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Money Focused Podcast
Helping ordinary people, become extraordinary with MONEY! Each weekly episode is packed with actionable tips, expert insights, and real-world advice to help you grow financially and take control of your future. Whether youâre just starting out or looking to level up your wealth, youâve found the perfect place. Get ready to transform your financial journey, one episode at a time!
Money Focused Podcast
**Best of Season 1 - Part 1** - "Building Wealth on a Budget: Real-Life Success Stories!!"
đď¸ In this special âBest Ofâ episode from Season 1 of the Money Focused Podcast, titled "Building Wealth on a Budget: Real-Life Success Stories!!", we dive into powerful clips from guests who have successfully built their financial freedom from the ground up. Youâll hear actionable strategies for growing wealth on any budget, with real-life examples of how to turn small investments into long-term financial success. Whether you're just starting your journey or looking for new insights, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical advice to help you on your path to financial independence.
Don't miss these incredible stories and tips that can help transform your financial future!
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Welcome back to the Money Focus Podcast. I'm your host, moses Dementor, and I'm excited to kick off our special best of series from season one. So over the next eight weeks, I'll be sharing some great clips that span across 72 excellent episodes in season one, where we shared expert advice, actionable tips and inspiring stories. And this episode is titled Building Wealth on a Budget Real Life Success Stories. So you're going to hear clips from guests who you know really built their financial freedom from the ground up. So they're offering practical strategies and just tips for anyone who's looking to really elevate their wealth building journey or pretty much stay on course. So this episode has something for everyone. So make sure you just stick around and listen in. So let's get started.
Speaker 2:When I work with my clients one-on-one, one of the things that I like to tell them and I'm going to give everybody this acronym is that we want to be thinking about how are ways that we can reduce the fat, we want to be cutting the fat, and what does that stand for? So it's F-A-T-T. F is reducing expenses when it comes to food, right? So you mentioned that one of the areas that you tell people to focus on is entertainment. Food is very can be entertainment, right, especially if you live in a place like New York City. It's like we don't really do like barbecues in our homes, right, we don't have everybody over for like potlucks because space is limited. So we go out and meet people for drinks and brunches and lunches and dinners right, and it can be very costly. And we want to be thinking about I want to make sure that I'm enjoying my meals. I want to have good quality food. But what decisions can I be making? And am I making these decisions based out of convenience or out of an essential need? Right? Sure, we need to eat food, right? This is part of being human. Like, we need to eat food. But there's a difference between having a hundred dollar meal or cooking meal, a meal on your own Right. So we want to see are there areas in our expenses right as part of our budget, as part of our plan? Are there expenses in the food category that I could reduce?
Speaker 2:The second letter is A, which is the accommodations. Right, and we spent a lot of time thinking and talking about okay, sure, you can afford a bigger house, you can afford a bigger mortgage, a higher rent, but do I want to be doing that right? What are some things that I could do to reduce my expenses when it comes to the accommodations? The next is transportation, which is sure. I qualified for a thousand dollar car note, but if all I need is to get from here to work and my car is gonna sit in the parking lot for 10 hours, do I need a thousand000 car note? But if all I need is to get from here to work and my car is going to sit in the parking lot for 10 hours, do I need a $1,000 car note, or would I be just as fine having a $400 car note? Right, and I want people to be careful here, because sometimes it's like, yeah, but I don't like the $400 car. Sure, just understand the price that it's costing you to make a more costly decision. Right, to really understand what it's costing you.
Speaker 2:And the last T so we said food, accommodation, transportation and the last T in the acronym FAT is taxes.
Speaker 2:One of the things, the most overlooked area is the amount of money that we pay in taxes. But here's the thing there are thousands and thousands and thousands of pages in the IRS tax code. 70% are ways to reduce your taxable income, and so we want to learn and have people around us, right, have our wealthy counsel, our wise counsel around us to figure out legal ways that the IRS incentivizes certain behavior like business ownership, like providing housing, like investing in businesses right? So we really want to understand why am I paying the amount of money that I'm paying in taxes and what are some ways that I could reduce my tax liability, because this is huge, especially if you are in a state where not only are you paying federal taxes, you're paying state taxes and you might even be paying city taxes is to really understand, okay, what are some decisions, some activities that I could be having so that I could reduce my tax liability? And you just mentioned one one and some of the tax benefits there is to being a real estate investor.
Speaker 1:I love that acronym. You know everybody needs to. You know it's easy to remember. Just remember that extra T the extra T is for taxes. So how important is a yearly review of one's financial snapshot, like what they're doing for the year to keep you know? I know we mentioned taxes. So obviously people look at their financial information, but what would you say is important for someone to look at on an annual basis to make sure that they're on track for their goals?
Speaker 2:I love this question. First, I would say I wish everybody looked at their financial picture once a year, right? And reality is that so many of us avoid it. We don't want to know how much we made, we don't want to know how much we spend. We don't want to know those things. So I think really coming and making a decision right to say you know what, at least once a year, I'm going to look at every single checking account. I'm gonna look at every single savings account. I'm gonna look at my 401k from my work, from my job. I'm gonna look at, maybe, an IRA. I'm gonna look at where my financial picture stands. This is gonna be huge. Now it is gonna take some time.
Speaker 2:I actually have a free resource. If your listeners wanna go, is financiallythrivingcom forward slash resource, and on there there's a checklist of the tasks that we could do on a year basis right? There's some things that I do recommend that we do at least once a year, everything from like reviewing insurance policies right, how much is our car insurance, our home insurance, our life insurance right? Are there some decisions that I could be making a little bit differently? My cable bill is about to go up or my internet bill is about to go up. Right, like why is that? Is there a way for me to like make a different decision when it comes to certain type of expenses, right?
Speaker 1:This was great information that Wally shared. She made two great points that I loved. Number one she gave an acronym which I'm always a big fan of, the FAT acronym financial status on a minimum yearly basis. However, if you have the right systems in place, you can definitely look at your finances more frequently, and you can definitely look at your finances more frequently, but I think if you're doing it at least a year on a yearly basis, I think you're setting yourself up for success. So thank you again, wally, for some great information. And now we're going to roll into the next clip that I want to spotlight. It's with Mrs Stell Gibson.
Speaker 3:I'm not good at math. I can't tell you how many people are like I'm not good at math, I can't do it Right, and they think it's difficult. It doesn't have to be. Yes, it can be difficult, it can be very involved, but it can. For me, it's about your money mindset. It's about all of the areas of your life that money affects your relationships. It's more than just learning about money, but learning about what you think, believe and the environments that you've grown up in and learned about money, because that can be the driving force. It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you've got some subconscious or unconscious things driving the habits and the behaviors that you have and you don't do anything about that, then you have a problem. So it's really twofold. It's actually there's three pillars awareness, which is all about the mindset and what I think about money, how I came to believe about money. Information pure financial, basic financial information, simplified. And then support is the third pillar, because a lot of people, moses, are too ashamed, too afraid, too embarrassed to ask for help.
Speaker 1:And the help is key. You can't be great at everything, you know, no one's perfect, so that's the perfect example is when you mentioned about the physicians. Obviously they're brilliant in the medical space, but then they also don't have the financial education, so it's like a double whammy. You know, and there you go, yeah. So so appreciate you really breaking that down. I want to talk now about your book.
Speaker 1:Your latest book is called Poor by Choice, which is a very provocative name. I'm hoping to evoke some great dialogue between us because you know, I'm a kid from the inner city. I grew up in East New York, brooklyn, which is a really rough part of Brooklyn. A lot of times I spoke to someone the other day, spoke to someone the other day and I said, hey, I'm from Brooklyn, and they were like, oh, that's nice, I'm like, what part are you used to? But when you hear things like poor by choice, someone can really get a little defensive. But I'm sure that's not really what you're really trying to get the message out there. I want to make sure it's clear for people. So talk to us about the book and then we can break it down.
Speaker 3:So the title of the book has three or four meanings. So the first meaning is very straightforward People are either financially dependent by choice or by circumstance, and so for me, in my situation, it was a choice. I handed over my financial power. People do that in relationships, people do that in business, or they're poor by circumstance. Maybe they are in a job that they feel like they have to keep because they need the insurance or they have people to take care of. Maybe they've had an illness or a tragedy in their life and they are dependent on somebody. Maybe they're elderly, adult children living at home, they're trying to get a career, get their life started, and by their circumstance they are in a situation. You know financial dependency. So really it relates to financial dependency.
Speaker 3:The second meaning is a rhetorical question. If we believe that we have a choice, is being poor a choice? Is believing that you don't have a choice? A choice is believing that you can't do anything about it. A choice, so that's kind of the one where people will be like, no, I don't have a choice, I can't get out of it, and that can be a mindset issue also. So that's the second right.
