030925- Home Solutions Podcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to the Home Solutions Show. This
is your host Andy Keel with Epic Realty and I'm
joined today with Derry Sunt with Cross Country Mortgage. And
we have a very special guest today, Joe Mar with
Third Decade and not for profit Financial Literacy Organization. Good morning, guys, Good.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Morning, good morning. Thanks for having me on today.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Glad you could join us this morning. So, Joe Mar,
would you mind just starting up by introducing yourself talk
a little bit about Third Decade and what you do.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, absolutely so. I am Joe Mar Hooper. I am
the very proud CEO at Third Decade. I've been in
this role for almost three years now, and I get
to be the one to bring the financial education and
mentoring platform that we have to folks around the country.
Our name Third Decade is kind of interesting. I'm sure
you all are on the edge of your seats trying
to find out what third Decade means.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
That was one of my questions actually.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
So Third Decade our goal is to teach young adults
the things that they need by their third decade of life.
I guess I would say in and around their third
decade of life, which is in your twenties. So you know,
we know that there's a lot of things that folks
aren't getting. We know folks are struggling right now, specifically
in that gen Z millennial age range, and our goal

(01:19):
is to really bring a platform and a structure to
help young adults build confidence and to just basically feel
financially independent through our financial education and particularly through our
mentoring platform. I mean, we want to help them build
solid financial habits. We want to help them build solid
financial plans for their future and really help make confident

(01:40):
financial decisions because we know, you know, it could be
very intimidating dealing with your finances at a younger age,
So we just want to really bring the skills to
the table so that they can really manage their finances
and be successful.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
That's great, And I always back up a moment here too.
The reason I wanted to do this particular show is
I am a volunteer with Third Decade and I've helped
mentor a couple of folks with this process and I
found it to be incredibly rewarding for both student and coach. Actually,
so pretty pretty cool stuff, and I just really wanted

(02:15):
to share that with our listening audience because we really
have a huge problem out there with financial literacy. And
I'm building on a couple of past interviews, most recently
the interview with Sharon Lecter. We talked a lot about
financial literacy and some of the issues and some of
the things we're trying to do to get financial literacy

(02:35):
into our school system in Arizona and around the country.
There's something on your website that really stuck out at
me that only twenty two percent of millennials in Gen
Z are financially literate. Jamar, would you like to talk
a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, absolutely, I think you made a good point when
you talked about building off of your last conversation with
you know, I think the it's vital that we get
more education within our high school and K through twelve environments,
but us at third decade, we really focus on what's
next after they graduate from high school, after they're getting
their first jobs, getting their first taste of income, and

(03:14):
most importantly, their first bills. So, you know, we know
that millennials and Gen Z are really really struggling right now,
and I think that's obvious by the particuments that they're
in right now and there's some stats that I'm just
gonna throw out at you that show just the extent
of the struggling. I think fifty percent of young adults
are living paycheck to paycheck currently right that's and it's

(03:37):
showing no signs of getting better. Fifty seven percent of
adults consider themselves financially illiterate. And the one that really
jumps out at me is that millennials are the first
generation literally ever to make less than their parents at
the same age. So they're making twenty percent less, you know,
a inflationary adjustice than their parents were at the same

(03:58):
age that they were, not to mention, I know, you
guys talk about the real estate markets, the housing markets,
where we're at with inflation. People talk about eggs or
nine dollars right now. So folks are really really struggling,
and we know that a lot of that can be
shown is that financial education has played a big part
and why they're struggling, you know, And our goal is
to really bring that financial education to the table so

(04:20):
that they can be confident, and that more than anything,
that confidence is a big deal, but they have to
have a plan to go with that confidence. So we
help them get a plan. And Andy you mentioned you're
one of our amazing mentors, and that's the seat. That's
what is the key to our program, I think is
the fact that we have caring professionals who want to
come to the table and help our participants create a
solid financial plan for their lives. To me, that's more

(04:42):
important than any aspect of our program. Education is important,
but that financial mentoring that they're going to get as
a part of our program is one of the most
important aspects.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
It's funny and Jimar, I got a question for a
question for you because I look at you know, when
it comes to financial literacy, it is literally kind of
rewriting what we learn in school, and so much is
about discipline and willpower and hey, it's you save a
certain amount of every paycheck, no matter what, and putting

(05:12):
that in and then you go into how is that
money invested?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Is it you know, in the SMP or whatever.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Just earning a nine percent over the course of life,
you know that lasts sixty years, I think going back
actually even longer to nineteen thirty. You know, that's been
the way to return and then there's not a lot
of fees associated with that investing. But it's that discipline
of doing something every single week or every two weeks.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Or every month, and that's a huge part of it.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
And I look at you know, when we got Instagram,
it is so easy to buy and the clickbait is
we've made it.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
These phones are now we almost.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Got to protect ourselves from ourselves because it's like you
just click a button and boom, you just spend one
hundred bucks.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Like turning all that.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Off because in a way, it's just all noise away
from the eye on the price. Is putting that savings
aways and that time value of money and how powerful
that compounding interest is.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
You make an amazing point, Jerry. So we use this
equation when it comes to financial success at third decade.
It's time plus knowledge plus behavioral change. That's the key
equals financial success. So time obviously, we want you to
start early, right, That's why we work with the young adults,
and we want you to get into the magic world
of compound interest as soon as possible, as you mentioned right,

(06:32):
get them in the market, get them started. That's the
path towards financial success, to building a great net worth
for yourself is starting early. There's a concept of sixty
by thirty that we learn as well to Right, if
you get sixty thousand dollars in an account of market
accounts and don't even touch it by the age of thirty,
that'll be over a million dollars by the time you're
ready for retirement. So get in early, get started. Just

(06:54):
having these concepts knowledge is what we're going to bring
to the table when it comes to the education. Right,
we're going to teach you what needs to be learned
about budgeting, credit, debt, all that other stuff. But you
mentioned that being able to set stuff on automatic. That's
where that behavioral change comes in, is to be able
to have someone help you talk to you about like, No,
you need to really adjust your mindset to know that

(07:14):
you're looking at your future self even though you're young.
Start thinking about what that looks like. Change your behaviors now,
because it's not even a little bit of pain. It's
that you want to be able to start doing habits
that are going to lead to your success moving forward.
One of the aspects we teach about is if you guys,
ever heard of the hedonic treadmill? No no, So that
is the idea that no matter what happens, in life,

(07:37):
you always are going to have a specific level of happiness.
So you know, whether you're you get a you get
to raise at work, you're always you're going to be high,
but you're going to come back down to that level
of happiness. Your girlfriend breaks up with you, you're going to
be down for a little bit, but you always will
come back up to that level of happiness. But the
problem comes in is that we adjust our behaviors based

(07:59):
upon on that happiness to either get happier or get
out of negative aspects. So that's how we get into debt,
that's how we start messing up our credit, and that's
how we make bad decisions. But we also want to
teach people that, you know, the hedonic treadmill is going
to show you that that cycle of consumption is not
where you need to be. It's just you're gonna be
happy no matter what. You're going to have a certain
level of happiness. Don't spend your way out of it,

(08:21):
and don't try to spin your way into it.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
In a way that you know, if you meant that
spending habit, it's like a dopamine of it just gives
you a shot of happiness when you're spending money even
though it's not real.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Right, we're consuming when we don't need to consume one percent.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I always tell the story about when I graduated from college,
my very first purchase, I was the happiest guy in life.
I was like, it was the two thousand and three
NBA Finals and you know high definition televisions that just
come out, and I was like, I'm going to buy
a high definition television, a fifty one inch for two
thousand dollars. Fifty one inches. Think about that, fifty one
inches for two thousand.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
That's a big that's a big TV screen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Absolutely, So I was very happy during the summer and
during the playoffs. But five years later do you think
I had that TV? But so and if I would
have put that two thousand dollars in the market, that
would be twelve thousand dollars today. So just thinking about that,
so that heat. You know, thinking about the cycle of
consumption and things is one of the behavioral aspects which
we talk about at third decade.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
You know.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
Another thing two things is that someone taught me, you
know that high definition TV is not we think about
the cost of two thousand dollars, Well, really it's three
thousand dollars because we're looking at a net basis of
after tax money. Well, your paycheck made you page three,
but after taxes and everything else, it's two.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
So really you spent three grand.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
And it's when you start looking at it like that,
it's like, really, things are that much more expensive, you know.
In another I read a book recently called Man Up,
which I have to tell you I thought it was
a fantastic book, and it is. Basically it's about entrepreneurship
and about be disciplined, which it's hard to do when
they're you're getting pulled in twenty different directions.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
And one of the lines in the.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Book, I don't want to make Mark Zuckerberg anymore rich.
I want to make myself bridge and so I don't
want to be on Facebook, Instagram or whatever.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
I'm not picking on any platform.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
I'm just saying that the longer you're spending there, you're
becoming clickbait and b you're making them money, not spending
time focusing on providing a better future for yourself.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with that. We teach,
we teach, we teach about focus here at third decade
is that you know you need to be focused, drown
out the noise, be strategic. We have this whole concept
of the Magnificent seven which we talk about, but the
seven principles that really get people started, and one of
them is be strategic. You know, you have a plan
for your life. You can't really do anything unless you
have a plan. And then just drowning out that noise

(10:48):
so that you know you're able to react. You know,
I think what is it? What was the Mike Tyson
quote about, Uh, everybody has a plan to they get
punched in the face. We want to make sure that
you have that plan, but then when you get punched
in the face with life, that you're still able to
make those adjustments. And that's kind of where we have
that behavioral change aspects, which the knowledge base that our
mentors bring to the table really help our participants.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
And Joe, do you when you for all of the
younger people that are coming to learn and really this
is life changing information?

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Is it hard to get people in? Are they? Sometimes?

