Get Shameless About Money

#225: How to budget during a pandemic + your IG Live questions answered!

May 13, 2020 Brunch & Budget
Get Shameless About Money
#225: How to budget during a pandemic + your IG Live questions answered!
Show Notes Transcript

Questions answered:
I'm wondering if you have advice for me or others in my situation. I have a small business as a sole proprietor LLC (I'm the only employee) and just received a SBA PPP loan on Friday. 

AND I also had applied for PUA early April as a freelancer and the partial unemployment just went through and was accepted. Any ideas of what to do? I imagine I can't take both

I had a quick question about PPP loans now that I've been offered one: From what I've read, it sounds like any amount of the loan that goes towards payroll and other eligible expenses (office rent, etc.) during the eight weeks following the disbursement of the loan will be forgiven. 

As a freelancer, I'm wondering how I will "prove" these payroll expenses--i.e. do I need to show that my freelance income was lower than it was based on the previous year? I'm just trying to get a sense of what paperwork will be used to assess this.

--

any advice on how I can get creditors to pause or lower interest rates during these times would be helpful. The efforts I’ve made thus far, they won’t budge.

--

How should I think about getting a car in the city?

Music Featured in This Episode:
Wants & Needs by Likkle Jordee
Prioritize Wise (intro) by Collin Terrel
Priorities by ChrisGDaReal

Dyalekt:

Just like hot knicks and hot takes justice as best served on a hot plate. Welcome to brunch and budget, the show about racial economic inclusion with your host Pamela Capalad, Certified Financial Planner and Accredited Financial Counselor here to take the bite out of your budget. That's brunchandbudget.com. Brunch and budget is part of the race and wealth podcast network. I'm your sound provider Dyalekt. Here, recorded live from our crib from parts unknown or you know, if you know, here's your host Pamela Capalad.

Pamela Capalad:

Thank you Dyalekt, and thank everybody for tuning in today. And yeah, this is our second week doing Instagram live for a podcast. We're excited!

Dyalekt:

We're in a whole different locale. Before we were in the kitchen, now we're in the living room, this is a whole different place. You can see the art behind us made by many of our favorite artists. Actually, that's all Crystal Clarity right there.

Pamela Capalad:

It's all crystal clarity. It's the Crystal Clarity wall. I love it. So today we're going to be talking about how to budget during a pandemic. Oh, that's really good topics. I know, right? I thought it was really irrelevant. I never had to talk about it before to be honest. I don't think any of us have really had to think about it. But here we are in the middle of a pandemic. I believe New York is still in lockdown until the end of the month. New Jersey is on l ockdown for another 30 days. So you know, there's, t here's stuff going on, there's stuff going on. And the thing about budgeting during a pandemic is it's not like anything that we've ever had to think about budgeting before because you know, we've had some personal crisises that required us to budget a different way. We had, you know, maybe like a mass l ay o ff of a company, but the reality is 3 0 million Americans have a pplied for unemployment and that's not representative of how people w ere a ctually at work. Right. T hat's t rue. C ause the thing about unemployment is it's only y ou just lost your job and it's only if unemployment is if y ou got let go o r if you got fired. It has nothing to do with if you h ave to quit for whatever reason. Or if y ou'd been looking for work for a longer period of time and now you can't find work if you're a student, or seasonal w ork t hat people do.

Dyalekt:

Oh, I was expecting stuff to come in the spring. Everybody who had a spring tour and respecting that to be a big part of their money. Yeah, yeah. It's true. It's true.

Pamela Capalad:

So budgeting during pandemic is very different than what we've ever really talked about before. So we're going to go through all of that. One out of three Americans couldn't pay their rent in April, and I don't know what the number is in may. We'll see. Um, one out of three Americans couldn't pay their rent. I mean, if you think about 30 million Americans being out of work, right? And filing for unemployment, that adds up. That makes sense. So today we're going to be talking about one, how to think about your budget and your expenses as of now, how to ask for reduced rent payments and suspend any loan payments and how to save, where to save, how much to save, and then also tracking your expenses. The other thing is we have a list of questions that people have submitted that we're going to be going over as well in between while Dyalekt plays some music for us.

Dyalekt:

If you guys haven't asked questions before we had that up, we've been putting on social and everything, but if you do have questions, feel free to ask them in the chat. We'll get to them as we get to the questions that were asked previously. Don't worry, we're going to stay on as long as we need to answer all the questions that anyone has.

Pamela Capalad:

Yes, absolutely. So why don't we start with how to think about punch it right now. How do you think about your expenses right now?

Dyalekt:

Because now is the time when everything's starting to break down, right? Like if you felt like you had a bit of a cushion before and everything was okay. Now you've exhausted a lot of that. You've exhausted resources. Maybe you're thinking about stuff that you need to buy.

Pamela Capalad:

And not to bring up another alarming stat, but before the pandemic, the average cost of an emergency in America was$400 and one out of two Americans could not pay for that emergency. Right. We do. And so a lot of people did not have a savings and a lot of people did not have that savings cushion going into this and now a lot of us are losing our jobs. A lot of us are losing income. Dyalekt, I know you lost all of your gigs.

Dyalekt:

A large sum of money in March. Yeah. Thats the thing when we talk about these stimulus checks, one of the reasons why it seems so crucial for a lot of folks is that if we're$500ish away from losing everything, then yeah, that helps me right now. But now that i t's going on another month.

Pamela Capalad:

There's no stimulus check coming again. And I just want to say one thing about the stimulus checks. They are not new. The stimulus checks are something that happens at every recession. It happened during 9/11, you got stimulus checks under Bush. You got stimulus checks under Bush again in 2008. You got a stimulus check under Obama in 2009. The thing about these stimulus checks is we made such a big deal about them this time around, but there's something that the government just does when there's a recession and it's usually a one time thing to do so mething we don't even notice. And we all know$1,200 is a drop in the bucket, let's be honest, right?$1, 2 00 is a drop in the bucket.

Dyalekt:

You know, while it may be a drop in the bucket in the overall, it can take care of some immediate stuff, but now things are moving a little bit farther so now what we're going to do?

:

Now, it's may, we're in the third month of the pandemic. So if you haven't taken a look at your expenses now we're going to walk you through some of the ways to really think about it and how to think about what to cut, how to think about what to keep, and also keeping yourself sane in the midst of all of that, right? Yeah. So the first thing is we want you to write down all of your recurring bills, especially your subscriptions. That's probably the first thing that we want you to examine. Subscriptions are a trend that snuck up on all of us, I believe in the last however long. I feel like in the last several years we've had a lot of subscriptions, um, that just like a lot of thinking about Adobe for instance, and Photoshop and illustrator and InDesign and all of those companies that basically were like, Hey, we could keep selling you this software or we could just charge you every month now to access the software.

