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Always Live Under Your Means -- Esther Kuznetz #5800 · Financial Survival Network

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  You're listening to Carrie Lets's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you
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  just can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the
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  Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survival Network dot com
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  and get your free newsletter in gift Financial Survival Network now more than ever.
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  And welcome you are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,
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  Carrie Lets. Financial Health. Well, that's like you should be concerned
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  about your physical health. You need to be concerned about your financial health.
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  But whereas eating can fix your personal health, your maximize optimize your physical health,
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  well, you've got to do something more for financial health. And with
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  us. Now we've got a new guest that I know you're going to really
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  get into her message. Esther has nets and Esther, it's great to have
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  you on the show. So how do you define of financial health? Because
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  physical health it's like what's your blood sugar, your A one C, your
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  cholesterol, your triglycerides. What's the equivalent measure for your financial health? Well,
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  first of all, thank you Carrie for having me. I really appreciate
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  being on the show. So financial health basically is when you really you don't
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  have to worry so much about how you're going to pay the bills. You
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  know, if you if you want to go to a nine stander, you
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  can afford to do that. You're not borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.
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  That's financial health the way I see it. You have money in the bank
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  if if something were to happen, you could afford to take care of it.
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  Should you lose your job, you've got money to live on for a
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  few months. You've got if you're not retired yet, you've got a good
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  start on it, so that at some point you're not going to have to
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  worry. To me, that's truly what financial health is. Okay, I'll
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  buy it. So you know, physical health is easier to measure than financial
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  health. What you're describing this kind of like, all right, so you
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  got six months of emergency expenses in the bank. All right, you're not
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  you want to buy something? You could buy it, like you said,
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  go out to dinner. You know that's getting more and more expensive every day.
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  But it's harder to measure, though. Is there an objective measure for
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  it? I think it's how you're sleeping at night. That's how I measure
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  it with my clients. You know, how are you sleeping? Are you
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  up all I worrying about paying the bills? Are you concerned that you know,
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  you got a kid in college and he might have to leave because you
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  can't cover it and he's not covering it? Financial health? Are you worried
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  about your debt because that's a huge one, you know, is your debt
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  in order or are you really over ended and you don't know how to get
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  rid of some of that? And that's even growing, especially this year and
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  last year with the interest rates going up, and it's gotten way out at
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  hand. So you know, maybe maybe it's easier to know. I fear
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  financially unhealth because you're freaking out all the time. But it is so important.
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  Of course, if you are up all the time and you are nervous
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  and freaking out, as I would say, that is going to affect your
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  physical health and big ways for sure, for sure. So I mean,
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  I guess your advisory company, you help people build their financial health, build
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  your financial health. When you're evaluating a prospective client, what do you what
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  do you look for? Well, first of all, what's the debt and
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  how much you got how much are you bringing in? You know, money
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  and money out is obviously huge. And then once we take care of money
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  and money out, how much do you have for retirement based on how old
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  you are and when you want to retire, do you have other money that
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  might not be in a retirement account that you can get to is maybe you
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  need when you need a new car, or if your air conditioner goes out
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  in the middle of August. Those types of things we work on. And
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  then you know, of course, the next step is, well, we
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  got to grow your assets. How much risk are you're going to take,
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  and how we're going to invest it. But the first thing we look at
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  is the whole picture of who this person is, where they are financially,
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  what are the problems out, and what are the pluses, you know,
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  what are they ahead of the curve on? And then from there it's a
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  lot easier to move forward. Okay, And so just give us an example
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  of somebody who came in who is financially near rigor Mortis and you help,
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  you help, they're turn it all around. Um okay, So I've actually
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  had the talk up with the clients that were over seventy and I even had
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  one over eighty and I actually had to tell him, you got to get
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  a job. You are what you're gonna You're gonna run out of money,
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  and you need to get some kind of a side hustle somewhere. I don't
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  care if it's part time. Find something you like to do, but we
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  need to get you set, and we need to really you need to bring
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  in way more money. Not only that, but how many times are you
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  going out to eat? That's got to stop. You know, you need
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  to really be careful how you're doing this. How much time are you spending
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  on Amazon? That's a huge one. So it's it's tightening the belt,
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  it's bringing him more sometimes, and that's a really really hard conversation. And
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  I have I've had people commit with ten thousand dollars to their name that they
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  wanted to invest with me, yet they were over fifty five thousand dollars in
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  debt and they'd known anything. So it's like, you know, you can't
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  do this. You got to take a real hard look at yourself. It's
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  a you know out I understand you don't want to work, but at sixty
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  five years old, you're going to have to do something because this is not
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  going to sustain you. That's a that's a harsh financial wake up call,
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  isn't he Yes, it is. It's horrible, all right. So did
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  they listen to you? I don't know, and I haven't heard from him
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  again, you know. And sometimes as they were leaving, I said,
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  you didn't know about this, right, and they said, yeah, I
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  guess we just had to hear it. But we didn't want to hear it.
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  You know, we were hoping that you'd have a better idea, So
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  well, what are you supposed to do? But you know what, my
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  crystal ball doesn't always work and my magic wand is lost, so you know,
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  this is on view at this point. So in other words, the
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  thing to tell that person is the lottery is not a business plan or a
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  financial plan for success. Right, that's that's not your retirement. That is
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  not the lottery exactly. Think yet people are into not huh a lot and
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  you know, and then you get those that have plenty and they're afraid to
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  spend it. You know, you have the other side where they have all
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  kinds of body and you know they're still going to consignment shops or there are
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  shoes are roll you know, forty eecres. So it's like, do yourself
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  a favor. You could do this, you know you can afford this,
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  and they're they're afraid to spend anything, so and they are financially healthy,
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  and then so yeah, well they're like financially anorexic, feric you will.
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  You know, they're living in a scarcity mindset, which you know, living
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  beneath your means is really the best way that I've seen. They're really build
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  wealth and really have a great retirement. Unfortunately, I is never one of
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  those who could do it. I tried that, and then it's like,
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  what I try to help my clients with living beneath your means rather than living
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  outside your means. And you know they'll lease the car you can't afford it,
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  get something news do you know that kind of thing, and you know,
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  put money aside. Let's take x amount out of your checking account every
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  single month and start a plan that way so that you know you can grow
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  something to get started on. I don't care how old you are, it's
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  never too late to start your financial health and start digging yourself out and so
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  you could be more comfortable in the future. Yeah, Hey, it just
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  makes so much sense. So emotional maturity is a lot like financial maturity.
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  That is, you put off pleasure today or a return and get better tomorrow.
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  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, But getting people to see the wisdom of
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  this not easy. Sometimes they've already seen it again. They just need to
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  be get, you know, smacked in the face with its. Somebody else
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  has to tell them, you know, you need to get out and do
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  something. This is not working. It's not going to work. And you
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  know, if you're only bringing in twenty thousand a year and you are spending
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  forty thousand a year, you gotta know it's it's not gonna lie and you
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  got nothing in the bank. You know, you can't keep living off of
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  debt. And the big problem that I saw as the real estate was going
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  up is people were taking home equity lines on a value of their house,
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  which I believe was a false value. And now those home equity lines,
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  the interest rates have shot up, the houses are worth a little bit less,
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  and they got to pay off this debt, and they still aren't making
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  enough. You know, they'd making what they were making before when they were
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  living off the home equity. So it's a huge problem and it's out there
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  and it's going to it's catching up to a lot of people. Yeah,
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  and you went in debt to keep maintain your lifestyle and then you wind up
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  housing prices go down and you could be underwater. Correct, And it's your
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  lifestyle that's really underwater and you don't want to see it, and you need
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  to change your lifestyle. You need to save more, do less. If
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  you're going to restaurants f times a week and they're costing you one hundred and
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  fifty dollars a time, maybe I ought to stop doing that and seeing what
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  makes more sense, like eating home or at least going to lower price restaurants
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  once or twice, and that's it. Yeah, okay, all right,
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  well I'm not going to listen to you. But then again, probably not
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  the person you want is applying anyway. You know, it's certainly them living
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  beneath my means. Now, took me decades to get there, but one
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  day I just woke up. And sometimes though, does it pay to go
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  a little bit more than your means to get something that you think is going
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  to have a payoff in the future. Sometimes it might, but you really
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  need to think long and hard about it. I mean, if it's going
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  to break you, No, because you're never going to get there. But
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  if you see a possibility and you don't do it all the time, the
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  problem is once somebody does it, once I see them doing it, you
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  know, it becomes an abbot. Just like people that take money out of
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  their FO one case because they're not financially healthy, and so they take money
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  out of their for one case and they look at it like a piggy bank
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  and then it's gone. If you never take that first amount out, it
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  will be there until you retire. But once that first withdrawal happens, what
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  I see is it's gone, and it just becomes a piggybank. So the
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  whole thing of it is if you want to do something because you see it's
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  a it's an investment or whatever it is, one time is five, But
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  once it gets to be a habit then you're gonna put yourself right back under
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  water again. You got to be really, really careful. Yeah, So
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  you want to learn from your past mistakes, not to keep repeating them over
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  and over again, which so many of you out there do. Yeah.
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  So now you save this money, where are you putting it? Esther?
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  Well, since I'm a financial advisor, I generally put it in the stock
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  market hit by and then at this point, with a recession possibly on the
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  way, probably on the way, I've tightened the belt there and not getting
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  too aggressive and portfolios, but you know, again at this point, not
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  reaching for the trees and wanting to grow assets as much as maybe a couple
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  of years ago, but mostly locking it in, keeping it in the borings,
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  you know, big dividend paying stocks. And I'm adding to my bond
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  portfolio. Even though the interest rates are going to go up, I believe
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  it's only going to happen once or twice more, not that much. And
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  once recession its will drop them again. It'll be nice to have them in
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  there. So that's basically, you know, I keep it easy and mostly
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  you know, the regular liquid assets, and if things go worse than I
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  expect, I can just go right to cash. Okay, And where do
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  you keep your cash? Now? With the banking racists in full swing,
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  there are still very good banks and you know, I mean the clearing firms
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  are safe in liquid and it's not all it's a few banks. And I
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  mean I was in the industry back in O eight. You know, we
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  had some big ones go. And I think we learned a lot from that.
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  Where the government comes in just like they just did over the weekend and
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  find some big conglomerate be to come take it over and make everything sound again.
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  And no, I don't see that changing, and I don't see that
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  really being a huge problem this time. All right, for your mouth,
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  the one thing you should learn is that if Barney Frank is on your bank's
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  board, don't put money there. You be careful well, and again,
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  you know, the larger banks, you never you're not going to have a
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  problem with because they're you know, they're financially sound at this point. And
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  I don't see anything going on there, although not to say it can't happen.
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  I use Bear Stearns once upon a time, a long time ago,
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  so I get it buying company that no longer exists. Yeah, yeah,
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  But in all seriousness, well, Dodd Frank is dead, which is a
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  good thing because Dodd Frank embraced the whole concept that legislatively embraced the bailing concept.
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  And when you've got a system that's fraction or reserved, you can't you
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  can't ask the depositors to bail out the entity that they had no control over
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  whatsoever other than to deposit money into it. Right, that will destroy the
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  confidence whatever measure is left in the system and lead to a major financial collapse.
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  So I don't see that now. Um, I see, yeah,
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  I see big problems still with real estate to you know, and and the
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  loans. You know, these loans are the interest rates going up and the
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  people can't afford to pay that off. I see problems with you know,
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  other stuff. But as far as these banks go, Um, the one
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  bank that had all these treasuries, I thought that was brilliant. The government
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  buy the treasuries off of them, give them the cash they need, and
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  then they'll just hold on to them and keep the interest and actually make money
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  on the deal to bank stays, you know, solve it and everything works
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  in the end. There's different answers for different problems, but I think so
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  far they've been able to keep things pretty much moving forward, which is financially
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  healthy for all of us. Well, it's a mandatory because once there's a
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  loss of faith in the banking industry, that it's all over. Well,
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  yeah, you know, they should have dealt with sv SVB Silicon Valley Bank.
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  They should have dealt with it much faster. Shouldn't have been allowed to
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  collapse and on them, and that's a failure to learn from history. Hopefully
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  you're right. And the banking crisis, you know, it's always people are
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  is fighting less battle, so Ryan see, Hey, Esther, we want
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  to find out more about you, connect with you on the web. Tell
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  us the best place to find you www. Star financial Solutions dot com is
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  my website. Esther kus nuts est h e r k u z n e
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  t Z. My email is Esther eest h R at Star financial Solutions dot
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  com. CU right, all right, well, thank you Esther. We
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  appreciate you coming on. I've got a question for Esther and myself. Email
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  address is k l at Krelutz dot com and there'll be a link to esther
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  site in the show notes to this interview. Just go click the link and
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  you'll get her right there. And Esther really appreciate you coming on. We'll
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  talk to you again. Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful being
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  here with you and getting to meet you and all your listeners. Thanks for
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  listening to carry Lutz's Financial Survival Network, your solution today's trying times for the
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  latest go to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever