February 11, 2025 • 44 mins
In the state of Tennessee, payday lenders can charge interest rates upwards of 459%. Travis Moody and his nonprofit Forward Memphis are on a mission to outcompete them, charging only 10%. In only 20 months, they’ve helped 600 families save a total of $800k!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army and normal folks.
We continue now a part two of our conversation with
Travis Moody, right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(00:28):
I've got one hundred and forty employees, okay, and I
have some guys that work in the office, but I'm
in the manufacturing business. Ninety five percent of the people
on employee are outside and it's twenty degrees outside right now,
all right, they're outside in that working And in Memphis
when it gets one hundred and ten and it's eighty
(00:49):
six percent humidity, they're outside in that working too. They're
working around loud, greasy, dusty equipment on forklifts. They're pulling lump,
they're getting splinters in their hand if they're over by
the kills. Those things set up to one hundred and
sixty degrees and spend out speme if they're at the boiler,
same thing. It's hard work, and I appreciate the people
(01:12):
work for me, and I really do try to do
the best I can by. But the inconvenient reality is this,
of a business, profits are a necessary measure of any
business's success, and without profits, you ain't gonna have a business,
you are not to have any of those jobs. So
you might want to pay people a whole lot more money,
(01:33):
but you can't because your business has got to be
profitable to sustain you, yourself, your employees, and everything else.
And so I want to pay people more if I can.
But you know, if the market for a forklift driver
is fourteen dollars and fifty cents, I might can pay
a really good one fifteen or sixteen. But I can't
(01:55):
pay them a whole lot more than that because if
I did, I can't compete with my competitors. Right, So
the reality is there are blue collar workers and there
always will be, but they work hard. And any man
or woman that shows up and works forty hours a
week and any job should not live in poverty. So
(02:18):
I want to make sure that I'm always paying my people.
Even the newest, lowest paid person that works for me
will not make a dollar figure that at the end
of the year of they work their forty every week
for fifty two weeks, they're going to get two weeks vacation,
they're going to get insurance, and they're going to get
an income that is at least above the federal poverty level.
(02:40):
I think I have a responsibility as a business owner
to provide that atmosphere, and I do, and sometimes to
my own personal detriment financially, but I do. And then
they get a flat tar and they have to decide
I do to get this three hundred dollars tire, because
(03:02):
if I don't get that tire fixed, I can't get
my car and go to work. If I don't go
to work, I can't get the lights on, or then
they get a sick baby, or then they get in
trouble with something their lights go out. And I do,
like most businesses, offer to help my employees with loans.
(03:27):
I don't charge them a dimond interest, but I cannot
allow them to have more than their next week's net.
Paycheck them out and then I'll allow them pay it
off ten to twenty dollars a week. Right, I do that,
and I think most businesses try to do that also.
But what happens if they need more than that? They
(03:50):
they don't have an outlet, and so they go to
payday loans, title, long right cars for cash. All this other.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Indidence says now pay cash advance title. Any of those
are bad.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So that's my perspective. And I can't tell you how
many times in the last twenty years I've had people
come to me in tears that they were tore up
and in trouble. So I'm going to let you tell
our listeners how this day pay payday lending title stuff
is both predatory, how it crushes people, how it puts
(04:28):
them in a place they can never get out of,
and how typically these are not ragged folks. These are
hard working blue collar people, nurses, police officers exactly that
end up literally facing losing their homes because of these places.
So I set it up for you. You go.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So for the listeners who do not understand what a
payday long is, it means that this person didn't have
enough money, they couldn't get along, so they are at
the am A bank. So they go to a non
traditional place. Uh, and they can charge and tennessee up
to four hundred and fifty nine percent.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
So said that again, four hundred and fifty and fifty
nine percent, and the state says that's legal.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
State says that's legal.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And these payday loans must have really strong lobbies.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, So actually, the lobbyists for payday loans they spend
more money in Nashville than FedEx. You know, FedEx is
the largest company.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So they spend a lot of money making sure that
these laws stay and exist. That's a whole nother story.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's almost illegal, that feels.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And I think what we're doing is creating a pathway,
an alternative.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
To that, because don't even give me the pathway yet.
Please let our listeners understand. Tell me some stories of folks,
tell us what these these lenders do and how it
cripples folks.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So, so I'll give you one that came this morning
before I got here because hitting this there was a
teacher who's are of three thousand dollars. This teacher is
paying back four hundred and thirty three dollars a month
in fees. So over a year they're going to pay
(06:16):
five thousand dollars in fees. They still owe three thousand dollars.
The principal's not even touched unless they pay over four
hundred and thirty three dollars. They're just paying back fees.
That comes out to be about seven hundred percent interest.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
How is that even legal?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It shouldn't be, but it's.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So she goes and gets a three thousand dollars loan
to get out of right. And what's a teacher in
Memphis schools make fifty.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Sixty yeah, about five thousand a month.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, six thousand dollars a year a living, a decent living.
She gets in trouble needs three grand. What is it
a title loan or what kind of loan is signature loan?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
This is a payday loan, so it's paid every two weeks,
so every paycheck, every paycheck, she has to go back
and basically you restarted every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And so she spent how much mone four hundred and
thirty three a month and not touching the principal.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So you never get out of it. And this is
a hardworking person, obviously educated because they are are teachers.
But think of how it's gonna affect her. How ef
fective can she be as a teacher if she's worried
about whether she's gonna lose her her place to live.
We had a and we see a lot of teachers,
(07:33):
a lot of the people who come go to paylon.
They're normal people. There are people there again, like you
mentioned nurses, they work at fat acts, so they're forklift driver,
they're a police officer. But a great number of my teachers,
we get probably one out of four or five people
that we serve are teachers.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What what's a title one?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So a title loan is typically based off of a car.
So if they are on the car outright, they basically
go to a title owned place and say, I want
to borrow, you know, money on this car, maybe two
thousand dollars. The car's worth eight thousand, and they give
the loan of two thousand, but they're charging them a
interest rate of maybe two hundred and seventy five percent, So.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They hold the title. Yes, so if I got to
if I got it paid for two thousand and seven
seventeen Ultima, that's worth ten grand. Right, I go to
a title store and I hand you my title. I say, now,
I'm signing my title over to you as colladoral. You're
giving me two thousand dollars and I'm gonna pay you
(08:39):
how much I'm gonna pay you three or four hundred
dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So we had a lady who works in a school
in North Memphis and she's she's worked a part of the administration.
She had a car. Someone in her family passed away.
Her mom convinced her to get a title long on
her car for two thousand dollars. The mom was gonna
pay it off. Well, her mom wasn't making the payments,
(09:03):
and so they told they took the car. They came
into our house while she was asleep and they picked
the car up. Now she can't get to work. She
owed them two thousand dollars, and we went to how
much has she been paying on it? She was paying, well,
she wasn't paying it. She was her mom was supposed
(09:24):
to pay it. The feel was yeah, the fee was
one hundred and seventy nine every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So that's that's three hundred and fifty dollars a month.
And you ain't touching the prince, right.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And so we just thought we needed to do something
so that this lady can get to work, and she
had all good intentions, so we gave her. We went
and bought her title back. You know these places is
say get your title back, they're not your friend. And
we had to help. Most of the people come to us,
(09:58):
it's typically an emergency. It's their cars being repossessed, they're
being evicted, or their lights been cut off. It's they
don't come to us because they need to go on vacation.
It's typically an emergency.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Okay, So you're standing in the parking lot of the
church saying, these people go in here to pray, they
come outside to get prayed on. And you're mad because
you see four of these establishments literally from the parking
lot of the church in ickri.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Hill right right, and two of the best churches in Memphis.
