Caleb Hammer Exposes Boogie2988

Summary

Financial Audit Podcast: Caleb Hammer Exposes Boogie2988

Date: December 11, 2023
Host: Caleb Hammer
Guest: Boogie2988

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive financial audit of Steven Williams, better known as Boogie2988—a long-running YouTuber who was once at the peak of YouTube fame and wealth, but now faces financial distress. Caleb Hammer guides Boogie through an open, often raw discussion of his finances, mistakes, and prospects, using the opportunity to educate any listener who might be facing or fearing similar circumstances. The conversation explores not only financial mismanagement, but also the emotional and psychological challenges underpinning such decisions, highlighting the all-too-relatable spiral from abundance to scarcity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Early YouTube Success & Regional Choices

• Boogie talks about his YouTube origins in 2006, being one of the earliest content creators.
• He chose to stay in Fayetteville, Arkansas (00:16), citing lower living costs at the time ("LA poor, Arkansas rich"), but notes the area's increasing expense due to corporate growth (Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt) (00:30).

Sudden Wealth & Mismanagement

• Boogie reveals he was nearly a millionaire, primarily from YouTube and investments, especially crypto, but lost it all:

  • At one point had $780,000–$800,000 in crypto, which halved overnight (00:38).
  • Headline regret: If he'd simply held on to Ethereum, he might have $1.5 million now (02:28).
  • Admits to following the herd—trusted YouTuber friends who encouraged crypto speculation, without any voices of caution (03:31).

• Lack of financial literacy rooted in his upbringing:

  • "I didn't come from money... no one in my life was ever trying to teach me what to do with money" (04:03).

The "Celebrity Burnout" Pattern

• Caleb likens Boogie's story to the archetype of celebrities, athletes, or influencers who come into sudden money, mismanage it, and spiral into trouble (04:23).

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Current Financial Snapshot

Income

• YouTube Ad Revenue: $44,000 in the last year ($3,724/month avg) (07:06). Recent spike due to a documentary, not recurring (07:14).

• Podcasting: New podcast "Locale Podcast" brings in ~$2,000/mo projected soon (07:19).

• Other Sources: Minimal; Patreon (~$122/mo), sporadic sponsorships, Facebook/META PC ($76--$300/mo), Twitch minimal due to inactivity/anxiety (08:08, 12:20).

• Living Expenses:

  • Mortgage: $2,100/month
  • Health Insurance: $800/month
  • Needs $7,000/month to sustain lifestyle—currently unsustainable (07:53).

"If we've gotten them [the finances] to a comfortable $2,100 mortgage, $800 health insurance... I need about $7,000 a month to maintain my existing lifestyle, which I just don't think we can do." - Boogie, 07:53

Expenditures & Lifestyle

• No extravagant assets: Internet rumors about a Tesla are false; Boogie drives a Toyota Corolla purchased used (10:20).
• Recurring food spending is a major problem:
  • ~$900/month on eating out, primarily fast food and Starbucks, even while other bills go unpaid (39:54, 45:13, 53:41).
  • Boogie recognizes it’s an addiction and his "biggest weakness" (34:07).

"Do I look like the kind of person that's ever made sound decisions about food?" – Boogie (34:04)

• Debt:
  • Car loan: $6,472 remaining (49:03)
  • Personal loan ("dog loan"): $3,448 remaining at 23.49% interest (50:54)
  • Adjustable bed: $3,218, interest-free for 24 months from June 2023 (54:10)
  • Credit card: ~$950, high interest (24%)
  • IRS/taxes: Back taxes, $2,200 with payment plan needed (57:39)
  • Total "bad" debt: $16,300+ (72:27)

"I had no clue that they were as bad as they were." – Boogie, 100:02

• Assets:
  • Ethereum: ~$7,700 (subject to volatility) (48:22)
  • House equity: Potentially $300,000+ (20:05)
  • Magic: The Gathering collection: Conservative estimate $50,000 (70:45)
  • No significant retirement savings; all savings have either been tapped or are speculative (crypto/trading cards).

Financial Behaviors & Issues

• No proper budgeting; no tracking of debt amortization ("I ballpark this stuff in my brain... glad we're looking it up today") (49:11).
• No emergency fund
• Lapsing into recurring credit card interest and late payment fees (32:39)
• Inconsistent tax payments, must pay lump-sum with penalties; expects to enter IRS payment plan (57:24)

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Psychological and Personal Hurdles

• Root Causes:

  • Unstable family background; no financial education.
  • History of mental health issues; openly discusses a suicide plan in 2018-2019, which derailed long-term planning (24:03).
  • Admits to addictive and avoidance behaviors, both with spending and food (34:07, 41:28).
  • Social media/internet harassment has severely affected mental health and employability.

• Attempted Solutions:

  • Therapy (traditional and with a shaman), leading to noticeable improvement in the last year:
    “I made such tremendous strides…” (28:34)
  • Ready to let go of the "victim" narrative and accept responsibility (25:43, 78:20).
  • Willingness to grind: Now working full 40-hour weeks, focusing on YouTube/podcasting, open to 60-80 hours if required (84:38).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Crypto Loss and YouTuber Herd Mentality

"Everybody I knew... all of my YouTuber friends... were like, look, I've made millions from crypto. Nobody was telling me it was too late... that crypto is a gamble." – Boogie, 03:39

On Financial Ignorance Growing Up

"I'm the son of a coal miner... no one in my life was ever trying to teach me what to do with money or how to do it." – Boogie, 04:03

Justifying Bad Purchases

“The dumb purchase was a dog." – Boogie, 29:54
"Your dog, $5,000 ... it's at 23.49% interest." – Caleb, 50:54

Eating Out as Financial Self-Sabotage

"I'm struggling with the eating out once a day thing... I'm seeing about 2 to 3 [transactions] a day..." – Caleb, 43:14 "If we cannot afford to pay something, if we can't even afford to pay off the credit card, we're getting late fees ... then we cannot afford to eat out." – Caleb, 34:44

Facing Hard but Necessary Truths

"You have to stop or you die in poverty. Because right now it's, it's insane... It's just really no longer a choice." – Caleb, 84:00

On Feeling Trapped Professionally

"I'm a disabled felon, man. I've been disabled since 2005. I can't do physical labor, that's not an option." – Boogie, 84:57 "If job fits me and it's going to keep my bills paid, it's going to keep my health insurance so I don't die—obviously going to do it." – Boogie, 94:57

Glimmer of Hope & Next Steps

"Tomorrow, as soon as I get home, the first thing I do is pay off these high interest debts." – Boogie, 76:10 "I get nine months to try and find a work groove that gets this income up... before we have to sell the house. I'm so blessed to have a nine month grace period to figure this out." – Boogie, 102:14

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Boogie’s YouTube/story/crypto rise and fall: 00:00 – 04:39
• Reality of finances today (income, expenses, budgeting): 07:06 – 08:43
• Misconceptions and internet rumors (no, he didn’t buy a Tesla): 09:29 – 11:07
• Eating out and self-destructive food spending: 33:04 – 45:33
• Debt breakdowns and high interest rates uncovered live: 49:03 – 54:10
• Raw discussion of suicidal ideation and its financial consequences: 24:03 – 25:19
• Therapy and new beginnings: 27:43 – 28:43
• Confrontation on recurring justifications: 79:39 – 80:47
• Action plan revealed (asset liquidation to kill debt): 72:19 – 74:11
• Employment obstacles due to felony and online reputation: 85:01 – 92:00
• Backup Hail Mary: sell the house, move to rural Arkansas, live off equity: 97:32 – 99:33

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Summary Table: Boogie2988 Financial Health (per Hammer’s rubric)

| Category | Status | |--------------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | Debt | High (mostly high-interest, consumer and IRS debt) | | Emergency Fund | None, savings in volatile assets (crypto, collectibles) | | Retirement | None | | Income | Insufficient for needs, very unstable | | Expenses | Exceeds income, driven by wants (food, Starbucks) | | Real Estate | Large equity position, but illiquid |

Hammer Financial Score: 1.5/10

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Actions & Recommendations Discussed

• Liquidate Magic: the Gathering cards and crypto to clear high-interest debts ($16,300+, including IRS, credit card, car, dog loan, and bed).
• Strict budgeting: Eliminate eating out/“wants” spending until financial stability is achieved.
• **Set aside funds for future taxes ("Set aside 30%" for self-employment income).
• **Medical costs and insurance to stay prioritized.
• **Pursue content creation aggressively; consider secondary employment if possible after felony is sealed.
• **If income cannot be stabilized, consider last-resort of selling home and moving somewhere far cheaper.

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Takeaways for Listeners

This episode serves as a cautionary tale on several levels—surrounding yourself with hype, the perils of sudden wealth, and the destructive power of avoidance, food addiction, and lack of basic financial literacy. However, there's also a strong undercurrent of hope: brutally honest self-assessment, therapy, calculated asset liquidation, and a return to relentless hard work as potential salves. Caleb Hammer's guidance is at times harsh but always direct, underscoring the urgency of immediate change.

"Tomorrow, as soon as I get home, the first thing I do is pay off these high interest debts." – Boogie2988 (76:10)

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Closing Thoughts

Boogie2988’s journey is ongoing, balancing hope for a new chapter with the sobering reality of poor financial decisions’ consequences. The discussion is honest, emotional, and pragmatic, a rare public reckoning and a crash course in what not to do—and how one might start over at any age or circumstance.

Transcript

[A]

What's up ladies and gentlemen of YouTube Boogie298 coming at you. Love is getting through the power of the Internet. I am an old school YouTuber that was like one of the first to the market going back all the way to 2006 is when I started my YouTube channel.

[B]

Where are you based out of these days?

[A]

I'm living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is where I've been for 25 years.

[B]

So it makes like. So you didn't do the standard like, oh, things are starting to work in YouTube, let's move to LA or I know that was a huge thing a few years ago.

[A]

I was really tempted to, but as I said back at the time I was LA poor, Arkansas rich. Now that's changed a lot because northwest Arkansas has the University of Arkansas. Go raise your backs. We have the home offices of Walmart. And Walmart did this really smart thing where they told every business if you want to sell at Walmart, you have to open an office in northwest Arkansas. So there's like 2,000 offices, small businesses built. We're the home of Tyson Foods. So if you're eating chicken in America, you're probably spending that, sending that money back home to us. And we're the home of J.B. hunt, one of the largest trucking companies. And because all of those companies are there, including the Razorback games and all of this other stuff, you have the, the Walmart children, the children's of Sam Walton spending money on the area. It's become a really expensive area to live in, unfortunately.

[B]

Yeah, well that's the home of all that. But sadly, to be blunt, you're kind of the home of, I think what every YouTuber fears, right?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

The decline, I think you went, you went from, if I'm not mistaken, millionaire.

[C]

Correct.

[B]

A technical millionaire.

[A]

I was close. I was really, really close at one point I had, and I mean like for two days, when I say close for two days. I had about 780, $800,000 in crypt to bed one night and it was worth half that when I woke up.

[B]

What were you in?

[A]

Here's the biggest regret. I originally invested in Ethereum and this was based on a few friends becoming Ethereum millionaires. And I had like an initial investment of about $200,000. I put it in and then it fell for the first time. Yeah, 200,000 went down to like 80. And I'm like, oh, you know what, I don't really need the money right now. I'm making money I can live off.

[B]

How much are you making 10 to 15,000? I think a month?

[A]

Yeah, in a month, right? Incredible.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, it was incredible. I mean, incredible wealth. More than you could ever hope to spend, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And eventually that crypto went up to past my investment point, got close. If I held onto my Ethereum right now, if I had never needed to dip into it and I had not gambled on stupid altcoins, I probably have about 1.5 million right now.

[B]

Even. Even still, like, I don't. Okay, what year was that? What year was that?

[A]

The initial investment happened in 2019. No, 20. 2019. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. How much did you put into Ethereum?

[A]

200,000.

[B]

200,020.

[A]

The initial investment was in 2018 and then the first market crash, 2018, let's.

[B]

Say you put it at the beginning. S&P 500 was worth 271. Now it's worth 458. It would have almost doubled, almost double.

[A]

If I put in like traditional stocks or traditional.

[B]

The S&P 500. Just following the market in general. This. Was there not a sing person surrounding you? Was there not a single person, just in your YouTube circle, in the family circle who's like, dude, I had the opposite. You're making money.

[A]

I had the opposite. I had people telling me, you should invest in crypto. Everybody I knew was.

[B]

Everyone you knew?

[A]

Every. All of my YouTuber friends, Mcjugger Nuggets, kid behind a camera, all these people, they're like, look, I've made millions from crypto. I've made millions from crypto. Nobody was telling me that it was too late in the game. Nobody was telling me that I bought Crypt. I brought Ethereum at 30 bucks and now you're going to buy it at 280.

[B]

Wasn't even too late in the game. It's just like, crypto's a gamble. Yeah, it's a straight up a gamble. It's. I, I hardly consider it an investment versus, like traditional. Okay, okay.

[A]

So, I mean, not to make any excuses, but keep in mind I didn't come from money.

[C]

I'm.

[A]

I'm the son of a coal miner. Me either.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And so no one in my life was ever trying to teach me what to do with money or how to do it with money. So somebody comes along and they're like, look, I took my initial million and I turned it into 20 million. You should do that too.

[B]

That's why I'm excited about this conversation. Usually on the show I just meet with random people who are. They're either part of the audience or they're off the street and I just help them through the situations. You're an interesting case here because you follow the case of the professional athlete, the actor, the YouTuber.

[C]

Boom.

