All right , guys , it's just us three . We're going to talk about a couple of things today . On the agenda We've got the Airbnb and short term rentals . I want to go over the Social Security Fairness Act and we'll see if we can spin up some controversy with Doge and Elon Musk . So where do you guys want to start ? Which one ?
Uh , Airbnb is for 100 Alex .
Airbnb is all right . Short-term rentals , airbnb VRBOs um and maybe some midterm rentals for , like insurance companies .
What do you think ? Yeah , so I think at one point all of us were involved in some capacity with those . Um , I don't have any Airbnb anymore . I do have a cabin in Harper's Ferry that has furniture and whatnot that we rented midterm or short term , but frankly , at this point I'm not even interested that much in doing that . It'll be more long term .
So , other than that , all of my other rentals are just regular rentals . At this point , I think you still have what ? One or two at the beach , two , I got two at the beach . And how's that going ?
I'm glad you asked so this is a conversation we've had before is that COVID created false data points because people were not traveling outside the country . They were staying closer , so it increased the traffic to local areas within the United States .
So a lot of data points that you're getting not as much now as you were the last year , but people were selling it based on false data points because of COVID . So people were selling , say gross , $25,000 or $30,000 during those two or three years and then it dropped off to like half of that .
So some of these websites that people are using , like AirDNA or whatever I'm not gonna call them out whatever ones you use to kind of get your data points , it seems like those are outdated information or incorrect data points .
So the one I have right now it's a four bed , two bath house , nice A-frame , looking back to the woods and I was just looking at my finances and with the cost of the electricity going up in Maryland because they just passed some green act deal .
My , my God , my electric my house has gone up a lot . Like dude a good bit .
So the the house has been vacant . Last month I had the temperature set at 51 and my electricity bill was $500 . And I was like , if that's it for the summertime , I can't even imagine what the wintertime with the AC is going to be .
So I'm looking now at switching that one from a short-term rental into a long-term rental , because I know I can get about 26,000 a year for a long-term rental and I'll still have the other one at the beach . So I am looking at that because my gross last year was like 16 or 17,000 on that property .
So if I can make it a long-term rental I'd actually net more .
Yeah , and honestly , like the income part of it was a component . I saw it dipping a little bit , but the biggest point for me to get out of it was just the hospitality side of things .
Not that I'm not a hospitable person , but I just got so sick of the oh , the wifi was slow and then like they ding you with a three-star review or it's , it was in the woods , no shit . Lady rented a cabin in West Virginia . The hell did you think it was going to be like just stupid stuff like that ?
And I just realized it doesn't fit my personality type super well .
So um , yeah , I was man Starlink and Elon Musk Starlink . That's going to be the best option .
I did price out Starlink actually for a security cameras at a storage facility , would you ?
get like a hundred and something a month .
I didn't . I didn't buy them yet . I was just curious what providers were in that area . And it brought up Starlink . I was like huh , never looked at it , but I don't know it's available . I looked at it for the package .
Yeah , so the monthly is like $100 and some odd dollars and then the package is like $600 to $1,200 , depending on what you're getting . I mean mean , but everybody I've talked to like they have no break in service . They're , except for less , like a cloudy , stormy day .
Even then they said it's still better than what they're getting for landlines we'll save the starlink and elon musk hate for a little bit later tyler do you have any ?
uh , airbnbs , or all your stuff is long-term rentals at this point , right , long-term rentals , yeah I just like to your point .
We had , uh , airbnbs closer to like 2007 and stuff like that , and same thing . We we had young kids and or at that point , one of my friends had I didn't have any kids yet my friend had kids . We were all newlyweds and for that reason it was like , dude , we don't want to be changing sheets , picking up laundry , coordinating .
It was just not worth , so we've never gone back into it . I just to your point . It has . I don't feel any pull towards it and I think the older I get , if I have no interest in it , why am I doing it ?
It becomes a job at that point and it's like you're you're you're dealing with I'm not depending on where you are . You're dealing with people with a five-star taste but a two-star budget and it's kind of like you're not going to get like a gold throne to sit on for 120 bucks or 200 bucks a night or whatever it is .
Yeah , honestly , some of the places like I was pricing something out recently and you can stay at a pretty nice frigging hotel for what some of these airbnbs are now and frankly I have a lot more faith that if I check in at the marriott city park or whatever the hell it was called , you know like a pretty nice hotel .