Speaker 3:And then the third one is that we all have choices in different crossroads of our what I call our money life cycle, which starts when you're a child and then you're a teenager. Your first job, and then you go off to your career and then you have a family and hope, whatever it is, as you progress to even legacy and retirement. And in each phase of your money life cycle you make choices. You have crossroads. My parents told me we can't pay for your college. I had a choice Am I going to go to college? Am I going to go start working? Am I going to take out loans? Am I going to go to a cheaper college? You know we have different choices along the way. Whether you go through a divorce, whether you have children, whatever that is, choosing where you live, there's different choices that you can make. A lot of people don't think that you can, but if you begin to look at it from that framework, you can realize that you do have a choice.
Speaker 3:And then the last one is I have a whole framework in the book that talks about the environments that we grow up in, that create the money beliefs and the habits that we have. And because we don't talk about or teach about money, moses, people adopt what they see. They adopt what they see in the society. There's four levels the society that we live in, whether it's the United States or another country. There are different money, beliefs and values based on where you're located as far as society. And the next level is your community, whether it's your geographical community, whether it's your community of sports, of medical doctors, of whatever that community is.
Speaker 3:The generation that you've grown up in, people that are pre 9-11, people that are post World War II there's all these different times in our lives that dictate what we think about money, and so that's the level of the community.
Speaker 3:Then our family, and most families have a motto or what they've seen in, what you've seen growing up with your family, whether it's that they fought about money, that they have to work hard for their money, that they don't have to work hard for their money, that they have to work for themselves or have a job. You know there's all these beliefs going on at that level. And then the personal level whether you have gone through your own experiences of getting student loans, being bankrupt, being divorced, having a business, losing a business. All of these things at those four levels contribute to what we think about and how we behave about money and that contribute. The question is do I have a choice or am I operating out of my programming? Am I really choosing or am I just acting out of my programming? So that's kind of the four meanings behind that title that are woven throughout the book.
Speaker 1:Those are all very impactful and I can relate to a lot of those. The biggest takeaway from my conversation with Estelle is just really breaking down the psychology and the relationship that people have with money and that you know your upbringing, your experiences can really dictate the way you operate with money. It makes me think of you know, when people say, hey, when you have more money, just show up more as that person you know. So I can definitely relate to that and I've grown a lot of maturity in the money situation in my life over the years, so it's something that people can actually excel with over time. But when you are in a position where you are, you know, getting a lot of money or getting more money than you're accustomed to, having the way you operate in that situation really is telling. And you know, again, people refer back to their experiences, but we do have to learn from our mistakes. So again, thank you so much, estelle, for breaking that down. Now we're going to go into the next clip with with my guy, jasper Smith. Let's go.
Speaker 4:Yes, you should probably be investing in these people to support you, because you can do a lot on your own. However, you will be better served making the investment in your money team, which will free up a lot of your time. I love YouTube university, but Jasper does not have to be the expert in everything. I'm cool, moses, you the expert. What's this going to cost? Oh wait, I don't, and I stopped saying cost, right, gotcha?
Speaker 4:How much do I need to invest in your services to free up my mind? So, so, to invest in your services to free up my mind? So, even that little wordplay and I didn't catch it for years, but I read a book and they were like you got to use certain language to get people to think differently. Again, I'm trying to change what we think about it and I said I invest in my CPA so I don't get in trouble with the IRS. I mean, I like paying that bill. That's a smiley face, but hey, keep me out of trouble. Keep me informed about how I can pay what I owe and not a cent more. How do I get creative like wealthy people do? That's worth the investment. It's worth it. So how much is it going to cost? How much are you willing to invest in your future?
Speaker 1:That's pretty much what it boils down to. I mean, you know, if you want to stay stagnant, then you won't see the growth, whereas you know myself. You know, I invest in a lot of education. I don't sit and say, hey, I know everything, you know because I don't. And also you've got to be willing to pay for professional services. So you have to invest in just learning, like, hey, for me, I'm in real estate, so I have rental properties. I know that like the back of my hand. But I knew residential. I invested in a program so I can learn commercial, you know. So now I have both skill sets running alongside each other and now I can be better served as an investor and also as an instructor, as needed.
Speaker 1:So you have to take the time to invest in yourself. Yeah, is it going to be a lot of money at times, depending on the program? Yes, but I also look at it as, again, a course of doing business and a tax write off too. Again a course of doing business and a tax write-off too. So it was, like you know, understanding the full scope of it is like, hey, this is what Jasper charges, this is my investment into myself, and also to Jasper too, because I like and respect what he's doing. So those are all things you got to change your mindset.
Speaker 1:You know it's not simply I'm buying something, I am acquiring something of value. It could be a tangible, you know item, or it could be something even more important. That is really the education, it's the knowledge. That's the thing that you really need, because that's going to help you multiply your income, multiply your experiences, your network. I mean it's just huge. So definitely, listeners, listen to what he's saying. I mean it's just huge. So definitely, listeners, listen to what he's saying. I mean it's an investment. It's an investment. It's not just simply a cost. When it comes to money management, though, I did want to ask you, like, what are some key things that you teach your clients, some foundational things when they come across your business to say, hey, you know, we got to clean this up? Is there some principles that you point out initially, or is it truly on a case by case basis, per individual?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is definitely. The lie is definitely case by case, but I think, no matter the case, you've got to take, you've got to take inventory. So, before we can go, like on a vacation, do you have clean clothes? Do you know how you get to the airport? Like there's certain things you should have that checklist and so with with like financial stuff, it's like let's just, let's take, let's take inventory. Where are we right now? Like before we talk about any solutions, where is moses today?
Speaker 4:That alone scares enough people away from you. They're like I ain't going to do it, I just want to talk investments. No, no, no, no. Let's not skip these steps in the process. Like you can invest, if I know how much money you got to invest. So wanting to invest and being ready to invest in two different things, but if you take that toll to take the inventory, that usually sets a good toll for the relationship. So I always say just take, take inventory first. Also, it's nothing new, but getting people to visualize what they want to do.
Speaker 4:So, assuming we were talking a year from now, like what has had to happen for you to feel like we had a good relationship. Like, do you like think of? Like. You got to think about the future. We got to live in the present. We got to acknowledge the past. But I got to think about like what do I want this to look like? And or feel like Believe it or not?
Speaker 4:People think about a lot of that stuff. They just never told anybody what's all up here. That's the problem. Get it out. And that's why a lot of people have regrets. I wish I would have done this when I was younger. Why didn't you do it?
Speaker 4:So everybody has like 20 things they're trying to do. Give me two, maybe three, three at most, if I can get cracking on two or three good things that are going to help me move the needle, whatever, whatever you're trying to move, that's all you got to do. So people will give me the list and I'll say, cool, is this in the right order? And then they'll say I don't know. You tell me this is your plan. So I always want to make sure that I'm getting the affirmative of this is in proper order. I'll give you an example. So anybody they want to get out. So my wife's a realtor, right? So I'm like all right, cool.
Speaker 4:So people want to get a house. Well, jasper, I need to get this house for whatever. Great House is number one. And then they'll say, well, I want to get my credit right, get my savings investments. I'm like, wait, all right, cool, so getting the house is the easiest part. And they're like what you talking about? You ain't got to have great credit to get a house, you don't. There are plenty of programs. But I will say I know this to be for sure, I can guarantee you this you need to look at your credit and have an idea of where you are and you probably need to have some savings. And so what will happen is, as I'm talking through that, people will say, well, jasper, I think, yeah, credit and savings should be one and two, the house should be number three. And you can see this like light bulb where it's like, oh my God, yeah, if you focus on the first two, getting the house will be even easier.
Speaker 1:Great info, great info. Really appreciate you, jasper, for joining the show and I invite everybody to make sure to listen to that episode and pretty much every episode of Money Focus Podcast. So thank you so much for your support. Lastly, in this episode I want to spotlight a friendly conversation with Jacquette Timmons.
Speaker 1:She is a phenomenal woman number one but she has a take on financial literacy and she really hates the term or dislikes the term because of its racial undertones. But she explains that to me and to the audience as well, and you know you'd be the judge if you think that it has some you know racial undertones to it. I think she made some valid points, but I'd be lying if I said that. You know, financial literacy is not really a buzzword or a word that I say frequently, because I mean when you pretty much break it apart. You know, one of my core goals is to make more people literate in the realm of finances. So you know, we say financial education, we say financial literacy, and a lot of times I'm just saying them interchangeably. But again, she broke it down very well in a very articulate way.
Speaker 5:But again she. She broken down very well in a very articulate way, and we respect her view. So go ahead and listen and tell me how you feel. You know chipping away at some of the promotion if you will around financial literacy which, as you probably know from our earlier conversation, I really dislike that term probably know from our earlier conversation.
Speaker 1:I really dislike that term. No, I was going to ask you about that, but since you rolled, into it.
Speaker 5:We can talk about that and I really dislike that term because, for those that don't know the history, it comes out of the Community Reinvestment Act.
