5 Money Habits That You Need To STOP! | Biz To Biz Podcast

You are now watching the Biz to Biz podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Phil Jackson of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we'll be discussing some money habits that keep people poor or in debt, whatever you want to call it. Uh, yeah, man, how you doing?

Doing good. So, you know, busy week this week. Things are going well.

That's good.

It's getting almost to the end of another month.

You keep saying that, dude. It's only the 23rd.

I know, but it's like all of a sudden it's like, where did May go?

May didn't go anywhere. I know, it took 31 days to go.

All right, we got another week to go.

8 days.

We got the Memorial Day weekend coming up.

Long weekend for us. Yes, long shops closed Monday.

Yep. So that's nice, always to enjoy a 3-day weekend.

Oh yes, it's nice. Yes, we're going to celebrate that this weekend for sure.

Maybe make— have some barbecue.

Uh, no, no, no, no, I'm— I would love to. I think we're going to the beach, so nice. Barbecuing at the beach sucks. It's nice, but if the wind is— I shouldn't say barbecuing at the beach sucks. Barbecuing at the beach is challenging. It's very challenging because if the wind is windy, you're gonna have some sandy food. Yeah. And I'm not a fan of sandy food.

No, that's not fun. Crunch, crunch. No, no good.

I don't care what you say, you know, you know, put up a, you know, the wind barrier.

Yeah, but it still gets on your food.

That shit don't work. Yeah, as soon as you take it off the grill and you sit at the picnic table, you're having a little dirt with your meal, which, you know, I mean, not the end of the world, but whatever.

Yeah, but no, you don't need that extra crunch.

No, no, I'm not a fan of sandy.

No, believe me, I've had that before. No fun. Yeah, live, you know.

Yeah, went to the Brewers game yesterday. Oh, today's date is May 23rd, 2024, 11:29 AM Eastern Standard Time when this podcast is being recorded. Went to the Brewers game last night. They lost. Marlins took the series.

Sorry.

Don't be sorry.

Okay.

That, I will say this. What happened to the fans, bro?

Yeah, I don't know, dude. I don't know. Like, I told you.

Those tickets are hella cheap.

Yeah.

So that's not an excuse. No. I mean, like, you could get a decent ticket at the ballgame for like $6 right now.

Right.

So that ain't an excuse to not go to the— No, I think part of the problem— They're not supporting the team.

Yeah, they don't. The team doesn't have support. The transportation in and out, is not the greatest of all times to go to the game.

Getting out of there is a disaster. Getting into the ballpark, I don't have any much complaints. This is the second time I've drove there.

Well, you go down there and park, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's okay. But I'm just saying, but I'm just saying.

Getting out is a disaster.

Yeah, getting out. But I'm just saying like public transportation, like the train.

You can't catch a train there.

Yeah.

There is no train that goes there.

You gotta get on a bus.

You gotta catch the train downtown and then you gotta get on a bus.

And then take a bus.

And then you walk.

Yeah.

The walking when it's 100 degrees outside is, it's just not okay.

That's what I'm saying.

It's not, yeah, I agree.

Not the greatest thing.

It's not like catching the train to Bronx. Right. Watching the Yankees. You literally get off the train, you're at the Yankee Stadium.

I just don't know why, like it's just not proper planning. Even the same thing for the Heat game, the Dolphin game.

The mass transportation heat game is 10 times worse though.

Oh yeah, the heat game. We got lucky that one time me and you went to the game.

We got pulled up and we got to park right in courtside seats, courtside parking basically. Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. But yeah, the Brewers lost. Guy pitching, what was the guy's name?

Lozardo. He's from Parkland, Florida.

That guy, he was—

went to Douglas—

out, bro. Like, he was just in a zone. He had literally had a career game last night.

Oh yeah, that was crazy.

So they shut us out. We won 1 out of the 3-game series, but whatever. Go Brewers! You guys got a good, good home stretch coming up, so hopefully you pick it back up. Anyway, let's hop into it, man. So you want to go first? I went first the other day, you know. Okay.

Well, one thing, a habit that a lot of people have that they don't realize how much money they're spending on is coffee, like Starbucks every day, getting food delivered, which is completely out of control now, eating lunch out. I mean, we feed the office. I can tell you, like, It's almost— it's literally from 3 years ago, it's, it's literally double.

I was gonna say triple because—

no, but I mean, it's double the price.

