Confronting ‘Wannabe Dave Ramsey’ For Exploiting Poor People! | Caleb Hammer

OF, OF, OF, OF, OF. >> Which is your craziest story? >> Yes! What hits your account on a monthly basis? >> My paycheck. >> Yes! >> When you tell people just to be responsible, they take that as like a threat. >> Hey, don't get mad at me cuz I'm just standing up for myself. >> What do you think of the criticism that sometimes you're too harsh on the guests? >> Stop being a damn take some actual responsibility for the first time in your damn life. >> Why the [ __ ] are you guys here? >> How often do you tell [music] the guest you should break up? >> There's a couple people that they'd be better off separate, for sure. >> Yeah, she didn't have debt before me, but she didn't have a degree either. >> Leave this person. Leave this person. >> I also didn't have collections before you. >> And you didn't have a job, either. >> What would you say are the financial death sentences that people do? >> Cars are always a horrendous thing. >> Seriously, the car's not the best. >> I doubt you're maintaining it cuz you probably don't even know where the oil goes. >> And if someone were to look through your personal finances as an audit, what would they criticize? >> [music] >> Caleb Hammer, welcome to the Iced Coffee Hour. So, I've seen that you've filmed over 500 episodes of Financial Audit. Which is your craziest story? >> Craziest story? It's a recent one, honestly. Couples episodes are my favorite. We were just talking before, you love the couples episodes. Everyone loves the couples episodes. There's a guy and a girl. Tale as old as time. Together, in love. Finances a little bit of a mess. Kind of using each other here and there. But then I randomly find out that their sex life is zero. Why does that come up in Financial Audit? I have no idea. >> Honestly, did you ask them? >> I don't remember the context. No, it was like a sly comment cuz, you know, people bicker on the show. And he was like they were talking to us like, "If you gave me some." or something like that. It was something like that, which is like triggered me to go deeper. >> And then you have to investigate that. >> Yeah, cuz my producers didn't know. You know, one of them always sits there. Uh I didn't know. I go in blind. So, every once in a while we hear these crazy things that whenever we hear something that my producers didn't know about beforehand, that's when we know it's going to be like the craziest episode. So, we find out they weren't banging. And it's like once a month or so. And we went further in the purchases on his checking account, and then it was OnlyFans, OnlyFans, OnlyFans, OnlyFans. And they agreed that they were not going to do any OnlyFans purchasing, any because she wanted to but he wasn't performing. And she was like, "It is a rule. You cannot watch You can't do all this." And he's like, "Okay. Okay." So, I saw those OnlyFans purchases. I was like, "Oh." And it got really somber really quick, and I felt so bad for her. And I was like, "Dude, just give me your phone." Took his phone, went into his OnlyFans, and the dude is subscribing like once a week to a new woman. Okay, so why do you have to see his OnlyFans? Isn't it enough to see the charges? Only like what do you have to see the individual people? Because it was I only had a month statement, right? So, I needed to see how consistent was this going back. And this was non-stop. While they're having this struggle, and she put that as a red line, as a no-go. That he could not do that. And that all being exposed on the show, I feel so horrible for her, cuz it hit her. >> I don't understand It was real. how she's unaware of the only like it hit her directly on the show, but if they're submitting their financial statements, don't you think that she would have gone through it? And also, if they're at the point of exposing this to millions of people online, then this guy would have been like, "Uh I don't know if I want to do this financial audit thing." It's not like he forgot that this is going to be in his statements. He knows going into >> know what's in their statements, cuz the people that come on the show, I love you. You guys are great, but they're usually financially stupid. That's the point of the show, right? So, they don't know what is in their >> That doesn't sound like financial stupidity. That just sounds like general >> Yeah, stupid. >> Obviously, that's going to be there. >> Yeah. Well, the thing is I mean, we've talked about this so many times, the guest is able to determine what we do not talk about. Usually, there has been many guys that have been on the show that are like, "I'm good with anything. Just don't mention the OnlyFans purchases." So, we redact them and they're never even mentioned. You wouldn't even know what a >> So, they are hiding that from their significant other if they >> Or just from the audience or from their workplace or their friends. >> How common is it that they have OnlyFans charges? >> Very, and we censor. Via their request. So, that guy had that opportunity. I don't think he even like just thought about it. I don't even think he thought about it. >> Did he seem like the type of guy that just wouldn't think about that? Or did it seem like he like wanted the drama, he wanted the episode to go viral? >> Oh, no, he did not want that to happen. So, he shut down. And it wasn't intentional. Again, that came up just organically. That wasn't planned, that wasn't known about. So, no one knew, including him. It was crazy. The news is they are still together. We've recently done an audit update apart of our Hammer Elite membership with them and they are still together. They're working on it, but it was kind of infidelity. Because they agreed. They agreed. She put the red line out there, the ultimatum. He's like, "Okay, fine." And then for months, for months, hundreds of dollars of OnlyFans purchases off to other women. When they're not being >> have a joint account or were they separate accounts? >> Separate. They weren't married yet. And they're very young. It was like 20 and 21. So, >> How often do you tell the guest, "You should break up"? >> Um For couples, maybe like 25% of the time. I I I >> That's honest then, I >> I don't want them to break up usually. But, in the heat of the episode, when I'm like kind of hating someone, and I see that someone's the villain and I'm like, "I want Leave this person. Leave this person." But in the end, you know, once I actually have a second to cool down before filming our post show, it's like, "Okay. Okay. I hated you in this moment, but I don't hate you as a person. I don't want you guys to actually break up, but who am I? I kind of wanted you to. There's a couple of people that they'd be better off separate, for sure. Like we had a potential We've had a couple of abusive situations and we've talked to the women off camera afterwards. And I think they should leave. So >> to them off camera, just be like, "Hey, I'm just letting you know." >> you know, giving them the resources just in case they're in danger, telling them they can text us anytime, that kind of stuff. And I want them to leave, but you know, usually people in abusive situations, they don't. And the the one that we had that we uploaded like 2 weeks before we're filming this right now, um none of us had knew that it was a potentially sketchy situation. It just kind of came up in the episode when he was outside of the room, she offloaded what was happening. >> What was What was happening? >> Um very confrontational, her being put in the corner with him like yelling, him grabbing her collar, and pulling her back in. But I didn't get his alternative. I didn't get his side until the post show cuz I would just I I wanted to back away from that topic. In the post show, it was a completely different experience from his angle, saying that she had a knife, she was threatening to hurt herself, that she was going to kill him. It was like all these different So it was like, who's right, who's wrong? But they probably shouldn't be together. >> And how were their finances? >> Always bad. >> [laughter] >> Always bad. >> That's crazy. You're really getting like kind of over like you're getting into some treacherous territory here. >> Yeah, it's crazy. >> Have you ever been threatened with a lawsuit from a financial audit that's done? >> Okay, so one of our favorite recurring guests, Brent and Davey, he he threw out the threat of a lawsuit. I don't think anyone took it too seriously. I don't I don't even think we ran it past our lawyer. I don't remember. Uh just that everyone's so on boarded so detailed that no one's surprised. Nothing's too crazy. But I mean, I think in the early days, I mean, we had a couple people that are upset. Maybe they like thought about it, you know, in the back of their head. >> But the thing is is it sometimes these people's grievances or charges get thrown out to the world. Millions of people see it. Has anybody been worried about the repercussions of like getting employed afterwards when they've been caught lying to their significant other about OnlyFans charges? And maybe an employer sees this and says, "Hey, wait a second. Maybe this is not the guy who we should hire to like be in charge of the elementary school." >> The elementary school. Only one person in the four we film a week, three uploads a week, has actually faced real-world consequences from his job. But it was fair. The dude worked in being like an airline mechanic. So he was doing maintenance, which people's lives depend on. And the job that he had at filming, which he fully admitted, and again, he did not need to talk about it in the show. He could have told us, and we would have not done it. Cuz I don't even think I knew about it. And he said, "Yeah, I was fired from my last job because I almost got someone And he just admitted that, and they were like, "Oh, we didn't know that. Sorry. Bye." So that's the one person that's faced actual real-world consequences. Most get their bosses permission to come on the show. They're like, "Ah, I'm going to come on the show. It's going to be a little embarrassing. Are you chill with that?" And they're like, "Yeah, it's chill." Cuz most people don't actually care. It's, you know, a fun like it goes crazy online for like 2 days, and then it's gone, right? So >> Have you ever made the decision to remove something from an episode in order to protect the guest? >> Oh, yeah. Well, all the time when it comes to locations or people's names, that happens constantly. >> But what about their own just negligence or something that they don't understand the consequences of putting that airing that out. >> reveal something where you say, "You know, you really shouldn't be saying this and even though you think it's okay, I'm going to take the executive decision to cut that." >> Yeah, a couple mental health things. Not in like a position where they weren't mentally well enough to be on the show or something like that, but more like uh you know, they're talking about maybe a situation where like, you know, it's not the best. It's It's like it reflects badly out into the world and you know, maybe in that moment they were very sad and worked up, but we're like, "Okay, they probably didn't want to say that." So, there's just a few instances here and there and I give my editors a lot of power where I I don't need to overlook everything, but if they see that something's like, "Okay, this could kind of [ __ ] with that person's life." You know, and it's like obviously in the moment it didn't really make sense for them to be saying it. It has no contextual part of the episode, then they'll they'll get rid of it. >> Now, what about recently? You had a guest come in with a >> Yeah. [laughter] Well, actually yeah, it's happened a couple times, but yeah. >> A couple times? >> Yeah. Yeah, I dude, I don't know, man. People are crazy. We got a guy up front, you probably saw him. We love him. He keeps us safe. Um I'm waiting for the day when he gets to, you know, tackle someone, but uh cuz we got some crazies out there, but Yeah, she came with a I have no idea why. It was stupid and she bought it right before coming on the show with that. Like a dumbass. I don't know what the she was thinking. >> Why did she buy it before the show? >> Uh safety because she was coming from the airport to our studio. So, she she did that at the airport. >> So, she went landed the plane. >> Yeah. >> Went straight to a >> store, I think. So, or she got it right before going on the plane. I don't remember, but she was like, "It's a new city. I'm scared. >> Does it not seem like a a red flag that a guest buys a before coming on the show? >> A little bit, but we have them here. >> Even still, I I don't think normal people land somewhere to go on a show and like in between the airport and the show buys a regardless of the intention of that. This It doesn't seem like a If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, sounds like a duck, might be. >> The show wouldn't be half as interesting without a couple psychos here and there though. So >> How do you find >> some to take. >> you find some of these people? Because I see your ads everywhere. When I'm on Facebook or Instagram, I'm scrolling and I'm like, you know, come on Financial Audit. And it seems like you're casting worldwide almost or throughout the United States. >> targeted places and you guys are in Vegas. Yeah. So Vegas, you know, there's some fun people in Vegas. So it's a couple targeted spots. The thing is every It's an awareness play. You We target people who already watch Financial Audit, already fans of Financial Audit. So we just get them to think, here's the show that you like, want to come on the show. Cuz we Everyone we have is from the audience. In the In the rare like one or two times a year that someone has not seen the show, we force them