Speaker 4 (11:24):
I think people are nervous because they feel they should
know more, but they don't know more. Right, you know,
It's like, oh, you had a balance a checkbook? Oh,
sure I do? When they really don't because there makes
them feel conscientious about themselves, and it's like, no, you
know what, we're all learning, right, we all got to
start somewhere.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I think the level of financial insecurity of folks who
come to us is out, it's through the roofs, and
I think that folks are not getting the guidance from family,
from social media, from home or whatever. So when they
come to us, a lot of them are extremely insecure
and scared to start the process. So it can be
a difficult proposition when you're used to looking at your
credit card bills and not paying it until you know

(12:04):
it's late or when it's due, and thinking about what,
how do I put a plan together? So we even
get out of that cycle. So we do see a
ton of financial insecurity of folks who come to us,
and we just asked them, just make that first step
with us. When you'll get there, we'll teach you how
to get there. So that's our goal when it comes
to third decade, is getting you there with that.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Guys, we're coming up on a break. We will be
right back. This is the Home Solutions Show, and we'll
back up through these messages. Good morning and welcome back.
To the Home Solutions Show. This is your host Andy
Keel with Epic Realty and I can be reached at
five two zero five three nine nine five nine one.
And we're joined again with Jerry sent with Cross Country Mortgage. Jerry,

(12:46):
would you share your phone number of.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Course five to two zero three seven zero nine five
seven six.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
And we're also joined again with Joe mar with Third Decade.
So Jam or do you want to share any contact
information if someone would like to learn more about Third
Decade or both from a volunteer or like a student
standpoint website or any information you'd like to share there.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah. Absolutely. The best way to reach us is through
our website. It's www dot three the number three r
D Decade d ecad dot org. You'll find information on
how to enroll in our program or how to spread
the word to those folks in your life that you
want to enroll in our program, or how to be
a volunteer for our program as well, and particularly how

(13:39):
to be a supporter of our program. So we're always
we're looking for those three things right now, supporters, volunteers
and participants. So anyway that folks can want to get involved,
we have a way for them to be involved in
our work.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Fantastic. Let's take a break from this for a moment
and just talk a little bit about a market update
with interest rates and where we are this week.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
Jerry, Yeah, so interest rates are they're continuing their decline.
They're moving slowly lower, which is welcome news. Now, many
factors are going in for this. One is you know,
the jobs report coming came out on Friday and a
little bit weaker than expected. This is the BLS Bureau
of Labor Statistics report, and about one hundred and fifty

(14:17):
thousand jobs were created where it was anticipated when sixty.
The big news of the week was the ADP, the
payroll company.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
There they do a their own.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
View or they do their own reporting on employment, and
basically they came up with less than eighty thousand jobs
were created. So a big difference because much slower than
expected from the ADP or the private sector is what
they concentrate on versus the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Still both were weaker than expected.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
So the trend is that, you know, employment is starting
to slow. Unemployment creeped up to four point one percent,
big there.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
But there are talks now that.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
That unemployment is probably going to creep up to four
point five percent over the next few months, and that
the FED is now and this moves all over depending
upon the day of the week, but now they're talking
about three rate cuts this year is now kind of
the consensus.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
You know.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
Again, part of it is due to the turbulence of
are we you know, going to provide Are we going
to put tariffs on all of our trading partners or not?
We seem to yes, we are, no, We're not. A
lot of back and forth there.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
So I think that's just caused a lot of worry.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
In the market, and you know, people, I think consumers
are raining in uh, you know, the the There are
some sound bites out there that you are seeing weakening
in the consumer. I think on car loans, the amount
of repossessions are at an all time high, not just
a five year high, but literally an all time high

(15:55):
that came out yesterday. So consumers are feeling squeezed, and
you know, inflation is not really slowing down the way
we were hoping it would. So a combination of factors,
but overall, this is good news for the spring buying
season because it means lower interest rates we're at six
point seventy five today on a conventional thirty year fixed rumor.

(16:19):
You know, I shouldn't say rumor.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
The forecast is will probably see.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
Six and a half in the next few months, and
that we may see six percent by the end of
the year. Now, whenever I give my forecasts, I always
have to give the the the bullet point that you know,
most forecasts a consensusm that have been given out the
last two years, whether by Wall Street or by economists,

(16:43):
by whomever, have all been wrong because of expected rates
would come down last year, they didn't. It was expected
they come down in twenty three, they didn't. But now
they are seemed to be moving that direction. And the
Treasury Sector Secretary, which Guy Scott, doesn't it which if
you haven't looked into him, I think he's a very

(17:03):
very smart person and has his eye on the prize
of bringing down the ten year yield, which will bring
down mortgage rates, and I think he will do be
a big catalyst for helping with the housing industry. More
inventory is coming on the market, lower rates. It's getting
to be a very busy spring buying season.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
So there you go. That's my update.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Well, we were talking a little bit on the break
about third Decade and the plan there and buying homes,
and you had a great question, Jerry.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well, yeah, my question was this to Joe mour Is.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
You know, we are a real estate and investment show,
and you know when you talk about financial literacy, there's
it's like anything, right, there's a you know, a elementary school,
high school, you know college, you know level you go
up as And where does housing and buying a house
fall into the education hierarchy, I guess per.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Se Well, absolutely, we have an entire module on housing.
When it comes to talking to our participants about pros
and cons of what they want to do, and you know,
we really talk about there's no prescribed method for their success.
If you know, renting could be best for some folks
at a point in their life, Owning a home is
best for some folks, depending on the point of your life.

(18:27):
Our goal is to make sure that they're ready for
whatever stage that they want to do. So when we
talk about home ownership, there's lots of benefits to being
able to be a homeowner, but we always want to
make sure our participants are ready for that next step.
So I think we usually we talk about a checklist
of things that we want them to have based upon
their financial acumen and their financial success. We want them

(18:49):
to have an emergency fund before they're ready to buy
a home, so that they're ready to have that. We
teach we teach three to six months obviously, but you know,
depending on where folks are coming from, let's get to three.
Let let's start there to get three months. When you're
thinking about buying a home. Let's make sure you have
a decent amount of funding outside of your emergency fund
set aside for that down payment, and that you're ready
to go with that. We also want to make sure

(19:11):
we talked about that long term success. We want to
make sure that you're saving for retirement, so that folks
are that they're saving between ten and fifteen percent of
their income for retirement, that they're ready that We want
to make sure that you have some of those general
principles that you're meeting in your own life before you're
ready to take that next step, and that you're ready
potentially that you have a decent credit score so that
you can get the interest rate that you want, which

(19:32):
would bring down some of those costs, and that you're
right hopefully you're ready for the long term that you're
you're ready to buy this house, so you're not that
you're ready to kind of settle down and potentially be
in an opportunity of that. Obviously, that varies depending on
where people are in their lives, but those are just
some of the options and things we talk about in
our class about that readiness checklist when folks are ready

(19:53):
to buy a home.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Yeah, you know the expense of owning a home is
you know a lot of people think, oh, it's just
my mortgage payment. Well that's not true, right, Things break
in your house and you're always seeming to be upgrading
or having to you know, whether it's out of necessity
like a you know, a dishwasher breaks or something like that,

(20:16):
or or if it's out of out of a want
where oh, I.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Think we need to paint the walls because.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
They don't like the color. But there's just always expenses
that go into a home.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
But the key element about a home is that.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
Homes have appreciated and again going back to World War
Two in Pima County at about three point seven.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Percent per year.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
But you know, if you invest five or ten percent
down and again there are down payment assistance programs where
you can put zero down, but you know someone puts
five percent down.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
You know, they think, oh.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
That appreciation is not on that five percent, but it's
on the full amount of the house. And a three
hundred thousand dollars home today is going to be worth
roughly about three hundred and fifty thousand in five year
years just by the utility.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Of living there and there is.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
That's a powerful element when people look at like their
retirement plan. If you own real estate and not the
same house, but you know, you buy a house, you
sell it, you know, move into another, and you take
that equity and put it in the new house over time,
that can be a very large part of a person's wealth,

(21:28):
as just as investing in the stock.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Market is absolutely we talk about growth and net worth
as one of our biggest deals that we want folks
to really have the equity and assets to be successful,
and having a home is definitely one of those ways
to build your net worth, to build your assets and
to have an opportunity for success. And you mentioned one
point that I want to touch upon earlier as you

(21:50):
were talking. One of the things we've seen for a
lot of young adults. Is some of that not understanding
the total cost of owning a home as well too.
There was I think there was a whole Instagram thing
a while ago or TikTok, which I'm not on TikTok
because I'm a hope man, but they were talking about
young adults getting there realizing why isn't my payment the

(22:13):
same this year as it was last year? Not understanding
even though you have a fixed rate mortgage, but you're
the things the variables that go into that. Your taxes
went up, your insurance is going up, things of that nature.
So I think it was it's sometimes there's that sticker shock,
and we saw the whole threads of that where people
were like, why is my mortgage payment going up? Not
understanding that those are going to be things that you
have to deal with, but you deal with those to,

(22:36):
like you said, to realize that appreciation over time when
it comes to purchasing that home. And that's one of
the things we talked to our participants about as well.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, insurance, auto insurance and home insurance. Man, I think
that is my understanding. It's one of the biggest inflationary
elements of a household for each of us that we
don't talk about, right. We get focused on eggs and
the price of eggs, but we're not talking about.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Insurance for housing.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
I had a couple moved from Tucson to Texas recently,
and you know, their insurance was about one hundred bucks
a month for their home in Tucson. But the area
that they're moving to in Texas, the cheapest premium they
can find and they talk to I don't know how
many different insurance agents, was six thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
And it's just because of so.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Many of the hurricanes, a lot of insurance companies don't
want to insurre in that part.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Of Texas, so it's just very expensive.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
And parts of Florida is going through that, California goes
through that, and you know, it's a insurance is one
of those those elements that, wow, it is. You know
we used to think about, oh, it's only a small
percentage of your budget.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
It's getting to be a bigger part of the budget
for sure.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
I think the Pima County Visitors Bureau just thanks you
for that statement as well too, as far as exactly
the affordability of insurance calls down in our area, which
is awesome. And one of the things we teach is
that we want people to just lots of things that
you don't think about that behavioral change aspect. There's so
many things our participants and young adults don't even factor
in when it comes to taxes, insurances, and just things

(24:09):
that are not on your radar on a daily basis,
but should be a part of your actual plan when
doing anything. So that's vitally important.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, love it, love it, love it.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah. So we are coming up on a break. This
is Andy Keel with the Home Solutions Show and we
will be right back in just a few moments. Good morning,
Welcome back to the Home Solutions Show. This is your host,
Andy Keel with Epic Realty and I'm joined again with
Jerry Sunt Cross Country Mortgage and Jamar Hooper with Third Decade.

