December 5, 2024 • 63 mins
Unlock the secrets to financial success for military members and veterans with Joey Laswell, a certified financial social worker, and Cameron, a budding Military Broadcast Radio podcaster. Learn how to navigate the unique financial landscape faced by service members, from tracking military-issued gear to overcoming the hurdles of managing money during deployments. Cameron sheds light on his personal financial struggles while stationed in Germany, offering valuable lessons on maintaining financial discipline and the importance of a saving mindset.
Hear compelling stories like that of Specialist Oskar, who made savvy decisions to save money, and discover how you can apply similar strategies to your life. We tackle common financial pitfalls such as succumbing to high-interest credit cards and overspending on luxury items, emphasizing the need for financial education and discipline. Whether it's budgeting wisely, understanding the nuances of credit, or investing in property, the insights shared are crucial for a stable financial future and a smoother transition to civilian life.
Join us as we explore the daunting challenges of bankruptcy and debt, and uncover effective strategies for rebuilding credit and managing financial burdens. With real-life examples, we highlight the importance of proactive financial management and planning for healthcare post-military service. Through shared personal successes and lessons learned, we aim to equip you with the knowledge to achieve long-term financial stability, ensuring you are prepared for life beyond the uniform. This episode is packed with resources and inspiration for active-duty members, veterans, and their supporters.
Please join me on my different platforms and follow along my journey towards FIRE.
https://laswell.veteran.cards/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
And the threats to our nations?
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Iran, russia, china, northKorea, isis, al-qaeda.
They may be watching this rightnow.
Our military should not bemistaken for our cable news gab
fest show.
We don't care what you looklike.
(01:03):
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worship, who you love.
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We will not be intimidated.
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Speaker 3 (01:47):
Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving
veterans a voice.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Find us on the web at mbradious.
I'm a certified financialsocial worker.
I was in the Air Force for 14years and then I paid off
$20,000 of debt while I wasactive duty within three years
as an E3.
So that's kind of like I gotreally into personal finance and
so I've been really passionateabout that ever since and that
(02:20):
was 10, 12 years ago now.
So since then I became a socialworker and now I'm a certified
financial social worker.
So we kind of get into, youknow, dealing with finances but
then also kind of dealing withthe psychology behind finances,
like the, you know, the mentalside of things.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy
when it comes to finances.
Please welcome the fire socialworker, joey Laswell.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
All right, hello, hello, welcome everyone.
This is Money in the Military.
I am Joey and we are onMilitary Broadcast Radio where
we're giving veterans a voice,on Military Broadcast Radio,
where we're giving veterans avoice, and today, once again, we
have back Cameron, who is the.
Your podcast is going to becalled Uncle Fester's Podcast,
(03:15):
okay.
So yeah, future MBR podcasterwas gracious enough to lend us
his time and his voice to jumpon stream and you know we're
just going to talk a little bitmore about finances in the
military, but especially somethings and lessons that we've
maybe both of us have learnedalong the way hopefully have
(03:37):
learned, and you know, just kindof talk about.
You know some of the commonissues that military members
might have when dealing withtheir finances, but you know
before we get into theformalities and stuff.
So you know what's going onwith the Cameron, how's life on
the road treating you?
Speaker 7 (03:57):
So far, so good.
Very little snow so far.
Cross my fingers, knock on wood, I don't run into a whole bunch
of it.
Traffic still sane, seeing allthe construction, but we're
still moving a lot of freighttoday.
I actually have a limestone ongoing to a ag center for
delivery on tomorrow morning.
I'll be actually in.
(04:18):
Longmont Colorado getting toexperience some more cold.
I woke up this morning it was10 degrees and now it's like 45.
I'll take the 45.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
I'll take that too.
All right, we just always arelooking out for you, hoping that
you're doing okay on the road.
I'm glad you're staying safe,staying safe as much as you can.
We appreciate you coming on, um, yeah, so, uh, let's see, I got
(04:49):
a few people have have havealready given me some questions,
um, but um, I guess you know Iwas.
I was curious for you, cameron,did you, did you have any um
any financial questions orconcerns, or maybe an issue that
you're dealing with financiallyand you might want to like
maybe we could talk about it andand have the the audience learn
(05:10):
something, or um, I don't know,what do you feel?
Speaker 7 (05:14):
well, you know when I was again let me kind of back
up, track, backtrack my mindhere when I was back in the
military.
You know, the biggest thingthat I that I learned when I was
in germany was all my gear thatwas assigned to me from the
processing center.
If you didn't turn that in, youknow they charged you to either
have that recovered or to bereplaced of your stuff.
(05:47):
Whether you put your initialson it or you had on your ACH,
your name band or whateveraround your head that was stolen
, it didn't matter if it was acivilian or another unit or
someone in your own company, ifthey saw a helmet laying around,
it was gone.
And you know those helmets runanywhere from $150 to $100.
And you know those helmets runanywhere from $150 to $200.
And you know, first, you knownew boots on the ground in
(06:08):
Germany and hey, here's yourstuff.
Go to formation, set your stuffdown and someone's going
through your stuff.
So the biggest you know adviceI had for anybody that was in
the military was keep track ofyour stuff, keep it next to your
leg or whatever, because by thetime you start adding up your
ponchos, your sleeping bags,your helmet, your vest, your
(06:32):
body plates, whatever it, startsadding up very quickly and that
eats into what money you mayhave left coming out of the
military with Going forward.
the last time we talked, wetalked about the person that
wrote you you know, hey, I'vegot debt.
I'm transitioning out of themilitary going to civilian life.
You know I could have hadthousands of dollars I couldn't
(06:58):
tell you how much out partying Ispent it on, you know, food and
video games and whatever whenthere should have been a better
mindset of, hey, let's save itbecause you don't know what the
next step is and you don't knowwhen you're going to go to war
and what the process of thathappens.
So, but really the one thingthat I learned is just watch
(07:22):
what you spend.
Yeah, watch what you spend.
Yeah, watch what you spend.
If you need something, it hasto be that dire need, that it
has to be the next month, nexttwo months down the road.
Personal hygiene, flashlights,batteries, winter clothes.
You know you always carrysomething with me to say, hey,
(07:43):
I'm going to be a little bitsmarter come this year.
And you know, every, every monthor every year, you learn
something new going.
You know I should have donethat, or where was my money?
Why?
How did I poorly spend my moneyand not catch it in time for me
to stop?
So yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
you learn by making mistakes in time for me to stop.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
So you know you learn by making mistakes.
Yeah, absolutely, and that'swhat I'm hoping with this show
that you know, between all of usveterans on NBR and myself
included, there's a lot ofmistakes financial that I have
made that I'm hoping that otherlike if you're active duty
listening right now, you cankind of learn from those
mistakes so that you don't makethe mistakes that we made.
(08:24):
You can kind of learn fromthose mistakes so that you don't
make the mistakes that we made.
Speaker 7 (08:26):
You know, yeah, and the biggest thing was when you
know, when you get all your gearfrom basic training to your job
training, and then you go toyour duty station, man, they're
just giving you stuff.
You're not even really keepingtrack of it, you're throwing in
the double bag and you're justgoing about your day, yeah.
And then, of course, you mayget new uniforms, or you may get
(08:46):
your ACH, your battle vest,your weapon, your this or that,
your mind's running 1,000 milesa minute.
So what I learned when I got toGermany was man.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Hey, hold on one second, Cameron.
I actually have somebody thatwants to jump on the stream real
quick.
We got magic Mike.
Speaker 10 (09:14):
What's going on, guys?
A?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Well, you're muted.
What you're muted?
You're muted, you're muted.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
Mike, you're muted.
Can't hear, let me try unmutingmyself.
Speaker 9 (09:30):
First of all, if you guys are, not listening to this
podcast.
Speaker 10 (09:33):
Joey, I love you.
I'm a 53-year-old guy.
I've been in the streetsbecause I financially wasn't
watching what I was doing,what's going on Carrying my
brother from another motherright there.
It's great to be on here.
Listen, if you guys are joiningus for the first time, if you
guys have never tuned in.
Joey and Cameron are a dynamicduo but Joey man, listen your
(09:54):
financial advice and justwatching your podcast man opens
up eyes and doors that theydon't teach in school.
Seriously, they don't teach us.
They don't sit there and say hey, by the way, credit is
important to you guys and thisis how you build it.
It's not building it by, youknow, I only have a couple here
but it's not by building it byhaving 35 credit cards, right,
(10:16):
it's by, you know, it's by beingfinancially responsible, right?
And Cameron man, I waslistening to you.
I mean you hit it straight onthe head, you know.
Right?
And Cameron man, I waslistening to you.
I mean you hit it straight onthe head, you know.
You're given a private his ownroom.
He doesn't have financialresponsibilities for a cell
phone Well, I'm excuse me,philly's for a light bill, for
garbage bill, water bill, heatbill, rent, he doesn't have
(10:41):
those responsibilities.
Right, and we get to Germany,man, we got all this money.
We got cost of living allowance, a cola and everything like
that.
I mean it's great.
So let's take it a step further.
When we get out of the militaryand those of us who are truly
blessed and 100% total andpermanent through the VA, we're
making 52 grand a year Tax-freemoney, right?
How are we spending that?
What are we doing with thatmoney, especially those of us
who have a part-time job or ajob and they're fortunate enough
(11:03):
to go back to work, right, um,it's, it's, it's being
responsible man, and and yourshow man is phenomenal.
I love it and I'm just honoredto even be on your broadcast man
.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
oh, wow, that's uh, I'm I appreciate you saying that
.
Um, that's really good to hearand I'm just glad that, uh,
people are are checking it outand uh, you know, just, you know
, like I've said it before inmany of my shows, like you know,
just earlier I was saying thatyou know a lot of this is just
hard lessons that I've learned,you know, and you know I just
(11:34):
want to, you know, be thatfuture time traveler that says,
hey, you know, this is whatyou're going to, this is what's
going to look like if you keepdoing this, or if you do this,
this decision, then you mightend up your your future self is
going to, is going to hate you,so so that's kind of what the
the idea is to just kind of givethe share, the wealth, if you
will, a little pun there, andthen, you know, just also kind
(11:58):
of normalize, talking aboutfinances amongst the military
community.
You know we just don't do thatvery well, so, um, but I really
appreciate you saying that.
So, thanks for thanks forjumping on mike, thanks for
coming.
Do we lose him?
Speaker 7 (12:20):
he looks like he's missed something.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
You, the one thing that I learned from us.
Okay, wow.
Speaker 7 (12:26):
The one thing that I learned when I got to Germany
was and I don't know where, when, when, when, when were you
stationed at?
But the one thing that I got tolearn was like we had, we had
the credit union on the baseRight and the credit union came
to all of our barracks and likehey need assistance.
(12:47):
You know, because your firsttime here here's a loan.
well, you're 19, 20 years old.
You don't know anything about aloan, you don't know the
interest rates, you don't knowhow it works.
I'll be the I'll be the firstone to tell you.
I walk right in the door goinghey, I hear money, right, and
the lady sits down and you signa contract and they give you the
(13:08):
money up front.
You just got to make thepayment and they know your
schedule when you're deployedquote.
Unquote deployed or stationedin a foreign country they know
your schedule of payment.
So they turn around and they gohey, guess what?
$50 a month, $100 a month andeventually, like Magic Mike was
(13:30):
saying before we lost him, youhave to build credit somehow.
Well, that helps out and itshows good on your future
endeavors.
Even though you're in themilitary, it still helps out.
I signed up for one of thoselittle military star cards.
I had a $2,000 limit, neverused a thing.
My bonehead closed the accountwhen.
(13:52):
I could have even used it yearslater.
Guess what?
It's closed now, but it stillshows.
Hey, I was available for $2,000.
So you know again, there's alot to learn that A, the schools
didn't teach us like MagicMicrochip.
No, the schools didn't teach us.
Our parents didn't teach us.
And then you get in themilitary and it's like, nah, we
(14:15):
ain't going to teach you becauseyou're probably not going to
live very much longer.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
I mean that was, I mean my NCO was that hard core?
Speaker 7 (14:24):
He was six months.
You're going to Afghanistan, soyou know, and that was it.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Man.
All right, Mike, we're going totry again.
Speaker 10 (14:37):
You're still muted, but we got your there, you go.
Can you guys hear me now?
Yeah, we're working.
Now I can hear you.
Great, joey, awesome.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Oh yeah, no problem, that's the gremlins in the
internet that likes to cause allkinds of weird glitches.
Speaker 10 (14:52):
You know, like Cameron was saying, man, you get
those paychecks, man, and youjust, you know where are you
financially being responsible?
And I'll tell you a great storyof this guy.
He unfortunately lost his life.
Actually, when he got out ofthe military he went back to
California and started his life.
But he did three years in theArmy.
(15:16):
They sent him straight toGermany right after basic
training and Oskar was his nameand Specialist Oskar, every
weekend would go get a case ofbeer, go to his room, didn't
travel anywhere, which wasreally sad, because you know
they have all this free stuff.
