he's making like three hundred thousand hours a year. Yeah.

• 1:16:11Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:16:12Speaker 01

  There's a lot you could do. No degree required for that. Sit in someone's house, feed their dog, take them out.

• 1:16:18Theo Von?

  And the funny thing is, man, I'll say this, once you start doing something, you don't know where it's gonna lead. I will be so shocked how many times it's like, okay, you're a barista, you become a good barista, then somebody who runs a company of some sort, they show up, they see a good worker when they know, when they see one. They're like, what are you making here? Are you making eighteen dollars an hour plus tips? I'll pay you eighty thousand dollars a year to come work right next door, you know? Why don't you come in tomorrow and we just talk about it, see if it's something you would like? Just because they see your work ethic, or I'll pay you, it's just, it's amazing sometimes when, when somebody who runs a business starts to see good work ethic, that they will latch on to it immediately.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:57Theo Von?

  But also the things you don't know, it's like you start with a small thing and the next thing you know, it's like, like my brother was a tree cutter, right? He started just cutting down trees. And after a couple of months, he was like, oh wait, I could be the foreman. I understand how this works. And I, I, I, I can do the foreman's job, right? I need to learn more. But once I learn more, I'd be happy to hire some other tree guys and put up my own advertising, like, the barrier to entry to things, it's not as. Hard as you think a lot of times.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:26Theo Von?

  It's just you don't know it until you start.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the first full time editors that I hired dude was making. Uh, the math worked out to almost like six bucks an hour working for a YouTuber. But his editing was great and with the different incentives and everything I uh, give just based on skill. He was making six bucks an hour to now a hundred.

• 1:17:46Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Thousand a year.

• 1:17:47Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  So like, if you can prove it.

• 1:17:50Theo Von?

  Right. And I have a friend who's um, been doing some personal assistant thing for another friend. And I was like, bro, you should start learning social media edits, learn how to do them. So then whenever you're with this guy, now you could. You know, just capture a couple of things on your phone. Put it through one of these kind of like filter, different filters or different programs that they have online. You know, there's cap, there's all these different things. And next thing you know, you can show him three examples the next day. And now the next time he hires you, you, to go out with him for an eve or whatever it is. You know, you can tack on an extra thirty bucks an hour because you're going to make a sick edit for him. Or something, you know, like, there's just, there's a lot of things that you can do. I think um, that's kind of an easy one you can learn is how to become a social media editor, video editor.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:18:28Theo Von?

  Now you're gonna have to have a computer that works to do it and you're gonna have to have at least your, your cell phone. To be able to do that, but I think that that's realistic. Trying to think of what else, oh, carpet cleaning is something that people don't want to do a lot of times.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I mean, that's my small business, or that's what the small business my dad owns is, is. Just, you know, a little power washing, window cleaning, carpet cleaning.

• 1:18:48Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  And that's what took him from, you know, being a cashier at a gas station when we were poor when I was born. To now they're doing really well because you can grow that, you can scale that. They opened a second branch, they're doing well. There's, there's a lot of opportunities there. And then in like the video editing world, just if you're just asking yourself, what can I do to make that person's life easier? They'll give you money.

• 1:19:07Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, I agree, um, trying to think of some other ones work from home that aren't his blue collar. I know there's data entry is one. I see a lot of advertising for data entry, is that a valid one?

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  It, it could, I honestly, I have no idea, it could be.

• 1:19:21Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, look that up, is data entry a valid uh? Gateway job or something?

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, just any way to get into a building, a business and just getting to know management there and working with them and just asking what do they need and being able to fulfill those tasks, you'll move up. Yeah.

• 1:19:42Theo Von?

  According to current data, an entry level data entry position typically pays around fifteen and twenty dollars per hour in the US with an average annual salary ranging from thirty thousand to forty thousand.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  And are you gonna do that your whole life? No, but sometimes just getting into the companies.

• 1:19:54Theo Von?

  You may need to do it for a couple of months to get out of a situation, you know?

• 1:20:00Theo Von?

  Maybe you could do it while your kid's at school. You know what I'm saying? Like just I'm just trying to think of little ways. I know that these are obviously me saying these things and I have no idea what some of people's real lives are like.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  No, of course, but in the conversations, what I see are people looking down on jobs like that. They're not willing to, even though they're not paying their bill.

• 1:20:17Theo Von?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  It's like, at that point, everyone's just looking down upon them. I mean, the car company is that's about to repo them. The bank is looking down on them. They can work that job. They can work the McDonald's, whatever it is, just to make ends meet.

• 1:20:32Theo Von?

