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How a $694 Million Settlement Wipes Out Car Loan Debt, Even After Repossession · Becoming Financially Confident

• 0:07
  Today Amway promised people they could make $40,000 a year.
• 0:12
  But its own disclosure says the typical person made 657.
• 0:16
  Now the FTC is making Amway pay 225 million dollars.
• 0:20
  Also, a 694 million dollar settlement is wiping out car loan debt for thousands of borrowers, including people whose cars were already repossessed.
• 0:29
  And Amazon is expanding its prime refunds with some customers now eligible for up to $200 automatically.
• 0:37
  Plus two medical bill problems in today's community mailbag and a money move that will be annoying but super helpful.
• 0:53
  Welcome to becoming financially confident.
• 0:55
  Breaking free from Money Shame.
• 0:56
  One conversation at a time.
• 0:58
  We're live weekdays, 11:30am Eastern.
• 1:01
  And I'm Ralph Estep Jr.
• 1:02
  I'm a licensed public accountant and I've got 30 years in the trenches.
• 1:06
  And I'm Juliet.
• 1:07
  I'm asking the real money questions on everybody's mind.
• 1:10
  And we have two distinct perspectives but zero financial jargon on this show.
• 1:14
  And our house rule is no shaming anybody about money and nobody's going to be judged for what they didn't know.
• 1:20
  Today's a new day and our goal is to help educate you and inform you and, and equip you to make better decisions.
• 1:26
  If you have a question, send it to Becoming Financially Confident dot com.
• 1:30
  Nothing is off limits.
• 1:32
  And wherever you're on your financial journey, no, it's a journey.
• 1:35
  And you're not alone on that journey.
• 1:42
  A record breaking settlement just hit one of the biggest names in multilevel marketing.
• 1:47
  The FTC.
• 1:48
  And the state of Washington announced a proposed $225million dollar deal with Amway and its top recruiting groups.
• 1:56
  The largest recovery ever against an MLM.
• 1:59
  Regulators say recruits were promised substantial income exceeding $40,000 a year.
• 2:05
  Ralph Amway publishes its own official income disclosure.
• 2:09
  What did the typical person actually make?
• 2:11
  Yeah, this is really interesting because as a kid I remember hearing about, well, you could go sell Amway and that was like this side hustle that you could actually make money for.
• 2:20
  Amazing.
• 2:21
  And what's interesting is that people who sign up for this and they were looking for greed, but like they kind of been pushed into this, but the average income, and this is from Amway's own document from 2023, says
• 2:35
  that the average income was $657.
• 2:39
  Now they were telling people you can make upwards of $40,000.
• 2:42
  That's crazy.
• 2:43
  That's a huge difference.
• 2:45
  And what the Federal Trade Commission said is most spent more than they got back.
• 2:49
  That's the other problem here.
• 2:50
  So the state of Washington in And there's this $225 million settlement because what Amway was selling, they were basically selling that you could have substantial income.
• 3:02
  They said over $40,000 a year.
• 3:04
  But what's interesting is their own numbers contradicted that, which to me is really interesting.
• 3:11
  So what can somebody do if, you know, if they have anything to do with Amway?
• 3:16
  Well, I think you need to contact the Federal Trade Commission, go to their website, ftc.org or ftc.gov and go see what's going on with.
• 3:25
  That's a big deal.
• 3:26
  They were spending a lot of money.
• 3:27
  So if anybody pitches you a business opportunity, so not just Amway, I don't want to pick on just Amway.
• 3:32
  If anybody pitches you a business opportunity this week, ask them for the company's written income disclosure statement before you spend a dollar.
• 3:41
  Because there's a lot of these multi level marketing.
• 3:43
  I see these all the time.
• 3:45
  I see them on Facebook, I see them on TikTok and all the other social media platforms because every single legitimate one of these has this document.
• 3:54
  It's a public document.
• 3:55
  And like I said, Amway's own one said the person in the middle made $657 a year.
• 4:02
  So if they're telling you you're going to make 20,000, 30,000, $40,000, go look at their actual document and see what their actual document, what they've studied actually says.
• 4:19
  Also on Thursday, the New York attorney general and 40 other attorney generals, 41 jurisdict, all announced a $694 million nationwide settlement with Credit Acceptance Corporation, a subprime auto lender.
• 4:35
  They allege, that's a keyword there.
• 4:38
  They allege the company, quote, originated car loans that the company knew or should have known consumers could not afford, end quote.
• 4:46
  Ralph $694 million sounds like checks, but it really isn't, is it?
• 4:52
  A couple of things I want to define here.
• 4:54
  Let's talk first about what a subprime lender is.
• 4:57
  Do you know what a subprime lender is?
• 4:59
  Juliet?
• 5:00
  No.
• 5:01
  My guess, it's my guess though is if I get a lend, if I get a loan first, that would probably be my prime and then so subprime might be like a second one.
• 5:11
  Am I going the right direction?
• 5:13
  A little bit.
• 5:14
  So let me explain.
• 5:14
  So let's say we talked a lot about buying cars last week.
• 5:17
  Let's say you go into the car dealership and you get the deal all worked out.
• 5:22
  They put you into the finance manager's office and the finance manager Says Juliet.
• 5:27
  Yeah, you've got some struggles on your credit report.
• 5:30
  And our typical.
• 5:31
  What we call prime lenders aren't willing to buy this loan, meaning that they're not willing to fund this loan.
• 5:37
  But here's the best part, Juliet.
• 5:39
  We've got some subprime lenders who.
• 5:42
  Yeah, their rates aren't so great.
• 5:44
  They have some other nuances to them.
• 5:46
  They might put a thing in there called a starter kill, and I'll tell you about that here in a second.
• 5:50
  But there's basically this secondary market, what they call subprime lenders, this Credit Acceptance Corporation.
• 5:57
  Was that.
• 5:57
  Exactly.
• 5:59
  And what they were doing is.
• 6:01
  It's basically.
• 6:01
  You mentioned the word predatory lending.
• 6:03
  In a lot of ways, this is predatory lending, because what these folks were doing is they knew.
• 6:08
  I shouldn't say they knew.
• 6:09
  They.
• 6:10
  They made an assumption these people really couldn't afford these vehicles.
• 6:14
  Right.
• 6:14
  But they were putting them into vehicles that they generally couldn't afford.
• 6:18
  Right.
• 6:18
  And so what happened was they come along with this settlement.
• 6:22
  But here's the problem for most of these people.
• 6:25
  For most of these people, the car was repossessed a long time ago.
• 6:28
  The car's gone.
• 6:30
  Oh, it's still showing that there's a debt on their credit report.
• 6:34
  But once it's repossessed, you don't have to pay for the car anymore.
• 6:38
  No, you do, actually.
• 6:39
  So here's the way that.
• 6:40
  That works.
• 6:41
  Let me walk you through this.
• 6:42
  So let's say your car.
• 6:44
  The lender's been trying to get in touch with you.
• 6:46
  They've been trying.
• 6:47
  And I used to do this work, so I'm pretty familiar with this.
• 6:49
  They get to a point where they say, look, Juliet, you're not paying your car loan.
• 6:53
  How about you surrender that to us?
• 6:55
  Sometimes you do what's called a voluntary surrender, where you say, okay, I'll meet you at the place and I'll drop off the car.
• 7:01
  Here you go.
• 7:02
  Yeah, that or they get a guy lurking in the middle of the night with a tow truck that goes out and find your car, yanks it up and takes it.
• 7:10
  So either of those is what's called a repossession.
• 7:12
  So it's a real simple term.
• 7:14
  The lender is taking back the property.
• 7:16
  They're repossessing the property.
• 7:18
  Right.
• 7:19
  However, that doesn't mean that you still don't owe money on the balance.
• 7:23
  So the way it usually works is they repossess the vehicle, and then you have a certain number of days.
• 7:28
  In Delaware, it's 21 days.
• 7:31
  Once the lender Repossesses the vehicle, they send you a certified letter that says, juliet, we repossessed your vehicle.
• 7:38
  Here's what it is.
• 7:39
  Here's how much is owed on it.
• 7:40
  Now here's the thing, Juliet.
• 7:42
  Most of the time you're going to owe a lot more on it than what the vehicle is worth, because if it wasn't for that, you would have sold it and paid off the lender and had some money to
• 7:50
  spare.
• 7:51
  So these are usually underwater upside down loans, right?