[B]

Lots of money comes in. We put it here, we put it there, we suspend it, spend it just goes crazy. Then we end up broke. It's a traditional story. And that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation, is because you just followed. You followed that path. I mean, what would you say you're worth today in total? Since you guys are so awesome for supporting me, I partnered with a company called Kudos to give some money back to you. So stick to the end of this to see how you can participate. Kudos is fantastic because they double the cash back you receive on every online purchase with a simple click of a button. On top of that, with their current holiday promo, you can receive up to 25 cash back on places like Walmart, Sephora, and Priceline. That's basically free money on a purchase you would have made anyway. They even suggest the perfect credit card for each purchase, all with a slick browser extension or on your iPhone. So if you have multiple credit cards, you don't have to keep track of the different reward categories for each. All you have to do is add Kudos to your desktop or iPhone with just two clicks. Just shop like normal and at checkout, Kudos will automatically appear and take care of the rest. All of this is completely free and I personally use it. Again, free money. Why would I not? So far, they've helped 150,000 members earn over $100 million in rewards this year alone. And here's the fun part. Every single one of you who signs up through this video gets entered to win a grand prize. To participate, all you have to do is go to joincudos.com caleb and enter the promo code Hammer. For each signup, we'll throw a dollar into the pot and one person will win the grand prize on January 31st to start the new year's off. Right. There's a live counter on the page showing the current grand prize total, so check it out for free. The rewards are great, and if you get the grand prize, it's like a bonus Christmas gift. The equity in your house is what's carrying you.

[A]

Yeah, that's everything.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

My bottom line comes down to if and when I need to sell my house, I'll have a nest egg of probably $300,000 that I can hopefully invest smartly this time and live off of the dividends. I would like to think I wouldn't screw up a second time. I wouldn't like buy crypto a second time.

[B]

Crypto. But like, what next? Like, would you say you educated on personal finances?

[A]

I at least know not to do that. And I think the other.

[B]

A lot more not to think.

[A]

The other thing to do is hire a professional.

[C]

Yes. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Get that financial advisor in your corner. That is like the key. Okay, well. Okay, so I just want to start with the basic things for where we are today. YouTube ad revenue, that's the big boy. That's what's. That's what's bringing in the primary cash monies right now.

[A]

And I showed you my numbers. I made about 44,000 in the last.

[B]

Year, but which gives us $3,724 a month on average. But we. So a lot of that has to.

[A]

Do with huge spike. Came from this documentary. Documentary.

[C]

Right. Okay.

[B]

The documentary link below. Mike's awesome.

[A]

And that's. That spike absolutely will not be sustainable. Now, I have a few other projects. I got a great podcast in the works called the. The Locale Podcast. We just made our fifth episode. It's profitable. I think that's going to be an income bring in. That's easily going to bring in probably two grand a month, I think, within the next six months. So that's going to be a nice lifeline. My YouTube numbers, I think, are going to settle at probably $3,000 a month. But if you look at my finances, if we've gotten them to be comfortable, $2,100 mortgage, $800 a month, health insurance.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Utilities bills, everything. I need about $7,000 a month to maintain my existing lifestyle, which I just don't think we can do.

[B]

Oh, well, trust me, we will get there. Patreon, like, honestly, what's even the point? It's 122 bucks a month.

[A]

I never. Yeah, I never.

[B]

Are you doing anything?

[A]

No, I don't on there. No, I never promote it.

[C]

See.

[B]

Okay. To diversify some of the income stream here, we launched a Patreon. We did a budgeting program, but we didn't just do them as cash grabs. We actually thought of them as potential future business avenues. And the way that we did them is we put way more value into them than what we were charging.

[C]

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[A]

And Patreon, if you go and read it originally said, this is an adsense forgiveness. Patreon, if you want to give me $5 a month because you use ad blocker, please do. And that was all. I never promoted it. I Never push it. I never.

[B]

For the most dedicated fans. You do have dedicated fans. You've gone from almost 4 million subscribers down to. Or almost 5 million subscribers down to. Gonna fall below 4 potentially.

[A]

Yeah, it probably will. Probably within the by time this airs. Honestly, there's a very real chance.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

With that, like there are, there's clearly people that are still very dedicated boogie heads, whatever you might call them.

[A]

I did asked these people for help like a year ago. And the Internet publicly shamed.

[B]

You've asked people Because I provided a lot.

[A]

No value. I mean, like one time I threw myself on the. I took a huge hit to my health and I was like, yeah, got really scared because these medical bills are starting to pile up. And this one time I came out and I'm like, hey, I really could use some help.

[B]

Wasn't there the oops. I just accidentally bought a hundred thousand dollar Tesla. Please give me money.

[A]

That was a bit like, I never bought a Tesla.

[B]

I never. Yeah, you didn't get a Tesla?

[A]

No, of course not.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

I'm driving a Toyota hybrid Corolla that I use for 20k.

[B]

Yeah, I saw the Toyota. I was like, did he get rid of his Tesla?

[A]

Never had one.

[B]

Never had one. So that's this Internet rumor.

[A]

I mean, so I did. I went with my friend mcjugger Nuggets to a Tesla dealership. He test drove. I test drove, right? He's like, I'm going to buy one. I hope you buy one. Let's look into getting you one. And I got this crazy idea in my head. You know, it's showroom experience, right? I'm like, I'm gonna get a Model X with the wing doors. And then I called my friend at the celebrity car museum in Branson, check them out. And I'm like, how much to kit it out as a modern day DeLorean? And it's like maybe 10, 15, maybe 20. Let's put the money into it. And I thought I'd have a cool show car, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We're coming off the back of ready player one. The DeLorean was all the rage again. Back to the future anniversaries just happened. I'm like, this seems like a smart investment while I was in the showroom and I got home and I put a $2500 investment deposit down and I'm like crunching the numbers, looking, I'll spend $50,000 today on a down payment. Yeah, I'll loan out the other 50. This is a stupid decision.

[B]

It would have been aggressively stupid. I'M so glad you did it.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So I am so glad you didn't do that. That was one of the scariest things. But I thought I heard.

[A]

But at that point, why not just play the character?

[B]

Is it at that point, just let.

[A]

The Internet do what the Internet's going to do.

[C]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

I didn't expect front page of Reddit. That was wild. And to this day, I think it's still fascinating. People think I bought that car. I can't believe you thought I bought that car.

[B]

I thought you bought that car.

[A]

And the worst part about it is, and anybody out there, like, if you want to buy a luxury car, buy a luxury car. I don't. I don't think it's a smart decision. But if you're going to buy a luxury car, don't buy a Tesla.

[B]

What's wrong with Tesla? I'm considering getting.

[A]

They're so expensive for repairs. If someone dents that vehicle, it's so they know it's a luxury car. So they make sure they upcharge you every chance they get. If you want to go the fastest possible speed, there's a fee to unlock that. It can do it. It's just a software governor. They charge you to let it have the ludicrous speed. Like it's. It's a money. It's one of the worst money things I think you can make. I've.

[B]

In general. I mean, unless it's like a beater that's getting you from A and B or just safety measures or room for family, everything beyond that starts becoming a want. That's why luxury vehicles, girls are okay if they. They're, you know.

[A]

That's when I bought the newest car I've ever owned was this hybrid.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it had one previous owner and I bought it just before all the prices went crazy. So I got it for 20, 21,000. I wanted to build credit, so I put 12,000 down. I loaned out the rest.

[B]

You still all on it?

[A]

I think maybe a th000 or 2000. It's in the neighborhood of not very much.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Facebook. 76 bucks comes in a month. Again, what are we doing there? We just posting some clips and just nothing's happening or.

[A]

Oh, no. This is meta PC, so this is a sponsor that I have. We get 5%.

[C]

All right.

[A]

Yeah, we have 5% of the sales that we make in a month. So some months it's low. Like this 76 bucks. On a really good month, it's maybe 300.

[B]

Okay, cool. Yeah, let's keep Going through the income Twitch. Again, not. For some reason, I would have thought you were doing better on Twitch.

[A]

And here's the thing. It's because, number one, I don't stream as often as I like.

[B]

Why?

[A]

I get very anxious doing it. Most of the bad things that I ever said, I said on Twitch.

[C]

Right?

[A]

That's because I have this trying to totally break character with you here. I have this very Andy Kaufman esque character. Also that and I'm an idiot. And so I will either push the.

[B]

Edge because you say you'll never join.

[A]

The Navy, that living on a submarine would be too hard, you'd never power.

[B]

A whole ship with nuclear energy, never bring a patient back to life, or play the national anthem for a sold out crowd. Joining the Navy sounds crazy.

[A]

Saying never actually is.

[B]

Start your [e-mail] America's Navy forged by.

[A]

The sea I grew up on Andy Kaufman, Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Andrew Dice Clay. I love shock humor. I listen to shock humor still to this day.

[B]

But people didn't like it when you did it.

[A]

No. Then it is. They like it coming from a shock jock or a shock comedian. Not the person that some people branded as the Mr. Rogers of YouTube. You can't do that. Bob Saget did it. But I know Bob Saget.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So why we do it then?

[A]

Stupidity. I, I just, you know. But on top of that, if you watch one of my live streams I mentioned donations, subs, stuff like that, maybe once in a two hour stream. Because I've never against the character I play, against the reputation I have. I don't like crowdsourcing.

[B]

But you refuse to get a job and you need money to survive.

[A]

It's less of a.

[B]

So we have to do something.

[A]

It's less of refuse and more that. I, I just don't know if I could.

[B]

I do have good news about that though. Yeah, you're not gonna have 4 million subscribers for long, so you can get a job now. Sorry, buds.

[A]

I mean, that's not something I would actually ever say.

[B]

You know, merch people aren't really buying your merch.

[C]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I don't know. I'd take 20 bucks free month, you know, for selling as well.

[B]

But when, when I start seeing people on this show, especially business people who are just so scattered in different pots and littles coming in, little is coming in here. So it's not adding up to much. Instead of, again, this is what I was going to start bringing up with Twitch. Like you say, I'm not really on there much and you know, things have been consequent consequences from what I said. And then I'm feeling anxious about it. Then I'm just, okay, we're done with Twitch. Done with Twitch. Who even gives focus all in what we know can be the revenue builder.

[A]

All which continues to be YouTube ad.

[B]

Yes, it does. This is absolutely the biggest number that we have seen here so far. Now would I be able to. They're not gonna be able to see it, but would I be able to see the studio app?

[C]

Yeah, sure.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I think I showed you a screenshot.

[B]

Yes. I just. There's a couple things I'm curious about. Private for my eyes only, not for you. Okay. So what I'm mostly curious about. I want to go lifetime. So.

[C]

Dude.

[B]

Okay, this is what the revenue looks like. YouTube revenue starts.

[C]

Right?

[B]

Because you know, obviously first of all.

[A]

When YouTube started, I mean the first three years. The first three years I started on YouTube, there was no partner program. Partner program didn't exist.

[B]

So we go like. And then just trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle to where we are today is.

[A]

What your graph looks like.

[B]

That. That scares me.

[A]

Yeah, I had like two good years. If you look at the 17 year history, I had like two really good years.

[B]

You've made $1.3 million. Incredible.

[A]

In 17 years, which comes out to what a per year.

[B]

I know, but that's a lot of money. Well, not a public math guy. What did I say? 1.3.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Over 17. 17 was when you started earning.

[A]

Or 15 would have been when I started earning.

[B]

Yeah. 80, $86,000 a year. Well, I mean you're above the median.

[A]

Household income out of disability, which is what I was on YouTube channel.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. But this managing money correctly and not spending a lot of it on prostitution would equate to us having at least a little bit of money now.

[A]

Well, again, to address that important part of the doc.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Number one, those numbers are rounded up. Mike admitted that those numbers are rounded up and adjusted. Secondly, the majority of that money was spent traveling and I went to the game Awards, I went to Disney. I went. It was still a huge waste of money. But I think, I think if we're dropping character and I think if we're being genuine here, I think it's. I started. I tried to get a travel channel off the ground and try to do what my friend Jacob the Carpetbagger and Adam the Woo do. And I thought people would watch me go to Disneyland. Right. I'm a big fat weird guy trying to do this. Do that turns out they did not want to watch me do that.

[B]

So if you contributed of the, you know, 80, whatever that you're making on a monthly basis, 20 on a monthly basis, which is like just very basic, recommended contributing to just the standard stock market, 8% return, you know, being a little more conservative there from beginning to end, you know, up years, down years, all combined 8%.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Over the course of the 15 years, $17,000 a year would equate to almost half a million dollars now. Now obviously we continue and just let that continue to compound and hopefully throwing more things in there. We could have gotten you to a point where, you know, mid-60s retirement. What scares me now? What scares me now? I'm not going to talk about the age thing. Like whatever this is, this is financial, man.

[A]

I'm not making it to mid-60s.

[B]

No.

[A]

Let's just be honest.

[B]

Oh, well, that's what I want to talk about. I'm not talking about the. I know a lot of people want to. Okay, this is financial audit, not dating audit. So she's going to live longer than you?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

You guys might get married maybe.

[C]

Sure. Probably.

[B]

What do we do when you're no longer here and you've left nothing to a widow?

[A]

Well, my process has always been when I met her, without getting into her personal history too much because it's not necessarily the place for it, but when I met her, she was struggling with severe social anxiety. She was struggling with just getting her life together. When I met her, I was talking to my friend Michael Kid behind the camera and his plan was just be the person you needed when you were in that position. Because that's who I was when I was her age. When I was 20 years old, just like her, I couldn't function in the world. I played EverQuest and World of Warcraft and did built terrible websites and made a barely passable income.

[B]

What does this have to do with you leaving her anything?

[A]

Well, hold on, I'm getting to that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If I left her destitute.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

My plan is to still leave her better off than she was. Okay, well like get her out into the world, get her the experience she needs, get her working if she, when she's ready.

[B]

But if we're actually leave her at nest egg instead of just, you know, putting life.

[A]

I'm just now, I'm just saying right now that's a conversation her and I have had and like, like that's a very real possibility. And she's chosen to stay with me because she's not in it for the money.

[C]

Right.

[A]

She's in it for the life experience. She's in it for the love. She's in it for the companionship. She's in it to become a better and stronger person.

[B]

But as a partnership, caring about the other partner, you want to. Instead of putting now, now with instant gratification, we want to leave.

[A]

That's why I'm here.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That's why I'm sitting down with you today.

[B]

No, absolutely.

[A]

Because I'm hoping you help me create a financial plan that can.

[B]

That's why I don't call it out immediately. So you don't do that.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay. So you have a mortgage. This is your biggest equity position. What do we think the house is worth today?

[A]

Zillow tells me 481of the houses the neighborhood just sold for a little over 5 million. It's the same size, or, sorry, half a million. 500,000. And it's. It's the same size as mine. It's literally across the street, and it just sold. So I think there's a very real chance that I need to put maybe 20,000 of work into it. We need new carpets. We need paint, stuff like that. There's hole in the ceiling and some, you know. Did you lose damage? Do what?

[B]

Did you almost lose this house at one point?

[C]

Never. Okay. Yeah.

[A]

That's always. I will bend over backwards to make sure that mortgage gets paid.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

If I have to sell everything I own. If I have to. And I have. We've made some concessions that I'm not entirely comfortable sharing because the people involved are private people.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

But I did move a roommate in. He's been helping a little bit here and there. I had a roommate over the last 25 years. He's finally been able to kick in a little bit as well. So we are finding ways to.

[B]

So there's two roommates.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

What was the purchase price of this house?

[A]

Original purchase price, 275. And then I refinanced in 2018 because of my divorce. So the loan in 2018 became 200,000 because I put more money down. Because I had money to put down. So I got it down to 207.

[B]

You know, we're at 4.3%. What are we going to refinance? You're going to get like, hit to 8% if you refinance.

[A]

Well, the plan would be to try to bring the initial monthly payment down. I really don't want to have to ever do that because we're five years into a 15 year so we paid so much principal off.

[B]

Wow, you did 15 year.

[A]

Yeah, I was making good money at the time, so why not do 15 years? But now we're from 2018 to now we're five years into a 15 year.

[C]

No.

[A]

Math wizard. And you are the math wizard. But that means I paid a good amount of principal off, Right. I'm earning a very solid amount of equity by staying in that house.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Well, you definitely pay more interest up front. But yes, five year into 15 years, definitely starting to see more benefit, right? Absolutely. I love the rate though.

[A]

Yeah. Couldn't get a better rate, Right.

[B]

We would like somebody but like with.

[A]

My credit I could not have gotten a better rate at the time. But I mean the reality of it is moving out of that house and trying to stay in northwest Arkansas near my medical professionals where I need to stay.

[B]

You have to say that.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's a very stupid idea. There is very little in the area. I might be able to get an apartment for $900 a month. I might be able to get a duplex for $1300 a month. But paying 20, $100 in and then having some of that being brought in by roommates. I'm paying as much to live in this house and build equity as I would be giving it all to a landlord instead.

[B]

If anything, of course I don't have the full financial history of like the last few years, but if anything that I know just from just Internet, this was the good choice.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[A]

This is the smartest choice.

[B]

Good choice. And 30 year fix or 15 year fix. There's different philosophies on that. I personally go 30 year because I just feel like I can just make a better return on investment putting the rest of the money somewhere else. But either way, I'm totally okay with this. To limiting risk. Knowing your position and knowing that the YouTube career can be, you know, a quick. I would have like, okay, we made one point, whatever 1.3 million and we owed a total of 208,000. I wish we could have just taken care of this. And lowered your risk profile.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Over that time instead of, instead of doing the traveling and stuff like that, where all my money's been going. I pay a little extra towards this on a monthly basis. But where my money's mostly been going is to into cash flowing properties that then pay for this if YouTube goes away completely.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So that's, that's. I wish we were risk mitigating in turn, but instead of that we were going into.

[A]

Nobody ever, Nobody ever Likes this answer.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because it's not a good one. And nothing I'm about to say is an excuse.

[B]

Let's hear it.

[A]

But the headspace that I was in in 2018 was not a very good one. And so I was not planning for a potential future because I did not feel that I had.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In 2018, Christmas. I had planned to take my own life, and I made it to that Christmas date and I decided to postpone it for the dumbest reasons. Christmas Day, I'm sitting there alone, I have my dog in my lap, and my roommate's out of town. And I realized my dog's gonna be sitting there with my dead body for three days. And I'm like, you know what? I need to wait. And I rescheduled to July 24, 2019, which was my birthday. And I thought in that process, I would travel a lot so that my roommate and my dog, who'd never really bonded, would begin to bond. So if you look at my travel scan plans, in January, I spent a couple of weekends away. And in February, it became three day weekends. And then in March, it became four days weekends. And by July rolled around, I spent two weeks in California saying goodbye to my friends with the plans of going home to end myself.

[B]

I'm very glad you didn't, by the way.

[A]

I ended up doing some. Which I do not recommend.

[C]

Right.

[A]

We don't casually do. I did it under the. I did that with a guidance of a shaman. And my original trip was in 2019. And I realized that I had to stay on the path that I was on. I. I realized that this was what I. For better or for worse, no matter how hard this was going to be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I had to stay here and do it. Now here I am four years later doing it. And it's not been great. It's. It's not been. And I went home and Covid happened and.

[B]

Well, I have a question for you. For the future of this conversation and what we're trying to do here. Are you willing to. And I think it might be for like the true first time from just conversations I've watched preparing for this. And then obviously this conversation so far.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Are we willing to just let go of the past? The past does not define us. We are human beings that are on this life, have a life temporary on this planet that we are growing and let's look for the future.

[A]

We are talking about the past like we're talking about the financial decisions I was making in 2000.

[B]

No, I know when it comes to Exploded.

[A]

But if you're asking if I have personally moved on.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, are we willing to in this conversation? Like, are we willing.

[A]

Sure. Unless you ask me why I was making these financial decisions in 2019, I'm going to tell you. I want to tell you.

[B]

That's fair enough, right? No, that's fair enough. But when it comes to I uploaded this many YouTube videos then and stuff like that, like, okay, let's, like, what can we do in the future? Just make this awesome so that we can make sure you're financially secure.

[A]

But I effectively. I had a nervous breakdown at the end of 2019, and I don't even think you could put this in your video. But I said something extremely inflammatory. I said that the people who, who had spent the last year harassing me, getting my sponsors to. To stop supporting me, attacking my fans and, and attacking me personally. I said that they were worse than. Which is not a thing you can say.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's also not true. It's hyperbole. I didn't mean it. But that's. I said this on live stream.

[C]

Right?

[A]

You can't take that back once the cat's out of the bag.

[B]

You in live streams.

[C]

Yeah, Right, right.

[A]

Which used to be extremely lucrative. I used to make five grand a month, ten grand a month from live streaming when I was really good at it and really pushing it. I would live stream for 3 hours a night, 5 nights a week, 6 nights a week, and would bring home 5, 10k sometimes.

[B]

I was talking to a very successful streamer a few weeks ago about you, and he thinks you can make like 20k a month if I can keep.

[A]

My foot out of my mouth. And that's something I have so much trouble doing even there. I mean, like people. Probably rightfully so, but for whatever reason, I think I'm held to a standard that I don't know that I'm good enough for. I'm going to say, well, you also react to everything.

[C]

You.

[B]

You feed them. You feed them. It's the. I haven't opened Tick Tock in like two months. So it's like, yeah, a lot of.

[A]

The things that you want, a lot of things you want to talk about have really changed since March in this last year. What happened in March again? I went into some really intense therapy. I combined it with. And the. The mentorship of a shaman.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And those three things, if you look at the statistics modern science is showing. And I can recommend a documentary for anybody who's interested. How to change your mind. It's available on Netflix have the capacity to cure post traumatic stress disorder, which was my biggest issue.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's one of the reasons I was stuck in these negative thought patterns. And so with a combination of doing intensive twice a week therapy with a traditional therapist, while combining that with seeing a shaman and taking the money puts your brain into a place of neuroplasticity. And so you can learn finely.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And then you do that with the therapy and. And you can learn from the actual therapist. And this last year I've made such tremendous strides. Yeah, it's right.

[B]

So whatever works for you, man.

[A]

I old boogie a year ago. The egotistical, self centered, extremely defensive man.

[B]

You're different.

[A]

Considerably.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, Considerably. Okay, here's how I know I'm different. I wouldn't have been here if you'd invited me to do this in December of last year. I would have laughed at you.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because this is humiliating. This is difficult, this is hard. I have to swallow a tremendous amount of. Sure. It's. It's. How humiliating is it to look at every mistake you've ever made printed out and be called out on your wanted.

[B]

To thousands of people to see hundreds of thousands.

[A]

Hundreds of thousands.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Please. I hope, I hope where I try to structure the most episodes is hopefully we end towards a positive note. That is.

[A]

I hope so.

[B]

That is where I want to go. Like the future.

[A]

But again, I knew walking down here that this was a hard pill to swallow.

[B]

It's very brave.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But. But I'm telling you, never would have even considered doing. Doing this.

[B]

This. Okay, so could you tell me what this is, please?

[A]

This is either the car loan or one of the dumbest purchases I've ever made.

[B]

What's one of the dumbest purchases you've ever made?

[A]

This is the car loan.

[B]

Okay, we'll get to the dumb purchase soon.

[A]

Yeah, the dumb purchase was a dog.

[B]

Well, I have two dogs.

[C]

They're great.

[A]

I spent way too much on a dog.

[B]

How much?

[A]

He's purebred. Miniature poodle.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Which generally will cost you about three. 3,000 to 3,500.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I bought them in a pet store.

[C]

So I paid 5.

[B]

How much money did you have at the time?

[A]

Oh, about $108,000 in the bank.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's okay.

[A]

But again, I was in mind that I needed to build credit, so I took out a loan.

[B]

What the. Is that the personal loan?

[A]

Yeah, that's the personal.

[B]

Dude, you're killing.

[A]

That's the.

[B]

Oh, I mean, that's the loan. That's the synchrony. It's the synchrony.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

So I'm going to call this the dog loan.

[A]

That's the dog loan.

[B]

What's the. So what's remaining on the car? Do you remember the what do you know what's remaining on the car loan?

[A]

The car. I don't know. I, I, we should we either on the last payment or like the last two or three, I think.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

We'd have to look it up.

[B]

We'll take a look into it. And the personal loan has about a thousand Right. Left on it, Something like that.

[A]

That sounds right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

There is another small loan.

[C]

What?

[A]

There's a third one that you're seeing here.

[B]

Credit card?

[A]

No, it's a bed. I am.

[B]

It's a what?

[A]

I had to get an adjustable bed for my back and leg issues. And my doctor insisted that I looked into getting one. I looked into getting one. So I took out pay like 500, 600 down, and then took out like a $2,500.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

When did you get it?

[A]

July.

[B]

Interest rate?

[A]

6%. That's correct.

[B]

What's the monthly payment?

[A]

I think it's the 112 you're looking at.

[B]

Oh, so that was the 112. Yeah. Secret is usually a store finance.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Credit card I want to take a look at in a second. Could you pull up your credit card app for me?

[A]

I think, I think you've seen it already. But to show you, I only own like $900 on it and it's, it's just a utility card for the business. So it gets used. If it gets paid off, it gets used and gets paid off.

[B]

Do you ever hold balances over the.

[A]

Last couple of months? Yes, because it's been thinner than I would have liked. But I plan to pay it off with this check on the 20th, so.

[B]

But it's okay. It just scares me because it's only getting thinner. Except for that spike.

[A]

Yeah, well, that spike's gonna pay off the. Yeah, there's the, okay, the credit card and the balance of like 950 bucks.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Credit line available 31.12.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Kill me.

[A]

Okay, again, I am still trying to do some credit score stuff, so I will pay off a little bit.

[B]

How do you give credit score? You already have a house.

[A]

Because eventually I will have to sell that house and I'll have to move somewhere when I do.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Why will you have to sell the house?

[A]

A 2100 mortgage payment is really hard.

[B]

So you're saying you're not going to be able to afford the.

[A]

I don't know. I'm hoping. I'm hoping that I will. But again, I'm always planning for the possibility that I won't.

[B]

Late payment fee, October 31st. Late payment fee.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

25. Late payment fee, December 1st. This just happened.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Oh, me.

[A]

October was a very lean month.

[B]

Oh, and you have a brand new iPhone.

[A]

Dude, this phone was free.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Verizon traded us an iPhone 7 for.

[B]

That very important business purpose. Chick Fil A. Lucky it was all the way back.

[A]

Dude, you eat, don't you eat?

[C]

I eat.

[A]

People eat.

[B]

I definitely.

[A]

I eat a lot.

[B]

No, you don't have to eat out if we can't afford a little.

[A]

I can't cook for. I can't cook for three people for cheaper than $12. I can't cook for three people for cheaper Than 12.

[B]

Wait a second. Let me get my little handy dandy cut. First of all, that was three people. You did not feed three people on $12 chicken sandwiches.

[A]

Five bucks.

[B]

So you just got three chicken sandwiches, eating games, nothing.

[A]

You feed three people on five bucks in a hurry.

[B]

Deal. The chicken sandwiches, the chicken patties. We have Heb. I don't know what your version is, but you can get the frozen chicken patties, put them in the oven, and I promise they are individually less than $5 more of an initial Walmart.

[A]

And they are not good chicken patties. And that is more convenient tastes there on top of that.