Speaker 5:Community Reinvestment Act to enunciate well, and that was the requirement where banks that went into certain neighborhoods in order to get your branch.
Speaker 5:You know, to get the approval for your branch to be there, you had to do something that was supportive of the neighborhood that you were opening this branch. So they were like, oh, we'll do financial literacy, we'll help people open checking accounts and savings accounts and we'll teach them how to manage their money. And my whole thing is they probably know how to manage their money better than a lot of folks, because if they miscalculate and they are off $5, $10, that can have a huge impact on them Versus somebody else for whom $5, $10 or $500, $10,000, it's a blip, it's like no big deal. So part of my issue with financial literacy is it has this notion that only a certain block of people need help with improving their financial knowledge, improving their financial self-awareness and improving their financial habits, and that's just not true. Everybody along the spectrum of income and wealth. There is something that you can do and that probably is needed for you to improve upon, so soapbox over.
Speaker 1:I get it. Yeah, I get it, and I appreciate you breaking that down. It's definitely sounds like it's rooted in a very discriminatory way. I me personally just you know full transparency. I have been using financial literacy a lot because I'm an advocate for just people learning financial concepts to help them. You know better their financial life, but some of the education that you provided to me the last conversation, yeah, I can see why you know you can have that stance.
Speaker 5:So what alternatives do you suggest that people say you know, the hard thing is that I don't have any, I don't think, good alternatives. You know financial knowledge, financial education, doesn't sound all that sexy, but that's what you're doing, and so you know, if you think about what you have behind, you know financial literacy, all of that is necessary. But I think the label is the thing that doesn't allow for some people to raise their hand and say, yes, I want that, or yes, I need that. I mean because think about it, yes, I want that, or yes, I need that. I mean because think about it.
Speaker 5:If you want to go and learn another language, whether it's Spanish, french, japanese, german, whatever the language is, you don't go and say I want to learn French literacy. You say I want to learn how to speak French or whatever the other language is. And so why don't we have that same approach to money? And I think it is to create this divide that says only this block of people need financial literacy and these other folks are okay. And so the folks that are over here that actually could benefit from the knowledge that you are sharing and the concepts that you are sharing, don't raise their hand to say, hey, can I get some of that too?
Speaker 1:But you do agree correct me if I'm wrong that there's a need for people to get more exposure to finance financial information, whatever way you want to label it.
Speaker 5:So I believe that there is a need for people to have more exposure to financial information, but I think even more than that is financial insight. You can Google a question about money and you will get a ton of answers. Information is not what people are lacking. What people are lacking is the ability to look at that information and have the insight to figure out. How does this apply in my particular situation? How do I have the discernment to know if the information that I got on page one is better for me than the information that's on page five, when I get all of the results from Google? So information is important. Yes. Knowing the techniques, yes. Knowing, if you want to say, the mechanics of it, yes. But as important, or I would say even more important, is the ability to change that into insight. That gives you that financial self-awareness so that, no matter how the information may or may not change, you can still benefit from it information may or may not change, you can still benefit from it.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you breaking that down. Yeah, that was that was going to be a topic of discussion and hopefully people can engage with that. I know a lot of people throw that around so I was looking forward to hearing your take. So appreciate that. But let's go back to the prior question because you know again, you have a book on it and it's very important because people I'm married I know there can be tough conversations about money and how to you know manage money in different ways. To look at it, it's a key driver to a lot of people you know going the divorce route or couples just breaking up. So what are some key takeaways that you can tell the audience about regarding financial intimacy?
Speaker 5:So you know, there is that stat that says that money is, you know, one of the top five reasons that couples either break up or get a divorce and I would say that it's not so much money is that, it's the inability to talk about money, because when we think about it, money, it just evokes so many different perceptions and it means so many different things to people, and it taps into your identity, your identity as a person, your identity as someone who's quote unquote doing it right and successful.
Speaker 5:It reveals your beliefs, it reveals your expectations, it reveals your level of discipline, your vision, and so all of that can be vulnerable when either things are not the way you want them to be, need them to be, or they are in stark contrast to a person that you are intimately connected to. And so to me, it's not so much about are the numbers adding up, as it is. How I feel about the numbers, how I think about them, how I approach them, how does that either make you and I compatible or create some stress? And if it creates some conflict and stress, how do we then talk about it? And when we have something like money that is shrouded in so much guilt and shame, it can make it difficult for people to expose themselves and to also be open enough when someone exposes themselves and they don't actually like what the other person is sharing.