  Have you ever had somebody come in with a business idea that was just repulsive? And you saw them going down a road and you're like?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  That old guy I was telling you about, he did pump like about a million bucks into this whole thing, really, his entire life savings, everything he's worked for into his sixties, seventies, wherever he was. And again, the machine, whatever this body scanning machine is, I'm not in that world, so I don't know, but I know it was like fifty thousand or something crazy. And the storefront that he was investing in, again, just a quarter later.

• 1:21:03Theo Von?

  Biofrequency gadgets are a total scam. Let's zoom in on this, see if this sounds like it. I would like to find this so we can put this out. This is interesting. I recently asked what I thought about the Solx AO Scan. This website for the product includes this claim. AO Scan technology by Solx is an elegant yet simple way to use frequency technology based on Tesla, Einstein, and other prominent scientists' discoveries. It uses delicate biofrequencies and electromagnetic signals to communicate with the body. Was it something like that or no? It had nutrients involved, you said?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Well, no, he used the results to try to sell people to get nutrients.

• 1:21:35Theo Von?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  And that was the pyramid scheme he was a part of.

• 1:21:38Theo Von?

  Got it. So first, there's gonna be a place where people are gonna get this scan done. And then, based on the outcomes of the scan, you're gonna be able to sell them nutrients to get them equal.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:21:50Theo Von?

  Get them whole. Wow. Man, it's crazy the level of people. We had a glitter mining thing by us growing up. People sold these glitter, like you could buy shares of glitter mines or whatever where they were mining glitter. And they fucking robbed so many of us.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:05Theo Von?

  I was in a pyramid scheme too. I put, I lost something.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  What'd you sell?

• 1:22:09Theo Von?

  Just, it was like, you, it would be, basically sold somebody right into a pyramid. Like I got into and it was the, on the chart, it was a pyramid.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:18Theo Von?

  And it was like, well, I remember asking somebody, like, is this a pyramid scheme? And they're like, I don't know.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  You remember what you were selling?

• 1:22:23Theo Von?

  Just, you sold literally the square that you had. It was like,

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:22:27Theo Von?

  I'm gonna sell, somebody sold me a square. And then I was like, okay, now I get two squares. I get to sell two squares. It was a, it was a.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  That is like a literal pyramid. Okay, yeah.

• 1:22:38Theo Von?

  And dude, the crazy part was, I remember asking my friend's dad about it and he had bought into it too. So everybody got took by us.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  We see people getting into the makeup one a lot.

• 1:22:48Theo Von?

  The makeup pyramid scheme?

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is where you, you buy makeup from someone else and you sell that to other people and you try to recruit people to sell makeup and.

• 1:22:57Theo Von?

  Well, there's like Donna, uh, what's that Donna? What's that Kay? Mary Kay?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Mary Kay. We get lots of Mary Kays.

• 1:23:03Theo Von?

  You do?

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:23:04Theo Von?

  I'll tell you a story. I was at, uh, in West Virginia. I was doing a show there one weekend and they had the grand sellers of the Mary Kay group. And they all had Cadillacs or whatever. And they were doing a big thing there and they all pulled up. I mean, they must have had 40 different Cadillacs that they pulled up in there.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  They figured out the game.

• 1:23:23Theo Von?

  Multi-level marketing, right? So it's kind of, yeah, I mean.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Again, people don't want to do the low and slow. They want to get rich now.

• 1:23:29Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  They're not willing to just invest and hopefully hit that 59 and a half. That's when you can withdraw from your retirement, tax advantaged retirement accounts without a penalty.

• 1:23:38Theo Von?

  Is that one of the things you see with, um, the younger generation is just because of TikTok, there's so many more schemes out there?

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Theo Von?

  Is people wanting the easy way out?

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely, because they see other people that have a proven success rate to actually do it. So it's just a quick way to get to wealthy-ness. And 60 seems so far to a 20-year-old.

• 1:23:56Theo Von?

  So far.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:57Theo Von?

  Um, what were some, I know there were some, uh, I'm trying to think of some different inventions or schemes. There was one called Dyna- Fe- Dyna-

• 1:24:08Theo Von?

  D Y N A. It was a bike wheel. This thing was crazy. Dyna bike wheel. This was it. Pull up this Dyna sphere. Dyna sphere vehicle.

• 1:24:20Theo Von?

  Zoom in.

• 1:24:22Theo Von?

