Financial Literacy is The Lowest it's Ever Been (This is Sad)

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Why is it that we live in this information technological age, but somehow financial literacy seems to be plummeting like a lead balloon with a frigging hole in it? How can we have YouTube and TikTok and a thousand money gurus out there yet people still think that credit cards are free money? Dang. It's just. It's crazy. Have you ever watched a finance video and thought, wait, did they just say buy a car to build wealth? Listen, you're not alone, because in this episode, I'm going to dive into some of the most cringeworthy and sadly common financial situations or choices that people have made. And it's floating out there online. But more importantly, I'm going to break down what should have been said, what should have been done, and do it in a way that hopefully you don't fall for.

All right, so this is going to be an interesting episode. I'm going to break down. I'm going to go through literally 13 different clips here because I think there's some interesting things that we can draw from them. I've pulled them down. I have not reviewed them. My team has reviewed them and they gave them to me. So here we go. Let's just talk about this. I'm going to jump to the very first one. Let's see what they say.

Saving all the money that you make is one of the stupidest thing that you can do when you're young. When you save all your money, you're kind of putting the message out there that you don't have enough of it. Whether you're spiritual or not, putting that scared message out there kind of makes you less money. In the end, I started making a lot of money, or what I deem a lot of money. I used to save every single dollar. Like, I was so scared I would never make money again. Then I started spending more and especially spending on experiences or investing into myself. Because of that, I've actually made more money. I'm not even lying. And now when I spend a lot of money, I never feel bad. I honestly feel powerful because I know it will come back to me. That's what's called an abundance mindset. More money will come to you when you're operating mentally in a way that you're living in abundance. Promise. These little mindset shifts, actually.

Oh, gosh. All right, so. So I get where, I get where she's coming from. Her very first statement, saving is stupid.

Yeah. No, it's not. It is the foundation of the work that you're doing to build wealth and build a financial machine. Now, she had me worried, but I think she kind of corrected it as she went into here. But it is the first step. Without savings, you won't have a buffer. Without savings, you won't have liquidity. Without savings, you won't have the ability to.

Go and do the things that you want to do to build that money machine. The thought that that savings is stupid. Well, it could be if that is all you do. Because you cannot save your way to wealth now, by the same token, you cannot spend your way to wealth. So the idea of some, some ethereal kind of thing where if I just put money out there, it's going to come back. If I invest in developing myself, it's going to come back. You know what? It can. But here's, here's what, what I know is that you can invest in a degree, you can invest in coaching, you can invest in masterminds, you can invest in all of that. But the investing itself isn't what makes the money come back. It's using the knowledge and the wisdom you gain to create value and solve problems. Will, will make the money come back in multiples. All right, so yeah, saving your money isn't stupid, but it is the first step to building your money machine. And you need to do it with a plan and you need to make each dollar work harder for you than you did for it. All right, so let's look at, let's look at the next one.

Things I don't understand about money, part one. I don't understand how I can like walk into the bank, give them a twenty dollar bill, and then on my. I don't do that. My bank is like online. I'm USAA gang. Anyways, I like walk in hand, 20 bill. They put $20 on like my account electronically. And then there's still the 20 bill. So now there's double the money because I have $20. Like I can swipe my car to use it, but there's 20 my bill still exists anyways, so I don't. Yeah, I don't understand, like, the. There's just double the money.

All right? There's not double the money. This is. Look, this is. This is clearly an example of someone who doesn't understand. And I'm not going to blame her for it, because how many people really understand our banking system and the fractional reserve banking system? What happens with the money? When we put money in the bank, it's not just sitting in a little box with your name on it. So when you want to come and get it, they get your little box out and they give it to you. That's not how the banks make money. In fact, I have a whole episode that I'm doing on how this whole thing works. What the banks do is they take your money and they have to keep 10% of it in the bank. The other 90% they can use to make more money. So they loan 90% of the bank out. So if you put, you know, $1,000 in, they'll keep $100 on hand, and then they'll put $900 out and loan it. And that's how they make money, because they'll pay you 0.2% and they'll make 6.5 or 7% on the 900. Okay, so it's not that the. That the money is doubled. You only have access to the money you put in the bank. That's it. Otherwise, you're overdrafting. But the bank itself is leveraging your money by using 90% of it to make morning more money and do it that way. So the deposits are fuel, not just funds. And it allows you to set compounding in motion. All right, let's go to the next clip.