You know MWR gives free traveland everything and he would
throw all his change in one ofthose you remember those old
military trash cans like gray orthey were green or whatever,
the little trash cans, and hewould throw all his change in
(15:39):
there.
When he left Germany he hadalmost a hundred grand saved up
in his bank account and he hadover a thousand deutschmark at
the time it was deutschmarkbefore we converted the euro in
this trash can that he gave tome I was his, uh, his, uh,
barracks mate, if you will andhe gave it to me and he said
that he saved money because hedidn't travel, didn't go
(15:59):
anywhere, which is sad.
You know you travel to germany.
You want to see it.
But I remember the first thing Idid when I got to Germany was I
went and bought a CD player.
Man, it was like $780,.
Man, can you imagine a CDplayer?
They're obsolete now.
And here I was.
I bought a JVC and it lastedlike two years before it broke
right.
But for me that was like thecoolest thing, like this little
(16:21):
thing, and I wish I knew nowfrom your show, listening to
your guidance and listening toyou guys talk.
I wish I knew now back thenwhat I know now, because I would
have put that money away.
You know, save that money andand stuff.
It's just like these guys whowho get, uh, you know, their va
disability back paid.
You know, um, you know I gotback paid.
(16:41):
I don't mind sharing it.
I got back paid a little over270 grand.
Right.
I didn't buy a house.
I didn't see, you know, veryfortunate that I had somebody
who was smart enough to tell meto put it away right.
So I put it away.
You know, we get thesefinancial things where we don't
(17:03):
really, we really don't knowwhat to do.
We have nobody like you Joey,like you Cameron, who are there
saying hey, listen, listen,stupid, don't go a trick.
What do they call that?
Don't go with a trick.
What do they call that?
Rapture, whatever, that's like80 or 109 or the Raptor or the
Cybertruck or whatever.
Because I will tell you this itwas very unfortunate that I was
(17:27):
in my 50s when I met a guy whoowned a bunch of properties and
he told me he drove a piece ofcrap pickup truck, but he was a
millionaire, he had lots ofmoney and he said my dad taught
me at a young age a life youwant to do.
You want to live for free anddrive for free.
And I was like I don't get it.
He says I bought my first house.
I lived upstairs, I renovateddownstairs.
(17:48):
He said and then I liveddownstairs and renovated
upstairs, and then I went aheadand lived upstairs and rented
downstairs.
He said that I bought my nextproperty and I did the same
thing and then I started buyingproperty.
He said my truck gets me frompoint A to point B.
I don't care what I look like,all I care is that I can put a
ladder in there.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
Some paint go to the Lowe's or Home Depot and it
makes sense.
Speaker 10 (18:10):
It makes sense.
This guy lives for free,meaning he doesn't have a
mortgage or he doesn't pay rent.
Sense this guy lives for free,meaning he doesn't have a
mortgage or he doesn't pay rent.
Right, and he doesn't have avehicle that he pays.
You know what's the average.
I had somebody the other daysay uh, you know, it was just a
big group of people talking.
He said how much do you pay foryour car?
He goes, oh, it's about 730 amonth.
I think, oh, that's not thatbad.
And mike's face says it all ohgod, julie, can you imagine that
(18:33):
that's not, that's not bad atall when he says I'm going to
pay $700,000.
Joey, can you imagine thatthat's not bad at all, really?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
That's almost a mortgage payment for some
businesses.
Speaker 10 (18:40):
That's a mortgage payment If you and your wife
both are making you know.
So I think that financially,that we need to educate, not
just our children at a young age, but our soldiers need to be
educated right.
And it goes way beyondbalancing a checkbook, because
God knows, we don't even usecheckbooks anymore.
It goes to you know when youget that.
(19:01):
That you know I love doing thisright here when you get that
God almighty military star cardand they give you a credit limit
of three grand and you go andyou max it out and then they up
your credit to 5,000 and you gomax that, max it out, and then
they up your credit to 5 000 andyou go max that out, and then
you're at eight grand, ten grand, and you're like, oh, I got all
(19:21):
this money.
No, you don't have money right.
And which one is the interestrate?
They don't tell you theinterest rate is.
The interest rate is nothing,it's nothing until later, 22
months later, when it's 12% or13%, and you know that payment
for that.
You know DVD player or whateverit is that you bought Let me
(19:42):
show you how old I am DVD player, right, or whatever you bought.
The interest rate on there is.
The credit card itself is $100a month, but the interest rate
is $172.
It's like you're never going topay that down.
So you know, credit is great,great, but you got to work and
know it.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
Credit cards are great.
We lost you, Mews.
Speaker 10 (20:07):
It's just something that's huge.
You just got to be careful withit.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Yeah, so actually that's a great point.
We're going to put a pin inthat.
We're going to keep talkingsome more after a quick musical
interlude from uh noah peterson.
It's my go-to right out thegate song that I play.
He's kind of like a jazz,modern jazz, kind of like uh, I
don't know it, just it just putsme in a good mood.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
So this is a marine corps veteran noah peterson,
we'll be right back puts me in agood mood, so this is a marine
(22:51):
corps veteran.
Speaker 9 (22:51):
No, peterson, we'll be right back, thank you.
Thank you.
Military broadcast radio, thestation that's giving veterans a
voice.
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Opinions expressed in thisprogram are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they representfind us on the web at mbradious
all right, we are back with thatfun musical uh interlude from
uh.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Mr noah peterson always puts me in a good mood
Hearing that Before the break wewere kind of just talking.
Magic Mike was giving somegreat Advice about credit.
Using credit wisely.
I was just curious.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 11 (23:31):
My bad let's see what I was going to ask.
Oh, what is your most?
Speaker 6 (23:38):
impulsive purchase that you made while you were in
the military.
Anybody want to jump in.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Impulsive for me and again, I was a kid right.
I think it was right when thefirst see this is 2010.
I think it was when the Xboxcame out.
Jumped right all over it Wentout and bought the games, the
controllers, the TV.
You know I spent my weekendpaycheck on that.
Wow.
(24:05):
Yeah, going through the weekssucked.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
You do pay for it in the end, but yeah Well, that's a
pretty common thing, especiallyfor you know you're young,
you're 19, 20 years old, firstjob, sometimes out of the home,
and you know, like you saidbefore, you don't always have
financial responsibilities whenyou're starting out.
So that's where I think youknow the DOD as a whole I've
(24:33):
said this before could do a lotbetter with you know, educate
financial literacy and educatingyou know, especially in
starting from basic training allthe way to the AIT tech schools
and the first base all thatstuff.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
So I mean you guys know.
I mean you guys remember basictraining, the first time you got
to go to the PX without beingon a leash.
You know I still have a sweaterthat says you know, united
States army combat engineer onit.
You know I still I.
You know I bought anything andeverything that I could.
And let me tell you just togive you an idea I came back in
the 1980s in the army, rightWell, the late eighties, and my
(25:09):
monthly paycheck as a PFC waslike 800 bucks, you know, and I
spent that bad boy in 2.1seconds.
We used to get paid oncea monthback then and I bought.
I bought stupid things.
You know I can remember beingback paid colon buying stupid
things and it was like, if youthink back now, it's like
between the time in the militaryyou're talking about, I would
(25:30):
probably be a billionaire rightnow if I would have saved some
of that money you know, just notinvested it, just put it in a
savings account and left itthere.
But again, we you said it thebest, joe you know we're not
educated from basic training,ait of.
Hey, listen, there's going tobe those guys out there.
They're going to sell you thoseboots that you press a button
(25:50):
and they're going to make youfeel like tennis shoes that are
$800.
Right, I remember when Gore-Texfirst came out, I bought a pair
of boots for $268.
Man, I thought I was a MacDaddy as a PFC A lot of sergeant
looked at me and just shook hishead like what an idiot.
Speaker 7 (26:09):
Right, we had gone through Fort Lawson Woods and
Magic Mike it's pretty much whatreally known to Fort Lawson
Woods, what it's like over there.
When the PX came out they hadjust announced that Rocky Boots
had shown up.
Speaker 10 (26:20):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (26:21):
You know, when Rocky Boots showed up and it was on
the PX it was 175, 200, whatever.
That line out the door forRocky Boots was better than
Gore-Tex, was better thanDanner's, was better because
it's more accountability, it'slightweight, and then it's like
here comes Nike, Under Armour,Oakley here, comes Adidas, you
(26:44):
know, and again, imagine Mikesaid it they're getting up there
in price.
Nobody stopped and said, hey, doyou have this, this and this
and this to go for your nextduty station?
No, we jumped out.
We jumped out there, going tothe clubs, getting tattoos,
buying stuff that we reallydidn't need, but we did anyway,
(27:04):
joey, I mean you got it.
Speaker 10 (27:06):
It's just a financial responsibility that we
need to teach the youngsoldiers and and even the
veterans when they get out ofthe military you know, because
you know, when you get out ofthe military, you now all of a
sudden have financialresponsibilities such as a light
bill, water bill, right, younow have to pay for insurance on
your car, which you know youmight have been.
(27:26):
You know not needing a car whenyou were stationed in Korea or
whatever it be, and you know youhave to kind of tame it back a
little bit and show somefinancial responsibilities.
You know, here's something alot of people don't know, is
that how much of your salaryshould you have in savings?
What is it?
Three months, or something likethat of your salary.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Maybe six months is kind of like what I've always
heard Six months.
Speaker 10 (27:49):
Yeah, I mean, how many people have that in their
savings account?
You know, you have people thatare living paycheck to paycheck
and you and you hear all thesestories about soldiers on
welfare and so on and so forth.
It's like financialresponsibility.
It's about budgeting.
Listen, I have still in mydrawer.
I still have it in my drawer.
You guys remember this right.
Let's see if I can get that inthere.
(28:09):
I only say now Logbook.
Oh yeah, so I still have this.
And guess what?
My sons laugh at me, but I doall, all of my budgeting on that
, that bad boy.
And it's not just budgeting.
I put on there okay, I get thismuch a month and this is how
much goes out the bills, this ishow much I'm putting in savings
(28:30):
.
And I heard even one better.
Today my wife and I weretalking.
She got an alert from usa and Igo, what is that?
And she said every day I USAand I go, what is that?
And she said every day I have$8 go out of my account into a
savings account.
Need of one of a smoke.
We're not big drinkers, so wereally don't spend a lot of
money.
We kind of indulge, and Iindulged in some cookies today.
Oh my God, they were great.
(28:50):
But other than that, but otherthan that, we really don't do
anything crazy right?
And I said to her I said andwhere does that go?
She goes, it goes in a savingsaccount.
So every month I have about$240 in the savings account.
Nice, you plan on leaving me?
And she said no, I just do thatfor Christmas and birthdays and
stuff like that.
So that's my spending money,that's my money and it makes
(29:12):
sense.
Think about it, it really doesmake sense Now.
I don't spend any money everyday right, I usually make a
purchase on the weekend orsomething like that.
I'll take her out to dinner orwhatever, but it makes sense,
man.
I mean it's the smart thing todo.
It's when you live paycheck topaycheck, when you're living
(29:32):
above your means, right.
And who doesn't want a nice car?
Right, everybody wants that.
Or a nice truck, and peoplewant those nice things.
And I got it.
But you save for it and youwork for it.
Now, money is not everything.
Time spending we go for a walkwith the dogs, we went for a
walk to the park, right, thatdoesn't cost us anything and we
(29:53):
have a good time.
I know it sounds boring andstupid right now, especially to
young people, but as you getolder, it makes sense, man.
And it's like I'm not listen,I'm not saving for my kids, I'm
spending all my kids inheritance.
I don't care, I can care lessabout them, but, but as being,
but as being financiallyresponsible, you know there's no
reason that you should be.
You should be filing bankruptcyunless there's something tragic
(30:16):
and devastating that happens inyour life.
You know I got it.
No horse happens and I got itthat.
You know you lose your job orwhatever it be, but you should
still be financially stableenough to say, hey, this is how
I'm going to take and, listen,creditors will work with you.
Yes, they will.
You know all these creditunions or banks and American
Express and all these otherpeople.
(30:37):
They will work with you andthey will say, hey, listen, we
got it.
You're in financial need.
We don't want you to filebankruptcy because guess what,
it gets wiped away.
Yeah, we get a tax creditbecause it gets wiped away, but
we don't get the whole fullamount and it's just a hassle.
So we'll work with you.
Pay us $40.
What with you?
(30:57):
Pay us $40.
What can you bid?
$30 or whatever be it.
The worst thing you can do, theworst thing you do, is commit
credit suicide.
It is the worst thing in theworld, because to get back from
that is so hard.
It takes years and years andyears.
There's a gentleman that wrotea book called Life After
Bankruptcy by Steven Snyder andhad an opportunity to meet him
and talk to him very often andhe said the hardest thing for
(31:21):
him was that nine and a halfyears after he filed bankruptcy
from his divorce and everythinglike that, when he was writing
the book, he went to his ChaseBank and he asked for a credit
card.
He banked with him for 20 plusyears.