  The Dynosphere is a monowheel vehicle designed, designed patented in 1930 by John Archibald Purves from Somerset, UK. Purves' idea for the vehicle was inspired by a sketch made by Leonardo da Vinci. Look at this thing. "Two prototypes were initially built, a smaller electric model and one with a gasoline motor." Let me see. "The driver's seat and the motor were part of one unit mounted with wheels upon the interior rails of the outer hoop." I mean, this thing looks crazy. If you can, you can't see this on audio, but it's basically a guy driving a huge tire around. "The singular driving seat and motor unit when powered forward would thus try to climb

• 1:25:05Theo Von?

  up the spherical rails, which would cause the lattice cage to roll forward." So basically, you're in a fair, it's like something you'd be in at a carnival. "Steering of the prototype was crude, requiring the driver to lean in the direction sought to travel. Though Purves envisioned future models equipped with gears that would shift the inner housing without leaning, thus tipping the Dynosphere in the direction of travel." "A novelty model was later constructed by Purves that could seat eight passengers, the Dynosphere Eight, made specifically for beach use."

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  I want to see that. How do you fit eight people in that?

• 1:25:38Theo Von?

  It looks like a beach, it's basically like a hamster wheel. If you guys could imagine a hamster wheel that someone drove. Oh, there you go, there's that eight-seater. Oh, that's kind of cool. You get to sit in a circle and it just cruises? That's romantic.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Theo Von?

  Okay, go back, I just want to see what happened to it. "It was also impossible to steer or brake." Another aspect of the vehicle that received... While the vehicle could move along just fine, it was also impossible to steer or brake. Another aspect of the vehicle that received criticism was the phenomenon of gerbling, oh, gerbling. "The tendency when accelerating or braking the vehicle for the independent housing, holding the driver within the monowheel, to spin within the moving structure." Imagine you slam on the brakes, right? The vehicle stops, but you just keep spinning in the middle?

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  We need Elon to get on this, bring it back.

• 1:26:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's something we need back. What else did I, I'm trying to think of a cra, oh, the banana slicer. Can you see if you find that one? This was something that somebody invented.

• 1:26:37Theo Von?

  The problem was, no, go to that one right there on the right, Hutzler, go to the Hutzler right there. It was a one size fits all, uh, your banana had to be one size.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:48Theo Von?

  So if your banana was obtuse, or if it was like, I don't want to say an African banana or whatever, but if it was a different type of banana, or Filipino banana, I don't think this, you couldn't use this one. Um, but that's crazy to think about, right?

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Theo Von?

  That somebody invented that? That was kind of a crazy one. Trying to think of anything else I remember hearing about, um... Oh, there's always that baby cage, that was, people would put that baby outside of the window, remember that? That baby cage out window, yeah.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  They hung it from a window.

• 1:27:17Theo Von?

  Yeah, there you go, right there. Get that little baby at that cage, baby. The bizarre history of the baby cage, pull, uh, click on that, get me a link to that, daddy.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  It's a little outswitzy.

• 1:27:29Theo Von?

  Little outswitzy, yeah. Little outsides witzy, huh?

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:33Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:27:36Theo Von?

  Uh, play on, where's there? Dangling baby cages came into vogue after they were invented in 1922, but their origins really began with the 1884 book, The Care of Feeding of Children,

• 1:27:48Theo Von?

  um, by Emmett Holt. Emmett carefully describes how babies need to be aired out. Fresh air is required to renew and purify the blood, and this is just as necessary for health and growth as proper food. Um, and what were those cages? How big was that baby cage, daddy?

• 1:28:05Theo Von?

  Oh, that baby's enjoying it, huh? It's gotta be kinda nice, put your baby out there for an hour, let him meet a bird or whatever.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Theo Von?

  Have a falcon fucking befriend him. It was believed that exposing infants to cold temperatures both outside and through cold water bathing would grant them a certain immunity to catching minor illnesses. I could see some of that.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  This is the first cold plunge?

• 1:28:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's all this is, yeah. Yeah, that's the first cold plunge, right there. That's, that's Wim Hof, I think. That's one of the earliest pictures of Wim Hof, right there. That's Joe Rogan, right there, when he's a baby.

• 1:28:37Theo Von?

  Tell me a little bit about your own budgeting at Simpler Budget so I can make sure that people know about that, young people who are confused or they don't want to end up in a bad financial realm. Tell me about Simpler Budget.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  The first part of just like fixing finances is the budget because you gotta know what's going in and out. And a lot of people overcomplicate it. They get a spreadsheet that they can't manage or they download an app like You Need a Budget, which is another really good one, but it's like so complicated and the learning curve is huge and it has all these qualifications for so many things that you just don't need. People that are in bad finances literally just need one place where they can just connect their accounts, tells them where money's going, and you can figure out where to actually stop spending money or close a credit card, or we even were tracking different accounts where you can see your investments as well. So you can see if you're on track and whatnot. So just that simple stuff and what a lot of people struggle with,

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  even if they create a simple budget on a spreadsheet, they don't come back to it the next month. So they make the budget, but then they don't actively budget because budgeting's not just making a budget. You gotta stick to it. You gotta follow it. So this helps you by setting alerts and whatever you need and continued education and the, you know, premium version, we have these classes with financial professionals that you can join live and ask them questions and they help mentor you.