Total overdrafts this year so far. $1,743. That. That's.

Oh, I wasn't making as much money.

Gosh.

And like I said, I never check my bank account.

Stop, stop. I don't want to hear anything. You overdrafted that much. Making as much as you do. This is one of the most irresponsible financial situations I've ever seen in my life.

Look, Caleb is amazing, and I actually agree with him here. This. There is no reason to overdraft. This tells me, like she. She told you the reason she never looks at her bank account. Why. Why do we think that if we don't look at something, that it's not going to happen to us? And yet you're spending thousands of dollars on overdraft fees? Okay, that that's like stepping on Lego in the dark, repeatedly, over and over. It doesn't feel good. Okay. Overdrafts aren't minor expenses. They are financial red beacons and flags. And every single one of them tells you that there is a leak in the system. She does not. She does not have a process, nor does she seem to have a care with what she does with it. And that she's okay with spending $1,100. Now, mind you, she makes decent money.

Sounds like. But here's the thing. What's the fix? Make sure you set alerts. What's the fix? Make sure you have a buffer. What's the fix? Make sure you're working from a plan. Okay. Stop treating your balance as a. As a guessing game. It's not rolling the dice. You're not in Vegas. The math will always math out. Okay, look, I am. I am not immune to this. There was a time that I paid $42 for a cat for a coffee. Yeah. Rich in caffeine. Broken. Common sense. Went and overdrafted for the coffee. All right. Big mistake. Overdrafts are like financial termites. They're small, they're silent, but they're destructive. Let's see what else she says.

This must have been a good month. $9,000 at 20.

I feel so behind in life.

You make so much money. You know why you feel behind at your age? Because you're being a dumb piece of with your money.

She's making $9,000 a month. That's. And she's still overdrafting. What is going on?

I know about two Jaguars at 19 and 20.

That's stupid. She just bought two Jaguars. No wonder she's overdrive. Why is she. Why does a 20 year old girl need one Jaguar, let alone two Jaguars? Okay, that's stupid.

I need you to recognize.

I understand, but.

Okay, get rid of it.

No, never.

Why?

I will have it.

Look at that. I understand it's stupid, but I'm not going to get rid of it. I'm just going to keep doing stupid. I'm sorry I'm being.

Tough here, but this is the reality. And if we're going to make financial decisions like this as if we're entitled to it, you're going to pay a price and that price is going to come in your financial future. There will not be a financial future. We'll end up bankrupt. We'll end up, you know, broke. We'll end up struggling and stressed through. Through all of it.

No, never.

Why?

I will have a Jaguar until the Day I die.

You got it at 9%, which is a interest rate anyway.

Oh, wait a second. She's spending 9% interest on it too. God, it gets, goes from bad to worse.

I know.

Interest rates suck right now.

Yeah, so maybe we don't get Jaguars at 20.

What would be cheaper than that? My Kia was more expensive than that.

Would be cheaper than it. Would be cheaper than it I. $10,000 car, a 10sh. A $10,000 car that, guess what? Would not be luxurious in any way. It would get you. Stop. I'm answering your question.

Okay.

It would be.