It's tripled.

Yeah, but I'm just saying it's like being nice by saying doubled, but it's—

shit has tripled.

Yeah, I mean, like, you go at like restaurants that I would go out to in my— near my house, you know, local place where you could go in there and it would be $40, $50. Now you ain't leaving for less than $100 for 2 people, and that's— it's messed up. And then I saw— I posted a video on my social today— Red Lobster closing up all their restaurants, and a whole bunch of other places is in there closing up, like a couple hundred restaurants. Quiznos closing up, Boston Market. Bunch—

I can't believe Boston Market is closing. When I did eat meat Yeah, like Boston Market was like going to get a home-cooked meal.

But, you know, and then I see these videos of these guys going into McDonald's to get lunch and like a hamburger, a drink, 20 fries is like, depending on where you're at, anywhere from $17 to over $20. Yeah. I mean, that's just insane.

And then my daughter asked me for Taco Bell the other day and I was like, well, how much do you need? Like $8 or some shit? Like, it's Taco Bell, right? Right.

I mean, what the fuck?

It's just like, no, no.

But if you order your food from these delivery companies paying more, it's 20 to 30% more marked up plus a delivery fee. Then they expect a tip. And if you don't give them a tip, you see these TikTok videos, the guy punts your food over the fence or whatever.

Then it gives it a nice—

not coming in the best, best of shape.

Give it a love tap, spit in your soda.

But you know, you can go through, you can just be wasting a ton of money eating out. I mean, it's just a lot of— it's like Starbucks too, the same thing. A coffee, a regular coffee used to be like $3 there, just a regular. Like, I went there to meet somebody recently for business, you know, because whatever, yeah, was going somewhere. And I don't go to people's houses, was a home-based business person. I was like, oh, meet you, go to Starbucks. Uh, regular coffee was 6 and change.

Yeah, I don't support Starbucks at all.

No, I'm not a fan of it, but I'm just saying.

I would say you should be supporting a local.

There wasn't one. I looked to see where I could go. I was like, oh, we could go to this diner or Starbucks. The person picked Starbucks, whatever.

So whatever.

But I'm just saying.

I call it something not suitable for work.

I understand that. I'm not a fan of Starbucks. And I see people in there buying a coffee that's $10, $12. That's insane. Or they're buying a coffee and a sandwich and they're spending $17. It's nuts.

So those are some big habits. Yeah.

Got to break that habit.

Yeah. My number one thing for keeping people, I'm just going to keep people poor, right? Is not having a budget. So it kind of aligns to what you're talking about. Like, you know, it's wonderful and nice to order food and, you know what I'm saying? And not having, you know, and having the luxury of not having to cook, right? That's a great, that's awesome. Especially, you know, in the summer heat down in Florida, like getting your kitchen all hot and steamy. It's not always the funnest thing to do, right? 7 days a week. So, you know, having, you know, a break and ordering some food, you know, that's awesome. Yeah. But if you're doing that and you, you know, like my weekly budget is $200 on food, right? So, and I mean, I can't afford to, you know, go out to eat at all because that would take half of my food budget, right, if not more. Um, so you have to, you know, budget your money so that you, you know, say you want some food on Monday, you know, by the end of the— you got to eat on Friday too, so you can't blow your bag on one meal and, you know, have a healthy lifestyle for the rest of the week.

So definitely budgeting is important, you know, write it all down.

Yeah, I mean, make a list. You got to— I can't tell how important that it is to, you know, have some sort of budget. And I'm not saying like when you're already struggling to make ends meet, it's— it is like, what the hell's the point of having a budget, right? Because, you know, we know how much money we have and how much money we can spend. So it's still imperative that you set this budget, one, so you don't go over and then you're really shit out of luck the following week because maybe you overdrafted your bank account because you spent too much money or, you know, there's a bill that's coming out and now you don't, you can't cover that. And then now you gotta make, there's a late fee and there's just all these other things that happen. So just set up a budget, bro. You know, like for a weekly, monthly, I do mine weekly just to keep it simple without, you know, putting too much stress on me. Like for a week, budgeting out for 4 weeks at a time, just, you know, for me it just doesn't work. I, you know, I, but Yeah, just get a budget. Number 2, what you got?