• 1:29:54Theo Von?

  Now, are these classes more valuable than the original classes? So these are real classes? These are valuable classes?

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, these are financial professionals, you know, certified financial planners and people with budgeting experience. Again, the thing we talked about at the beginning, that was just teaching how to day trade. So that's-

• 1:30:08Theo Von?

  That's right. So day trading in its own right is risky. This is teaching people how to save and budget and plan.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  Budget. Proven things that like the most, every licensed financial professional would talk about. So keeping people on track, people just need those extra motivations. A lot of people watch our show that are on, that are on track to budget and payoff debt, but they keep coming back because it helps them stay motivated throughout the week.

• 1:30:33Theo Von?

  For sure. It's just like, it's almost like going to recovery meetings or AA meetings. Like you go to the meetings just to keep the word in your head, right? You want to stay motivated. Yeah, I love the idea that you have this world that's entertaining, but then the backend of the entertainment is let's keep people budgeted and on track. It's like, it's exactly really what a lot of young generation needs because things have, everything has entertainment value now. It's like, you know, you're at a funeral and there's people, you know. Like they're selling albums and shit or whatever like they're you know um but you know there's everything has entertainment value now so to have an entertainment value with financial with adding financial structure to people's lives I think it's really amazing um there's a lot of people out there that you don't know if you can trust I've seen

• 1:31:15Theo Von?

  them in over my lifetime where you come with these guys I'm gonna name some of these guys financier types in the world and um can you will you be willing to just give me your take?

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  If I know them.

• 1:31:26Theo Von?

  If you know them, okay.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  People pull them up.

• 1:31:28Theo Von?

  Okay, Grant Cardone is one?

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, Grant Cardone, one thing, one message that I kind of know about him is he he's okay with going into a lot of debt and risking everything in order to get you know property or start a business he's like if you're not making six figures at 21 you're a failure I think you know like hopefully I'm not putting words into his mouth because I don't follow a lot of his stuff but I know it's a little too risky for my taste it's a little too risky a little too flexing of wealth him with his private jet there that's you know that's I get the aspirational part that's great you know maybe you'll get there someday but let's just be realistic for the average American low and slow invest try to get to retirement.

• 1:32:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think that flexing of wealth is so bizarre to me because I would never want I would never if I looked at something somebody else had I would feel bad if I don't have it I feel like or part of me would part of me would feel inferior or something maybe not like up here but somewhere in my head I'd be like oh I'm not good enough for something I don't understand sometimes why people do that sort of thing but I also understand that's just my school of thought and that some people like this aspirational style like you know I'm saying let's see the flash and that motivates some people so I think there's a motivational tactic in it um Alex Hormazian you know him?

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I think he's really good in like the motivational part you know I don't know a lot about his own financial advice but in terms of you know really being motivated for your entrepreneurial mindset that's been really good and honestly I I've watched a couple of his videos when I was dealing with a couple you know issues while we were scaling our business and just like you know what does this guy do he built like a multi million hundred million dollar business and you know obviously that's if someone's done it maybe listen to them so I've listened to a couple of things that have been beneficial from him.

• 1:33:17Theo Von?

  Um Ty Lopez he's the famous guy that would read a book a day that shit always was crazy to me.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Think this is the guy that kinda put a bad taste in everyone's mouth about buying courses online, which kinda sucks.

• 1:33:30Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  Because I think you can, we've put a lot of time and value and resources in producing educational content that, you know, people could pay for that helps guide them a little more handheld. And we've seen like, one of the lowest refund rates, even though we offer free refunds, like no matter what, and we've seen like the lowest refund rate in the industry, but so many people immediately, they see the class and like, oh, it's a scam, it's a scam, you have to pay for it, it's a scam.

• 1:33:56Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  And it kinda started with this dude selling a course on a million different things.

• 1:34:02Theo Von?

  We had the book in a day shit was always weird. Like, I don't even know if I wanna talk to a guy who just read Where the Red Fern Grows, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know if I wanna fucking talk to some guy who just read that in one day.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  But again, it was also, it was the Grant Cardone like wealth flexing thing. All his videos were like, you know, behind a Lamborghini in a garage. And that's not where the average person's gonna be, and that's okay. It's okay to be.

• 1:34:25Theo Von?