to watch an episode and some clips before they come on the show. But everyone's just from the audience. We just target them. We're like, hey, you want to come on the show? Want to come on the show? We just kind of make them think about it when they're when they're scrolling online. So Everyone's from the audience. There's just some crazy people out there and I love them for it. I love them for it. Be crazy. I We like a little crazy. I'm a little crazy. >> What I don't understand is why do you have the name of your company on the door to the building? >> Uh >> I have never understood that. It seems like there is so little to gain and so much to lose. >> That was the first thing Jack and I said even even when we first started the show. >> it and I'm just like, like, what do you have to gain? If you can maybe list out three things, like three benefits of having the name on the door. >> Um I mean, it's I like my logo. It's like a little bit >> Ego. Okay, there's one. Ego. >> Ego, sure, a little to a certain point. I mean, it's it's it's it's really cool to have accomplished having, you know, like a big space. That is cool. But, it does make it easier for people to find, but we could use we could pretend it's a different company and just tell them to find that. So, that's not a good reason. I don't know. This is one of the first things we did was market >> we've seen some studios. >> Yeah. >> And they've purposely gone out of their way to be as anonymous as possible, and that works to their favor. And you have no idea who they are, what's going on behind the doors. It's all tinted. >> Yeah. We probably should. Yeah, we probably should. We have some crazies. Again, I'm happy the guy up front is there. I love him. He takes me to and from my car every day. >> That's good. That is very wise. Yeah. >> Or if I go downstairs for any of the restaurants and whatnot, but >> Do you Do you worry about your personal safety? >> I did. You know, after the Charlie Kirk thing, I was like I mean, we're not even in comparable spaces, but I've had people, even though I literally just joke and make roasts to people that are consenting to it, I have people calling me fascists day in and day out. So, I had security sitting out front of my house for weeks until we got to install a good system. I got to get install a blaster inside off if needed, but, you know, it was it was scary there for a second. I think everyone was I mean, I was texting you, you were a little nervous, too. Like, I think everyone was a little scared that is even per- personal finances can get controversial. When you tell people just to be responsible, they take that as like a threat. It's like the the way people twist things, it's crazy. Um I mean, yeah. I mean, I have a pretty intense snark community, and um I have and then those those people are pretty crazy, and they've put other creators' lives in threat. So, every once in a while, you know, I'll get a security guard to sit outside when like something's kind of bubbling a little, when people are going a little ravenous online. But, in general, we have a good security system at my house to protect me, my girlfriend, and dogs. And we have a ready fingerprint, you know, if needed. Hopefully not though. This is It's just crazy that a show that should be just fun. It was crazy titles and thumbnails. I get it. I know. It gets people so heated in a way where like I mean we get we I do get threats. >> The thing is I've watched a lot of your episodes and some of the people, I think who are on your show, are not mentally stable. And those are the people who I worry about or maybe you go a little too hard on them or maybe something happens down the line that they were on the show and then they're not in the right head space to fully think through their decisions. >> Yeah, it's always possible. There's been a couple of people we've been nervous about. Brent, a guy a long time ago named Zeke. We do a lot better in our vetting process now. We don't allow people with like these, you know, if they have like dangerous Actually, we do background checks and our security guard did find one person who almost came on and I was almost invited to the studio. Had a couple just weird red flags in their internet history and we're just like, nah, it's not even worth the risk. >> Smart. The logic agrees with you. Like you're not doing anything objectively wrong, but you're potentially working with people that aren't playing by the same rules. They're not following the logic. >> Yeah. >> So, that's the only thing that I, you know, we could advise on. You know, every business right now is asking themselves the same question. How do we make AI work for us? The possibilities are endless, but guessing is too risky and sitting on the sidelines isn't an option because if you're not doing it, guaranteed your competitors are. >> That's where our sponsor NetSuite by Oracle comes in. It's the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses to manage everything from financials and inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM all in one unified system. When all of the data is in one place, your AI gets smarter. It doesn't just guess, it knows. NetSuite intelligently automates routine tasks, delivers real-time insights, and helps you make fast, confident decisions that actually help drive growth. 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You've seen at this point thousands of people between couples, individuals, you've seen all the personal finances. What is the strongest predictor of success? >> Strongest predictor of success it's when they have a really good story about weight loss or grinding through a degree or working through a family struggle and helping someone else. When they've buckled down and actually accomplished something even outside of personal finances. Like I know ooh, you have the capacity to lock down, go through some uncomfortable months or even potentially years if it's really bad and get the done. Especially those that have gone through like We've come on and they've lost hundreds of pounds and I'm like, man, okay, if you went through how hard that is, I know you can take a budget, take some tools, take some resources, and actually improve your life. Or when they've saved family members or friends or gone through really hard degrees with no support. That it's I mean it's past behavior is indicative of future results or something, right? So, it's when people have really accomplished some hard things in the past, I know they can buckle down. Now, on the other side, when I have a guest coming on and they play the deflection game, this happens a lot. They're like, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to change that." Or, "Oh, yeah, I'm changing that." Or, "I want to change that." That's the response to any pushback I give. And I'm like, "No, you have no example, no history of you ever changing anything, and I have your statements right in front of me, and it's all right there, and that's just last month. You can't just Your response to everything can't be, 'I'm changing that. I'm going to change that.' Cuz that isn't it." I can take that word from someone that lost weight, went through a really hard time in life, and went from homelessness to back. That I can believe in that person. But when someone hasn't actually had the struggle or done the turnaround at any point in their life, and they're just like, "Yeah, I'm going to do it." I don't believe it. I don't believe it. There's nothing for me to believe. What's there to believe? I don't see the believe. Do you think it's possible for someone who has not been through these struggles to make a change? Oh, I absolutely. It's just harder to be like objectively confident. Cuz it's it's the first time. I mean, when I went through my personal financials, the financial issues in my early 20s, and grinding my way out, it was the first real struggle that I had to do myself, cuz yes, my family had personal financial struggles and foreclosure notices, but that was on my family, right? As a kid, you might have some like side consequences, but it wasn't like I didn't have to go get a job at 5 or 10. >> Yeah. >> So, I mean, I did it. I know people can do it. I just I cannot play the game of the deflection of, "Oh, I'm going to change it." It's like, there is nothing to show me. You can't just say that. That's not an answer to, "Hey, why'd you spend all this?" "Oh, I'm going to change it." No, it's You haven't showed me that you are. You know, you haven't proven that. So, yeah, of course, of course, but it is harder to get in to that motion of really changing your life for the very first time ever, for the first time ever, when you haven't done it before. >> What's the most insane purchase that you've seen from someone who was broke? >> Only fans is a pretty bad purchase. Paying for titties? Paying for titties in 2026. >> I will say, ethically speaking, it could be more ethical than free. >> Jack, the hub does ads. The AdSense on the hub The AdSense on the hub is crazy. >> I hear actually the hub pays really well and that some creators are uploading their non-explicit videos to the hub and actually making like decent money from it. >> It's like making members content versus posting it on main. Main does really well. Like it's it's, you know, so you know, I get it. But I mean that's stupid. I'm sorry. Titties are everywhere. They're free. Why are we paying for them? That was a dumb purchase. Um You always got the car, the hundred thousand dollar Ford Texas Ranch Ranger F-1000 and it's just Oh my Or when someone thinks they got a nice car like they got like a Dodge Charger and they souped it up for like fifty thousand dollars. I'm like, "What are we doing? Why Dodge Charger? Why? Why?" So cars Cars are always a horrendous thing. What's the biggest car payment you've seen? >> Two thousand, I think. Two thousand and it was a truck. It was a truck, yeah. >> How much were they making? >> that was around two thousand. >> How much were they making? >> Well I don't It definitely wasn't in their budget, I'll tell you that. I mean, usually around the show people are bringing in like five to six. >> So they're spending like 35% of their income on a car. >> Yeah, but they could have been a three thousand dollar income. I I you know, that was like a year ago, so I'm not exactly sure on their number, but it was about a two thousand dollar truck payment. And we've had that, I think, twice now. >> What's a classic broke person car? >> Dodge Charger is definitely [laughter] Highest level of repos, I think, one of them, right? Um or Challenger. Uh I don't know. They do gravitate to like those like weird muscle cars. It's classic. That and a big big ass truck. Americans and their big ass truck. >> I don't know why, man. What would you say are the financial death sentences that people do? >> It's the micro purchases. The micro purchases and it's how you do your micro purchases. So, even in people's checking account, they'll do the micro purchase of the McDonald's McDonald's McDonald's McDonald's over and over and over again. And but they don't think it's much cuz it's $10, it's $12. Then it's every day every other day or the energy drink. The energy drink thing is huge, man. People going in and buying $5 energy drinks every day on the way to work. Every day. And that [ __ ] stacks. But then you can do it wrong. You can do it on a credit card that is building interest. So, it's even worse than on the checking account. Or you can do it even worse, do it at a 35% interest rate on Klarna and then only This is what we have now on our show. People buy their energy drinks on Klarna and then they'll pay their Klarna minimum monthly payment with their credit card and then they'll pay their credit card with like a personal loan. It's like It's just like debt for debt for debt for debt. And the longer you push that out, the further you push it down that debt train, the longer it takes to pay off the debt. But it's those micro purchases are what's killing everyone. It is a high car payment or is the micro purchases that you're like, "It's not that much, but I'm going to do it over and over and over again and it stacks up way higher than you'd ever think." >> Where do you think the balance is though between scaling back on micro purchases and putting that effort towards making more money? >> Well, more money doesn't change bad behavior, right? So, it really doesn't. I mean, when people lifestyle and play you get an extra 25% income, you probably spend an extra 35%. So, before people ever aggressively go make a lot more money or go through bankruptcy, credit card transfer, personal loan, whatever it is, those can all be really good tools. But if you don't change the inherent behavior that got you there in the first place, you're just going to [ __ ] it up. We've had people that are coming out of the show going through their third bankruptcy cuz that doesn't actually change anything. Debt consolidation doesn't change anything. >> You're calling it behavior. Would you say it's more a lack of knowledge or would you say it's mostly laziness that keeps people poor? >> Uh these days more laziness. I could see I could see lack of knowledge a bit more 10-20 years ago, but now more than half the states in the country have a required personal finance course to graduate high school. Like that's huge. That's a big change in this country. Uh that's a big positive. Um and now where we live in the world of Grog GPT, um Claude, Google, you name it. Anything you want to know, you find out. And personal finance is honestly basic. Like I'm kind of good at comes to math. Uh it's basic. It's very basic stuff. Like no, we're not talking like with the best insurance is by We're talking about paying off debt, building a fully funded emergency fund. So this point, it's laziness to not find the answer or it's just it