(24:42):
On the break, we were talking a little bit about
Jerry was asking about the location and I thought this
was really important, especially for potential mentors or students. Where
are you located, Jamar?

Speaker 2 (24:54):
So, we are our organization. Although we grew from Tucson, Arizona,
we grew from humble room down in the Southwest. We're
a nationally serving organization. Currently, we have participants in every
state except for five. I think we have folks in Hawaii,
we have folks in Alaska who've been through Third Decades program.
So we're one hundred percent virtual. So folks can take
our program either live virtual classes which we begin every quarter,

(25:19):
we have a new cohort that comes on, or we
have an amazing learning management system so they can take
the program asynchronously at their own pace, you know, wake
up Saturday morning with the bull of Cereo and go
through our education program. And when it comes to our
mentorship aspect, folks are able to engage with their mentor
virtually as well too, so we have mentors all across
the country who donate their time back to the organization.

(25:41):
These are financial professionals, folks who understand personal finance, who
just want to give back, and we able to train them,
have a program to get them started, to provide the
guidance and advice necessary for our participants to make that
next stage. And then they have three virtual meetings over
the course of two years to really help them get started.
Those three meetings are vitally important. The first one is

(26:02):
going to be around just visioning and setting goals, What
does it look like, what do you want to do?
What is your main goal in life? What is your
goal for your finances? And the mentor helps them create
a solid financial plan for their life. Fast forward a
year later, they come back for another virtual meeting with
their mentor where they're going to have an opportunity to
update that plan and goals change. Things get updated, Let's

(26:24):
figure out what needs to happen to make you stay
successful over the course of the next year. And then
we come back for one last meeting over that last
year where it's our final meeting and we really want
to get you started moving forward in your life. So
this is really an update. Let's change goals, make goals.
But one aspect which I didn't touch upon. So once
you graduate from our program, participants actually get a two

(26:45):
hundred and fifty dollars investment into a raw ira from
our organization. So that's the idea of a curate in
a stick, right, that's definitely our carrot we want folks
to get started. Seventy percent of our participants don't have
a raw ira when they come to us. Many don't
know what a ira is, right, so our goal is
to get them started thinking long term, and that's an amazing
tool to get them started on their savings journey, which

(27:07):
you'll give tax free savings when they get ready to retire.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
I think that that's great touching on that, so correct
me if I'm wrong here. But for the students of
the program, it's a completely free program and they get
a two hundred and fifty dollars contribution to a roth
Ira when they're done.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
That is one hundred percent correct. Our program is and
will always be free for our participants, and we in
fact pay you to be a part of our program.
So yes, we're very excited by that. And that's all
due to our very generous supporters who understand our mission
and want us to continue to offer programming that is
free to charge for our participants.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, that's what I always thought was amazing about that
is generally speaking, so much financial information out there is
maybe not secretive, but often you have to work for it,
you have to pay for it, you have to dig
for it. There's so much misinformation out there trying to
sort out the good from the bad. If you're like
on Instagram, YouTube or Reddit or all these crazy sites

(28:03):
out there, just having something that's time, tested, proven is fantastic.
You mentioned something in one of the earlier segments that
I wanted to circle back to. You mentioned the Magnificent
seven and one of them being strategic. Can you talk
about any of the other ones with what are the
magnificent seven with regards to that topic?

Speaker 2 (28:23):
So absolutely so, those are just the things that we
talk about early on in our program, and it's just
really things that we want to get you started thinking
about on your journey as you start. So number one
is we want to get you started early, right, We
want to get you started early as far as thinking
about your finances as soon as possible. That just relates
to what we talk about with time, as far as
being able to get into the market early, get started early,

(28:44):
and a lot of it is get started before you
start making bad mistakes. I mentioned my two thousand dollars
television in my early twenties. Those are things we don't
want folks to do. We want to get started before
you start racking up credit card thatt, and we want
to you just started that even if you did have
the those debts, that you can start to see a
path forward early in your life as well. That's one

(29:04):
of them. Be strategic. We want you to be strategic
about the things that you're working towards as well. That's
vitally important. Want you to have a solid plan and
be focused. We want this the last im perpetuity. That's
one of the last ones we talk about is im perpetuity.
The things you're going to learn at third decade and
the things you need to learn to be successful in life.
Hopefully we'll have that ripple effect that it's going to

(29:24):
last with you for the rest of your life, that
you can bring that to your family, to your friends,
to your community. Funny story, real quick, We have some
participants who actually use our curriculum to teach their friends
and family at their dinner table around financial education. Once
they've learned all they need to know at third decade.
The wonderful stories like that are what keeps me going
is that it's just not investing in one individual. It's

(29:46):
investing in a household, which is investing in a neighborhood,
which is hopefully investing in a community as folks have
that ripple effect that comes out from it. So those
are some of the initial concepts we teach. Obviously, those
all flow into other aspects as well.

Speaker 4 (29:59):
And Jimar on a comment there. I think so often
I was brought up that we didn't talk about finances
in the household and why we should be talking about
finances and how money works, and why don't people talk
about that more frequently? And another thing I think, and
I don't want to age myself, but I when I think,

(30:21):
when I see a lot of younger people and how
they invest, it's becoming almost like a gamble. It's not
a it's not a habit of what you're describing as
a habit of what you do every day. And that's
the discipline, right, you change a habit, you know, you
have to take part of your paycheck and put it
into savings. You know, no matter how difficult it is,

(30:42):
that's what you do. And that is you know, that's
a habit, changing a system. But when I hear about
Reddit and I'm not beating up on social media, it's
you know, they had that group with Roaring Kitty and
it was the Mean Stocks, which again very powerful play,
but it was a very advance investment strategy to go

(31:03):
against short sellers, and with that it was they had
a boost of profits. Well, I gotta believe a lot
of people that were even on that website don't even
know what short selling is and didn't understand it. Hey,
they got in, they made up the hopefully didn't get
you know, if they were in the right time, they
made money.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
But if they didn't, they got crushed.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah. So those are two very good points you made.
I want to address both of those. So when it
comes to like the aspect of folks getting into the
market and not understanding it, I think, you know, not
to single out any company or anything, but it's the
gamification of buying stocks has really just exploded, just like
online gambling has exploded recently, very much, very much. I

(31:44):
saw a stat recently that nine of folks who do
individual trading like that lose money nine just like I
would assume it's the same amount of people who are
losing money in parlays who were working as the we're
going to Caesars and things of that nature. Right, It's
it's a lot of folks just seeing it. It's fun
to them to use robinhood to do this stuff. And

(32:06):
you know, mind you there's a place in time for everything.
If you are already putting ten to fifteen percent in
your retirement, if you have your emergency savings account, you
have a budget, and your bills are where they need
to be by all means. I'm not going to stop
you from wanting to use some tangible money to buy
individual stocks. But a lot of folks get in trouble

(32:26):
when they don't have a solid financial life line to
back them up to be able to do what needs
to be done. So that's what really worries me and
worries a lot of folks about that ninety percent number
of folks who are losing money.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
A lot of people will go into your program, start
telling about investing, and the minute that investing comes out,
they go to, well that means crypto.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
So we do get a lot of questions about crypto.
But I think it's funny most a lot of people
are really afraid of the market. They're really afraid of stocks,
they're really afraid of bonds. They don't know what a
mutual fund is. So crypto, although it's a lot it's
a big buzzword right now, a lot of folks don't
even know what really goes into that. So you know, we.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Really try to I don't know what it is either,
so you know, there you.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Go one of the things we do is we try
to demystify investing. We want to know. We want folks
to know that it's there's an easy path forward, right,
get get a brokerage account, get into a target date fund,
and leave it alone. That's how you want to start
thinking about your investments at a younger age. Right. So
we really want folks to have that perspective that it's

(33:30):
not about the gamification and it's not about hunting for
the best stock deal or the meme stock at this
point in time, that it should be all about thinking
about the long term. I think there was a quote
from Warren Buffett like he never buys a stock that
he wouldn't keep for the long term. I maybe misquoting
that or something, but that sounds about right.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
So he's a long term holder and he's a shining
example of the benefits of doing that and having that
discipline and willpower just to hold on to a stock
because you believe in the company they have, they have
good valuation, they have good profitability, good management, and that's
what people should be looking for.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Absolutely, we tell we talk a lot about target date funds.
That's a thing if you know what day you want,
what year you're going to retire, what age range get
into that, some of them automatically adjust and you're good
to go. So those are some of the things that
we really want folks to think about. But I also
want to touch upon your point about the about folks
not not talking about it at home. That's such a

(34:27):
big deal. I my parents never talked about finances at home,
absolutely never, And I think I know why they didn't
talk about it is because their parents never talked about
it at home either, Right, So I think it's this
vicious cycle that we get into when it comes to
not having that. I know I'm breaking that cycle with
my kids currently, we're talking about money all the time.
They get annoyed with me talking about money. So it's

(34:48):
just a lot of folks didn't get that opportunity from home.
They're not getting it from school, they're not getting it elsewhere.
So that's why we try to really bridge that gap
here a third decade.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
It always it interests me of like, why don't we
talk about money, And again, it's still kind of taboo
and if it's not talked about, then there's no solutions happen,
and we should be talking about what goes on in
the market. And you know, one of my favorite things
is one of the brightest and wealthiest persons I've ever

(35:21):
known in my life has the simplest investment strategy of
all time.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Eighty percent goes into the S and P.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Twenty percent goes into the QQQ, which are index funds, right,
very load rates. You don't have to pay a financial
advisor to pay You don't pay them a lot of
money to get into those funds, and they mirror the market.
And he has done insanely well doing following that strategy,

(35:48):
and by doing so, his rate of return over the
course of forty years has been over ten percent.