Speaker 2:

Because the way that they were doing their planned out for lessons was that every year they had a new one with slightly new bells and whistles that they don't pressure you into upgrading to, but you never actually had to do it and now they migrated to a hundred percent subscription model and a lot of places have done that now. So we want you to take a look. Your subscriptions first when it comes to budgeting is what can you put on pads or what can you cancel right now? You don't have to get rid of anything a hundred percent permanently, but right now it might not make sense. For instance, like I canceled my letote subscription because I'm not leaving the house and I don't have an extra hundred dollars a month to put towards it. It's one of those things where do you need Hulu and Netflix for instance? Are you watching both of them? And really right now, every dollar counts, right? Every dollar counts right now when it comes to looking at your subscriptions and when it comes to a committed yourself to every single month. So Mark the bills that are absolute must have things like your rent, your utilities, your cell phone, all of those things are really things that you need to figure out how you're going to fit into the money that you have right now. Now I know when we talked, so I want to get in a little bit of like, um, me asking as someone who needs help from a advisor, cause I think this might be helpful in figuring this stuff out. So like we talk a lot about the spending values matrix and like prioritizing and your values and things like that. But like everything is at the band right now and my priorities are mad different. So like I was all this mentality stuff. Even important when I just needed to get my numbers down because like you haven't talked about how, you know when you get your fixed expenses and you get that number together, don't even worry about that. So now you're talking about worry about that. I mean these are unprecedented times, so let's set some precedent. We do have to worry about that now. And we're going to talk a little bit later about how to talk to your landlord about producing your rent or cutting your rent payment, how to reduce some of your utilities, how to suspend some of your debt payments and things like that. But the reality is that right now everything is on the table or anything is on the table in terms of cutting. So one is cut the things first that feel easiest to class. That's the, that's why I say start with the subscription. Start with those X month expenses that kind of snuck up on me. Right? And then the next thing to examine as like the next layer of utilities, like do you need cable and internet? Write down, for instance, ask yourself that hard question, look at your cell phone bill and see if there's anything extra that you're paying for that you maybe don't need to be paying for right now. Right. Um, and then again, we're going to go into, is there a way for you to pause your peanuts right now if you absolutely cannot pay them. Right? And when you talk to your landlord, I don't think about like the cable internet packages. So like possibly, you know, since they have those bundled packages, if you're doing those things, maybe you're coming into just one, maybe you're reducing the package. Yeah, exactly. So these are the types of like nitpicks that we normally don't talk about a lot. So what is, how do I start thinking about those nitpicks and also how do I make it make sense to me? Cause like you're saying that we should look at the cable thing and the bundling would, if it's like a$15 difference here and a$15 difference there. Yeah. I know what's going to add up to all that. But I don't know if I have the mental energy to like sift through 10 things and to make 80 more dollars. Right. And 80 more dollars over a year. Right. Or maybe maybe even over the month. Even if like that many things that eventually, that feels like a lot of effort for stuff. They're like what

Speaker 1:

do I have to do to get myself in that head space? And also like where, what's the thing on that? It's the pot of gold.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I would say, this is why I'm saying do all the easy stuff first. If the idea of calling your cable company, because I don't mind calling my cable company, I will do that. I will take the hour and take the energy to do that. But that's not everyone. Right? Right. So that feels stressful for you. Don't do that first. Set that aside right now. Do the easy stuff first. Do the low friction stuff first, right? Cancel that weird credit monitoring thing that you accidentally signed up for. Canceled the New York times subscription that you thought you canceled three months ago. Cancel your gym subscription. If they didn't do it for you automatically already canceled that workout subscription, the online workout subscription, then maybe you haven't even started using it. So I think that's kind of how to think about it right now. Um, is there a way to downgrade your cell phone plan right now? Right. Um, is there a way to call your utility company? And I know utility companies right now, they're not turning anything off. So if you can suspend your payments on utilities as well, that might be an option too. And really it's just about first year, the easy stuff. Then do the medium stuff then do the hard stuff and the thing you might have to do first, the first hard step might be actually sitting down and writing down everything in the first place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's always the thing that we recommend like writing down your problems isn't solving your problems and I say that because that tends to be the mentality of a lot of it I've done that I've written down my problem and written down the things that I need to think about and then put it off on the side and haven't touched it for six months. But writing down does give you a lot of clarity and it gives you an ability you don't have in the head is the ability to edit. There is nothing like striking through something that you wrote down. It's not the same as saying, Oh no, I got that together or I'm figuring it out in my head. Being able to look at yourself striking something out is an actual achievement.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree and that's the thing is when you can write stuff, when you write down the whole list and then you say, okay, these are the easy things I can get rid of. These are the medium things I can get rid of and these little hard things I can rid of. Then you don't feel like you have to tackle everything at once or look at it and say, well, I don't know what to do at all in terms of priorities. Now

Speaker 1:

I love that you're talking about having, getting rid of the easy stuff first. I know there are folks out there listening who are like, I hate that method. I need to look at the hard stuff first. That's fine too. I know plenty of folks that need to look at the hard one first please,

Speaker 3:

or the one that feels like you're going to get the most bang for your buck. Right? Like, let me cancel a Netflix subscription for$10 I guess I'll get to that, but maybe I can negotiate with my landlord and cut my rent in half. Now let me with that. Yeah, so either the easiest or the hardest or some of the medium ones, whatever works for you. I love that. The things that feel like an achievement are the things that you've caught first. And then the next thing that we really recommend that you do is look at your debt payments. Are you making extra payments on your car loans that you forgot about? Are you making more payments on your student loans than you thought you were supposed to? Are you making extra credit card payments that are higher than the minimum? Now is the time where you might actually want to reduce everything to the minimum. We can't say for a few months. We can't say this more. I mean, we know paying down debt is something that's important and it feels like an albatross. It's there on your back. It's the worst even more now, every year, and everyone's telling you, well, that's why you're wrong. That's why you fail if you don't have enough right now. The most important thing like everybody else is maintaining liquidity and flexibility and give those buzz words because you just need to have your money in your hands or in your accounts so you can decide what to do with it next. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Once you give that money to the debtor or to the creditor, it's gone. It's there. They're not going to give it back to you. You can put more money on the credit card if you want to, but you can't give back that auto payment. He can't get back that student loan payment. They don't reverse those things where you ever, and I have personally learned that the hard way. Um, so now is the time to just minimize your debt payments as much as possible cause you want to have cash on hand. Remember the place you can cut, you have deck because you're leveraging your time and right now we need to leverage our time. We especially have in the short term at least a couple more months of things being weird. Even if we open up very soon, even if everything is clear to you or very soon we got a couple more months to things being weird. So it's true. It's true. We really do. And so right now, again, everything is on the table. Anything is on the table and that also means the personal finance tips or the like best practice advice that you've heard out the window. None of it applies anymore. Right now it's about protecting yourself, protecting your health, making sure that you stay safe and making sure that you have enough to get through this time and you can eat that you can keep a roof over your head, all of that. So we've been hearing a lot of questions about investing and things like that. And again, this has to do with what you need right now. If there is an absolute necessity to be pulling money out so that you have cash on hand, even though you're going to take a loss in some cases, that actually might be the right thing to do right now. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Again, don't misconstrue any of this as advice. Don't just pull stuff out cause we said that might be an option. That might be an option. So again, so again, one is know your recurring bills and see what you need to tackle getting rid of. And then the next thing is reducing all your debt payments to the minimums. That's, that is the next step. The next thing is to look at your discretionary expenses. And it's really interesting as we've been looking at client's budgets throughout this, throughout this month, uh, everyone's food buyers have gone up. Of course, I know we've done our share of panic grocery shopping and um, and also being super tired and ordering in and all of that kind of stuff to support in ways that we can give donations, things like that. Yeah, absolutely. But the other thing is when it comes to discretionary expenses, what are you not spending money on right now? What are the things I just like went away? Because you couldn't go right? Like you're pedicures and manicures your haircuts, some entertainment, stop taking Uber and Lyft everywhere. Those kinds of things probably just naturally went away, right? And not all of that. All of a sudden went to food spending. So where did the spending that you were doing go? Is it sitting in your checking account right now? Have you been adding more money to it? So that's the other thing to think when it comes to your discretionary spending is where you no longer

Speaker 1:

spending your money by the way, a little bit of behavioral psychology stuff if that, if that's the pressing you to start thinking about that or, cause I know a lot of folks will say like the thing that I am not spending money on that I would have spent money on was that family trip to go see the baseball game where the four of us would go. We spent a whole day and it costs a lot of money, but it's a big thing and we always love it and it's a great thing for us. So if that's something that's stressing you out, even just thinking about that, when you're looking at the amount of money you've saved, remember that you're saving for your ability to have those moments again. You're making sure that you don't slip and that money that was meant to go to a family thing that you love and you value doesn't end up going to some panic buy and you still have it for when you're able to do some family stuff. You want to,

Speaker 3:

yes, I feel that Anglo up gang. Hey, cool looking. Let's see. You said that you may be spending too much on groceries, aren't we all? We all, I think there's a lot of panic buying going on. I also think

Speaker 1:

there's also a lot of fancier thing allowance because some stuff is out of stock. And also since I didn't go out to eat since we didn't go to the game with the family, we're like we'll get, we'll get the fancy beef or the expensive thing. And again, I know a lot of people, um, in the meat processing plants are being misused. So there's a big call to be buying less need. So I'm just throwing that out there but still,

Speaker 3:

but we're also buying duck eggs regularly cause that makes us feel really fancy right now. I don't know. It's the little things y'all, and those are the kinds of things that we do actually want you to keep in your discretionary spending. Um, I also saw Glo gang said that she needs to remember to cancer MTA commuter card. Yes. I'm so glad you said that because look at your pay stub. Are you paying for things that actually you've not, you're not able to use right now? Oh my God. Fantabulous life emotional bonding. It's so true. I don't know why. I definitely have 10 bags of tortilla chips. I don't even like tortilla chips that much. But they were what was there. So I was like, I can eat tortilla chips, whatever. That's the thing, right? Well non-perishables have done really well. I'm sure they have. They have. We also have way too much pasta in the house right now. But anyway, so look at your discretionary spending. And also it's been six weeks y'all, right? It's been almost seven weeks now. So you've probably done all the panic shopping that maybe you're going to do. And grocery store shelves are stocked still. There's toilet paper now. There's paper towels now. There's baby whites now. So now might be the time to reevaluate your food spending again. Now that you've done all that shopping and you stocked up, do you really need to keep buying at that level? Right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I mean all this reevaluation stuff, it sounds very much like the second part of the show's name, the budget, right? I bring this up with trepidation because I know that with running your budget, we're always like, well, it's beyond budgeting. It's more than that. It's about how you feel. It's about all these things. But like this is the time to really get clear about the amount of money that we have and the amount of money that we have for a certain amount of time. Yeah, I totally

Speaker 2:

agree. Like to really be doing the math on this. Don't worry if you're having trouble doing long division when we got calculators in your phone. Yeah, we really do. So why don't we go to a song while you let all of that marinate Molly, do some soil, you some musicking. We're also going to answer some questions that we got this week. Um, some Q and a stuff. Who do we go? We're going to go, uh, yeah, for some quarantine there. Right. A white, you know, you don't want to be quarantine Island right now, even though they're a state. I'm sure they're getting treated terribly. Shout out to all my people and saying for in the BI and Puerto Rico and all the other territories, I know they all have it even harder. You don't want to be quarantined there. But we're going to go to Hawaii for a second for some regular music artist named Licko Jordy with the joint ones and needs and then answer some questions. It's called wants and needs. I love it. Okay, that's great.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible] run from[inaudible] run, run, run. What is your job?[inaudible][inaudible][inaudible] get

Speaker 3:

really

Speaker 4:

[inaudible]

Speaker 3:

okay, so here is a question. We've gotten a couple of questions about PPP loans. One of the questions that we have is, uh, I'm wondering if you have advice for me and others in my situation. I have a small business as a sole proprietor, LLC. I'm the only employee and just receive the SBA PPP loan on Friday, which is Greg, can you turn down a little bit? Um, the very few people have received the PVP loan. Um, but those are receiving it. That's amazing. Um, I and I also applied for, um, P way, which is pandemic unemployment assistance in early April as a freelancer. And the partial appointment just went through and was accepted. Any idea of what to do? I can imagine I can take both. So this is situation that a lot of freelancers have found themselves in, right? Is you qualify for unemployment, you're allowed to apply for the people he loan, and now both things are happening. So what do you do? And the thing that we understand about how these two things work together is while you have the PDP loan for those eight weeks, you cannot claim unemployment. So you're supposed to claim unemployment every single week, right? And so when you claim unemployment, you're saying that week I didn't make any income when that PBP loan comes in, technically that's income. That's you paying yourself for the next eight weeks through that SBA loan. So the thing about the PPP income is for the next eight weeks when you have as the day that you got it, you cannot apply for unemployment, but as soon as that BP loan runs out that eight weeks out for an employment gap. So that's how you do the two in tandem. The thing about unemployment is it's not consecutive, it's cumulative so you can keep applying and applying for unemployment depending on what income you made that week. So that's one question. We have another PVP loan question. I just want to stick to the themes. Um, I had a quick question about PPP loans. Now that I've been offered one, from what I've read, it sounds like any amount of the loan that goes towards payroll and other eligible expenses during the eight weeks will be forgiven. That is true. As a freelancer, I'm wondering how prove these parallel expenses I. E do I need to show that my freelance income was lower than it was based on my previous year? I'm just trying to get a sense of what paperwork will be used to assess this. Another tricky question for freelancers. So there is very little guidance and I we just got the PB loan brunch and budget hurray and I asked my bank how we're supposed to track all of this and they literally told me there is no guidance, there's nothing right now. There is no guidance on how they're going to accept PPP loan forgiveness. One thing we do know is you definitely have to go back to your bank and ask for it and they're going to ask for documentation to prove that you spent it on your payroll. Now as a freelancer, right, you may not have that situation. So I do know what PVP loans most likely required to open a business bank account if you already didn't have one at the bank where you received the PVP loan from. Now, one thing you can absolutely show as a freelancer is one really easy way to document it is to move the money from the business bank account to your personal bank account. And what I would do is take that PPP loan amount that you received and divided by eight weeks, right? And then pay yourself every single week a regular amount to show, Hey, I took this amount and I use it to pay myself. You don't need the loan amount that you got approved for was based on the income that you made last year and it's meant and designed. Even if you're making less money this year, it's designed for you to be able to pay yourself the same amount that you're paying yourself this year. So it doesn't matter that your feelings income was higher or lower this year. What matters is that you show that the amount that you've gotten, the PPP loan was actually dispersed as income to you as a freelancer. And probably the cleanest way to do that is to show the money going from your business account to your personal account. Okay? Yeah. These are all guesses by the way, because all of this shit is made up. This is like how can we cross our I's, cross our T's daughter eyes, cross their eyes and daughter teas, whatever we gotta do, right? Because these are all guesses right now and I'm basing this off potential doc documentation that may have been used in the past for other things. So you know that's our guests where the PPP loans. I know, right? If you have followup questions feel free to ask us in check or if this is something that you need to sit with for a while and then reach out to us later. Again, we're going to be doing this every week on Friday, so please send us your questions, send us all your questions and your is your need as broad as you need. It's all good. We'll figure it out or we'll be confused with you. That's, that's the state of things that we're in right now. Absolutely. Shout out to licky Jordy out of Honolulu, Hawaii with the song once fan needs. That was great. The podcast version. You actually hear the joint? Yes. It's so good. Okay, so we're back. We are back and we are talking about budgeting during the pandemic and we just talked about how to kind of look at your bills. The final thing that I wanted to mention is we talked about looking at your pay stub and seeing what extra payments you were making, the kind of forgot you were making. One thing to think about is might it make sense to pause your retirement accounts for a couple months? Could you use that extra cash in your paycheck that is going towards the 401k right now that maybe would be helpful to go towards the savings account or to go towards some bills. Again, these are unprecedented times. I would normally not recommend stopping your 401k payments unless there was a good reason to. And I think a global pandemic is a good reason to stop your 401k payments. I don't know about you. So if you need to do for a couple months, it's really not a big deal. A couple months of not putting money into your 401k is not going to break the bank. It's not going to mess up your retirement. It's not going to not allow you to be able to retire. So that's another thing to think about. If that is a big chunk of money that you're putting towards something you actually can't access for very long.

Speaker 1:

Well, and if you've been putting money towards the 401k and you've got like a retirement plan, I want you to remember that you have this plan. Remember when you did it? Because I remember when I did, and I remember when being in this situation today is so terrifying because I have no way out. I have no cushion. I can't even take out money at a major penalty for me if I really needed it. Right now, you worst come to worst, have money you can take out at a major penalty and have that is not nothing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's real. That's real. You've been saving for retirement. So if you have to pause for now, it's very okay. Don't be mad at yourself. Be happy with yourself. Be proud of yourself for having done that. Yeah. So now that you've looked at your bills and you kind of made some hard decisions, the next thing to think about is how do you cut the big stuff, right? How do you, the big question is how do you talk to your landlord about reducing your rent versus spending your rent payments? Because here's the tricky thing about all of this, y'all is when it comes to the rent payments and not paying them, technically landlords are not allowed to evict you until June or the end of June. And then the question about what happens after that is still up in the air. So that's a little scary. The other thing though I will say is talking to clients, hearing stories from people is that landlords have been very accommodating during this time. A lot of landlords have asked for something. So a lot of women have not been able to say, Hey, you don't have to pay rent at all. Some people have chosen to not pay rent because they couldn't. The thing that we want to emphasize, one is have a very open communication with your landlord. Don't not say anything. Talk to them. Even if it's not a question of can you pay rent, but Hey, I am not going to be able to pay rent this month. Give them that heads up. So they can plan to cause the end. At the end of the day, if you can't pay rent, you can't pay rent. But if you're able to tell your landlord and give them some kind of communication about it, they'll probably most likely from what we've seen be willing to work with you on.

Speaker 1:

Well, and the thing about communication right now, even if you don't have a great landlord, I've been trying to think and swirling in my head about, you know, people who have a landlord who is not willing to consider, who is a jerk, who is clearly an on-purpose landlord, who's a management company that's not even really paid well and not that well staffed and you know, they've got their own stuff and all of that. For those people who have a terrible situation, please communicate just as much in fact communicate more because it's not about the communication and that place. It's about documentation because as Pam was saying, come June, I don't know what, one thing that I'm definitely feeling like, I can't say it's a real prediction, but like I'm feeling like all of those squatter's rights laws that exist in different forms across the country, those dates are going to be ignored because of the unprecedented this of everything. They're like, yeah, I know that they saved them for three months. Then you got rights to it, but we had a thing for three months where you had to stay somewhere, so I wouldn't count on that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but if you are in a situation where you can't pay your rent, there are some creative things you can do with your landlord that we've seen and we've heard this work. One is you can have your rent reduced, so you can say, Hey, I can only pay half of my rent. Right? I can only cover half of it. I, you know, this is what I have. This is what I can give you. And a lot of landlords have acquiesced to that and said, we get it. We understand. I'm glad you're giving us something. If you can't pay your rent at all. Another thing that landlords have agreed to do is instead of planning to call the rent at the end of 90 days, right? Because if you can't pay your rent over three months, how are you going to be able to pay rent in 90 days and pay three months worth of it, right? Is they have put people on payment plans, so to extend the time where they get their rent payment back by the time that 90 days hit. So that's another thing too, is you can talk to your landlord and say, Hey, I can't pay all of this at once and 90 days, but I'm hoping that I have income and in 90 days I'll be able to start making some more extra payments. Yeah. The thing about rent right now is it's the biggest expense and it's the one that has always felt like it was not negotiable. But again, I want to say everything's on the table right now. So we really think that it's very, very worth it for you to talk to your landlord and just ask them what they can do for you. Cause what we've seen a situations where we've seen a creative situation where someone went to a landlord, agreed to use their last month's rent that they put in first and last security deposit as the revenue for the month. So we both agree to do that. Then Hey, there's that money that's been sitting there that isn't doing anything right now that a landlord basically agreed to say like, okay, we'll use that for your rent this month. Right? I've seen rent payments get cut by 35% I've seen my payments get cut in half. I've seen landlords really start to talk to their tenants about what kind of plan they're going to have after this, what kind of plan they're going to have in 90 days when they hopefully start to see some income or start to receive some unemployment. So there are lots of different ways that you can have this conversation with your landlord and bring them ideas, right? Bring them options and be honest about your situation at the end of the day. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know, if all of this is happening and you're listening to this and you're like, yeah, I've tried every single one of these and I'm still in a situation where if I can't pay my rent, I'm in a bad position. I have seen on Twitter letter to Joseph has the rent relief hashtag where you are in need of money for rent and you can put up I think a cash app and if you have money that you were like to donate to someone who needs rent, you can go on the hashtag, look at those people, contact them and send them some money. That's just like, if worse comes to worse, we rely on people, right? What's worse comes to worse. My people come first. So you know,

Speaker 3:

Oh, what song is that? We should play that song. Can't play that song. Um, but hashtag rent relief on Twitter. Look that up. And who was the person? Leonard T Joseph Leonard T Joseph basically started this hashtag to say, Hey, if you need your rent paid and you don't have the money for it, we can try and you out. It's honestly like in all of the things I've seen, it's been the most effective of directly handling this. And I'm glad that you brought that up because there are some people who are not in a situation where their income is lost and they're trying to figure out where to give. And we've gotten that question before too, is like, I'm in a situation where I do have money to give. And so what do I do about that? Right? Um, and if you are in a situation, what we've been recommending is to bypass all the nonprofit stuff and give directly to the mutual aid societies in your neighborhood. Give directly to something like rent relief. Give directly to an individual who you know doesn't have the money really right now where we're advocating for you, advocating for your community and being able to see and know that that money, those dollars are going towards something that you believe in towards people that you care about and things like that. Let's not worry about getting that charitable deduction right now. Well, I don't think a lot of people also donate to charities because charities are people at infrastructure and they know how to get to large groups of people, but something that we all know, whether you know this globally or whether you know from working in that structure, there are a lot of people who slipped through the cracks and that's where we're needing people who don't have access or who are too far away from the charities ability to work with babies or babies finished his nap. You're going to get to meet him in a second. He's adorable. Okay, so wild. I liked his doing that. The next thing you want to talk about that's come up a lot is can you suspend your loan payments? So, and we've had clients have mixed success on all of that. So when it comes to suspending your loan payments, that was actually an IgE question that we got. Um, and I'll read it now. Any advice on how I can get creditors to pause or lower interest rates during these times would be helpful. The efforts I've made thus far, they won't fudge. And so you've heard that from other people as well. And unfortunately we were starting to see that more and more recently is that early on, my clients who called early, they called in March, they called it the beginning of April. We're able to get their interest rates suspended. They were able to get their payments suspended for the next three months, whatever it was. They were able to pause their credit card payments completely. And over the last week or so, I've been hearing stories of people who've tried to call their credit card companies and their credit card companies have just said no. Or they said, no, we can't do that. Or we can't get rid of your interest for if we do pause your payment, the interest is going to accumulate and if that's where we are right now and that is unfortunately where we are. I wish I had better news for you. This is something that again we just have seen developing recently but when it comes to reducing your credit card payments, hi, he had a good nap. I think when it comes to reducing your credit card payments right now the goal is to suspend them if you need to, if you have to pay that interest. If you're in a place where you're like, you know what, I would be great if I could get my interest suspended, but right now I just need to stop making my credit card payment. Get on any kind of different plan with your credit card company. Because the other thing about the cares act to keep in mind is the credit card companies. If you are on a deferral plan and only if you're on a deferral plan cannot put any negative marks on your credit report for the next hundred and days starting in April. So if you do only if you're on a different way. So if you get on some kind of deferral plan with your credit card company, they can't Mark your cards late. They can't Mark them delinquent and nothing like that. So that's something to absolutely keep in mind when it comes to reducing your credit card payments. We've also seen clients have success with getting their personal loan payments paused, getting their auto loan payments deferred, and as we all know, your federal student loan payments have been suspended until October, 2020 and if you don't know that, yay, your federal student loan payments have been suspended until October, 2020 if you're in a federal direct loan when it comes to personal loans and auto loans, there's a lot of companies that are actually right now just allowing you to defer for the next three months. And I've seen with personal loans, they tack that onto the end of the loan. With auto loans, what we've seen is they will call the entire balance after 90 days sometimes or they will call the entire balance at the end of the loan period. And what you can do there as you can just make some extra payments on your auto loans when you're able to do that. Again, so the most common thing we've seen with auto loans is they're going to ask for all three months at once, but they're going to wait until the end of the loan to do that, which is great. Yeah. Yeah, so the thing with auto loans and personal loans, those are things you can probably pause, especially if you didn't have much luck getting your credit cards pause. They were, they seem still more flexible and more willing to work with people if that's a bill of yours. Another thing that we should mention is insurance, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, renters insurance. I know New York state in particular, Andrew Cuomo basically put an ordinance out that said no insurance company is allowed to cancel any insurance for any reason. If someone can't pay the premium. So you're covered no matter what through this time, even if you can't pay the premium. I mean recently found out that companies like Geico are actually taking 15% off of their customers insurance policy is just automatically. Yeah. So there are insurance companies that are just giving us all a break right now. But that's the thing to keep in mind. If you need to pause on those insurance payments because those are usually a pretty big bill too. That's actually easier to do potentially than the loan payments. So if that's a situation that you're in, especially in New York state, you won't lose your insurance coverage for not paying your insurance payment. And I think that is super important. Oh, I can't see. He loves the hat. Alright, so that is pausing rent payments, pausing student loan payments, personal loans, credit cards, things like that. Should be go to a song and answer some questions and answer some questions. So we're going to bring it on back to New York city. Yes. Excellent. Salsa salsa for a cat named, what's his brother's name? Colin Terrelle out of Brooklyn, New York. Hey Brooklyn with prioritize wise from the melancholy Cooley. I love it. I love it. Okay.

Speaker 5:

[inaudible]

Speaker 6:

not a gang banger, but not, no, but not a drug dealer. He's probably so big, you know a couple killers. So lettuce out of Rover bar from a player. But that left a couple of[inaudible]. I don't know. I just keep my head up high and do what? I'm supposed to be too busy trying to live a life. The Chantix in the quota so bad with me. Metropolis disregard to mess the local bands like my band changing lives. But these folks were so prophetic yoga yet is so cool because when you spit it from a pedestal mic, it come with the[inaudible] rested mind body, soul, money, gold. There's less mans and Nick was go. It's just a low slot in that you need to know to prioritize wise. But you keep a show but you keep the show. Oh

Speaker 7:

Hmm.

Speaker 6:

Oh, not the type Loma stacks on clothing racks. Go wild rat rabbit. Keep my soul intact. Restore. But you would never notice that some women use a spread on me like yoga mats, but not molded that I am really concerned. I'm applica well matches on bell silly and not necessarily it's a blessing a breeze. So you may never hit me stressing the cheese, but no, I stay on my bros. Like Sesame seeds. Really? Yeah. I just want to live comfortably ham. Mom looks nice when she comes to kinda like out working in the pizza Regan, but not enough to distort life's clarity at people stab at me and have it be a rabbit for people to say savvy, be pleased to meet you.[inaudible] mind, body, soul money, gold advanced Les mans. And Nick was go, it's just a little slot and net you need to know to prioritize wise. But you keep a show from Yorba Taz class but you keep the show. Oh. Oh.

Speaker 7:

[inaudible]

Speaker 3:

so one of the questions that we've gotten actually surprisingly more often than I anticipating was a lot of people have been asking us about whether they should get a car right now. Um, it's people in cities. Yes, exactly. Um, so how should you think about getting a car in the city? That's one of the questions that he got. I've been answering that question for a lot of clients recently who are in big cities who were fine with public transportation before, but now it's, you know, a safety issue like straight up. So how do you think about getting a car in the city? And I just want to talk through some of the expenses. It's not just the car payment, um, especially in the city. There's a lot of other expenses to think about when it comes to buying a car and especially adding a permanent expense to your budget right now in a time like this, it's pretty uncertain when it comes to getting a car in the city. One, there's the car payment and the question we always get is, should you buy or should you lease? Right. It feels like a whole other episode, but, and especially right now because when you're like, I need a car, but maybe I don't need it for 10 years. Right? Or I need a car, but I don't have a down payment. You know, maybe I just need to start making the lease payment. Or I've been renting a car for however long and I might just need to like buy something or do something semi-permanently so one is it might make sense for you to lease and just like have a semi-permanent, it only lasts for three years. You've used the car when you need to use the car. Um, but when it comes to buying a car in the city, one is, think about the car payment for sure. That's an important thing. But the other thing to think about is insurance in the city is significantly more expensive than in the suburbs or in the not city. I'm just seeing you an idea. Our insurance payment every six months is$1,500. It's almost$300 a month. When I first moved to New York and I was under 25, my insurance was above$400 a month. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really common in the city. And also insurance goes up based on what zip code you live in. So if you're not in the, if you're not at the low insurance cost zip code, then your insurance might be really expensive. Also your insurance goes up if your credit score is uh, uh, is there any of the times when you've listened to his talk? All this stuff about your credit score, this is yet another thing to smack goes into. Yet another way that inequality bleeds through every single aspect of our finances and our social life. Yeah. So the thing to think about, so we had your car payment, which could be anywhere between three and$500 depending on what kind of car you get and what kind of lease you get or purchase a loan you get. The next thing is your insurance, which could be anywhere from 200 to$400, right? So this is adding up. The next thing I think about is are you going to get a parking space and parking spaces range between two to$400 in the city or, I mean right now in this moment, there's no alternate side parking. But that could change, right? And I mean that will change with things kind of go back to normal. So the other thing to think about is are you in a place where you can also afford to potentially have a parking space or move your car every day in the city, especially in New York, really parking is only something that it costs a lot of money. It's something that you have to have some kind of luck to be able to pull off and really it's going to be important thing if you're getting it for safety concerns. Yeah, because the idea that you're going to have to move it every couple of days is still going to be not that sick. Like you have to leave the house every single day still. I mean that's what feeds the purpose. Not necessarily defeats the purpose, but it adds further complications. You just remember that when you're adding on. Yeah, and then gas and tolls and tolls in New York city and the cities in particular are not cheap. I mean, driving from here to Pennsylvania cost a hundred dollars in tolls. It just does back and forth or$50 in tolls still is oil still negative oil is probably still negative. Do they pay you at BP? I seen gas at like$2 a gallon when you've driven around and gas is cheap right now, but it's still money. So if you're thinking about buying the car and see, that was a great question. Um, how should I think about getting a car in the city? That is the thing to consider. So let's roll back into budgeting for a pandemic. And I want to talk about saving. I want to talk about saving and how to think about saving right now and where to save as well. So we just talked about reducing your bills and getting your Le, getting your rent payment suspended, getting your credit card payments to spend on your other loan payments suspended. And right now if you're doing that as a precaution, then one thing that we've been recommending is to keep that money in a savings account. So we have clients who basically have opened a separate savings account or have started setting aside the money that they didn't pay towards rent into a savings account. And the reason why you want to do that is one, you don't want all of that in the mix of your checking account because that's when it starts to confusing and you're like, wait, was this part of the rent that I should have paid that I didn't pay that I maybe need to save? And so if you can be diligent about all of those payments that you suspended actually going into a savings account, then it accomplishes two things. One, you know that you're building a savings cushion right now with the extra money that you found and then you're also able to pay those bills that maybe were able to, maybe you thought you wouldn't be able to pay those other bills. The other thing it accomplishes is if at the end of 90 days or whenever the loan payments are due, you're actually able, you still have that savings in there. Guess what? You can pay back the rent, you can pay down those credit card payments that you didn't, that you weren't able to make before. So it's very much this just in case thing. We're planning for the next three months. Right now, honestly, we're planning for the next 90 days. We're planning for what's temporary and what is really the most unknown right now. So if you have suspended any of your loan payments or any of your bill payments, we highly recommend opening a separate savings account as you're comfortable with it. But definitely setting aside that money into a savings account for now and using it and tapping into it when you need to to pay those extra bills. If I feel like I've got as many savings account open as I can deal with my threshold, you know, we always talk about your money personality and how much you could deal with. Is there another way that I can mentally separate these things so it doesn't get confusing? Oh, that is a good question. I mean, is it as simple as like really having a spreadsheet potentially and keeping track? I love that. Yeah. We're going to be talking about tracking next, but potentially it is as simple as like, Hey, I supposed to make this spray paint, rent payment. I was supposed to pay this credit card bill and I did it this month. I was supposed to make this car payment and putting it all in a spreadsheet and then being able to add it all up and seeing if you have that money in your savings. I mean the documentation stuff isn't just good for like proving your case to people who might want money from you later. It's also a good way for you to figure out what you're doing, what's important to you and really to have a blueprint moving forward no matter what's going to happen now. Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. I mean getting into the habit of saving deliberately is a great habit to start right now. That's the other thing about this time is we have time now. A lot of us have extra time to really, to really kind of figure out what our new normal is, right? And figuring out what our new habits are. And I want you guys to ask yourselves, you know, what's the difference for you? Cause I wanted to ask you Pam, but like so personal, like what's the difference between saving and not spending? You know, what's the active thing of it? Because right now there's a lot of money that we're not spending necessarily, but are we saving it? Right. And this is why I think it's super important to have a separate savings account. Do not just leave that extra money in your checking account cause that's just you not spending it. And really when you think about what your checking account is for, it's for money that you're planning to spend pretty immediately, right? And so if you deliberately set aside money into savings, that is you saving that money and not just not happening to spend at the time. I really liked that. That's a low threshold that you could put it and then call that a payment to you that's paying yourself first, that's paying yourself and now is the most important time to do it. For real, for real. So where to save it? Yes. Let's talk about high yield savings accounts. Everybody, if you are not familiar with them, I'm still using. Okay. They're still yielding better. Relatively relatively high. Yes. Right now, I actually just found out from a friend that Marcus just lowered their savings rate to 1.3% ally bank is still at 1.5% and basically a high yield savings account is simply a savings gap is actually paying more interest than you're making. So a lot of online savings accounts are high yield savings accounts. High yield just means high interest, so it means they're paying you more interest than your bank account would be. So just to give you a comparison, banks like bank of America, Wells Fargo, things like that, they're paying you like 0.1% interest. Ally bank right now is paying 1.5% interest. The other thing that I love about having your savings account separate from where you have your checking account is you can kind of put that money away in your head too. You don't look at that money all the time. You don't see it all the time. So it's something that's completely separate. Any of these online savings accounts, you can actually link directly to your checking account and transfer the money back and forth. It usually takes a couple of days to transfer the money, which is also kind of a nice like do I really want and need this money kind of situation and you know when it comes down to decide between these high yield savings accounts, which one do I with? Really the answer is very simple. Which one seems the easiest to you as as you open