Have— I think, you know, it's important. You know, one of the things I taught my kids when they were younger was, you know, having a savings plan, you know, to save money. And, you know, sometimes you have the opportunity to save money, and then sometimes you don't have the necessarily have the right kind of opportunity to save money. Maybe you have a tight budget like Justin's talking about. You know, and but you can still find a way to save like a dollar or $5, right, at points in time in your life, right? And, and, and, and, you know, when you have the opportunity to do it, you need to try to develop some sort of savings habit and putting money aside for emergencies. While that can be hard to do, you know, depends, you know, now like a lot of people live at home, they don't, not having like a huge rent expense, and you know, instead of spending your money on food, have put for, you know, for do some forced savings. And it's important to try to develop, to try to develop that habit.

I mean, I agree, but You know, it's not easy.

You're not saying it's easy.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Having— if you're able to save some money, I suggest you, you know, try to do it as much as you can. I don't have that luxury at the moment, but one day soon. My second you know, on the list was spending more than you earn. Um, in the community where, you know, the poor, impoverished community, the way I came up, you know, we have the tendency of spending the money before we even get it, right? Um, because we're so anxious and excited to possibly do something out of the norm. So that means like, you know, your, your 9 to 5, your, your weekly lifestyle is very Groundhog Day-ish, right? Like you wake up, you go to work, you go to the gym, you go home, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So when we have that, you know, that luxury of having some extra income come in or, you know, during tax time, et cetera, you know, just, you know, side hustle gigs, whatever. We tend to spend that money. The money's already gone before I get it, right? I tell Allen this all the time. You know, like, there's stuff that we put off for so long, you know, whether it be getting the kids some new shoes or et cetera, et cetera. So then when we do get that money, it's out of the bank account within 24 hours, right? Like, you know, we're spending it. And sometimes, you know, it's necessities, like you gotta pay credit card bills or some sort of debt that you owe. So, you know, it's really hard, but You know, it kind of ties into having a budget, but, you know, it's hard, you know, it's really hard. And, but one of those things is just knowing how much money you have and then spending that money accordingly, right? Like you gotta really be mindful. And, um, like Allen said something to me the other day about wearing white t-shirts, you know, and I just said to him like,, you know, it's out of my budget. I'm going through these, you know, I'm training. So, you know, my body's changing in size and shape, et cetera. So I can't afford to just buy new clothes. So I bought a bunch of white t-shirts. It's cost-effective, somewhat affordable, which is crazy how much a 6-pack of white tees costs nowadays. $30, man.

Yeah, that's nuts. I was like, what the hell? And the quality's not even the same as before. No.

It's, I mean, me, I'm super, super specific and, you know, like picky when it comes to, so like I want it to be 100% cotton.

Right.

You know what I mean? So that's the, I mean, at least Hanes is cotton, right? Like hopefully, you know, they say it's 100%.

No, I bought some t-shirts recently, you know, 'cause I sleep like in a white cotton t-shirt usually or a cotton t-shirt. And I bought some and it said 100% cotton. Then when I got them home, 60/40, and I was like, it was like this weird material. It felt weird. I had to take it back to the store. Yeah, I was like, I don't want this.

Every, almost every t-shirt that you order online, specifically like on Amazon lately that I've been ordering, like it'll say 100% cotton, like even on the Gildan shirts, and then I'll get it and it'll be, uh, 80/20, 80% cotton, 20% polyester. I don't like wearing polyester. Like, it's not good for our skin. We're right, like, we're not supposed to be walking around in petroleum oil.

Exactly.

You know what I'm saying?

It's weird. People don't realize, like, how many products are made out of petroleum, which is gas, which is oil, right?

Yeah.

People don't realize, like, everything we're sitting here, right, made out of plastic. We're literally Everything is a petroleum product sitting in front of you right now. The microphones, the— not this metal piece, but all the wire, this plastic, the table. Yeah, the chair. I mean, it's crazy. So, you know, saying, oh, we're going to get rid of fossil fuels is ridiculous. I mean, you just—

that's a whole different kind.

I understand that, but I'm just saying it's, it's just crazy. Yeah, but, but that also goes with savings. Like, when you do get that extra money, your tax return, if you're capable of doing so, right? Right. That's a chance to put some money in savings if you can, right? Or that's a chance to pay down a credit card.

Yes.

Instead of blowing the money.