Speaker 5 (35:53):
That's a great rate of return. Absolutely simple strategy is
you could ever have and that's what we teach we
it's demystifying this. You think about the stock market, you
think about Wall Street people running around screening and doing
crazy stuff, right that for a lot of the young people,
they see movies. No, it's about getting into a safe
long term index fund, target date fund.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Mutual fun and just going from there. It's relative. They're
relatively safe, they've shown to be stable over the long term.
Get into that and you're going to see success over
the long term when it comes to your finances.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Agreed well with that. We're coming up on another break
and we will be right back. This is the Home
Solutions Show on K and ST and we'll be back
after these messages. Good morning, and welcome back to the
Home Solutions Show. This is your host Andy Keel with
Epic Realty, and I'm joined again by Joe murr Hooper
with Third Decade and Jerry Sunt with Cross Country Mortgage.

(36:50):
Before the last break, we are just talking about using
a simple method to invest index funds, target date funds,
that that sort of thing, and really wanted to continue
on that because, as we were addressing, just simple can
be so much better. I did this exercise with my
niece a couple more than a couple of years back,

(37:12):
but she was in her early twenties. We just mathematically
showed that if historically speaking, if you're a minimum even
a minimum wage earner, and take ten percent of your
money it's starting at an early enough age in early
twenties and just put it in the S and P
five hundred, you can't not be a millionaire. Just mathematically,

(37:32):
it's it's impossible as long as you're consistent and put
it into In that case, we use the historic returns
of an SMP, but a target date fund would do
just that as well well.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
And you know, we talk about this show is always.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
About real estate, and you know, this simple investment model
is applies to real estate. Right, first thing you buy
is you buy a primary residence. You don't have to
buy six investment properties. And you know, in flipping homes,
that is more. That's an advanced business model. And yes
it can be very lucrative and successful, but you got

(38:09):
to know what you're doing because if you don't.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
You get burned.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, you know, I've certainly done some flips over the years.
I'm not a big fan of that model. Occasionally, since
we're geared up to do that sort of thing, on
occasion we do. But I talk to a lot of
investors and a lot of people that really are just
getting into real estate or real estate investing, and and

(38:34):
it's funny that oftentimes they say, you know, I want
to start by hostsaling, and then I want to get
into make some money, and then I'll get into flipping
and then we'll you know, maybe buy a single family
house and do it as a rental and graduate up
to my multi family property. And it's like, gosh, guys,
did you realize you just described like massively different business

(38:56):
models and a couple of those things aren't even investing.
Whostsaling and Flip is not investing. That is a business model. Yeah,
from an investment point of view. I mean, you know,
Jerry and I talk about this quite a bit. I mean,
getting into rental properties certainly more advanced than well, I

(39:16):
guess maybe not certainly more advanced, but a different model
than stock market. And it's such a lucrative way of,
if done right and managed well, of just growing some
amazing wealth. And I don't want to dwell on that,
because that's we talk about that quite a bit. I
do want to shift gears for a moment here before
we run out of time, especially being that I believe

(39:38):
this is coming up for a vote in a few
days here. But I see this around the city with
the proposition four fourteen safe and vibrant city. I didn't
necessarily want to get into anything political here, but it
brings up affordable housing, and I wanted to talk a

(40:00):
little bit about that because it's kind of a hot
button and it's an interesting topic. So Jamar I'd love
to hear your take on affordable housing pros, cons and
just thoughts in general.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Absolutely, so I may be a tabbit biased, is that
I used to in a former life, I did some
work in affordable housing, specifically around low income housing tax
credit projects as well, and I'm I think in general,
I'm a fan of the of the model and the
idea that we do need to have more affordable options
for folks across the spectrum, right And we know that

(40:36):
there's multiple levels when it comes to affordable housing, specifically
folks at the lower level all the way up to
folks making one percent of area media and income. And
I do think we we you know, as a community
and as communities, it's it's in our best interest to
make sure that folks have an opportunity to be housed
in a situation where they can afford, whether they're not

(40:58):
paying fifty percent of their income for their rent or
for other aspects of their housing moving forward. So I
do look at it as a as a very important
thing for communities to invest their funds in. I know
there's a lot that goes goes around that and what
that looks like, and specifically, I do think there's some
aspects that developers need to take into account when it

(41:19):
comes to thinking about how to build the best property
they can build. And one of the things I know
Andy we were talking about this a little offline, is
property management. Having successful, strong, secure property management is always
a big important thing to me, And now that I'm
in this world of financial education, I think being able
to bring wrap around services and opportunities to folks who

(41:41):
are affordable housing locations, it is potentially an opportunity for
them to grow their circumstances, grow their opportunities, and hopefully
become homeowners at some point in time in the future
as well too. So it's a lot that goes into that,
But in general I'm very supportive of opportunities for folks
to get in housing they can afford, be able to
start making a plan for success for themselves, and then

(42:04):
being able to elevate and graduate to that success potentially
to home ownership at some point.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
Very cool.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
So I have a question for you. I'm changing gears
a little bit here, but Jaumar, what are you most
proud of in your work at third decade?