He wanted a credit card that hecould use and that all his money
goes into there.
He didn't want any other creditcard, just want a credit card
from it.
And they said no because he hadfiled bankruptcy.
(31:44):
He said that was nine and ahalf years ago.
He said well, it still shows.
His son, who was born in Ecuadorand lived in the United States,
was in college, ecuador andlived in the United States, was
in college and his son appliedfor a credit card with Chase
Bank and never had a bankaccount with them and they gave
his son a credit card with acredit limit of five grand.
(32:04):
Didn't have a job, was incollege, only lived in the
States a very short while, Ithink.
He came to the States when hewas 16 or 17,.
Went to college, was 18 yearsold 19 years old, I'm sorry, he
was 19 years old applied for acredit card, got it from Chase
Bank with $5,000 credit limit,with no job, no, nothing.
And here this guy was.
(32:24):
He had so much money in hissavings account, I think he said
.
He told me he had, like youknow, 800 grand in his savings
account at the time.
Wow, like, look, I have 800grand in my savings account
right now.
I just wrote a book.
I'm finished writing a book.
I got this big deal, whatever,whatever, and he said it was the
most enlightening thing for himfrom filing bankruptcy, no
matter how rich you are.
(32:45):
When he filed bankruptcy, itkilled him and it killed for 10
years.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Yeah, that's the truth.
That's the truth and that'sthat's why I think, uh, there's
more and more people talkingabout like bankruptcies oh, it's
a clean slate or it's a, it's areset, but I mean it comes with
a lot of ramifications that,like you said, that lasts for a
decade almost yeah, I mean, andhere's the other thing, I'm
sorry, go ahead, cameron, solook real quick I just heard a
(33:10):
rumor and I'm still waiting tohear more about it.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
Right, no fork southern, the biggest one of the
railroad companies they'refixing to file for bankruptcy.
Think about what that's goingto do to their employees, their
stock market, their everything.
I mean, yeah, they've had a lotof derailments, but this is not
an unknown thing.
Bnsf, up, they all havederailments at some point in
(33:34):
time in the history.
But now they're talking aboutfiling bankruptcy.
What's going to happen if thatdoes happen?
So let's you know again 10years, 15 years, 20 years, what
happens?
You know, yeah, the bankruptcy.
Speaker 10 (33:48):
So the bankruptcy protection for a company is a
little bit different thanpersonal, you know.
For for the companies, it's achance for them to reset and and
and and stated to their debtorshey, listen, we're gonna pay
you, but this is what we'regonna pay.
You're gonna pay you pennies onthe dollar, because this is
what you guys are now ourdebtors and this is what we're
gonna pay, whereas when you'repersonal and you file for that
bankruptcy, right, the creditorslook, people don't realize this
(34:12):
, but it is a clean slate.
You're absolutely right.
Fire social worker.
You're absolutely right thatit's a clean slate.
But the creditors that youapply to, they still look and
say what was your credit historylike?
What was your credit historylike when you filed for
bankruptcy?
Did you file for bankruptcy andhave 300 credit cards and all
(34:34):
of them were maxed out?
That shows thatirresponsibility, right, that
shows that there was anirresponsibility and you're just
a risk.
Did you learn your lesson?
They're the ones who are takingthe gamble.
If you will, the risk right, therisk falls all on them.
And after that, clean slate,right, you get wiped away, it
(34:55):
all goes away and everythinglike that.
After that, clean slate right,you get wiped away, it all goes
away and everything like that.
After that clean slate, adecade later you come out of
there and you file for yourfirst credit card and it's a
$400 limit, maybe a $300 limit.
Then it takes years.
It took him Steven Snyder toldme it took him 15 years after
bankruptcy to finally.
We were talking about his blackAmerican express card one day
(35:19):
and I and I told him I said, oh,one day I'll own one of those.
And he said you can.
And he said he said his, his,his.
His whole idea was that they,they looked at him as as a risk
for 15 years after hisbankruptcy.
So you're talking about 10years of bankruptcy and then 15
years out of that.
(35:40):
So 25 years before they lookedat him no longer as a risk.
I mean, that's a long time, youknow so, so you know.
And then you have all theseorganizations that you see them
all over.
Veterans can have their debtwiped away and debt
consolidation and stuff.
So there's debt consolidationis a law firm that says we're
(36:00):
going to represent you, we'regoing to reach out to your
creditors and we're going totell your creditors hey, we're
going to pay you this much,we're going to pay you that much
, but guess what?
You could do that same thing.
You don't need to pay a debtconsolidation to that.
So now, instead of paying athousand dollars a month to all
your bills, you're paying $500.
They're taking that $500,putting it in their pocket and
they're saying we're going topay creditor A over here $150 a
(36:25):
month, and we're going to creditB over here $50 a month, and
we're going to pocket the rest.
And then, once that's gone, ina year or two, then we'll go on
to the next one and the next one, the next one.
So in meantime, you're payingthese people to do what you can
do.
Reach out to your creditors.
Hey, I need a break.
Hey, this is what's going on.
I've just lost my job.
Give me a chance to get a newjob or whatever.
Be it, it's, it's.
Let me tell you, financialresponsibility is the way to
(36:49):
keep from having all thesethings going on.
It really is, and it just needssomebody like like you to just
teach a man, to let them knowhey, this is where it's at and
don't, and don't be afraid toreach out and ask for help.
Speaker 7 (37:02):
I mean yeah absolutely there's people out
there that's willing to sit downand say, look, this is what
I've learned, I'm gonna pass myknowledge on to you and you lay
it on the table and say let'snot look at bankruptcy, let's
not look at these consolidationcompanies, like Magic Mike is
saying, because did you reallyaccomplish anything?
(37:25):
And there's a lot of questionsthat go beyond this topic that,
unfortunately, we won't havetime to cover tonight, but again
it's.
What can you learn from it?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
Yeah, absolutely time to cover tonight.
But again it's what can youlearn from it?
Yeah, absolutely, but I think Iwill say, going going to into
the um, the psychology of things, I've had issues where, like
you know, it's like you canteach or you can talk to your
blue in the face, but until youtake action, it's just words,
you know so there have beentimes where I had people in my
(37:57):
ear telling me oh, maybe youshouldn't do this, but then I
would still do it and then makethose mistakes.
So that's the challenge that, ashumans, we have, you know.
So I just want to give somepeople some, you know, give
people grace, that you knowyou're allowed to be human and
make mistakes.
You're allowed to be human andmake mistakes.
If enough people are tellingyou that you should change your
(38:18):
behavior or should do somethingdifferent, then you probably
want to take that to heart.
Speaker 10 (38:23):
Absolutely, joey.
If somebody's telling you overand over, hey listen, this is a
bad idea, this is a bad idea, itmight be a bad idea.
Speaker 8 (38:30):
It might be a bad idea that Lamborghini you want
to get it might be a bad ideathat Lamborghini you want to get
.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
Yeah don't get that idea, don't get that.
Lamborghini.
Speaker 6 (38:41):
All right.
Well, it looks like it's abouttime for another little musical
interlude, and we're going toplay some Andrew Roborow, Bleed,
Red and Blue, Red, White andBlue.
So we'll be back and we'llcontinue our conversations about
personal finance.
Speaker 11 (39:13):
It's been ten years since I'd seen his face.
Not much had changed, just adifferent time, different place.
When I shook his hand, I knewsomething had changed.
(39:37):
This was a different man fromthe one I knew back then.
Speaker 12 (39:50):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line.
Speaker 11 (39:57):
And watch the flag wave and drag.
Speaker 12 (40:03):
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed Red, white andblue.
Speaker 11 (40:16):
He told me the tales Of his journeys far away, three
times gone, and land most onlyseen On the front page.
We'll be right back and foughtfor you and I so we could be
free from it all.
Speaker 12 (40:53):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthe flag wheel ride.
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Red, white and blue when dutycalls.
(41:21):
Yes, I stand in line and oncethe flag, we'll be praying it
goes.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthem weep and pray.
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
(41:43):
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Oh, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Speaker 9 (42:19):
Little, I know We'll be right back and do not
necessarily reflect the views orpositions of any entities they
represent.
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Military.
On Military Broadcast RadioWe've been talking.
We actually had Magic Mike hadto drop out.
He was having some internetconnectivity issues, so uh, sad
to see him go, but uh, we're umglad to have him and and just uh
fortunate to get hisperspective and, um, he, he, he
(42:55):
had a lot of great things to say.
So, uh, so, yeah, just thankyou, magic mike, um from from
beyond the stream.
But uh, yeah, we still, uh, westill got some time, me and you
camera, we're gonna, we're gonnarock this out and, um, you know
, just keep the conversationgoing.
Um, um, so, yeah, we weretalking a little bit, we kind of
got on different topics, but uh, we were talking about
(43:18):
bankruptcy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean this is goodstuff, but uh, it's one of
those, like I said, it's one ofthose things that we just don't
really uh in in, those thingsthat we just don't really in the
military community.
We just don't really talk aboutthese things very much or as
much as we should.
No, but I don't know anythingjump out at you from what Magic
Mike was saying.
Speaker 7 (43:40):
I mean, he's spot on with everything he said.
Yeah, you know it's, you knowit's safe, you know you said it.
I've somewhat said myself, buthe said it, mainly Save it.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Be, responsible.
Speaker 7 (43:53):
You know and just think about what your future
holds.
Think about you know.
Are you going to stay in andwhat your goal is.
Do you want that nice car?
Do you want that nice house?
Do you want land?
Know, do you want land?
What do?
you want and and where do you,you know?
Do you want to go to school?
It, school loans are out there.
(44:14):
I mean school colleges are.
I mean you don't use a GI billand you don't want to go to
school, or you lose a GI billand you want to go to school.
Hey, you have a backup, youhave a way to pay those, instead
of sitting there saying hey,Uncle Sam, go pay for me.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
Right.
Speaker 7 (44:28):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It don't work that way, I hateto tell you guys.
So there's a lot of things thatas a kid I never thought of.
And then I got out and now it'shell.
What do I do next?
Where do I?
go.
And now it's hell.
What do I do next?
Where do I go?
Because people end up on thestreet, or you know they refuse
(44:50):
help or they don't want to askfor help.
And again it all leads back toone thing X.
Who's the one that made thatmistake?
It's always yourself, and thenyou've got to pick yourself up
on the bootstrap and try tofigure out, you know how to pay
these bills or how to getanother job.
So there's always that.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really, I really liked how hetalked about a little bit about.
You know, obviously, activeduty.
You know you're in a uniquesituation where you have a lot
of things taken care of.
You know your, your healthcarethat's a huge one that a lot of
people truly underestimate untilthey get out, especially if
they went from basic like 18,you know, 19, 20, like if,
(45:33):
unless they had to pay for theirown healthcare before they
joined.
It's one of those things whereyou don't know what you have
until you have to pay out ofpocket for healthcare or you
have to pay an employer forhealthcare.
So that's just one of thosethings that you have to think
about when you're active duty,to plan for financially whenever
(45:54):
you're about to get out,because I mean, you could go on.
You know, like if you're notworking, maybe you're in that
transition period you go ontothe healthcaregov website and
you can find a plan, but I mean,man, it's going to cost you a
lot of money.
Speaker 7 (46:10):
I was just going to say with my company, being a
truck driver, we're a smalloutfit.
All health insurance, justhealth insurance alone, is $90 a
week because we get paid weeklyas drivers.
So we get this, and then yougot all your extra benefits,
whatever.
So we get this, and then yougot all your extra benefits,
whatever.
(46:30):
And I added up for one week itwas 360 dollars coming out of my
paycheck, out of what I mean.
I'm like I can't afford thehealth insurance.
I took the smaller end of it,knowing I had the va in my back
pocket.
But there's only certain thingsthat v8 want to cover,
depending on your, I guess, yourrating or whatever they put
(46:50):
down in the system.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
Service-connected.
Speaker 7 (46:52):
yeah, yes, and so again, that has to be considered
.
And that website, I never didlike it.
I looked on it and some elderlypeople and some young people.
It doesn't.
It's not biased against whogoes against the premium.
It keeps going up and up and upand you're sitting up thinking
(47:14):
how do I afford health care orhow do I afford dental when it's
the basic?
When that keeps going up, yougot your vision.
When it don't cover but onepair of glasses again.
We can sit here till we're bluein the face and the cows are
calling home and they want theirfeed, yeah what we're not.
We're not saying something wedon't already know.
(47:35):
It's that person that, look,that's doing this mistake.
They have to make that mistaketo say see, joey was right, joey
was sitting there telling menot to do it.
Speaker 6 (47:46):
Oh man, but see, I don't want to be right, I want
to prevent these people fromdoing these things, you know.
So that's kind of where myhead's at lately.
Yeah, sure, but yeah, you know,like it's one of those things.
It's just you know, you don'tknow what you don't know.
A lot of times you know anddon't know what you don't know.
(48:10):
A lot of times you know, andthat's that's fine.
You know you're, you learn, yougrow, you develop over time.
That's that's how, that's howwe evolve as humans and
everything.