• 7:55
  So the 21 days goes by and then the lender can sell that vehicle to somebody else.
• 8:00
  Okay?
• 8:01
  When they sell the vehicle, they're not going to get usually what the value of the loan is.
• 8:06
  So there's a thing called a deficiency balance.
• 8:09
  A deficiency balance is the difference between what you owe on the loan and now what the lender is able to sell the vehicle.
• 8:15
  So let's use a simple example.
• 8:17
  Let's say that you owe $20,000 on a used car, okay?
• 8:21
  The car gets repossessed, the lender sells it for $10,000 because it's in bad shape.
• 8:27
  It's messed up.
• 8:28
  So there's this $10,000 difference, right?
• 8:31
  That is what they call a deficiency balance.
• 8:34
  That deficiency balance is still showing up on your credit report.
• 8:38
  Oh, but yes, but it's already been repossessed and given away to somebody else too.
• 8:43
  Correct.
• 8:44
  The car is long gone.
• 8:45
  So one of the things you asked me is, Ralph, are people going to get checks in the mail?
• 8:47
  No.
• 8:48
  What's going to happen is a lot of times these, these balances are showing up on their credit report.
• 8:55
  So the acceptance corporation had to pay, basically, they're going to take that off the credit report because they're going to have to pay these lenders who did this loan for them.
• 9:04
  Got it.
• 9:05
  So it comes off the credit.
• 9:06
  They're not getting money in the bank.
• 9:07
  That's the unfortunate part.
• 9:10
  Because of this $388 million was debt relief.
• 9:12
  The cars that are repossessed, 246 million was the cars were not repossessed and 60 million are doing in cash.
• 9:20
  So this is going to be a whole lot of people getting it off their credit reports.
• 9:24
  But there's a couple dates we need to know about.
• 9:27
  The relief was delivered on or before November 2, 2026.
• 9:30
  So you need to make sure you filed a claim.
• 9:33
  Basically, if you have or have ever had a car loan through credit acceptance, go look at your documents.
• 9:39
  You're going to know what that is.
• 9:40
  Because you're like, I remember them.
• 9:41
  There's no good rascals and that includes a car if it was already repossessed.
• 9:46
  Call them this week and make sure they have your current address and phone number, because here's what could have happened.
• 9:52
  You could have gone and paid off that deficiency balance.
• 9:54
  They might have filed a judgment against you.
• 9:56
  They may be attached your wages, so you may be entitled to some cash.
• 10:01
  So They've got until November 2nd to notify you to tell you, hey, there could be some money here in this settlement.
• 10:08
  But just be aware, it might not be cash money.
• 10:10
  It might be money to remove any remaining balance that shows up on your credit report.
• 10:15
  So this is a big deal, because what happened is these predatory subprime lenders.
• 10:20
  I'll tell you a little bit interesting story here, Juliet.
• 10:22
  Sometime these subprime lenders actually put a device called a starter kill in the vehicle, and you have to enter a code every week.
• 10:30
  So when you used to make a weekly payment, if you don't enter that code, your car won't start.
• 10:35
  So a lot of these subprime lenders, that's what they were doing, and those folks got sued for those things before as well because they felt like that was predatory.
• 10:43
  Wait a minute.
• 10:44
  So you're saying, like, okay, if these cars were not repossessed, some of these subprime predatory lenders would put a tracker on your car?
• 10:52
  Yeah.
• 10:52
  So basically, after putting in a code.
• 10:54
  Yeah, so basically what they were doing, and I understand it from the standpoint of the lenders, because they're giving people loans who probably don't qualify, who haven't been great with their credit.
• 11:03
  But.
• 11:04
  Yeah, so what would happen is you would go and make your payment every week, and they would give you a code.
• 11:08
  You would go out to your car and type that code in your car and would give you another week to drive.
• 11:13
  So it's an interesting thing.
• 11:15
  So some of that equipment, you know, they overcharge for that equipment and that sort of thing.
• 11:19
  So it's a really interesting thing.
• 11:20
  But it's all about this subprime market.
• 11:23
  And as the credit tightens up, we start to see more of these subprime lenders coming out and saying, well, maybe we took advantage of people in this particular case.
• 11:31
  Maybe that's the key word that they're trying to lean on, Right?
• 11:33
  Maybe.
• 11:34
  Yeah.
• 11:34
  But they're gonna have to cough up a lot of money or pay or show a lot of these loans were no longer valid loans anymore.
• 11:41
  Very true.
• 11:43
  Good to know.
• 11:47
  Sorry about that.
• 11:48
  I didn't mean to step on you there.
• 11:49
  We're still getting Used to our dance here, folks, so I apologize.
• 11:52
  Oh, no worries.
• 11:54
  Okay.
• 11:55
  Last September, the FTC settled with Amazon for $2.5 billion over how people signed got signed up for prime and how was to cancel.
• 12:03
  On Thursday, the FTC announced the refunds are getting bigger and reaching more people.
• 12:08
  The maximum payment goes from $51 to $200 and automatic payments to newly eligible customers start October 1st.
• 12:17
  So Ralph, who is newly eligible?
• 12:19
  Let's make sure people have this information.
• 12:22
  Yeah, so basically what we're talking about here is how many people use Amazon?
• 12:25
  Raise your hand.
• 12:26
  I use Amazon, so I noticed Juliet didn't raise her hand.
• 12:30
  She must not be an Amazon user.
• 12:32
  Well, I'm not.
• 12:33
  I probably use Amazon once or twice a year, so.
• 12:36
  Okay, wow.
• 12:37
  Like I probably use it once or twice a day.
• 12:39
  Like you and I are in definitely different sponsor.
• 12:41
  Anyway, so what this is really talking about is if you signed up for Amazon prime and you didn't realize you were signing up for because they're a little deceptive in how they do that because they'll say, oh, you
• 12:51
  want this delivered today?
• 12:53
  Do you want this delivered for free?
• 12:54
  You can sign up for Amazon Prime.
• 12:56
  So here's the thing about this settlement.
• 12:59
  Amazon already knows who they need to pay because they already see who was signed up.
• 13:04
  So there's nothing to file here.
• 13:06
  But it's basically an anti scam warning.
• 13:09
  So what the FTC is basically saying is, look, it used to be you had to meet what they called 11 up to 10 different, it's complicated, but you had to have 10 different things.
• 13:21
  You had to use 10 or fewer services in order for that to be that you didn't really benefit from Prime.
• 13:27
  So what the FTC has done is they've expanded that now.
• 13:31
  So even if you've used 11 to 20 of these different services, what I'm talking about there is free delivery, next day delivery.
• 13:38
  Maybe you use their video service or their storage service.
• 13:41
  Basically what they're saying is that Amazon was charging you for a service.
• 13:46
  You didn't realize what you were getting.
• 13:48
  You were paying more for it than what they disclosed and it was super hard to cancel it.
• 13:52
  So you just kept paying and kept paying.
• 13:55
  And what happened is it used to be only $51, but now they've taken that up to $200.
• 14:00
  Because I think they're recognizing just how much money that Amazon was, was, I don't want to say scamming people, but not making it very simple to get out of it.
• 14:10
  So if you've had this, this money can be coming back to you by Venmo, by PayPal or they'll actually mail you a check.
• 14:17
  Now, they've already issued, according to the statistics here, $845 million as of this month.
• 14:25
  The original settlement was for 35 million consumers.
• 14:28
  So we're talking about a lot of people.
• 14:30
  Yeah.
• 14:31
  And so here's what the FTC says verbatim.
• 14:33
  It says the FTC is not contacting people about refunds in the Amazon matter.
• 14:38
  So there's nothing you need to go and file.
• 14:41
  Go to ftc.govamazon if you want to read all about this yourself.
• 14:46
  And then just make sure the email address and the phone number on your Amazon accounts are the one you still use because it comes by Venmo by.
• 14:53
  It's basically how did you pay for these things through Amazon is how they're going to get you the money back.
• 14:58
  But here's the thing.
• 14:59
  Remember this?
• 15:00
  Nobody from the FTC is ever going to call you about this.
• 15:04
  They're not going to charge you.
• 15:05
  So if you go out there and say, oh, I got to figure out how much I owe on Amazon or how much I'm going to get back and somebody's going to try to charge you for that, they're definitely
• 15:14
  not going to charge you for this.
• 15:16
  Now it seems like you got a question, Juliet.
• 15:18
  Oh, no, no.
• 15:18
  I was just looking into the chat and you know, Duchess of NJ said good morning to us, so.
• 15:23
  Good morning, duchess.
• 15:24
  Good morning, Duchess.
• 15:25
  4 Seeker is one of those people who he.
• 15:27
  They raise it.
• 15:27
  I think it's a.
• 15:29
  Yeah, they raise their hand.
• 15:30
  Amazon is so convenient.
• 15:31
  It's a love hate relationship.
• 15:33
  Yeah, it is, it is.
• 15:34
  It really is.
• 15:35
  I mean it is super convenient.
• 15:36
  Like I've bought stuff here at the office and like by 3:00 clock or 5:00 clock this afternoon, it's already here.
• 15:42
  You know the downside to that is do you really shop around for it or you just say, I need this.
• 15:47
  Let me just go to Amazon.
• 15:48
  So you don't use Amazon a lot.
• 15:50
  So let's talk about.
• 15:50
  Let's.
• 15:51
  This is an interview.
• 15:52
  Interview with Juliet.
• 15:54
  So Juliet, how come you haven't bought onto the Amazon bandwagon?
• 15:58
  I just don't need it.
• 16:00
  Well, there you go.
• 16:01
  That's fair.
• 16:01
  No, that's fair.
• 16:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:02
  I'm just like one of those people, I will say when I was younger, when Amazon delivery first came out, I was like, oh, this is like really smart.
• 16:09
  It's a lot more efficient.
• 16:10
  There's a lot of other countries where their entire country Runs on like almost instant deliveries.
• 16:16
  I just find that it is an easy way to see spend more money and I, and it's like I don't, I don't need it.
• 16:24
  Right.
• 16:24
  So I'd rather, I'd rather intentionally put some friction into my life to make me think more about what I'm doing instead of automate, automating everything.
• 16:32
  I think you nailed it.
• 16:33
  I think that's brilliant.
• 16:34
  Absolutely.
• 16:35
  Actually it's a very brilliant observation because it's so instant gratification.
• 16:39
  You get an inkling during the day.
• 16:41
  Well, I'd like to have this and it's super simple to just go out there and do that.
• 16:44
  Now I see Infoseeker just added something.
• 16:46
  Julia, if you want to read this comment, let me put that on the screen there.
• 16:50
  Let me see if you can see it.
• 16:52
  Hold up.
• 16:53
  I do shop around.
• 16:54
  There are a lot of basic household products that can be cheaper on there.
• 16:57
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:58
  I mean I think it comes down to paying attention to what you're buying and doing some simple comparison shopping because what it's funny, my wife and I were talking about this and my son and my daughter in law,
• 17:08
  my grandson were down and we were talking about spending.
• 17:10
  As you know, we talked about this on the show last week.
• 17:12
  They've gone down to one income so they're really paying attention to what they're doing.
• 17:16
  But a lot of these websites now, Walmart, Target, all of them are selling from multiple sellers now.
• 17:22
  So you really can go out there and compare Amazon, you can compare Target, you can compare.
• 17:26
  And I'm just throwing a couple out there, Walmart, because they're all basically selling the same goods, they're just coming from different shipping points.
• 17:32
  That's very true, very true.
• 17:34
  But I like what you said about this.
• 17:36
  It makes it so easy and I think that's why Amazon's numbers just keep growing.
• 17:40
  But the other side of this people don't want to talk about.
• 17:42
  They have absolutely destroyed some small business.
• 17:46
  People and that I, I think small businesses are the fabric of community to be honestly right like, and so to me supporting small businesses is also very important.
• 17:59
  I absolutely agree and I've had clients that have been impacted by this because if you don't want to take, you know, follow the rules of the behemoth, which is Amazon, they can basically starve you out of existence.
• 18:10
  I have a client right now that that's what she's going through right now.
• 18:12
  I mean she's basically, her online business is gone because someone made a complaint that wasn't even Justified.
• 18:19
  But Amazon held her payment up.
• 18:21
  Now she's 60 days in arrearage from getting paid from Amazon.
• 18:24
  They take her products offline and for a small business person, it literally can put them out of business.
• 18:30
  And I've had it happen to several clients over the last few years.
• 18:33
  Yeah, I think if you're a small business, that's something to think about.
• 18:35
  Right.
• 18:35
  Like, even if you have Amazon, you have to make sure you diversify so you're not reliant on only one platform to get you your income.
• 18:43
  I absolutely agree.
• 18:45
  Yeah.
• 18:46
  Lasting here.
• 18:46
  Duchess says I shop in two to three different places due to pricing.
• 18:51
  Great call.
• 18:51
  I think that's always like a good muscle to exercise.
• 18:55
  Absolutely.
• 18:56
  Well, let's talk about this.
• 18:57
  Let's say you lent your brother in law $4,000.
• 19:00
  Now, that might be a question mark whether you want to do that or not, but there's no paper and there wasn't going to ever be any paper because, well, he's family.
• 19:07
  And we're going to talk a little about that later on in the show today.
• 19:10
  But I've watched that exact same loan.
• 19:12
  End of Thanksgiving.
• 19:13
  Law Depot has that boring document that prevents.
• 19:16
  It's called a promissory note.
• 19:17
  Or maybe you're going to sell your vehicle, it has a bill of sale.
• 19:20
  Or you're going to rent your house.
• 19:22
  It is a rental agreement.
• 19:23
  The best part of Law Depot is everything is guided for you on the screen.
• 19:27
  It's built for your state and you can print right from there.
• 19:30
  And you can start a free trial by going to our website.
• 19:33
  That's at becoming financially confident.com lawdepot Again, if you're interested in Law Depot, go to becoming financiallyconfident.com lawdepot and check them out.
• 19:51
  We are getting into our community mailbag right now.
• 19:54
  So the first question that we got, my brother asked to borrow $4,000 to cover a car repair.
• 20:00
  I have it.
• 20:01
  I could give it to him.
• 20:02
  But the last time I lent money and my family, it took two years to get paid back and we still don't talk about it.
• 20:07
  How do I do this without wrecking things?
• 20:09
  And am I a bad person for wanting it in writing?
• 20:13
  So what do you think, Julia?
• 20:14
  What do you think first?
• 20:15
  Like, what is your, what's your initial take on this question?
• 20:19
  Yeah, so for me, it's like, if I have the money and I'm willing, I.
• 20:23
  I'm like, I'm willing to help my brother.
• 20:25
  I always have the mindset where if it's with family, we'll have A discussion beforehand.
• 20:30
  Right.
• 20:31
  Like, maybe it's a, hey, I'm willing to help you out.
• 20:34
  I do.
• 20:35
  Do you expect this money back in a certain time frame or not?
• 20:38
  Right.
• 20:38
  If it's a longer time frame, have that con.
• 20:41
  If it's like, I don't expect this monetary back, but, like, you know, you have other expectations important to have those conversations.
• 20:50
  And then if it's a legal thing that you want, like, you want it in writing, do that too.
• 20:55
  You know, do whatever makes most comfortable for both of you guys.
• 20:58
  I think a lot of things that hurt, converse, sensitive conversations like this is.
• 21:03
  Expectations are not understood from the other side.
• 21:07
  I agree with you, and I've talked about this on the show before.
• 21:10
  I think you need to start off with, is this a loan or is this a gift?
• 21:14
  Right.
• 21:14
  And I would just tell you from a personal perspective, I don't loan family members money.
• 21:19
  I just have decided it just causes so many issues.
• 21:23
  If I want to give somebody something, that's great, and if they want to pay me, if they want to give the gift back at some point, there's no expectation.
• 21:31
  And I think that's okay.
• 21:32
  I think that's the safest way to go, is if you can do it as a gift.
• 21:35
  Now, there are certain circumstances where maybe it makes sense to them.
• 21:39
  Like I've had clients, for example, whose mother and father wanted to loan them the money so they could buy a house, for example, like, I've got one right now I'm working with.
• 21:47
  And the mother and father had this money sitting in a bank account.
• 21:52
  It's not making a great deal of money.
• 21:54
  And they said to their daughter, hey, you want to go buy a home?
• 21:57
  How about we become the mortgagee?
• 21:59
  You know, we become the bank.
• 22:00
  In that particular case, it made perfect sense because she was going to go out and get a loan that was at seven and a half or eight percent, whatever the mortgage interest rate was that time.
• 22:09
  And her parents said, well, we've got the money to buy to pay for the house.
• 22:13
  But again, in that case, there was a clear.
• 22:15
  I think you nailed it.
• 22:16
  Like, there was a clear expectation.
• 22:18
  There was no question marks about, you know, this is a mortgage, we are the bank here.
• 22:23
  The loan documents, they.
• 22:24
  And when they put this together, I said, here's what I encourage you to do.
• 22:27
  Go to an attorney, just like you would for anything else.
• 22:31
  Create all the legal documents.
• 22:32
  So they've got a promissory note, they've got a mortgage, they've got an amortization schedule.
• 22:37
  So there's no question Marks about who's expecting what.
• 22:40
  But that doesn't mean it's not going to cause problems.
• 22:43
  Sometimes there's expectations of, well, mom, you know, we're having a rough month this month.
• 22:48
  Do we really have to pay the mortgage?
• 22:49
  Yes.
• 22:50
  This is a business decision.
• 22:53
  Otherwise, that interest is just going to keep on raising.
• 22:55
  You feel like you can default on your loan, but then the interest is going to go up or something like that, you know?
• 23:00
  Yeah.
• 23:00
  And that's the thing, like, a lot of people hear the word promissory.
• 23:02
  And I think you've asked me about this before.
• 23:04
  It's not some accusation or it's just the.
• 23:08
  It's the relationship insurance.
• 23:09
  Because that way there's no question about.
• 23:11
  Here's the expectation when there's a promissory.
• 23:14
  Now, you are promising to pay this person back.
• 23:17
  Here's the routine number.
• 23:18
  Here's the amount of interest you're going to pay.
• 23:20
  Here's the way that's going to work out.
• 23:23
  Right, Right.
• 23:24
  You just have to be aware of that.
• 23:26
  Yeah.
• 23:26
  And I think for this person, I think everybody should also think to themselves, Right.
• 23:30
  Is do you.
• 23:30
  Do you, in your heart, do you have a number in mind where you're like, if I lend out 20, if I give away $20, then it's a gift and you don't care?
• 23:39
  Like, do you have a threshold if it's over 1000, if it's 2000, if it starts to bother you, it is important to have that conversation.
• 23:49
  And I think some things, especially when having conversations about this, this is.
• 23:55
  What do they say?
• 23:56
  Always say, oh, this is how I feel.
• 23:58
  This is how my expectations.
• 24:00
  What are your expectations?
• 24:01
  And then let's figure out how to meet in the middle.
• 24:03
  Right.
• 24:04
  And I think those are like, some tricks.
• 24:06
  In more communication, it is important for both sides to be able to say their piece and then come to say, okay, in this particular situation between you and me, what is the end result that we both agree with?
• 24:21
  Yeah.
• 24:21
  And Duchess says it best.
• 24:22
  She said, this is a tough conversation.
• 24:23
  It is.
• 24:24
  But you know what I see so many times, Duchess, is people don't have the conversation.
• 24:29
  And I think that there's.
• 24:31
  Because if you're going to lend to somebody, and I like what you just said, Juliet, number one, have a threshold.
• 24:36
  And I have a threshold called a gift threshold.
• 24:39
  I believe there's a certain amount that I'm willing to give somebody.
• 24:43
  I also have to look.
• 24:44
  You also have to look at your own financial situation.
• 24:46
  Like, don't put yourself in a position where you are going to miss payments, you're going to miss your car payment, you're going to miss your rent payment because you feel bad for somebody, you want to help them, right.
• 24:55
  There's other ways to help people.
• 24:57
  You can give them a ride to work, you can help them do shopping.
• 25:02
  You know, one of the things my wife and I talk about all the time because we've got some family members who haven't made wise decisions, not in our immediate family.
• 25:09
  And we've said to them, if they call us and ask for money, we're not going to give them money.
• 25:13
  But if they call and said we have no food, we're gonna get in a car and we're gonna go to the grocery store and we're gonna buy them food.
• 25:21
  Because I don't want to be that person that is standing behind somebody getting ready to eat.
• 25:25
  I mean, that's a big issue for me.
• 25:28
  But in my own mind, I have budgeted a certain amount that I'm willing to do that.
• 25:31
  But I see this cause so many problems in relationships with friends, with family members, because it just, it's that unspoken, well, you know, it's okay if I don't pay you.
• 25:41
  You know, we're good friends.
• 25:42
  And because here's a funny thing, you know, attorney once said this to me, he says, rob, the best thing ever is when a client owes you money because that person, you will not hear from them.
• 25:52
  And it's so true.
• 25:52
  It's like I've, I've ended accounting relationship with the clients where they owe me money and I don't bother to ask them for it because it's just, you know what, that's good, I won't hear from them again.
• 26:02
  Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
• 26:04
  I also liked how you said like take a look at your own financial situation and make sure to have that in consideration.
• 26:11
  Right.
• 26:12
  In the past when I had a more higher paying job and more like regular income, I definitely gifted and helped out my friends a lot more.
• 26:20
  But now that I'm trying entrepreneurship and I'm more cash strapped, I'm not in a place to do that.
• 26:25
  But I would like to be one day, right.
• 26:26
  So now I know, like right now I'm not in a position to help people monetarily, but I could do it with my time, my services in any other way until I feel like I'm pretty good with monetary side
• 26:40
  again.
• 26:41
  Yeah.
• 26:41
  And at some point, as we talk about the dollar job framework, which we'll be talking about again on tomorrow's show, you're going to Assign a certain level of dollars for that.
• 26:48
  You're going to send a certain level of dollars for gifting a certain level of dollars for this benevolence or whatever it looks like.
• 26:54
  Now I see Infoseeker made a comment.
• 26:56
  Let me put that up on the screen.
• 26:58
  Oh, this was response to the question in the chat.
• 27:01
  So if you're in there, please let us know.
• 27:03
  So the question is loan or gift?
• 27:05
  Which one do you defau?
• 27:07
  Family.
• 27:07
  And Info Seeker says family will also be a gift as long as I like the family member.
• 27:13
  Not all family members are created equal.
• 27:16
  I think that is well said.
• 27:17
  And not all family members have what I'll say, a blood relationship, because I truly believe we're in a time in our world where sometimes families who you make family.
• 27:26
  And I know Juliet probably agrees with me on that because we've actually had this conversation offline about this.
• 27:31
  We did.
• 27:31
  We had this conversation about blood, family and chosen family.
• 27:34
  There's.
• 27:34
  That's the word.
• 27:35
  I couldn't think of the word you used, Family.
• 27:37
  Yeah, but it's true.
• 27:38
  But.
• 27:38
  But again, these are the kind of discussions that will cause you, you know, heartburn if you don't have the conversation.
• 27:46
  Yeah, it's scary to have them, but it is important to have them.
• 27:49
  That way you don't burn as many, many more bridges than you need to or want to, because that just like emotional turmoil.
• 27:56
  We don't need that.
• 27:57
  We can.
• 27:57
  We can diminish that as much as possible.
• 27:59
  As much as we can.
• 28:00
  How about we move on to our second mailbag question for today?
• 28:04
  Sounds good.
• 28:12
  Our second question.
• 28:14
  Someone wrote in, My dog is 11, and the vet says she needs surgery.
• 28:18
  That's going to be somewhere around $3,000.
• 28:21
  I'm retired.
• 28:21
  I don't have $3,000.
• 28:23
  I feel like a terrible person for even asking this.
• 28:26
  What are my actual options?
• 28:29
  Yeah, this is one of those questions that I'm going to tell you right now.
• 28:34
  I may make some enemies today, and I don't intend to, but not everybody thinks the same way I do.
• 28:39
  And it's funny.
• 28:40
  Preparing for today's show, I mentioned my son is down and my son has a dog.
• 28:44
  And I guess it's about four or five years ago, my son had adopted this dog.
• 28:47
  And I said to my son, when you first got the dog, I said, buy pet insurance.
• 28:52
  And he goes, dad, but it's like $30 a month.
• 28:55
  And he was just getting started in the Coast Guard, and it's probably been longer than that.
• 28:57
  It's probably about six years ago.
• 28:59
  And he says.
• 28:59
  I said, listen, son, do me a favor.
• 29:01
  Even if you get, I will pay for it.
• 29:04
  Buy pet insurance.
• 29:06
  So fast forward a year, his dog starts having hip problems.
• 29:11
  So he goes to the vet, and sure enough, this hip.
• 29:14
  There was something wrong with the hip socket.
• 29:16
  I don't know exactly what was going on, but long story short, the dog had to have his whole hip removed.
• 29:24
  So they took the hip out.
• 29:25
  It's an interesting surgery, and they just left the muscle around it.
• 29:28
  So this.
• 29:28
  This dog is great.
• 29:29
  His name is Firefly.
• 29:30
  You would never know it, but this surgery cost about $6,000.
• 29:34
  And the best part of it is my son had to pay about $600 of that.
• 29:40
  How come?
• 29:41
  Because he had the insurance and because he had bought the insurance before there was anything that the dog.
• 29:46
  Nobody knew about that.
• 29:48
  Yeah.
• 29:49
  So this particular question, you're not a bad owner.
• 29:53
  This is a very common situation.
• 29:54
  In fact, my son and I have.
• 29:56
  We have an agreement.
• 29:57
  I have a number because we have a German shepherd, and she's.
• 30:00
  I guess she's about seven years old now.
• 30:02
  And I guarantee my wife and I will not agree on this, but I have a number in my head of how much I'm willing to spend.
• 30:07
  I know that sounds horrible.
• 30:08
  And I can just imagine the dog owners and the cat owners going, I think you are crazy.
• 30:14
  There's a number in my mind of what I'm willing to spend, and I think that's one of the things you have to do.
• 30:21
  One of the things I found as we prepare for today is that 52% of owners skipped or declined care last year because they couldn't afford it.
• 30:28
  Oh, that's a big number.
• 30:30
  And the other thing, it's interesting.
• 30:31
  Things have gotten more expensive.
• 30:32
  You think the vet prices are going up and you think it's true.
• 30:36
  Overall, vet services are up by 5.7%.
• 30:40
  All items in that in the last 12 months are up three and a quarter percent.
• 30:44
  What's interesting is that's roughly a 50% increase since 2019 just owning a pet.
• 30:51
  Yes.
• 30:52
  So that's the thing.
• 30:52
  Like, a lot of people go out and adopt dogs, they adopt cats.
• 30:55
  But you got to recognize not only do you need to feed them, you need to groom them.
• 31:00
  You also have to be aware of what they're going to cost when they get sick, because guess what?
• 31:05
  But just like a human being, pets get sick and they cost money when they get sick.
• 31:10
  Duchess of NJ says something here about care.
• 31:14
  Ask the vet about CareCredit.
• 31:16
  I don't have a pet, so I don't know what Care Credit is.
• 31:18
  Do you know what this is?
• 31:19
  I do.
• 31:20
  Let me.
• 31:20
  Yeah.
• 31:20
  Let me explain how CareCredit works.
• 31:22
  It's a very cool service, but you got to be very careful with it.
• 31:25
  Okay?
• 31:25
  So what CareCredit does is they will basically give you a interest free loan.
• 31:32
  But remember, at some point, if you don't pay it off in the time frame that they're giving you, it costs you money.
• 31:40
  Now here's the way it works behind the scenes because I have a couple veterinarians that are clients.
• 31:44
  The vet clinic pays a fee so that you can use CareCredit.
• 31:49
  Now, I'm going to be honest with you.
• 31:50
  What they usually do is they add the fee to the cost of the surgery, the cost of whatever it's going on, because they don't want to be sure.
• 31:58
  Yeah.
• 31:59
  Which is fine.
• 32:00
  And that kind of thing is like she says here, up to six months sometimes.
• 32:04
  Yeah, that's right.
• 32:05
  There's up to six months.
• 32:06
  It's interesting.
• 32:06
  You can use CareCredit for human being stuff too.
• 32:09
  A lot of doctors now take Care credit if you're having elective surgery.
• 32:14
  If you're having cosmetic surgery, I might get some.
• 32:17
  Maybe I get some of these crow's feet taken care of.
• 32:19
  A little Botox.
• 32:20
  But not to change the subject, but, but so yeah, so CareCredit is a really good option in all of these things.
• 32:29
  Get a written, itemized estimate of what this is going to cost.
• 32:32
  Because this is an emotional time.
• 32:34
  I totally get it.
• 32:35
  Right.
• 32:36
  But you also have to think about what can you actually afford.
• 32:39
  Right.
• 32:41
  And that's a big deal.
• 32:42
  And sometimes you can wait on these things, you know, sometimes you can say, yeah, you know, I'd like to get this done, but right now I can't afford it.
• 32:49
  Some of them you can't wait on.
• 32:50
  Right.
• 32:51
  I have a question because I know last week, the couple previous weeks, we've definitely talked about FSAs and how sometimes that can also extend to children.
• 33:01
  I think yes, sometimes can FSAS or anything from.
• 33:06
  From an employer, can it extend to pets?
• 33:09
  You've stumped me on that one.
• 33:10
  I honestly don't know the answer to that.
• 33:12
  But I will get back to you on that.
• 33:13
  Abby is our producer.
• 33:15
  Abby, make sure you make a note for that.
• 33:17
  And I will answer that question this week sometime.
• 33:20
  But I don't know the answer to that, honestly.
• 33:22
  My guess is no.
• 33:23
  But I'm very curious if there's like any loopholes or anything.
• 33:26
  Yeah, there might be.
• 33:28
  I am not sure.
• 33:29
  I think usually FSAs are for human beings.
• 33:33
  And I like what Dutchess put here.
• 33:35
  And it's so true, because my wife and I have had this very conversation and she says, you know, Ralph has a number.
• 33:41
  And Mrs.
• 33:42
  Ralph, Jennifer has an entirely different number.
• 33:44
  I guarantee that's the truth.
• 33:46
  Truth.
• 33:46
  And that's going to be a difficult conversation.
• 33:48
  And I've seen these conversations play out.
• 33:53
  It's hard.
• 33:53
  So here's a sentence I think all of us need to walk away with from this particular.
• 33:56
  And we can still talk about this.
• 33:57
  What's the next best plan at half this price?
• 34:00
  And what do I give up?
• 34:02
  Because what?
• 34:03
  Yeah, ask the Veterinarian this, because 81% of veterinarians say they always or often have a different plan of attack.
• 34:11
  There might be different things they can try, but only about 17% bring them up ahead of time because they just don't think about it.
• 34:19
  And I get it.
• 34:20
  Now, I do want to say I put some notes in here.
• 34:21
  CareCredit warning.
• 34:23
  Remember, this is deferred interest.
• 34:25
  It's not zero percent.
• 34:26
  Here's the thing that's scary about the CareCredit As I looked this up for today's show.
• 34:31
  Their published interest rate.
• 34:35
  Now, Juliet, you sitting down?
• 34:37
  Yeah.
• 34:38
  Okay.
• 34:38
  Their published interest rate is 32.99%.
• 34:43
  That's.
• 34:43
  And that applies.
• 34:44
  And I'm not poo pooing.
• 34:45
  That's a funny play on words.
• 34:47
  I'm not poo pooing on CareCredit today.
• 34:48
  But just realize 32.99% is what you're going to pay if it's not paid in full and it's retroactive.
• 34:58
  So it's within that timeframe.
• 35:00
  That interest free time frame.
• 35:01
  Correct.
• 35:02
  If you're $1 short, all the interest from day one applies.
• 35:06
  They keep track of this stuff.
• 35:08
  So a $3,000 missed by a month could cost you thousands of dollars.
• 35:14
  Yeah.
• 35:14
  But here's a couple of things you might want to consider.
• 35:16
  There are some grants out there.
• 35:18
  Red Rover has a $250 grant.
• 35:21
  They have an income cap of $60,000.
• 35:23
  You can go look at them.
• 35:25
  There's the pet fund.
• 35:26
  It's up to $500.
• 35:29
  There's also a thing called Frankie's Friends.
• 35:31
  They give up to a thousand dollars.
• 35:33
  And there's an AVMF reach which gives up to a thousand dollars.
• 35:38
  Now, the vet applies for that one as long as they're AVMA members.
• 35:42
  I'm not sure what that is.
• 35:44
  But here's the thing about this.
• 35:45
  If you find yourself in that position, go and take a look for grants they're anywhere from 250 to $1,000.
• 35:53
  And even if that's against a $3,000 bill, that's still part of it.
• 35:58
  Right.
• 35:58
  You know, and here's the problem with insurance.