  Poor, it's fun.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's okay to be settled with just a good content retirement. Not, everyone needs to risk everything to go crazy and go into a lot of debt on a big risk. Not that that's what he advocates for, but.

• 1:34:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, and having a job is just one of the most important things. I remember my buddy's dad would always just say, do you have a job? It's the first thing he'd ask me every time I asked him, do you have a job? If I had a job, he'd talk to me. If I didn't have a job, he wouldn't talk. It's just like, you need to have a job. You need to have something you are doing, and not because you need to be part of capitalist success, but because you need to go and do something, right? You have to have a job. It can be, you know, you're making something at home that you're aiming towards selling or doing, but you wanna have some motivation. A job is just a form of motivation, it's just an active motivation.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  Well, there's some purpose, people find purpose in jobs.

• 1:35:08Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  Some people are purposeless after retirement.

• 1:35:11Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  People do, you know FIRE, do you know FIRE?

• 1:35:13Theo Von?

  Do I know FIRE?

• 1:35:16Theo Von?

  Fire?

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  The independence movement where you stack up as much money as possible, invest it all like crazy. So you can retire at like forty five.

• 1:35:22Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  A lot of people did that and no one's really doing it anymore because everyone retired at forty five with a few million bucks. And they're bored and they have no purpose and there's nothing because they don't have a job. They have a family maybe, but they don't have the purpose.

• 1:35:35Theo Von?

  Oh, I know. I have some women friends that have like spent, really got focused on and they now they want families and stuff. And so now that's a little bit tough for some of them.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:35:44Theo Von?

  I think fire affects women probably differently because they can have children maybe too, you know, if they focus so much. But even guys like, I mean, I focus on work mostly. My biggest relationship is my work. You know, it's like, I don't have a relationship right now. I'm not lamenting about it. I would like to get married or something, but when I'm like, who's my spouse? It's my, you know? I put a wedding ring on my job, you know, I like, I like working. The second I think about doing something, I think about working, you know? Um, what about, um, Gary Vaynerchuk? He's kind of a wild one, huh?

• 1:36:17Theo Von?

  Gary's always been like the guy. He's like, oh, you got silverware in your house? Sell it. Sell it right now. You know, sell your silverware, sell your house. How much is your house worth? Three thousand?

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  Why? To get out of debt or what?

• 1:36:28Theo Von?

  Sell the silverware sixty five dollars and then he'll pull up like I'll be standing in a park, right? Cause he has nowhere to live now. He's eating soup with his hand because he has no more utensils. And Gary will be like, how much money you got? And the guy's like, I got four thousand dollars cash. He's like, you fucking did it, buddy. And he'll hug him and then drive off in a limousine, right?

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 1:36:47Theo Von?

  But it's like, that's the thing. It's like, you just don't want any loose cash sitting around, you know? He's like, oh, your grandmother's asleep. Sell her fucking nightgown while she's resting. She don't need it. You know, it's like anything, anything they have, lease it out. Your grandfather's taking a nap, lease out his eyeglasses while he's resting, you know? It's just all type of stuff like that, man.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Do you know the purpose though? I'm so curious because I do not know this guy.

• 1:37:09Theo Von?

  It's a motivation, I feel like, right? And this is just my opinion also. But it's just, it's, it's always, there's always something they want to motivate you to do, you know?

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:19Theo Von?

  Um, and Vaynerchuk, his family owned a wine company growing up. No shade, but it's like. Dude, if my family had a wine company growing up, you know, I remember my mom beat me one time with a bag of fucking frozen oranges. I remember that shit.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Did he sell his winery?

• 1:37:34Theo Von?

  It's a little different than that, but I'm just saying, uh, I'm not sure. But I'm just saying, you know what I'm saying? The Merlot don't fall far from the grape. You know what I'm saying, brother? Um, what else are we gonna talk about? Ty Dolla Sign? He's not, is he an investor? No, he's just a, what does he do?

• 1:37:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, um, financial advisor? No.

• 1:38:00Theo Von?

  Uh, there isn't much information about Ty Dolla Sign's investments. Okay. So I don't know how he ended up on our list then.

• 1:38:07Theo Von?

  Um, what else? Anything else on our sheet? Wanted to go over? Was there anything else that you wanted to talk about specifically, uh, Caleb?

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I just want, I just want people to realize that they're in a better place than they think they are. You know, that's kind of one thing we didn't really talk about.

• 1:38:20Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Is that, I, you know, I don't want to like, like, just like glug, glug on America.

• 1:38:24Theo Von?

  I agree. I agree. I don't want to be negative only.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, there's a lot more opportunity that people aren't willing to accept. We're in a very doom and gloom right now where everyone, again, we talked about the victim thing earlier. And everyone's like, it's impossible to get ahead. It's a, why do anything? Because everything's so hard right now. And obviously inflation was brutal, especially when it was nearing that like 9%. But like, we just had yesterday, yesterday, before we filmed this, 256,000 jobs added in the last month when they expected 155,000. Like unemployment rate at 4.1%.

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Here, we have a GDP 19 or 25 trillion dollars where in the UK, Germany, Japan, we're looking at three to five trillion dollars. GDP per capita here is 70 to 80,000, UK 47,000. You know, there's a lot of opportunity here. I don't want people to just really always beat themselves down. And I know.

• 1:39:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Like my shows, it is on the negative side because the, their finances are really bad, but I want people to know they do have more opportunity out there if they're willing to take a little bit of risk.

• 1:39:27Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, and I think that I think there's this pressure, probably especially with the younger generation to put, you have to put your life on a social media, right? And so then you would be, you would feel more shame about having certain jobs because you wouldn't want to put that reality on the social media. Where like when I was in high school or in college, you didn't, that wasn't a thing. It was like, you didn't, I mean, social media was coming up, but it wasn't like that. It wasn't like, you didn't have, um, you didn't have that immediate reaction with people like ripping you or roasting you or, or, or, um, making funny online. So I think that that's a different thing where it's like, oh, man, not what will I think of this job?

• 1:40:09Theo Von?

  Man, what will other people think if I post about this job or if I live in this world? And I think that that's where you can just be creative. If you do want to post about your job, be funny about it. Be like, you know what I'm saying? And, um, and also you have to just realize like, it's the shit that you don't want to be doing. That's when you sit there and your brain thinks up the shit you do want to be doing, dude. When I was doing shit I did not want to do, dude, that's when my brain was getting inspired, bro. I mean, my brain was like, and that's when I got to see what my brain even was. My brain was like, we're going to figure this out. My brain started to surprise me with ideas and thoughts and, um, so I think that, yeah, you have to like, just know that sometimes you feel like, man, I'm in the dirt, but

• 1:40:52Theo Von?

  you're really in the soil kind of type of vibe, you know?

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like that mentality. There's, well, there's a lot of shame in certain jobs right now.

• 1:40:58Theo Von?

  Yeah, and we put it on. It's like, just put the fries in the bag. It's like, sure, but dude, I used to just put the pizza in the box forever. You know what I'm saying? Like, we had a, and it was a blast, dude.

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I delivered Jimmy John's for like six years.

• 1:41:11Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:41:13Theo Von?

  I've, I've had Jimmy John on this podcast.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:17Theo Von?

  As a business entrepreneur.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  Big dude.

• 1:41:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, great dude, man.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  Very big dude.

• 1:41:21Theo Von?

  I saw him three weeks ago.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:23Theo Von?

  So it's just like, you just never know where you're going to be, you know? Like, I mean, you just don't, you know? Jimmy John's my favorite sandwich. You almost got hit running across a fucking highway to get a couple once.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  What are you, a number nine guy? I'm a number nine guy.

• 1:41:33Theo Von?

  Me, I go turkey, Tom, extra turkey, light mayonnaise. Don't look me in the fucking eyes. I'll come in there and get it, okay?

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 1:41:40Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:41:42Theo Von?

  And I'll honk my horn for him to come in. I'll even call him and tell him that. And they're like, this is getting a little weird. I'm like, just I want everybody looking the other way. Leave the sandwich on the counter. It is a very kind of like, it's the closest I get to like robbing a bank or whatever.

• 1:41:55Theo Von?

  What was the last thing I was gonna ask you? Uh, oh, what do you think of an eight leg parlay as a realistic probability for somebody trying to get a leg up in the world?

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  You're gonna have to explain that one to me.

• 1:42:06Theo Von?

  I'm talking about somebody who's got $10 left and they put it on.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  Oh shit.

• 1:42:10Theo Von?

  And they put it on eight football games to all hit for a weekend.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:15Theo Von?

  Cause this is happening basically in every pie cap a house in America.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, betting is getting kind of out of control.

• 1:42:22Theo Von?

  It's getting crazy. I mean, you have people laying in their bed at night, fucking, you know, you know, just hopped up on zens praying for Saquon Barkley. It's getting bizarre.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  These betting companies want to sponsor us like every day. We have to tell them to fuck off so much. It's crazy. It's like any kind of drug, any kind of drinking, any kind of whatever, you know, betting can be fun. It can be good. If it gets addictive, that's where it's bad. $10, if you have $10 to your name, that's all you have left. I mean, this is, people probably shit on me for saying this, but it's probably not gonna make the biggest difference. We're just being real world about it.