She does not want to hear the answers here. She does not want to solve the problem. She doesn't see it as a problem. And, and, and I'm, I'm sorry to say this luxury without a money machine is just your ego with leather seats. It just, it's not, it just doesn't matter. Look, you're not sitting there trying to sit back and say I'm going to buy stuff. There's a difference between looking wealthy and being wealthy. There's a difference between having wealth and living a rich life. This isn't what we're trying to do. You have to earn the lifestyle from your assets, not your paychecks or the payment plans. She doesn't get it. She's got two Jaguars and, and $1,100 in overdrafts. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. Sorry to say. Let's look at the next one.

Taking out student loans was the worst.

Was the single handedly worst mistake I've.

Ever made in my entire life.

At this point, like a college education is pointless. It was pointless.

I mean, I feel for her. I don't know what kind of education she got.

Student loans are a real tough go for a lot of people right now.

And.

You know, for her to be able to do this, I mean clearly she's, she's broken up and it's a challenge, but.

I have a very strong opinion on this. I think that the financial aid offices have done a disservice to and.

Just a lack of justice to our youth. Because if she took out those loans at 18 years old, she didn't really understand what she was getting into. Now granted, it's her responsibility. She signed on the dotted line, but the maturity level wasn't there. We don't teach this in schools. We don't teach about debt, we don't teach about compounded interest, we don't teach about invest, we don't teach about money. Yet we give them this power and we allow them to get in this, and they don't understand what it does to them. Okay, let's see what else she says.

I've been paying on my student loans for more than 13 years now, and I've more than paid back the amount that I took out.

And I understand where she's trying to do the math, but the reality is that's not the way the math works. You don't have to just pay back what you owe. You pay back that, plus the interest based on the terms of the loan. And we need to be careful that this is. This is why I'm saying that financial literacy seems to be on the decline and everything, because this is all a financial literacy issue of understanding. And I'm not blaming her. I think that we are doing a miserable job of educating and empowering and all. That's why I have this channel. It's why I do what I do.

And then some because of interest.

And there's all this, like, misinformation and false hope around forgiveness and qualifying payments. And just.

And I check the boxes for 90% of the qualifying factors.

All right, so this. This would be the last piece on this. I think that it's important for us to understand you don't go into a loan with the anticipation that it will get forgiven.

It is a contract you're signing that is a financial obligation and a moral obligation. If forgiveness comes down the pipe, then it's a gift. But you don't sign on the dotted line anticipating forgiveness. I don't know what was said to her. I don't know what was sold to her. And this is such a. An unfortunate thing. And unfortunately, I think it's something that a lot of people are struggling with. She's been paying for 13 years, and there's people that I know that are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, still have student loans. That's a travesty. That's a travesty. And it's an education problem. But there are some things that I think need to change in the way we do. Student loans and the financial aid offices and the conflicts of interest that exist there. All right, let's go to the next one.

I won a hundred thousand dollars after winning America's Next top model in 2017. And here is the story of my biggest financial mistake of my life. So after I won the show, they actually gave me a check for $100,000. Boom, baby, I'm rich.

$100,000. Look, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. But I don't know if I was rich, but it could set her up if she did the right thing with it. Let's see what she did.

And for some reason my little itty bitty undeveloped brain thought that that meant it was a hundred thousand dollars. But post tax, like they obviously already took out the game show tax because.

Oh, I think I know where this.

Is going, cuz I got a check for $100,000. News flash, not the case. So anyways, I go and spend the hundred thousand dollars. I paid $60,000 for an apartment in New York, but I had a roommate paying me back and then I subleased it and they paid me back anyways. It wasn't that horrible of an investment, but obviously not the smartest thing I could have done. And then the rest of the money I spent taking my family on like nice dinners and I bought one pair of shoes and anyways I spent the entire $100,000. I also got a car. Like yeah, I spent the money okay. What I should have done was put aside 35 to 40% of the money for taxes so that I'd be ready to pay that. But I didn't do that. I spent it all. And so I spent the next several years paying back the money in taxes to the irs.