• 36:01
  I just wanted to make a note to this because a lot of people say, well, I'll just go get the insurance.
• 36:05
  That's not going to work.
• 36:06
  All you can't do retroactive.
• 36:08
  Yeah, all the pet insurance companies are going to go and get the records from the vet and see has this pet been seen for this particular issue in the past.
• 36:17
  And if it is, it's not retroactive.
• 36:19
  It's not like a lot of human being health insurance will allow you to cover what they call pre existing conditions.
• 36:26
  With pet insurance, they don't allow that.
• 36:29
  So it's a big deal.
• 36:31
  And I mean, it's just, it's a good thing.
• 36:35
  Here's some more gallups.
• 36:36
  Gallup Petsmart said 52% skipped or declined, 71% cited the cost.
• 36:43
  And you know, some people, and this is one of those tough situations, like I know somebody right now that their dog has cancer.
• 36:48
  Oh no.
• 36:49
  And I feel bad for them, but the dog is not doing well.
• 36:53
  But they keep spending money, they keep spending money, they keep spending money.
• 36:56
  And at some point, and this is not a financial discussion at this point, but this is one of those things where I think you need to have a conversation.
• 37:06
  If you're by yourself, to have a conversation with yourself, it's okay to talk to yourself, but really come up with that number.
• 37:12
  And like I said, I know that a lot of people like Ralph, that's harsh.
• 37:16
  But have a number because you know what your budget is, you know what you can afford.
• 37:20
  Right.
• 37:21
  It doesn't make a lot of sense to put yourself into a worse.
• 37:24
  I mean, at 32.99%, that's a big number.
• 37:29
  Yeah, that's very true.
• 37:30
  And I think the big takeaway is like no matter what, like responsibility.
• 37:34
  Anytime you have another being, whether it's a pet, an animal or a human, like there's so much responsibility that has to be a part of that conversation from emotional support, financial support, all of that stuff.
• 37:48
  So it really is.
• 37:49
  Be honest with yourself and see, okay, what are you going to, to what are you willing to do in order to support this other being in your life.
• 37:58
  Yeah.
• 37:59
  And if you can buy the insurance, great.
• 38:00
  But understand there's deductibles.
• 38:02
  So have an emergency fund of maybe enough to cover the deductible.
• 38:06
  But understand because there's so many pet owners out there that want to be great with their.
• 38:10
  And they're great people, but they just can't afford it.
• 38:13
  I've had this conversation.
• 38:14
  My youngest son, he wants a dog.
• 38:16
  He lives in an apartment.
• 38:17
  I said, you can't have a dog.
• 38:18
  It's not, not fair to a dog to be in a crate all day long.
• 38:21
  You don't have a place to keep them.
• 38:23
  And that's a really difficult situation there.
• 38:25
  But, but just know, be aware.
• 38:27
  Again, we've used this term just about every day.
• 38:30
  Be intentional.
• 38:31
  If you're going to be a pet owner, you need to realize there needs to be intentionality in all this.
• 38:37
  Yeah.
• 38:39
  Duchess of NJ says sometimes the vet can connect with other assistance opportunities.
• 38:43
  But don't bank on it.
• 38:46
  Again, she put another comment on here, says I also be a meanie.
• 38:50
  If you can't afford the care for a pet, please don't get one.
• 38:52
  Yeah, you know what?
• 38:54
  I don't think that's being a meanie at all, Duchess.
• 38:56
  I think that's being real.
• 38:59
  It's being responsible.
• 39:00
  It's being responsible and you have a responsibility.
• 39:02
  And so many people, you know, around the holidays, it's a great time to talk about this.
• 39:06
  They decided we're going to get a dog or a cat or something like that.
• 39:09
  But they don't think about, oh, it's cute Christmas morning or it's cute for the first couple days or first month.
• 39:15
  And all of a sudden it's like, somebody's got to take this dog for a walk.
• 39:18
  Somebody's got to take this dog to the vet.
• 39:20
  Somebody's got to feed this dog.
• 39:22
  You know, I gave a great example.
• 39:23
  Like my son, I talked about his dog.
• 39:25
  His dog is on all kinds of supplements for joint health.
• 39:28
  And it's a whole thing.
• 39:29
  Like he, he is food aggressive.
• 39:32
  So when he comes down, it's kind of cool.
• 39:34
  Like he's got this because he eats his food so fast, they actually feed him in a bowl that looks like a maze.
• 39:40
  And he's got to work the food out of it because if not, he'll just gulp it down in like two bites.
• 39:45
  But here's the problem.
• 39:45
  Like when he comes down to our house, he was here this weekend, we have to separate them to feed him because he's so food aggressive, he turns into like Cujo.
• 39:53
  And it's like, so you got to put them in separate rooms.
• 39:55
  But you got to understand that, you got to understand that going into it.
• 39:59
  Yeah, very true.
• 40:01
  And I see Info seeker said one more thing here.
• 40:03
  I agree at Dutches In New Jersey.
• 40:06
  Well, it's good we've come to a consensus today.
• 40:08
  Yeah, that's one of the best things about this show is when we can get to a consensus.
• 40:12
  But sure, let's go on to our next mailbag question.
• 40:16
  Yeah, Our next question.
• 40:23
  Somebody wrote in, I've seen the same doctor in the same office for six years.
• 40:27
  This spring, I got two bills for one visit, one from her and one from a hospital I've never been to.
• 40:33
  Nobody told me anything changed.
• 40:34
  So what is this and do I have to pay it?
• 40:37
  Yeah, so this is really interesting.
• 40:39
  And the answer is maybe what goes.
• 40:43
  What's going on here is a lot of primary care doctors have partnered with hospital chains now have hospital because it's cost so much for them to be involved.
• 40:53
  So now there are really two charges.
• 40:56
  There's a hospital like fee for the room and then there's the fee from the physician.
• 41:02
  Got it.
• 41:03
  So you have to understand this up, up front.
• 41:05
  Now if this isn't your doctor, then it's, it could be extreme, you know, nonsense.
• 41:12
  Right.
• 41:12
  But here's an interesting statistic.
• 41:14
  Back in 2012, 26% of doctors work for a hospital.
• 41:19
  By 2024, that number had reached 55%.
• 41:24
  So more and more physicians are getting on board with these hospitals.
• 41:28
  So what ends up happening is you may be going to the physician's office, but the physician's office might actually be owned by the hospital chain.
• 41:37
  So the hospital is billing you from like a visit fee or, or a utilization of the room fee, and then the doctor is charging you their usual fee.
• 41:47
  Now, most of the time you don't even know it because it's all behind the scenes.
• 41:49
  And insurance.
• 41:51
  Right.
• 41:52
  Like here's, here's an example for, for today's show, the physician's office might charge you $116 for outpatient fee, but then the facility fee might be another $101 fee.
• 42:04
  So the total is 217.
• 42:06
  Yeah, exactly.
• 42:07
  Yeah.
• 42:07
  Okay.
• 42:08
  Yeah.
• 42:09
  And sometimes the facility fees more than the doctor's fee, and that's a big deal.
• 42:14
  That's crazy.
• 42:15
  Okay, so what, what, so how do you go about checking?
• 42:19
  You said, okay, is this even your doctor?
• 42:20
  If it's not your doctor, probably something is funky there.
• 42:23
  But is there anything else that people should pay attention to?
• 42:26
  Well, I want to be straight with you how common this is because I don't want anybody going home convinced.
• 42:30
  Every doctor's bill has one of these.
• 42:32
  But in it showed up that this is happening more and more.
• 42:35
  So you just have to Communicate with your doctor.
• 42:38
  You just have to ask the question.
• 42:41
  Now the doctor's offices, like where do you expect to be charged from?
• 42:45
  Right, Exactly.
• 42:46
  And you know, a couple of tip offs.
• 42:47
  Number one is if you see all of a sudden the hospital's name and the doctor's name on a doctor's invoice, you can kind of figure out that they've changed to this type of billing structure where they're.
• 42:58
  And again, I understand why physicians are doing it.
• 43:00
  It's because the cost of everything has gone up.
• 43:02
  The cost of insurance has gone up.
• 43:05
  A lot of big deals for this.
• 43:07
  I think the best way to handle this is when you go to the doctor's office, you just say it straight up.
• 43:13
  You know, before your next appointment, call the billing office, not the front desk.
• 43:17
  Because here's the thing a lot of people don't get.
• 43:18
  Don't think about this.