Comparatively speaking , it was less expensive than staying in an airbnb that comparable and you obviously have a little unknown factor there . I think if you still are into the destination type Airbnbs , you're kind of probably okay , but I think the average just put an Airbnb wherever . I think that's definitely dried up .
I mean , it's not an existing but it's definitely not as lucrative as it was a couple of years ago , ty .
Oh , there's a guy on our job who does like destination Airbnbs . I tried to ask him to come on but like I'll send you guys a couple of his links . These things are like very unique killer properties , like in specific locales , like once in Maine , I want to say , and it's a killer house .
Those things I think have draw because you really can't like yeah , I think you expect standard of service when you go to hotels too , right , like you know there's an experience If you go to Marriott or a Hyatt or a Hilton person , you know what to expect and it's just , there's not these arbitrary fees , you don't have to worry about a lot of stuff .
So I think a lot of that has gone out of vogue and I think we all realized that when it was happening and like , um , we knew like if you did not run your numbers at a long-term rental while you were trying to Airbnb , it was going to get people in trouble , right , and I think yeah . So I think there's like whatever they call it .
I think there's what I really call unique properties on Airbnb . I think there's a name for them . I don't know what they are . They have so many different weird filters now . One's like .
C G One's A-frame All these crazy ones .
I'm going to have to go off real quick . Give me a second . I'll tell you when I get back .
Okay , Mike do you do the midterms anymore than ?
insurance . I , there's a couple properties that I could do it if I was contacted , but honestly , that that also is super , I think , lucrative , but I I haven't been pursuing it just because you get top of the market plus when you do the rental , um , because they are typically paid by the insurance company and not just some random person .
However , you have to kind of be waiting for that type of client and fortunately I didn't have like a big gap in like client to client . However , there was enough that I didn't like the uncertainty Like , okay , say , I could rent for $2,200 . I was getting , say , $3,000 . That's pretty nice . However , you also don't vet the tenant .
So , like I had these one folks live there that were kind of like , um , they were kind of dirty , frankly , and people I wouldn't have normally rented to because after I would have done the background check , I'm sure they wouldn't have passed it .
So I had more turnover costs , um , granted , you're making more per month , but by the time you average it all out , is it really worth the extra , like 9% or whatever . I don't know , I'm just making that number up . Is it really worth the extra juice , for all the squeeze .
And to me it was like you know what I can make it just a long-term rental , I don't have to worry about this , that and the other thing , and it just like you said , as you get older you kind of realize like , if I'm not interested in pursuing it for any length of time , just just change it up .
So nope , pretty much all just straight rentals now my wife just texted me and said there's a bird in the kitchen , so that's why I went dark for a minute . So I had to run upstairs and open the door and see what out the door . So my bad . Did you talk about midterm rentals at all , like the insurance one you were doing ?
Yeah , that's what we were just talking about . And I said I have a couple that I can do that with still , but I've pretty much just said you know what Make it a long-term rental . I can kind of put that on autopilot , and that's allowed me to focus more on storage operations and the hard money lending .
So what about tyler ? Do you have anything in the pipeline ?
I know you , you had one that you were , uh , in boise , I think it was you were talking about for a while back that one sold and then so we actually just I just started marketing again , um , because I like like it's kind of settled down and it's been fun to kind of dive back into Google ads a little bit bit and re familiarize myself with it .
So we did start that . I don't have any grand plans to get super busy . To be honest with you , like , if I were to design a perfect business right now , it would be I'm solely going do ppc and I know how that works , and whatever comes comes and I'm going to use that money to fund private lending or other investments .
I I don't like ever envision wanting to go full board again .
It's just not not what I want to do , so I'm not doing it but yeah , like I , I still think I I like it and I mean , um , I just have been presented with more opportunities on the lending side , that people willing to invest and I think I would just rather do that and that fits my natural wheelhouse right .
I already have a mortgage company and I have a processor . I have origination sauce software . I know how to do all it's . I've been doing that for 20 years . So for me it's like why not go where it's more , more natural , less resistance and um , but I do , I do miss it . A hundred percent and um , but I do , I do miss 100 .
