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- [00:06]
A
If you had to spend one hour every day doing only things that scare you, what would that look like? For me, it would probably involve giving my 2 year old red Kool Aid and a topless sippy cup. Or going to Great Clips and telling them to surprise me. Joke's on you. They're gonna surprise you every time at Great Clips. That's why it's $14. Sports clips. You know what you're getting into. You never cared about your hair to begin with. Great Clips is in the middle. You're like, I would like two on the side and kind of like maybe a taper. They don't know what any of those words mean, okay? They're just doing their best to not slice you. If you don't get cut at Great Clips, you know what? You give them a big tip. It's a huge win for them. So why am I bringing this up? Well, I recently saw a TikTok trend called Scary Hour and I gotta say, I kinda love it. So let's see what it's all about from a tiktoker who explains it better than I could.
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Scary Hour is the only reason anyone in my life thinks that I am a functioning adult. The way it works is at some point in your day. I never do it at the same time. Every day you set a timer for one hour and in that hour you only do things that you've been avoiding because of anxiety. I'm about 30 minutes into my Scary Hour and I've mostly been responding to texts and DMs that I've been avoiding for no reason because I fear human contact. I guess I like to start with the less scary things and ramp my way up. The next thing I've been avoiding because of anxiety is listening to Anna Marie Tendler's recording of of a spoken word poetry track that I wrote that she agreed to record for my concept album. So I'm gonna make you do that with me.
- [01:46]
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Okay. I didn't know what was going on at the end there. Love this for you. Classic lore. Lore is it Laura? Okay. Either way, well done on the video. And I love the fact that that you avoided Scary Hour in the middle of Scary Hour by making a TikTok about Scary Hour. That is the most meta Gen Z thing you could do here and we applaud you for it. No notes, no crumbs. Yas Queen. Now, for a lot of folks, their Scary Hour involves tasks like making a phone call without rehearsing the entire conversation first. Terrifying. I know. But the reason I love this concept is that it can help you with your money too. You see, the whole idea of Scary Hour is to do the things you've been avoiding. The stuff that feels uncomfortable, awkward, or overwhelming. And when it comes to money, that list can get real long. So today we're going to talk about 11 things you can do during your own Scary Hour that will actually boost your financial life. Starting with number one. Check your credit report. But George, I thought you didn't care about credit score. Correct, Dilbert. But I do care about late payments, errors and identity theft. And all of that could be happening without your knowledge if you aren't regularly checking your credit report. If someone's out there buying pallets of Tickle Me Elmos in your name, you you should know about it. And if it's you, report yourself to the police. So here's what I do. Go to annualcreditreport.com and pull your credit reports from all three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. And never pay for this. It should be free when you go to annualcreditreport.com notsponsored. I don't even know if they do sponsorships, but I'm not looking for one, so don't even at me. And if you find something shady on there or erroneous, make sure you dispute it right away. Checking your credit report doesn't affect your score, so there's literally no reason to avoid it. The second thing you should do during your Scary Hour is audit your subscriptions. An easy way to do this, grab your iPhone, go to Settings, click your name, click Subscriptions, and make sure that Ghost Detector Free trial you signed up for in 2021 isn't still charging you $12.99 a month. All to detect no ghosts. What a waste. For real, though, take 10 minutes to look at every recurring charge on your bank statement and cancel everything you haven't used in 30 days. Maybe for you, that's DoorDash plus, or whatever you're going, oh my gosh, I gotta save money. I shouldn't be doordashing. Just cut the subscription altogether and the odds are good that you're gonna find something, since 42% of people have stopped using a subscription service but forgot they were still paying for it. Another thing you can do during Scary Hour is calculate your debt. You see, it's practically impossible to win with money if you don't even know where you stand. And while talking to a ton of strangers about their debt on the streets of Nashville or other Metropoli I have discovered that a lot of people don't even know how much debt they have. And that's a real problem because you can't have a clear picture of your financial health without taking inventory of your debt. So take a seat and make a list of everything you owe