• 43:19
  Don't call the front desk at the doctor's office.
• 43:22
  Those folks don't do the billing all appointments.
• 43:26
  Correct.
• 43:27
  They're appointments and checking in.
• 43:29
  Yeah.
• 43:29
  Here's a script that you can write down.
• 43:31
  Here's what I would suggest you do.
• 43:33
  Call the billing office.
• 43:34
  Most of the time they'll give you the number or you'll get it on the bill.
• 43:37
  And you ask them this question.
• 43:38
  Is this location billed as a hospital outpatient department and will I receive a separate hospital facility charge on top of the physician's fee?
• 43:46
  Please send me that in writing.
• 43:48
  Okay.
• 43:49
  And then you can ask the other question, a follow up question is, is the same medical service available at a location that is not hospital owned?
• 43:55
  And I think that's a fair question to ask your physician.
• 43:58
  You said hospital owned, right?
• 44:00
  Like hospital owned, not hospital loaned.
• 44:02
  Because that, that wouldn't make sense.
• 44:03
  Yeah.
• 44:04
  So in other words, this is one of those questions.
• 44:06
  If you've got a doctor that you love and you've been going to for a while, ask the question, now that you're affiliated with such and such hospital, is there going to be additional fees that I need to know
• 44:16
  about?
• 44:17
  Yeah.
• 44:17
  And you know, they need to be straight with you and say, hey, could be.
• 44:21
  Ask them for an itemized statement exactly what they were charged for.
• 44:25
  And then one of the other things, and we talked about this a little bit last week and my son's still working through this.
• 44:30
  As for the hospital's financial assistance policy, use those terms exactly.
• 44:35
  If you get one of these bills.
• 44:37
  Yes.
• 44:37
  If you get one of these bills, ask for it directly.
• 44:40
  What is your financial assistance policy?
• 44:44
  Ask for it by name.
• 44:44
  Because every Nonprofit hospital in the country is required by federal law to have a written financial assistance policy.
• 44:52
  They have to publicize it, and they have to explain how to apply for it for all medically necessary care the hospital provides.
• 44:59
  And the facility fee is a charge by the hospital, so it's inside of that policy.
• 45:04
  So ask for it by name.
• 45:06
  And having insurance doesn't disqualify you from it.
• 45:08
  So even if you have insurance, you still may be able to get the.
• 45:11
  And that's my son's case right now.
• 45:12
  He went to the er.
• 45:13
  I've talked about this last week.
• 45:15
  He's now working through the process, and he's freaking out about it.
• 45:18
  I said, son, they have a policy.
• 45:20
  The policy says you provide these documents.
• 45:23
  He's done that.
• 45:23
  I said, did you follow up?
• 45:25
  Well, yes.
• 45:26
  Okay.
• 45:26
  Did you get it in writing?
• 45:27
  Well, no.
• 45:27
  Okay, well, call back again, follow up, get it in writing.
• 45:30
  He says, well, dad, I'm afraid they're gonna send me to the collection agency.
• 45:34
  If you do your due diligence, they're not gonna do that.
• 45:37
  That Right.
• 45:37
  But you have to ask the questions.
• 45:39
  You know, what is your financial policy?
• 45:41
  Because all hospitals have them.
• 45:43
  But they're not going to.
• 45:44
  They have to publicize them.
• 45:45
  If you go to their website, like Christianicare is the one here locally.
• 45:48
  I went, right.
• 45:49
  It took me five minutes.
• 45:50
  I went to the.
• 45:50
  My son was sitting on the couch next to me.
• 45:52
  I said, let's go look at this.
• 45:53
  We pulled up the Internet, and I said, let's go to Christianicare.
• 45:56
  And I look at their billing financial, and here it is.
• 45:59
  I said, okay, let's read this together.
• 46:00
  And he goes, here's your this and here's your that got to the income requirements.
• 46:03
  I said, let's pull out.
• 46:04
  How much you make?
• 46:05
  Make.
• 46:05
  I said, okay, you're.
• 46:06
  You're one person.
• 46:07
  No other dependents, your income can.
• 46:09
  If it's any less than this, they'll cover it.
• 46:12
  He goes, well, that's great.
• 46:13
  I said, yeah.
• 46:14
  I said, but now you got to do your homework, pay attention to this, follow all the guidelines.
• 46:19
  He said, well, they told him it could be 45 days.
• 46:20
  I said, great.
• 46:22
  If they're going to write off $6,000 and you have to sit on your hands for 45 days, sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
• 46:29
  Yeah.
• 46:30
  Yeah.
• 46:30
  Well, those are very good tips.
• 46:32
  And hopefully anybody who finds themselves in this kind of a situation, make note of what.
• 46:38
  All the things that Ralph just told us right here.
• 46:41
  You know, there's an envelope on your desk right now, just picture that white envelope envelope sitting on your desk right now.
• 46:47
  It's been staring at you for 11 days.
• 46:50
  Well, if you signed up for stamps.com they can put real postage on from your own printer, and the carrier comes to your door to get it.
• 46:57
  No trip, no line.
• 46:58
  And with stamps.com you get 30 days for free.
• 47:01
  Then plans start as low as $14.99 a month.
• 47:03
  If you're interested in finding out more information about stamps.com you can go to becoming financially confident.com stamps again.
• 47:11
  That's becoming financially confident.com stamps.
• 47:15
  So check them out.
• 47:21
  All right.
• 47:21
  I hope everybody is ready for this week's money move.
• 47:25
  Like I said at the very top of the show, it's kind of an annoying thing to look into for this week's money move, but it will definitely help in the long run.
• 47:33
  So, Ralph, let us know, what is this week's money?
• 47:36
  So before I tell you what it is, $86 a month.
• 47:40
  For some people, that's what they think they're spending.
• 47:43
  But when we did the research, what we found was more like $219 a month.
• 47:48
  That's a gap of $133 a month.
• 47:50
  If you do the math, that's $1,596 a year.
• 47:55
  What we're talking about here is how much you're spending in subscriptions.
• 48:02
  Now, I'm not talking about prescriptions.
• 48:03
  I'm about subscriptions for streaming services, for other things you have that you just have signed up for.
• 48:09
  And they just happen automatically.
• 48:11
  Yeah, nobody guesses high on this number, but when you guess low, you don't realize it, because auto pay means nobody ever decides.
• 48:17
  It just keeps charging and keeps charging.
• 48:21
  And when you look at all of these different things, Deloitte and Touche is an accounting firm.
• 48:26
  What they found is it wasn't just streaming services.
• 48:29
  When they looked at what makes up the average $219, what the average person is spending only $69.
• 48:35
  That is streaming services.
• 48:37
  But here's the stats underneath of that, 60% of adults have at least one unused subscription.
• 48:42
  These are things they're paying for, but they don't use them.
• 48:45
  That average is just under $27 a month.
• 48:49
  That's $321 a year that you are just throwing out the door.
• 48:53
  Now, here's a couple things you can do right away.
• 48:55
  This is your homework for this week.
• 48:56
  But if you've got an iPhone, you can go into your settings and your name and subscriptions, and you can see exactly what you're paying For.
• 49:04
  And you can decide, well, you know what?
• 49:05
  I don't need that anymore.
• 49:07
  If you have an Android, you can go to the Play Store.
• 49:09
  Again, I don't have an Android, so I'm going by what it's telling me here.
• 49:12
  Go to the Play Store, go to your profile, and you click at payments and subscriptions.
• 49:17
  But here's the thing about those.
• 49:18
  That's only gonna show you what's in the App Store.
• 49:21
  The rest of them are hiding in PayPal in your Amazon membership.
• 49:25
  Maybe you've got a Roku or a Fire tv and sometimes it's on the merchant's own website.
• 49:31
  Yeah.
• 49:31
  So here's the work for this week.
• 49:33
  Pull your bank statements and your credit card statements for 12 months and go through and highlight every single one of these things.
• 49:43
  What you're going to find is going to amaze you.
• 49:47
  Juliet and I were at a conference a couple weeks ago, and there's a guy named Dave Jackson with the school of podcasting.
• 49:51
  He said, ralph, he says, I'm gonna do that.
• 49:53
  Juliet, you know what he found?
• 49:55
  He was spending money, a hundred dollars a month on a couple of subscriptions.
• 50:00
  One of them was $70 a month for a mastermind he hadn't attended in two years.
• 50:04
  And wait, that was a subscription?
• 50:06
  He was paying A$70 a month fee to be a member of this paid mastermind group.
• 50:12
  And he said when I went and did this, he goes, ralph, you saved me $100 a month.
• 50:16
  Yeah, that's the whole thing about this.
• 50:18
  So it's.
• 50:18
  Let me just.
• 50:20
  I was gonna say some.
• 50:21
  There's some other subscriptions that you may not think about.
• 50:24
  Right.
• 50:24
  Like if you have a credit card that has an annual fee, that is technically a subscription as well.
• 50:29
  Right?
• 50:30
  Absolutely.
• 50:30
  And you gotta ask the question, is it worth it?
• 50:34
  Is it worth to have this credit card?
• 50:35
  I see we got a couple of comments here.
• 50:36
  One is from Dutchess.
• 50:39
  Oh, my God, so much money on subscriptions.
• 50:41
  And then Cindy also put a comment out here.
• 50:45
  It's too much.
• 50:46
  But I love the idea of an audit.
• 50:48
  Yes, yes.
• 50:48
  So I think what Ralph is saying is really helpful.
• 50:51
  Like, you know, either download CSV files of 12 months of statements across all of your credit card statements or any other form of payment that you use, and then take a look at that.
• 51:03
  Maybe you find, oh, maybe I don't need the Amazon Prime.
• 51:05
  I can just stick with the Amazon.
• 51:07
  Right?
• 51:07
  Or maybe I don't need the.
• 51:09
  I.
• 51:09
  There's something that I do is I will go in bouts of streaming services and then just Canceling all of them after a while because I'm like, I'm, I'm too busy.
• 51:19
  I really want to, like, start building my own things.
• 51:21
  But then when time slows down, I'm like, oh, I want to catch up on all my Netflix shows.
• 51:25
  So then I'll do like Netflix for a month and then I cancel my subscription again.
• 51:29
  Like, that's, that's just what I do.
• 51:32
  But yeah, canceling subscriptions, it's one of my favorite feelings because whatever, I cancel and, and they make it hard to cancel because they're always like, are you sure you want to cancel?
• 51:42
  I'll give you a free month.
• 51:43
  I'll give you a cheaper month.
• 51:44
  Do you, Are you sure you want to cancel?
• 51:46
  Just hang on.
• 51:47
  And then that's just like delaying your cancel.
• 51:50
  Right?
• 51:50
  But whenever I click that cancel button, I go, oh, money is mine.
• 51:55
  And it's staying in my.
• 51:56
  I'm going to give it a dollar job framework.
• 51:58
  Am I going to put it to where I want it to go?
• 52:00
  You know?
• 52:01
  Yeah.
• 52:01
  And the thing is, they have retention departments.
• 52:03
  These people are trained to make you.
• 52:05
  Oh, but what if we do it for 50% off?
• 52:07
  What if we do it for 90% off?
• 52:08
  That's a game I like to play with.
• 52:10
  Sirius XM Radio is like, I just let that thing go away because when you try to cancel it, I'm telling you, it's like bloodletting.
• 52:17
  It is not an easy thing because we gotta talk to this person.
• 52:20
  Talk to this person.
• 52:21
  So I'll throw two more things at you.
• 52:23
  Here's one way you can do it.
• 52:24
  Get a throw down credit card.
• 52:25
  I love this idea.
• 52:27
  Get a credit card that is a prepaid credit card.
• 52:30
  And that way you can, you know, they can't automatically renew it.
• 52:33
  I'd much rather they were calling me and saying, hey, you can't.
• 52:36
  We're not getting any money from you.
• 52:37
  Yeah, too bad.
• 52:38
  Second thing is, make sure you're looking at PayPal.
• 52:41
  Make sure you're looking at Venmo.
• 52:43
  Make sure you're looking at all of those things that you don't even look at all the time because they may not be on your credit card statement, but they're still coming out of your bank account.
• 52:50
  So that's your homework for this week.
• 52:52
  Go to every single account you have and go see what you're paying for on a monthly basis.
• 52:57
  And for most people, it's eye opening.
• 53:00
  They don't realize what they've been doing.
• 53:03
  Right, Right.
• 53:04
  I actually want to follow up on last week's Money move.
• 53:07
  I wonder, have every single person who is listening to the show right now.
• 53:11
  Have every one of you guys automated some transfer into your high yield savings account.
• 53:15
  Just put one for yes and two for I'm getting there.
• 53:19
  You know, just put it in the chat because I think that's also really important.
• 53:24
  We want to like.
• 53:25
  Oh, I think absolutely true.
• 53:26
  I mean, all of these things we're talking about are about being more intentional with your money.
• 53:29
  See, Infoseeker says even if I don't want to cancel, at least get your price down.
• 53:34
  Internet provider is a great one to do.
• 53:36
  Yeah.
• 53:36
  So that's the thing.
• 53:37
  Negotiate these things.
• 53:39
  Yeah.
• 53:39
  Because they don't want you.
• 53:40
  If you get a retention person on the phone, you can have such fun with that person because you can just absolutely play the game of, well, how much lower can we go?
• 53:48
  Well, can you do it for this?
• 53:49
  Well, can you do it for this?
• 53:50
  I just love it.
• 53:52
  Yeah.
• 53:53
  I want to share one more tool, though, if you're thinking about doing this.
• 53:56
  And there's a tool that we have as an affiliate relationship called Quicken.
• 54:00
  And the reason I link this, because it's going to really answer that question.
• 54:03
  What did you spend last month?
• 54:05
  So many people don't know that it's not what you earn, what you spent.
• 54:09
  I've spent 30 years of doing this very thing and I've never once had a person guess the number too high.
• 54:14
  They always guess too low.
• 54:16
  Now Quicken has a product called Simplify.
• 54:18
  Simplify connects your accounts and it answers this for you.
• 54:22
  If you've got subscriptions, you're going to see this right away, but then it does the harder thing.
• 54:27
  It shows you what's safe to spend for the rest of the month after the bills and the money are already spoken for.
• 54:32
  So I love Quicken Simplify.
• 54:34
  You can find out more about their product by going to becomingfinanciallyconfident.comquicken again, that's becoming financiallyconfident.comquicken.
• 54:45
  So check them out.
• 54:46
  It's a great service so you can tie all your bank accounts into it, your PayPal, all those things that you're going to get those things.
• 54:52
  And you can see right away what's going on with each of those transactions.
• 55:04
  Let's talk about what's going to happen tomorrow on this show.
• 55:06
  We're diving back into the dollar job framework.
• 55:09
  We're going to start by doing a quick review of the dream stage.
• 55:11
  And then we're going to go step by step through the discovery and design phases, which is exactly what we've been talking about today.
• 55:17
  Where is your money actually going?
• 55:19
  We're going to show you how to do that by looking back 30 to 45 days.
• 55:23
  And then we're going to start designing the dollar job framework.
• 55:26
  So that just show you don't want to miss.
• 55:29
  Yeah.
• 55:29
  So definitely come tomorrow prepared with your dream.
• 55:32
  And, you know, this week's money move is part of that discovery phase.
• 55:35
  Like, this week's money move is specifically about subscriptions, but it will help you discover, like, where at least some of your expenses are going towards.
• 55:42
  So.
• 55:43
  Yeah.
• 55:43
  Because if you don't have clarity of where your money's going to, you're never going to be able to manage it.
• 55:48
  Listen, this is not a comfortable thing you're going to say, oh, man, I didn't realize I was spending so money on eating out or I was spending so much money on subscriptions.
• 55:57
  But until you have that clarity, you're never going to become financially confident.
• 56:01
  So that's the first step in defying that clarity, discovering where your money's going.
• 56:06
  Yes.
• 56:07
  So come prepared tomorrow.
• 56:09
  Well, that is it for today's episode of becoming financially confident.
• 56:13
  Well, I'm Ralph Estepp Jr.
• 56:15
  And I'm Juliet.
• 56:16
  And if you've got a question you want us to talk about on this show, we'd love to hear your questions.
• 56:19
  You can also send us a voicemail, but you can do all of that by going to becoming financially confident dot com.
• 56:26
  Join us tomorrow at becomingfinanciallyconfident dot com live.
• 56:31
  Because every day on the show, we're breaking free from money shame.
• 56:34
  One conversation at a time, and we will see you on tomorrow's show.
• 56:39
  Thank you, everyone.