• 1:42:54Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  But behavior, there is the behavior conversation. If you are gonna throw it towards the bet, that is demonstrating maybe why you got there in the first place. So that could be a good step to correct your behavior for the first time, even if the $10 is gonna be, make or break for whether or not your mortgage is gonna be paid. No.

• 1:43:10Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  But it's a good behavior fix.

• 1:43:13Theo Von?

  Um, what is a good investment? You just said, you, you keep things pretty safe for the most part, huh?

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm mixed real estate and like just S and P 500.

• 1:43:22Theo Von?

  And when you say real estate, what do you mean? Like what type of stuff would you get into?

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  Well, I got my personal residence, but then up in Michigan where I'm from in Kalamazoo, I have some rental properties there that were like essentially almost like burned down pieces of shit that like no one would live in. I'm like, all right, I'll buy it, fix it up. And now it's, you know, students are able to live there and stuff. So there's, you know, it kind of makes, it matches with my morals a little bit instead of just buying up desperately needed housing. But also it's, uh, making money, which is good.

• 1:43:47Theo Von?

  Yeah. And over time, it definitely, I mean, time goes fast too. People don't realize it, you know?

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:52Theo Von?

  Time goes fast. Um. Yeah, people, people bag on Gen Z a lot, you know, I think there's always that thing where it's like we're bagging on the next generation. But I was looking at a statistic the other day where Gen Zers like the average job, they keep it for two, like two and a half years. And it's only six months less than millennials kept their job.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:44:14Theo Von?

  You know, so it's not like Gen Zers can't work or that they're not working. You know, sometimes that's a lot of the energy that's out there.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Well, you know, the crazy thing, can you look up what Gen Z thinks they need to live? Have you seen this?

• 1:44:25Theo Von?

  Mm-mm.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  This shit's crazy. And I'm kind of Gen Z, I'm like in that middle, so I can shit talk both sides.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  Well, that wasn't the, that wasn't the report that came out, but Google AI is telling us something. There we go, see Yahoo right there, they think they need $500,000 a year to be successful.

• 1:44:43Theo Von?

  Okay, go to that.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Minimum.

• 1:44:44Theo Von?

  Generation Z thinks it needs half a million dollars a year to succeed, wow.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  That part's crazy.

• 1:44:51Theo Von?

  Half a million dollars. Um, they pay four thousand, uh, let me see. Armand Dahira Howard, Howard and her fiance together earned more than $200,000. A 28-year-old knows that's more money than the vast majority of Americans make. Yet the Los Angeles couple still live about half an hour's drive from their pricier neighborhoods where most of their friends live. They pay $4,000 a month in rent on top of her $450 student payment, their $400 car payment, and the $200 she sends home to her family in Indonesia. So they're saying that they need, uh, the Zillennial, she's at the cusp of millennial generation and Gen Z, set aside 10% of her income for retirement and has a well, healthy monthly budget of $500 for entertainment and dining out,

• 1:45:34Theo Von?

  which she said comes with a side of guilt as bigger financial goals continually loom. Uh, in this economy, she said a household income of $500,000 between two people would be very comfortable.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Very comfortable, it would be very comfortable.

• 1:45:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, it would be very comfortable. And that's also there, man, that's Los Angeles.

• 1:45:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fair, but like the median household income in the United States is like $60,000, you know?

• 1:45:52Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Sixty, seventy-five, something like that.

• 1:45:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's one thing that I like about living in a regular place a little bit more is that you start to get a more reasonable idea of things.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:46:00Theo Von?

  You know, I mean, the, one of the issues is we're all stuck watching these celebrities who are living these insane lives. Or pretending to also, you know, I find Los Angeles in its own, like it has this like, I did like movies and parties and all this shit. But I always found it to be like, it shuts down early. Like at, all the bars close early, everything, it's, it's all for look, right? Everything there was more like, let's make it look this way, right?

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  Interesting. One thing I think that tells me specifically though, zillennial, like I'm a zillennial, you know, in between that era. I didn't have a job during the great recession. I didn't need to. I was a kid. What that tells me, thinking they need five hundred thousand hours a year, is that there's about to be a big awakening when my generation and the people around me go through our actual first recession. And you realize that, okay, maybe living isn't about being able to get, you know, five cups of coffee a day. That isn't the requirement for life. I want you to do it, yes. But for them, that is full comfort where, you know, throughout most of human civilization, we're just trying to survive.

• 1:47:02Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  And we are very comfortable right now.

• 1:47:04Theo Von?