Yeah , dude , I'm like , I do . Like for some reason I have had a little pull to like wholesale , but I definitely have zero pull to flip a house right now . I would like to and when I say wholesale I don't want to assign , I like taking the property down . I sit there for a minute , think about what I want to do and I reallyail .
So , like our buy box has become much smaller , I don't want Boise , for Boise old is 1920 , let's say to 1950 . So like I don't want that , I want like 1960 , 1970 and newer . I know exactly what I'm looking at when I see it Like . The other day I had one and I'm like that's , that's a property I , I want , I know it .
So I told the guy hey , let's be aggressive when we go meet the seller . We know that we want this property . It's a three , two . I mean , you guys know , when you see something like that , it's a ding ding , ding , ding ding ding . That makes sense , that makes sense , yes , like outside of that , I don't want to do it and I think focused with that stuff .
But yeah , did you get it ? I don't not . Yet we've been following up a bunch . So like , um , I'm trying to . He wanted to get .
He was kind of bummed because I was one , I was his main income source in Boise , and then I've slowed down obviously and I'm trying to like I feel guilty but I'm like , well , I'm not here to support everybody , but I I will start to to market again and see if we can do something .
So I'm giving him the reins with that lead and see how motivated he is .
Last time we talked about this , I think the cost per acquisition was around 6,000 . Years ago it was 3,000 . So what's your cost per click ? Cost per lead , cost per deal ?
Here I'll pull it up right now .
Give me one sec um calls for deal here . I'll pull it up right now if you give me one sec .
Mike are you actively marketing ?
no , yeah , I'm used with the baby coming in two months for me , like I just don't wanna . I want stuff off of my plates . That's why I think I'm gonna turn that one short terminal into a long terminal yeah , and that's you know .
We , we market , but not like what you're thinking . We're not marketing for off-market . Let's put it that way .
Copy .
So I want you to get marketing , All right . So I see cost per conversion right now is $209 . So that's pretty much per lead I have . So I have four phone calls , 287 clicks , 14 conversions from February 1st to March 2nd at a cost of $1,430 . So right now that's no contracts , no contracts . So I'm comfortable doubling that .
So going two months and if I get a contract , for me it's always been $3,000 to $5,000 . So I know , if I don't get something then then it's either we're not converting on our own our targeting's wrong , so um .
I have a black lab and that dog sheds like you wouldn't believe . So I just looked down and had like black lab hair all over my keyboard so I was blowing it off . I understand there's lab numbers .
That's pretty cool . And just a point to that black lab hair all over my keyboard so I was blowing it off . I understand , there you go . There's live numbers .
that's pretty cool and just a point to that , like the fact tyler can pull up his numbers that quick , like knowing your business , like that's that right , there is where it's at , you know no what program are you ?
using for that . That's just google . I mean , dude , I , I , google , is going to give you live reporting . It's pretty legit and I mean it shows everything right . So it shows like February 13th . I have two clicks . Conversions . Cost was 180 . I go to February 21st two phone calls , eight clicks , cost $52.96 .
So you say wait a minute , there's less and the cost is less . So to me , just doing this for a while , I know that that's either display ads or a lower level form of advertisement . The other ones where I had two clicks for 180 , that's true PPC , where somebody's clipping at the top of Google . So , although it's more expensive , those are the ones I want .
I would rather spend a little bit more on those leads than do the eight leads that I had for 60 bucks . That's trash and that's a time suck for the call center I have and for me and my guy to work on it . And that's just from experience . Like , ooh , I got eight clicks today . Yeah , but those are like I call those Facebook quality leads .
Facebook quality leads . Dude , they're brutal .
I mean it's like old calling on the internet . It's like saying you have 5,000 friends on Facebook but you only talk to people like who cares , like you really want the least amount of leads that you can convert , like you don't want to be bogged down with a hundred calls of tire kickers . You want the eight that are like serious .
So that's why I went back to exact match .
Like I don't do any broad keyword match or anything like that anymore , so I know exact match . I'm going to get way less traffic , but when I spend that money it's a much more high intent keyword . So it's a gamble right , because if I'm not on my job right now doing this again , I know I'm not calling in five minutes or less .
It's just pissing money , it's lighting up light that 50 bill on fire .