But, like we were talking aboutearlier, you know, if enough
people are telling you youshould probably be doing
something differently than youknow.
Speaker 7 (48:20):
Well, and and again, depending on that person.
Yeah, and I don't mean that ina disrespectful way to you or
anybody else.
Speaker 10 (48:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (48:28):
My mom beat me down day in and day out.
Pay your bills, pay your debt,do this, do that.
What does that one person do?
They start getting stubborn andhardheaded and their ego gets
in the way and they don't listento the pounder.
They don't listen to that oneperson that has repeated it
constantly.
Yeah, to the pounder.
(48:50):
They don't listen to that oneperson that has repeated it
constantly.
Speaker 8 (48:52):
Yeah, and I mean, you know, I, you know the intro
video.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
you know you paid off your debt in three years as an
E3, right?
Or you know how your video goes.
It took me three years to payoff almost $10,000 worth of debt
that I put myself in becauseI'm like I'm done, I'm, I'm
getting up.
I mean, I'm still 34 years old,but still when you get to a
certain point, you're like dude,you need to pull your head out
of your hindquarters and youneed to pull your boots up on
(49:13):
your bootstraps and start doingit because your parents ain't
going to help you.
Your friends, your family,they're not going to support you
, and it's time to grow up andpay your bills.
So I learned the hard way.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Yeah, and I mean, like I said, I did too, and I
think for some people, as hardas it is to say and to admit
that, I think some peoplegenuinely do have to learn the
hard way, they have to make themistake.
It's like touching a hot stove.
I can tell my four-year-oldolddon't touch that hot stove.
(49:48):
A hundred times, and then thathundred and first time he might
decide he's going to do it.
But he'll learn after that.
Yeah, and you're going to hearabout it for the next six months
, absolutely, oh man.
But yeah, I mean, you know, thisis the like, like I've said
before, you know, like I'mtrying to talk to that active
(50:10):
duty.
You know, maybe E1, e2, e3, youknow, like just coming in and
be like, all right, this is,this is what all of us people,
all of us older people, aretrying to tell you to those.
You know e5s that are maybegetting out, um, and then you
know people who are just retiredand want to figure out how to
manage their va benefits ortheir tricare stuff.
(50:31):
You know, so that's, that's thething, like the, the, the money
.
I guess it's not necessarilymilitary specific, but there are
some things that only veteransand only military members will
know what we're talking about.
That's why people in thecivilian world were speaking
Chinese to them.
Yeah, bah BAS.
(50:53):
There's like what is that COLA?
Yeah, all the acronym alphabetsoup stuff.
Speaker 7 (51:00):
Then you get down the ranks, you got dangerous pay
you got this you know you'regetting all of those stuff.
And it's like what, and it'scrazy how much acronyms or how
much the alphabet suit getsdumped in on the military guys.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Yeah, and I mean, you know it makes sense that some
people don't know about theprograms like SDP, like the
Savings Deposit Program.
Did you hear about that whenyou were deployed?
We?
Speaker 7 (51:26):
heard heard about it, but they didn't push it.
They didn't like.
It's up to you.
Yeah, we don't care.
Speaker 6 (51:31):
Yeah, you know so, yeah, it's just like a, a five
minute briefing, and thenthey're like that's, that's it.
Speaker 7 (51:36):
You know, um and you left standing there holding a
piece of paper going yeah, what?
Speaker 6 (51:41):
yeah, exactly yeah.
So I'm hope, I'm hoping thatjust through osmosis or putting
it out there in the universe,that the, the dod, is going to
start taking this seriously andand really, and I mean I feel
like they've started to makesome, some changes.
I've been reading up on alittle bit but, um, you know the
(52:02):
dod is a huge entity.
It's going to take time to juststart filtering down to each
level.
You know financial literacy,you know trainings, briefings,
because, like every base doeshave financial counselors or you
know some type of financialprofessional, but that's usually
one person for the entire base.
Speaker 7 (52:21):
You know, sometimes, yeah, entire base, you know
sometimes.
So yeah, you can go from whatwe'll say a couple thousand to
you know, 20 000 or more,depending on how big the base is
.
Speaker 6 (52:32):
So, yeah, there's your example.
And uh, you know like, I got todo an internship with the, the
financial counselor, at travisair force base in california and
, um, I mean, his appointmentsnever stopped Like he, he
basically had a full scheduleall the time of of you know he
was, it was basically pullingband-aids, you know, pulling
(52:55):
band-aids off one at a time,whereas I'm like there's gotta
be a better, like more efficientway to help help people.
You know, like some kind ofgroup, I don't know like maybe
like a group therapy session forsome of these people, because
some people do have spendingproblems and that goes back into
, like the financial trauma,goes into, you know, my stuff
(53:15):
that I talk about on on thecertified financial social work
stuff.
So, you know, people do haveactual financial traumas in
their lives and a lot of timespeople don't even know that
until they're an adult andthey're managing their money and
they're like, why do I do this?
And it turns out that they'rejust following the same pattern
that their parents did, thattheir parents and parents did,
(53:37):
you know, and it's just, it'sjust.
You know, sometimes it's likeit's not even their fault, it's,
it's just the, you know, beinga product of your environment,
but but at the same time youknow the whole nature versus
nurture.
You know like we want to makesure that the environment is
good, but then you know you gotto take care of yourself too.
(53:58):
So all right, well, I'll getoff that little soapbox, but
we've got about five or sixminutes left.
Speaker 7 (54:07):
I was just I'm taking those questions.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
Yeah, let's see.
All right, these are kind ofokay.
So this is more of a broaderquestion.
We've talked about it a littlebit.
But can you share a time whenyou achieved a major financial
goal while serving?
(54:29):
I mean, I guess that one's kindof easier for me, like paying
off the debt thing.
That was my big thing, payingoff $20,000 as an E3, living in
the dorms for the first part ofthat.
But yeah, I mean there weresome other um goals that I've
met too, like from from thatpoint of take, we're paying off
(54:52):
the 20,000.
I also then went and um savedup 10,000 within like, uh,
another year after that.
So within four years I wentfrom 20 negative 20K to positive
10K.
And there's a lot of differentthings that I did to get to that
point and a lot of it did haveto do with sacrifice.
You know, getting roommates Ithink we haven't really talked
(55:17):
about that as much, but you knowlike you can get a roommate and
save you some money, especiallyif you're getting BAH, like if
you're getting a housingallowance, like this is
something you you know I don'tknow if they're still doing that
, because I know they weretalking about kind of cutting
back on the housing allowances.
But, um, yeah, like I think atone point it was like me and
three other people living in ain a house in las vegas and you
(55:40):
know we were we're making it waslike 300 bucks a piece, but our
, our BAH was like $1,300 orsomething like that.
So we were pocketing $1,000 amonth each of us, but the
difference was my $1,000 went toputting money away for my
future, whereas some of the guysthey did not put their money
(56:04):
towards the future and, to anextent, enjoying the present.
That's fine, that is perfectlyfine, but it would be nice to,
like I said, the future selfwill thank you whenever it comes
time.
But yeah, that's just a littlething that I'd like to highlight
too is just save you know, saveyou some money on housing,
(56:26):
especially if you don't have anykids or family, if it's just
you.
You don't need to go and getyour own one-bedroom apartment.
You know, like you know, getyou some barrack buddies and get
a house and just split it for,you know, six months to a year
or however long you can stomacheach other and save you some
(56:46):
money, you know.
Speaker 7 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (56:48):
It's definitely not for everybody, but uh, but yeah,
um, I don't know, what do you?
Do you have any um anythingthat you feel that was like a
win?
Speaker 7 (56:59):
Not really.
That's where.
That's where my mistakes comein, unfortunately.
You know, go in, go you.
You know basic training.
We, we, we spent so much moneygetting ready.
Actually, we got to germany, wespent so much money buying gear
that I believe the militaryshould have already either given
us or hey, you write out a,let's say, a voucher, or hey, I
(57:24):
pay you back soon, or an IO,whatever here.
Just here's what you need.
You tell them and they justgive it to you.
You know, and again that'swhere my mind goes into
wonderland, you know.
Speaker 6 (57:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (57:35):
I spent so much money trying to pack and trying to
get ready for war, um, I didn'thave anything really successful.
I and that's where, when I cameout, lost my battle, my battle
gear.
They lost my Helmets or myclothes, or whatever.
So I had to pay all that back.
So, unfortunately I don't haveanything positive, but I have a
learning curve of.
Speaker 6 (57:56):
Keep track of your stuff, keep track of your money
and learn from it.
Okay, well, what about sinceyou've become, since you've
separated and become a transitor a veteran transition and
everything?
Is there any, um, anything thatyou've been able to knock out
since you've been, uh, out ofthe service?
Speaker 7 (58:13):
well again, you know, learning from my mistakes is,
you know, don't go to cardealership, don't sit there at
the car dealership going, hey, Iwant to finance the car
dealership they love, they lovethe person.
Oh yeah, to finance the cardealership.
Speaker 12 (58:25):
They love a person that can look at you going.
Speaker 7 (58:27):
I got this sucker hooked by a sinker before you
even got 15 feet of door.
I did it.
I walked in, didn't have credit, didn't have money down, put a
car on there.
My car pay was $400.
Interest rate is 18 or 20%.
You're sitting there thinking,okay, I can do this, but again
(58:48):
the job wasn't there or, youknow, I didn't have the
financial, the financial mindset.
So I put myself in debt and Ihad medical bills and I had.
You know, I had a credit card 21, 22 years old.
I got this.
I got USAA or Navy Federalcalling me going hey, you
qualified for a new credit card.
(59:08):
Here's your credit limit andit's raising it up because you
kept it so good or you neverused the card.
They don't tell you that yourinterest rate is going to go up
with it or it's going to.
You know, you take oversomething Again.
There's a lot to learn, butfrom 2019 to 20, 20, 21, 22,
(59:33):
almost 23,.
I paid off almost 10 to $12,000by myself.
I have like no assistance fromparents.
I didn't have a girlfriend.
I had jobs and I put I put somemoney away, like $40.
Like whatever.
Imagine if I was talking about$40, $50, whatever I put it away
in the year ahead of my taxmoney.
(59:54):
Okay, what can I pay off my taxmoney?
Or what can I Again, imagine ifI said it Work with your
creditors because, they'll takeanything and pay you $50 bucks.
They can't turn it down.
If they do, then the debt goesto basically no employee, in my
opinion, right they work withyou.
They want that money becauseyou, you work.
(01:00:17):
You walked into that business oryou walked into the emergency
room saying, hey, I need help,yeah, but I I just started
paying it little by little.
I went for the smallest billand I'd pay $50.
, went to the next bill and I'mlike I could put another $10 on
that bill.
So I went to $60, and I justkept paying it and it started to
(01:00:37):
snowball to where, by the endof the three or four years I was
in debt.
I was like don't do this again,don't do that again, and I kept
going down my list.
Well then, I had an old pickuptruck.
I had to get a newer vehicle.
I went through my credit union.
I actually went smarter.
I worked on my credit, I workedon saving money, traded this
(01:00:59):
old junk truck in.
I mean, I could have winded itup from the rear end of the
truck and pushed it in.
Speaker 6 (01:01:04):
That's how bad it was , oh man.
Speaker 7 (01:01:07):
But you know again, I've got a job where I can pay
my bills and we work our buttsoff.
But you learn from those pastmistakes.
Let's not get you know $15,000,$20,000 worth of debt.
Pay your bills, pay them ontime, pay them early and figure
(01:01:29):
out what you can pay off.
Always keep track of that.
Credit card was good.
Your credit union, your banks,your credit cards they've all
got new trackers now that sayshey, here it is, Joey.
What's that website that youcan pull all three credit
reports at?
Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
once.
Well, there'sannualcreditreportcom, I believe
, is what it is.
Speaker 7 (01:01:51):
Okay, yeah, you can go in there, it's free.
Pull up the annual creditreport, match everything up, get
a hold of TransUnion Experianwhoever and say, look this,
don't look right Can we removethis, can we?
Work on cleaning this up alittle bit Again.
They don't want yourinformation out there.
They want to help you secure itand make sure it's right.
Speaker 6 (01:02:14):
Yeah, that's great, great advice, Great.
Thank you for sharing thelessons that you've learned.
Actually, we're kind of runningover on time a little bit, but
once again we've got a lot ofgreat stuff to talk about and we
I think we should be doing thisuh on on the regular.
Maybe you know just uh justtalking about money and and and
(01:02:34):
helping veterans in any way thatwe can.
So, yes, sir, uh.
So I just wanted to say thankyou for uh for jumping on the
stream and and giving out yourum, your pearls of wisdom and um
, you know, just thank, thankyou for doing what you're doing
and, you know, stay safe on theroad.
But that's going to be it forthe stream.
Thank you for everybody joining, watching now or watching later
(01:02:57):
.
I really do appreciate it.
So, thank you and have a goodnight.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to
Military Broadcast Radio.
As we wrap up today's show, wewant to remind you that the
podcast of today's episode willbe available right after we go
off the air, so if you missedany part of the show or want to
listen again, be sure to checkit out.
(01:03:26):
And remember we're here tosupport and honor our veterans.
Your stories and experiencesmatter and we are committed to
giving you a platform to sharethem.
That's right.
We're here to give our veteransa voice, so don't forget to
(01:03:46):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
And the threats to our nations?
They don't't sleep.
They're watching our every move.
Iran, russia, china, northKorea, isis, al-qaeda.
They may be watching this rightnow.
Our military should not bemistaken for our cable news gab
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We don't care what you looklike.
(01:03):
We don't care who you voted for, who you worship, what you
worship, who you love.
It doesn't matter if your dadleft you millions when he died
or if you knew who your fatherwas.
We have been honed into amachine of lethal moving parts
that you would be wise to avoidif you know what's good for you.
(01:23):
We will not be intimidated.
We will not right back sons anddaughters.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Military Broadcast Radio, the station that's giving
veterans a voice.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Find us on the web at mbradious.
I'm a certified financialsocial worker.
I was in the Air Force for 14years and then I paid off
$20,000 of debt while I wasactive duty within three years
as an E3.
So that's kind of like I gotreally into personal finance and
so I've been really passionateabout that ever since and that
(02:20):
was 10, 12 years ago now.
So since then I became a socialworker and now I'm a certified
financial social worker.
So we kind of get into, youknow, dealing with finances but
then also kind of dealing withthe psychology behind finances,
like the, you know, the mentalside of things.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy
when it comes to finances.
Please welcome the fire socialworker, joey Laswell.
Speaker 6 (02:53):
All right, hello, hello, welcome everyone.
This is Money in the Military.
I am Joey and we are onMilitary Broadcast Radio where
we're giving veterans a voice,on Military Broadcast Radio,
where we're giving veterans avoice, and today, once again, we
have back Cameron, who is the.
Your podcast is going to becalled Uncle Fester's Podcast,
(03:15):
okay.
So yeah, future MBR podcasterwas gracious enough to lend us
his time and his voice to jumpon stream and you know we're
just going to talk a little bitmore about finances in the
military, but especially somethings and lessons that we've
maybe both of us have learnedalong the way hopefully have
(03:37):
learned, and you know, just kindof talk about.
You know some of the commonissues that military members
might have when dealing withtheir finances, but you know
before we get into theformalities and stuff.
So you know what's going onwith the Cameron, how's life on
the road treating you?
Speaker 7 (03:57):
So far, so good.
Very little snow so far.
Cross my fingers, knock on wood, I don't run into a whole bunch
of it.
Traffic still sane, seeing allthe construction, but we're
still moving a lot of freighttoday.
I actually have a limestone ongoing to a ag center for
delivery on tomorrow morning.
I'll be actually in.
(04:18):
Longmont Colorado getting toexperience some more cold.
I woke up this morning it was10 degrees and now it's like 45.
I'll take the 45.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
I'll take that too.
All right, we just always arelooking out for you, hoping that
you're doing okay on the road.
I'm glad you're staying safe,staying safe as much as you can.
We appreciate you coming on, um, yeah, so, uh, let's see, I got
(04:49):
a few people have have havealready given me some questions,
um, but um, I guess you know Iwas.
I was curious for you, cameron,did you, did you have any um
any financial questions orconcerns, or maybe an issue that
you're dealing with financiallyand you might want to like
maybe we could talk about it andand have the the audience learn
(05:10):
something, or um, I don't know,what do you feel?
Speaker 7 (05:14):
well, you know when I was again let me kind of back
up, track, backtrack my mindhere when I was back in the
military.
You know, the biggest thingthat I that I learned when I was
in germany was all my gear thatwas assigned to me from the
processing center.
If you didn't turn that in, youknow they charged you to either
have that recovered or to bereplaced of your stuff.
(05:47):
Whether you put your initialson it or you had on your ACH,
your name band or whateveraround your head that was stolen
, it didn't matter if it was acivilian or another unit or
someone in your own company, ifthey saw a helmet laying around,
it was gone.
And you know those helmets runanywhere from $150 to $100.
And you know those helmets runanywhere from $150 to $200.
And you know, first, you knownew boots on the ground in
(06:08):
Germany and hey, here's yourstuff.
Go to formation, set your stuffdown and someone's going
through your stuff.
So the biggest you know adviceI had for anybody that was in
the military was keep track ofyour stuff, keep it next to your
leg or whatever, because by thetime you start adding up your
ponchos, your sleeping bags,your helmet, your vest, your
(06:32):
body plates, whatever it, startsadding up very quickly and that
eats into what money you mayhave left coming out of the
military with Going forward.
the last time we talked, wetalked about the person that
wrote you you know, hey, I'vegot debt.
I'm transitioning out of themilitary going to civilian life.
You know I could have hadthousands of dollars I couldn't
(06:58):
tell you how much out partying Ispent it on, you know, food and
video games and whatever whenthere should have been a better
mindset of, hey, let's save itbecause you don't know what the
next step is and you don't knowwhen you're going to go to war
and what the process of thathappens.
So, but really the one thingthat I learned is just watch
(07:22):
what you spend.
Yeah, watch what you spend.
Yeah, watch what you spend.
If you need something, it hasto be that dire need, that it
has to be the next month, nexttwo months down the road.
Personal hygiene, flashlights,batteries, winter clothes.
You know you always carrysomething with me to say, hey,
(07:43):
I'm going to be a little bitsmarter come this year.
And you know, every, every monthor every year, you learn
something new going.
You know I should have donethat, or where was my money?
Why?
How did I poorly spend my moneyand not catch it in time for me
to stop?
So yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
you learn by making mistakes in time for me to stop.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
So you know you learn by making mistakes.
Yeah, absolutely, and that'swhat I'm hoping with this show
that you know, between all of usveterans on NBR and myself
included, there's a lot ofmistakes financial that I have
made that I'm hoping that otherlike if you're active duty
listening right now, you cankind of learn from those
mistakes so that you don't makethe mistakes that we made.
(08:24):
You can kind of learn fromthose mistakes so that you don't
make the mistakes that we made.
Speaker 7 (08:26):
You know, yeah, and the biggest thing was when you
know, when you get all your gearfrom basic training to your job
training, and then you go toyour duty station, man, they're
just giving you stuff.
You're not even really keepingtrack of it, you're throwing in
the double bag and you're justgoing about your day, yeah.
And then, of course, you mayget new uniforms, or you may get
(08:46):
your ACH, your battle vest,your weapon, your this or that,
your mind's running 1,000 milesa minute.
So what I learned when I got toGermany was man.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Hey, hold on one second, Cameron.
I actually have somebody thatwants to jump on the stream real
quick.
We got magic Mike.
Speaker 10 (09:14):
What's going on, guys?
A?
Speaker 6 (09:19):
Well, you're muted.
What you're muted?
You're muted, you're muted.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
Mike, you're muted.
Can't hear, let me try unmutingmyself.
Speaker 9 (09:30):
First of all, if you guys are, not listening to this
podcast.
Speaker 10 (09:33):
Joey, I love you.
I'm a 53-year-old guy.
I've been in the streetsbecause I financially wasn't
watching what I was doing,what's going on Carrying my
brother from another motherright there.
It's great to be on here.
Listen, if you guys are joiningus for the first time, if you
guys have never tuned in.
Joey and Cameron are a dynamicduo but Joey man, listen your
(09:54):
financial advice and justwatching your podcast man opens
up eyes and doors that theydon't teach in school.
Seriously, they don't teach us.
They don't sit there and say hey, by the way, credit is
important to you guys and thisis how you build it.
It's not building it by, youknow, I only have a couple here
but it's not by building it byhaving 35 credit cards, right,
(10:16):
it's by, you know, it's by beingfinancially responsible, right?
And Cameron man, I waslistening to you.
I mean you hit it straight onthe head, you know.
Right?
And Cameron man, I waslistening to you.
I mean you hit it straight onthe head, you know.
You're given a private his ownroom.
He doesn't have financialresponsibilities for a cell
phone Well, I'm excuse me,philly's for a light bill, for
garbage bill, water bill, heatbill, rent, he doesn't have
(10:41):
those responsibilities.
Right, and we get to Germany,man, we got all this money.
We got cost of living allowance, a cola and everything like
that.
I mean it's great.
So let's take it a step further.
When we get out of the militaryand those of us who are truly
blessed and 100% total andpermanent through the VA, we're
making 52 grand a year Tax-freemoney, right?
How are we spending that?
What are we doing with thatmoney, especially those of us
who have a part-time job or ajob and they're fortunate enough
(11:03):
to go back to work, right, um,it's, it's, it's being
responsible man, and and yourshow man is phenomenal.
I love it and I'm just honoredto even be on your broadcast man
.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
oh, wow, that's uh, I'm I appreciate you saying that
.
Um, that's really good to hearand I'm just glad that, uh,
people are are checking it outand uh, you know, just, you know
, like I've said it before inmany of my shows, like you know,
just earlier I was saying thatyou know a lot of this is just
hard lessons that I've learned,you know, and you know I just
(11:34):
want to, you know, be thatfuture time traveler that says,
hey, you know, this is whatyou're going to, this is what's
going to look like if you keepdoing this, or if you do this,
this decision, then you mightend up your your future self is
going to, is going to hate you,so so that's kind of what the
the idea is to just kind of givethe share, the wealth, if you
will, a little pun there, andthen, you know, just also kind
(11:58):
of normalize, talking aboutfinances amongst the military
community.
You know we just don't do thatvery well, so, um, but I really
appreciate you saying that.
So, thanks for thanks forjumping on mike, thanks for
coming.
Do we lose him?
Speaker 7 (12:20):
he looks like he's missed something.
Speaker 6 (12:22):
You, the one thing that I learned from us.
Okay, wow.
Speaker 7 (12:26):
The one thing that I learned when I got to Germany
was and I don't know where, when, when, when, when were you
stationed at?
But the one thing that I got tolearn was like we had, we had
the credit union on the baseRight and the credit union came
to all of our barracks and likehey need assistance.
(12:47):
You know, because your firsttime here here's a loan.
well, you're 19, 20 years old.
You don't know anything about aloan, you don't know the
interest rates, you don't knowhow it works.
I'll be the I'll be the firstone to tell you.
I walk right in the door goinghey, I hear money, right, and
the lady sits down and you signa contract and they give you the
(13:08):
money up front.
You just got to make thepayment and they know your
schedule when you're deployedquote.
Unquote deployed or stationedin a foreign country they know
your schedule of payment.
So they turn around and they gohey, guess what?
$50 a month, $100 a month andeventually, like Magic Mike was
(13:30):
saying before we lost him, youhave to build credit somehow.
Well, that helps out and itshows good on your future
endeavors.
Even though you're in themilitary, it still helps out.
I signed up for one of thoselittle military star cards.
I had a $2,000 limit, neverused a thing.
My bonehead closed the accountwhen.
(13:52):
I could have even used it yearslater.
Guess what?
It's closed now, but it stillshows.
Hey, I was available for $2,000.
So you know again, there's alot to learn that A, the schools
didn't teach us like MagicMicrochip.
No, the schools didn't teach us.
Our parents didn't teach us.
And then you get in themilitary and it's like, nah, we
(14:15):
ain't going to teach you becauseyou're probably not going to
live very much longer.
Speaker 6 (14:20):
I mean that was, I mean my NCO was that hard core?
Speaker 7 (14:24):
He was six months.
You're going to Afghanistan, soyou know, and that was it.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Man.
All right, Mike, we're going totry again.
Speaker 10 (14:37):
You're still muted, but we got your there, you go.
Can you guys hear me now?
Yeah, we're working.
Now I can hear you.
Great, joey, awesome.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
Oh yeah, no problem, that's the gremlins in the
internet that likes to cause allkinds of weird glitches.
Speaker 10 (14:52):
You know, like Cameron was saying, man, you get
those paychecks, man, and youjust, you know where are you
financially being responsible?
And I'll tell you a great storyof this guy.
He unfortunately lost his life.
Actually, when he got out ofthe military he went back to
California and started his life.
But he did three years in theArmy.
(15:16):
They sent him straight toGermany right after basic
training and Oskar was his nameand Specialist Oskar, every
weekend would go get a case ofbeer, go to his room, didn't
travel anywhere, which wasreally sad, because you know
they have all this free stuff.
You know MWR gives free traveland everything and he would
throw all his change in one ofthose you remember those old
military trash cans like gray orthey were green or whatever,
the little trash cans, and hewould throw all his change in
(15:39):
there.
When he left Germany he hadalmost a hundred grand saved up
in his bank account and he hadover a thousand deutschmark at
the time it was deutschmarkbefore we converted the euro in
this trash can that he gave tome I was his, uh, his, uh,
barracks mate, if you will andhe gave it to me and he said
that he saved money because hedidn't travel, didn't go
(15:59):
anywhere, which is sad.
You know you travel to germany.
You want to see it.
