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Let's talk about some personal finance tips. A perpetual debt trap. Right, this is good. This is good stuff.
So where we're going with the weddings.
Yeah, I looked at this you want to, Yeah, read it all? Because I'm looking I'm checking off, like.
Fifty thousand dollar weddings. That's actually cheap. That's on the cheap side.
It is.
It is fifty.
Thousand dollars weddings, five hundred thousand dollars in mortgage, five hundred dollars a month car.
Car.
No, that's cheap too. Yep, most most parts. Yeah, fifty, I think that's the average. That's like the Corolla one hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. And then we didn't even calculate credit card debt in this situation either. So that's probably for the America probably around five five to ten thousand dollars in credit card debt. Yeah, welcome to America, right, American jam turned to a night there real fast.
You know what's crazy about this?
So we was in Ghana and it was explaining to us and the same thing when we was in the Ua, but it was like, but in Ghana, they don't have they don't have the same understanding of debt that Americans have.
Like if you want a.
House, like let's say the house costs three hundred thousand dollars, you buy a house for three hundred thousand dollars, right, Like you save, you get other family members involved, having Like if your car cost sturdy, like you buy the car right.
Like even if you rent, you.
Pay like two months two years in advance on the rent, right, so it's like you're putting down a down payment pretty much to actually rent. Their understanding of debt structure is completely different. Where Americans you're actually taught to put as little money down as possible, and there aren't some benefits with that obviously, as far as leveraging, I get it, real estate plays. But everybody's not don people's. Let's just
be honest, right, everybody's not don people's. Most people are looking to put as little possible because they don't have any money. Yeah, is that I don't have enough, play me put it as little bit as possible and then I'll pay the rest on the back end. And that has led over a trillion dollars I think in debt for the country, as far as credit card debt. America, which is in shambles and it's getting it from its leadership.
When you look at the country is borrowing trillions of dollars and every level of American society we live on debt, from the United States government to States, businesses, to households, the individuals in the city.
Even Houston said the number of money in Houston, Houston's broke. Right now.
We're all we're all in a big Ponzi scheme of debt, and yeah, what's what's the deal with that?
I think going back to basics, try and pay your car. I know we brought it up on Blackout. If you even if you got a lump summer money that you paid off and then people are like no, but if you get a two percent rate, I'm like no, Like the two percent rates are gone. I don't know if you guys have looked the news, but quantitative easing is over. So but banks do this to enslave you. And if you look at how can you have any money if you have one hundred and fifty thousand student loans, a
eight hundred dollars car payment. We're not even going to talk about childcare and childcare services. I think the number one goal has to be to put money into places that are going to grow for you, and like we talked about before, keeping those expenses low. Even on the media side, most of the companies that went out of
business had incredibly high overhead. I remember, I'm sure Joe told you just when he went, when you ever had the interview with him, Spotify had a town full of content houses, actual houses that look like Big Brother before they signed anybody to put it in the houses to film twenty seven million dollar.
Loss, So you got all the the lighting and all that that's good, but no content to come out of it.
And I think the blueprint has to be low overhead, high income, and fifty percent of that money invested. I keep saying, everyone talks badly about Dave Ramsey, but that model works. There's some flaws and for sure, but for his business to be debt free, and for him to be debt free, there's a benefit for being debt free when things go wrong. So we got to replace these high cost weddings and even on the fashion spending. You know, what's the quote, you're buying things to impress people that
don't even know you. Yeah, we have to stop pushing that narrative, and I think we have to go to a zero debt model country like at this point, I don't know when debt costs are going to be normal. For us to have a trillion dollars plus in credit card debt with interest rates going higher, no good political leadership. But Vanguard and Blackrock don't get paid. That's why keep telling me, I'll invest in Vanguard and Blackrock.
Here's one of the you know, you know, the best way two to help clean up your credit.
What's that?
It's extremely complicated, but I'll kind of make it easy as understandings possible. It's called pay your bills on time that it's called the pay a bill on time play. So it's like, you know, it's it's one of it's one of these things.
Right, we have very few breaking news groundbreaking. So the thing about that settle in for a second, Yeah, buy my ebook. The thing about it is that.
At some point in time, you you got to realize to live within your means, right or pay for things that you can afford, wait to buy things that you can't afford, right Because even with the mortgage, and they're like, well, mortgage.