Yep . So the the I mean recap from Faisal Morsi when he we had him on the podcast . He's a he does data pulling . I think he was a pinpoint skipcom . Yep . So you can build out an entire list , but it's going to be very focused on probate divorce , foreclosures , low interest rates , a whole number of things that you want to do .
You can call them yourself or , like Tyler , does you have a cold calling center that will call them based upon the data that's given . So , carrot and Mike , I know you had , or have , a Carrot website .
Tyler , I think you did too . Do you want to explain what that is Basically ? Carrot and Trevor Mock's company . It's just kind of like a boilerplate landing page almost that you can kind of customize , that . It's already somewhat set up for some SEO performance .
I don't know , I'm probably butchering the piss out of all the IT terms here , but it's basically the easy button If you want to just get a website built that said like collegeparkhomebuyerscom , and if you want to just get a website built that said like collegeparkhomebuyerscom you know , and then you could take their website , populate you know that name , your phone
number , et cetera , and get it up and running by like the end of today . And again , there's pros and cons to it .
But yes , we've used it , we still have it and I actually get , I would say probably one to two leads a day or every other day just from that website , and I'm not currently pumping it at all and all I do is I take those leads and I send them over to somebody that works them and my goal at this point is for them to either refer me lender business or ,
if it's a deal that's like right in my backyard , we can do something with it . But that , that , in a nutshell , was investor carrot . I don't even know if it's so-called investor carrot , might just be called carrot , but I worry about you .
Do you still have one ? I do , and yeah , it's like you know it's . It's perfect for what we want to do . Right , it's already built out . Everything is there . You can do small tweaks . You can pay somebody like KeySant that we had on there to optimize it . But that's not my focus right now either , so I wouldn't do it .
But I did spend so much up front that it still generates leads and conceivably , those are in perpetuity . I think people working them like working . Their sites are going to pass us up as time goes on , as we're not working on it , but that's not . I think . If people want a site , I think that is the way to go .
I mean , they have so much testing going on . They have so many websites to draw data from that . They know how to optimize and data is everything . When you're online , you can get all that they know . Page load speed is super important . They focus a ton on making sure that that page loads up as fast as possible .
Some people may say , oh , this is not real pleasing to the eye . That's not their concern . Their concern is to have a fast page speed to convert leads . That's their number one goal is to convert leads . So people look at it and then they'll go to somebody else's site that's super pretty and has this great picture and looks awesome , but their conversion sucks .
So I mean , I think it's a good site , but again , it's funny now that we're talking like I used to obsess over that and I don't really look at it anymore .
I'm looking at the pricing now . There's three options $89 , $118 , and $176 a month , and obviously , as you go up in the cost you get more options for this stuff . So I mean , if you ever want to , what's that ? We'll just say $1,200 a year .
You can have a website up and running to create leads for you , and this could be like real estate or your business .
So last year we got a web and I typically find people that thought that . So the form is usually a two-part form . So they fill out one part it's got like their name and whatnot and then it's like second part if you tell me more about your property . Um , I find that the people that do the two-part form are typically more interested and more motivated .
So even without us doing anything but leaving that , we pay cash , close quickcom website out there not really doing anything . Last year somebody contacted us , filled out the two part form . They were from like the Eastern shore . Dad died . They inherited the house . They don't want anything to do with it .
They reached out to us , we talked to them , ended up flipping it Like we bought it , flipped it and I forget what we made , but it was like 50 or 60,000 bucks and that was just off of the website . So it's one of those . Yeah , it's 1200 bucks a year , but right there , that paid for that website for the next several years .
So I might as well leave that line in the water , you know . And if people are just going to sell their house to me , well , okay , it might be worth it . You know what I mean If you're going fishing .
a big fish will feed you for a couple of days , but a whole bunch of small fish will keep you full , yeah .
So I don't know it was . It was a stinky fish when we got there . I can tell you that it was disgusting .
I just said we stinky fish . When we got there , I can tell you that it was disgusting and it's that one in my neighborhood or the next neighborhood over and , uh , the house is like oh , all you gotta do is pump out the basement . The sump pump failed and it's you know . Blah , blah , blah . And I looked at the pictures black mold .
The entire basement was black mold . So I had like a foot and a half two feet of water and I was like that's not a simple pump out and relist . Sorry , sorry .
Did it sell already ?
No , it's listed in wholesale off market .
Yeah , yeah . It's , even with all of those issues and the market , like I still don't see too many deals . I saw you commented on somebody's thing . I did have an agent bring me a deal that's supposed to close it close this coming week .
It's a loan for us , not , we're not buying it , but I still don't see where any of those I'll leave their names out of it so I don't get in trouble but these local DMV area wholesale companies sending out these emails , I'm like that still doesn't make any sense , unless you just have stupid money that you just don't know what to do with and you want to get
involved in real estate . I just don't understand how you're going to put up that kind of money to make $18,000 if everything goes right .
Yeah , I think the person you're talking about is the same person who had this deal listed and the one I had commented on that listed on a Facebook group . It was like the acquisition was like 1.2 million and the resale was like 1.7 million and I'm like , well , your after repair value is a lot higher , unless you do like a massive overhaul .
But the cost of acquisition for a property and you guys know this is you have to pay for the closing costs and I always say 8% with prepaids , and then you have the sale costs minus 8% , which is 6% or 5% realtor and then 2% transfer and title . So I always do a ballpark 8% in the front , 8% in the back . The middle is the spread .
I'm not spending a million dollars to make a hundred thousand dollars before the renovation . So , like , renovation is going to easily run 50 , $60,000 if something goes wrong . It's not 10 , $20,000 . And it's like I'm not spending a million dollars to maybe make $10,000 .
And I think , tyler , you told me before there's a percentage that you like to make if you're going to output that much . I can't remember what it was and I've been thinking about it for a while as far .
I would say I was always trying to meet for me . I was trying to make bare minimum at first when I started , 10% so , and then I realized that wasn't enough . So then I shifted more to like 15% and then it just became like a number . And I agree with you , I did the same thing .
So I would take 8% off the top and then I knew my money cost and then I would , I would make sure to back out any profit and I think like a quick rule of thumb is right , now holds true is 70% less repairs right ? I think that's like a very standard starting point .
but for me .
Yeah , I had it dialed in where I knew I wanted to make 15 of my money . So by a 300 000 house , this net true net would be 45 000 .
Yeah that's another drink over there I got greedy I think a lot more opportunity back then .
Same thing for oh wait , like you had to , you can literally just go on mls and pick the low hanging food off the tree and make it a rental or make money off of it , because back during 08 crash there was an abundance of deals but there wasn't access to money , whereas now there's more access to money but not an abundance of deals and the the interest rates
are so high that it makes people selling houses and making a profit off of even lower people selling houses and making a profit off of them even lower . So like for for me , I would tell the day the house . I was talking about the short-term rental , the four , two . I liked the house but I would sell that for a two bedroom condo .
But the problem is is that I have a 4.2 or 4.3% interest rate . If I sold something now I'm at the eight and a half percent interest rate or seven and three quarters of interest rate . So , like my PIT PIT , I will go up significantly every single month , even if I'm putting , say , $300,000 down on a 1031 exchange .
I actually just looked cause . I have a rental going vacant on the 15th and I've been debating whether to just sell it or to re-rent it . So I checked my loan docs and I still have a 4% interest rate for another two years .
So I think I'm just going to , because to me the 4% interest rate for two more years is kind of like that's a part of the asset right now .
So I'm going to just keep it , yeah .
So I'm just going to keep renting it for another two years and I'm not going to get rich off of it . But in two more years we could argue this till the sun goes down . But is the prices of houses going to be higher or lower ? Guess they're going to be higher .
And if I can pay off two more years worth of principal , pay down during that time with the rent money I collect , okay .
And who knows ?
I might 1031 that into something closer to the beach , because I'll be two years closer to retirement .
Speaking my language . I was looking the other day , so this is another thing you need to look into . This is a cool twist of conversation .
I've been looking at buying like large properties of land , so like 30 to a hundred acres , we'll say and I found one it was 116 , one is 116 acres for 550,000 , with a small house on it , and I was like I can literally just buy a house and build a house for my , each one of my family members and still have like a quarter mile apart from each other and
be happy they'll never see them . Um , on the other flip side of that , like , is it in a conservatory or tree conservation area ? So can I actually build , kind of develop it ? Can I cut down trees ? Or is it just 116 acres I can't do anything with ?
So I was going after a property that was uh , I think it was 11 acres , right at the right in west ocean city . Um , but come to find out only a third of it is in commercial and you can develop it and build it . The rest of the 10.8 acres , or whatever it was , is all tree conservation .
So I couldn't do anything with it , unless I want to put like trails in there and just walk , you know , shoot , hunt , whatever . But like when you're looking at large deals , you got to figure out like what's the highest and best use of it . And deals you got to figure out like what's the highest and best use of it .
And it seems like if you go outside of our normal box of flipping and buying and rentals , there's other opportunities . But it's a very niche market . You need to understand , like what you're allowed to do and not do with it .
So like there's a guy out of baltimore city , uh , matt blosser , he buys I think he told me he's up to 1600 acres um out in west virginia and , uh , he does , he does tree , uh , um sales . So like he'll timber a property and then that will pay for the entire acquisition cost and then he'll just sit in the property because now it's paid for .
So there's other ways .
It's been a cat there's a guy that I work with . He's into timbering and it that . That's one of those things like I've never bought a . Well , I take that back one track of land that was big enough to timber , but then by the time I figured out what the I had him come look at it , what I was gonna quote make in the timber .
It was gonna cost me that much for mde to approve because I had to like cut into the property off of a road , through the guardrail . There was a waterway involved . By the time I did all this shit I was like forget it . Like this is too much work . But uh , yeah , maybe in west virginia that'd be better .
So well , the other thing we were going to talk about was social security fairness act , which , frankly , I'd be lying if I said I was super spun up on it . Um , but other than that , like it's , it's about teachers , firefighters , like public service personnel , correct ?
yeah , so that I'll give the rest of it because we've only got a social security fairness act . Uh was just passed . Um before I think it was back in the 80s we got a reduced social security payout . Um , when you say we like firefighters , yeah , first responders , so we first responders got a reduced payout because we were pension people .
It's been a lawsuit in the works with the union , the IFF , whatever the police union is . So now I think it just passed , like in a couple weeks ago , where we don't get a reduced Social security payout . Now we get the full amount .
So if you go on I posted the link into the Facebook group but you can go on and look and see where you're at in terms of how many points you have you have to have 20 credits in order to get the minimum payout of social security . So like , obviously , if you ever worked at W2 or part time we are not pensioned then those will count towards your points .
I want to say you can get seven points a year . And is it four or seven points a year ? It's four and you got to make at least like $1,700 or $1,800 . So then you'll start getting your points per year up to 20 , 20 , 20 points . So it gets your your payout .
So you'll get your pension and you'll get your your social security payout , and then , when you dive on our pension , your wife can get either 40 or 50% of your retirement , depending on the annuity and then social security .
On the annuity , social Security is the same way If you're the primary breadwinner , your wife will get part of your Social Security when you pass as well , or whatever spouse you have , whoever is the breadwinner .
That's great . I'm just concerned they're going to hand you a cup to go to a . Well , that's dry .
Is it even going to be here ?
Back to Narco subs .
I looked earlier and I was like I think I got 17 credits , so I need 13 more , which means three or four years . I have to make $1,700 out of W2 in order to get the points I need .
Where do you ?
look this up . I'll put the link in the group . It should be the top post . You have to sign up for the social security thing we pulled up . Hang on , gotcha , I'll send it to you .
I know I qualify . I was stoked to see that and you know what ? I didn't know too . I don't know if you guys know this , but at least for our department or maybe it's the state of california they change something to where , now that I'm on a disability , retirement , medical disability my spouse gets 100 of that benefit when I pass away .
I did not know that good , it's even better , yeah I think so for her .
I mean her , sancho , not for me . It's uh , securessagov . The link is for the social security and I'll I'll send it to Mike right now , or send it to Mike and Tyler right now .
It's going to show us we can but yeah , it's interesting , I'm going to go ahead . No , I was going to let you go .
It's interesting to see like how much your monthly will go up . Some of these guys I've talked to , they calculate it out and they're making another $500 , $600 , $700 a month Because of the change in this Social Security Fairness Act . So it's a chunk of money . I like it More money , less problems . I know you have to roll soon .
So do you just want to roll this hand ?
grenade . I like it More money , less problems Well .
Tyler , I know you have to roll soon , so do you just want to roll this hand grenade into the episode and see how this plays out about Doge ? I mean , I've never in my life not that I'm a big political guy , but just the people on both sides of the aisle just crazy , that's the only way I can describe it . It's just crazy .
If you know me , you know I like to poke and I'm like just to stir the pot . It's just how I am . Something's wrong with me . But uh , I understand , like , why there needs to be accountability for the government because , like USAID , usaid , um , operate like NGOs and off-market deals and they do the dirty work for the government .
The CIA uses it for operations , so they get a lot of money . So we'll start with , like somebody like George Soros . George Soros will create an NGO or a nonprofit right .
Then he'll take his lobbyist and go to the elected officials like , hey , we want to get this NGO funded and it could be like the life safety wellness act and like it has nothing to do with life safety or wellness , can be something completely different and that money is then given us taxpayers .
Money is given to this NGO and it's used for whatever they say it's going to be used for , but say only a portion of it is actually used . So say , 50% of it goes to the pocket , 50% goes to the actual , the actual cause , and it's a lot of . What's happening now is that we're finding out where our money is actually going , like the .
You know , do rats on cocaine live longer ? Do you know condoms in Gaza prevent STDs , like it's kind of like well , that's the uproar and I mean I can understand both sides of the aisle . I don't necessarily agree with how fast it's being done because you're cutting , but it needs to be done . Just like Fort Knox , it needs to be audited .
A true audit hasn't been done in over 100 years of Fort Knox and that's what our dollar is based off of or was based off of before the gold standard was given up .
Isn't that kind of crazy in itself , right there ?
Yeah 100 years .
We have to do daily , weekly , monthly checks on apparatus . You mean , tell me we don't have to do a monthly inventory on the gold every now and then .
It's a catch-22 , right , If we have less gold than what we say we do then our dollar goes down . If we have more , then people are like well , why is there such high inflation right now ?
Yeah , I don't know . That's kind of surprising to me .
That's not part of the check process . These 70 cent eggs are for the birds .
Dude , that's gnarly right .
Yeah . The 71 cent group are eggs right now where ?
I am Well now that you say that I just found some Mennonite farm . I've been buying stuff there . Let's see what did I pay ?
My farm just closed , the one by me .
I messaged 43 cents an egg 43 .
It's still high though . Like you figure , like if you at the fire , we'll say firehouse food , right , if you use a couple of cans of tuna and a couple of eggs , like you're at , like you know , three dollars per meal for a sandwich , um , with freaking basic white bread and yep .
So like if you're trying to budget .
This is for families too , like me and my wife were talking about doing meal prep again , um , last night , and I'm like , well , you , in order to make it work like you , got to figure out the cost of the cost of the food , how much it's going to cost you every week .
And then , with , obviously , I have almost have two boys soon , I'm like our cost of food is going to skyrocket , especially as they go 100 , guarantee you it'll go so crazy it's like I think that a lot of people they don't know where money goes because they don't budget , and that's the issue with the government is that there's no accountability for the budget the
money goes and how the approval process is absolute garbage yeah , I did .
I mean , I'm certainly not educated enough to make decisions on what should and shouldn't be funded , but I find it hard to believe that within the federal government that it's not worthwhile to maybe just audit hey , this does or does not need to be continued increased . Maybe some of the stuff that they find needs increased .
Like hey , we don't have enough people to be continued increased . Maybe some of the stuff that they find needs increased . You know , like hey , we don't have enough people to do X , but you know , just think about your fire department . That's one small department within a city or a county of a state you know of . Like you think about the fire department .
You're like I definitely think we could get rid of this , but that's not funded enough , so on and so forth . Now you times that by a country , like come on . It's just logical .
I don't want to see anybody lose their job , but , on the other hand , if your job is to move this pen to this side of the desk and then , at the end of the day , you move it to the other side of the desk , I'm sorry , but we're going to find another place for you to take your skills .
I'm glad you said that . I'm glad you said that . So there's somebody that we all know and I'll talk about off air His .
His girl got a job working for the government and , from how he explained it , they said because you're a probationary member , you have the option We'll give you a severance package for eight months or you can continue your job with the threat of possibly being fired , which would have happened .
So her job , from what he explained to me , was the higher-ups would call her to set up a meeting . She would call the IT people to set up the meeting . That was her job . It was like well , why can't just the upper echelon go to the IT people themselves ?
It was probably an $80,000 to $100,000 job and I'm like I don't understand , like this is the sum of the fact that needs to be cut and I hate to do it . I hate to say that because it's a friend of mine's girl but at the same time it's that's one of tens of thousands of jobs . I think it was 2 million federal government jobs .
I mean , I'm not naive to think , like our professions are paid by tax dollars , like I totally get all this , but I don't think we're talking about essential services and we can sit there and have the this is essential and not essential conversation at another time . But I feel like we did that a couple of years ago . Right , it's just crazy time .
But I feel like we did that a couple of years ago , right , it's just crazy Like , but I , no cabinet member is elected .
So it's kind of weird to me that these people that just absolutely despise Elon Musk for whatever reason , like you can't , you may not like the guy , like I would never go to him for parenting advice , probably or a marital or birth control ?
Yeah , but I mean .
I think it's difficult to argue , I mean it's kind of tough to argue that the guy is not like one of those just insane genius . Like , like he's not just jeopardy . Smart he's like we're going to the Mars . Smart he's got a lot of hypnotism .
Well , he says right in his book I think it's a form of Asperger's is what he has , which if you have ever known anybody with Asperger's , they're just socially awkward . That's just one of the things . The dude is awkward , but it's kind of tough to argue with his intelligence . But on the other hand it's just .
It's just been crazy to watch it kind of play out , like then people don't want his cars . Well , do you really think that dude gives a shit If you sold your four year old Tesla to Carvana ?
No , he does not care , like you know , but anyways it's been interesting to watch and so I looked this up the other day . It was like zuckerberg and uh at elon musk and a couple other billionaires and I was like , well , how much do they make a day ? So this is . This is from years ago .
I was talking to a friend of mine who had met , um , oh , the big stock guy out in like iowa I can't think of his name right now , but they said that if he stopped to pick up warren buffett huh , warren buffett , yeah , warren said that if he stopped to pick up Warren Buffett .
Huh , warren .
Buffett , yeah , warren Buffett .
If he stopped to pick up a bill , it'd be a waste of his time because of how much money he makes .
So , Elon makes $8 million a day . For him to stop and pick up $1,000 would be a waste of his time . They're not hurting his feelings . His grandkids' grandkids will have enough money . Um , as long as he doesn't , you know , blow up nasa and spacex yeah , it's uh , I don't know .
It's just been interesting like people that years , a couple years ago , were buying his cars now because of his you know , political affiliation or you know , making a stance by selling them and going . I guess , I don't know , it's just been very weird , like I also like the fact that I'm going . I guess , I don't know , it's just been very weird .
I also like the fact that I'm in a business where I don't have to . I can poke and spin the pot and start the pot , because if I'm in a business like Tyler or Mike where people are going to look at my page and be like I'm not going to do business with him , screw him , I don't care , I can get away with it .
Part of the problem Everybody has to be in the part of I don't really care , I mean I'm not going to go out there and just post a bunch of ridiculous stuff .
But on the other hand , like if you don't , if you don't like me , I mean I'm not looking at Aaron , I'm just looking at it but like you know what I mean , like going to just go be divisive for the sake of it . But on the other hand , like if you don't like my views , well , I'm sorry , like I'm not .
I'm not saying you have to adopt them , I'm just I don't know . But I like facts , not feelings . I think a lot .
I think it's the biggest differentiator with people is some people base their opinion on on feelings and some people base their opinion on facts and sometimes people don't have all the facts or their facts are skewed because , say , the legacy media is not giving you the full , full , full picture , and stuff like that .
And I understand that , but it's good to have difference of opinion so you can discuss stuff to move forward .
Yeah , so Tyler's got to run , so we're going to wrap this up . We'll shorter episode than normal , but if you listen to this and you're not aware , we have a Facebook group first responder financial freedom . And you're not aware we have a Facebook group First Responder , Financial Freedom .
Because I feel like when I look at the downloads or the group size , somebody doesn't know about something there . But , anyways , that's all I got . I'll talk to you guys soon .
All right guys Stay safe .
See you Sorry , guys .