[B]

So now there's more reasons it's affordable.

[C]

Right?

[A]

You weed out two or three days a week, it adds up to $15 a week at 15, 30, 45 bucks. Well, I. Yeah, that's true.

[B]

Late payment. It's not affordable if we can't pay the card.

[A]

Do I look like the kind of person that's ever made sound decisions about food?

[B]

No, but that's why I'm trying to. That's why I'm trying to get it across.

[A]

But this is my weakness. This is always going to be my biggest weakness.

[B]

No, no, no, you're. You just. You just allowed yourself infinite excuses for the future. Responsibility.

[A]

That's actually true.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So why not, like, actually take responsibility? Say, hey, we cannot afford to live right now. We don't get to afford to go out and travel.

[A]

And guess what we had for breakfast today.

[B]

What'd you have for breakfast today?

[A]

Chick Fil A? Could we use the app? So they gave us free nuggets?

[B]

What about the continental breakfast at the hotel? Free.

[A]

That's true, actually.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's usually just bowl cereal yes.

[B]

And that's food that goes in your stomach for free.

[C]

For free.

[B]

You can't afford to pay this boogie.

[A]

I mean, that's true. That's true.

[B]

If. If there's anything I can get across in this episode for you to just walk away with, buddy, if we cannot afford to pay something, if we can't even afford to pay off the credit card, we're getting late fees and we're just getting.

[A]

I mean, I have a lot to eat. I have a food budget of about 300amonth. And that. We use that.

[B]

Groceries.

[A]

It includes groceries most of the time.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We do eat. We do eat groceries at home. We have, like, some of the inexpensive meals we make. We make tacos and make shrimp pasta. If I'm really feeling splurgy, we'll make burgers at home. We eat at home the majority of the time.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Unfortunately, we just can't afford to probably go out at all.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Yeah. I'm really sorry. It sucks.

[A]

I mean, it's true.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So. Okay.

[A]

But it would have been more expensive to drive back to Fayetteville and. And make a taco than it would have been to go to Chick Fil a today. But you're right. We could have eaten cereal at the buffet.

[B]

Yes. I thought I was about to flip the. Kill me. Okay. What I can't see is the interest occurring. Obviously, we have the late fees, but the mobile apps love to try to hide how much interest is.

[A]

I mean, I. I just pay the. The minimum balance every month. And. And the minimum fee is generally.

[B]

So that's what you meant by paying it every month, Minimum balance.

[A]

Sometimes I pay off more. Yeah, for sure.

[B]

Oh, okay. Well, that's really bad. If we hold a card that's accruing interest and we can't afford to go out of t once. We just can't.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

Because interest.

[A]

Well, this is.

[B]

This will.

[A]

This will get paid off on the 20th with this. This huge.

[B]

All of it.

[C]

All of it. Yeah.

[A]

The whole thing.

[C]

Huge. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

From the spike that came in Adsense.

[B]

From, like, the $6,000. That's okay.

[A]

I make seven. 800 is what we made in November, which was really awesome. I. I hope we can maintain that.

[B]

But is this a death. The preferred club.

[A]

That's the house loan.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Sorry.

[C]

Or. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

It's my current checking balance, so.

[B]

That's weird. That scares me. Anything less than a thought.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

Exxon Fair came down here. McDonald's less fair.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Chick Fil A. Oh, wait till you.

[A]

Get to the Starbucks. Then you're gonna go real mad.

[B]

I'm not one of those people that freaks out about Starbucks.

[A]

$5. $5 every couple of days. I love me a pink drink. I love me.

[B]

Oh, well, I'll freak out about that. Because you can't afford it. Yeah, like I'm not one of those people that when people can afford it.

[C]

I don't freak out.

[B]

As long as you're hitting investing goals that are necessary to survive, sure. Cameo. I'm glad that came in. Okay.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So that's a little extra. Yeah, yeah, 100 bucks.

[A]

You can book [e-mail] streamyard.

[B]

We're paying for it. Barely made it back.

[A]

Yeah, it's necessary for the podcast. That's where we film there.

[B]

Utilities.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

That's fair.

[C]

Can't.

[B]

Can't hate against no utilities. Same with gas. Walmart. You can never really tell what's being.

[A]

Purchased from, so most of my Walmart purchases tend to be Mets. I'm on a lot of meds. The most expensive, which is my Testosterone, which is $200 a month.

[B]

With your medical issues, do you think McDonald's, Papa John's, Starbucks, McDonald's, Chick fil A. All in all, being processed within a couple days time is helping? No, it's not helping. Your wallet either?

[C]

No, not at all.

[B]

Why are you still doing it? If we know we're killing ourselves and we're financially killing ourselves, why do you think you're still doing it?

[A]

I think I wouldn't weigh 400 pounds if I knew the answer to that question.

[B]

Okay, well, you obviously had discipline for a bit, though, because you did go through the surgery, which is very difficult.

[A]

Well, the surgery did its job, which is to say, it extremely restricted my stomach intake, and it still does to this day.

[B]

Okay, in a lot of the American versions, don't they require you to lose a good amount up front before you.

[A]

Have to get it?

[B]

Okay, so you had the discipline to do that?

[A]

Well, it was a lot easier when I walked into an emergency room with a blood pressure of 280 over 180. And they're like, hey, you're dying now. You're not dying. Eventually, you're dying now.

[B]

But you kind of are.

[A]

I mean, this.

[B]

You said you're not gonna listen.

[A]

It's unfortunate. This is. This is the healthiest I've ever been.

[B]

Well, you said you're not. You don't feel like you're going to be here in your 60s.

[A]

Well, that's just the stark reality. When you've done what I've done to my body.

[B]

I know that just.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To me, that feels like now that's her.

[A]

I see it as 15, 20 years from now, because that's what it is.

[B]

Certainly.

[C]

Well, you're.

[B]

You're 50, 60s, not 20 years from now.

[A]

Well, it was mid-60s is what we're saying. Right. So that's 15, 20 years now.

[B]

Starbucks.

[A]

Yeah, Starbucks.

[B]

There's lots of Starbucks. Tokyo House. It's a very expensive business. 90 bucks.

[A]

Business error. That one was right off.

[B]

Well, right off of what? Prime Video. Starbucks. Starbucks. Not even a full month back yet. Starbucks is a lot. Arby's at least get food that tastes like something.

[A]

Hey, let me tell you a little bit of something about Arby's, okay?

[B]

Good fries.

[A]

They have very good fries. But recently I've beginning to realize the value that you get from Arby's. Is surprising how much food you get for your amount of investment, which actually really doesn't taste good. I want to make it very abundantly clear. But again, when you're feeding multiple people, you can save a lot of money at Arby's.

[B]

Wait until you hear about the grocery store. It'll blow your mind. Burger King, Netflix. Nothing good on there anyway. Starbucks.

[A]

I just canceled Netflix, actually.

[C]

Good.

[B]

Good lad.

[A]

I canceled Netflix and I canceled Hulu and the only thing I have now is Disney plus, which we watch literally every day, and Amazon prime, which I pay for, for the shipping and for the things that we need.

[C]

Anyway.

[B]

Starbucks. Starbucks. More Arby's.

[A]

It's all food. I mean, like, I can save you all the scrolling. It's all food.

[B]

But we're not even halfway through a month. This is. This is what I feared going in here. So we have a credit card. Sure, we have a credit card that. And we weren't able to do the math that we typically do, but I would not be surprised if you did not go out and have these 25 drops every single day. 12 to 25 something around there.

[A]

Yeah, it's almost. Yeah, we spend about 12 to 15 on. On food a day.

[B]

Let's call it 15.

[A]

Yeah, let's call 15. That's actually very fair.

[B]

Let's call it 30. We could have paid off.

[C]

Well.

[A]

Oh, yeah, 30 days. Yeah, yeah, sure.

[B]

Yeah, we could have paid off. Well, half. Now you throw the Starbucks in there and you throw the business dinner in there, even if you're writing it off. We probably could have paid off the credit card that is accruing interest and that we're missing fees, by the way, if we're Getting hit with late fees.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that's the worst way. I mean, like, we're not getting Starbucks. Any financial show on the planet will tell you if you're getting charged late fees or credit card interest or loan interest, then you can't piece me then I'm struggling here.

[B]

Do you give, do you care?

[A]

I do.

[B]

It's be an adult act your age is what I would say.

[A]

I mean, that's fair. Again, food has not been a area that I have been very successful at controlling.

[B]

Trust me. I can't really talk about it either. Dude, let me tell you, at least I can afford it.

[A]

I've taken. It's bigger than you. Okay, all right, Listen to me, dude, I've eaten more than you at a buffet before, okay?

[B]

Not in my bathroom, please.

[A]

I appreciate that you think you know what it's like to be addicted to food. I promise you, you don't.

[B]

I will be honest. One of my big struggles is on a daily basis. Like, I won't eat a ton during the day, but then I'll get something fatty, greasy, sweet, and then I binge a massive portion in the evening. That is my typical issue that happens. And I, I, yo, yo. 30, 40 pounds constantly. I'll be good for a while and then I'll yo, yo. So I can't talk about that.

[A]

I mean, the only reason, the only reason I'm not 600 pounds again is because the surgery is doing its job.

[B]

Can I ask how much you weigh?

[A]

400.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

My lowest ever was 330. I got back up to 400. This is where I've stayed.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

With within a, a 20 pound variance, I've gone down to 380 and I've gone back up to 400.

[B]

What does your doctor want you to be?

[A]

I mean, ideally you'd like me to be my ideal weight of like 175.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like that's what anybody would want. We're talking knee replacement surgery when I get home.

[B]

How much is that going to cost?

[A]

I think it's not even. I, Hopefully Blue Cross pollution will cover it. I, I pay $800 a month for the best insurance I can afford because I absolutely have no choice.

[C]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

It's your deductible.

[A]

Do I meet my deductible within the first, like two months? Most of the time, yeah.

[B]

Lots of Amazons and Panda Express.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Gas. You must drive a lot.

[A]

We don't drive a lot, but we tip. We buy a tank a week, give or take.

[B]

So do you go in there and Get a bunch of drinks then. Because I'm seeing like gas stations I don't go into. Yeah, because I'm seriously, like two weeks back then. I've seen like five gas stations.

[A]

Well, we did travel here, so we needed to fill up at home. We filled up here.

[B]

Yeah, but that was yesterday. Like I'm talking in the last two weeks. Starbucks, Starbucks, Burger King, Starbucks.

[A]

Two weeks I was on my way to Starbucks last month I was on my way to Cleveland, Ohio to finish this documentary. So that's probably maybe what you're saying.

[B]

But no, the documentary that we talked about, the one that everyone has seen.

[A]

Yeah, I, I generally, but I. We generally fill up the tank once a week. It's a hybrid. We. I mean, you'd have to drive 555 miles a tank is what I get. So.

[B]

Okay. I'm struggling with the eating out once a day thing because now that I'm scrolling through here, I'm seeing about 2 to 3. If we're considering Starbucks and we're considering. Unless this is when they're hitting. But seriously scrolling.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's when.

[B]

13, 14, 15. Like these are just individual days. 16 and there's well two, three in each.

[A]

Well, I think that's probably more when they're hitting.

[B]

But even if that's when they're hitting still, since this is section out day by day. And three, you're hitting a day even if they're coming from a previous day.

[A]

I said we average like 15 on. On fast food a day.

[B]

Yeah. But I'm also kind of struggling with that because if we go here. Okay. Yeah, middle of November, golden crown. 62 of golden crown. But okay, we'll call that an oddity. Right. We just, we went to gold.

[A]

I mean, it was. I invited, you know, somebody out to the. My, My editor, me and my friend Flint and my girlfriend.

[B]

Your editor? You pay your.

[A]

When I need to.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

When he's. When he's got a. When he's got a project that we need to work on.

[B]

Why don't you, why, why aren't you editing your own stuff?

[A]

You have time, I assume he's incredibly better at it. And so if I have an actual project that needs to get done and he works for minimum wage for me, to be very clear, because he's a friend, so. But occasionally he'll get a business dinner to talk projects and stuff.

[B]

And then we're getting back to utility. So we've gone close to a month. So. Yeah, minimum once a day. And then you throw, you throw an extra $5 from Starbucks on there as well. Sometimes something a day.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So let's call it every other day. Let's call it 2020.

[A]

But again, most of the time I'm feeding two or three people off of this money.

[B]

But that's 15 is like. That's like the minimum we're spending today.

[A]

Let's call it at that point, 600amonth on food.

[B]

One second. So minimum 15 a day, plus probably five for Starbucks every other day. So 2.5 a day. So then we saw about once a week, maybe twice a week sometimes. There's that Dave and Buster's. There's the Golden Corral. There's that. That other thing. So all of a sudden, that throws off the average of 15 a day, turning it to what would probably be evenly distributed. 20, $25 a day. Throwing the Starbucks maybe $30 a day on average.

[C]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

So if. If we actually start going off of that. And again, I wasn't able to do the normal math that I was able to do before most episodes, we're looking closer to like 900 bucks a month, and I wouldn't be surprised.

[C]

Let's.

[A]

Let's call it that then. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that's definitely. There's definitely room to cut. I. I included in. Any time I talk about these budgets online, I generally say 600 for the stuff, but 900 might be more realistic.

[B]

But you can't afford 600.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

So you said you're feeding multiple people. I understand, obviously, girlfriend situation. Okay, sure. Who else are we feeding?

[A]

So, again, my roommates mostly like to remain private. They're not on social media.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So I do have some difficulty divulging the arrangements that we've made in exchange for a lot of things that I physically cannot do. I can't. I see, mow my lawn. I can't get into the attics. I cannot do a lot of the things that are necessary to be done.

[B]

So in house help.

[A]

That's right. So in exchange for in house help, every once in a while I get someone a sandwich. And if I were paying to get the lawn done, my house, it's way ridiculously more expensive than an Arby sandwich. So the deal that I have set up with my roommates, now, I'm saving a tremendous amount of money, but that will occasionally include. Hey, hey, man. You want to go out to dinner? It's been a month. Can I take out dinner tonight? Because I, I, or once. I'm never in a position not to speak too much. About my roommate's private business, But I could never imagine myself in that position where I would get paid so little and do so much to. To help a friend. I mean, I'd like to think I'd be able to, but I physically, I. I can't do most of these things. I can't climb a ladder. I can't. These are things I physically cannot do. And I'm very blessed in that regard. And so, yeah, it's probably. I know it's a stupid investment, but since they're making such a stupid investment this way, I don't mind making a stupid investment their way.

[B]

Are they paying any rent?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

What are you getting? Because that helps offset some of the budgetary costs that we're going to have to go into.

[A]

Do my roommates pay rent? There is compensation. Not just in terms of things that they're able to do around the house and things that I cannot do, but there is compensation. But it's not something I'm. Again, they are private people. I don't want to get too much into their life.

[B]

Totally fine. I do get that. And I want to make sure we're protecting privacy so that, yeah, you know, nothing negative can happen. So that's fair. Have you ever downloaded the app credit Karma?

[A]

I believe so. I don't have it on my phone currently.

[B]

If we could just get you to go through that. It'll take about five minutes.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Credit score. We've jumped up.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

673.

[A]

Yeah. Like I said, I do know the tools to build credit. I. Someone set me down to do it, and I'm trying to maintain the best credit that I can. Certainly that's not in the 700s. There's plenty of room.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But considering my financial situation, if I needed a stopgap loan, which I hope.

[B]

I never do, that's what emergency funds are for, right?

[A]

Well, again, I don't have them, unfortunately.

[B]

Well, what's this actually? $7,732.

[A]

This is what's left of everything. That's everything.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

But that is. That is money. That is money puts it in.

[A]

This is currently sending in Ethereum, and since I printed this off, it's actually worth more.

[B]

Yeah, but what have we learned?

[A]

Well, we've learned that I don't think that market can go any lower.

[C]

I.

[A]

Generally, there's no way it's going to go zero. It can't go to zero, sir. It can't go to zero, sir.

[B]

What if we learned about our money?

[A]

Don't take the loss until you sell.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

What?

[A]

Well, and also, it was also kind of smart to spread off the losses across multiple years so that I get that nice tax deductible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Sleep number 3218.

[A]

Was that the total?

[B]

Not 2,500. This is why I had this.

[A]

I guess it was more than that. Good idea.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And yep, there's the credit card, as we saw Lending USA. Oh, here's the car. 6472.

[A]

Is that what I have left?

[B]

Yeah. Which is a lot more than you suggested.

[A]

I guess so.

[B]

Nah, that's why we do the little investigation.

[A]

Well, that's why.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Again, I ballpark this stuff in my brain. I've never looked this stuff up, so I'm glad we're looking it up today so I know for sure.

[B]

Lending personal loan 3448.

[A]

That's my dog. And you want to know something? Worst invest in my life, because I don't even like the dog that much. I love my first dog. He's like a. He's my sole dog. He's like the member of the family. The second dog, he's mostly just a dog. He's a good dog. He's a really good dog. I really like him. But I didn't want a dog. I wanted another Sammy, you know, And I got a. I got a Leo instead. But he's still a great dog.

[C]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

Your car payment is.

[A]

What are we down to?

[B]

238Amonth?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You're halfway through the loan.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

We really sounded like we were much closer.

[A]

I thought I was. Again, I. I think maybe I don't have a solid understanding of how much interest I'm paying up front in some of these loans because I thought I would have paid off considerably more of the. The actual loan by now.

[B]

Well, you took out a five year. Okay, so I'm gonna steal from our friends at the money guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, really, you want to pay it off if you're gonna take it on a car loan, no more than 8% of your income on a monthly basis goes towards that. You put 20 down every time, which.

[A]

Is certainly considerably less of that. I paid half.

[B]

And on a third three year, three year term, well, I paid half.

[A]

The initial loan was 10,000. Because I paid half. I paid half up front, if I remember correctly.

[B]

Oh, gotcha.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then.

[A]

And again, the only reason I financed the back half, because I had the cash I could have spent, was before crypto even dropped. I should have probably done it. But the only reason, again, to try to maintain this credit score, I have some small loans.

[B]

Your dog, your dog, $5,000. Yeah, no, it's, it thinks it's at 23.49. Interest is what it says you are at. That's the loan.

[A]

So that you can't be right.

[B]

Are you sure? That's what I think of it.

[A]

Is that even legal to make a 23% loan?

[B]

Oh yeah. There's people on my show all the time.

[A]

That doesn't seem legal.

[B]

30 credit cards are over 30%. Your credit card's probably over 30%.

[A]

I, I mean like the minimum payments like $20 a month. So off of a balance of a.

[B]

Thousand, you know why the minimum payments $20 a month? Because they want the interest to continue to accrue.

[C]

Okay. All right.

[A]

I thought.

[B]

No.

[A]

Oh well, the number, the numbers, numbers never broken over like a thousand. It's so.

[B]

No. Okay, I'm, now I'm understanding where we might be in terms of financial knowledge. No, that's not how it works.

[A]

Okay. With credit cards, but then educate me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So yes, please.

[B]

Well, the credit card for credit cards, we never want to hold a balance anyway. Because if we're holding a balance, whether or not you're making a minimum payment, it's accruing interest unless it's in an interest free period.

[A]

So if I were to pay anything off first, it's clearly this dog loan. That's got to be right.

[B]

What was 986 again? What did we put down for that?

[A]

I think that's just the credit card balance. Oh, and again, that's a secured credit card. So I don't think the interest is very high. That is secured with $1,000 CD.

[B]

Oh, let me find out.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What? Tell them. Because I think I made a smart financial decision with that credit card because it is a secured card, it's financed, secured with a thousand dollar cd. So my understanding is the interest rate was going to be very, very low on it.

[B]

Oh, can you bring up the credit card again?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So now we have a full picture of your debt and where we've gone.

[C]

Right.

[B]

What's good is it looks like you're not really, you don't have anything in collections or anything, which is good. So I mean that's, you know, I feel like that's potentially next steps if we have to drain. Okay, so the $7,732 that's in Ethereum, that, oh, this is just a daily graph. Where was that at some point? And you've been withdrawing from it to survive yeah.

[A]

At the beginning of the year, if you see in the documentary in February, this was 30,000, but I've had to withdraw from it this year.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And again, if this was a 401k, it'd be considerably harder to have tapped that money when I needed. Well, well, I, it would have certainly been more secure and I wouldn't have lost 75 of it overnight, you know.

[B]

But over the years, if you're putting money into this solo 401k instead of this, you'd have been saving a lot on taxes anyway.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Tax benefits with that. Now I wouldn't want you to withdraw and take penalties from that anyway. You could have taken out loans against it. Wouldn't want you to do that either. But I think, I think a lot of it. We're going to create your budget. But what is very clear, if we're doing $900 a month eating out in different forms, we could pay these debts off very quickly.

[A]

So my interest charge for this is $19.59 for a thousand dollar budget, for a thousand dollar balance. So what's that come out to?

[B]

1 second, 24%.

[A]

Well then I'm paying that off immediately.

[B]

Yeah, that's what I'd pay off immediately. Because one, you can pay it off by not eating out for literally a single month.

[A]

Then, then how much is left on the, on the dog loan?

[B]

The dog loan, we're sitting at about 3,448. So then the bed is also 3,219. Can you bring up credit karma again? Because what I can see is the bed interest rate.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Because that can also.

[A]

Again, you know how they got me on the bed, it's number one, it was medically required.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then secondly, you know, I'm like, I can't afford to pay for this in cash, so I have to get it.

[B]

And usually a lot of, a lot of beds though you can get zero percent.

[A]

You said I did for like six months or something.

[B]

Well, in that case, you figure out what's the minimum payment required to pay it off in six months.

[A]

But of course, I mean, you tell me. I don't know, I just, I pulled the trigger. I found, I found one, you know, President's day, sell, whatever, don't look at this.

[B]

You have outstanding approval odds on two credit cards and three personal loans.

[A]

Oh, I would never take out another.

[B]

Yeah, please, please don't.

[A]

Yeah, never.

[B]

We don't need you to have to come back on.

[C]

Nope.

[B]

Next time I have you on, I want it because you've Paid off.

[A]

I mean, give me credit for one thing. I keep. I keep it paid if I can. If it's at all humanly possible. Like, if a bill is due, the bill gets paid.

[B]

No, I.

[A]

Obviously not. The credit cards. Well, the loan payments get made.

[B]

How can I give you that due?

[A]

Nothing's defaulted.

[B]

At least I can't be. I can't give you that credit, though. If there's one of the. If one of any of the things are not being paid, I can't give you the credit of making the payments.

[A]

See that? See that? And I think maybe again, one of the reasons I pat myself on the back for this and why you never would is because growing up, we had things repossessed all the time. Cars repossessed, televisions repossessed, furniture repossessed. Because everything was bought on credit.

[C]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

And so that was such a common place. I feel so happy and secure that I can pay my bills. I feel so happy and secure that no, they are getting paid.

[B]

I'm paying my credit card.

[A]

That's true. That's true.

[B]

Okay. It's not finding the interest. Do you have the app for it? Do you know that?

[A]

I do.

[C]

I think.

[B]

Oh, if you have the app for it, we could.

[A]

I think it's straight through sleep number maybe. I think this one was 0%, if I'm not mistaken.

[B]

Buddy. If. No, if. If four of these bad debts, I'm considering the house a good debt. If the other four bad debts. Bad. Just absolute death debt was out of your life.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It lowers your risk profile immensely. It lowers your minimum payments immensely.

[A]

Well, that's what. That's where I want to get. That's what I'm trying to do.

[B]

Yeah, but it's gonna take some things that I'm concerned you're. You might not be willing to do, to be completely honest. But, I mean, that's up to you. We'll talk about that.

[A]

Well, there's another financial plan we'll get into in a minute, and I think you're.

[B]

Oh, you have your own.

[C]

Yeah, you.

[A]

You're gonna laugh when I say it, though.

[C]

But.

[A]

And your audience will laugh.

[B]

Well, I would also just rather you be, like, financially, like, safe than give me a good segment.

[A]

Well, it's.

[B]

It's in the.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

It's both.

[B]

In the end. You're a human being, man.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so the spike makes this a little hard, but I. Across the income sources you gave me, we are having an average of $4,269.96 now.

[A]

That's right. That's right about where it is.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Question.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Are you setting 30% aside for taxes?

[C]

I can't.

[B]

Right. What are you going to do? And what. What did you do these last few quarterlies?

[A]

When.

[B]

Quarterly payments.

[A]

I literally can't afford to make quarterly payments, so I'm paying in lump sums at the beginning of the year most of the time.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And there's penalties for that?

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Okay, if you can't afford to do them quarterly, how are we going to do them annually with penalties?

[A]

I think this year I'll end up having to set up a payment plan with the US Government.

[B]

What'd you do for last year?

[A]

We haven't talked about it much. It was a very reasonably. It was a fairly reasonable sum.

[B]

It was paid. No. Is it on a payment plan?

[A]

I'm about $2,200 can.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

It's a very important piece of this debt.

[A]

It is.

[B]

It's interesting because the episode that's coming out before Yours was another YouTuber who did not pay his taxes.

[A]

Which one? Dark side Phil.

[B]

Oh, maybe I should have him on. No, it's a YouTuber that doesn't upload anymore. He got to 100,000 subscribers and then quit.

[A]

Now there's only the one year, and I've just been waiting for him to knock on the door, get it solved. But at the beginning of this year, I was not in a position where I could do it. I'm like, I have to make it till the stock drops, and let's see if there's a spike that comes with it. And I'll pay it then. And that's the world we're in now.

[B]

Well, you had 30 in crypto. You could have paid it.

[A]

I could have, but I knew. I. I looked at. And. And this is a terrible way to live, but this is how I looked at it. I can pull this out of crypto now and potentially miss a house payment at the end of the year.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So I would rather stay in the house until I have to leave it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And continue to build equity and maybe I'll never have to leave it. But if that. One financial. If I pulled this 2000 and pay the US government, which I know, they're patient. I. I owed the money. They are very patient. The US Government is so patient.

[B]

They also have the guns.

[C]

Yeah. Well.

[A]

But I'll tell you, having had this very similar problem in my 20s with a small business collapsing and owing them $1500, then they were very eager to work with you. They're like, just give us anything, man. But, you know, the US Government works slow. And believe it or not, they're surprisingly cool when it comes to owing them money.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So many people have had different experiences. Just let you know.

[A]

Yeah, I've had.

[C]

I.

[A]

They just sent me a plan, a payment plan. They're literally like, what can you afford? I'm like, well, I'm on disability now, so what do you think I can afford? Like, can you afford to give up 10% of that? And I'm like, no, I can't give 10% of 850. I'm living off of $850.

[B]

What if they knew you were spending $900 a month on fast food?

[A]

I mean, they probably would be. Do not send us to the irs. Yeah, probably not.

[C]

Great.

[A]

I mean, they know. The government knows, right?

[C]

They.

[A]

They have access to my credit card records.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I'm just saying, if there's one people we don't is the irs.

[A]

That's true, but they know.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, we've had. Not for some of 2200, but there's been people and the media industry in general who have, you know, not paid taxes. They've gone to jail.

[A]

If you owe them a significant amount of money.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Then, yes, they do not consider 2009 now.

[B]

But that's all I'm saying is, like, this isn't all roses and butterfly.

[A]

The best I can get for you on this loan is that it was 0% for 24 months. Because that's pretty much standard on the website.

[B]

When did you take it out?

[A]

July.

[B]

Okay, so we're in the 0% interest period.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, cool. That's good to know.

[A]

Or no, June.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah. Sorry.

[C]

I was panicking.

[A]

I was like.

[B]

Because you almost sent me into one.

[A]

I got it before you moved on.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So does she work?

[A]

We're working on that.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Because that would be. That's, you know, not required to. We're not married, you know, anything like that. If we are married, that's a conversation of what do we need to be as a future? How do we hit financial goals? We might need to work. Obviously, the majority of her.

[A]

Everything is taken. Taken care of, but the one thing she's not doing is bringing income in. Yeah, but she's costing pretty much. Nothing going on.

[B]

Okay, let's capture some of your other things. We have Verizon 222.

[A]

Do it.

[B]

Verizon 222.

[A]

Yes. We got two lines.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Do you have your phone's finance, iPads, Apple Watch, not iPads.

[A]

No, Verizon's expensive. There is. Yeah, Verizon's expensive. There is. There was like a 500 balance that was trading on that phone on this one. So we're, we are paying that off. But that is again at 0%.

[B]

You're gonna hate it because I mean Verizon is like the best nationwide, but when we just can't afford to live like Mint Mobile.

[A]

I don't even know what that is.

[B]

Ryan Reynolds, Mint Mobile.

[A]

I don't watch commercials, man.

[B]

Okay, well check it out, dude. I'll text you a link. You can be. It can be like 30 bucks a line.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

That.

[A]

Well, I mean I'll still have to pay off this phone before I get there, but.

[B]

Oh, oh. So wait, yeah, like I said, phone was zeroed out.

[A]

It added up to like there was a balance of, of $420 spread across 24 months. But it's 0% interest.

[B]

I know, but we can't switch to another carrier.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Well there goes saving 150.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Car insurance.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Gotta have, gotta have car insurance.

[B]

Gotta have car insurance. The YouTuber, the other one I was just talking about who didn't pay his taxes does not have car insurance.

[A]

Very bad. I didn't for the first 30 years of my life.

[B]

That's not good.

[A]

Yeah, that was not good.

[B]

Do you have. Oh yeah. 775 is your minimum monthly for insurance.

[A]

Health insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield keeps me alive. Unfortunately for them, they are losing a lot of money on this. I could tell you that they are spending way more than I'm giving them at this point.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like 15 years ago you may have not been able to get health insurance at this point.

[A]

I couldn't.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

If it wasn't for, for the Obama administration that made it possible for me to purchase insurance. As a self employed person, I would never had access to health insurance.

[B]

Okay. So how many people do you have to buy groceries for like every day type thing?

[A]

Me and her?

[B]

Just you two?

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

We do have somebody that again will. Will cook for free as long as they're eating. So we do take advantage of that. So generally means we're cooking for three most of the times.

[C]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

Well I would try to get it to the two with some cooking getting done. So what we did on our grocery store website or local grocery store heb. You can probably do this on Walmart. I assume we created like a meal prepping thing for each week. 2,500 calories a day per person plus snacks. We sorted the recipes for what we needed for each meal by.

[A]

I should point, I should have wanted the. When we eat at home, we eat cheap. We. We eat more sandwiches than we eat anything else.

[B]

Okay. Well, either way, sort the ingredients by cheap and then do like a pickup order for it, which can be free depending on the store. And that way you're not going through the aisles, you're not picking up everything. And we had, for a single person with snacks and desserts, 2,500 calories a day. Good eating, 250 bucks a month. That's comfortably.

[A]

That's incredible.

[B]

Comfortably. But most people aren't, you know, willing to get into the nitty gritty of it. You know, name brands and eating a unique meal every day.

[A]

But.

[B]

And I want everyone to be able to do that. I want everyone to be able to do this with you when we can afford it.

[A]

Everything in our house is great value 100% of the time because, number one, is a huge waste of money. The food doesn't taste different, the products aren't any better, and secondly, we're in Walmart country.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So if you're not buying the local brand, you know, in our area. But yeah, at least that. We're already doing that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

All I'm saying is I could get you guys 450 bucks a month in groceries for you too. You with aggressive meal prepping.

[C]

We could.

[A]

That sounds very reasonable.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Now I have something called the toilet paper fund. This is just whatever else is needed to survive at the household. So it's the toothpaste, the toothbrush, you know, whatever is needed.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

Could even be like some car maintenance. Everything's gonna ebb and flow on a monthly basis. I'm gonna put 150 bucks there.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Medical on a monthly basis. Medications. What is coming out on average?

[A]

About 1500 for health insurance and medications.

[B]

Oh, okay. Not health insurance. Now we're doing just medications. Well, I guess I could subtract the insurance. Seven hundred?

[A]

Yeah, in the neighborhood. Five to 700 depending on the month.

[B]

Okay, so 600 if we average.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, Let me figure out your debt, minimum payments, including mortgage. Actually, I'm going to do. Let's do mortgage separately, including property taxes and insurance, all that good stuff.

[A]

And did we get through utilities on this or not? I can't remember.

[B]

I did not see you.

[A]

Oh, they should have been at some of the screenshots.

[C]

Here it is.

[A]

I think water payment is in here.

[B]

So this is this water, gas, water, water.

[A]

Electric. Oh, sorry. No, that is water and trash removal. And that's it. That's what the city charges. It sucks.

[B]

Okay, so you have electricity on the side.

[A]

Electricity is a whole other bill, which you should have here as well.

[B]

So. So this is just. This is just trash and it's.

[A]

Our city is highway robbery. It's insane. That's trash and water.

[B]

Do they compensate it with low property taxes at least? We get hammered with aggressive.

[A]

Yeah, our property taxes are better.

[B]

Okay, how much. How much in electricity and gas then?

[A]

Depends on the month.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Give me your average.

[A]

They should be printed out for the last month here. I think I. I think I sent them to you. I think the last month in electricity was 250.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

A little more than that, but yep.

[A]

And then what was the other one you're asking about? Gas, I think. Comes out to in the winter, close to 150. In the summer, down to as little as 50. So let's call that 100 and then.

[C]

What'S the other one?

[A]

Water, gas, electric. We do pay for cable, which is a hundred dollars a month. I'm sorry, not cable, sorry. Internet, which I'm a YouTuber.

[C]

Yes, right.

[B]

Well, everyone. You need Internet to survive, to do jobs, to do anything.

[A]

99Amonth. We got a really good deal when it comes to Internet. That's for a gigabit. And this is the slowest they offer, so I can't even get it cheaper if I wanted to.

[B]

Let me get the debt minimum payments besides the mortgage, not including whatever the IRS might be because we don't know yet.

[C]

Yep. Yeah.

[B]

This extra $653 could clear you, not clear you up, but it would help a lot.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Eyeball park. And. And like I've said publicly, right around 7,000 for like minimum payments across everything. Is that about what, close to what you got?

[B]

I don't know just yet. I just want to. I want to make sure we're. We've got everything that you're required to have gas. How much do we think on a monthly basis?

[A]

Like I said, gas in the winter is because it's.

[B]

Sorry, car gas.

[A]

Oh, very little. I drive a hybrid, so 20, 40, maybe 80 hours a month if that.

[B]

Will be conservative and say.

[C]

80. Yeah.

[B]

Anything else that you are required to take care of on a minimum basis? There were subscriptions like Streamyard and stuff.

[A]

Oh yeah. It's like a $25 subscription to Streamyard.

[B]

Any other subscriptions that are mandatory? Mandatory? I'm not throwing Disney plus in there. I'm sorry.

[A]

I think I could.

[B]

I'm just trying to get your mandatory.

[A]

In Order to survive type Streamlabs might count, but that's $9 a month.

[B]

Okay, so 35 then.

[A]

Let's call it that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Anything else?

[A]

I think that's everything.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I did a really good job of canceling everything the last few months.

[B]

How many miles is on that car?

[A]

12,000, I think. Now I've had to take a lot of road trips.

[C]

Wow. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I bought it.

[B]

12,000 is nothing.

[A]

I bought it with less than a thousand miles on it.

[B]

That's incredible.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I might be wrong. It might be closer to 18 if I. If I'm ballparking, she could go check, but I think It's. It's under 20 for sure. Okay.

[B]

I'm happy about that, though it doesn't mean we have to worry about anything too major happening soon.

[A]

Now they say one of the reasons I bought this car is like all the YouTube reviewers said this specific year and that specific model, they said well over 150, 000 miles before you even start to see issues.

[C]

So.

[A]

And I knew it would take a lifetime for me to put that on it. Even with trips like this, you know, for business and stuff, I. I'll never put that much mileage on it.

[B]

5856 in order to survive. So a little under. But that's because I think we're throwing in a little less wants. You said in your budget you had like 900 for food or something.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like if we get rid of wants only just basic survival, which is what you should be on because again, we still bring in a thousand six hundred dollars less on a monthly basis than we need to survive.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Which.

[A]

And we're real close to that being zero.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So I do have one thing we haven't included here.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

And it is the other backup plan that I've had, which is so incredibly stupid.

[C]

Go.

[A]

I started playing a card game called Mad at the gathering back in 1994.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I happened to purchase a lot of cars at a time.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They are worth a lot. So I have cards that have been my backup plan for the entirety of my life.

[C]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

Since 1994. I'm like, you know, these cards continue to accrue value. The bottom will fall out eventually. Here we are 31 years later, and they've gone nowhere but a up. I generally get about 70% of the value of what a card's worth. And so, for example, I. I was gifted a card for nine years ago for my 40th birthday. They paid $80 for it. It's currently worth about $2,700. So I do have additional assets.

[B]

Can you give me conservative value of your entire collection? Conservative.

[A]

Extremely conservative. Would be if I bulk sold it tomorrow. Yeah, 50k. But my plan is to continue to do what I've been doing over the last year, which is sell it periodically.

[B]

Survive.

[A]

To survive.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Because with the exception of, you know, the COVID bubble hitting this market and I wouldn't have sold during COVID because I didn't need the money.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Other than the COVID bubble bursting, these cards have continued to maintain value. So I sell them as I, as I go. Now I'm learning today from you that I should absolutely go home, sell $10,000 worth and throw it at these high interest loans.

[B]

They're probably not appreciating 25%.

[A]

No, certainly not. Certainly not.

[B]

Because the crypto and this is, it's in crypto. So one, I would just have this in a high yield savings account anyway. But it's going to last five more months at the max if it stays this value. You never know what can happen with crypto. Five more months. So.

[A]

And I wasn't lying. It's gone up since I printed out to you.

[C]

Right? Yeah.

[A]

We made a couple bucks. I would tell that it's on the climb. Do not invest. Do not invest, invest.

[B]

But not in that, not in crypto.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So with the bad debt that we have, this is what I would do today. Today, tomorrow, because you get home tomorrow. But high interest, bad death debt, including I'm, I'm putting the IRS in there, man. Because it's about to get to be like death interest.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They'll knock on the door soon.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I, I would rather knock on their door before they knock on yours.

[C]

That's fair.

[B]

I would sell 16307.88.

[C]

How much?

[B]

16.307.88.

[A]

That's pretty doable.

[B]

That wipes out IRS, it wipes out credit card, it wipes out the bed, it wipes out the car and it wipes out the dog loan. Not the dog, but the car. You in your situation not having a car debt, a leverage under depreciating asset lowers your risk profile immensely.

[A]

Okay. Extremely squat question.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It was my understanding that I should maintain some loan to continue to build credit.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And so because again, I do think relocating, selling my existing home and buying a cheaper one is something that will still be in my future even with this.

[B]

So you'll still have your to keep.

[A]

A loan is the mortgage count.

[B]

Oh, Absolutely.

[A]

That the one they're looking for.

[B]

Well, they're looking for everything. They're looking for diversification, they're looking for age, they're looking for low balances, they're looking for on time payments. What I would do in your situation is obviously keep the mortgage because it's a low rate. It's great getting rid of the other loans. Even if your credit score takes a hit because the age goes down, doesn't matter anyway because right now your credit score in what exists within it of taking out debt is taking advantage of you. You're not taking advantage of it. So there's really no purpose right now of you like shooting for that good credit score. Because this is you. What I would do potentially, you're not a credit card person.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Like you can't manage it, you're not paying the payments.

[C]

But.

[B]

But if it is that important to you, the one thing I would might consider, if you can prove to yourself over the course of six months that you only put gas on your credit card and you pay off the entire balance every month, that's smart. I will concede that you're allowed to do that and that will at least that in the mortgage, man. You'll be in the 700s, credit score wise.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Should be chill. It should be chill. You might get a hit in a bit, for a bit because your overall credit age is going to go down because some accounts are going to close for paying them off.

[C]

Right.

[B]

But honestly, with your credit card getting paid off, think even with those, I wouldn't be surprised if it jumped to about 700 anyway.

[A]

Because one of the main. I debated even talking about this, and I don't know if it'll make the final cut or not. But one of the major reasons I want to make sure that I can take out a loan is because there's a very real chance of a medical emergency. And I, for the thing that I'm dealing with, you have to pay up front.

[C]

Yeah. Right.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

No, well, of course, obviously, I mean, death over life. Life comes first. So I, I get your fear around that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I think your credit score again will actually be in a better place. Because right now, what's holding it back, looking at your credit, is a high credit card balance. You know, you want to be under that 30% utilization. If we just have you swiping your credit card on gas, paying off the balance every month and can having the mortgage consistent, you're gonna have a, you're gonna have a good score.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

Like, are we talking Eight hundreds. No, but like you'll be in the sevens.

[C]

Right, Right.

[B]

So.

[A]

And I think when we're looking at this minimum structure.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I think my income, I mean come in the last 30 days has been enough to cover that.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And this leave alone. Right, right. This podcast is going to start paying out. I mean we just hit profitability in the third episode. That's incredible.

[C]

Right.

[A]

My cut is small. It's 25%.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But I own 25% of this thing and I foresee being able to reach these minimums throughout at least the rest of next year. I don't know if it'll get better than that. But I think, I think I'm in a position right now after the doc coming out and this podcast and everything else, I think I'm in a position where I reach these minimums. I won't have much wiggling room after that. And it'd be a really good idea to pay all of this down.

[B]

You need to. Tomorrow.

[A]

Yeah, right, exactly. As soon as I get home.

[B]

But you know, the minimums don't matter for then spending an additional 900 going out to eat and then, oh, whatever else. You know, the extra unnecessities are unnecessities right now. If we can't afford it, we currently can't. So what is required through again, a anonymous call center job, you know, something that pays minimum wage. Building that podcast or abandoning the Twitch and everything like that and fully focusing on re engaging YouTube, whatever it might be. Man, that brings you to at least.

[A]

I mean, that's been the plan over the last 30 days. You literally what I've been doing over the last 30 days since this documentary dropped and you can see it's paying off.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like my numbers continue to grow, my income is continuing to grow. I'm doing exactly that. You know, all of this ancillary stuff is ancillary. It's, it's. I have it all in a link dump. And other than live streaming once a week just for the fun of it, because I enjoy doing it. I don't live stream. I don't. I put my time where the cash cow is and that cash cow is YouTube's ad revenue. And my favorite part about that is I'm not making money off the back of my audience. They don't have to buy a T shirt, they don't have to engage with the sponsor. They don't have to buy a channel membership, they don't have to donate anything on Twitch. All they have to do is put the video on, click it Watch it. And I make money. And that's simple as that.

[B]

A lot of the criticisms that I personally saw, and you can refute them if you wish, this is just. There's too much information online.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

It's impossible. So. But a lot of I saw is again, like the pity party sympathy feast over the last few years.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And maybe that turns the people off and maybe it's to get people to give some money. I'm not sure. Are we done with that?

[A]

Yeah, I've been done with it for a while.

[C]

Good.

[B]

So we just.

[A]

I learned very quickly, my decision to talk about my finances last year, that that is not how I'm going to get out of this hole. I cannot, nor should I want my existing audience or my pre existing audience to want to dig me out of this hole. Now it's a whole other thing. If I create content that they want to pay for.

[C]

Right.

[A]

If I give valor you value. Value. Most YouTubers give value. That was the thing that I was missing from my video last year. I. I asked for something, but I offered nothing in exchange. That was the idiocy of it. And. And I'm at a point where I can't ask for anything up front for my audience. Nor should I. Nor do I want to.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I have to deliver a product.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They enjoy. And if they enjoy it, then they can catch me on the back end if they so choose to. And I don't blame a single person who chooses never to.

[C]

To do that. Right.

[A]

If you said Boogies burnt that bridge, I fully understand and respect that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I don't know, the thing I think I learned from the Internet more than anything, I was playing. Oh, I don't know. I heard it called I'm just a Small Being the other day. Do you know if you heard this right? Growing up, for me, it was. You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? I was being Jerry Smith from Rick and Morty, if you're familiar with that character. It's a character that was intentionally pathetic in the hopes that other people wouldn't harm them. What I've learned very quickly from that. No, very quickly, but I've learned harshly, is that when you make yourself out to be a victim, the people that like to victimize people will choose you to victimize.

[B]

I'm curious, do you find yourself throughout your life playing justification games?

[A]

Certainly.

[C]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So it just might be something worth escaping in the future is just instead of trying to justify, like every last, last thing, a reason for everything happening. Reason Why I did this. The reason why I made this choice is because of this whole winded thing of a character I'm trying to do and all this stuff.

[A]

Well, in theory, in therapy, we learn why we do things.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I know why I. During the Frank Castle situation, when a man was battering down my door calling me a. The N word and an F, A, G, G, O, T, and. And all the. Know why I opened that door?

[C]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

I did it because I wanted to stand up for myself. I did it because you shouldn't be on my property.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I did it because this is a transgression to me. Does the law care? No, it's not an excuse. I broke the law. I pay. But it's important to understand why I did these things.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It justifies different than.

[A]

No, it doesn't justify it at all.

[C]

Right. I.

[A]

This is why I did it. I need to have an understanding of why this so that I hopefully won't do something like that ever again.

[B]

Well, the only reason I ask if that's been a part of your life is because I don't want us to be justifying things in the future.

[A]

Oh, absolutely.

[B]

In terms. I really want you to get to a good place, man. The minimum you need to bring in in order to live your minimum needs with current debts. Get rid of the debts is different. Actually, we're paying off.

[A]

Let's talk about what happens if we get rid of the debts.

[B]

Yes, exactly.

[C]

We.

[B]

Except for the mortgage.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Then we need $5203 to survive on a monthly basis. That means you need to bring in 10,000. $10,407 on a monthly basis for like, recommended budgeting purposes.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Recommended. It's obviously going to be tighter than that until you can get there. If you can get there again, that's great because, I mean, that's $124,000 a year, 10,000amonth. Yes. It's because your needs. We want to shoot for. That being about 50%. That is difficult. That's usually more difficult in places like New York City or la, where rent's gonna.

[A]

Right. It's a little easier in Arkansas.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Maybe not northwest Arkansas, but still.

[B]

Yeah. I can't speak for that place specifically, but that's typically what we try to shoot for. 50% going to our needs, 30% to our wants, 20 for investing.

[C]

Sure. Okay.

[B]

Now, if I were in your shoes, is to shoot for that $10,400 as quick as I can, doing whatever it is, whether it's in content creation, whether it's a drive through work, whether it's anonymous call center. And I know, I know we already talked about having the name out there and just, you know, different things. But even if, again, we can try the more anonymous thing or applying for jobs like it's a full time job might be a consideration if the, if things don't play out, maybe we give it. This is going to last for another five months if no more income brings out. I say if we hit there and we've no longer gotten to the place where we can, you know, survive.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Obviously liquidating cars might be the option then. But we're at that point. I think we've proved this is not working.

[C]

Right.

[B]

At that point. I say we try to scrape together any and every job we can. And we're not above any and every job at that point.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I mean, I think a lot of people have this idea and I get that the documentary definitely painted this picture.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I think a lot of people don't understand what I'm willing to do to survive. But I hope that you know that I literally drove across the country with an injury.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

To be here to do this. Right.

[B]

Yeah, you did.

[A]

So I'm willing to eat as much as I need to to. To do this right.

[B]

Are you willing to stop eating $900 in McDonald's and Starbucks a month?

[A]

I'd love to. And it's something I actively have tried to do my whole life.

[B]

I get that. But at this point, it's like not a choice. It's really not.

[A]

I respect that. That most addicts would tell you that, you know, I, I don't. It's. I'm not making excuses, but it's the reality of the situation.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's like going to Eugenia Cooney and saying you need to put on 50 pounds.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

She does. Of course she does.

[B]

What about accountability?

[A]

The people surrounding you, I mean, they're doing their best.

[B]

Well, what is, what does that.

[A]

Look, nobody can hold your, your toes to the fire.

[B]

I know, but is there enablement at all?

[A]

No, the opposite. Quite the opposite.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I have people who were like, let me cook healthy meals, cheap meals here.

[C]

Okay?

[A]

But I know where McDonald's is, man. Yeah, right.

[B]

Well, I mean, this show comes, they deliver your house.

[A]

Right. Like if in a weak moment, I'm going to choose McDonald's in this show.

[B]

I can do finances. I'm obviously not an addiction person. All I can say on the finances, if we're not willing to change that, then as the title of the video suggests, you're gonna die in poverty.

[A]

I mean, like I said, if you.

[B]

Don'T stop, you, you have to stop. It's, it's, it's. You stop or you die in poverty. Because right now it's, it's insane. It adds an additional, what, 20 to your budget? 15 to your budget. We can't even survive in the needs. It's, it's just really no longer a choice. So you're choosing at this point even. Yes. Addictive tendencies. I get it. And that is not my thing to talk about. If you choose to do that after this conversation, you, you've chosen just giving up and.

[A]

Well, I mean, after this conversation, I'm going to continue to do what I've been doing for the last 30 to 45 days, which is work as much as I humanly possibly can.

[B]

How many hours a day do you.

[A]

Think that I'm putting in like a good 40 hour work week now?

[B]

Okay, well, I think that when we can't survive, I think that needs to be 60 to 80.

[A]

Yeah, that's fair.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, but that's, that's where I am. And like at, at the end of the day, again, no excuses. You know, people think I don't want to get a real job. I'm a disabled felon, man.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I got, I've been disabled since 2005.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I can't work hard. I physically, I can't do physical labor. That's not an option.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I said call it home against service.

[A]

So now they have to Google that I'm a felon who beats his wife. And because that's what happens when you Google my name. Go do it right now. Yeah, they have to hire that person.

[B]

Yeah, they're not going to. Those are the positions where those more, ah, what's the word? People with records do tend to find more opportunities.

[A]

Right, but are they also disabled?

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like, like I'm saying, well, this would.

[B]

Hopefully be work at home. I'm just giving one option, I'm sure.

[A]

But I'm just saying, like, if that job crosses my lap tomorrow, I'll take it. Have I actively looked for it? Absolutely. I just don't think it exists.

[C]

Shall we? Yeah. Okay.

[B]

Our good friend LinkedIn. You know, this is a wide variety. Well, this is giving, this is giving way too many, way too much variety. Let me, let's just do customer service because I did call center and it was doing like real estate agent was like the fifth one down.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Does that make sense? There you go. I would apply to these, these billion, trillion quadrillion jobs.

[A]

I have.

[C]

I have.

[A]

I'm telling you, I've done this exact thing in the last fight for all of them. No, I applied for over a dozen, and I kept getting told the same thing, which is, dude, you're unemployable.

[B]

Yeah. So Even for the people that are very employable, though.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Applying for a dozen jobs, you likely won't get a single job.

[A]

Okay. I had that headhunter.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Tell me off camera, man, there's nothing we're gonna be able to do for you. I don't think there's anything. But you need to focus on the YouTube thing.

[C]

Okay?

[A]

Like, I. Like, if a headhunter is telling me that these people aren't going to hire me, I trust her evaluation.

[B]

No, I get it. I get it. I just. I struggle with the conversation. If we decide it's impossible, then it's impossible regardless.

[A]

Well, I understand that, but when. If I. If you told me that I need to start flapping my wings and fly out of here.

[C]

Right.

[A]

We would agree that that's not a possibility.

[B]

She's probably right. That you can't get most desirable jobs.

[A]

Not desirable jobs. Anything.

[C]

Any.

[A]

Dude, I was. How desirable is it to cold call teachers about a union and get screamed at by them? Because that's the job I applied for.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And got told they wouldn't give it to me. How desirable is that job?

[B]

Not thrilling.

[C]

No.

[A]

And that's. That was the most desirable job I applied for.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And they wouldn't offer me that one. And I had a friend in management at that company.

[B]

You're not willing to try this?

[A]

Am I trying to. Am I trying. Am I willing to try doing something that is clearly not going to happen?

[C]

No.

[A]

Now, if I get the felony sealed, which is going to cost money, but at the end of my second year of probation, which I think is this.

[B]

Year, how much will it cost?

[C]

I don't know. Okay.

[A]

But if I get that sealed, this is a whole other conversation that.

[B]

That might be a very worthy investment pulling from the magic, the Gathering.

[A]

But until March, that's not a conversation we can even start.

[B]

Well, March is coming up pretty quick. So I worked.

[A]

What was it?

[B]

It's like, senior year, colleges in between a couple jobs. And my dad was like, why aren't you working? You need to go work this job. And it was like, this odd jobs all around, and it connected people who, like, needed work and needed work. And the people that I was, like, moving mattresses with into, like, newly built. Built college apartment complexes, they were all felons. And they were like people who just couldn't get work anywhere else. There was opera, there was still opportunity that they saw.

[A]

Manual labor is generally pretty lenient on that kind of.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But now, of course, I can't stand up. That was just an example, though. That's just an example, though. I'm just saying, if we refuse to search for it because we believe it doesn't exist, then it's not going to exist.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Well, when I'm getting told by professionals it doesn't exist.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I listen to the professionals.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That makes me. Why?

[B]

I don't know. I. I wasn't there for the conversation. I wasn't there for the conversation. It's hard for me to just. Just fully. I. I don't know. I wasn't there.

[A]

I wish we put it in the dock, if I'm being honest with you.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I mean, we did. It says right there, management would not give us approval. Because they wouldn't.

[B]

Yes. But, well, from there it made it look like. Because you said, well, yeah, Google me.

[C]

I'm.

[A]

And I'll tell you my financial plan. And it might be a stupid one.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

But because I've seen traction in the last 30 to 45 days, the more I work, the more income I bring in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The more that I. The more that I make YouTube videos, the more that I put effort into the editing, the more that I put effort into being an entertainer, the more money I'm making. And that seems to be more valuable than chasing after a dream that professionals are telling me doesn't exist.

[C]

Okay. Right.

[A]

This is viable professionals or just that.

[B]

One conversation you had?

[A]

I've talked to several hiring people.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I just have to trust her on that.

[A]

I've applied for several jobs in the last year.

[B]

Dozen, roughly.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

That's like a half hour work on LinkedIn.

[A]

Again, when you get shut down by several people doing hiring and you get told the same message, including by a headhunter. Hey, man, you're a felon who has all these terrible rumors about you. Who's going to hire you to be working your company? Also, you're disabled. Also, you have no education. Also, you have no work history.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I don't know. You're a CEO. You built a multimillion dollar company.

[A]

These companies don't see that.

[C]

No, no.

[A]

They're not looking for somebody that runs their own business. They're looking for somebody that can make them money.

[B]

I wasn't, I wasn't saying it just like that. All I'm saying is reframing and Resume building interview skills with everything you just said, that's against you. Except for the felony stuff. But you said the lack of education, lack of work history and stuff like that. Reframing to what you actually have accomplished.

[A]

Because you have a lion, man.

[B]

That's not lying. You have accomplished a lot. You had a multi. You have a multi million dollar.

[A]

I've never been a fan of going in and fudging my resume to make.

[B]

It look I don't have an education.

[A]

But it's because why I. I chose.

[B]

To learn abroad or something about your work skills. You've brought. You've actually built something successful companies don't.

[A]

See that as something. If you find me a job that pays as much as putting the same hours into my YouTube channel as that, I'll take that job and I'll do it.

[B]

Well, I mean you did you do 40 hours a week, right? Yeah, but we might need to do 60 to survive, which might require 20 somewhere else.

[A]

Well, it'd be smart to put that 20 hours into the, the, this business, the one I'm building, that I keep 100% instead of keeping 5% and kicking 20.

[C]

Will.

[B]

Will. Or that 20 hours a week, that extra 50 in labor is going to equate to an extra 50 in revenue? If yes, then do it. Absolutely.

[A]

I know it's.

[B]

The math would have to work.

[C]

Right? Right.

[A]

And I don't think most jobs are going to make that math work. Most $12 an hour jobs, which is minimum wage in Arkansas, I think now, I think it might be less, but it's supposed to hit 12 eventually.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Brings an extra $960 a week that at least meets us to our minimum. And minimum is better than draining our savings.

[C]

Y.

[A]

Well, like I said, I'd rather put that hours into my business.

[B]

Yes. No, no, I'm not against that. I'm just saying as long as the value. Actually if the math works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Have you worked with any services, by the way there? I can't speak for Arkansas. I can't speak for the city. There's local services, there's a wide variety of services who focus on the rehabilitation aspect of people's lives. Now, you did not go to prison, but you do have a felony.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

That helps to connect felons with workplace opportunities. There are services out there. Have you worked with any of them yet?

[A]

It's, it's never come across my table again.

[B]

It's not about coming across your table. What about you going across their Table.

[A]

My plan is to seal the felony and try to move forward from there. And that happens in, in three months, provided I can afford it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I, I, I, I don't know. That's.

[B]

So I've never heard of that before.

[A]

So I, I don't know if it even exists in my area, but it might. What would they offer? I don't think they'll offer any. Financial.

[B]

A lot of things I'm seeing are Texas resources. Again, I can only. I can't speak for that, but.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Well, as far as I know, I might not need that in three months. But if it turns out in three months that I won't be able to.

[B]

Get this, then you'd be willing to.

[C]

Yeah, of course. Right, sure. Okay. Yeah, of course.

[B]

Again, it's just, if math works, dude, if you can bring it in, in YouTube, if we can get back to 10,000 bucks a month again. Yeah, I'm all about it.

[A]

I think the biggest mistake I ever made was in 2020, after my nervous breakdown, I stopped working.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I, I should have had all of this money. I still couldn't. And I, not just 2020. When every other YouTuber went to work, I had to get into intensive therapy and said I had to reorganize my brain.

[C]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

And I'm glad I did it. Don't get me wrong. It was a good use of my time. I came out a different person. But I, Again, I think my biggest answer is I just need to go back to making as many videos as I can, considering my, my scheduling, my health, and, and really put my effort into my business.

[B]

So I, I do concede. I mean, if, if the professionals told you that. I mean, again, if that's what they.

[A]

Said, but I do believe they're all telling me it becomes a whole other ball game in March. You know, hire a lawyer, spend a couple thousand dollars, get this completely off my record, no longer shows up in a background check. Then all we have to do is deal with the other obstacles.

[B]

My favorite thing is, is always to punch back against certain mindsets and try to push people, push people to better themselves. So that's, this is what I try.

[A]

Like I said, I promise you, I'm not giving up hope.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, if it comes down to my YouTube channel is no longer making me money anymore, and I, I literally have to steal for a living, I'll do it.

[B]

Well, let's not do that.

[A]

No, but I would. I, I'm telling you, if I have to steal bread to feed my family, I would Be that guy.

[C]

Yeah, right.

[A]

I will do whatever it takes to survive right now. I will certainly getting a job like every other human has ever had or the jobs I've had. I work security, I've worked wash dishes at a Mexican restaurant, I've worked.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I have no problem with working. If job fits me and it's going to keep my bills paid, it's going to keep my health insurance so that I don't die. Obviously going to do it, man. Obviously.

[B]

I think one thing that would help, not pushing someone to get work. And I know there's probably background and a lot of different story. If your significant other is able to help split the cost of the place they're living, that will help with your thing. I do want to talk about before we wrap it up. Just, you know. Okay, say you make it 10 years like you said. I hope it's much longer, you know, I really do. Let's just go off that 10, that 15 year arc. What does that look like to you? We've done YouTube for 15 years, so we're halfway through that, through that arc. What does the next 15 look like?

[A]

I mean, here's what my life has looked like so far.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I was almost when I was 20, right. I was couch surfing. I was breaking into buildings up at the University of Arkansas. Statue of limitations has gone up on that, by the way. But I was sleeping in and buildings that they were building still.

[B]

I want to hear about your future, the exciting things, not your best. We're gonna get there.

[A]

We're gonna get there.

[C]

Okay? Okay.

[A]

But when I was homeless, I wouldn't have told you that three years later I would be running a small business, running web design.

[C]

Right, sure.

[A]

And then later, while I was running that business, I wouldn't have told you I'd be disabled soon after.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And when I was disabled, I wouldn't have told you I would be a YouTuber who made $1.3 million across a decade.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Plus more sponsorships probably. Yeah, Yeah. I think it was probably closer to like 2, right?

[A]

Probably as much as 2.5, I would say across everything, I've made close to $2.5 million in 10 years. Incredible. I cannot tell you what the future looks like, but I am always hopeful. One of my favorite movies, Cast Away.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Just gotta stay alive, man.

[C]

That's it.

[A]

Just gotta stay. Because you never know what the tide could bring in tomorrow.

[B]

I do agree with that, but what about plans?

[A]

Well, my plan currently right now is I've taken a day by day, every therapist Will tell you this, what you gotta do. My current plan is to continue to throw myself at my existing business because my existing business is still profitable and I'm looking for that next opportunity. I've looked at reselling on whatnot as a, as a possibility. I've looked at trying to find a small business loan and open something in the area. I've talked to a friend about doing a smash room employment. Like I said, come March there might be a job out there that suits me and that suits my needs and I'm still going to look for that. All I know is that right now when I get home from this, I go home and I film videos and I live stream and I do what I can to entertain the audience that I currently have. And when that audience is, is gone, I hope I find a new one.

[B]

You know, it's another option. I, I don't want this. This is, this is more. Last case. Yeah, we take it, we sell the house, have the hundreds of thousands in equity, about 250, 300. 250, $300,000 of equity. And then instead of paying 2,121 in rent, we get like a one bedroom, pay like 1100. Now obviously that sucks. That's hard. Obviously it has to be ground level, but it saves you a thousand a month.

[A]

I'll do even better.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The plan is to move that out of northwest Arkansas and get to a place where we can buy a house for $50,000.

[B]

But you said you had to stay there for medical providers.

[A]

Well, it, yeah, it, it involves giving up on that.

[B]

So you're just.

[A]

Oh right, it involves, on it involves like not necessarily worrying about being near the best possible health care.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It'll be a more rural farm, a more rural kind of thing.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But there's still help at rural hospitals.

[C]

Right.

[A]

They know what they're doing just doesn't need to be cutting edge.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And you can get a house out in the boonies for 50k in Arkansas. Sure, it might be closer to her family. You know, it sucked to be further away from my support structure there, but that is a possibility. The Hail Mary place has always been okay, sell the house, hopefully clear 230, 250 after closing fees and everything else and, and then take that money and live off of it at a very reasonable amount. You know, I, I think that if you get out into the small parts of Arkansas, you buy a fifty thousand dollar house, you have a little bit.

[B]

Of land, gives you $16,000 a year for the remaining 15. So that'd be you can live live.

[A]

Pretty okay in Arkansas for $16,000 a year. It ain't great, but I know people who do it.

[B]

I know it would be difficult. 388.

[A]

No more 900amonth fast food at that point.

[B]

At this point, yeah.

[A]

McDonald's becomes the treat at that point for sure.

[B]

But at this point, yeah, yeah.

[A]

But that's the Hail Mary play.

[B]

So I'm rooting for you not because you're a YouTuber, not because you're sitting across the table from me, not because of history or because you're on the show. Whatever. I'm rooting for you because you're a human being who exists on this planet. I'm rooting for you. I'm wishing you the best of luck. Man. I. I'll be honest. I am scared.

[C]

Me too. Yeah.

[B]

I really hope you follow some of the pointers we talked about today.

[A]

I'll tell you, the first thing I do is. The first thing I do is pay off these high interest debts.

[B]

I never take out another one.

[A]

Never. And I had no. And again, the thing I learned from you here today is how bad these were. I had no clue that they were as bad as they were.

[B]

That's what I do.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And yeah. IRS and then more self employment income or setting aside some money for taxes. I don't think your tax bill is going to be extraordinary, but no, it'll.

[A]

Probably be about another 2 or 3,000 this year. Should be reasonable. Should be reasonable.

[B]

Potentially selling the house. Oh, jeez.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Really? It's an income question. And what you're not just willing to do, but what you're able to do as well because of physical things and because of your background. And you're right. The Internet search, that's the killer. That's the killer. The felony you conceal. The Internet search, it's impossible.

[A]

Never goes away.

[B]

So just have to hopefully get hired by someone who doesn't know how to use the Internet.

[A]

Well, the goal is to. And again, the headhunters I've talked to, the employers that I've talked to. It comes down to finding someone who doesn't care. And we talked about that. When it comes to like people who hire felons and people hire whatever.

[C]

Right.

[A]

The we are second chance employers. Right.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And they look at the situation and you just got to find that one sympathetic person. That's why I've never given up on finding a job.

[C]

Right.

[A]

They keep telling me how impossible it is.

[B]

Why'd you only do 12 applications this year so far then?

[A]

Everybody told me, wait till the felony is sealed. Okay, Felony is sealed.

[B]

Gotcha.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Like imagine you apply for a place right now and the felony's on there, and now they're aware of you, and now you apply. Six months from now, they remember you're a felon.

[C]

Right?

[A]

Let's do it in six months when the felony's gone. And they never even have to know I was felon. Right. Now all we have to do is find somebody who can deal with my disability and can deal with the fact that they Google my name. They see a bunch of rumors and that's the killer. That's the killer. They're only rumors because they're not true.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And you just got to find the person that understands that. So I, I don't lose hope that that person exists.

[B]

Please don't lose hope. Yeah, please don't lose hope across this entire thing that's going to be what drives you forward. Let's just do one more guess. Just one more thing across all your investments, not the house, but all everything else you own.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

You can survive nine months. Nine months and the party's over.

[A]

And think about, think about this positively, because this is how I'm thinking about it.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I get nine months to try to find a work groove that gets this income up, that, that deals with my, my physical restrainments, that deals with, you know, my mental health issues, that I, that I can find the right groove to bring in this income before we have to sell the house. How many people walk in here that don't have a nine month grace period? I'm so blessed to have a nine month grace period to figure this one out.

[B]

Do you have any final thoughts? Any final anythings?

[A]

You know, I looked into what you were doing here and you're clearly a very entertaining person. But at the end of the day, I, I learned a lot here today.

[C]

Good.

[A]

And I, I think this, I definitely think you're doing a very good thing for people here. You know, you do it in a very entertaining way.

[B]

I'm just me.

[A]

And I mean, you know, maybe we butted heads a little bit during this thing and that's okay, but I think I, I think what you're doing here is much needed. I, I think the system is, is designed to take advantage of people and not to make myself to be a victim because I don't think it took advantage of me. I just made some bad choices.

[C]

Right.

[A]

But I think there's a lot of people out there who don't have access to this knowledge. They don't have access to this information. And what you're doing here really helps people like that. And I'm glad you do it, man. I'm really glad and I'm glad to be part of it.

[B]

I appreciate that.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

I appreciate that. And we've got an official, official knowledge now that Boogie did not buy a Tesla.

[A]

I never did.

[B]

Oh, for Mr. Boogie, if we can't afford to live and we're spending 900amonth eating out, it's zero. If we have IRS, that is the debt category is zero the emergency fund category, I'd love to give it higher because there's a decent amount of money, but it was all in crypto. Volatile, endless, stupid crypto. So 2 retirement. There's nothing. Zero. I'm not considering the crypto and real estate. I'd like to give it higher but but because he honestly just can't even afford the minimum payment right now, I have to give it a five and that's going to be a Hammer financial score 1.5 out of 10 make sure to check out all the resources linked in the description below, including the best budgeting program ever made. Thanks to all of our Patreon producers for making this episode possible. If you want to participate in an episode of Financial Audit and you're able to make it to Austin, Texas, please fill out an application in the survey linked in the description below. You can also send a link to your friends or family who you think might be good to be on the show. If you have any questions, you can email castingalebhammer.com.