Fix It Before It Breaks: The Case for Financial Maintenance

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i 

WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:

https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured  

Just like a car needing its oil changed or a house needing that scratch patched today — not “someday” — your finances demand the same discipline. Delay turns small problems into big, expensive ones. But many folks avoid financial prep out of embarrassment, fear, or the old “I’ll deal with it later” mindset. Truth is, everyone starts somewhere — and the smartest move is simply starting. Pay yourself first, treat wealth-building like a monthly bill, and take advantage of time and compounding instead of letting procrastination rob your future. The world isn’t slowing down and neither is inflation — your financial prep shouldn’t either.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski A.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Little bit of a portfolio maintenance. Here's something I learned
from my father. You don't let anything go as a kid.
As a kid, my dad and he taught us we
kept our yard. Everything was impeccable. Okay, weeds had to
be pulled, everything had to be taken care of. Something breaks,

(00:38):
it's fixed instantly. A conversation with my daughter today, got
the little message last week about the oil needing to
be changed on her car, and I had to say, okay,
you got until Friday. If not, I'm taking a car.
I get a scratch on my wall. Everything, if it

(00:59):
needs needs to be fixed, you handle it. You take
care of it immediately. It's amazing people with their money,
they they don't do it. They don't do it. You
make you delay in getting your car fixed, you delay
on fixing stuff around your how whatever it may be,

(01:22):
you let it go. Little problems inevitably turn in to
big problems. Reasons why people do this when it comes
to financial preparation. Some people call it financial planning. Technically
financial planning registered investment advisor. I don't even like the

(01:44):
phrase financial planner. It's more financial preparation CRCT. Okay, that's
that's what we do. Reasons why embarrassed, That's one. I'm
gonna be honest with you. And you know, maybe this
is maybe this is my problem. Sometimes we get this
as well. Yeah. I can come across pretty strong here.

(02:08):
I know I you know, I said, I man's got
to know his limitations, as Clint Eastwood once said, and
I know mine, and I oftentimes I get a bit
boisterous and hot under the collar when I do this program.
I know that. And maybe I scare people, Okay, And
maybe people are worried that I'm gonna yell at them.

(02:29):
I'm not. We don't yell, Okay, I yell on the program. Okay,
my brothers are not gonna yell at you. People get
embarrassed about their financial condition. Again. It's interesting, you know,
it's the same mentality, same mentality many people have. Many

(02:49):
people have when you know they might be out of shape,
they might be out of shape, and they're afraid to
go back to the gym. And the funny thing is
is that people who regularly go to the gym we like. Honestly,
it makes my day when I see people coming I do.

(03:11):
I get happy when I say people that are out
of shape, that are taking those steps and saying, you
know what, I'm gonna do something about the condition that
I'm in at that point in time. Good for you,
God bless you. Okay, you have a question, ask us.
We want to help you. Okay, anyway, anyway, again, some

(03:35):
people like I said, this is a problem that isn't
a problem at Markowski Investments. You don't have all sorts
of assets to manage. You haven't been saving money. No,
we will put you on the right track. We're not
going to show you the door. That's not who we are.

(04:00):
Out of sight, out of mind. You want to maybe
put it that way, out of sight, out of mind.
Oh yeah, I can't even think about retirement. It's decades away,
whatever it may be. And again I want to point
this out that stop thinking about retirement in the first place.
Just just stop. Get it out of your mind. Okay,

(04:20):
you're young, we're not even we're not talking about that
We're talking about the unforeseen things that are going to
present themselves to you throughout your life, and there's going
to be a lot of them. There's going to be
a lot of them, and you're going to want to
take advantage of them. So you might want to prep
for that stuff. Now. Again, you don't want to put

(04:46):
any sort of delay on this, you don't. The power
of time when it comes to putting money away trumps
everything else. They've said it before. Make more. You might
worry about time in the market rather than trying to
time the market. We've talked about compounding here on the program.

(05:10):
You don't know what this is good as well. We
talk about this also the fact that you have to
learn to pay yourself again, that's right, pay yourself every
single month dollar cost averaging. Yeah, you create another bill,
but that bill is to you again. People start, okay,

(05:31):
just just get started, take that first step, Take that
first step, get yourself on the right path, start building wealth, okay,
because the government's just going to continue to print money,
that's what they do. Okay. It's going to destroy your

(05:52):
buying power and you need to outrun that. This is
the only way. Watch Dog on Wall Street Dot com