Speaker 2 (42:24):
I would say our impact this is there's one, there's
several numbers that I'm going to highlight. But one thing
in particular that I'm very excited about is over the
two year period of Third Decade that folks go through,
we see an average net worth change of sixty thousand
dollars on average. And that's even taking out the high
the really outliers at the high end, at the bottom

(42:46):
end as well too, And that means folks are during
that two years, they're paying off their debts, they're using snowball,
avalanche method, whatever they want to do. They're able to
start putting money inside to pay off their debts. There
are a lot of folks didn't know they had a
man on their four oh one k at work. They're
taking advantage of their match now to be able to
start growing their wealth in those aspects. They're paying off,

(43:06):
they're paying down their student loans, a lot of them
are getting new jobs. Some of them are purchasing homes
during our program as well. So that number is a
humongous for us, and that's across the spectrum of folks
who go through Third Decade. So almost ninety five percent
of folks who go through our program will see a
positive change in their net worth after leaving our program,
So it's vitally important for them to get that education

(43:27):
and that guidance to be started. And then just the scope.
I'm excited for the scope of our program as well too.
We have, give or take about thirteen thirteen fifty current
folks who are going through our program at some stage
in their two year program. And most importantly, we've had
nearly thirteen hundred alumni who've gone through our program as
well too. That's over thirteen hundred folks that have been

(43:49):
able to get what they need from Third Decade, go
back to their community and their families and really start
growing that success. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to
get a college or Universe to an evaluation of us
and see the financial impact of the community that Third
Decades have having based upon the number of graduates and
where they're at with their net worth. But I'm so

(44:10):
proud of the impact they were having an individualize which,
as I talked about earlier, is really trickling down to
having impact on their neighborhoods, their families, and their communities
as well.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah. Actually, as you were talking there, I'm remembering a
conversation with one of my students that I was mentoring,
and I wanted to share this because it was pretty powerful.
And he was is a teacher and was talking about

(44:40):
wanting to potentially change jobs for a bigger salary increase,
and on the surface it sounded great, but part of
the power of your program is just learning the consistency
and the good habits, and looking at his financial situation,
I asked a completely different question. I think I completely

(45:02):
sidetracked him, but it was the most meaningful question and
the most meaningful answer. Do you like what you do
now with your teaching? And I was expecting something, oh,
I'm not happy or something like that, and he said, no,
I love what I do, but I feel like I
need to make more money. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, man,
you know you have the means, and you have the discipline,

(45:26):
You're doing everything right. Why would you want to leave
a job that you actually like and enjoy? And I
think he actually said love to go into something that,
by your own admission, you wouldn't like nearly as much,
just to make another twenty thousand a year. And I
just thought that was so powerful, because you know, it's
not necessarily about how much you make, it's how well

(45:48):
you live. Within the means and spend. And you know,
why would somebody that has a job that they truly
love want to just take a small increase to potentially,
you know, get into a bad situation. And I just
thought that was such a powerful conversation that we had.
And it's like he came to that conclusion on his own,

(46:09):
but just asking the question was key.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
But you know what, that's why you were there at
the right time for that conversation. And that's the value
of having an expert in their field, someone who understands
personal finance, who wants to work with our participants. And
I appreciate you being able to have that conversation because
who knows where he could have gone or would be
if not for third decade and for having someone like
you being able to help him have that conversation. So

(46:34):
that's extremely powerful to me and I really appreciate you
for that.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, And as we're wrapping up here, one last question
for you, what advice do you have for someone that
is struggling with their financial situation.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
That there's light at the end of the tunnel. I
would say that you just have to make that conscious
decision that you're ready to get out of your circumstances,
and most importantly, that you're ready to start now. Whether
it's third decade or what it's another program from one
of our partners or from someone else around the country,
you have to get started. Time is not on your
side when it comes to these things. That's why we

(47:08):
say we want to get you started early and get
you started for your success as soon as possible. So
you know, I think they say the the best time
to get started is yesterday, right, So let's get you
in our program, get you in a program and really
get you started, because we want to make sure that
you are set up for the future, that your financial
insecurity is overcome, and that you can get with a

(47:29):
solid mentor who's going to help you take that next
step in life. So that's that's my.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Advice, all right.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
And again for the listening audience out there, if anyone
is interested in becoming a mentor looking for help as
a student knows somebody that could be helped by this program,
if you could give out the website information one more time, please.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Absolutely, it's www dot three the number three rd decade
dot org three r d decade dot org. So whether
it's your friends, family, coworkers share our platform with everyone.
We'd love to get more supporters, volunteers, and participants.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, and I can personally attest to the power of
this program and having reviewed the materials and being a
mentor myself, it really is everything that's being presented here.
So with that, we are coming up on the end
of the show. Thanks Jomar for joining us today. And
this is the Home Solutions Show and we'll be back

(48:25):
next week.