  Yeah. It's a comfortable world, man. I mean, America's a comfortable place, you know, I know it's, it feels uncomfortable a lot of times, certainly in comparison to other people's lives. But yeah, it's like, most of us have food, you know, we have clothing, you know, we have a place to sleep and that like internet in the world that is opulence.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  Uh, like a demonstration of this, I was dating someone from Venezuela for a little bit.

• 1:47:28Theo Von?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  I know, exotic, and she, one thing she was telling me about our culture, I was like, asking what's different about this culture versus the different cultures she lived in all over the world when she was escaping Venezuela. And she says, you know, things are good in America because of how much we focus on the minor little social issue for everything. When you have the luxury to focus on, um,

• 1:47:50Theo Von?

  Train stuff or?

• 1:47:52Speaker 01

  Not just that, like, okay, so Zuckerberg, right? Yesterday, he announced that tampons are leaving men's bathroom or whatever, like, I, I don't care either way, whatever. But the fact that that is able to be such a major thing that we're freaking out about. When you have that in a culture, that's how you know everything else is pretty damn okay, because we're allowed to focus our energy on that and not just making sure that half, half the country isn't starving.

• 1:48:14Theo Von?

  Yeah. Or sometimes that the media is tricking us too by saying like this is what we should be talking about, you know?

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, click.

• 1:48:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, but I agree. The fact that people are able to, that people are bringing that kind of stuff up. I'm trying to think of anything else that I wanted to talk about.

• 1:48:29Theo Von?

  Any other, uh, any other group that came on your show that was kind of fascinating to you? I would love to play one more clip from your show. What's another one that we have that said we could play? Yeah, I just encourage you guys to go if you like, you know, you get a financial take. It's very much, um, it's just, it's a perfect microcosm that you're in. And it can be a macrocosm too. I'm not trying to little it by saying that I'm not the best with words, but I think it's just a perfect, uh, like,

• 1:48:58Theo Von?

  like nucleus that you're in of like entertainment and finances. What's this one right here?

• 1:49:05Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, play this one dude.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  We built, uh, seventy-five thousand dollars of student loan debt. Say the degree one more time. I studied Shakespeare. Okay, Shakespeare, lovely guy. What are you gonna do with that? Um, well, that's such a complicated question, like. No, I was really hoping for a more, you knew what you were gonna do with this much school and student loans. This is where I just have to say, we come from different worlds. You're not gonna understand this. What do you mean? You won't understand like the precarity and why it's really all right. What do you mean though? Like your reaction there was like, oh, I. No, I studied music composition in college. I was in the College of Arts School of Music. Okay. But I asked the job and you didn't know what to say. So I have a lot of experience working at writing centers. Um, so I could be, um.

• 1:49:48Theo Von?

  What are, yeah, what are you gonna do with that?

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what that is? That is an other major thing that is happening a lot throughout. It's the continuous college because they're, they don't want to leave college. So they go for the master's degree, the doctorate degree. And that's more and more, we're seeing so many more people doing the endless college, get the other degree. Because once you leave college, it's a scary world. You're on your own.

• 1:50:09Theo Von?

  It's very scary. I want to go back every day. I want to go back every day. And this person gets a Shakespeare degree. So, yeah.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Doctor and Shakespeare.

• 1:50:17Theo Von?

  Yeah. To be broke or not to be broke, dude, that's the question. I feel like, what do you, uh, now unless, now unless you're gonna go to a Renaissance fair and get winked at by the king or something, I feel like that's gonna be an uphill climb, dude, you know?

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  She wants to be a teacher. That's what they do. You go to school to teach other people to go to school.

• 1:50:37Theo Von?

  Right, and you stay in this world. There is a, there is always a person who stays in school.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:43Theo Von?

  And people, sometimes it gets blamed on like, oh, look at this dude, he can't get his diploma, or this girl is an alcoholic and she, you know, goes to, um, you know, uh, Rutgers or whatever, but every now and then, there's the opposite of it, of somebody who just stays in because they don't want to get out and face the world.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:51:00Theo Von?

  Yeah. Um, cool, Caleb Hammer, I appreciate it so much, man. Thank you so much for just being willing to come and chat with me. Um, I'm excited to see what you guys do. And, uh, yeah, I just think it's really, I think it's really neat to have just, uh, kind of this corner of, um, entertainment and finances and kind of just basic needs, really, you know?

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:21Theo Von?

  We all need a basic needs voice, you know, we need that kind of like Jiminy Cricket that shows up on your shoulder.

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little wake up call.

• 1:51:27Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:28Theo Von?

  For sure. And you're an alarm clock, man. So, um, thank you so much, Caleb Hammer. Best of luck, brother.

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. I appreciate it.