Whenever you watch a. Oh man. All right, so this, this is a big deal that I think a lot of people don't realize this. Taxes have destroyed more entrepreneurs and more people than I care to think about because they don't go away. You can't bankrupt them. Very few ways to bankrupt them. And they have collection rights that you and I don't have and other collectors don't have. So when you get money, the general rule under the IRS or the tax code is this. Everything you receive is taxable. Everything, everything. Whether it's in money, barter, services, it's taxable unless the tax code has an exclusion for it. And if it doesn't have an exclusion for it, then you're going to pay tax on it. So if you're going to make money or you're going to get money, it's important for you to put a percentage away. I think actually with windfalls, I tell my clients, put the money away for six months. Don't decide to do anything. Because she was on an emotional high. Woohoo, I'm rich. She said that. Buying, going on cruises, buying cars, new apartment, all that stuff. No, don't do any of that. Take a small sliver, celebrate, put the other aside till the emotions dissipate and do the smart thing with the money. She could have set herself up, but instead she got herself an IRS bill. Okay, be careful. Any of these game shows that you watch, they win the $20,000 car or the. Or whatever it is. There's a tax attached to it. There's a tax attached to it, and the tax man or gal is coming. All right, let's look at the next one.

Buying stupid is not considered stupid if you can get good at everything else around it. I hate how finance content these days demonizes everything. You can't even buy what you want anymore without somebody yelling at you and telling you to save money and invest and you're doing the wrong thing. How about you actually buy whatever the hell you want? But hey, if you're saving money, you're good. I mean, seriously, everybody is so focused on like, oh, your retirement, the future, and that's totally valid. But hey, you know, I'm alive right now, right? I want to enjoy whatever the hell I'm doing right now. For me, I'm a simple luxury I like to shop at.

All right? This is. This is one of those you only live once type of perspectives, and I get it, but you want to live once and you want to make it long and you want to make it fruitful. And I understand where he's coming. You know, buy what you want and don't worry about. As long as you do the. The everything else around it, you're fine. But what's lacking here is a plan. Okay? This is why when we work with people, one of the things that I want you to do is I truly believe that deprivation isn't the path to a rich life. But you have to have a plan, and the things that you want to do that are really meaningful, that bring you really visceral joy. Let's put it in the plan and go ahead and spend on it. Let's make it part of the journey. But where you get in trouble, which is where he seems to be going, going, is that the momentary pleasures, the emotional buys, the things that you're doing from an emotional standpoint, because, dang it, I'm just going to throw caution in the wind. That's going to destroy your financial future because it's not in the plan. If you don't have the leverage or the margin to be able to spend on some of that stuff, the additional funds, where's it going to come from? Your. Your rent, your credit card payments, other things, you'll put it on a pay later type of thing, and then you End up with overdrafts like the like we had earlier. Okay, this one I would be very, very careful about. All right, let's go to the next one.

We bought a forty thousand dollar car that we absolutely could not afford and had to trade it in. Nine months later in 2021, we walked into a car dealership in Kansas City City and we walked off the lot with a 2021 Toyota Highlander that we absolutely could not afford. We had zero business buying that car. But yet somehow they still let us walk off the lot with it. We were making decent money and getting by. At that time I had a one year old and I was pregnant with my.

Let's get clear and I get it. She said we had no business make buying that car, but somehow they let us walk off the lot with it. Here's the deal.

A car dealership is there to sell cars. They're not there to consult with you on your, on your finances, whether it makes sense. If they can qualify you, they can qualify you for a payment. They're going to sell the car to you and then it's your problem. And that's what happened here, it looks like is that they put them in a car. It was something that they probably shouldn't have been in, but they ended up in a car that was beyond their means. And I'm guessing that they had to get rid of it at some point. And they probably took a loss because this is a depreciating asset. Okay, let's go to the next one.

I have $60,000 worth of car debt with about 30,000 of that being in negative equity. And let me tell you how the dealership scammed me because I bought my car by myself back in 2022 and I got scammed. And I don't want y' all to get scammed. So let's talk about it.

