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A
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you make more money. Today on the show, my producer Eric is in studio and in pain.
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B
In pain. Because I'm putting this corner. It hurts.
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A
I don't know how many times I told you, you can select any other channel.
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B
Yeah, let me just walk to your. Get a chair.
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A
Okay.
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B
Anyway, well, I'm in pain and I would say a lot of Americans are in pain every day due to the crippling economy. And that's what brings us to today's topic. Yeah, I mean, so this, there's a, there's an. I'm in pain. Breathe. There's a channel called A Homestead Journey. They've stitched one of your videos before.
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A
Did they?
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B
And I was trying to find that clip to react to, but I can't.
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A
Okay.
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B
So I found another clip where they, they stitched a bunch of videos talking about how crazy it is and expensive it is to live in America. They stitched a clip of you, yours truly. It's in that. This montage. And then I'm going to go ahead and skip to what they had to say and I want you to just kind of bounce off of.
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C
Okay.
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B
Off of their thoughts. So here's the clip they responded to
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A
for the motor to move this whole thing.
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B
Cheapest way to live in America. I don't want to live there. Yeah, I'm gonna skip that.
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A
I'm out. Pay attention. 100k is becoming lower middle class, especially where, especially where you live. Especially if you live somewhere that's not cheap to live. We grew up thinking like, you crack six figures, you're good. You know what I mean? Like, you're golden. Like, six figures is like cool. You can live in comfort. You can experience upper middle class with six figures. Now it's like six figures is like especially bottom. Like there are two groups of people
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B
cut you off there. But here's her, here's her little thing at the end talking. I want to get your thoughts. Feel free to pause anywhere you want and chit chat.
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C
Any of this normal. This is a reality in so many areas here in this country. All the cities are pretty much unaffordable at this point. People are needing to move out of the cities to try and Find refuge from all of the high prices. And even there, it's still very expensive. Back in the day, you know, you could save up, you could buy a piece of land. You can buy a affordable home. Nowadays, any. Pretty much any home.
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B
I saw a video the other day and it was a. It was like a home. It was, you know, people post like retro clips of like home renovation shows. Yeah, but it was like, it was like 2011 or 2010, and it was like a three bedroom house. Like, our budget is $150,000 and it was a house in Vegas and the house was, I want to say $78,000 or something. I watched that clip and I was
- [03:02]
A
like, yeah, to be fair, Vegas was one of the, like, most hardest, one of the wildest drops of real estate prices in the whole. Like, it was in Vegas, if you
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B
didn't lose your house to recession, you lost it to gambling. It was like one of the two. One of the two, but affordable anymore.
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C
It's really, really rare. And then with the interest rates that are going on for loans, people can also not even save enough money for decent down payment for these homes. It's just horrible with the job situation. A lot of people are losing work now. So many companies are doing layoffs. This is happening across the board. So many industries, a lot of white collar jobs are disappearing. They're being replaced by technology. This is another crisis. And AI is just advancing. AI is just getting started.
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B
I feel inspired.
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A
Yeah. So far it makes sense. This is a homesteading. Homesteading channel. Because it's definitely creating a lot of fear around that. She's not wrong completely.
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C
But find all of these things. And that is why people are starting to really just feel like they want to give up. They don't know what they can do. They. People are saying they can't even foresee being able to own a home. Can you imagine that if you own a home right now? Can you imagine thinking that you may never be able to own a home? So it begs the question, what do people do? Do we continue to stay in a country that the currency is being debased, that society is just basically tanking? What do you do? Or do you start to seek out alternatives?
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B
So what do you do, Travis? First, before we keep playing, what do you do?
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A
You probably just give up.
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B
Yeah, we're tracking here.
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A
I'm with her. Honestly, just give up. You know, homestead somewhere, find a piece of land, put up a tent.
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B
Yep.
- [05:02]
A
Dig a latrine. I think it's, you know, have a couple solar panels now. I I mean, the whole purpose of the show obviously is to talk about increasing your income because this is exactly what we're seeing. And it's, to me, it's like, it's a factor of whether or not you want to live a and comfortable life, not just survive. And this is why everything starts in the mind to me, because it's fairly simple. I think for just about anybody listening to this or watching this, it's fairly simple to imagine yourself making 10 to 20% more than you're currently making. You know, you're making 75 grand a year. You're like, man, if I could just, if I could just make 90 grand or like 100, 100, 105, you know, like, I'll, I'll be good. And it's, and it's somewhat simple to be like, okay, I, I, I could, I could piece this together. Maybe if I get this raise there and I do this thing on the weekends, I could maybe make an extra thousand, two thousand bucks a month. I can get, I can get up to that, that a hundred K. But when posed with the idea of taking your income from 75 grand to 250 grand, it's like, I might as well be speaking a different language to you. Like the, the, the, the jump is so wildly beyond what you believe to be possible that you immediately move into this sort of the, the victim mentality of just embracing the fact or embracing the idea and treating it as a fact that you are at a disadvantage, that this country is no longer set up for you to be able to own a home and that you'll never own a house. And you start feeding yourself these types of things and your, your future is corrupted once you buy into the lie that you cannot create the future that you want. Because if you don't believe that it's possible, then you're never going to take a step toward making that thing happen. Regardless of how possible or impossible it realistically is, you'll never figure it out because you believe that it is impossible. So you're never going to take a step toward figuring it out. So that's what I think is, is the problem, I think for most people is that they've never, and I understand, I understand why, because it feels impossible. Like if you come from a lower income household, you grew up sort of, you know, if not in poverty, poverty adjacent where you're, you're like, hey, we got shoes on our feet, but they're old, you know what I mean? Like they're pretty worn out and we can't really afford to go do this or that. And you know, my friends can, you know, my friends parents got a new car, but we're still driving this old junker that we're surprised makes it to school every day. You know, if you grew up like that, it's really difficult. And you didn't, you know, go to college, you didn't get around to the people who have this other alternate path that's forming for them. It's really difficult to shake yourself out of that mindset and go from thinking like, I can stop making $36,000 a year and make $236,000 a year. I understand why you're allowing yourself to think like that, but I also, but I also know that as long as you allow yourself to continue thinking like that, you will not accidentally break free of that mindset. So you, that's why we talk about here on the show all the time, is like, you're going to get paid for the value that you bring to the marketplace or to the organization that you work for. So how can you start thinking about skills that are more valuable than the ones that you currently have? And I, and again, I understand this is a major bummer for somebody who's 36 and has already spent 16 years of their career working and they have their college degree in the field that they're working in and they've checked all the boxes, they've done all the things, and they thought that this was going to be it and then they just got laid off because this crazy new technology of AI came in and replaced the need for them and thousands of their co workers to exist inside of this organization. I understand that's a crappy hand when you feel like you've done all the right things. But like we talked about in a previous episode, just because it's not your fault does not mean it's not your responsibility. So the alternative here is to give up, which is a bad alternative. You know, that's not, that's. It's. It's a, it's a non starter. So the only option that you have is to figure out some sort of path forward that allows you to make more money, which is usually going to be related to either the volume of work that you're willing to put in in or the skills that you do or do not have. So up upskilling is probably the, the number one thing you can do to directly affect the paycheck that you're bringing in. And maybe even before that, it's the mindset shift. And Like I said, I understand I'm speaking from an idealistic standpoint, from somebody. This episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. Look guys, the new year is here. 2026 is upon us. Get back into an at home routine that you love and elevate your space with Wayfair. From bedding and mattresses to storage solutions for every room in the house, Wayfair is your one stop shop. Refresh your living room with accent pillows, mirrors, fake plants, you know, paintings, whatever, whatever you want really. Wayfair has literally anything that you could possibly imagine when it comes to decor for your home. So you need to refresh on bedding or towels or maybe you want to redo the kids rooms. Kitchen essentials, home decor, storage, you know, outdoor furniture, kitchen essentials, everything that you could want, Wayfair has it. And it's super easy and convenient to get these things shipped to your house no matter how big they are. We got a dining room table, recently shipped it right to the house, really, really easy to make the entire process super smooth. And in fact, the thing that we got most recently from Wayfair was a organization. Little closet right when you walk in the house for shoes. Because I don't know about you other parents listening to this right now, but one of, one of the things that drives me most crazy is just shoes spread across the whole floor. Just little, just little tripping minds, things that you can step on and fall on top of. And so we got this shoe organizer. So we have one place that all the shoes go. And now when the kids walk in the house, they know exactly where to put their shoes. So we got that from Wayfair recently. They even have a treadmill that goes under your desk instead. Stuff, which is probably going to be my next purchase. So get organized, refreshed and back on track this new year. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F A I R.com Wayfair Every style, every home. Who's on the other side of saying something crazy and then achieving at least a version of that. Where now I get to be a full time podcaster and like talk about stuff for a living that I'm still like pinch myself, you know, very grateful that this is the life that I get to live. However, I also put in 1500 podcast episodes before I was able to make that happen. And it took me almost a decade of work on this new path that I had no idea how to make happen. When I started doing it, it cost me a lot more money and a lot more time than I ever thought it was going to cost me. But I also know that it was 100% worth it and that my skill sets have increased in the meantime. So the better you get at making this going to sound so ridiculously simple and somebody's going to be pissed off watching this because I'm going to make it sound too simple. But the better you and making money, the easier it is to make money. Meaning like whenever I've reached a new threshold of making money, the previous threshold seems really easily attainable. So like now, like before, it took me a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of energy to make to crack six figures. Now it's like six figures. I could do that pretty easily, like 10, 15 hours a week of work. I can make six figures pretty easily anymore. So now the question is like, okay, well what about seven figures? You know, what about. So, so if when you continuously like push up the ceiling a little bit, it just makes it easier to hit these other income targets in the meantime. But the only way to get there is by continuously leveling up the value that you can create for society, for culture, for the marketplace at large. Which is why I think for people like this, especially if you're in a context where it's not an option for you to go back to school or, you know, you, you were raised in a blue collar household and you're a blue collar worker yourself and you don't see a path to being able to make a lot of money. That's why I still think entrepreneurship is the, is the great equalizer. Because it, it's not a zero sum game. Because it's not like you have to make, you have to become a billionaire or you're bankrupt. It's not billionaire bankruptcy, it's, it's billionaires potential option. But also making a quarter million a year is an option. Also making 80k a year instead of 30 is an option. But this 80k means you have autonomy and agency and freedom to be able to live in a place that you can afford really easily and still be able to do the thing. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I still, I still think like entrepreneurship is the path to a lot of this because you don't have to strike it big, you just have to figure out a path that
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B
works right here, let me keep see what else she has to say here.
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C
Within the United States there are alternatives, right? Depending on where you live. There are so many different states. There are so many different areas of each state. So you can think just basically internally about moving somewhere else here that's more affordable. But is that the real solution? Is that the final solution? Or could it be that eventually you will struggle wherever you are as well? That's a very serious question to ask. And people are getting up and basically voting with their feet now. A lot of people are leaving the US A lot of people and people that are not leaving the US yet, they are already searching and questioning what other places in the world could they go and live more affordably.
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B
I'll be honest, I think about that
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A
sometimes living in a different part of the world.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Where would you go, though?
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I mean, I love the food in Costa Rica. No, I mean, but, but you really do sometimes you, like, you, you look at some of these things, you go,
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A
Bali's looking pretty good, right?
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B
Yeah. You know, like, honestly, like, if I didn't have kids, I probably would have, like, been like, there's some options like that.
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A
I agree with you.
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B
Yeah. But then you're like, maybe not, you know, maybe that's not the best route right now. But it certainly is something that's not the question where it's like, you know, I could see in like a decade being like, yeah, we are in Costa Rica. Yeah. You know, or we are in wherever, you know, whatever that looks like. Like, even, even some places in Europe where you're like, it's that cheap. Right. You know, and like, yeah, like, maybe taxes are more in certain places, but also you're also living in like a part of Greece. That's amazing. You know, I don't know.
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A
Some like, coastal island retreat.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I don't know, it doesn't sound too terrible to me.
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Right.
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And feel like they can regain some of their life back. A life where you don't just live to go to work and then come home, prepare for work the next day. Day. Never mind spending time with your family. And that's if you have a family.
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B
She got that rumble link, you know, that her content gets wild on rumble. You know, whenever someone's got a rumble link, I'm like, there's some dark. There's some dark content you're putting out
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C
and repeat the cycle and then get stressed out, live unhappily. Why do we have to live like that? So it's not about not working hard. It's not about a lazy generation. It's about doing the same things, the same type of hustle that all these past generations have been doing and not being able to get ahead, not being able to see the fruit of your labor, not being able to make advances in your life to perpetuate hope to keep you wanting to go on. So it's really, really hard. And while people are struggling, time is going by, things are getting worse. The country is getting more and more in debt. At what point is it too late? Is it already.
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B
No,
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A
no.
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B
But I know I wanted to play some because, like, this is very similar to the last time that she reacted to one of your content, which I think a lot of her content is designed to get people to feel like that hopelessness, to like, consider the alternative of, I'm assuming, homesteading. But I also like when I see this stuff because I see channels that react stuff like this. You're like, there. It's all things she said where people go like, lazy or entitled. And it's like, I think the crash out over, like the state of the world is valid. Like, I think about all the time with like, raising kids is. I'm like, what the hell are they going to do?
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A
Right?
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B
You know what I mean? Like, I think that's all valid. But I also sit there and I watch content like this. I go, like, what do I do? Yeah, you know, like, because it is. It feels good to just be like, everything's. Everything sucks and it's this way. But then at a certain point, it's like you said, it's like you can give up. Which feels very valid, you know, at times. Like, the world is just going to run me over.
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C
Right.
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B
Or it's like, what do I do in this situation to. To not have to deal with this? Like, what are the things I can do? You know?
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A
And that's not something that's new to our generation like that, like this scale in terms of this, this particular problem is newer in terms of the history of the country. Like, we've never had a situation where young people are worse off than their parents generation were in terms of like, economic ability. So that's. I'm not saying this problem in particular has happened, but it's like every iteration of society has that type of a problem. And I just want to say I am grateful that ours is not dealing with like World War II, trench warfare and the Great Depression.
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B
Not yet. Yeah, we got three more years of Trump presidency, Travis. We could go, who knows? More years. Yeah, it sure is.
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My head's in. My head's in the sand, bro. You know what I mean?
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B
Yeah, we got to talk about that. I got It. Oh, man.
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A
What. What I'm saying, though, is that, like, it's a problem, but that doesn't mean that we give up and just not try to tackle the problem, if that makes, you know, I'm saying, like, the. The. The idea that what we're suffering from is worse than what previous generations have suffered from is ridiculous. Like, we still. We still have so much more than any other person who's lived in the world throughout all of the civilization. Like, the history of civilization for a
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B
sliver of the 80s where you could work part time at Blockbuster and have a house and an Oldsmobile and three kids.
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A
Right. But then you still have the challenges that were. That that generation faced aids.
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B
Like, yes, Travis, that's what that was. The same time frame.
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A
My point is to say that, like, struggle is never avoidable and discomfort's never avoidable and problems are never avoidable. It just means that we have to now come up with new solutions to the problem. And that's why I think most people are off of the laziness piece of it, because it's clear to see that there's not a direct correlation between, you know, people who have engaged, people who have taken life seriously, who've gone the traditional path, gotten the degrees and the. In the. And the school loans, and they're in their mid to late 30s now. Like, the. The millennial generation was grown up being like, the. The finger being pointed at us being like, you're lazy, you're lazy. And now it's like, okay, but some
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B
of us are working hard and nothing's happening.
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A
Exactly. It's clear that that's not the only factor here. So let's talk about some of the other factors.
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B
Well, it's clear. It's clear that it's clear that we're not in a sheer, like, 100% meritocracy, where it's like, if you work hard and you're really good at what you do, you're going to crush it. But I also think, like, the hope piece to me is always, like, if you can. And it sucks that it has to be this. But it's like, if you can be more innovative than the next person, like, there is ways to figure this out. Yeah, like, but it does suck that you have to be creative with the way that you're working.
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A
Well, but, you know, I'm curious. Yeah, exactly.
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B
That.
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A
That you should be able to go
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B
in and work a job.
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A
Yes.
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B
And live.
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A
You should be able to do that.
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B
But if you can't, then you. How can you be More creative and how can you. And that's why I like Gary Vee. It's like, go to Facebook, Marketplace and flip this thing.
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A
Well, he also has a, he also has a great, a couple videos I've seen where he talks about like what you, what you expect out of life and what that used to look like. And I think we talked about this the other day where it was like, it seems like brand names and nice stuff is just ubiquitous anymore. Like, everybody just has nice stuff. Even the people who are like quote unquote poor, their kids are still walking around with like a new pair of Jordans, you know what I'm saying? Like, we've sort of like gotten into this, you know, a couple decades ago it was like, well, if you were poor, you just, you wore Walmart T shirts and starter apparel and that's what you got to wear. Now it just seems like we're all deserving of the nicest, newest stuff. So like, so there's some factor of this that's not necessarily to do anything with laziness, but more to do with like the discipline and self control of managing your finances correctly, at least to some degree. And I'm not saying that that is a hundred percent. The, the like, if, okay, Dave.
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B
Yeah, okay, Dave Ramsey over here.
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A
But if you're, you know, if you're making minimum wage, then it doesn't matter how much, how many pennies you pinch.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You're not going to be able to rent a apartment.
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B
Which is why that's what we're talking about the other day. Which is why there's, that's also an indicator of how bad economically things are, is like the amount of people that feel like it's not gonna matter. So I might as well get the gaming setup that I want because I'll never own a home.
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A
Right.
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B
You know what I mean? Like, and that to me, it's hard to argue with if you're just relying on the system. And like the, if you're just relying on like, oh, I'm gonna go work my 40 hours a week.
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A
If you bought into the system. Yeah, which, and now the system is not working for you. Yeah, I understand where the disillusionment comes from and the desire to just say, like, look, this is the one sliver of happiness in my life because I work a job that doesn't allow me to buy a house or do any of the things that my parents were able to do. So I am going to go splurge on this new tv.
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B
I'm going to get the bigger plate at Panda Express and get three entrees instead of one.
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A
I am going to add guacamole to my chipotle.
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B
Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, brother. But. So that's the takeaway. But the.
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A
But the takeaway is how long do you do that is my question. Like, at what point do you go, okay, but do I do this for the rest of my life? Am I okay with that version of life? By the way, if you're okay with that version of life, go for it. I'm not here again, I'm not here to convince you all to become a billionaire. I'm just like, if you know that you'd have just as much happiness and you, and if you, if you could just link up with your homies and play some Call of Duty at night and, and, and have some time with your family during the day and make enough money to survive, then great, go open a, you know, daiquiri shop on the beach in Costa Rica and cut your expenses down and make the money that you need to survive and put rice on the table and play Call of Duty at night. Cool. Do that. That's fine. But I think that there's a lot of people who are not okay with that version of life who have deluded themselves into believing that that's the only type of life that they'll ever be able to have. And they may as well just get on board for it now, you know what I'm saying? Where in the future they might look back on that and go, I actually had quite a bit of free time back then, you know, especially, especially when I talk. And I know this is going to sound like, you know, most, most parents, you know, but I look at that as for single friends of mine that complain about how they don't have enough time to do the side hustle or do this other thing. It's like, bro, you're like a 32 year old single guy. Like, this will, this is the, you understand the power you have, like, right? Exactly. This is the least busy you will ever be in your life. If you can't find time now to start the side hustle or to go to the gym or to get like any of these things that you're saying that you just can't do, you're, you're never, you're never going to be able to do.
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B
Hey, guys, it's Eric. I'm Travis Chappell's producer. You've been listening to me here on this episode. I just want to make a quick note here that we are actually going to split this episode into two parts. So we're going to go ahead and close out this first half now and then we're going to pick up tomorrow with the second half of this conversation. The topic was just so good and we just kept talking and talking and talking, and before you knew it, we had about a 45 minute conversation on our hands and we thought it'd be better to split it into bite sized chunks. So tune in tomorrow to hear the rest of this discussion here on the Travis Makes Money podcast.