goes beyond the ignorance to like you know there's something going on and you're just actively choosing not to do it cuz it's more comfortable to put your head in the sand. It's more comfortable to live that fast food every day, Starbies every day lifestyle. Uh which is fine. I mean, I get it. For what it's worth, I mean, I will put myself back there with all these guests that are doing it. When I was in college, carefree, going to McDonald's every day or going out with friends and putting that all on credit cards every single day. Chase Freedom card. It was it was fun. And I had no stresses. Even though the stress was building I didn't acknowledge it. It wasn't real. It was something for later, not to think about. And that was fun. It's more stressful to think about money even when you're successful because you're thinking about money. And it's just It's always there. It's always something to figure out. When you're not thinking about it, you're just swiping. That's a great life. Not in the end, but it's a great life in the moment. It really is. Uh so I think it's a little bit of of It's certainly laziness, lack of information, less and less so. And cuz everyone uses the excuse, "Well, my parent never taught me." No one's does. Did yours Did yours I don't know. >> A little bit, yeah. >> That's what kind of got me into it. Like he was I remember when I was young, actually it was Graham, honestly. Like my dad was telling me, "Hey, you should like be buying stocks and stuff like that." So, like I kind of like dabbled very lightly, but then it was Graham's videos of like high interest banks. And I was like, "How can I make my money that I've saved kind of like grow over time?" So, it was really just >> high yield savings accounts was the first thing to everything. >> But I do agree with you. I think it's mostly laziness and not necessarily knowledge, because the knowledge is everywhere. It's not hard to find it. >> you have to know to look for it in the in the first place. >> What do you mean to look for it? >> It's pretty obvious. If you're not satisfied is people spending money on a credit card, and that's your entire world, how do you know there's anything more? >> Okay, so like what IQ do you think you have to have higher than to be able to say, "Okay, I am dissatisfied with where I'm at financially, let me do a quick Google search to see how can I improve?" >> I just think when it's all you see, it's your entire world. You have no idea what's beyond that world. Let's just say you live in a in a very poor neighborhood, you've never been out of that district, you don't have a car. All you see is just poverty. How do you know there's anything beyond that? >> The same could be >> Well, >> I mean, know beyond that. >> For what it's worth, we live in the world where everyone's watching content from all around the world. You know there's a life beyond it. I'll say that I mean, where you were going for a second I was totally aligned with. When you grow up in bad schools, you grow up in poverty, yes, it is harder to escape that. The United States isn't perfect for going up to the next class, you know? We're we're kind of middle of the road when it comes to that. You can get lots of success here, but it is it's it's not perfect moving up the ranks. Um But now with everyone being so connected, you you see beyond >> All you need is one of your shorts or one of your shorts to appear on your shorts feed, and then it's like, "Okay." But if you only get one once you start down that path, do you get recommended the content? Like I remember when I was making the video about the Roth IRA explaining it, I knew that people wouldn't know to search for it unless they already were looking for it. And so I made a video on like >> to make something. >> how to be a tax-free millionaire on $5 a day or whatever the title was. >> is the thing. Back in the day it didn't. That's why I think now is different than it was a decade ago. >> Well, I mean my thing is like if you're going to get your first credit card, we didn't have GPT and all that stuff when I was getting my first credit card. Instead I asked my parents. If I was 18 today, I would literally YouTube, Google, like maybe I wouldn't say what's dangerous about a credit card, but I would like tell me about this credit card. And it would at least tell you about the interest and all and then I'm like, oh [ __ ] wait, tell me about that interest rate cuz it takes you down all those rabbit holes to keep you using the service. So >> Would you agree that if you're motivated [clears throat] to become financially literate, then it exists? >> Yes. >> Okay, then the opposite of being financially literate >> There we go. The exact opposite of being motivated is to be lazy. And so you're saying then that if you're lazy, that will be a massive obstacle. >> it's harder when you don't know what to look for or what you need to even search for. >> That is true. >> That yeah, that's absolutely true, but if you're on the sliding scale of like laziness versus knowledge, then like if you're motivated, eventually you'll find out. If it requires a few failures along the way. >> I think right now there's like another 100x opportunity that we're all going to look back on today and be like, oh my gosh, if only I knew to search for that. But you don't know to search for that because it's not in our sphere. But 10 years from now it might be and we look back at today and we say, oh, I should have done that. I mean a lot of people do that with finance. I should have done this had I known that I needed to do that. >> It's also harder cuz again we just have so many more resources. >> just take a snapshot of time right now, you know, that's I think that there's an abundance of knowledge, information online that can take you. >> Less so about the lack of education. A dangerous thing we see time and time again is like the bad education cuz it's not uh perfect isn't like trying over and over again, right? It's that or perfection isn't trying over and over again. Cuz if you keep trying the same bad thing over and over again, you're going to be perfect to be bad as well. So, it doesn't lead to endlessly good results. If your parents are giving you bad information like, uh you know, we're Let's say we're in a place that is lower income and everyone is getting their nice cars what they're prioritizing over getting a nice place or a nice education and and your parents are pushing you to do that like, "Hey, you got a good you got to get this car. You got to get this clothes. You got to do this." Like, that's bad education. That could hurt someone cuz the kid's very impressionable. Um or get getting pressured to go get a bad degree, a worthless degree at any school, going into any amount of student loan debt. Like, I don't blame an 18-year-old for that if their parents or student counselors are heavily pushing them, "Go to any school you want to get any degree you want and borrow whatever it takes to get it." So, you know, that's I I don't think that's laziness. I think you can have a bad influence. I had a slight bad influence. I turned 18. I wanted a piano. My set My parents said, "Well, the first thing you should do at 18 is open a credit card and max it out to get the piano you wanted." So, I did. That wasn't laziness. That was the people that I looked to for the advice giving me bad advice. Uh so, it's not just laziness. There's There's There's other components to it as well. But there's lots of laziness. I 100% agree. There's many components to it. We just happen to maybe disagree on the sliding scale. Sure. Sure. Why do you think so many people don't know how much money they spend? They don't look, man. I got people coming out of shows that have never seen their checking accounts. They won't do something as simple as just like literally just all the all the apps do the automatic connections and it just tells you within like 2 minutes. >> your favorite one that you'd recommend? >> Well, DollarWise, of course, but >> [laughter] >> If If we're If we're putting that to the side, besides DollarWise budgeting app, what would you recommend? >> Hmm. I like ones for a reason. If you want to go hardcore advance, YNAB is fun. We would just learn that a lot of people click off in the onboarding because this is there's too much. >> much. I agree with you on that. I tried doing it and it just was taking too much time. I was like >> That's why we did simple. Uh Rocket Money is pretty good. But I learned in the end they just kind of want to sell you a mortgage, so wasn't the biggest fan of >> I got a mortgage with Rocket Mortgage. >> See. >> In fairness, but but but it was the best rate that I could have found. They're very competitive. I got to say. >> I'm not saying that's inherently bad, but I want to use it for my own reasons, not to be sold. Uh I did do Every Dollar. Every Dollar was good. One thing I didn't like and why I don't always advise it is cuz it forces you to use the Ramsey method. So you know that's not like personal. So Monarch is pretty good. Monarch's the new guy on the block. I just always get a little nervous when companies raise like a hundred million dollars in private equity cuz >> What do they use that money for for a budgeting app? A hundred million dollars? >> It's crazy cuz we didn't need that, but also private equity always ends up like collecting private data in the end. Not saying they're going to, that's always what private equity wants. So I get a little nervous. So I like all those apps for their own reasons, but I'm hesitant for all those specifics as well. >> Yeah. Personally, I tend to like Rocket Money a lot. I find it's the best beginner friendly. >> It's pretty easy. >> everything you need and it's pretty affordable if you pay for it and I pay for it. I actually like it. >> I'd say they're all affordable for what you get. If you tweak your budget cuz all of them are on like ten to fifteen bucks a month, if you tweak your budget and save a hundred bucks just because of a budgeting app, it's like it's so easily worth it. >> This episode is in partnership with Airbnb. So Graham and I are going to South Korea soon and we are both so excited to spend a week exploring cities, checking out traditional villages and enjoying the local food and culture. And if you're big on traveling like us, anytime we're away, the home just ends up sitting unused, but it could actually be generating extra income by hosting on Airbnb. So you guys may not know this, but at one point I actually hosted on Airbnb. A spare bedroom in my house and it ended up being far easier than I expected. The setup was straightforward, everything ran smoothly, and it turned into a genuinely great experience overall. And guys, I am being so honest, it is genuinely a phenomenal way to make some extra cash if you have spare bedrooms in your house. Just put them on Airbnb. You'll make some money, it is so easy, it's quite enjoyable. I highly recommend it. Now, if you've ever thought about hosting, but weren't sure how to handle it if you're away, Airbnb now has the co-host network. With this, you could partner with a vetted local co-host with hosting experience who could take care of the important details for you. So, you see, a co-host can help manage reservations, guest communication, and even provide on-site support so everything goes smoothly while you're away. This makes hosting a lot more manageable when you travel. It's also just a great way to earn some extra cash for future trips or just home projects. If you've considered hosting, but need some help, find a co-host at airbnb.com/host. So, at what income level do you feel like someone should stop feeling broke? Does that ever happen? Did that happen to you? >> I don't feel broke anymore, but I don't I don't feel rich either. So, I feel like somewhere in the somewhere in the middle. >> memed on for saying that, of course, but Um yeah, stop feeling broke? Obviously, it's going to depend on where you live. Man, it's going to be less of an income thing. It's going to be your liabilities, isn't it? It always is. You can be making a hundred million dollars a year, but if you got billions in liabilities, I mean, and those payments are [ __ ] you're going to feel broke. A hundred thousand dollars a year is what I always aimed for. But if I had a high car payment, high rent, high mortgage, whatever it is, going to feel broke. >> Even studies today now say that middle class starts at a hundred and forty thousand dollars a year for a family with two kids. >> Yeah, and Gen Z said they needed to make like three hundred thousand a year to feel comfortable or something. >> Yes. >> Which is why >> your thoughts on that? >> Well, my thoughts is they haven't been through a recession yet. So, a little bit of a lack of life experience, which is fine. It's not a bad thing. That's not on Gen Z. I'm right in that middle. You're Gen Z. I'm like on that cusp. Um so, it's not pooing on them, but it's like I get it. I get it. The lifestyle that we want in our consumerism culture, the more the merrier when it comes to money, but once you actually go through a recession or you enter a bad job market, now they actually are entering a bad job market right now, and that might change the numbers cuz [clears throat] where Gen Z was entering the job market for the majority of their work life so far was like the best job market in the history of the United States. You know, that COVID boom. Tech hiring anyone for anything. And now, it's a bad time. Now, it's a hard time. The layoffs last month, highest since the Great Recession. Job number revisions that hit the day before we're filming this episode, millions less last year. So, I think that is what a generation usually takes to realize, "Okay, like I I can be happy with living a certain lifestyle, and it doesn't need to be this over-the-top crazy." So, not saying they need