Okay, Right from the get go on this one, I'm curious because I'm not sure how the dealership may have scammed her. I think that maybe there's some confusion. There may have been something that she didn't understand. It wasn't disclosed to her because I'm not sure that a dealership is going to be scamming people to make that happen. Now let's see what happens.

I went in spring of 2022 to buy my Jeep. I wanted the Jeep Wrangler, which is the hybrid car, part gas, part electric. And anyways, during that time they didn't have a lot of stock because of COVID And so basically they were Going to order my Jeep and it would come within three months. Well, the dealership guy told me that they could put me in a Jeep off the lot for three months with no loan payment and then they would roll the loan over to the new Jeep when it came in. I was like, oh that sounds great.

So, so hold on a second. So they tell her that they're going to roll. There is no free lunch. Okay, they're going to give her a car for three months until her Jeep comes in. First things first. At a young age we probably shouldn't be buying new cars. They're depreciating assets. We lose a lot of value from the get go. You're going to be upside down immediately. So she's going to use a car. But the key thing here, she said they're going to roll the loan over to the vehicle when her car comes in. So they didn't give it free. What they did is they financed it. She didn't understand that, that part of it, I guess. And they just, they just, you know, stalled the payments out and said don't worry about making the payments. Well, again, no free lunch. So what are they probably doing? They're rolling the payments and the accrued interest into the loan and that ends up on this new car when it.

Comes in a Jeep off the lot for three months with no loan payment. And then they would roll the loan over to the new Jeep when it came in.

So she signed it, but she didn't have any payments. But doesn't mean that she didn't owe any money. She certainly owed money in the mail.

My Jeep came, I went and I picked it up and y', all, when he sat me down, he handed me a piece of paper that said that the car was like $100,000. And when I tell you I about how to fit because when I had originally went in the finance guy told me that my monthly payment was going to be like 600. And then when I told the car salesman that when I was picking up the Jeep he said that the finance guy lied and that's why he doesn't work there anymore. And now I'm stuck with a thousand dollar car payment.

Oh my God, sir, she shouldn't have been with a 600 car payment. Now she's in a thousand dollar car payment. I think that there's some things here that you probably could have tried to do here. But to me this is one of those situations where she didn't, she may not have known exactly what she was signing. It probably wasn't explained to her they were trying to make the sale. You got to read the fine print. You've got to go through it. And if you don't understand it, you ask questions. If you don't feel comfortable or you don't understand it and they're not willing to explain it and you can't get it explained, you walk away from the deal. You don't make an emotional purchase because you sit back, I really want the car. I really want the car. I really want the car. Because you end up in a situation where your emotions get involved, you make bad decisions. Okay? You need, you need to make sure that we look at it now. When we finance cars, we don't finance cars more than three years. We. If we're going to finance cars, we make sure that we're making investments to the extent of. Of at least equal to the payment on the car. So in her case, if she was not making an investment of 600 to $1,000 into her financial future, she had no business getting the car. Okay, that's just my perspective. I don't know all the facts. It's another sad statement that she's stuck in and she's rolled over and she's negative in a car that she can't get out of now with $1,000 payment. All right, let's look at the next one.

What's your 401k balance? Just while we're on that, because I.

Don'T have the document, so it's like 5,000.

Okay, and is that your only retirement account? Because I don't have any others.

Yeah.

Okay, so your previous job, you didn't. You rolled over into this or you didn't have things.

So I have taken out my 401k.

Why?

Multiple times.

Multiple times. Why? Why?

Possibly this is a. No, no, this is like, you know, if. If the. Your life depends on it, you. You can pull the 401k, but you leave your 401k and not even loans. Okay, let's see why, what, what? Her explanation is because she pro cents on the dollar between taxes and penalties and all of that stuff. And so she gave up 50% of retirement by doing so. Now, let me be clear. I did the same thing. I didn't know any better, but when I quit my big consulting job in downtown Los Angeles, I did the same thing, but it cost me hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars when I did the math backwards. Okay, big mistake. I didn't understand. So I'm not exempt. I'm human.

Because, like, I don't know, I just. People have told me, like, you can just take it out, so.

Well, yes, of course you can, with penalties and taxes, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things you can do. You can go murder someone right now. There'll still be consequences.

Yeah, I regret it now, but I grade it.

Did you do this multiple times?

Like 2020 and 20.

2019.

Like, I think it was like two years. Two years back to back. I did it.

That's insane. What did you take it out for?

I.

Well, no, actually, I did use some of it when I purchased the house.

Okay, so you use.

You might be able to. If you're buying a house, you might be able to use it from that perspective without penalties, but it's still not the right thing to do. You're putting money, when you put money into a 401k or retirement plan, it is for your financial future. It is to take care of you in those golden years. And the magic of it is one, you get the tax deduction up front if you did the traditional, or.

You don't get the tax deduction, but you get no tax down the road. And it grows tax free. It goes tax deferred for many, many years. She not only took it out, when she took it out, she lost half of it to taxes and penalties. And she also lost all those years of growth. And now she's starting back at ground zero. Let's look at the next one.

Let's talk about a financial decision I made that I don't think was very smart. And I'm so sad to say this, but it's my car and I love her. She's beautiful. I'll include a clip here. But she is expensive. And I don't even have a luxury car. It's been about one year with this car and so safe to say I've learned some lessons. Definitely think it's necessary for people who live at home to have their own car or have access to a car. But I got mine in such a rush, made the decision in four days without really thinking about it. I have bi weekly payments coming out.

All right, so these cars keep coming up. Let's talk about the cars. And I get it because I, I did. I used to turn my cars every two years. I bought a car on a New Year's Eve one when I was driving home from, from work on New Year's Eve and I stopped into a lot and ended up driving home in a brand new car. Okay, these are emotional choices that we're making. She said she bought it within four days. She got caught into wanting the car. Wanting the car. I love it. Look how beautiful. She's showing off the pictures. But when our emotions get involved with our financial decisions, we tend to not really look at them through the eyes of logic and math. You're buying a depreciating asset. The only reason we need the car, the only reason we need the car is to safely get from point A to point B. It doesn't need to be expensive. It just needs to be safe and functional. I think at her age, at a young age, even with my son, you don't necessarily buy a depreciating asset in that way. And we need to think about how to do that. She. She ended up in a car that she's having trouble affording. Let's look at. Let's. Let's look at the next one.

Money is not of a concern. And. And it's not. But the back side of this that you guys don't see is when my anxiety soars because I don't want to spend money because I'm afraid of going back to being broke. So now that I have money, like my husband can tell you, you guys, like, the anxiety I have is not fun. And just Christmas shopping is just. I told him last night, you guys may not even understand this, but it's like when you have it and you don't have to work hard and go get it. I was like, I know it sounds stupid, but it's not. It's not fun. Like, I remember having to work.

Like, she's speaking real here. All right. People think that when you have money, everything's going to be fine. I've worked with people that have no money and they're just starting out. I've worked with people that have millions, hundreds of thousands and billions, and there's a level of anxiety, guilt, and even shame in all of them. I have struggled with it. Okay, the concern that you're going to run out of money, the concern is, can you spend all that anxiety? The challenge is that too often we allow that anxiety to control us, anxiety to move us. And we have to be really, really careful about the emotions and the psychology of money. And one of the ways to get. Get comfortable with it is to make sure that you have a detailed, dynamic plan in place. One of the things that we do is that we create plans for our clients. But even for my. Our own personal situation, we have this. This very detailed plan of our financial future, the things we're doing, and then we test it. We Say, well, what happens if the stock market goes down 20%? What happens if inflation comes back? What happens if we stop earning? What happens? And we. We run all these what if scenarios, these best case, worst case, and all that stuff, to figure out what's the probability of us not running out of money. And it doesn't guarantee anything. But if you ran a thousand scenarios in a Monte Carlo analysis, and 85 to 95% of the time, you will never run out of money. You can be a little more comfortable. The other side of it is to make sure that you're working from that plan that has margin in it for error, so you're not living to the ends of your check. It's all the things to do to create something of safety and a buffer so you don't end up with that kind of anxiety. All right? I feel for it because I know that it happens. And it can happen to everyone no matter how much you have. All right, let's look at this one, this last one.