from credit cards, student loans, car loans, personal loan, or that payment plan for your tasteful above ground pool. I'm being told we have a clip of a tasteful above ground pool. Let's see what this is. Is he okay? I think he's violating that above ground pool. Thank you for this. All right, can't unsee it, but you can watch it again. I jest. I do that on my own time. All right, I'm not gonna waste your time with that. Look it up. It's a free country. Now, here's the deal. When you look up your debts, it may wind up revealing a giant mess. But here's the thing. The mess won't get any better by keeping your head in the clouds. And P.S. if you pull that credit report I talked about earlier, it'll show you a very clear picture of exactly how much you owe and and where. All right, next thing you can do during your scary hour is knock out your lowest debt. Now, over the years, I've discovered that lots of people actually have enough cash sitting in the bank to completely pay off their smallest debt balance. And if that's you, respectfully, my mia, what are we doing? Get rid of that thing asap. That wasn't a VO from Mario. That was all in here. Wario. I do a great Wario. If we're gonna play Mario Kart, I will be Wario. After doing this for years, I found that debt is the biggest obstacle standing between you and financial peace. And ditching even one small balance can give you some momentum and some hope. You're gonna see progress faster, and that's what builds long term results. My favorite method to pay off debt is the debt snowball method. And there's a great free calculator you can use that will show you your exact payoff date to give you some hope with this. So if you wanna check out that calculator, I will drop a link in the description below. All right, the fifth thing you can do during your scary hour is roll over that old 401k. Millions of people leave their jobs every month, whether they quit on their own or they just got caught with a doobie in the men's room. And a ton of them leave retirement cash just sitting around, collecting dust, getting knocked with fees and growing even slower than a vegan steakhouse in Branson. And good. You know what I say to that? Good enough with this plant based chicken. That's literally. That's not a thing, okay? If there's an apostrophe in the meat, I don't want the meat, all right? This is the opposite of an Arby's. Just say we don't have the meats. We have plant based seitan, tofu, cauliflower steaks, and that can go straight to the seventh circle of hell where it came from. Dante. If that really is your name, you would run a vegan steakhouse in Branson. Dante. It's just dant. That's what that name is. You can't just add an E and call it a real name. Gardeen. E I N. How pretentious are you? Gardein. With your ultimate plant based chicken tenders. But it's got protein. I'd rather. I'd rather have protein injected in my body than have to eat that disgusting excuse for a food. But, George, you have to try it. The impossible burger. It's just so good. Have you tried real meat from, like a cow that the Lord gave us? And he was like, this is gonna be delicious. And then he's looking down and we're like, yeah, but we made a different version. With pea protein. No. Straight to jail. Give me that. All American milk cows are dying out here. And you guys are like, no, it's not good enough. I want to make it in a lab. I digress. But if you do have an old 401k, it is time for a rescue mission. And that means rolling that old 401k into your new employer's 401k or a direct rollover to an IRA. What I love about the IRA is that you can choose from thousands of mutual funds or index funds, and instead of the five random ones your HR guy picked. But whatever option you choose, just make sure you do a direct rollover. That's the key word here. That way the money goes straight from your old plan into that new account and you want to keep it in kind. Which means if it was a traditional account, do a direct rollover to another traditional account and vice versa. For Roth, Nuff said. Nuff. Nerdin out. All right, number six on our list of things to do during scary hour is make a will. Listen, this one is not fun to think about, but neither is sitting in the great beyond watching your relatives fight over your vintage Tamagotchi collection. And Graham Stephan, I'm Talking to you, bud. I know it's from 1997. And you're gonna pass it on to whatever chitlings you create. They don't want it, give them money instead. And a will isn't just for rich people, okay? It's for anyone who wants to make sure their loved ones are cared for after they're gone. And. And here's the thing. Without having a will, you kind of already have a will. You're just deciding. The government's gonna figure it out for me. The state will make all the decisions for you. And not only is that process expensive and slow, but do you really want to delegate such a big decision to the government? The same people who still refuse to ban daylight savings time? No, thank you.
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We're trying.