And my heart was just out for them. And so
we created this collaboration. We were able to partner with
churches who outsource their benevolence to us, partner with banks
who allowed who provide funding that allows us to provide
(10:52):
the capital the people. We can do up to five
thousand dollars to people in need, and nonprofit organizations that
help us throughout the whole process. So because we're like
the emergency room. If somebody gets sick, you know, they
want to go to the doctor, but if they're about
to die, they go to the emergency room. And that's
(11:12):
what that's what we are.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
We'll be right back. So what Ford Memphis does now
is you teach financial literacy and you also provide a
backboard for folks who are struggling at a reasonable interest ructure.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So what we do is, again we're the emergency room doctor.
We go in and quickly assess their situation. We understand,
you know, okay, you make four thousand dollars a month,
but you're spending sixty five hundred. Even if we paid
your rent this month, next month, you're the same situation.
So we come up with a sustainable that they can
(12:01):
make it without us, and it could be and what
we require that this is always what we call skinning
the game, like what can the client do to help?
And this is part of the teaching process and part
of the learning is if we just gave people money,
it would not fix the situation. And so it could
(12:23):
be as simple as there was a teacher who we coached.
She was making five thousand a month, her rent was
two thousand, her cardinal was nine hundred. She was not
gonna make it. It doesn't matter. You know, she was behind.
They were about to repossess the car and she couldn't
afford it. So what we offer is, how do we
help you get a reliable, safe transportation a cash car
(12:47):
for twenty five hundred dollars. You know, now it's up
to the client. That was up to the teacher to say,
I'm willing to make that change.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Do you find at first people are resistant? Why am
I gonna give up my nice car, my nice house
to do all this?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yes, there's a lot of resistance, and I think people
have to What I tell talk to my team about
is we have to embrace the pain. The pain of
the person's situation is our friend. And sometimes people aren't.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now that's interesting because you can remind them, do you
want this nice shiny car or or.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
You want freedom?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Is the freedom?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
The freedom is not having to worry about how you're
gonna whether you're gonna be able to live in this
place or not. And we want and.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Again weak, but you do become a slave to the death.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, and that scripture, the scripture tells you the borrow
becomes slave to the lender. And again, our role is
to offer a way out, a pathway quite us. Not
everybody takes it, and that's okay. Not everybody's ready for freedom.
Our job is to provide a pathway, then help those
(13:59):
who want to be helped.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I read somewhere that there are more payday mending places
in Memphis than any other city. Is that right.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, So Memphis is the payday loan capital.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of the world. Oh well, there's some I guess we
need to put that on billboards, Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
They're more payday loan stores in Memphis per capital than
any other city. And so this is a place where
it's you know, it's there's a heavy emphasis on these
predatory lenders.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well, if that's the case, then it's also the place
where help is probably needed the most.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, yes, And I think it's the reason why I
mean this this movement is working. We've we've in the
last we've been open twenty months and we've helped over
six hundred families and saved over eight hundred thousand dollars.
What in twenty months?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
What do you mean saved? You mean cut out eight
hundred thousand dollars in interest.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The person who was going to be paying five thousand
for US interest would on a twenty five hundred dollars
loan is one hundred dollars a year, So instead of
paying five thousand, they only pay two hundred dollars. So
what we're doing is bottom line, helping people to build
to get out of a difficult financial situation.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, you said, in twenty months, how many families
we've helped?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Six hundred and sixty.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Families and you've saved over eight hundred thousand dollars. That
is twelve hundred dollars in fees and interest per family
you've wiped out. Yes, I just did the math. That's
why I'm asking those numbers. That's phenomenal. That's one hundred
(15:50):
dollars a month for a family. That's a whole lot
of money for folks that live week to week.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And again, most of our clients there are they have
about two thousand dollars on average and payday loans, so
we're able to help people take steps.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Out of that. But if you got two thousand dollars
in payday loans, that that doesn't sound like that big
amount of money. But what's a big amount of money
is a three hundred and fifty a month you're paying
to service it where you ain't even touching the principle.
That's right, that's right. These people that do this are
actually praying on the weakest among us. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, when you're in financial distress, you're not thinking about
the interest. You're thinking about how do I how do I.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Pay my rent? How do I get the lights on?
How to get the lights on? How do I get
my car fix? Or I get towards?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And so the fact that this thousand dollars is going
to cost you forty five hundred is not on the
top of your mind. It's not even communicated to you.
You're just thinking, Okay, this is And many people who
go to pay they loans, they think this is the answer.
They think this is a savior, and really we're trying
(17:02):
to help people understand this is a this is crippling you.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And if I walked into a payday long place when
I leave here today, which I'm actually thinking about doing,
I'm probably gonna take off phone miss stuff and wear
a ragget shirt. I'm dead serious. Because I got a
work truck. I drive around down and it didn't look
like much. If I roll in there, am I going
to be greeted like.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
How can we help you? Actually? Are they like happy
or what? Or was it like Guido back there? No?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Actually, they have great customer service, I bet. And we
went into one and there was a lady who was
a teacher coming out. She was getting a loan and
they knew they knew her by name. They asked about her,
her children, and when she left, they said, we'll see
see you in two weeks. And I thought that is sad.
(17:56):
And this lady had done everything. She had gone to college,
gotten a degree, she was working. This particular lady had
gone through divorce and just you know, think that that
impacted her life. So now she's she's trying to live
a life by herself, and that was not help for her.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
All right. Beg's the question, why not just go to
a bank? Why not get a credit cardat good question?
So the problem is the average Fyco score in Memphis
is six hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Three the median. That means half of the people are
above that and half of the people below. You can't
get a bank loan for under six seventy. So half
of the people in Memphis can't get a bank.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Do you think that's true? In Detroit?
Speaker 2 (18:49):
In Chicago, there was this so there was this article
in this Oh gosh, I don't remember the name of
this survey that but they they survey and assess the
top sixty six largest metropolitan areas and ranked them as
for how they manage money. Well, Memphis was a number
(19:11):
sixty six so I think we have the bigger opportunity
here in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What was do you remember fifty and the other ones.
All I'm saying is what you're doing has got to
be scalable in other places. I would think Little Rock, Birmingham,
some other places are similar.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I think what we're doing here we're going to
replicate in other places the way.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
You can prove it out in the hardest place, Reace
everywhere else.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Well, and our plan is to scale this up through
the whole state of Tennessee. So at some point we
again we have to go to Nashville and convince Nashville
that this is where this is a good avenue, a
good pathway, because.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
You previously shared with me that there's not really a
program like your guys across the country.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, there are different initiatives, but we have a uniqueness.
There's a great initiative in Arkansas, but I run in
the state of Arkansas. Payday loans are illegal, so there's
some states who have outlawed it. I think that's the
future for us.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I wonder if you get people from West Memphis, Arkansas
coming to Memphis could have pay day loans. I guarantee
you what we do.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, I guarantee you we do.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So this hub is praying on a region, not just
to Saity.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, I would say the Mitsuth.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So okay, so we see the problem. The stories are real.
I love your line about people go in to get
to pray and come out to get prayed on. So
twenty months ago you decided to start for Memphis. Now,
how do people find you? How do they come to you?
(20:52):
How do you reach out to them? How does all
that work?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
So initially we did a lot of marketing, social media,
local news media. What we found is that there's not
a shortage of clients. The first first month we had
like two hundred people contact us.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You didn't know what to do, probably too.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
We sweetly realized we needed to build a team of
of money coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And what money coaches?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We call them money coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah. So uh so, again, we learned a lot because
we we didn't you know, we were just starting. Fortunately
we were able to partner with some great people. We
I mean, the banks have been great partners. First Horizon
Bank and Truest Bank and Pinnacle. They've come alongside to
help us, you know, create this model, and we've we've
(21:42):
landed on a really good, really good model.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Are these money coaches volunteers?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
No, No, they're they're they're staff.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Their staff, your staff.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
We we started with we thought we can do volunteers,
but we quickly realized that that did that model didn't work.
We had to we had to build a team.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
We'll be right back. So how does four Together get
its funding? It's not making money, is it.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
No. Our funding is through again our partners, and we've
been funded through banks, foundations, local foundations, and also through
our partnership with churches. So the churches that outsource their
benevolence to us, they give us, they pay a fee,
so we're.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Not because it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
So we're a non profit organization. Eighty percent of our
funding has come through foundations that partners who say, you know,
this is a cause that we believe in and we
could not have done it without them. But we also
with our our church partners or anyone United Way, anyone
who receives someone coming to them asking for money, basically
(22:55):
what they are, they're they're not equipped to provide coaching,
and so that's the service that we provide. So we
charge them a fee for that, which supports our organization.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I'm remember a second second president. Yeah, I remember hearing
a little bit about this before I even knew who
you were. I don't know, maybe a year and a
half ago. So if someone comes to the church and
says I'm struggling, they will forward them to you.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yes, yes, because many times organizations, church or nonprofit organization,
who who people are coming to, they aren't equipped to
dig into what the situation is.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So yeah, it's one thing to say, Okay, here's two
hundred bucks to get your lights back on it, but.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It may not even be helped, it may not be
the right thing to do. And so what we do
talk about that. What we do is, again we operate
quickly because the people who come to us typically they
don't have months to figure this out, it's days, and
so we respond within twenty.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Four hours, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We will sign a coach. The coach, they provide their
bank statements, their check stubs, and so we quickly assess
how much they make and where the money is going.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And it sounds like basic budgeting to me.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It is, but again, most people don't operate in with
basic money management, and especially now a lot there are
a lot of issues with there's so many ways to
spend money. There's all of these after pay programs, or
you get the money, you get the service, and then
you pay later. These squad pay a firm pay this
(24:39):
cash cash after so many ways of spending money that
it has actually made it more difficult for people to
understand how much is coming in and where it's going.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
It's down to education, financial literacy, access understanding all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, and and obviously and growing in mindset. A lot
of what we're doing is helping people to see money
in a different way, different options. Because the teacher who
had the nine hundred dollars car payment that was normal
for her, she didn't see there was another option, you know,
(25:23):
having paying two thousand dollars in rent was normal for her,
and she said, well, where am I going to live?
And not, you know, explain. I said, well, I have
three of my adult kids live in Memphis in homes
that they've purchased, and if I added all of their
mortgages up and were not equal to two thousand dollars
and they these are places that I wouldn't feel I
wouldn't put my have my family living in places I
(25:45):
wouldn't feel safe. My grandkids live there and just helping
them to see that. That's a different mindset.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
What about savings Do we talk about savings too?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Oh yeah, So again in the emergency room there there's
no savings, right, I get it. So we want to
get them there, but the initial thing is how do
we how do we patch the hole so they don't die.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And then you stick with them long term about a
long term deal.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Now, we partner with other organizations who coach long term.
So we partner with Rise Foundation and Operation Hope and
Greater Memphis Financial Environment to do We're again we're like
passing them off to the primary doctor.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
We're just the emergency room. We typically deal with clients
for about a.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Week and you get them over the hump, try to
get them straightened out, and then you patch them onto
somebody who the long n yes stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So we have partners that can help them with savings.
Rise has a great match savings program, and Operation Hope
has a program for home ownership. There's lots of different
places that we can we pass them off to. But again,
when they're in our place, we just want to make
sure they can get to work, they have a place
to live, the lights are cut on and have food det.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
So we've heard just as her stories tell us how
this works. Give me a story of a family that
you've recently helped and what it's translated to. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So, so the young lady who had gotten the title loan,
So we got the title and gave her a loan.
She's been paying it back. Instead of one hundred and
seventy nine dollars every two weeks, her payment to us
is like sixty eight dollars a month.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
But she's she's done well and she's we stayed in
contact whether she she actually moved into another apartment and
she's doing fine. She had saved over a thousand dollars.
She's doing great.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And did she get all of that from y'all? Did
you get that plan?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yes, we gave her plan and she it's been a relationship,
you know when it's interesting enough. She when she had
to miss work once being you know, terrible situation she was.
She had gotten robbed and had gotten shot.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Oh gosh, and at.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
A gas station. It was on the news. I didn't
know about it, but she she contacted. Well, we didn't
get our payment. I was thought, oh, that's odd. We
we always get a payment from her. She contacted us
and said, listen, I've been in rehab, I'm going back
to work. Here's my next payment. And she values our partnership.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
I was going to ask you about that. How do
you have collateral for the money you put up? What
do you do to ensure that you do get paid back?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So we have a high default rate again, the people
that we're helping, it's it's it's higher than normal. This
is the reason why, you know, the banks can't typically
serve them. So our default rate is around thirty percent.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All right, the bank's default rate is probably one.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh yeah, it's definitely single digits.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And but what we've what we've built into this is
a plan because again a family who contacted us yesterday,
we had help, they defaulted, and now they need help again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So I don't think it's stuck with them the first time.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So again that's the that's the the motivation is.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So what do you do with that? That's interesting. You
helped a family, they didn't pay you back. Now they're
in trouble again, which means they didn't take your advice
the first time. They didn't pay you back the first time.
I would say, see, that makes me a little angry.
I would say, we'll give some the gall to come
back and ask for more when they didn't even meet
(29:45):
you halfway the first time. So what do you do
with that?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What we do is we take them back through the process. Really,
let's look and see what happened. Let's see why.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Get mad at that?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Obviously we get mad a lot, but that doesn't help
the situation.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
We we want to do is we want to help
people move forward and and so people can come back
to us. Doesn't mean that we're gonna give them money again,
but we are still a resource. We're still we are
still the emergency room if you're if you need the
emerging room, you come back as many times as you
need it.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So even if someone is defaulted, not met you halfway
done the yes, we're gonna do it, We're gonna do it,
and then not, they're still welcome back in yes for
your coachure sling. And if maybe they make up on
the thing they defaulted on, you might.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Every situation is different. Again, we're here to make sure
people don't die financially, and anybody who's struggling, we want
them to feel that they have an advocate and one
of my friends, and I think you met him. He
I think he was on one of your shows. U
Joe Carson, you remember doctor Joe Carson. But when we
(30:57):
win it, yeah, when he uh, he told me when
I went into this, said Travis. He said, Uh, I'm
gonna tell you what somebody told me. If you're expecting
to be a bridge over the gap here in Memphis,
you better be expecting to be walked on m You're
not gonna win them all some people. Sometimes you're gonna
(31:17):
be abused. You gotta be okay with that. You're gonna
lose some of them. So we again that prepared us
with the mentality of our goal is a lot like
baseball versus basketball. If you got a three hundred bad average,
you're an All star.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's how If you're shooting thirty percent from the field,
you're on the bench.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You're on the bench. We're baseball. That's true, and we're
not gonna win them all. Again, that's not the nature
of the people that we serve. We gotta be okay
at with a three hundred percent and feel like we're superstars.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Well, the truth is, even if it's if you if
you if you had fifty fault rate, it's the fifty
percent you helped that would not have had help other.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, we think now that we've learned, we think that
we can have a default rate under fifteen.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That wouldn't be incredible.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
We think we can.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
We mean, you're dealing with the most at high risk
lend Y's on the face of the planet. You're going
to have a higher default rate.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, we've learned some things. The first year, again, we
were bombarded with so many people and we didn't have
the data to say, you know, to determine whether they
would repay. We didn't have the data. Now that we've
had twenty months, we've we've learned a lot, got a
better process, and I think we can we have something,
(32:45):
We've landed on, a good model that we think can
change how money is distributed for help in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
We'll be right back. Do you look at yourself in
the mirror sometimes and think Georgia Tech du Seattle And
it all led to my own awakening about money. And
(33:22):
here I am in my back back at home in
my city, trying to teach folks from my own lessons.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Absolutely, I think all of that added to where we are,
where I am now. And again I told you I
think Andy Young was was was molding me the whole time.