Hey, bro, please, do you mind spotting me on this?

Bro? Like, why can't you just buy it? I'm broke, man. You just got paid yesterday. What do you mean you're.

Bro.

I spent all my money, though.

On what?

I had to buy shoes. I have to buy the new 2K. Some car parts were on sale. I have to buy those. Who told you to buy car parts? I didn't tell you to buy Jordans.

Oh, okay.

Please, please. How much you need? How much you need?

About 80 bucks. 80 bucks?

Whole thing?

Well, yeah, you asked me how short I was. I'm short this.

Oh, my God. He just got paid and he has no money. All right, listen, borrowing money isn't evil, but it's what comes after that becomes messy. And here you are with your. Your buddy in. In a store, and you just got paid and you spent your money on other stuff as if you needed it, and now you're asking for money. How are you going to get it paid? This is a challenge. And bottom line is, what I think that this all demonstrates is if we don't have a plan, if we don't have an understanding, if we're not willing to get involved in our financial journey, we find ourselves in precarious situations, we in debt, overburdened with debt, living at the ends of our check, you know, trying to make ends meet, stressed out, anxious, and all that stuff. This isn't about. About just spending and your right to spend. It's about spending the right way and investing the right way to give you the freedom so you don't have to worry about it down the road. Money, boundaries, protect your relationships and your sanity. Here's a situation that he's going to borrow from a friend. What happens if he can't pay it back? And now what does it do to that relationship? And I think that is something that we need to think about. If you're on the friend side, I would not lend something to anyone without a plan to pay it back because it's going to put tension on that relationship. And here's the thing, when it comes down to this, financial literacy isn't about being perfect. Lord knows I'm not. I told you about my car purchase. I've told you about pulling money out of my 401k. I have been in debt. But if it's not about perfect, it's about being prepared. And most people, including these it seems, were never taught this stuff, including myself, not in school, even as a cpa. I wasn't taught this. I wasn't taught it at home, but definitely not taught it from social media without context. So that's why I do what I do. It's why I'm out here trying to serve, why I wrote the book building your money machine. It's the thing to start to work at is how do I educate, how do I equip, how do I empower you to not make these kinds of decisions? Okay? If you've ever felt behind, confused, anxious about money, listen, you're not alone. And hear this out. You're not broken. You just haven't got the right blueprint. You haven't been given the tools. You haven't been given the skills. And the skills are basic. They're fundamental and simple. It doesn't mean that it won't be difficult for your age, stage or circumstance, but difficult doesn't mean impossible. So I'm going to guide you. I'm going to keep you going. So we don't have you like one of these. And at the same time, let me know if any of these hit you, any of those kind of resonated with you and maybe have the same type of challenge. If you've got questions on it, pop a comment below. Send me a dm. Let me help. Let me guide you on your path to financial freedom, to make the right choices and build your financial literacy on your path to becoming financially free. All right? If you haven't done so already, subscribe to this channel. Let me know. Stay with us on this journey. This channel is only here to help you master your money and eliminate that financial stress. Because I know when we do, you'll get a chance to live a life of choice. All right, till I see you on your path to financial freedom. As I always say, always, always strive to live a life that I love you.

Thank you for listening to the affluent Entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people, because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.