But I remember the first thing Idid when I got to Germany was I
went and bought a CD player.
Man, it was like $780,.
Man, can you imagine a CDplayer?
They're obsolete now.
And here I was.
I bought a JVC and it lastedlike two years before it broke
right.
But for me that was like thecoolest thing, like this little
(16:21):
thing, and I wish I knew nowfrom your show, listening to
your guidance and listening toyou guys talk.
I wish I knew now back thenwhat I know now, because I would
have put that money away.
You know, save that money andand stuff.
It's just like these guys whowho get, uh, you know, their va
disability back paid.
You know, um, you know I gotback paid.
(16:41):
I don't mind sharing it.
I got back paid a little over270 grand.
Right.
I didn't buy a house.
I didn't see, you know, veryfortunate that I had somebody
who was smart enough to tell meto put it away right.
So I put it away.
You know, we get thesefinancial things where we don't
(17:03):
really, we really don't knowwhat to do.
We have nobody like you Joey,like you Cameron, who are there
saying hey, listen, listen,stupid, don't go a trick.
What do they call that?
Don't go with a trick.
What do they call that?
Rapture, whatever, that's like80 or 109 or the Raptor or the
Cybertruck or whatever.
Because I will tell you this itwas very unfortunate that I was
(17:27):
in my 50s when I met a guy whoowned a bunch of properties and
he told me he drove a piece ofcrap pickup truck, but he was a
millionaire, he had lots ofmoney and he said my dad taught
me at a young age a life youwant to do.
You want to live for free anddrive for free.
And I was like I don't get it.
He says I bought my first house.
I lived upstairs, I renovateddownstairs.
(17:48):
He said and then I liveddownstairs and renovated
upstairs, and then I went aheadand lived upstairs and rented
downstairs.
He said that I bought my nextproperty and I did the same
thing and then I started buyingproperty.
He said my truck gets me frompoint A to point B.
I don't care what I look like,all I care is that I can put a
ladder in there.
Speaker 11 (18:07):
Some paint go to the Lowe's or Home Depot and it
makes sense.
Speaker 10 (18:10):
It makes sense.
This guy lives for free,meaning he doesn't have a
mortgage or he doesn't pay rent.
Sense this guy lives for free,meaning he doesn't have a
mortgage or he doesn't pay rent.
Right, and he doesn't have avehicle that he pays.
You know what's the average.
I had somebody the other daysay uh, you know, it was just a
big group of people talking.
He said how much do you pay foryour car?
He goes, oh, it's about 730 amonth.
I think, oh, that's not thatbad.
And mike's face says it all ohgod, julie, can you imagine that
(18:33):
that's not, that's not bad atall when he says I'm going to
pay $700,000.
Joey, can you imagine thatthat's not bad at all, really?
Speaker 6 (18:38):
That's almost a mortgage payment for some
businesses.
Speaker 10 (18:40):
That's a mortgage payment If you and your wife
both are making you know.
So I think that financially,that we need to educate, not
just our children at a young age, but our soldiers need to be
educated right.
And it goes way beyondbalancing a checkbook, because
God knows, we don't even usecheckbooks anymore.
It goes to you know when youget that.
(19:01):
That you know I love doing thisright here when you get that
God almighty military star cardand they give you a credit limit
of three grand and you go andyou max it out and then they up
your credit to 5,000 and you gomax that, max it out, and then
they up your credit to 5 000 andyou go max that out, and then
you're at eight grand, ten grand, and you're like, oh, I got all
(19:21):
this money.
No, you don't have money right.
And which one is the interestrate?
They don't tell you theinterest rate is.
The interest rate is nothing,it's nothing until later, 22
months later, when it's 12% or13%, and you know that payment
for that.
You know DVD player or whateverit is that you bought Let me
(19:42):
show you how old I am DVD player, right, or whatever you bought.
The interest rate on there is.
The credit card itself is $100a month, but the interest rate
is $172.
It's like you're never going topay that down.
So you know, credit is great,great, but you got to work and
know it.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
Credit cards are great.
We lost you, Mews.
Speaker 10 (20:07):
It's just something that's huge.
You just got to be careful withit.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (20:12):
Yeah, so actually that's a great point.
We're going to put a pin inthat.
We're going to keep talkingsome more after a quick musical
interlude from uh noah peterson.
It's my go-to right out thegate song that I play.
He's kind of like a jazz,modern jazz, kind of like uh, I
don't know it, just it just putsme in a good mood.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
So this is a marine corps veteran noah peterson,
we'll be right back puts me in agood mood, so this is a marine
(22:51):
corps veteran.
Speaker 9 (22:51):
No, peterson, we'll be right back, thank you.
Thank you.
Military broadcast radio, thestation that's giving veterans a
voice.
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Opinions expressed in thisprogram are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they representfind us on the web at mbradious
all right, we are back with thatfun musical uh interlude from
uh.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Mr noah peterson always puts me in a good mood
Hearing that Before the break wewere kind of just talking.
Magic Mike was giving somegreat Advice about credit.
Using credit wisely.
I was just curious.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 11 (23:31):
My bad let's see what I was going to ask.
Oh, what is your most?
Speaker 6 (23:38):
impulsive purchase that you made while you were in
the military.
Anybody want to jump in.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Impulsive for me and again, I was a kid right.
I think it was right when thefirst see this is 2010.
I think it was when the Xboxcame out.
Jumped right all over it Wentout and bought the games, the
controllers, the TV.
You know I spent my weekendpaycheck on that.
Wow.
(24:05):
Yeah, going through the weekssucked.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
You do pay for it in the end, but yeah Well, that's a
pretty common thing, especiallyfor you know you're young,
you're 19, 20 years old, firstjob, sometimes out of the home,
and you know, like you saidbefore, you don't always have
financial responsibilities whenyou're starting out.
So that's where I think youknow the DOD as a whole I've
(24:33):
said this before could do a lotbetter with you know, educate
financial literacy and educatingyou know, especially in
starting from basic training allthe way to the AIT tech schools
and the first base all thatstuff.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
So I mean you guys know.
I mean you guys remember basictraining, the first time you got
to go to the PX without beingon a leash.
You know I still have a sweaterthat says you know, united
States army combat engineer onit.
You know I still I.
You know I bought anything andeverything that I could.
And let me tell you just togive you an idea I came back in
the 1980s in the army, rightWell, the late eighties, and my
(25:09):
monthly paycheck as a PFC waslike 800 bucks, you know, and I
spent that bad boy in 2.1seconds.
We used to get paid oncea monthback then and I bought.
I bought stupid things.
You know I can remember beingback paid colon buying stupid
things and it was like, if youthink back now, it's like
between the time in the militaryyou're talking about, I would
(25:30):
probably be a billionaire rightnow if I would have saved some
of that money you know, just notinvested it, just put it in a
savings account and left itthere.
But again, we you said it thebest, joe you know we're not
educated from basic training,ait of.
Hey, listen, there's going tobe those guys out there.
They're going to sell you thoseboots that you press a button
(25:50):
and they're going to make youfeel like tennis shoes that are
$800.
Right, I remember when Gore-Texfirst came out, I bought a pair
of boots for $268.
Man, I thought I was a MacDaddy as a PFC A lot of sergeant
looked at me and just shook hishead like what an idiot.
Speaker 7 (26:09):
Right, we had gone through Fort Lawson Woods and
Magic Mike it's pretty much whatreally known to Fort Lawson
Woods, what it's like over there.
When the PX came out they hadjust announced that Rocky Boots
had shown up.
Speaker 10 (26:20):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (26:21):
You know, when Rocky Boots showed up and it was on
the PX it was 175, 200, whatever.
That line out the door forRocky Boots was better than
Gore-Tex, was better thanDanner's, was better because
it's more accountability, it'slightweight, and then it's like
here comes Nike, Under Armour,Oakley here, comes Adidas, you
(26:44):
know, and again, imagine Mikesaid it they're getting up there
in price.
Nobody stopped and said, hey, doyou have this, this and this
and this to go for your nextduty station?
No, we jumped out.
We jumped out there, going tothe clubs, getting tattoos,
buying stuff that we reallydidn't need, but we did anyway,
(27:04):
joey, I mean you got it.
Speaker 10 (27:06):
It's just a financial responsibility that we
need to teach the youngsoldiers and and even the
veterans when they get out ofthe military you know, because
you know, when you get out ofthe military, you now all of a
sudden have financialresponsibilities such as a light
bill, water bill, right, younow have to pay for insurance on
your car, which you know youmight have been.
(27:26):
You know not needing a car whenyou were stationed in Korea or
whatever it be, and you know youhave to kind of tame it back a
little bit and show somefinancial responsibilities.
You know, here's something alot of people don't know, is
that how much of your salaryshould you have in savings?
What is it?
Three months, or something likethat of your salary.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Maybe six months is kind of like what I've always
heard Six months.
Speaker 10 (27:49):
Yeah, I mean, how many people have that in their
savings account?
You know, you have people thatare living paycheck to paycheck
and you and you hear all thesestories about soldiers on
welfare and so on and so forth.
It's like financialresponsibility.
It's about budgeting.
Listen, I have still in mydrawer.
I still have it in my drawer.
You guys remember this right.
Let's see if I can get that inthere.
(28:09):
I only say now Logbook.
Oh yeah, so I still have this.
And guess what?
My sons laugh at me, but I doall, all of my budgeting on that
, that bad boy.
And it's not just budgeting.
I put on there okay, I get thismuch a month and this is how
much goes out the bills, this ishow much I'm putting in savings
(28:30):
.
And I heard even one better.
Today my wife and I weretalking.
She got an alert from usa and Igo, what is that?
And she said every day I USAand I go, what is that?
And she said every day I have$8 go out of my account into a
savings account.
Need of one of a smoke.
We're not big drinkers, so wereally don't spend a lot of
money.
We kind of indulge, and Iindulged in some cookies today.
Oh my God, they were great.
(28:50):
But other than that, but otherthan that, we really don't do
anything crazy right?
And I said to her I said andwhere does that go?
She goes, it goes in a savingsaccount.
So every month I have about$240 in the savings account.
Nice, you plan on leaving me?
And she said no, I just do thatfor Christmas and birthdays and
stuff like that.
So that's my spending money,that's my money and it makes
(29:12):
sense.
Think about it, it really doesmake sense Now.
I don't spend any money everyday right, I usually make a
purchase on the weekend orsomething like that.
I'll take her out to dinner orwhatever, but it makes sense,
man.
I mean it's the smart thing todo.
It's when you live paycheck topaycheck, when you're living
(29:32):
above your means, right.
And who doesn't want a nice car?
Right, everybody wants that.
Or a nice truck, and peoplewant those nice things.
And I got it.
But you save for it and youwork for it.
Now, money is not everything.
Time spending we go for a walkwith the dogs, we went for a
walk to the park, right, thatdoesn't cost us anything and we
(29:53):
have a good time.
I know it sounds boring andstupid right now, especially to
young people, but as you getolder, it makes sense, man.
And it's like I'm not listen,I'm not saving for my kids, I'm
spending all my kids inheritance.
I don't care, I can care lessabout them, but, but as being,
but as being financiallyresponsible, you know there's no
reason that you should be.
You should be filing bankruptcyunless there's something tragic
(30:16):
and devastating that happens inyour life.
You know I got it.
No horse happens and I got itthat.
You know you lose your job orwhatever it be, but you should
still be financially stableenough to say, hey, this is how
I'm going to take and, listen,creditors will work with you.
Yes, they will.
You know all these creditunions or banks and American
Express and all these otherpeople.
(30:37):
They will work with you andthey will say, hey, listen, we
got it.
You're in financial need.
We don't want you to filebankruptcy because guess what,
it gets wiped away.
Yeah, we get a tax creditbecause it gets wiped away, but
we don't get the whole fullamount and it's just a hassle.
So we'll work with you.
Pay us $40.
What with you?
(30:57):
Pay us $40.
What can you bid?
$30 or whatever be it.
The worst thing you can do, theworst thing you do, is commit
credit suicide.
It is the worst thing in theworld, because to get back from
that is so hard.
It takes years and years andyears.
There's a gentleman that wrotea book called Life After
Bankruptcy by Steven Snyder andhad an opportunity to meet him
and talk to him very often andhe said the hardest thing for
(31:21):
him was that nine and a halfyears after he filed bankruptcy
from his divorce and everythinglike that, when he was writing
the book, he went to his ChaseBank and he asked for a credit
card.
He banked with him for 20 plusyears.
He wanted a credit card that hecould use and that all his money
goes into there.
He didn't want any other creditcard, just want a credit card
from it.
And they said no because he hadfiled bankruptcy.
(31:44):
He said that was nine and ahalf years ago.
He said well, it still shows.
His son, who was born in Ecuadorand lived in the United States,
was in college, ecuador andlived in the United States, was
in college and his son appliedfor a credit card with Chase
Bank and never had a bankaccount with them and they gave
his son a credit card with acredit limit of five grand.
(32:04):
Didn't have a job, was incollege, only lived in the
States a very short while, Ithink.
He came to the States when hewas 16 or 17,.
Went to college, was 18 yearsold 19 years old, I'm sorry, he
was 19 years old applied for acredit card, got it from Chase
Bank with $5,000 credit limit,with no job, no, nothing.
And here this guy was.
(32:24):
He had so much money in hissavings account, I think he said
.
He told me he had, like youknow, 800 grand in his savings
account at the time.
Wow, like, look, I have 800grand in my savings account
right now.
I just wrote a book.
I'm finished writing a book.
I got this big deal, whatever,whatever, and he said it was the
most enlightening thing for himfrom filing bankruptcy, no
matter how rich you are.
(32:45):
When he filed bankruptcy, itkilled him and it killed for 10
years.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Yeah, that's the truth.
That's the truth and that'sthat's why I think, uh, there's
more and more people talkingabout like bankruptcies oh, it's
a clean slate or it's a, it's areset, but I mean it comes with
a lot of ramifications that,like you said, that lasts for a
decade almost yeah, I mean, andhere's the other thing, I'm
sorry, go ahead, cameron, solook real quick I just heard a
(33:10):
rumor and I'm still waiting tohear more about it.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
Right, no fork southern, the biggest one of the
railroad companies they'refixing to file for bankruptcy.
Think about what that's goingto do to their employees, their
stock market, their everything.
I mean, yeah, they've had a lotof derailments, but this is not
an unknown thing.
Bnsf, up, they all havederailments at some point in
(33:34):
time in the history.
But now they're talking aboutfiling bankruptcy.
What's going to happen if thatdoes happen?
So let's you know again 10years, 15 years, 20 years, what
happens?
You know, yeah, the bankruptcy.
Speaker 10 (33:48):
So the bankruptcy protection for a company is a
little bit different thanpersonal, you know.
For for the companies, it's achance for them to reset and and
and and stated to their debtorshey, listen, we're gonna pay
you, but this is what we'regonna pay.
You're gonna pay you pennies onthe dollar, because this is
what you guys are now ourdebtors and this is what we're
gonna pay, whereas when you'repersonal and you file for that
bankruptcy, right, the creditorslook, people don't realize this
(34:12):
, but it is a clean slate.
You're absolutely right.
Fire social worker.
You're absolutely right thatit's a clean slate.
But the creditors that youapply to, they still look and
say what was your credit historylike?
What was your credit historylike when you filed for
bankruptcy?
Did you file for bankruptcy andhave 300 credit cards and all
(34:34):
of them were maxed out?
That shows thatirresponsibility, right, that
shows that there was anirresponsibility and you're just
a risk.
Did you learn your lesson?
They're the ones who are takingthe gamble.
If you will, the risk right, therisk falls all on them.
And after that, clean slate,right, you get wiped away, it
(34:55):
all goes away and everythinglike that.
After that, clean slate right,you get wiped away, it all goes
away and everything like that.
After that clean slate, adecade later you come out of
there and you file for yourfirst credit card and it's a
$400 limit, maybe a $300 limit.
Then it takes years.
It took him Steven Snyder toldme it took him 15 years after
bankruptcy to finally.
We were talking about his blackAmerican express card one day
(35:19):
and I and I told him I said, oh,one day I'll own one of those.
And he said you can.
And he said he said his, his,his.
His whole idea was that they,they looked at him as as a risk
for 15 years after hisbankruptcy.
So you're talking about 10years of bankruptcy and then 15
years out of that.
(35:40):
So 25 years before they lookedat him no longer as a risk.
I mean, that's a long time, youknow so, so you know.
And then you have all theseorganizations that you see them
all over.
Veterans can have their debtwiped away and debt
consolidation and stuff.
So there's debt consolidationis a law firm that says we're
(36:00):
going to represent you, we'regoing to reach out to your
creditors and we're going totell your creditors hey, we're
going to pay you this much,we're going to pay you that much
, but guess what?
You could do that same thing.
You don't need to pay a debtconsolidation to that.
So now, instead of paying athousand dollars a month to all
your bills, you're paying $500.
They're taking that $500,putting it in their pocket and
they're saying we're going topay creditor A over here $150 a
(36:25):
month, and we're going to creditB over here $50 a month, and
we're going to pocket the rest.
And then, once that's gone, ina year or two, then we'll go on
to the next one and the next one, the next one.
So in meantime, you're payingthese people to do what you can
do.
Reach out to your creditors.
Hey, I need a break.
Hey, this is what's going on.
I've just lost my job.
Give me a chance to get a newjob or whatever.
Be it, it's, it's.
Let me tell you, financialresponsibility is the way to
(36:49):
keep from having all thesethings going on.
It really is, and it just needssomebody like like you to just
teach a man, to let them knowhey, this is where it's at and
don't, and don't be afraid toreach out and ask for help.
Speaker 7 (37:02):
I mean yeah absolutely there's people out
there that's willing to sit downand say, look, this is what
I've learned, I'm gonna pass myknowledge on to you and you lay
it on the table and say let'snot look at bankruptcy, let's
not look at these consolidationcompanies, like Magic Mike is
saying, because did you reallyaccomplish anything?
(37:25):
And there's a lot of questionsthat go beyond this topic that,
unfortunately, we won't havetime to cover tonight, but again
it's.
What can you learn from it?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
Yeah, absolutely time to cover tonight.
But again it's what can youlearn from it?
Yeah, absolutely, but I think Iwill say, going going to into
the um, the psychology of things, I've had issues where, like
you know, it's like you canteach or you can talk to your
blue in the face, but until youtake action, it's just words,
you know so there have beentimes where I had people in my
(37:57):
ear telling me oh, maybe youshouldn't do this, but then I
would still do it and then makethose mistakes.
So that's the challenge that, ashumans, we have, you know.
So I just want to give somepeople some, you know, give
people grace, that you knowyou're allowed to be human and
make mistakes.
You're allowed to be human andmake mistakes.
If enough people are tellingyou that you should change your
(38:18):
behavior or should do somethingdifferent, then you probably
want to take that to heart.
Speaker 10 (38:23):
Absolutely, joey.
If somebody's telling you overand over, hey listen, this is a
bad idea, this is a bad idea, itmight be a bad idea.
Speaker 8 (38:30):
It might be a bad idea that Lamborghini you want
to get it might be a bad ideathat Lamborghini you want to get
.
Speaker 10 (38:36):
Yeah don't get that idea, don't get that.
Lamborghini.
Speaker 6 (38:41):
All right.
Well, it looks like it's abouttime for another little musical
interlude, and we're going toplay some Andrew Roborow, Bleed,
Red and Blue, Red, White andBlue.
So we'll be back and we'llcontinue our conversations about
personal finance.
Speaker 11 (39:13):
It's been ten years since I'd seen his face.
Not much had changed, just adifferent time, different place.
When I shook his hand, I knewsomething had changed.
(39:37):
This was a different man fromthe one I knew back then.
Speaker 12 (39:50):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line.
Speaker 11 (39:57):
And watch the flag wave and drag.
Speaker 12 (40:03):
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed Red, white andblue.
Speaker 11 (40:16):
He told me the tales Of his journeys far away, three
times gone, and land most onlyseen On the front page.
We'll be right back and foughtfor you and I so we could be
free from it all.
Speaker 12 (40:53):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthe flag wheel ride.
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Red, white and blue when dutycalls.
(41:21):
Yes, I stand in line and oncethe flag, we'll be praying it
goes.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthem weep and pray.
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
(41:43):
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Oh, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Speaker 9 (42:19):
Little, I know We'll be right back and do not
necessarily reflect the views orpositions of any entities they
represent.
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Military.
On Military Broadcast RadioWe've been talking.
We actually had Magic Mike hadto drop out.
He was having some internetconnectivity issues, so uh, sad
to see him go, but uh, we're umglad to have him and and just uh
fortunate to get hisperspective and, um, he, he, he
(42:55):
had a lot of great things to say.
So, uh, so, yeah, just thankyou, magic mike, um from from
beyond the stream.
But uh, yeah, we still, uh, westill got some time, me and you
camera, we're gonna, we're gonnarock this out and, um, you know
, just keep the conversationgoing.
Um, um, so, yeah, we weretalking a little bit, we kind of
got on different topics, but uh, we were talking about
(43:18):
bankruptcy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean this is goodstuff, but uh, it's one of
those, like I said, it's one ofthose things that we just don't
really uh in in, those thingsthat we just don't really in the
military community.
We just don't really talk aboutthese things very much or as
much as we should.
No, but I don't know anythingjump out at you from what Magic
Mike was saying.
Speaker 7 (43:40):
I mean, he's spot on with everything he said.
Yeah, you know it's, you knowit's safe, you know you said it.
I've somewhat said myself, buthe said it, mainly Save it.
Speaker 6 (43:51):
Be, responsible.
Speaker 7 (43:53):
You know and just think about what your future
holds.
Think about you know.
Are you going to stay in andwhat your goal is.
Do you want that nice car?
Do you want that nice house?
Do you want land?
Know, do you want land?
What do?
you want and and where do you,you know?
Do you want to go to school?
It, school loans are out there.
(44:14):
I mean school colleges are.
I mean you don't use a GI billand you don't want to go to
school, or you lose a GI billand you want to go to school.
Hey, you have a backup, youhave a way to pay those, instead
of sitting there saying hey,Uncle Sam, go pay for me.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
Right.
Speaker 7 (44:28):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It don't work that way, I hateto tell you guys.
So there's a lot of things thatas a kid I never thought of.
And then I got out and now it'shell.
What do I do next?
Where do I?
go.
And now it's hell.
What do I do next?
Where do I go?
Because people end up on thestreet, or you know they refuse
(44:50):
help or they don't want to askfor help.
And again it all leads back toone thing X.
Who's the one that made thatmistake?
It's always yourself, and thenyou've got to pick yourself up
on the bootstrap and try tofigure out, you know how to pay
these bills or how to getanother job.
So there's always that.
Speaker 6 (45:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really, I really liked how hetalked about a little bit about.
You know, obviously, activeduty.
You know you're in a uniquesituation where you have a lot
of things taken care of.
You know your, your healthcarethat's a huge one that a lot of
people truly underestimate untilthey get out, especially if
they went from basic like 18,you know, 19, 20, like if,
(45:33):
unless they had to pay for theirown healthcare before they
joined.
It's one of those things whereyou don't know what you have
until you have to pay out ofpocket for healthcare or you
have to pay an employer forhealthcare.
So that's just one of thosethings that you have to think
about when you're active duty,to plan for financially whenever
(45:54):
you're about to get out,because I mean, you could go on.
You know, like if you're notworking, maybe you're in that
transition period you go ontothe healthcaregov website and
you can find a plan, but I mean,man, it's going to cost you a
lot of money.
Speaker 7 (46:10):
I was just going to say with my company, being a
truck driver, we're a smalloutfit.
All health insurance, justhealth insurance alone, is $90 a
week because we get paid weeklyas drivers.
So we get this, and then yougot all your extra benefits,
whatever.
So we get this, and then yougot all your extra benefits,
whatever.
(46:30):
And I added up for one week itwas 360 dollars coming out of my
paycheck, out of what I mean.
I'm like I can't afford thehealth insurance.
I took the smaller end of it,knowing I had the va in my back
pocket.
But there's only certain thingsthat v8 want to cover,
depending on your, I guess, yourrating or whatever they put
(46:50):
down in the system.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
Service-connected.
Speaker 7 (46:52):
yeah, yes, and so again, that has to be considered
.
And that website, I never didlike it.
I looked on it and some elderlypeople and some young people.
It doesn't.
It's not biased against whogoes against the premium.
It keeps going up and up and upand you're sitting up thinking
(47:14):
how do I afford health care orhow do I afford dental when it's
the basic?
When that keeps going up, yougot your vision.
When it don't cover but onepair of glasses again.
We can sit here till we're bluein the face and the cows are
calling home and they want theirfeed, yeah what we're not.
We're not saying something wedon't already know.
(47:35):
It's that person that, look,that's doing this mistake.
They have to make that mistaketo say see, joey was right, joey
was sitting there telling menot to do it.
Speaker 6 (47:46):
Oh man, but see, I don't want to be right, I want
to prevent these people fromdoing these things, you know.
So that's kind of where myhead's at lately.
Yeah, sure, but yeah, you know,like it's one of those things.
It's just you know, you don'tknow what you don't know.
A lot of times you know anddon't know what you don't know.
(48:10):
A lot of times you know, andthat's that's fine.
You know you're, you learn, yougrow, you develop over time.
That's that's how, that's howwe evolve as humans and
everything.
But, like we were talking aboutearlier, you know, if enough
people are telling you youshould probably be doing
something differently than youknow.
Speaker 7 (48:20):
Well, and and again, depending on that person.
Yeah, and I don't mean that ina disrespectful way to you or
anybody else.
Speaker 10 (48:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (48:28):
My mom beat me down day in and day out.
Pay your bills, pay your debt,do this, do that.
What does that one person do?