But I remember one of my like one of my
favorite Doctor King quotes was and I may be tearing
it up, but it was he said, true compassion is
not just flipping a coin to a beggar, but it
(33:52):
comes to to believe that the edifice which which produces
beggars needs restructuring. And to me, I think what we're
doing is not just feeling sorry for people who are
in bast situation. But how do we change Memphis the
systems that are causing are creating poverty. How do we
(34:14):
change that? I think that's what we're doing here.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You know, I have this argument, not this argument, I
have this thing I say that I think we're called
it's just human beings when we are blessed by some
level of success to try to help elevate the most
needy among us. I do believe that with every fiber
(34:39):
of my being. But let's just say you don't subscribe
to that level of idealism, because there are people that don't. Okay,
so let's talk pragmatically. Okay, what happens to your city?
And your municipality. If you don't have property buying, tax
(35:05):
paying citizens contributing to your community. What happens when you
have more people in a situation that they cannot contribute
to the tax base of Listen, most cities get their
(35:27):
revenue from property taxes and maybe a little sales tax,
but the vast majority is property tax. Well, if you
don't have people financially literal enough to buy homes, to
build businesses, and to pay into that tax base. Pragmatically,
what happens to that municipality. What happens to its police
(35:47):
department's fire department, it's city services, its ability to provide
basic necessities for citizenry. I'll tell you what happens. It
looks like Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I'm not for me, garynas Well.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Gary Indiana is where the water got everybody sick because
they ran out of money. That's there is definitely an
ideal side to this that I subscribe to and believe in,
and anybody who listens to the show knows that, because
that's why I do the show. Okay, But there's also
a pragmatic thing here that if we don't do better
(36:26):
for the people who don't understand how to manage money
and get them out of these predatory places. If this
thing continues to snowball, you end up not having enough
revenue in your munssipality to even operate.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
The thing about poverty, it impacts everybody, Yes, it does.
It's I mean, you know FedEx and your company. You
want to have people at work. Well, if people are
struggling financially, it's going to affect your ability to get
people to work. Poverty impacts education, it impacts crime. Poverty
(36:58):
doesn't know that you live in. It impacts the cost
of health. Right, So it's it's it's really something upon
all of us to figure out how do we improve
the financial health of our city.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
So Ford Memphis is about helping the teacher, the family
who don't have the financial literacy and fallen victim to
predatory lending. But it's also a spoke in the will
of a greater of a of a greater approach toward
improving the entire city's health.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes, and and we just have one part. We understand
that we we're filling one gap. We're the emergency room
for people who need emergency financial assistance.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
That's our place.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That was the gap that we saw why people went
to predatory lending. That's that's our part.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
To play in this. I bet the predatory lending people
hate you, bro.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
If not now they will, I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I hope they do. I hope they hate your guts. Yeah,
what's next?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Well, part of what we have to do is to
scale this up across the whole state. That's right now.
We've been just in Shelby County and and there's still
opportunities to grow here in Shelby County. We have right
now we have twenty seven partners, coaching partners, churches, United Way,
a god Bade, nonprofit organizations. We think we're going to
(38:20):
scale up. We want to want to partner with the
schools ship Shelby County Schools.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I swear I was. I was going to say, why
couldn't we teach a basic financial economics class in school
so kids get it before they even get their hands
on money.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well that and really, when I say partner is we
want we don't want teachers struggling to pay their bills.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
And again, well, if teachers know they'll teach kids I
guess right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
And their parents, we want to partner. And when again,
if the teachers are struggling financially, which many of them are,
especially the ones who are single. We want to have
we want to be a resource for them. So that's
what we mean by partner and letting parents know in
their schools that again there if you've been evicted, cars
(39:06):
being repossessed, your light's being cut off, there's a resource
for you. And so that's what's next for us. We
want to grow. We think we can grow to probably
double our partners this year.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Here in Memphis. Here in Memphis, and so we think next.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, well we'll go across the state.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
So and then if it keeps going, could you not
be regional national? I mean it seems like it's scalable
for every minute. Yea.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So our coaching is virtual. So we have one of
our coaches is lives in Chattanooga, so we we look,
we think this is something we'll have to scale across
the whole state. Eventually, we'll probably have an office in
Nashville and have a plan to communicate with our legislation
on value what we do.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Here's something nationally. This is obviously not just a Memphis problem.
There's twenty three thousand and payday lenders in the US
twice the number of McDonald's and Starbucks locations, So it's
not just a Memphis problem. We might have the highest concentration.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Twenty three thousand. There's twice the number of payday loan
places in the United States, and there is McDonald's and Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
McDonald's, there's a lot of McDonald's and Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
But just think about it. You literally see a McDonald's
and Starbucks on almost every block that you are in
any municipality, and there's two times of me payday loans.
Of the things is the place I hang out with.
I see the McDonald's and Starbucks, but I don't see
the payday loan right.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Because they're concentrated. They're concentrated in the most distressed parts
of the community.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Which is because you played largely African American and Latino necesary.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It is African American Latino.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Wow. Wow, you're doing God's work. Man. You were fighting
an evil foe. You really are, aren't you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
What we're doing is again like the quote from Doctor
King is we're fighting a system.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
And but this isn't a governmental system. And this is
and this also really isn't a predominant social system. This
is almost a kind of an under the radar system
that I just don't think a whole lot of people
really understand. Right, It's a system, but kind of a
(41:27):
quiet dark system, you know what I mean. I mean,
this isn't a blatant thing exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
I was sharing with one of when we were starting
this and trying to raise some funding, and I was
meeting with a financial leader here, a guy who owns
a big financial company, and he thought, well, I don't
know why you would charge ten percent. That seems like
a lot. And obviously he had never heard of a
(41:54):
payday law.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's also that's also coming from a place have a
little bit of privilege. As big as his heart is.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tim said, you can I think you can cut that.
I was like, man, they're they're paying four Yeah, he
couldn't phantom that. It's like that.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I bet he supports you now though.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Oh yeah, he's biggest support of course.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
That makes perfect sense. That's awesome, Travis. It has been
an absolute pleasure to hear your story to uh, to
hear your personal story frankly, and also a story about
how you got where you got and Ford Memphis, What
what a what a phenomenal initiative that does seek to
(42:37):
serve those who need it the most. It Scott's work, brother,
and I can't wait to see where it goes next.
I appreciate it if people want to hear more about
Ford Memphis or you know, we have people all over
the country. I mean, this is a big show. Lots
of those folks listen, uh in some other part of
(42:57):
the world that really thinks, you know, I'd like to
engage in that in my community. How do they find
Ford Memphis and how do people find you?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, we would love to talk with anybody who has
an interest in connecting with us, and they can contact
us at Forward Memphis dot com. So f r WRD
Memphis dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Somebody wants to support you financially, they can do that too.
If somebody just wants to ask you a question, Caul,
they email you somewhere.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yes, they can email me as well at Travis at
Ford Memphis dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Travis at Ford Memphis dot com. All right, brother, I
guess you need to go out and beat up some
predatory lending guys this the rest of the day.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I appreciate you being here, and thank you for joining
us this week. If Travis Moody or other guests have
inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action
by telling folks about Ford Memphis, trying to start something
like it in your community, donating to them, teaching folks
(43:59):
about predators, lending, or something else entirely, please let me
know I'd love to hear about it. You can write
me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and I
promise you'll hear back from me. And if you enjoyed
this episode, please share with friends and on social subscribe
to the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the Army
(44:22):
at normalfolks dot us, consider becoming a premium member There
any and all of these things that can help us
grow an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer,
Iron Like Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do
what you can
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army and normal folks.
We continue now a part two of our conversation with
Travis Moody, right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(00:28):
I've got one hundred and forty employees, okay, and I
have some guys that work in the office, but I'm
in the manufacturing business. Ninety five percent of the people
on employee are outside and it's twenty degrees outside right now,
all right, they're outside in that working And in Memphis
when it gets one hundred and ten and it's eighty
(00:49):
six percent humidity, they're outside in that working too. They're
working around loud, greasy, dusty equipment on forklifts. They're pulling lump,
they're getting splinters in their hand if they're over by
the kills. Those things set up to one hundred and
sixty degrees and spend out speme if they're at the boiler,
same thing. It's hard work, and I appreciate the people
(01:12):
work for me, and I really do try to do
the best I can by. But the inconvenient reality is this,
of a business, profits are a necessary measure of any
business's success, and without profits, you ain't gonna have a business,
you are not to have any of those jobs. So
you might want to pay people a whole lot more money,
(01:33):
but you can't because your business has got to be
profitable to sustain you, yourself, your employees, and everything else.
And so I want to pay people more if I can.
But you know, if the market for a forklift driver
is fourteen dollars and fifty cents, I might can pay
a really good one fifteen or sixteen. But I can't
(01:55):
pay them a whole lot more than that because if
I did, I can't compete with my competitors. Right, So
the reality is there are blue collar workers and there
always will be, but they work hard. And any man
or woman that shows up and works forty hours a
week and any job should not live in poverty. So
(02:18):
I want to make sure that I'm always paying my people.
Even the newest, lowest paid person that works for me
will not make a dollar figure that at the end
of the year of they work their forty every week
for fifty two weeks, they're going to get two weeks vacation,
they're going to get insurance, and they're going to get
an income that is at least above the federal poverty level.
(02:40):
I think I have a responsibility as a business owner
to provide that atmosphere, and I do, and sometimes to
my own personal detriment financially, but I do. And then
they get a flat tar and they have to decide
I do to get this three hundred dollars tire, because
(03:02):
if I don't get that tire fixed, I can't get
my car and go to work. If I don't go
to work, I can't get the lights on, or then
they get a sick baby, or then they get in
trouble with something their lights go out. And I do,
like most businesses, offer to help my employees with loans.
(03:27):
I don't charge them a dimond interest, but I cannot
allow them to have more than their next week's net.
Paycheck them out and then I'll allow them pay it
off ten to twenty dollars a week. Right, I do that,
and I think most businesses try to do that also.
But what happens if they need more than that? They
(03:50):
they don't have an outlet, and so they go to
payday loans, title, long right cars for cash. All this other.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Indidence says now pay cash advance title. Any of those
are bad.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
So that's my perspective. And I can't tell you how
many times in the last twenty years I've had people
come to me in tears that they were tore up
and in trouble. So I'm going to let you tell
our listeners how this day pay payday lending title stuff
is both predatory, how it crushes people, how it puts
(04:28):
them in a place they can never get out of,
and how typically these are not ragged folks. These are
hard working blue collar people, nurses, police officers exactly that
end up literally facing losing their homes because of these places.
So I set it up for you. You go.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So for the listeners who do not understand what a
payday long is, it means that this person didn't have
enough money, they couldn't get along, so they are at
the am A bank. So they go to a non
traditional place. Uh, and they can charge and tennessee up
to four hundred and fifty nine percent.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
So said that again, four hundred and fifty and fifty
nine percent, and the state says that's legal.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
State says that's legal.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
And these payday loans must have really strong lobbies.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, So actually, the lobbyists for payday loans they spend
more money in Nashville than FedEx. You know, FedEx is
the largest company.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So they spend a lot of money making sure that
these laws stay and exist. That's a whole nother story.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's almost illegal, that feels.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And I think what we're doing is creating a pathway,
an alternative.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
To that, because don't even give me the pathway yet.
Please let our listeners understand. Tell me some stories of folks,
tell us what these these lenders do and how it
cripples folks.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So, so I'll give you one that came this morning
before I got here because hitting this there was a
teacher who's are of three thousand dollars. This teacher is
paying back four hundred and thirty three dollars a month
in fees. So over a year they're going to pay
(06:16):
five thousand dollars in fees. They still owe three thousand dollars.
The principal's not even touched unless they pay over four
hundred and thirty three dollars. They're just paying back fees.
That comes out to be about seven hundred percent interest.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
How is that even legal?
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It shouldn't be, but it's.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So she goes and gets a three thousand dollars loan
to get out of right. And what's a teacher in
Memphis schools make fifty.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Sixty yeah, about five thousand a month.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, six thousand dollars a year a living, a decent living.
She gets in trouble needs three grand. What is it
a title loan or what kind of loan is signature loan?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
This is a payday loan, so it's paid every two weeks,
so every paycheck, every paycheck, she has to go back
and basically you restarted every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And so she spent how much mone four hundred and
thirty three a month and not touching the principal.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So you never get out of it. And this is
a hardworking person, obviously educated because they are are teachers.
But think of how it's gonna affect her. How ef
fective can she be as a teacher if she's worried
about whether she's gonna lose her her place to live.
We had a and we see a lot of teachers,
(07:33):
a lot of the people who come go to paylon.
They're normal people. There are people there again, like you
mentioned nurses, they work at fat acts, so they're forklift driver,
they're a police officer. But a great number of my teachers,
we get probably one out of four or five people
that we serve are teachers.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What what's a title one?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So a title loan is typically based off of a car.
So if they are on the car outright, they basically
go to a title owned place and say, I want
to borrow, you know, money on this car, maybe two
thousand dollars. The car's worth eight thousand, and they give
the loan of two thousand, but they're charging them a
interest rate of maybe two hundred and seventy five percent, So.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They hold the title. Yes, so if I got to
if I got it paid for two thousand and seven
seventeen Ultima, that's worth ten grand. Right, I go to
a title store and I hand you my title. I say, now,
I'm signing my title over to you as colladoral. You're
giving me two thousand dollars and I'm gonna pay you
(08:39):
how much I'm gonna pay you three or four hundred
dollars a month.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So we had a lady who works in a school
in North Memphis and she's she's worked a part of the administration.
She had a car. Someone in her family passed away.
Her mom convinced her to get a title long on
her car for two thousand dollars. The mom was gonna
pay it off. Well, her mom wasn't making the payments,
(09:03):
and so they told they took the car. They came
into our house while she was asleep and they picked
the car up. Now she can't get to work. She
owed them two thousand dollars, and we went to how
much has she been paying on it? She was paying, well,
she wasn't paying it. She was her mom was supposed
(09:24):
to pay it. The feel was yeah, the fee was
one hundred and seventy nine every two weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
So that's that's three hundred and fifty dollars a month.
And you ain't touching the prince, right.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
And so we just thought we needed to do something
so that this lady can get to work, and she
had all good intentions, so we gave her. We went
and bought her title back. You know these places is
say get your title back, they're not your friend. And
we had to help. Most of the people come to us,
(09:58):
it's typically an emergency. It's their cars being repossessed, they're
being evicted, or their lights been cut off. It's they
don't come to us because they need to go on vacation.
It's typically an emergency.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Okay, So you're standing in the parking lot of the
church saying, these people go in here to pray, they
come outside to get prayed on. And you're mad because
you see four of these establishments literally from the parking
lot of the church in ickri.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Hill right right, and two of the best churches in Memphis.
And my heart was just out for them. And so
we created this collaboration. We were able to partner with
churches who outsource their benevolence to us, partner with banks
who allowed who provide funding that allows us to provide
(10:52):
the capital the people. We can do up to five
thousand dollars to people in need, and nonprofit organizations that
help us throughout the whole process. So because we're like
the emergency room. If somebody gets sick, you know, they
want to go to the doctor, but if they're about
to die, they go to the emergency room. And that's
(11:12):
what that's what we are.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
We'll be right back. So what Ford Memphis does now
is you teach financial literacy and you also provide a
backboard for folks who are struggling at a reasonable interest ructure.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So what we do is, again we're the emergency room doctor.
We go in and quickly assess their situation. We understand,
you know, okay, you make four thousand dollars a month,
but you're spending sixty five hundred. Even if we paid
your rent this month, next month, you're the same situation.
So we come up with a sustainable that they can
(12:01):
make it without us, and it could be and what
we require that this is always what we call skinning
the game, like what can the client do to help?
And this is part of the teaching process and part
of the learning is if we just gave people money,
it would not fix the situation. And so it could
(12:23):
be as simple as there was a teacher who we coached.
She was making five thousand a month, her rent was
two thousand, her cardinal was nine hundred. She was not
gonna make it. It doesn't matter. You know, she was behind.
They were about to repossess the car and she couldn't
afford it. So what we offer is, how do we
help you get a reliable, safe transportation a cash car
(12:47):
for twenty five hundred dollars. You know, now it's up
to the client. That was up to the teacher to say,
I'm willing to make that change.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Do you find at first people are resistant? Why am
I gonna give up my nice car, my nice house
to do all this?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yes, there's a lot of resistance, and I think people
have to What I tell talk to my team about
is we have to embrace the pain. The pain of
the person's situation is our friend. And sometimes people aren't.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now that's interesting because you can remind them, do you
want this nice shiny car or or.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
You want freedom?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Is the freedom?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
The freedom is not having to worry about how you're
gonna whether you're gonna be able to live in this
place or not. And we want and.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Again weak, but you do become a slave to the death.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, and that scripture, the scripture tells you the borrow
becomes slave to the lender. And again, our role is
to offer a way out, a pathway quite us. Not
everybody takes it, and that's okay. Not everybody's ready for freedom.
Our job is to provide a pathway, then help those
(13:59):
who want to be helped.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I read somewhere that there are more payday mending places
in Memphis than any other city. Is that right.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, So Memphis is the payday loan capital.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of the world. Oh well, there's some I guess we
need to put that on billboards, Are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
They're more payday loan stores in Memphis per capital than
any other city. And so this is a place where
it's you know, it's there's a heavy emphasis on these
predatory lenders.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well, if that's the case, then it's also the place
where help is probably needed the most.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, yes, And I think it's the reason why I
mean this this movement is working. We've we've in the
last we've been open twenty months and we've helped over
six hundred families and saved over eight hundred thousand dollars.
What in twenty months?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
What do you mean saved? You mean cut out eight
hundred thousand dollars in interest.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The person who was going to be paying five thousand
for US interest would on a twenty five hundred dollars
loan is one hundred dollars a year, So instead of
paying five thousand, they only pay two hundred dollars. So
what we're doing is bottom line, helping people to build
to get out of a difficult financial situation.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, you said, in twenty months, how many families
we've helped?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Six hundred and sixty.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Families and you've saved over eight hundred thousand dollars. That
is twelve hundred dollars in fees and interest per family
you've wiped out. Yes, I just did the math. That's
why I'm asking those numbers. That's phenomenal. That's one hundred
(15:50):
dollars a month for a family. That's a whole lot
of money for folks that live week to week.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And again, most of our clients there are they have
about two thousand dollars on average and payday loans, so
we're able to help people take steps.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Out of that. But if you got two thousand dollars
in payday loans, that that doesn't sound like that big
amount of money. But what's a big amount of money
is a three hundred and fifty a month you're paying
to service it where you ain't even touching the principle.
That's right, that's right. These people that do this are
actually praying on the weakest among us. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, when you're in financial distress, you're not thinking about
the interest. You're thinking about how do I how do I.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Pay my rent? How do I get the lights on?
How to get the lights on? How do I get
my car fix? Or I get towards?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And so the fact that this thousand dollars is going
to cost you forty five hundred is not on the
top of your mind. It's not even communicated to you.
You're just thinking, Okay, this is And many people who
go to pay they loans, they think this is the answer.
They think this is a savior, and really we're trying
(17:02):
to help people understand this is a this is crippling you.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And if I walked into a payday long place when
I leave here today, which I'm actually thinking about doing,
I'm probably gonna take off phone miss stuff and wear
a ragget shirt. I'm dead serious. Because I got a
work truck. I drive around down and it didn't look
like much. If I roll in there, am I going
to be greeted like.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
How can we help you? Actually? Are they like happy
or what? Or was it like Guido back there? No?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Actually, they have great customer service, I bet. And we
went into one and there was a lady who was
a teacher coming out. She was getting a loan and
they knew they knew her by name. They asked about her,
her children, and when she left, they said, we'll see
see you in two weeks. And I thought that is sad.
(17:56):
And this lady had done everything. She had gone to college,
gotten a degree, she was working. This particular lady had
gone through divorce and just you know, think that that
impacted her life. So now she's she's trying to live
a life by herself, and that was not help for her.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
All right. Beg's the question, why not just go to
a bank? Why not get a credit cardat good question?
So the problem is the average Fyco score in Memphis
is six hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Three the median. That means half of the people are
above that and half of the people below. You can't
get a bank loan for under six seventy. So half
of the people in Memphis can't get a bank.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Do you think that's true? In Detroit?
Speaker 2 (18:49):
In Chicago, there was this so there was this article
in this Oh gosh, I don't remember the name of
this survey that but they they survey and assess the
top sixty six largest metropolitan areas and ranked them as
for how they manage money. Well, Memphis was a number
(19:11):
sixty six so I think we have the bigger opportunity
here in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What was do you remember fifty and the other ones.
All I'm saying is what you're doing has got to
be scalable in other places. I would think Little Rock, Birmingham,
some other places are similar.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I think what we're doing here we're going to
replicate in other places the way.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
You can prove it out in the hardest place, Reace
everywhere else.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Well, and our plan is to scale this up through
the whole state of Tennessee. So at some point we
again we have to go to Nashville and convince Nashville
that this is where this is a good avenue, a
good pathway, because.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
You previously shared with me that there's not really a
program like your guys across the country.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, there are different initiatives, but we have a uniqueness.
There's a great initiative in Arkansas, but I run in
the state of Arkansas. Payday loans are illegal, so there's
some states who have outlawed it. I think that's the
future for us.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I wonder if you get people from West Memphis, Arkansas
coming to Memphis could have pay day loans. I guarantee
you what we do.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, I guarantee you we do.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So this hub is praying on a region, not just
to Saity.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, I would say the Mitsuth.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
So okay, so we see the problem. The stories are real.
I love your line about people go in to get
to pray and come out to get prayed on. So
twenty months ago you decided to start for Memphis. Now,
how do people find you? How do they come to you?
(20:52):
How do you reach out to them? How does all
that work?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
So initially we did a lot of marketing, social media,
local news media. What we found is that there's not
a shortage of clients. The first first month we had
like two hundred people contact us.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You didn't know what to do, probably too.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
We sweetly realized we needed to build a team of
of money coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And what money coaches?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We call them money coaches.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah. So uh so, again, we learned a lot because
we we didn't you know, we were just starting. Fortunately
we were able to partner with some great people. We
I mean, the banks have been great partners. First Horizon
Bank and Truest Bank and Pinnacle. They've come alongside to
help us, you know, create this model, and we've we've
(21:42):
landed on a really good, really good model.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Are these money coaches volunteers?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
No, No, they're they're they're staff.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Their staff, your staff.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
We we started with we thought we can do volunteers,
but we quickly realized that that did that model didn't work.