In my, you know, like, that's— it's just a hard— it's a tough thing, man. Like, we can go into that whole conversation, you know what I mean, about like It's about being responsible, right? So like, if— but at some point you're like, 'Oh, to hell with it. I'm gonna blow this money because I haven't taken my kids on a weekend trip in 6 years.' I get it, you know what I mean? So then it's just like, you know what, life is long, but let's just, you know, let's just go do this. But What's the next one, man?

Okay, so here's one, and this is like something that's topical in the news. Just, you know, credit card debt, buying things you can't afford. But this other part of this is this buy now pay later. So now the government came out yesterday and they said, hey, all this buy now pay later stuff, they need— that stuff needs to be treated like credit cards because basically it is like a credit card. And it is a loan. Okay. And they're trying to pass laws to better control this, you know, buy that whole buy now, pay later thing. And it's—

well, that's why I like Affirm, right? Affirm reports that to your credit.

Yeah, that's good. So, well, no, a lot of them started doing that.

Yeah.

Affirm, like we're partnered with a company here. They're very, it is credit-based, so they don't just approve everybody, but like PayPal's having problems with their product. Apple had problems with their product. Afterpay was another one. There's a few other ones, right? And a lot of, most of those companies, when I look at them, they're all in debt, which I don't understand how they're like, they're loaning out, they're giving out all this money, but the company's not making any money. So that's, you know, that's just something people need to be more aware of is, you know, your credit card debt, you know.

That's kind of what my number 3 was, was relying on credit cards. So, well, kind of the same thing, you know, just you can't be— it's tough, it's hard, man. Like, it's really hard.

Well, man, if you're budgeting and you go, okay, I got to put this on my credit card, right? You know, I've gotta fix my car, so I need to put this on my credit card. And then you gotta figure out it, you know, okay, well now I need to budget.

I need to put an extra $130 away every month so I can pay this thing so I'm not getting whacked with like 30% interest.

I mean, the interest rates right now are out of control.

I'm outta control for my teeth, you know what I'm saying? Like the huge expense that I have to, to make to pay back all of this is just hard. You know what I mean? But yeah, you can't rely on putting yourself in more debt. You can't do that.

You just can't continually because now they changed the bankruptcy laws too. So when you do go bankrupt, they don't let people just go clean slate anymore. They say, okay, well, you're in debt this much, blah, blah, blah. You make this much. "and you need to pay back X," because they don't let just people just go to zero anymore. They changed the law a few years ago.

I'm damn near there. I've been thinking about it.

'Cause I was almost there one time and the lawyer laughed at me. He goes, "I know you're in the hole." It was about 40, 50 grand. He's like, "You're not gonna be able to go bankrupt." He goes, "You need to figure it out." And that's what I had to do. I had to figure it out.

So, well, my next, uh, number 4 on my list was, um, not having more than one income. And I know this is— it's tough, right?

It's hard.

Um, but if you're already struggling, like you know, I'm having a hard time making ends meet, whatever, I'd be insane not to try and figure out another source of income, right? So, you know, I'm always trying to make more money. Um, and that's, you know, for me, I have a skill, you know, I call it a trade, you know, I know how to build websites. It's kind of like, if you know how to fish, that's a side hustle, you know, you could be taking kids out on fishing trips on the weekend or—

Yeah, or teaching people how to fish.

Whatever it is, you know, teaching people how to tie different fishing knots or making their own fishing lures. I don't know, you know, I'm just freestyling off the top of my head, but You know, if there's something that you enjoy, there's always a way to make money from it. I teach— I've been trying to teach my kids, you know, that side of just careers in general, right? Like, if you're going to do something, do something that you love doing, and hopefully it pays you enough to provide the lifestyle that you want to live. So yeah, man, I mean, I highly suggest everyone, everyone, like I was just telling my mom, my mom should, I was like, she makes this banana bread. And word is bond. Like when I say like, people love this banana bread, she gets, it's like how my wife gets requested to make yellow rice.

Okay.

Like when we go back home, like there's like 20 people that are asking her to make rice because she just makes really good yellow rice.

Okay.

But my mom makes this banana bread that is, it's the bomb, right? Like literally.

Send us some banana bread.

She, I, yes, she should, right? So I'm like, I told my mom, I'm like, buy your, I'll even invest for you. I'll start the whole shit, the whole company. Betsy's Banana Bread, 3 Bs. Like, it sounds really good, right? I'm like, we'll get you the small little pans and you make it and you sell it at little markets and pop-ups and stuff like that.