They start getting stubborn andhardheaded and their ego gets
in the way and they don't listento the pounder.
They don't listen to that oneperson that has repeated it
constantly.
Yeah, to the pounder.
(48:50):
They don't listen to that oneperson that has repeated it
constantly.
Speaker 8 (48:52):
Yeah, and I mean, you know, I, you know the intro
video.
Speaker 7 (48:53):
you know you paid off your debt in three years as an
E3, right?
Or you know how your video goes.
It took me three years to payoff almost $10,000 worth of debt
that I put myself in becauseI'm like I'm done, I'm, I'm
getting up.
I mean, I'm still 34 years old,but still when you get to a
certain point, you're like dude,you need to pull your head out
of your hindquarters and youneed to pull your boots up on
(49:13):
your bootstraps and start doingit because your parents ain't
going to help you.
Your friends, your family,they're not going to support you
, and it's time to grow up andpay your bills.
So I learned the hard way.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Yeah, and I mean, like I said, I did too, and I
think for some people, as hardas it is to say and to admit
that, I think some peoplegenuinely do have to learn the
hard way, they have to make themistake.
It's like touching a hot stove.
I can tell my four-year-oldolddon't touch that hot stove.
(49:48):
A hundred times, and then thathundred and first time he might
decide he's going to do it.
But he'll learn after that.
Yeah, and you're going to hearabout it for the next six months
, absolutely, oh man.
But yeah, I mean, you know, thisis the like, like I've said
before, you know, like I'mtrying to talk to that active
(50:10):
duty.
You know, maybe E1, e2, e3, youknow, like just coming in and
be like, all right, this is,this is what all of us people,
all of us older people, aretrying to tell you to those.
You know e5s that are maybegetting out, um, and then you
know people who are just retiredand want to figure out how to
manage their va benefits ortheir tricare stuff.
(50:31):
You know, so that's, that's thething, like the, the, the money
.
I guess it's not necessarilymilitary specific, but there are
some things that only veteransand only military members will
know what we're talking about.
That's why people in thecivilian world were speaking
Chinese to them.
Yeah, bah BAS.
(50:53):
There's like what is that COLA?
Yeah, all the acronym alphabetsoup stuff.
Speaker 7 (51:00):
Then you get down the ranks, you got dangerous pay
you got this you know you'regetting all of those stuff.
And it's like what, and it'scrazy how much acronyms or how
much the alphabet suit getsdumped in on the military guys.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Yeah, and I mean, you know it makes sense that some
people don't know about theprograms like SDP, like the
Savings Deposit Program.
Did you hear about that whenyou were deployed?
We?
Speaker 7 (51:26):
heard heard about it, but they didn't push it.
They didn't like.
It's up to you.
Yeah, we don't care.
Speaker 6 (51:31):
Yeah, you know so, yeah, it's just like a, a five
minute briefing, and thenthey're like that's, that's it.
Speaker 7 (51:36):
You know, um and you left standing there holding a
piece of paper going yeah, what?
Speaker 6 (51:41):
yeah, exactly yeah.
So I'm hope, I'm hoping thatjust through osmosis or putting
it out there in the universe,that the, the dod, is going to
start taking this seriously andand really, and I mean I feel
like they've started to makesome, some changes.
I've been reading up on alittle bit but, um, you know the
(52:02):
dod is a huge entity.
It's going to take time to juststart filtering down to each
level.
You know financial literacy,you know trainings, briefings,
because, like every base doeshave financial counselors or you
know some type of financialprofessional, but that's usually
one person for the entire base.
Speaker 7 (52:21):
You know, sometimes, yeah, entire base, you know
sometimes.
So yeah, you can go from whatwe'll say a couple thousand to
you know, 20 000 or more,depending on how big the base is
.
Speaker 6 (52:32):
So, yeah, there's your example.
And uh, you know like, I got todo an internship with the, the
financial counselor, at travisair force base in california and
, um, I mean, his appointmentsnever stopped Like he, he
basically had a full scheduleall the time of of you know he
was, it was basically pullingband-aids, you know, pulling
(52:55):
band-aids off one at a time,whereas I'm like there's gotta
be a better, like more efficientway to help help people.
You know, like some kind ofgroup, I don't know like maybe
like a group therapy session forsome of these people, because
some people do have spendingproblems and that goes back into
, like the financial trauma,goes into, you know, my stuff
(53:15):
that I talk about on on thecertified financial social work
stuff.
So, you know, people do haveactual financial traumas in
their lives and a lot of timespeople don't even know that
until they're an adult andthey're managing their money and
they're like, why do I do this?
And it turns out that they'rejust following the same pattern
that their parents did, thattheir parents and parents did,
(53:37):
you know, and it's just, it'sjust.
You know, sometimes it's likeit's not even their fault, it's,
it's just the, you know, beinga product of your environment,
but but at the same time youknow the whole nature versus
nurture.
You know like we want to makesure that the environment is
good, but then you know you gotto take care of yourself too.
(53:58):
So all right, well, I'll getoff that little soapbox, but
we've got about five or sixminutes left.
Speaker 7 (54:07):
I was just I'm taking those questions.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
Yeah, let's see.
All right, these are kind ofokay.
So this is more of a broaderquestion.
We've talked about it a littlebit.
But can you share a time whenyou achieved a major financial
goal while serving?
(54:29):
I mean, I guess that one's kindof easier for me, like paying
off the debt thing.
That was my big thing, payingoff $20,000 as an E3, living in
the dorms for the first part ofthat.
But yeah, I mean there weresome other um goals that I've
met too, like from from thatpoint of take, we're paying off
(54:52):
the 20,000.
I also then went and um savedup 10,000 within like, uh,
another year after that.
So within four years I wentfrom 20 negative 20K to positive
10K.
And there's a lot of differentthings that I did to get to that
point and a lot of it did haveto do with sacrifice.
You know, getting roommates Ithink we haven't really talked
(55:17):
about that as much, but you knowlike you can get a roommate and
save you some money, especiallyif you're getting BAH, like if
you're getting a housingallowance, like this is
something you you know I don'tknow if they're still doing that
, because I know they weretalking about kind of cutting
back on the housing allowances.
But, um, yeah, like I think atone point it was like me and
three other people living in ain a house in las vegas and you
(55:40):
know we were we're making it waslike 300 bucks a piece, but our
, our BAH was like $1,300 orsomething like that.
So we were pocketing $1,000 amonth each of us, but the
difference was my $1,000 went toputting money away for my
future, whereas some of the guysthey did not put their money
(56:04):
towards the future and, to anextent, enjoying the present.
That's fine, that is perfectlyfine, but it would be nice to,
like I said, the future selfwill thank you whenever it comes
time.
But yeah, that's just a littlething that I'd like to highlight
too is just save you know, saveyou some money on housing,
(56:26):
especially if you don't have anykids or family, if it's just
you.
You don't need to go and getyour own one-bedroom apartment.
You know, like you know, getyou some barrack buddies and get
a house and just split it for,you know, six months to a year
or however long you can stomacheach other and save you some
(56:46):
money, you know.
Speaker 7 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (56:48):
It's definitely not for everybody, but uh, but yeah,
um, I don't know, what do you?
Do you have any um anythingthat you feel that was like a
win?
Speaker 7 (56:59):
Not really.
That's where.
That's where my mistakes comein, unfortunately.
You know, go in, go you.
You know basic training.
We, we, we spent so much moneygetting ready.
Actually, we got to germany, wespent so much money buying gear
that I believe the militaryshould have already either given
us or hey, you write out a,let's say, a voucher, or hey, I
(57:24):
pay you back soon, or an IO,whatever here.
Just here's what you need.
You tell them and they justgive it to you.
You know, and again that'swhere my mind goes into
wonderland, you know.
Speaker 6 (57:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (57:35):
I spent so much money trying to pack and trying to
get ready for war, um, I didn'thave anything really successful.
I and that's where, when I cameout, lost my battle, my battle
gear.
They lost my Helmets or myclothes, or whatever.
So I had to pay all that back.
So, unfortunately I don't haveanything positive, but I have a
learning curve of.
Speaker 6 (57:56):
Keep track of your stuff, keep track of your money
and learn from it.
Okay, well, what about sinceyou've become, since you've
separated and become a transitor a veteran transition and
everything?
Is there any, um, anything thatyou've been able to knock out
since you've been, uh, out ofthe service?
Speaker 7 (58:13):
well again, you know, learning from my mistakes is,
you know, don't go to cardealership, don't sit there at
the car dealership going, hey, Iwant to finance the car
dealership they love, they lovethe person.
Oh yeah, to finance the cardealership.
Speaker 12 (58:25):
They love a person that can look at you going.
Speaker 7 (58:27):
I got this sucker hooked by a sinker before you
even got 15 feet of door.
I did it.
I walked in, didn't have credit, didn't have money down, put a
car on there.
My car pay was $400.
Interest rate is 18 or 20%.
You're sitting there thinking,okay, I can do this, but again
(58:48):
the job wasn't there or, youknow, I didn't have the
financial, the financial mindset.
So I put myself in debt and Ihad medical bills and I had.
You know, I had a credit card 21, 22 years old.
I got this.
I got USAA or Navy Federalcalling me going hey, you
qualified for a new credit card.
(59:08):
Here's your credit limit andit's raising it up because you
kept it so good or you neverused the card.
They don't tell you that yourinterest rate is going to go up
with it or it's going to.
You know, you take oversomething Again.
There's a lot to learn, butfrom 2019 to 20, 20, 21, 22,
(59:33):
almost 23,.
I paid off almost 10 to $12,000by myself.
I have like no assistance fromparents.
I didn't have a girlfriend.
I had jobs and I put I put somemoney away, like $40.
Like whatever.
Imagine if I was talking about$40, $50, whatever I put it away
in the year ahead of my taxmoney.
(59:54):
Okay, what can I pay off my taxmoney?
Or what can I Again, imagine ifI said it Work with your
creditors because, they'll takeanything and pay you $50 bucks.
They can't turn it down.
If they do, then the debt goesto basically no employee, in my
opinion, right they work withyou.
They want that money becauseyou, you work.
(01:00:17):
You walked into that business oryou walked into the emergency
room saying, hey, I need help,yeah, but I I just started
paying it little by little.
I went for the smallest billand I'd pay $50.
, went to the next bill and I'mlike I could put another $10 on
that bill.
So I went to $60, and I justkept paying it and it started to
(01:00:37):
snowball to where, by the endof the three or four years I was
in debt.
I was like don't do this again,don't do that again, and I kept
going down my list.
Well then, I had an old pickuptruck.
I had to get a newer vehicle.
I went through my credit union.
I actually went smarter.
I worked on my credit, I workedon saving money, traded this
(01:00:59):
old junk truck in.
I mean, I could have winded itup from the rear end of the
truck and pushed it in.
Speaker 6 (01:01:04):
That's how bad it was , oh man.
Speaker 7 (01:01:07):
But you know again, I've got a job where I can pay
my bills and we work our buttsoff.
But you learn from those pastmistakes.
Let's not get you know $15,000,$20,000 worth of debt.
Pay your bills, pay them ontime, pay them early and figure
(01:01:29):
out what you can pay off.
Always keep track of that.
Credit card was good.
Your credit union, your banks,your credit cards they've all
got new trackers now that sayshey, here it is, Joey.
What's that website that youcan pull all three credit
reports at?
Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
once.
Well, there'sannualcreditreportcom, I believe
, is what it is.
Speaker 7 (01:01:51):
Okay, yeah, you can go in there, it's free.
Pull up the annual creditreport, match everything up, get
a hold of TransUnion Experianwhoever and say, look this,
don't look right Can we removethis, can we?
Work on cleaning this up alittle bit Again.
They don't want yourinformation out there.
They want to help you secure itand make sure it's right.
Speaker 6 (01:02:14):
Yeah, that's great, great advice, Great.
Thank you for sharing thelessons that you've learned.
Actually, we're kind of runningover on time a little bit, but
once again we've got a lot ofgreat stuff to talk about and we
I think we should be doing thisuh on on the regular.
Maybe you know just uh justtalking about money and and and
(01:02:34):
helping veterans in any way thatwe can.
So, yes, sir, uh.
So I just wanted to say thankyou for uh for jumping on the
stream and and giving out yourum, your pearls of wisdom and um
, you know, just thank, thankyou for doing what you're doing
and, you know, stay safe on theroad.
But that's going to be it forthe stream.
Thank you for everybody joining, watching now or watching later
(01:02:57):
.
I really do appreciate it.
So, thank you and have a goodnight.
Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to
Military Broadcast Radio.
As we wrap up today's show, wewant to remind you that the
podcast of today's episode willbe available right after we go
off the air, so if you missedany part of the show or want to
listen again, be sure to checkit out.
(01:03:26):
And remember we're here tosupport and honor our veterans.
Your stories and experiencesmatter and we are committed to
giving you a platform to sharethem.
That's right.
We're here to give our veteransa voice, so don't forget to
(01:03:46):
catch the podcast and stayconnected with us Giving our
veterans a voice.
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