We had to we had to build a team.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
We'll be right back. So how does four Together get
its funding? It's not making money, is it.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
No. Our funding is through again our partners, and we've
been funded through banks, foundations, local foundations, and also through
our partnership with churches. So the churches that outsource their
benevolence to us, they give us, they pay a fee,
so we're.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Not because it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
So we're a non profit organization. Eighty percent of our
funding has come through foundations that partners who say, you know,
this is a cause that we believe in and we
could not have done it without them. But we also
with our our church partners or anyone United Way, anyone
who receives someone coming to them asking for money, basically
(22:55):
what they are, they're they're not equipped to provide coaching,
and so that's the service that we provide. So we
charge them a fee for that, which supports our organization.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I'm remember a second second president. Yeah, I remember hearing
a little bit about this before I even knew who
you were. I don't know, maybe a year and a
half ago. So if someone comes to the church and
says I'm struggling, they will forward them to you.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yes, yes, because many times organizations, church or nonprofit organization,
who who people are coming to, they aren't equipped to
dig into what the situation is.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So yeah, it's one thing to say, Okay, here's two
hundred bucks to get your lights back on it, but.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It may not even be helped, it may not be
the right thing to do. And so what we do
talk about that. What we do is, again we operate
quickly because the people who come to us typically they
don't have months to figure this out, it's days, and
so we respond within twenty.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Four hours, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
We will sign a coach. The coach, they provide their
bank statements, their check stubs, and so we quickly assess
how much they make and where the money is going.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And it sounds like basic budgeting to me.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It is, but again, most people don't operate in with
basic money management, and especially now a lot there are
a lot of issues with there's so many ways to
spend money. There's all of these after pay programs, or
you get the money, you get the service, and then
you pay later. These squad pay a firm pay this
(24:39):
cash cash after so many ways of spending money that
it has actually made it more difficult for people to
understand how much is coming in and where it's going.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
It's down to education, financial literacy, access understanding all of it.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, and and obviously and growing in mindset. A lot
of what we're doing is helping people to see money
in a different way, different options. Because the teacher who
had the nine hundred dollars car payment that was normal
for her, she didn't see there was another option, you know,
(25:23):
having paying two thousand dollars in rent was normal for her,
and she said, well, where am I going to live?
And not, you know, explain. I said, well, I have
three of my adult kids live in Memphis in homes
that they've purchased, and if I added all of their
mortgages up and were not equal to two thousand dollars
and they these are places that I wouldn't feel I
wouldn't put my have my family living in places I
(25:45):
wouldn't feel safe. My grandkids live there and just helping
them to see that. That's a different mindset.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
What about savings Do we talk about savings too?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Oh yeah, So again in the emergency room there there's
no savings, right, I get it. So we want to
get them there, but the initial thing is how do
we how do we patch the hole so they don't die.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And then you stick with them long term about a
long term deal.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Now, we partner with other organizations who coach long term.
So we partner with Rise Foundation and Operation Hope and
Greater Memphis Financial Environment to do We're again we're like
passing them off to the primary doctor.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
We're just the emergency room. We typically deal with clients
for about a.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Week and you get them over the hump, try to
get them straightened out, and then you patch them onto
somebody who the long n yes stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So we have partners that can help them with savings.
Rise has a great match savings program, and Operation Hope
has a program for home ownership. There's lots of different
places that we can we pass them off to. But again,
when they're in our place, we just want to make
sure they can get to work, they have a place
to live, the lights are cut on and have food det.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
So we've heard just as her stories tell us how
this works. Give me a story of a family that
you've recently helped and what it's translated to. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So, so the young lady who had gotten the title loan,
So we got the title and gave her a loan.
She's been paying it back. Instead of one hundred and
seventy nine dollars every two weeks, her payment to us
is like sixty eight dollars a month.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
But she's she's done well and she's we stayed in
contact whether she she actually moved into another apartment and
she's doing fine. She had saved over a thousand dollars.
She's doing great.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
And did she get all of that from y'all? Did
you get that plan?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yes, we gave her plan and she it's been a relationship,
you know when it's interesting enough. She when she had
to miss work once being you know, terrible situation she was.
She had gotten robbed and had gotten shot.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Oh gosh, and at.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
A gas station. It was on the news. I didn't
know about it, but she she contacted. Well, we didn't
get our payment. I was thought, oh, that's odd. We
we always get a payment from her. She contacted us
and said, listen, I've been in rehab, I'm going back
to work. Here's my next payment. And she values our partnership.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
I was going to ask you about that. How do
you have collateral for the money you put up? What
do you do to ensure that you do get paid back?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So we have a high default rate again, the people
that we're helping, it's it's it's higher than normal. This
is the reason why, you know, the banks can't typically
serve them. So our default rate is around thirty percent.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All right, the bank's default rate is probably one.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh yeah, it's definitely single digits.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And but what we've what we've built into this is
a plan because again a family who contacted us yesterday,
we had help, they defaulted, and now they need help again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So I don't think it's stuck with them the first time.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So again that's the that's the the motivation is.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So what do you do with that? That's interesting. You
helped a family, they didn't pay you back. Now they're
in trouble again, which means they didn't take your advice
the first time. They didn't pay you back the first time.
I would say, see, that makes me a little angry.
I would say, we'll give some the gall to come
back and ask for more when they didn't even meet
(29:45):
you halfway the first time. So what do you do
with that?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
What we do is we take them back through the process. Really,
let's look and see what happened. Let's see why.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Get mad at that?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Obviously we get mad a lot, but that doesn't help
the situation.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
We we want to do is we want to help
people move forward and and so people can come back
to us. Doesn't mean that we're gonna give them money again,
but we are still a resource. We're still we are
still the emergency room if you're if you need the
emerging room, you come back as many times as you
need it.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So even if someone is defaulted, not met you halfway
done the yes, we're gonna do it, We're gonna do it,
and then not, they're still welcome back in yes for
your coachure sling. And if maybe they make up on
the thing they defaulted on, you might.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Every situation is different. Again, we're here to make sure
people don't die financially, and anybody who's struggling, we want
them to feel that they have an advocate and one
of my friends, and I think you met him. He
I think he was on one of your shows. U
Joe Carson, you remember doctor Joe Carson. But when we
(30:57):
win it, yeah, when he uh, he told me when
I went into this, said Travis. He said, Uh, I'm
gonna tell you what somebody told me. If you're expecting
to be a bridge over the gap here in Memphis,
you better be expecting to be walked on m You're
not gonna win them all some people. Sometimes you're gonna
(31:17):
be abused. You gotta be okay with that. You're gonna
lose some of them. So we again that prepared us
with the mentality of our goal is a lot like
baseball versus basketball. If you got a three hundred bad average,
you're an All star.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's how If you're shooting thirty percent from the field,
you're on the bench.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You're on the bench. We're baseball. That's true, and we're
not gonna win them all. Again, that's not the nature
of the people that we serve. We gotta be okay
at with a three hundred percent and feel like we're superstars.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Well, the truth is, even if it's if you if
you if you had fifty fault rate, it's the fifty
percent you helped that would not have had help other.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, we think now that we've learned, we think that
we can have a default rate under fifteen.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That wouldn't be incredible.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
We think we can.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
We mean, you're dealing with the most at high risk
lend Y's on the face of the planet. You're going
to have a higher default rate.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, we've learned some things. The first year, again, we
were bombarded with so many people and we didn't have
the data to say, you know, to determine whether they
would repay. We didn't have the data. Now that we've
had twenty months, we've we've learned a lot, got a
better process, and I think we can we have something,
(32:45):
We've landed on, a good model that we think can
change how money is distributed for help in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
We'll be right back. Do you look at yourself in
the mirror sometimes and think Georgia Tech du Seattle And
it all led to my own awakening about money. And
(33:22):
here I am in my back back at home in
my city, trying to teach folks from my own lessons.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Absolutely, I think all of that added to where we are,
where I am now. And again I told you I
think Andy Young was was was molding me the whole time.