There's people that do that all the time. I was talking to a guy yesterday and he told me that he bought, he started making his own coffee for himself, roasting beans. You know, so he started selling, you know, like craft coffee at farmers markets on the weekend.

Exactly, man. So we all have it in us. I think we tend to let our minds talk us out of a lot of stuff.

Well, I think if you do a side hustle, you have to kind of measure like, okay, am I going to dump a bunch of money into this? —If you don't have to dump them.

—Well, that's not, that's, I'm gonna, like, then it's not a good idea. —Right. Yeah.

So if you can, if the investment is minimal, then it's a great idea.

—For sure. I mean, making banana bread is not a big investment. You know, you can even, my mom used, she worked for the local organic market. And I said, you could go to Outpost. I bet you they'll give you all the rotten bananas. You know what I'm saying? Probably. I'm sure they will. Even a produce company would probably give them to you. Give them the ugly bananas. You'll laugh when I, you'll laugh. Yo, I was just listening. There's a whole market for that. These farmers, they sell because the grocery store only buys the prettiest fruit and vegetables.

No, let me just tell you, when I had my restaurant, this guy, he used to come in and eat all the time. So he told me one day, he's like, listen, you wanna save a bunch of money? I said, "Oh, how?" He goes, "Well, I own a produce company." He goes, "I want you to come visit me tomorrow morning." So I went over there. So he was explaining to me, he goes, "Let me show you what goes on here." So he's showing me like all these guys are taking, they get in all these, I used to make a yellow tomato sauce. So he's showing me, he goes, "Oh, we have all these boxes of yellow tomatoes. These guys go through the boxes." And then each box needs to weigh at least 20 pounds, right? So they go through the boxes and then the ones, let's say there's a damaged yellow tomato, got a little mark on it. No, they just throw it on the side. He goes, "Dude, I'll give you the whole box of yellow tomatoes for a dollar." He goes— Exactly. And he goes, "And these mushrooms," he goes, "you're just cutting them all up, right?" I go, "Yeah." He goes, "I can't sell any of these." He goes, "You can have them for a dollar." And he goes, and then we had berries. And then he goes, we call them leakers because the bottom, when they turn the thing over, you see like it's the paper and the bomb's wet. He goes, I can't sell those anymore. He goes, you could take them and freeze them all and turn them into whatever you're making.

Raspberry cheesecake or blueberry cheesecake. That right there is just a perfect example of how you can make something out of nothing. Right. All right. What you got for the last one? The last one.

I got two last ones. This one is one that really irritates me of just— I'll go through student loans, right? And when people take out a student loan, I think people need to be careful about what kind of loan they're taking out, how much they're taking the loan out for, and that it's not a predatory loan because there's a lot of these career schools where they get these people locked into these boot camps and stuff like that. Insane loan for like $50,000 or $100,000. And you're not learning something that's going to create the income to pay that money back. Absolutely. And, you know, I think that that's, that's a big problem that the government needs to address. Not these student loans where people's going— where people are going to a 4-year college, right? But also, when people go to a 4-year college, you start to take a loan out. Oh, then you decide, well, I'm going to switch my major to a different major, and then you got to go to school for another 2 years, right? Yeah. And you're taking more loans out. I think that's a huge issue, and the, you know, the, the system of how that works needs to be fixed.

And my number 5 was ignoring your money problems. Don't— if you're in debt and you got a shit ton of debt or whatever, you know, you're not making enough, don't ignore it. You got to address it and fix it. Don't— you know, a bag of money is not falling from the sky, whatever, you know. You gotta, you gotta literally address the issue. Go and, go and get to it. Go get to the bag, man.

No, like, I had that credit card debt I was telling you about, so I ended up going to this one of those credit counseling companies. I made sure it was like a legit one, and then they negotiated so I only had to pay a small amount each month, and then they paid the, you know, the credit cards for you, and the, the interest rate got lowered. Obviously, I couldn't charge anything at all during that time, but I was able to get it paid off in like in like 2 years where I got my, dug myself out of that hole by doing that.

Well, those are our number, I don't know, top 10, you know, ways to keep you poor. Don't do it. Get yourself out of it. So thanks for listening. Subscribe to the channel for us, please. We appreciate everyone who has. Thank you for coming back every Monday and Wednesday or whenever you do have the time. But that's the pod.

Peace. Peace out. Carpe diem.