to, but it is hard. Reality hits in. >> How bad is Gen Z going to get by AI? >> Dude, that's the question. That's the question. >> All the people right now who are studying to be lawyers, >> Yeah. >> engineers, I feel like so many people are going to get wiped out, and they're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars going to school, years of their life just to graduate and realize like, "Wait a second. This AI is now able to do what I've studied years to do, and it does it in 1/100 of the time for free." >> That's crazy. My head of tech who has uh about a five-person team, he said if he was doing this six years ago, he would need three times the people. That's a ton of jobs, not out of like greed or anything. It was just like, you don't pay people when you you don't need to hire someone. It's not a greed thing. So, everything's just so efficient right now, especially in the world of programming, even slightly design, and engineering. It is difficult. The arguments are interesting on both sides. And it's impossible I I refuse to take like who I agree with cuz I don't know. I don't want to just just like be like, "Yeah, I agree with this person that's guessing and doesn't know what they're talking about." There's the two camps, right? It's "Okay, this has happened throughout human history. You got the farm equipment. You got the automation in factories. Okay, industries got wiped out. It was all replaced with something more productive. This is another example of that." And then there's the other ones like, "Well, no, this is this is new. This is completely game-changing. We're not going to need to do anything. We need to get something like UBI going. We need to do You know, this is we've never seen anything like this." I don't know what the other side of the hill looks like. I don't know what the other side of the hill looks like. I don't know if I want to fully advise to panic, go into a trade that is less AI-replaceable cuz I don't I don't want to scare people off from anything else. But, I also don't want to say there's nothing to worry about. We We don't know what the other side of the hill looks like, man. We really don't. And we're already seeing some impacts right now. Customer service will probably be automated. If If you ever talk to one of these programs right now, >> They're getting better. >> They're getting good. They're getting good. Um I talk to the Grok in my car sometimes. Like when If we're stuck in traffic, me and my girlfriend will play trivia on it. It's a little weird with her intonation sometimes, but it's good. And it listens really well. So, customer service is probably gone. A lot of engineering's probably gone. >> I think therapists are also going to be wiped out. Yeah. Once people feel >> afflicate safe with that. I have to call about it. You don't think so? >> Yes, absolutely. If I have any sort of personal problem, I will put it in ChatGPT or Gemini and I get its unbiased opinion. >> Unbiased? >> Yeah. >> I I I say poke holes. You You have You have to word it in such a way that it doesn't just agree with you. >> you. >> And I And I I want it to poke holes, show the other side, tell me what I'm not seeing. You have to prompt it. >> You do have to prompt >> to >> You do have to prompt it, but still there is kind of like an end-all with like there is bias on social >> Yeah, but so would be a therapist. A therapist would have their own biases that they weave into. I I would probably feel more confident >> Okay, so then how do you justify when we ask ChatGPT, "Hey, estimate with the highest level of accuracy our IQ." And it gives you and I both, when we literally say We literally say, "Be as objective as possible, like no nonsense." And it says the exact same IQ for both. >> You and me and our other friend with the car. >> I'm just saying >> I'm not saying it's perfect and I'm not saying that I follow it as gospel, but I will say it does give me what I think is a valuable perspective that maybe I am not seeing. >> 100% it does do a generally really good job, but also for the average person that's going to be using ChatGPT, they're looking for validation. And so when they say, "And then look at what this person said. It wasn't that messed up." And ChatGPT being its very biased self will be like, "Yeah, you know what? And then you did what's right and they did what's wrong." Like it just generally It wants to make you stand up for yourself. >> There was a TikTok that was trying to cancel her psychiatrist. Were you guys watching the whole saga? >> No. >> Oh, that [ __ ] was crazy, but I loved it. Oh my goodness, but she was doing new therapy with GPT and or actually another one of those programs, but either way she was trying to cancel her psychiatrist for not wanting to her, but the AI was fully enabling her and she started to make all these TikTok videos that racked up tens of millions of views trying to cancel this guy and destroy his life. I don't know. >> Okay, now >> It does reinforce your worldview. >> It can as long as you don't have the mental fortitude to push back against it and the objective thinking to think cri- like critically about these things. If you were in the mental headspace where where you're subject to outside perspective that much, I don't think you're at the point where that's going to benefit you. It reminds us like the guy who recently was a really unfortunate situation where he uh offed himself and someone else because he felt like that person was spying on him and he was schizophrenic and he thought the printer that his mom wanted plugged in was spying on him and would talk to chat GPT which would reinforce his belief. And he would say, "I think my printer is spying on me." And chat GPT would say, "Yes, you are very vigilant. You are extremely correct in this thinking. Most likely uh this is a uh it's like a hidden camera and it's recording you and when this was unplugged, you're very smart to think like it reinforces his beliefs. >> Yeah. I mean, we're close to that consciousness that they're trying to get to most likely. I mean, a lot of people think it's like 5 years out. Once it does that, it should be able to think on its own. Which hopefully would get rid of less biases, only bias on the information it's given or the parameters that it's set by the creator. >> But how do you feel like this is going to impact Gen Z? And everyone else in the future. The job market is going to is going to be at minimum changed. Uh we can at least say changed. Whether or not we become more productive in a certain way or in a fuels different industries or they're going to be jobless and we're going to need to tax the [ __ ] out of everyone to do UBI. That we don't know. But if I was going into college right now, I would I don't want to panic everyone into it, but I would try to find something that's less less likely to be replaced by AI. I think the government probably won't want to use AI cuz they don't want to be productive in anything. They just They're they're still using like printers and all this good fax machines. So, I'm not terribly afraid of that being replaced. >> I I they're using AI at the IRS, though. They're starting They're starting to use it to process audits and flags. >> Claude in the Venezuela operation. That just came out. >> Really? >> Yeah. >> I didn't know that. >> Anthropic was kind of They came out with a They came out with it and now the Department of Defense or Department of War, whatever you want to call it, is like kind of feuding with them. It's like active news as we're filming this. So, who knows where that's going to go out, but yeah. Uh trades. I don't know if but AI is going to do plumber, but they got the humanoids coming. You know, we'll see what Tesla does. There's always new robots here and there. You got the cleaning toilet the toilet cleaning robots happening right now. Uh banking and finance. I have a feeling though AI probably could do really good. I have a feeling it's going to be so heavily regulated in finance that it might be one of the safer places to be cuz who knows what the government's going to allow AI to do in finance. So, might be a safer place to get into. Getting into being a programmer or whatnot, I feel like that's just the most interest right now. >> Mhm. >> You just have to be top level. You have to be top level now. >> Do you feel like it's easier than ever to be financially free? Given that we have all of these resources available. >> More resources to learn. Yeah, more resources to learn. Housing costs, not rent, but buying a house is I mean, it's harder now than since like before uh everyone came back from World War II. So, I mean, that's more and more out of reach. Financially free, I mean, yeah, the stock market gives you incredible opportunities for investment and compound growth throughout your life. Incredible opportunities are getting better and better every year. Unless we have a major correction that brings that average of 12% from the S&P 500 down. Um so, that is on your side. Housing's against. But rental is better on markets that are actually encouraging building for what it's worth, worth, like Nashville, Florida, Austin, Dallas. >> It just seems like with all these opportunities with AI, it's easier than ever to create a business. >> a business, for sure. You got five dollars >> Easier than ever. The options to make money out there are endless with all the resources that are available. >> Yeah, but you got to have that entrepreneurial mindset behind that. Like, for the average person though, is it easier than ever? I don't know. It's going to be It's going to be a a change in trajectory. They're just going to have to figure out how to navigate it. It again, it's harder to buy a house. It is harder to buy a house. But, it's better to invest now, easier to invest now than ever. Fractional shares. I mean, there's tools and resources that are better than ever. But, there's a couple things that are more out of reach. But, you don't need to buy a house to be financially successful anyway, so. But, a lot of people, you know, tie that into the American dream and whatnot. >> It is interesting. It's like the culture hasn't necessarily caught up with the reality of the situation, because back in the day the culture would suggest you need to buy a house. And housing was accessible to get into. But, now housing is not so accessible, and the culture hasn't necessarily switched to like, "Hey, with your ex- extra income, go buy a house." It's It should be, "Hey, with your extra income, go buy some stocks. Like, get involved in the stock market." But, the the culture to the same degree has not switched to investing in stocks as it once was in housing. Or, it still kind of is in housing. It's like, the American dream sort of Most people want to be home owners. >> But, it's also different. The house they're buying is different. When people were buying their first house, when houses were accept- accessible, it's like 1,000 square feet. >> Mhm. >> Starter homes. Yeah, a bedroom, two bed. Now, that's a small condo. Those are the starter houses, and you can buy a condo in many places still. But, people want the starter home today, which is three bed, two bath, 2,000 square feet. It's like, it's not the same. Our culture has evolved on that part as well, where we have a a new level of expectations. You remember the also crazy home loans that they're getting? What was it? 0% down on everything? When everyone came back from World War II, when everyone was able to get a house, well, it was more >> They also didn't have a lot of regulation back then in terms of building. >> Yes. >> Zoning was way easier and land was not as scarce. >> What places like Austin, Texas, baby? Housing costs going down cuz we build [ __ ] We build The amount of permits that are taking place in places like San Francisco, you can count on two hands. It's crazy. That's why they should be building [ __ ] in San Francisco. People want to live there, but they won't cuz permitting's horrendous, rent control's horrendous, sounds great, doesn't actually work. >> It's incredibly cheap right now to live with roommates. If you go on Facebook, there's a whole section there where you could live with roommates and people are just looking for a roommate to take a bedroom. >> Yeah. >> And the rent proportion that you would pay is significantly less than even if you were to split that rent with other people equally. >> Yeah, but the argument would be >> significantly less. >> The argument's going to be, when they clip this, it's like Well, yeah, but if we live in a good first world country, developed country, I shouldn't have to have roommates to survive. So. >> Jack has roommates. >> Well, should he have to have roommates to survive? He wouldn't need them now. But again, that's why >> have to look at what the alternative is. Is the alternative that you spend 80% of your income on rent? I would argue that that's that's worse. >> Yes, absolutely. Don't get me wrong. >> And I think there are benefits of living with roommates. You constantly have companions, you constantly have buddies to be around. >> Yeah, I mean, I'm not complaining, but I mean, that's what a lot of people would argue. And again, the expectation of housing is a lot more crazy. Their starter homes now are it's much more expensive, much larger than they were. That's why there's this project happening here in Austin with like it's like the American Housing Company. It's a new startup and they're building these like prefab small starter homes. That's what's going to be accessible to people. That's the OG classic starter home. That's not what a lot of people want. You see your HGTV show when you grow up. You want the big house. I did. I thought my starter home My starter home was crazy. $350,000, that shouldn't have been my starter home. It didn't need to be. before I started YouTube. So, what