But I remember one of my like one of my
favorite Doctor King quotes was and I may be tearing
it up, but it was he said, true compassion is
not just flipping a coin to a beggar, but it
(33:52):
comes to to believe that the edifice which which produces
beggars needs restructuring. And to me, I think what we're
doing is not just feeling sorry for people who are
in bast situation. But how do we change Memphis the
systems that are causing are creating poverty. How do we
(34:14):
change that? I think that's what we're doing here.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
You know, I have this argument, not this argument, I
have this thing I say that I think we're called
it's just human beings when we are blessed by some
level of success to try to help elevate the most
needy among us. I do believe that with every fiber
(34:39):
of my being. But let's just say you don't subscribe
to that level of idealism, because there are people that don't. Okay,
so let's talk pragmatically. Okay, what happens to your city?
And your municipality. If you don't have property buying, tax
(35:05):
paying citizens contributing to your community. What happens when you
have more people in a situation that they cannot contribute
to the tax base of Listen, most cities get their
(35:27):
revenue from property taxes and maybe a little sales tax,
but the vast majority is property tax. Well, if you
don't have people financially literal enough to buy homes, to
build businesses, and to pay into that tax base. Pragmatically,
what happens to that municipality. What happens to its police
(35:47):
department's fire department, it's city services, its ability to provide
basic necessities for citizenry. I'll tell you what happens. It
looks like Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
I'm not for me, garynas Well.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Gary Indiana is where the water got everybody sick because
they ran out of money. That's there is definitely an
ideal side to this that I subscribe to and believe in,
and anybody who listens to the show knows that, because
that's why I do the show. Okay, But there's also
a pragmatic thing here that if we don't do better
(36:26):
for the people who don't understand how to manage money
and get them out of these predatory places. If this
thing continues to snowball, you end up not having enough
revenue in your munssipality to even operate.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
The thing about poverty, it impacts everybody, Yes, it does.
It's I mean, you know FedEx and your company. You
want to have people at work. Well, if people are
struggling financially, it's going to affect your ability to get
people to work. Poverty impacts education, it impacts crime. Poverty
(36:58):
doesn't know that you live in. It impacts the cost
of health. Right, So it's it's it's really something upon
all of us to figure out how do we improve
the financial health of our city.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
So Ford Memphis is about helping the teacher, the family
who don't have the financial literacy and fallen victim to
predatory lending. But it's also a spoke in the will
of a greater of a of a greater approach toward
improving the entire city's health.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes, and and we just have one part. We understand
that we we're filling one gap. We're the emergency room
for people who need emergency financial assistance.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
That's our place.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That was the gap that we saw why people went
to predatory lending. That's that's our part.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
To play in this. I bet the predatory lending people
hate you, bro.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
If not now they will, I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I hope they do. I hope they hate your guts. Yeah,
what's next?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Well, part of what we have to do is to
scale this up across the whole state. That's right now.
We've been just in Shelby County and and there's still
opportunities to grow here in Shelby County. We have right
now we have twenty seven partners, coaching partners, churches, United Way,
a god Bade, nonprofit organizations. We think we're going to
(38:20):
scale up. We want to want to partner with the
schools ship Shelby County Schools.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I swear I was. I was going to say, why
couldn't we teach a basic financial economics class in school
so kids get it before they even get their hands
on money.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well that and really, when I say partner is we
want we don't want teachers struggling to pay their bills.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
And again, well, if teachers know they'll teach kids I
guess right.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
And their parents, we want to partner. And when again,
if the teachers are struggling financially, which many of them are,
especially the ones who are single. We want to have
we want to be a resource for them. So that's
what we mean by partner and letting parents know in
their schools that again there if you've been evicted, cars
(39:06):
being repossessed, your light's being cut off, there's a resource
for you. And so that's what's next for us. We
want to grow. We think we can grow to probably
double our partners this year.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Here in Memphis. Here in Memphis, and so we think next.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, well we'll go across the state.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
So and then if it keeps going, could you not
be regional national? I mean it seems like it's scalable
for every minute. Yea.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So our coaching is virtual. So we have one of
our coaches is lives in Chattanooga, so we we look,
we think this is something we'll have to scale across
the whole state. Eventually, we'll probably have an office in
Nashville and have a plan to communicate with our legislation
on value what we do.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Here's something nationally. This is obviously not just a Memphis problem.
There's twenty three thousand and payday lenders in the US
twice the number of McDonald's and Starbucks locations, So it's
not just a Memphis problem. We might have the highest concentration.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Twenty three thousand. There's twice the number of payday loan
places in the United States, and there is McDonald's and Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
McDonald's, there's a lot of McDonald's and Starbucks.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
But just think about it. You literally see a McDonald's
and Starbucks on almost every block that you are in
any municipality, and there's two times of me payday loans.
Of the things is the place I hang out with.
I see the McDonald's and Starbucks, but I don't see
the payday loan right.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Because they're concentrated. They're concentrated in the most distressed parts
of the community.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Which is because you played largely African American and Latino necesary.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It is African American Latino.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Wow. Wow, you're doing God's work. Man. You were fighting
an evil foe. You really are, aren't you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
What we're doing is again like the quote from Doctor
King is we're fighting a system.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
And but this isn't a governmental system. And this is
and this also really isn't a predominant social system. This
is almost a kind of an under the radar system
that I just don't think a whole lot of people
really understand. Right, It's a system, but kind of a
(41:27):
quiet dark system, you know what I mean. I mean,
this isn't a blatant thing exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
I was sharing with one of when we were starting
this and trying to raise some funding, and I was
meeting with a financial leader here, a guy who owns
a big financial company, and he thought, well, I don't
know why you would charge ten percent. That seems like
a lot. And obviously he had never heard of a
(41:54):
payday law.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
That's also that's also coming from a place have a
little bit of privilege. As big as his heart is.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tim said, you can I think you can cut that.
I was like, man, they're they're paying four Yeah, he
couldn't phantom that. It's like that.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I bet he supports you now though.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Oh yeah, he's biggest support of course.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
That makes perfect sense. That's awesome, Travis. It has been
an absolute pleasure to hear your story to uh, to
hear your personal story frankly, and also a story about
how you got where you got and Ford Memphis, What
what a what a phenomenal initiative that does seek to
(42:37):
serve those who need it the most. It Scott's work, brother,
and I can't wait to see where it goes next.
I appreciate it if people want to hear more about
Ford Memphis or you know, we have people all over
the country. I mean, this is a big show. Lots
of those folks listen, uh in some other part of
(42:57):
the world that really thinks, you know, I'd like to
engage in that in my community. How do they find
Ford Memphis and how do people find you?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, we would love to talk with anybody who has
an interest in connecting with us, and they can contact
us at Forward Memphis dot com. So f r WRD
Memphis dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Somebody wants to support you financially, they can do that too.
If somebody just wants to ask you a question, Caul,
they email you somewhere.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yes, they can email me as well at Travis at
Ford Memphis dot com.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Travis at Ford Memphis dot com. All right, brother, I
guess you need to go out and beat up some
predatory lending guys this the rest of the day.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I appreciate you having me here.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I appreciate you being here, and thank you for joining
us this week. If Travis Moody or other guests have
inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action
by telling folks about Ford Memphis, trying to start something
like it in your community, donating to them, teaching folks
(43:59):
about predators, lending, or something else entirely, please let me
know I'd love to hear about it. You can write
me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and I
promise you'll hear back from me. And if you enjoyed
this episode, please share with friends and on social subscribe
to the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the Army
(44:22):
at normalfolks dot us, consider becoming a premium member There
any and all of these things that can help us
grow an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer,
Iron Like Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do
what you can
Host
Bill Courtney
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