Speaker 1:

the app? Really it's whatever seems easiest and whatever seems most friendly. Even if it seems arbitrary, it's fine. I kind of like Marcus cause it reminds me of the movie with Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry boomerang with Eartha a going by.

Speaker 3:

Okay. You're the reason isn't dumber than mine. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I will say I will plug ally because Ella has never been the highest savings interest rate but they've been around for so long and they've always been the most consistent about keeping their savings rate as high as they possibly could. I want to jump into a really good question. Yes. How about short term CDs? Okay, that's really good. That's a great question. Let's talk about CDs right now because again, everything is different. So the thing about short term CDs is their interest rates are also not really high right now and what a CD is a certificate of deposit. And what that means is you're basically signing a contract with the bank and saying I will leave let's say a thousand dollars into the account for X period of time, usually one year, three years, five years, sometimes eight months, sometimes as short as that. And in exchange for not touching that money for a certain period of time, you will pay me an interest rate. Right. And the penalty for taking that money out is usually significantly higher than the interest rate. There are also no penalties CDs out there, but they're usually paying lower interest. And so when it comes to a short term CD, interest rates are going down right now. So it may not be a bad idea to put money in short term CD, but it does affect your ability to access that money. And so unless the CD is a no penalty CD, it may not be a good idea to lock that money up unless you're fairly certain that you're not going to need it. It will protect you against interest rates going down. So for instance, right now at ally, short term CDs are also one and a half percent right? And the savings account is one and a half percent. But if allies interest rate for their savings goes down to 1% or 0.5% you're still getting 1.5% on that CD. So it might not be a bad idea if you're in a situation where you won't need that money or don't foresee needing that money for the time period that you're going to leave that money in a CD.

Speaker 1:

Well, and for people who like CDs because they force you to not touch it, if that's really the thing that you need and that supersedes everything else, I think that it's okay. Yeah. You know, I just think that one thing to think about CDs is they're not. If you are around my age, if you're grown, then you were told by your parents that they're magical and they're not natural. They're not magical. Yes. In light of the potential, everything has changed in light of the pandemic for real. So I've been exposed or been exposed. It's, I mean, that's real. It's not like, you know, um, uh, he could see dead people. That was a twist. It's like he was seeing dead people the whole time. We just didn't have that perspective. Sorry if I scored a 20 year old movie for you.

Speaker 3:

Yes. And indeed. But yeah, keeping money, liquid, it's really a personal choice. If you're in a where you feel like you have enough liquid cash and you can put something towards a CD or even put something towards investing, then that's a decision that you can make and say like, Hey, I'm actually not going to need this money for the next year, for the next two years, whatever it is. Let me put it in this vehicle that might make me a little bit of money during this time. And so I feel like that's not a bad decision. It's just a personal decision and you knowing what your comfort level is in terms of how much liquid cash you need and also what your comfort level is in terms of your job situation, your income situation, whatever security feeling needs you need to have. And so that's the thing to keep in mind too, when it comes to what you need to keep liquid, what you need to keep in cash so you can access right away. And that's what liquid means. The final thing we want to talk about is how do we track all of this stuff, right? You alluded to spreadsheets, which are one of my favorite things. I love spreadsheets. Yes, Gagnon will love spreadsheets too, right there. Maybe, I don't know. Um, hopefully rubrics and grads with, Oh my God. But tracking does not have to involve spreadsheets necessarily. But now it's such an important time to know where your money is going, to know where the dollars are going. And this is why we say to write down all your bills at the beginning and figure out, Hey, are you spending$7 on something that you didn't realize you were spending$7 on that$7 average right now? I know Randy is so cute. Thank you. Um, when it comes to tracking, it's all about understanding your cashflow. And when I say cashflow, what I mean is how much money is coming in and how much money is going out. And if money is only going out, how long will the money you had last until you need to figure something else out, right? So if you're in a situation where you have$6,000 in savings and your monthly expenses are$2,000 a month, your money's going to last for three months. And then when you understand what that cashflow is, then it's a matter of figuring out how you can stick to that$2,000 a month, how you can reduce that$2,000 a month if you need to. And kind of what leverage you can pull in between. And the only way to really do that is to actually know where your money is going. So one day, like I mentioned with spreadsheets, right, you can just write everything down, either pencil and paper, pen and paper, or put every transaction that you do in a spreadsheet. There's easier ways now will easier for some people, I shouldn't say easier. There's lots of apps out there that will help you track your expenses. Uh, ones that we like, our clarity money, that's a really nice app. mint.com is the original, uh, it's not great, but it does the job. Uh, personal capital is another one that's as robust as mint. Clarity is a little on the simpler side, so if you don't need too much and you just kinda need to know how much money you're spending on food every month. For instance, if mint overwhelmed you, yes, clarity, money is perfect, admit, overwhelmed you. Clarity money also tells you what your credit score is. So that might be a great reason to kind of keep everything all in one place. mint.com does as well. Um, but these are apps that you can use to actually track your expenses and really an idea of where the money is going every single month. And we actually recommend tracking your expenses right now every single week. Also potentially. And kind of knowing where that money is going, watching the credit card balances, making sure that you're not charged something that you shouldn't be charged on is another really important thing right now. Maybe that subscription you thought you canceled actually didn't go through, maybe a trial period that you thought you canceled didn't actually get canceled.

Speaker 1:

And maybe it's on you cause you missed it. Maybe it's on them cause they missed it. Maybe it's on them cause they're understaffed.

Speaker 3:

Yes. Yeah. And so right now it's important to track your expenses. And the final thing I want to say is it's important to know what your minimum expenses are, but it's also important to make sure that your minimum expenses include spending money on things that you enjoy. I don't know if you saw our Instagram post today wants our needs to, it's not wants versus needs. It's wants and needs, wants our needs. And right now, especially your physical health is important, but your mental health is just as important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. We've talked endlessly about how important it is to make sure you take care of the things that make you feel like you and if you have to spend money out of those things while you know that's how it is, it's part of your budget, getting the food, getting certain things done, and I know some of the stuff that involves you being around other people isn't even possible, so some of you all are compensating with other ways that will still end up costing money and that's okay. You need to make sure that you take care of yourself because if you don't take care of your mental health, then you will be incapable of doing any of this.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Spending money on your mental health is as important as paying your rent. I'm going to say that right now, spending money on your mental health is as important as paying rent. It's as important as eating. That's as important as keeping a roof over your head and it's definitely more important than making your credit card payments right now. That's just it. Everything is on the table again and when you don't put money towards your mental health, like dialect said, everything else just falls apart. We are living in a time of crisis. We are living through trauma right now.

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't say on a practical tip, for those of you who are like, I'm a hardcore warrior, you're just going to push through it all. When you don't take care of your mental health, it chips away at your mental acuity and therefore your ability to track, understand, interpret and make rational decisions. It's conflict.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly. So spend money on joy everybody, cause we all need a little joy right now. Dialect. Should we end on that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Well speaking on that, I've got a song here. We're going out to Los Angeles, California and we got a song called priorities, but this is much more uplifting than the other song about prioritize, which was more introspective. It's by a cat named me. Two more questions to answer. I'm going to answer Chris Jean to reel out of his albums, the impossible made possible. And I wanted to shout that out because this is a very positive and uplifting song. And I know a lot of times I'll be like, what are you doing with all the positive stuff? But you know, sometimes we just need to hear that. So here's a dope beats, a nice flow and some positive experiences from Chris G Darriel

Speaker 8:

never was tied to being a gangbanger. A must rather be a game changer. Picture me rocking the stage. No diamonds shape hanging proceeded real God. I let my name lingo now pass it along. I'm looking for a good drug that's bad to the bone. Tell her how I'm headed. Sit in shock and I'm never going to stop reaching down to help anyone tagging along. I'm trying to make a difference yet I'm about to make them listen. And if you ain't got no money, at least pay attention. We surrounded what opportunities, these resources they was made where you were me. I'm on a mission to make it, but that's the only guy with it. So don't get it mistaken. It's funny, I kind of know what will deep inside I've been training for this fight. Watch me beat the odds. Nowadays it's about who Bryan diehard is. This ain't no love for another starving artist, but I know I'm going to shine regardless. We entrepreneurs come and kick it with the Boston kiss. Me coming from the office. It's been a good day. I just got paid. Now it's time to go play business before pleasure. That's what I live by. Now with that being said, it's time to get your working hard. Just know mom's name. So at the end of a productive day, smoking, smoking, I gotta take care of priorities. But after that I'm gonna try the cops smoking, cruising my city while I'm running some errands. The perfect day they hit the ball. So I made an appearance fresh for less all the time. Just look what I'm wearing. Nine times out of 10 I probably caught it off clearance. A she say she liked me cause I keep it real. What? Maybe if you down to earth, maybe we get cheer first things first baby. Let me get your number and I ain't tripping. We can do what you want. I heard your last n***a was a lame, I'll be in that your son it all my shit. If you lucky I could be the guy to join me. I asked around about a girl, that's how y'all bought my business. We should link up later. I'm a hollow one. I'm got to take care of priorities and working hard just so at the end of a productive day, smoking, smoking, I got to take care of priorities. But at that I'm gonna probably cop some more.

Speaker 1:

You're in indie artists who are listening or watching right now and you're making work about this kind of stuff going on. Please send it to us. So I posted about J crew going bankrupt context and the post was about how I was working an asset manager,

Speaker 3:

like someone who actually managed assets. And I remember she said once, every time I want to buy something at J crew, I buy J crew stock, right? And now J crew is going bankrupt and I'm not a believer in what that sweater should have. Just found that sweater, then she'd have a sweater. Right. And I feel like we hear this all the time, right? You shouldn't buy Nike shoes. You should buy Nike stock or whatever the hell that, that's an exact actual thing that I heard and a meeting of the congressional black caucus and nobody tackled them. Yes. So, and this is honestly, this is a very common school of thought and so someone asked, can you go into specific detail about what is flawed about the advice of investing in individual stocks based on your consumer habits? And I think we see with J crew in particular and with all of these consumer products is there are way more companies out there than the companies that we shot that and the companies that we buy from, right. There are companies that are business to business. There are companies that are commodities. They're companies that are not just consumer facing, that are also making money on the stock market. And they also tend to be a little more solid when they're B2B. Then when they're consumer facing, I mean one because of the contract stuff that is like way more than we're actually could talk to you about, but also just simply because they're not as volatile because they're not all about what the consumers feel at the time. Exactly. And the reality is right now that consumers are not buying stuff at J crew. So that's one of the main reasons why trying to buy stock at places that you buy, trying to buy stock at places that you shop. That is not the only investment strategy should have, nor the investment strategy that you hang your hat on. And the final question we have is our apps like acorns and Robinhood, good platforms to use for investing. This is a much longer answer than we have time for it because we're going to get cut off in a minute and a half. So it's a good place to start if you don't know where to start. It's a good place to start. Acorns is great is free stock trading, so they're good platforms to use for investing. But there are several controversies about both ads and about any of the apps that you're going to use, and really they don't exist necessarily as public services to serve you. So use them for what you need to use them for so you can learn what's going on and then make your decisions so that you can do stuff for yourself. And we'll go into more of that next time for sure when it comes to investing and whether you should invest right now and all of that kind of stuff. But yeah, that's it. That's the show. Y'all. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll catch you next week. We'll be doing this every week, Fridays on IgE live at 2:00 PM Eastern time with any other questions that you have at any point from any platform. Uh, Oh no, I'm kind of ways. Yeah, and if you're listening on the podcast and you feel like leaving us a review, we would very much appreciate that. Thank y'all.