I would love to see happen in San Jose for a while, two things. One is micro apartments. And I'm talking 300 square foot apartments that's just a studio, a kitchen, a bathroom, space for a bed that pulls down like a Murphy bed, and a really, really, really good walkable location. >> Walkable space. >> People would love that. Just to have their own space to go home and sleep at night. That's all I wanted cuz I was working all day, go to the gym, I get back, I just want a place to sleep. That was it. >> And the data shows that people want to live in those walkable areas, too. >> Micro apartments would do so well. The other thing I think would do great is a big lot that just has small, tiny houses on it. I'm talking one, two bedrooms, one bathroom, the starter house, 900 square feet each, lined up along the end with a courtyard in the middle. Like you used to have these 1950s apartment buildings like this, but each one is detached. And people just pay an HOA of, let's just say, $100 a month for common area maintenance. That way, everyone owns their own own home, kind of like a common in law ownership, uh but they share the expenses of of maintenance. And that's a home. >> Yeah. >> People could buy their own home. >> I honestly think politics is, for once, actually helping the American people on this one. Usually, politics most things you see kind of works against the average guy. But, what we're going to see in the 2030 census is red states, Florida, uh Arizona, Texas, taking electoral college votes away from New York and California because we've built housing. We've done zoning reform. We've gotten rid of parking minimums. And this is actually starting to light a fire under those places' butts. California just did one of their biggest reforms in housing in decades, allowing more upzoning near transit centers. >> With the abundance of opportunity around these days, which I think we all agree that there is, why do you you it is that people continue to feel like financial freedom is only getting further and further away? >> Consumer culture for sure. The you want the nicer car, you want the nicer this, you want the nicer that. There's [sighs] the house housing situation that we talked about. Now a starter house is twice as big as the one previous. We want more and more and more. And we feel entitled to more and more and more. When you're in a prosperous society, you feel like you should have that more. That's not necessarily an inherently bad thought, but it's hard to have all of that. And now where we're entering a tough job market for the first time since the Great Recession, you know, a truly tough job market. Uh a lot of things are going to feel inaccessible for a lot of people as well. Especially with the inflation we saw around grocery prices, that's scary. Now wages are starting to outpace inflation, but it's going to take a lot to catch up. >> What financial takes do you have that would anger most viewers even though they're true? >> Rent control sucks. Doesn't work. It's performative though. I don't know if this is going down the spiral, so I don't want to go too deep in >> I mean I mean I agree with you. >> It just well, it hasn't worked. It's This is one of those policies that sounds really good. It sounds really moral. I want to support it. Landlords, you. Make less money. Peop- people pay less in rent. But everywhere it's been act- enacted, permitting has gone down substantially, rent's gone up even faster for the average person except for the lucky few that are in subsidized housing or rent controlled housing. Uh units go un- untouched, not being taken care of at all. I think it's like It's like 10 or 20% of rent controlled units in New York have no one in it because they can't be brought up to standard because it's not worth investing in. >> That's vacancy control. >> Yeah, and in uh Massachusetts, they enacted rent control. It was a complete disaster, so they had to get rid of it. And then housing costs went down. Austin, Texas tried to do rent control decades ago. Texas said, "You. Housing costs are going down cuz we instead focused on Oh, you know, if you built housing, it's actually more affordable." Um San Francisco, housing costs went the the moment they enacted rent control, got worse, worse, and worse. Permitting went down. It just has never worked. Even in certain cities in Minnesota, they enacted rent control and took it back a few years later. >> I think all they need to do to solve the rent control problem is just two things. It's really easy. One is perhaps tie it to income so that you can't have someone making $500,000 a year in a rent controlled apartment paying $2,000 a month on the beach. That makes no sense. The other thing is rent control should not be indefinite. >> Yeah, generational. >> I think it should be enacted only for, let's say, three to six years. Enough where someone could live there, have a base there, but it can't be indefinite to the point where the landlord passes away because they've lived there for such a long time, their kids inherit it, and then all of a sudden this rent control is gone for like 50 years, and the building is falling apart. It needs to be brought up to current market rate for the area to simply improve over time, and for the landlord to have money to fix these things. >> Yeah. I mean, that's Honestly, I don't talk about politics too much, but one reason I'm willing to talk about that is cuz I always rage against performative politics. It's a performative position. It sounds good. It feels good. It feels good to advocate for, fighting for the little guy. It has just never been enacted once in the history of literally any city that has been beneficial to the majority. Never. Not to keep about Austin, but one thing we do well here, no rent control, but we say, "Okay, if you're building an apartment complex, a small percentage have to be a part of this local government program that's affordable housing units." And if you don't, there's just a little extra tax. So, most do it, then you apply through the local government, and you get in. And it's been working. It's been helping people. That works instead of a blanket thing across the board that just [ __ ] up the entire permitting process, and or just bad zoning laws in general. So, that one pisses people off cuz you sound evil. You sound like you're pro landlord when you're like, "Oh, rent control actually doesn't work." But it just literally never >> it's just pro common sense. >> You think so, but primitive people, man. >> What other opinions do you have that would make people angry? Yeah, yeah, that that are true about personal finance. >> That are true about personal finance. Um You're not en- You don't need a credit card. That one would make people angry. Um You're not entitled to go out to eat. That might piss some people off, right? It's like you're not entitled to that. I would love you to. I hope you can fit it in the budget. Let's work together. Let's get you more money. Let's get your budget under control. But you're not entitled to go enjoy nice sushi or a McDonald's. Like So, that might piss some people off. We have a lot of entitlement. Um you don't need to get the fancy fancy nice perfect Whole Foods. I mean, get the off-brand for a little bit. I off-branded in college on the cheap. It's not great. It was not the best for health, either, but it worked. It kind of pisses people off when you say, "I got a $10,000 car right now instead of going and getting a $30,000 car." Cuz they're like, "Well, I just started a family and it's so much safer." It's like, "Okay. Were cars just insanely dangerous 3 years ago?" I don't I don't think so. I don't think everyone was dying that got in a car. So, that sometimes pisses people off. But it is difficult cuz you need to take that car and actually get it checked out by a couple independent mechanics. Like I don't want you just walking out with a 30% interest rate loan on a $10,000 car that's worth two and will break down in 2 days. Cuz when you say that, that's what people think you're trying to say. It's like, "Go get a piece of It's like, "No, you got to do your research." Which means you might save more money by Ubering temporarily while you do your research. But people just have to go get the car immediately. And they want this safer car. >> What about you? It's probably also with the housing. I don't believe that corporate landlords are necessarily bad. I don't think they're driving up housing prices and every piece of research has shown that they buy so little of the housing stock that it makes no difference whatsoever to the average person buying a house, but they are the biggest scapegoat out there that people like to point to Blackstone >> Mhm. >> who's always confused with BlackRock. Blackstone going out there buying up single-family homes. Really what they're buying is rent-to-own communities that were built specifically for the purpose of renting and if you remove that from the market, you actually hurt the market because you have less inventory out there. But they're the easiest to go after because it's like this faceless corporation who's buying up the houses when in reality it has nothing to do with that. It was zero interest rates that froze a lot of people in the housing market. They're not building enough and everyone's vying for a house because it's sold as the American dream and that's what's actually driving up housing costs. But Blackstone or corporate institutional landlords are the easiest to blame because everyone just says, "Well, yeah, they shouldn't own a house." So, it's just easy. >> If I'm not mistaken, private equity that owns over 100 units owns less than 1% of single-family homes. >> It's about 0.5% of single-family rentals. >> Now, to play devil's advocate, there were a couple markets specifically in like the COVID boom, like Austin or what was it? Tampa where they or even even Atlanta where they came in and they bought like 25% of the available stock at one time. >> A lot of those were syndications. Which were funded by a lot of everyday investors who thought that housing was a good thing to buy. I wouldn't say it's necessarily institutional money, but a lot of these syndicators, they just went out there and bought whatever they could on the market because raising money was so easy. >> Yeah, that makes sense. It is the easiest scapegoat though. It really is cuz that's what Trump's executive order was. Instead of the most effective thing would be changing zoning laws around the country. Also, the minimum parking. >> My understanding is that supply can be increased because of the amount of institutional money going into development. Because a developer will not develop land unless if he knows for a fact that he'll have a buyer if he develops a neighborhood. And then a lot of the times they'll have a contract with the institutional money to then 100% I know I have a buyer so then they go and they actually develop the land and increase the supply by building homes. Otherwise, the developments wouldn't get made. >> This should be the most bipartisan thing honestly. Rs and Ds should get together. Everyone should be a YIMBY. Yes in my backyard. Let developers build where demand is. >> Here's another one. This is going to make people upset. I don't think that you are entitled to live anywhere just because you were raised there or your family has existed there for generations. It's a I think I think it's That's a good one. I think it's really really controversial. People hate this idea. I grew up in Southern California. It was extremely expensive. I could hardly live there and then we moved to Las Vegas because it was much more affordable. So we actually left a more expensive place for a cheaper place. Um people argue yes it was tax savings. Like at the time for me it was financially difficult to live in California. For grandma it was more opportunistic of like moving to Las Vegas and the opportunity there and the savings there. For me it was like okay this is nice because I can kind of afford things better. Um but yeah I think if you're born and raised in Manhattan it's like Manhattan is just objectively expensive. You were blessed and lucky to be born and raised there in the first place. It's like you kind of have to earn the right to like live in an expensive place in the same way that in a city there's an expensive neighborhood and a cheaper neighborhood. It's like you can go to the cheaper neighborhood if you cannot afford the most expensive >> In fairness, I grew up in Santa Monica and I ended up for a while living in like a really I don't want to call it like a >> It was an up-and-coming area. We'll call it. >> very up-and-coming. But that's where I bought because it made financial sense. I thought hey here's a here's a space where I could rent out the other side. This works for me. I didn't need to live in Santa Monica at the time, but I did that. I paid my dues. I saved up. And then eventually I bought in Santa Monica. >> Also, like what makes you more entitled to live in Manhattan than someone who was born and raised in like a rural Montana? Like they're both No, you know, like it doesn't It makes it harder for the person in Montana to move to Manhattan with that presumption. >> Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to clip that, take it out of context, and get really angry, but there's a there's a absolute >> truth to it cuz there's a lot of choices in life that lead you to your first rental, your first purchase. And I'm sorry, but if you grew up in a nice middle-class family in a nice area that you could afford, if you got a good degree and good job, but you went and chose to get an arts degree, that was your choice to get an arts degree that might not result in that high income that's required to live there. So, that's That's not unfair. It's not unfair. It's brutal, but >> So, what is your number one financial piece of advice of all time? 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So, seriously guys, stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com/iced to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That is zocdoc.com/iced. zocdoc.com/iced. It's the link down below in the description. >> Save on housing instead of getting a mortgage these days, get a rental and invest. Please start investing even if it's 50 bucks here and there. >> Hypothetical, let's say someone has 20% interest on a credit card. At what point should they invest? >> Once that's paid off. I also wouldn't be throwing a ton of money to invest in until I had a minimum of had a three-month emergency fund, preferably six. So, >> If you were to distill down the best piece of financial advice, let's say the top 10 pieces of financial advice you've ever received, and you were going to provide the viewer with one singular piece of advice where if they listen to what you say, it will have the highest return in their life. We can all think about it, and we're all going to give our answer. So, I guess it would be three pieces of advice. What would you say yours is? >> Stop being a Take some actual responsibility for the first time in your damn life. Some people come from situations, and that sucks. But the vast majority of us in the high- highest disposable income major nation in the world have a lot of choices. Stop being a Grow up, take some accountability, and budget. Budget. >> I would say just dollar cost average low-fee index funds consistently for 30 years. That's it. >> I would say spend less than you make. >> Controversial. You'll get called a fascist for that one. >> What? >> You'd be surprised. >> So, for to say spend less than you make? >> You'd be surprised. >> So, okay. So, let's just let's just the strongest counter argument. Uh spend more than you make. It What would be What would the argument for that be? Well, you don't need that to survive. >> Survive. You should be able to go out and have a good time with your friends. You should be able to have the place you want to live, live in the city that you were born in. >> the desired result is financial freedom, then how will that get you there? It's like one or the other, right? >> this capitalist society, that's evil. I forgot. So, Should I use your thinking brain? >> What do you think of the criticism that sometimes you're too harsh on the guests? >> Yes, absolutely. Of course we are. One, it's a show. Two, they come on and they literally ask for it and beg for it. I just filmed with the guest before this and I was like, "Do I have permission to make the title and thumbnail that you went through?" And she was like, "Please, be crazy." It's like, so it's just like, I don't know. Too harsh on the guest? Don't come on the show if you don't want it. Don't come on the show if you don't want it. Don't get offended on the behalf of someone who's not offended in the first place. And if this show's not for you, that's okay. >> Now, we predicted that a while ago. You're going in the direction of Jerry Springer. >> Caleb Springer, thank you. >> Caleb Springer. Isn't there a limit to just how far you could push things? >> Yeah, and we're probably there. Like, we don't get [laughter] anything crazy We haven't gotten anything crazier than we've done in the last year. We've honestly the show's been where it is today in the last year and a half. So, it's very interesting cuz you'll get some of these in your comments right now. Some of the Oh, I used to be a fan until he was too mean. I'll I'll get It goes on a cycle. For 3 weeks I'll get Caleb's being more mean than normal and Caleb's being nicer than normal. He should be meaner to that guy. Caleb's being meaner than normal. Nicer It's just It's an endless repeat. The show's been about the same for a year and a half to 2 years. Um even with the titles. Our titles actually used to be more mean and whatnot, but Um yeah, since I embraced the Springer now they're trying to throw a new insult at me calling me Dr. Phil. So, I guess I'm Caleb Phil. Um it's not as catchy. >> between like genuine helping them and just like bullying them? >> Yeah, I mean, if we weren't seeing positive results in the end because at least we track it analytically. We track it analytically. Over 20,000 hours of bad debt paid off in 12 months is the average on the show. 10,000 in 10 months is the mean. So, we get an annual report that we do surveying all our last guests. And if we were actually seeing negative impacts in people's lives, like we would readjust behind the scenes. >> What do you attribute that to? Do you think that's them coming on the show and in a sense just being a little humiliated or do you feel like the people that come on the show to begin with show a genuine interest in turning their life around? >> Uh they have a genuine interest. They come on the show that intent and a lot of times it's their first time they actually get a wake-up call and a fire under the butt. Especially when their episode goes live and they're they're seeing like, "Oh, this person's kind of fi- financially" It's like, they have that incentive. They want to do better. And there's many people that it doesn't work for. But don't come on the show. >> So, is it >> fine. Is it just accountability where they go on the show and people call them out and now they feel like, "I have to make a change"? >> Yes, that's a part of it, but there is the other part as well where we've created a lot of educational resources. They get the Dollar Wise app for free. They get all of our classes in our Master Your Money program for free, which is five different in-depth, professionally curated personal finance courses. They get our course career certifications. They get access to a debit card that builds credit called Fizz. They get access to a lot of resources. Even on the extra special cases, I have them sit down with a CPA financial advisor. Or, I've paid for people's therapy as well if that's what they need. So, we do go above and beyond. We answer their questions behind the scenes. So, it's a lot of that. But when it comes back to the bullying versus actually helping, I think it's bullying if it was like a random person I'm pulling off the side of the street that knows nothing about the show and I'm just like, "Ha, you shorty." [laughter] Like, I'm not saying that, you know. It's like It's people that signed up and people come in with a wish list of like my catch phrases. I I don't know them, but they usually tell the producer like, "Oh, I hope he calls me, you know, a little or something." And I'm like, I don't know. It's just It's a part of the fun of the show. They sign up for the fun. We have fun. >> Walk us through the vetting process in terms of like finding the people, scanning through them, making sure they pass the checks. >> Yeah. >> Who talks to them beforehand? How does this even work? >> Yeah, it's very in-depth. One, they apply either through the ad, but it's targeting people on the show, or they apply through the link in the description, or through the website, kevinoleary.com/apply. And we get hundreds a day. Hundreds upon hundreds a day. When you guys first filmed with me, I think it was like 40 a day. Now it's hundreds. They immediately go into a spreadsheet with all the information they give. Our casting team of three people look over them, start putting people into a column of oh, we're interested in this, we're interested in this, whether it's their story or whether it's their finances, but both have to be good in the end. Then it goes to our initial touchstone. She's in one of our call pods all day just making those initial touchstones and saying, hey, you applied, are you actually interested in coming on the show? You know, the show's kind of crazy, are you sure you want to deal with all that? You know, okay, give me some information about your finances. Can you send me your documents? Here's a couple questions I had about your application. It's a quick 10-minute phone call. Just seeing if they're actually valid. Then they get off the call with that, and then we actually capture their financial documents if that call went well. So, we review those to see if their finances are interesting enough to come on the show. Then whoever whatever casting producer is assigned to that episode, we have two, Colton and Lindsey, they will have in-depth conversations with them talking about their entire lives, their entire finances, things they don't want to talk about, and honestly putting the fear the fear of God into them that they are going to be roasted upon roasted, that they are going to be meaned upon meaned, and be seen by millions, and be commented and all these different things, titles and thumbnails. Um, so they have usually a four to five hour or six hour depending on the conversation, uh, talk with the guests. Then we send them our first onboarding video, where it goes with, hey, I'm glad we accepted you to come on the show, but you need to know a couple things. You're going to get meaned on, you're going to be seen by millions, you're going to get roasted, your personal finances are on display. You need to tell us right you or actually start thinking right now about things you do not want to be on the show, cuz we're going to need you we're going to need you to tell us once you come here. And also, don't come on if you're not going to comfortable if you're not comfortable with this, just let us know. Let us know now. It's okay. You don't have to come here. It's fine. Could you give us examples of things that people have asked not to talk about? >> Only Fans for men all the time. Uh lots of direct family things. People will say loans from family instead of like it's from mom, it's from this. Certain past traumas that they don't want to talk about, which is fair. And that's And because people bring those up when you asked earlier what we cut for people, sometimes it's some of those things that might be a little embarrassing like I don't know if I'd want my situation to be out. So we cut that for them later. Um So usually things like that. We also check in the process, I forgot to mention, like egregious mental health things. If people obviously can't make good decisions for themselves or people have horrible traumas that might be triggered from this, we're like, "Hey, you cannot come on." Or like, "Hey, this is like this might trigger some you probably shouldn't come on." We give them that advice as well, the producers. >> What percent of people drop out through the vetting process? >> I actually don't know at this point because luckily I've delegated I have such an incredible team at this point of 30-plus people at Hammer Media that luckily I don't have to be a part of that process as much. So I don't know. >> And what percent of the episodes that you filmed do you choose to not post? >> Almost none these days. Almost none. Or everything We have so many people applying that we pretty much know we have a good uploadable episode these days. So much so that we've become so confident that we only film three a week now even though we post three a week. It used to be four but now we do three. We have a month's backlog, a full month of uploads. So four weeks, three episodes. >> How much are you working? >> A lot and a lot off hours as well. Everyone's here 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. And we'll do some Saturdays here and there for some random things like members audits or a long live stream. Um And then I work off hours. I have a little passion project right now on a documentary channel I'm doing. But I'm doing that on my own time. The Dollar Wise stuff is pretty crazy. It's been hectic, you know, >> How many hours would you say per week? >> Yeah, that's a Okay. Fair enough. 50 for me. >> 50 for me. >> That's not that bad. >> No, it's not that bad. I brought it down. And I really tried to uh give more time for girlfriend. Cuz that's important. You don't keep girlfriend around if you don't give time to girlfriend. >> We're going to talk about the girlfriend a little later cuz I got some questions about this. But do you ever worry in terms of the show that sometimes the entertainment overshadows the help or the financial aspect of it? >> Uh no, personally because there's a thousands of shows out there. Money Guy has a great show that is education first. Ramsey is a good mixture. >> Mhm. >> I'm a slop consumer. So I love slop. Me and my girlfriend, we watch all the 90 90 Day Fiancé shows. We love that [ __ ] I love it. So I love having some of the drama, some of the tea. But it's also a great way, as silly as it is, in the first part of the episode, maybe even first half now, it's like more of that kind of stuff until it gets into the documents. >> But it's actually benefited me a lot, not only cuz it's fun, but because I really get to know them and I'm able to challenge them on a lot of the [ __ ] they talk about because of everything I got to know first. And it gives a really big baseline understanding of their life, their history, their relationships, and things that got them in that financial situation. But don't get me wrong. I mean, we totally could And again, this is some of the complaints you'll have in the comments right now. Like, "Ah, I used to be a day one fan." I think that's what they're called. Uh and I don't like how the show's become like Yeah, that's fine. And we have the analytics behind it. Luckily, the vast majority of original subscribers are still happy and watching, but uh either way, yeah, I mean, it's moved to more fun. One, I do not think I could do a show this frequently if I wasn't having a good time. I really don't. I I don't think there's a I don't I wouldn't be incentivized to do it. So I'm going to have fun doing this. My team's going to have fun doing this. Um guests are going to have fun doing this. But then on the help part, again, if the analytics weren't there about guests getting help, then I would actually reassess what we're doing. Luckily, they get better and better every single year and we are getting nothing but positive experiences from guests these days. Like, you know, a couple years ago when it was less crazy or even when I got my first producer and he was a really bad hire. There was like a couple guest experiences where they weren't as happy afterwards, but so if things weren't looking good, I'd be concerned there. Okay. But I have fun. We like to have fun. I support the Caleb Springer and the Slop. And Money Guy is a great resource. I am friends with Brian and Bo. If you want strictly finances. What's your favorite and least favorite part of your job? Favorite. Love working on anything on the business end. That's what I really like working on. I like scaling this thing the dollar-wise, the educational programs we're doing. Uh Caleb Hammer Live was fun for a second. We're revamping that after, you know, I got a little naughty. And working on It's my fun. It is the most fun to me building something from nothing. Financial Audit is still fun to do, especially on once I'm deep in the episode or we're making titles and thumbnails and it's going live and I get to manage that. Uh but financial audit itself isn't as fun as everything else because it's already successful. So I can't get in there just like make it you know, crazy out. I don't get the you know, really lock in and go hard. There's a whole team. It's a well-running machine. Um My least favorite job, and this is more just being an introvert, is actually coming in to film the financial audit. Cuz I don't know that person. I've never met that person. I hope the episode's going well, but I got to get to know this person. I don't really like getting to know people. This is not a part of my personality. Uh we're going to dinner with someone later. I don't know this dude. Like it's going to take me a second to kind of come out of my shell, you know. I'm just that introvert kind of person. So the first 15-20 minutes of filming is actually my least favorite part. But then I love the second half of filming once I know them. >> And what about the drama? Like how are you always in the epicenter of some drama? I feel like there's always something going on. >> On the internet? >> Yes. >> Yes. I see you on Twitter. I'm controversial. >> Yeah, but I see Twitter. and is Caleb doing on Twitter because people are here accusing you. Look at this right-wing grifter. Look at this left-wing grifter. This guy has no idea what he's talking about. You're just always wrapped up in some sort of drama. >> Well, it's interesting on Caleb Hammer Live where we talked about more relevant topics. I took left-wing positions and right-wing positions, which means right-wingers thought I was left-wing, left-wingers thought I was right-wing. I'm not the the classic centrist I'll never take an opinion. No, but I'll go either way depending on where the facts are, you know, for me. So, that makes everyone angry. And also, I'm controversial. We say, you know, That upsets some people. That's upset some of the like slop commentary community that kind of copy and paste the same arguments even though they're not really good over and over >> But why say those things? Because I feel like you could get 99.99% of the results without calling someone a >> It's not the result. It's honestly >> you. >> Kind of it is a part of the humor I like. I love the outrage humor. When I go to I love going to stand-up shows in Austin. And the stand-up community in Austin is a bit more edgy and I love that edgy I love edgy I this most I get from this daily basis is still a edgy being edgy as [ __ ] getting people's outrage in a group chat from 10 years ago. Like, "Oh, crazy." It's like That's just me. I love being edgy and that is not for everyone. But one thing I learned in reflecting from uh uh you know, kind of reacting and being upset at those people being offended um through friend of the show Nicholas DeOrio, great commentary uh creator. He was like "Why be worried about these people being upset at what you're saying? You're never going to win them over. They're never going to be the fans of your show and they're never going to like the jokes you do. Why care?" >> But why do you Why do you respond to some of these >> Well, I did and then he said that and I listened to that and I was like, "Oh, he's right." Like >> When was this? >> A few weeks ago, couple weeks ago. >> So, it was until a few weeks ago that you just >> Yeah. >> Okay. Cuz it seems like sometimes you have this visceral reaction where if someone comes at you with something, you you respond to it, and you kind of pour gasoline in. Yeah. >> over the top person. I mean, I am. And people said I crashed out, too, which is interesting because they ever watched the show, that's just the energy from that show. But, of course, because it was so long, the 4-hour thing I did, no one actually watched that to hear my points. They only saw what who I was responding to, selectively clipped. So, it was fine. Whatever. I accept it. I'm taking it on the chin. But, it's just like I do have a little There is sportsmanship in it. I do have some fun with it, for what it's worth. I like a good battle. But, Jorell was right. It's like they're never going to be fans of the humor and jokes. Why cater to them? Why try to win them over? It's fine. >> So, to throw you into some more drama, who is it worse to have more hate coming from, the right or the left? >> Right now, the left. I would have been more afraid of the right during like the Obama days, cuz they like they're scary. The right was scary during the Obama like extremists. I hate extremists. But, right now, um those communities like the South commentary that copy and paste the same videos over and over again, their audiences are vicious. The DMs I've gotten, the comments I've gotten, >> What do they say? >> Telling me to kill myself and all that. It's it's crazy. I've never seen it. They're vicious. And that doesn't mean I think like the left wing is vicious, but I think the far left can be pretty vicious online. It's like if you disagree with 5% of the things, like they'll throw you from the community. So, those creators eat each other alive all the time. You see it in all the big dramas between Hasan, Destiny, Ethan. Like they'll eat each other alive for not even the craziest disagreements. >> Yeah. Um so, I mean, it's it's going to go back and forth. I mean, if I pissed off like the far right, I might be afraid cuz they're probably the ones with the But the most vicious attacks I've gotten have been from the far left. But I'm not a scared I'm not scared or nervous of the normal left or normal right cuz those people are fine. I meet them every day on the show and out in Austin. When they come up and say hi, it's like, "You know, oh, we might not agree on everything, but I'm a big fan of the show." And I'm like, "You don't even know what I believe cuz I don't say it." Um but it's fine. Like everyone's cool with >> The extremists are scary. Do you think the people that come on your show are more left-leaning or right-leaning? And does that have any indication of how good they are with personal finances? >> And I'll say this to the uh people that come on the show that are left-leaning, they embrace it on the show. Everyone that's come on the right, they say, "I don't want to talk talk about politics on the show. That's my no-go." So you'll never know they're on the right. >> Huh. >> They're kind of [ __ ] about it. People on the left are willing to come on the show and they're willing to just put it on full display. So it's easier to meme on cuz they actually talk about it. People that have come on the right, they're like, "I don't want to talk about politics." >> Why do you think that is? >> Well, there was definitely like back in like the 2020 times if like you had a right-wing position, you know, there's, you know, potential like nervous at workplace about it. Uh but that's not where we are anymore. So I don't know why they're [ __ ] Um >> Do you think it's completely swapped from that? >> Or if you have a left-wing opinion, consequences at work? >> No, we're like, you know, either way or or let's say just say you're sharing a conservative opinion in the workplace, do you think that it's completely acceptable now? >> I mean, honestly, I I don't know. We we have people We have like far leftists and people pretty right on that work here and we don't give a [ __ ] but I I don't know. I can't speak for everyone. I know our culture is at least corrected from that era of like the hyper analyzing everyone. And Twitter Twitter and TikTok still tries to. Yeah. They think they're powerful, but sponsors don't care about them anymore. Jobs don't care about them anymore. They have no impact. >> Who do you think is worse with money, the left or the right? >> Uh usually when it comes to people that have come on the show, the left. >> Right. >> People on the left on the show. Tend to be worse. >> What would you say as a percentage? Like 70% left, 30% right, or is it like 60/40? >> Yeah, [ __ ] Maybe like 70 70 to the left. I don't know if that applies out in the real world, but I mean ideolo- ideology and I hate ideologies, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. But ideology, the right does tend to be more personal responsibility. So that you know, kind of come personal finances fits easier in that than the left. >> Yeah. >> So. >> Have you ever filmed an episode and then watched it back and thought that you went too far? >> Yeah, cuz we filmed this alive for us, right? And if I'm having a bad day, it comes across. It legitimately does. I also have I watched episodes where I'm like, why was I so soft on that person? What the [ __ ] is wrong with you? I was being a [ __ ] So yeah, absolutely. For sure where I've gone too in too in on someone for no reason. We used to have more of those um when I was doing double days, filming in the morning and afternoon. So glad we don't do this anymore cuz my afternoon episodes I was much more on the edge. >> Yeah. What do you think people should call you out about? Because you call them out about stuff. >> So I'm telling people to get their personal finances under control, but I'm a fat. Um I don't need to be trying to scale the business in the way I can. I could just be happy collecting a YouTube check. Don't need to get a big building with a big lease and all these employees and whatnot. Whenever I post a company picture, people are like, why does a YouTube channel need this many people? And it's relatively fair, but I like to pay well. I like to scale this thing. Um and it's okay. It's a when people say I'm too mean or the titles and thumbnails are bad, they're not wrong. This is not for them, and that's okay. Like it It's okay. Don't come on the show. Don't watch the show. When I don't like something, I don't watch it. I don't go on the shows I don't like. If I didn't like you guys' show, I wouldn't be on the show. Um so, it's like that's not inherently a wrong opinion to have. I don't agree with it cuz I come from not being offended by everything, but you know, it's fine. They can criticize me on that. >> What's your overhead? >> Ooh, chunky. She's chunky. She's chunky. Hundreds of thousands. >> Hundreds of thousands of dollars a month? >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> And what do you do >> I think about three. >> Three hundred thousand dollars a month? >> I think. >> What do you do to make sure that your employees are investing? Or do you just have to learn to not care about that? >> That my employees are investing in their job? >> No, no, no. Investing like personal finance, like buying stocks. >> on them, man. >> So, you but So, I've always noticed >> a 401k match to encourage it. >> Does everyone in your organization agree to it? >> Do they take it? I don't know. I don't ask. I don't want to get that personal. >> And to their >> Yeah, it might not be a case. >> place to tell people >> I mean, I guess it's different it's different >> for us because we kind of like work with a lot of our friends. And so, like I feel somewhat like I feel passionate about making sure that like hey, you know, like with one of our contractors, person we you know, take jobs with is not investing something I'm like hey, you know, like I'm annoying with it. I'm like you should maybe consider doing a dollar cost averaging to a low cost index fund. And so, I feel passionate about it, but I'm just curious as someone who employs a lot of people. Is this not really something that that you think about? >> For the majority, no. I mean, I've become friendly and close with some. >> Mhm. >> And you know, we have individual conversations for fun. Um or we roast each other's financial decisions. Uh but not for the best majority. But we encourage it. We encourage it with a 401k match. I don't remember if it's three or four percent, but it's I I hope they're doing well. Good luck. We certainly pay them enough to do well. >> This is a near impossible question, but what percentage of someone's financial status is a result of their behavior or the environment that they're in? >> Behavior will pull harder in the end. Behavior will pull harder, but you could come from a situation that you have to give 10 times the behavior than any of us have been through to actually pull yourself out. If you're in the projects of Flint, Michigan or something, that's hard. If you had lead in your water and you have some, you know, deficiencies because of that, that's hard. Not as much behavior comes from that. But I think for the vast majority of Americans, where people are not going hungry, our poorest people are fat. Um behavior's going to be the bigger determining factor for the majority. But there are situations in full poverty poverty-ville, West Virginia, Appalachia, that is going to be difficult and that is going to be harder than any situation that anyone else is going through going through being in a town where 80% of the jobs 80% of the people went away, heroin came through and stopped a lot of the town. That's going to be hard. >> Which situations are excusable then? Like you said the Appalachia. >> Yeah, I mean it's more excusable. It's more understandable, I should say than excusable cuz once again, I think once someone gets over the ignorance and knows what they have to do, if they know what they have to do and they laid out the path of how to get there and they're choosing not to, then that's is them choosing to a certain extent. But it's understandable than excusable more than excusable. >> What would you I had a debate with a friend. What would you do if you were a person in like rural Appalachia that has no opportunities, an opportunity desert? And let's say you're in Flint, Michigan. Let's say you're just in a place, not a big city, rural environment, not many job opportunities, not great education. What do you do? >> Join a gang. >> Okay, and then? >> Honestly, probably. That's where you get in >> scale up to be the kingpin? >> I mean, that's a genuine real answer in a lot of not maybe not Appalachia, but in the more urban poor places, that's where community is. That's where money is. That's where resources is. >> no. No, no, no, no. >> I'm not advocating for it, but I could >> No, no, but like okay, but what should you do? Let's not I'm I'm not saying like what's the What what should you do? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Okay, what should you do? >> I I would I meant like what should you do? I don't know if it came off that way, but that's what I that's what I thought. >> Oh, okay. A couple of a couple different avenues. Certainly the buckle down. If your school system sucks, you know, it's it's hard, but usually states do allow those poorer school districts if you're in like a top percentage, you might get automatic enrollment and whatnot into some universities. So, really buckling down the best you can do, get good grades in school, and try to get the [ __ ] out of there. Military is a decent option. Kind of sucks, you know, people equate it to like the Hunger Games just to get college education. I don't necessarily see it as that, but it is an option for anyone and everyone who grows up in these communities as long as, you know, you're keeping healthy, keeping straight, so. Those are those are two decent, not perfect, easier said than done answers. And not as fun as joining a gang. >> In terms of having couples on the show, who should pay on the first date? >> I'll pay on the first date if I think there's a future there. >> You know what I always think is a is a good thing to do is that you kind of pay on the first date, but then what you could do is throw out like actually, let's do dinner and you get the dinner and then you could throw out there's actually a really good dessert spot like down the street. How about this? I'll get dinner, you get the dessert. And the dessert's not going to be like a big thing. It's just going to be like, you know, 10 bucks. And it just shows that like hey, it's you know, it doesn't have to be a 50/50, but like you you get the dessert. Or like how about this? I get the first two rounds of drinks, you get the third. And it's just like a little something. >> So, you say that. You will you will verbally say that. >> Yeah. To give you the honest answer, I mean, I was trying to give a fun answer, but to give the honest answer, usually I just take care of the bill because okay, I have money, it's fine. But what I like to have done historically is to split the bill on the first date until we know what kind of where we're going. >> And you say it? >> Yeah, I'm just like, "Hey, I like to split the bill on the first date cuz, you know, it's just like, "Yeah, we're both here. Who knows what's you know, whatever." It's just like, "Let's split it." >> And do you think that that is a pretty good rule that most should apply? >> for a first date because you don't know if like the other person's just trying to >> I don't think people just go on dates for free anymore. Do they? Do they? >> No. >> I'm sure I'm sure it exists, but my thought is for a woman to spend time with a stranger, >> Yeah. It's not worth it. And then >> Unless if it's a like a like a three Michelin star. Like I could see that. >> but even then, for someone to like put the time and effort into like getting ready, vet someone, make sure they're not a stalker or a creeper. Like all the time that they put into that is not worth a free meal. >> I'll be honest, this is the most I've ever thought about this because it really doesn't matter, but I guess who who gives a And that be the real answer? I don't >> To some people, this could be a very important question. When should you bring up finances if you're dating? >> Before moving in at the latest. Before you move in with each other. >> Earliest? Depends how depends how fun you are. Um people I've gone on dates with in the past few years, they've because they know who I am or they look me up, they'll like bring it up in a cheeky way in the beginning like, "Oh, by the way, I don't I don't have any credit card debt." And that kind of stuff. So, but for like the normal person, I think past the official stage. One month official? Seems easy. >> Past the official stage. So, you've already committed to the person and then you bring up finances. >> not to [ __ ] others really in the end, right? If you're kind of going official >> third date. >> Yeah. >> Third date. >> Oh, wait, to bring up any finances at all? What extent? What level? >> Just like how good they are with money. And you could bring it up gently like, "Oh yeah, where did you Where did you go to college?" Oh man, that's a great school. How did you finance that? Did you Did you pay for it? They're like Or you could say, "Hey, by the way, what's in your wallet?" And you could say there's you know, here's how you could bring it up. You could say, "Listen, someone's wallet actually tells a lot about them. What's in their wallet? Can I see?" >> Well, yeah. And that's how they manipulate them. >> What are you talking about? >> If they're more on they'll believe that's what you're asking about. >> No. If they're dumb and then all of the sudden you take out the credit card. You're like, "Oh wait, oh you have the Amex Platinum. Oh, that's interesting. What was your first Amex card?" >> It's been way too long since Graham's been like out of the dating pool. Clearly. >> Does that not work? >> What even is that, dude? Like I feel like if a girl's like if you're trying to like show off that you have an Amex Platinum, that that is the maximum cringey thing. >> not showing mine. I'm just saying for for the other person. I say this to them. What's in your wallet says a lot about you. And she'll be like it should No, but I'm just saying >> there we go. What are we even talking about then? If you're If you're saying something you've never said >> I'm just saying it would work. It would work. >> Okay, let's just say to have a conversation of like how much are you earning? What kind of debt do you have? You know, what is your financial goal? >> kind of debt? Financial goals? Month in. Let's call it a month or two in. >> A month into being official. >> Yeah, that's fine. In terms of like what's her job, I think you know, that's easy first date. And do you think it's a necessity to have that conversation early on? Cuz you talk with a lot of people that are in relationships in financial distress. >> Mhm. I would try to get like little nibblets along the way to just see if they're responsible. Cuz they could be financially but you know, but a relatively responsible person that wants to get out of it and I'm okay with that. >> Mhm. >> I'm okay with that. Uh someone doesn't need to be wealthy or doing well, but if they're just endlessly irresponsible which you pick up clues along the way. That's a easy red flag to be like, "Okay, let's not commit any further to this." >> And so you have a girlfriend now. How long until you guys have that conversation? >> I don't remember. Again, I think with my situation it cheekily came up a lot quicker. So, honestly probably in the first few days. >> And how long have you been talking to her? >> Uh we've been official uh for a year and 6 days. >> And does she pay for anything? >> No. No. >> So, it is beyond that. >> Yeah, it's because I mean I don't see the purpose. I mean she tries to, she offers to, but I'm like What the There's no point. >> When's the last time you let her pay for something? >> She bought me a Valentine's Day gift. >> What about on like Christmas or like a birthday? >> Yeah, those are those are a little bit >> No, no, just like a date. Like you guys are going out on a date. >> Man, I don't remember. >> I just What about you, Graham? >> Uh oh gosh, Macy's all the time. >> Really? >> But yeah, but she sneaks it. So, we'll go out to dinner and then she'll be like, I I hold on, I got to go to the bathroom and come back and the bill is paid. And this is this is not a one-off. >> Graham's like the best day ever. >> It's [laughter] awesome. But it it I always offer for everything, but sometimes it's just she is quicker or very sneaky or when I even anticipate and all try to do it, even the server's like, "Hey, sorry, it's already been taken care of." >> Mhm. >> And there's even been a few times where this has happened and the server's like, "No, no, someone else has paid." I'm like, "Neither one of us?" "Yeah, someone else paid for your bill." A subscriber. >> So. >> Interesting. >> So, there have been times out there where we've gone out to eat and I feel bad because then I'm like, I don't even know who it was. >> Yeah. It's a bummer. >> So, then it's neither one of us. >> See, Graham does not see that as a bummer. >> [laughter] >> Caleb's like, "That's a bummer." Graham's like, >> I don't know about that, actually. I don't know. I like to cover it. I'm not very like trad or traditional in a lot of things like that, but no, no, it's nice. >> So, what are the red flags that you see in couples when it comes to money? >> When each other don't know each other's financial situation cuz there's no one who comes on this show that isn't at least in the position where they should have that talk. Where they have a completely different world view on goals, spending, desires, where they want to be as a couple. He It's like if you are not even aligned on that, like what are we doing? Get aligned or get the [ __ ] out. Um And then the next one would be just like not knowing where the other one's spending is going and immediately throwing accusations to the other person's way. Like, you're spending on this. Well, you're spending on this. It's like, why are we looking at it like this? Why aren't we just trying to come together and get better together and hold each other accountable instead of just trying to throw each other under the bus? >> What about success in relationships in situations where there's a big income gap? If the guy makes a lot more than the girl or the girl makes a lot more than the guy, what have you noticed there? >> Hm. Well, we On the big gaps, we've had a couple times where the lower income person, which I think both times is actually the woman, which is kind of unfair, jealousy. Some weird jealousy there. Don't really like that. One person, she chose to get a degree, she gets paid less, and her boyfriend chose to become an engineer. He's a piece of [ __ ] by the way, but either way, regardless of that part, chose to become an engineer makes a lot more money, and she's like, well, I went to school for more, he just got a certification, he makes more. And I'm like, okay, but you chose to do this. You can look at it in the data. That was really weird. Definitely some jealousy. Then we've also had some like stay-at-home Um mostly women, but we I think we've had a couple stay-at-home guys as well. And they're They like to be the spenders while the other one's the earner. Big fans of that. >> And what about combining finances? Would you recommend that for most relationships, and will you do that? >> For most, I don't know. I mean, I'll Yeah, I'll do it. I'll I'll do it if she if she wants to, I guess. Um I mean, it's personal finances. It works for some, it works for others. It sounds like it doesn't work for you guys from what you just said, cuz if she's paying for it, I mean, she has her own money, and you guys are married. So, and that's fine. I I think it just really depends on the relationship. As long as I think we're aligned on goals, we know where we're trying to get, we're being responsible, and that's okay. I think a good healthy middle ground is maybe a couple separate accounts, but everything goes into one joint where things aren't really spent, but then it's divided from there. Bills and then personal spending. What about prenuptials? Do you >> They get income divide, yeah. >> Do you plan on getting a prenuptial? >> Yeah, she knows that. >> Yeah. >> And how early do you have that discussion? >> I told her pretty damn quick. I mean I mean it's just big income divide. It's just going to happen. >> Mhm. >> It's just going to happen. Things just get messier, things get weird. It is just This is cleaner that way. >> So, when it comes to that, what's a financial mistake that you make? >> Um my rental properties. I mean it's not that I lost >> still have them? >> I'm exiting them. My I made money. I made decent money. I would have made so much more money being in the market instead of focusing on that. I really want to sell those things. >> as soon as possible. The last time that I think we talked, I was telling you to sell those rentals, right? >> