Latest / Financial Survival Network / Escaping the Holiday Debt Trap - Paul Oster - #6195

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Escaping the Holiday Debt Trap - Paul Oster - #6195 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You need a twelve month emergency fund. And if you
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: have all of that stuff in place and you don't
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: have credit card debt, then you start to figure out
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: what you can actually afford to spend your money on.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: But you've got to put the household budget into place.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We need to run our households like small businesses easily. Easily,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty five fifty, maybe one hundred transactions every
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: single week. Again, if you have children, it could be
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: much much higher than that.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Carrie Let'sa's Financial Survival Network where you
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: get valuable information. You just can't find anywhere else to
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival
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• 0:50
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• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Ed Welcome.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: You aren't listening to the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Kerry Let's Hey, it's only December third. We're just getting
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: into the season. You know, it's the season to be
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: buying fa la la la la. Deck the halls with advertising,
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: and you've got to protect yourself because they're biohacking you.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: You don't even know they're doing it, but they're doing
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: it things like buy now, pay later and all that
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: good stuff. And our good friend Paul Ausker is with
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: us now from better Qualified dot com. You got a
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: question for myself or fall, please shoot me an email
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: k el at kerry Let's dot com. Paul, welcome back.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: So is the season to be buying and going in
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: deeper into debt? And now that the election's over, at
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: least some portion of the population seems to be very
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: happy about it. And what can we expect here?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Well, unfortunately, I think we're going to expect, you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the same thing that happened last year, that a lot
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of consumers are going to wake up with a hangover
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in January. And it's not going to be from you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the Christmas punch. It's going to be from putting more
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: money on their credit cards, increasing their credit card balances.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like this, you know, cyclical every year,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: people in a crisis or in a crisis mode at
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: this point in time, and they just fall back and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: again lean on credit cards. They lean on you know.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Now you have this buy now, pay later option which
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: seems almost too good to be true, and it is
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: right they make it seamless, you get approved instantly. But
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the problem is, you know, just like when they had
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: first introduced credit cards, where you get asked, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: if you want to get a discount on your purchases today,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: all you have to do is apply for a point
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of sale credit card. And these are marketing geniuses, So
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: what they know are two things. A, You're going to
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: spend more money than you normally would if you open
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: that card or you do something through buy now, Pay later,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And B you're ultimately going to carry a balance and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: you're paying you know, interest rates probably above twenty percent
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: at this point. So whatever discounts that you get, whatever
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, motivation that you had when you when
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you open the card or you use to buy now,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: pay later program, it just quickly gets eaten up and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: washed away and consumers are left, you know, holding the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: bag or holding the gift, so to speak. Look, there
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: are some consumers carry that still have debt on their
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: credit cards from last holiday season, and this is not
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: an uncommon, you know situation. You I'm sure you've seen.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Credit card debt is growing and raising at a rate
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that we've never seen before. So it's a very very
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: scary situation.
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  Speaker 3: Credit cards going like government.
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  Speaker 4: Debts going up, and it's unsustainable and really like on
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: a macro level, it's unsustainable. On a micro level, you
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: can do things to deal with your consumer debt and
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: make it go away.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, so the first thing is that when people
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: are coming into this holiday season and look, we're already
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: in it. We we all. You know, cost Go had
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: had Christmas stuff up I think around Halloween, right, so
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: this elongate.
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  Speaker 3: I thought it was Labor Day. This year they Christmas.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's it's certainly an extended you know, buying season,
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  Speaker 1: and that only leads to consumers again spending more money.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I spoke the other day. Uh, I was on the
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  Speaker 1: news and they were asking me about Cyber Monday. But
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Cyber Monday Day is now Cyber Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Look at Black Friday, they don't really call it Black Friday.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: It's now Black Friday week, right, So Amazon and all
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the online giants, it's not just one day anymore. It's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: an entire week to entice people to spend money that
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  Speaker 1: they don't have. And again, the average consumer, they don't understand,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you know, credit cards are the gift that keep on taking,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: not keep on giving. So you know, we have to
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have a budget. How much money can you actually afford
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to spend on gifts this holiday season? And that answer
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: maybe zero. If you have any credit card debt on
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: your credit cards right now. This might be the year
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: that you make something or bake something. And this is
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: something else that I've been stressing. If you give somebody
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a personalized gift, if it costs you five dollars, you know,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: maybe their favorite thing, isanut, butter, or chocolate. If you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: give that person a really personable, customized gift, they will
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: remember that you made them feel good. Think about the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: gifts that you got last year. You might not be
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: able to remember anything that you actually got or who
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  Speaker 1: gave it to you. So we really have to take
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a step back and be disciplined this year. Again, I've
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: heard this coming into this season, Paul. We've been down
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: this road before and we always seem to, you know,
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  Speaker 1: pull ourselves out of it. But this is a very
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: very different road. There are more twists and turns. We're
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: traveling at warp speed, and there are just that many
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: more potholes you know that we're going to hit along
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  Speaker 1: the way. So it's up to us as individuals figure
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  Speaker 1: out the number. If the number zero, well then start
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  Speaker 1: making cards, start doing things to help people, and figure
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  Speaker 1: it out that way. If the number is two hundred, okay,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: now how many people are on you know, your good list?
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  Speaker 1: And divide that number up. If you've divided equally, it's
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  Speaker 1: easy if you have to, you know, give a couple
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  Speaker 1: of people a little bit more than just do it
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  Speaker 1: that way. But if you go in and you just
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  Speaker 1: have a number of people in your head names and
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you're going to pick out the gifts online or when
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you get to the store, that is just simply not
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  Speaker 1: the way.
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  Speaker 3: To do it. Yeah.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So the budget thing, when you have somebody come
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: in and you know what's going on with them, how
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: do you help somebody create a budget who's never had
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: one in their lives.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It's actually really simple. It's much easier said than done.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But look, this is not complicated. I'm not saying it's easy,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: but it's not complicated. You have to figure out basically,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: we're all on a fixed income. If your income varies,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: take the last twenty four months and you know, divide
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: it up by twenty four and that'll be your monthly income.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And then you have to figure out your expenses, and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I mean all of your expenses. You and I had
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: one of the last shows recently that we talked about
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  Speaker 1: we've become this nation of subscriptions, and the average household
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: is now over two hundred dollars a month in subscriptions Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, Roadblocks, Xbox,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: PS three. It just goes on and on and on. Then,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: if you have a couple of kids, you're easily over
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: two hundred bucks a month in subscriptions. So figure out
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: how to cancel your subscriptions. Again, you and I spoke
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  Speaker 1: about it. You don't need a company, You don't need
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to pay a subscription to a company to figure out
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: how many subscriptions you actually have. Do it on your own.
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  Speaker 1: Go through your credit card statements and your bank statements
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  Speaker 1: and figure out what you're spending your money on every
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  Speaker 1: single month. And then it's just a it's a numbers game.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: This is how much money I take home. It's not
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: gross pay, it's net after taxes. This is how much
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: income and revenue is coming into my household. These are
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: our expenses. Are you putting money into a retirement plan?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Do you have we used to say a six month
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: emergency fund. We all now know that's not enough time.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You need a twelve month emergency fund. And if you
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: have all of that stuff in place and you don't
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: have credit card debt, then you start to figure out
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: what you can actually afford to spend your money on.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: But you've got to put the household budget into place.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: We need to run our households like small businesses easily easily,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty five fifty maybe one hundred transactions every
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: single week. Again, if you have children, it could be
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: much much higher than that. Who is the CFO of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: your household? Who's watching the numbers to make sure you
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: can't figure out after you know everyone has spent the money.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Oh dad, by the way, Uh, you know I needed
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: new tires. Oh, by the way, we had to do this,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, we and then at the end of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the month we're like, wait a second, we went way
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: way over our budget. So someone has to be watching
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  Speaker 1: this and monitoring it almost on a daily basis for sure. Again, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: spend more. Most people spend more time on social media
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and doing all the things that you know aren't going
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to help them. So you got to help yourself.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love it.
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  Speaker 4: And it's too common sense, right, and but common sense
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  Speaker 4: is in very scarce supply these days, isn't it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Common sense always isn't always common So and look when
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: we talk about budgets too, Carrie, I now say you
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: need you need two budgets because one is the money,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the other one is time. The amount of people right
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  Speaker 1: now consumer are spending an average of six hours a
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: week shopping online, and that number goes way up during
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the holiday season. Six hours of our lives every single
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  Speaker 1: week are spent shopping online. That's crazy. So you have
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: to budget your money and you have to budget your time.
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  Speaker 1: Do not go down these you know, rabbit holes looking
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  Speaker 1: you know, what's the next best thing, what's the latest
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  Speaker 1: and greatest, what's the shiniest thing? Oh, look over here,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: look over there. You can get pinged back and forth,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you know again, for hours and hours and hours looking
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: for a gift or something for yourself. Look, if you
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: need something, you find it within minutes. If you're just
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: browsing and looking and hoping that something pops up again,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you could be hours into that exercise. And by the way,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you know, probably wasting your hard earned money when you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: actually click you know.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, so true, Wow, so true.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: The case of the out of preventions with the with
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: the bankruptcy filing.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Right, and again, I always talk about consumers. You know,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: credit card debt is really really hurting us five thousand
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dollars if you only and right now, the average person
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: is over six thousand dollars in credit card debt. If
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you have five thousand dollars in credit card debts and
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you only pay the minimum payment towards that credit card,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: it'll take you almost thirty years. That is not an exaggeration.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: It's going to take you about thirty years to pay
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it off, and it's going to wind up costing you
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: over twenty thousand dollars. Think about that. Those are those
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: are real numbers. That's real time. So the problem is
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it's become painless. Apple pay, I mean I think there's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's already available.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You can pay with scanning the palm of your hand,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: your fingerprints, clicks of a button.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Again, I want to pay by sitting in their faces.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: Can we do that?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, but then you're going to have to pay
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: a lawyer and you have to post bail. So you
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: got to be careful, got to be really really careful.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: But yeah, like you go to Whole Food and you
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: can so you can pay biometrically. I refuse to do that.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: It's like I can take out my iPhone and scan
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: it or my watch.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I don't need to be doing that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: But you know, one serious note, like there is a
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: watch dog out there that does perfect you as a consumer.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: And we could.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Debate how effective they've been since their formation in two
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: thousand and eight. It was Liz Warren's little brainchild called
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and spent a lot of
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: the existence mired and litigation. They have done some things,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: arguably to help consumers. A lot of what they've done
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: is completely useless. What's you know, the incoming and men
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: want to kind.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Of do away with this organization.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: They say it's torments and torture banks.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: What's you're feeling about it?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think it's like everything right. They
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned that they have done some good things.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: One of the things, because we're you know, very very
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: involved in the real estate industry, they're going after data
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: brokers who literally have access, unbeknownst to us, to our
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: most sensitive non public information, our names, our addresses, dates
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of birth, so security numbers. Those things get sold. Are
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: our annual household incomes? All of this stuff, how many
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: bank accounts we have, Do we have a checkings or
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: savings account? All that information is sold to other marketing
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: companies without our knowledge. And we just had one of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the biggest data breaches in history. And again I think
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you and I I spoke about it. It almost got
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: no fanfare. It wasn't picked up. It wasn't people weren't
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: screaming from the tops of their lungs that some third
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: party data broker who should never have had access to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: over two hundred million files again with all of that
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: very sensitive, sensitive data, and they failed to change the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: password on their website. They used the default password when
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: they when they accepted that file and access, you know,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to that to that information, didn't change the password. I mean,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: it was like the cyber security criminals must have been like,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: this is this is crazy.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: They must have.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Thought it was like clickbait or something like, there's no
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: way they didn't change the password. But it came up.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You know, when they run their scans, there's an actual
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: software that will tell you this person didn't change the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: default password, there's still using the same password that was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: given to them when they open the account, and it
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: just makes it very very simple for people to gain access.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So the CFPP is going after data brokers, specifically within
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the real estate industry. When you apply for a mortgage,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: when you fill out an application, when someone pulls your credit,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it's called the trigger lead. That information then gets sold
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to other banks and companies without your permission. So that's
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: one of the good things they've done. But unfortunately, like
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you said, what we've talked about, they also impose a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: tremendous and maybe a ridiculous amount of restrictions and you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: they put all of these you know, things in place,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and it really hinders our ability and the bank's ability
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to lend money for people to start new businesses. So
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I think the organization has to be cleaned up. I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: think they're a ridge. You know, maybe the original intent
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: we've lost. They've lost their way, right, So they got
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to go back to protecting the consumers from the bad guys,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the real bad guys, and you know, not be involved
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in every single you know, in corporate America the way
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: that they have been.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, agreed, agreed, you know, the overreach, and you know
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: they're they're very existent from the get go.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Is really in question.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It comes from attacks on federal institutions that never even gets.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Allocated by Congress.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: And you know, the Supreme Court partially partially turned them
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: down that they weren't constitutional. But if they picked that,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: and you know, like one of the things I am
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: from the government, I'm here.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: To help you, Paul, Yeah, with smoking mirrors and one
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: hand out this side and taking the money you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: directly or indirectly out of your pockets with the other hand, so.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Rain in these credit card rates which are absolutely outrageous.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: And because that I can get twenty plus percent interest,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: they won't make loans businesses, you know, they allocate their
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: funds toorts, computers towards consumers rather and that's really the
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: worst thing for the economy, isn't it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: It is?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: And look, I've now been saying this when I've really
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: started to step back and take a look how that
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: industry has been behaving and the fees and the amount
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of money that they've been making, and they just keep
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: pushing the envelope right, And when you think about it,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: they're doing that because there is about to be a dramatic,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, change in the way that we pay for things.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: You have companies like Plaid and Stripe and Haypal and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: zell and it's going to be bank to bank without
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: paying the middleman. And the middleman are are you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the big big credit card companies Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Why
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: do I need Why do I need to pay them?
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: You know, especially debit cards, debit cards that are credit cards.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You know the merchant has to pay a transaction fee.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Why that money is coming directly out of my checking account. So, uh,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: there's going to be very, very sooner than later, a
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: dramatic shift in the way that we pay for goods
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and services, and the credit card companies might become extinct obsolete.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: We don't really need them at this point in time.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: There are technologies and softwares that that they can, you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: verify and validate that you have the money in your
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: account in milliseconds. So it'll be bank to bank with
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: minimal or no fees for sure. So these credit card
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: companies are saying, we better make as much money as
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: we possibly can right now. Until the government steps in
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and stops us or finds us, they're just going to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: continue to push the envelope, and unfortunately consumers and merchants
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: who accept credit cards will wind up paying the price.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And look, you saw it. One of the really really
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: bad things that happened, you know, after COVID is now
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the merchants figured out, well, why don't I just pass
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that fee on to my consumer? And now that's so
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: many merchants are doing it. There's no pushback from the consumer.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Everyone just says, oh yeah, it says it right on
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the bottom. If you're using a credit card, you're going
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to pay three point eight percent, you're going to pay
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: four percent, whatever that number is. The merchants are now
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: just passing that on to the consumer, and we don't
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: need it right now. Right One of the other things
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that we have to you know, consider and talk about.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Interest rates are coming down, albeit slowly, but I know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you know, the cost of goods and services hasn't changed
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: at all. It's probably ticked up even more so. Inflation
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: is still a real, real, real concern, uh for not
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: just myself, but you know many of the other analysts
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that are out there. The cost of goods and services
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: have increased so quickly over the past two years. The
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: average family is paying well over five hundred dollars for
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the same exact goods and services that they were paying
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: for two years ago. Now, when you couple that coming
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: into the holiday season with hidden expenses, the cost of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: going out restaurants have you know, the price to go
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: out to eat has jumped. You know, it's double digits.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It's not it's not three percent, it's not the rate
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of it's eighteen percent, twenty two percent. So all of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: those hidden expenses. Travel is way up, you know, clothing,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: everything costs that much more. And during the holiday season,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: all of those activities you know, have a tendency to
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: increase along with just spending money on gifts. So it's
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: all those hidden expenses that come into the holiday season again, uh, recreation, socializing, travel, clothing.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You just really really have to be careful here.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're a target. Well, I find it interesting that
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: the credit card business to exist because right now, if
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: you have a phone, you know, Apple can just go
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: right to the bank. They don't really use I mean,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: I guess these are after card get their cut no
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: matter what. But Apple doesn't need doesn't care what it said,
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: whether it's these are a Master car American Express. They
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: can just go right to the bank, any bank in
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: the country that's in their network Apple Pay, and they're
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: taking the money. But with all these other ways to pay,
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: the sult's going to be gone to.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: You know, there's no doubt. So you know that's that's
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: like the perfect example. Sooner than later, Apple's going to say,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we do not have to pay visa for that transaction.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: We can be linked directly to every consumer who uses
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Apple Pay, we can be linked directly to their bank
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: again through plaids Strip, there's other companies out there, Finicity,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and they'll verify that the funds are there and the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: transaction will go through. You don't have to pay literally
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: three percent on every single transaction. And when it's Starbucks
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: or you know, ten Bucks here it all adds up.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: But then when you start to think about people are
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: putting big ticket items on their credit cards, it's it
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: could be hundreds of dollars in transaction fees. Why do
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I have to pay that much? It's not like they
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: have to. It's not like digging a hole. The bank
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and the credit card company don't have to work harder
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: to process a transaction that's that much more money. It's
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the same amount of work, same amount of software and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: effort that has to go into it, and yet they
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: charged the same the same They charge the same percentage
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: transaction fee, whether it's two dollars or two thousand dollars.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: I couldn't agree with you more. It's a big grip.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Maybe you didn't start out as a grif because originally,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: you know, credit cards, it was.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: All about convenience. You didn't have to carry the cash.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: And then you know, even the original American Express cards
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: were not credit cards, they were charge cards a lot different.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: So I think we'll go back to some charging medium,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: whether it's the.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Apple Pay or whatever it might be.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You know, that's right. We're never going to go We're
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: never going to sacrifice the convenience that we've all have
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: now been accustomed to. So you don't walk around with cash,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you can literally carry your phone, you don't even need
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the physical card anymore. None of that stuff's going away.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: It's just going to be how it's processed. And again,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it could be a very very good thing, or should
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: be a very very good thing for the consumer. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you're right, you know, the story about the diners Club card,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: which was the first credit's been around forever right, you
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: could go back to the early early seventeen eighteen hundreds
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and credit was being used, you know back then. Now
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: it's just gotten to a point. The day that the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: banks figured out we can allow the consumer to carry
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a balance and charge them interest on it, that was
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a really bad day in this So it's not having
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a card for convenience. You don't have you don't have
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: enough cash on you, or you don't have enough cash
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: in your account right now, but you need to make
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: this purchase. So you used a charge card and you
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: have thirty days to pay it off. That's what we
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: need to do.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, it's amazing. You know, I
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: just went to Europe to visit my son and it's
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: the first time. Well, I've never even changed any money.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: I didn't change anything because every place I just swipe
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: you know, my iPhone and I.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Have the wallet. Whether you have a Google Android, that
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: doesn't really matter. And I never.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Converted any currency. I've never done that before anytime on
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: a trip overseas.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yep, Nope, then you shouldn't have to. You shouldn't have
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to if I didn't.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Do it, and nobody even now I carried.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Cash, even though I know, you know.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: You use it to pay Yesterday, I pay for my
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: haircut and I pay for the need and that's the
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: only thing I really use.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I hope your listeners, you know, take
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: that advice and try and adopt, you know, that that
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: lifestyle and that approach to finance's personal finances, because you're
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that much less likely to get yourself in a pinch
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and in debt by operating that way.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: All right, Paul, it's better qualified dot com and there's
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of free resources available. I would suggest if
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: you're having issues or you think you might, you really
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: want to visit there, and you can always call Paul
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: as well. And if you have any questions for Paul
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: or myself, shoot me an email Heyl at Terry Lufs
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: dot com. You'll find a link to better qualified dot
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: com in the show that this interview on Financial Survive.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Network dot com.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: And I would just ask if you visit the site,
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: please sign up for your free weekly newsletter. Like over
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: sixty thousand of your fellow FSI and community members have
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: wish everybody happy, healthy and financially and fiscally saying holiday, Paul,
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: It's always a pleasure be well.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Thanks j having me back on Kerry, thanks for listening to
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: carry Lets's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Survival Network
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Now more than ever,