Is it's a tax right off?
Okay, the interest on your mortgage tax right off. But you're paying six thousand dollars a month for your mortgage, and you're paying two thousand dollars a month for property tax, and you're paying one thousand dollars a month for shrubbery, and you're paying.
Five hundred escaping electrician for your electric bill. And then so where's the right off in these situation? How's how to get you?
So you get to write off you're spending ten thousand dollars a month, you get to write off fifteen hundred dollars and you think that that's the best thing that's ever happened in this world.
Yeah, and then they day before it wasn't even capped and now it was capped out a certain amount.
Once again, nothing is done for the benefit of the consumer.
They're giving you a write off on your on your on your mortgage interest because they want you to have mortgage interest. Yeah, it's an incentive, it's a sentive. It's called the incentive play. Right, So if they can keep you at a seven percent interest, eight percent from paying the bank, right, it's not like you get nothing in this.
World for free.
So okay, yeah, you get you get a deduction for it, but you're paying interest. That's the part that nobody seems to understand in the situation. And you're paying everything else. So I'm not saying a mortgage is bad, but I'm just saying it's just that mentality of always trying to rationalize why debt is a good thing, and every part of a lot of parts of the world is not. It's not normalized like that, right, Like that's the best
financial advice that you can get. Pay your bills on time, don't buy things you can't afford, don't borrow money unless you know you can pay it back. Self fund if possible, Live below your means, don't live up to the expectations of others. Don't try to impress others. Don't buy depreciating assets over the course of time, invest money and things
that will go up over the course of time. I mean, we can make this a little bit more complicated, but ultimately it comes down to some self discipline here.
Yeah, And I think that to bring up the guna point, the self discipline is the most glaring thing because it's when you're talking about paying for things in cash. You're talking about buying cars right like we saw the guys in like like we don't there's no like system or car payment plan. Like it's either you have the money or you don't have the car, right or in some extreme circumstances, they may give you two months to pay off the car, right like we're doing five year financing.
Sometimes they put you in the six year financ seven year plan. Now you know what I'm saying, with a.
Seven percent interest rate, and so to have the financial discipline to purchase a vehicle or to purchase a home, let's talk two hundred thousand.
How many of us can save two hundred thousand in a lifetime.
You're watching people do it before they hit thirty, and so the discipline that it takes to do that. But I'm interested, right because if that was the perpetual depth trap, then like what's the blueprint for the new trap? Because I feel like one hundred thousand dollars student loan? We can give solutions for that, right, like maybe school is not the thing, or maybe if you're going to go to school, take the community college, play or stay local
or live at home, like this solutions for that. But like when you're talking about mortgages, is it do we have to find the income level that makes it necessary to rent or buy?
Like?
How what what would be there? I'm just have to go back to living together. And that's another issue we have to discide.
It's re enforced.
Isn't it that way anyway?
Right?
Like if we watch more kids that are graduating with high levels of debt coming out of school, I've seen people twelve hundred and fifteen hundred dollars a month and student loan that's rent. You can't do both, right, so's I have to go back home? But if your parent has been renting, maybe there isn't a home.
To go back to.
So it gets tricky, right, So what what are like? And this is just like open ended, like what would be like the blueprint for this to create a new system? Right to not fall in that death trap playing your bills is one we got? Like what else do we think?
I mean?
We got to realize who, even on a self discipline side, we're fighting against the banks that own the media that make the propaganda for it to be cool to go into debt. Like we can have a whole argument around how hip hop has driven consumerism to a whole bunch of shit that we don't need. Got to start a business early, have to invest early. That's why these conversations are incredibly important and giving a blueprint for what to do. But just realizing, like all debt is and I know
people like there's good, that there's bad debt. That shit sounds good until you have to pay it to those year they're paying fifteen thousand dollars a money in good debt. Man, it sucks if it's coming out of your business or your personal It doesn't feel good when that money is constantly being going out of your account and then the money isn't coming in as fast. I think we have to focus a lot more on not having debt, and then we have to go back to multi generational family.
Living and succession planning.
But I think that's a tough thing in our community because a lot of the families are not getting long because Instagram has replaced the famiorlyy inn when the last time you know somebody black kind of emory.
I always see, I feel.
Like I don't know that went to on.
I don't know if anybody that has them means and probably in ten years.
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