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So, bottom line, Anyone older than 18 needs to make a will. And these days, it really only takes about 20 minutes online. And if you need help with that, I've got a link in the description for you where you can create a state spec on a nice budget. All right, number seven on things to do during scary hour, Track your spending. Now, this is gonna show you exactly where your money's going so you can make smarter choices. Because you might think you're spending 100 bucks a week on groceries, but then you actually look and it might be more like 200 or even 300. And the same goes for other major categories like gas, entertainment, shopping, and eating out. Yeah, those trips to Circle K for that all you can eat sushi special adds up quickly. And the colon remembers. It never forgets. Now, seeing the numbers will clue you in to where your money's going. And that's the first step to getting control of your money. So spending an hour looking at your most recent bank statement will open your eyes and help you find hundreds of dollars you didn't know you were wasting. And personally, I track my spending on the EveryDollar budgeting app. It makes it super easy to do this. All you got to do is download the EveryDollar app, make your account go through the onboarding process, and it will show you personalized recommendations and how much margin you could actually create just by following through on some of these commitments. So go check it out for free. Start today. I'll drop a link in the description below. All right, next thing to do during scary hour, move your savings to a high yield savings account. If your emergency fund is sitting in a bank earning.01%, that is not a savings account. It's a hostage situation. So instead, move your savings to a high yield savings account with a competitive APY and it probably won't take you much longer than 10 minutes to open one. And you could start making hundreds more each year in interest just by doing this. So where's the best place to open a High Yield savings account? I get that question a lot, and I recommend Fairwinds Credit Union, one of the sponsors of today's video. And it's perfect that we're talking about them in a video about money related tasks that can give you anxiety because for a lot of folks, dealing with their bank ranks high on that list. But with Fairwinds, you don't have to worry about that. Their customer service team is top notch and they actually want you to win with money. Plus, their new smart bundle is hard to beat. It comes complete with a checking account and a high Yield savings account with competitive apy. And while you're at it, you can. You can get the new Ramsey debit card that says debt is normal. Be weird. Pretty cool, huh? Sign up today@fairwinds.org Ramsey or use the link in the description below. And before we get back to our scary Hour to Do list, you know what's really scary? Realizing that your personal data is just out there floating around on websites that can then sell them to scammers and spammers. And luckily, there's a great solution to this conundrum, and that's by signing up for Deleteme, another sponsor of today's video. Deleteme combs through hundreds of data broker sites to wipe your info clean and make sure it doesn't wind up in the wrong hands. And they even take custom requests in case you happen to catch something shady on your own. And every few months, Delete Me will send you a personalized report on exactly what they've done and how much time they've saved you. And right now you can get 20% off their annual plans by going to JoinDeleteMe.com George or just use the link in the description below. All right, back to our to do list here. Up next, number nine. Review your insurance coverage. Look, I get it. Insurance is about exciting as watching Mitch McConnell watching paint dry. Now on C Span. But here's the deal. When something goes wrong, like an unexpected medical bill or a car accident, insurance is the only thing standing between you and a financial dumpster fire. So take 30 minutes to look at all of your policies. Health, auto, life, homeowners, renters, all of it. And make sure your coverage actually fits your life right now. You got married, had a baby, bought a house, congrats that means your insurance needs an update. And even if you haven't gone through a major life event, you gotta look at your deductibles and coverage limits to make sure everything looks right. Not too much, not too little. It could save you thousands in the long run. And the easiest way to check up on all this is by using our Coverage Checkup tool. It's free, it'll take you five minutes to fill it out, and it'll give you a very clear picture on where the gaps are. So I'll drop a link in the description below if you want to take that coverage checkup today. All right, number 10 on the scary Hour list. Get routine car maintenance. No one likes sitting around and waiting for an oil change. It's expensive, it's inconvenient, and talking to the people at the dealership is only slightly less insufferable than watching Mitch McConnell watching paint dry. But car trouble has torpedoed more budgets than Target and Amazon prime combined. And the best way to prevent that from happening to you is by staying on of your regular maintenance. So quit putting it off. Change the oil, rotate the tires, replace the air filter that you've been ignoring since the Obama administration. Thanks Obama. I was distracted by his charm. Forgot to change my filter. Obama preventative care keeps your car alive longer and can save you from expensive repairs later, so make sure you budget for it monthly so you're not surprised when it's time. I do this by creating a little sinking fund line item in my everydollar budget called Car maintenance and repairs and put 50 bucks in there every month or whatever it is for you so that you have 600 bucks by the end of the year to cover this stuff. Okay, last but not least on our list of things to do during Scary Hour that can help you financially is declutter your home. The more stuff you own, the more space it takes, the more money it costs, and the more it stresses you out subconsciously or consciously. So do yourself a big favor. Grab a trash bag, crank up the chumbawamba, and start tossing. I get knocked down. I get knocked down again. You're never gonna knock me down. Sell what's worth selling, donate what's still good, return stuff you never used, and then ditch the rest. Okay? Make piles to make it easy on yourself. You're gonna free up space and make a little extra cash in the process. You see, clutter tricks you into thinking you need more stuff, so clearing it actually helps you spend less. Cause you like the way it feels when there's not a bunch of crap everywhere. Plus it just feels good to walk into a room that doesn't look like a T.J. maxx exploded it. Or worse, a Ross Dress for less. Ross sucks. Better soundtrack at the Ross because they still got the 80s playlist going. But a TJ Maxx is well appointed. Okay, not clothes everywhere on the floor. Trinkets, yoga mats. Get out of here. So how do you decide what to throw out? Well, there's a new trend sweeping the nation that folks are using to make the call and I recently broke it down in this video which you can watch by clicking here or by using the link in the description. That's it for today. Be sure to hit like on this video. Subscribe to the channel and share this video with a friend in Kentucky who voted for Mitch McConnell. You know who they are, you know. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.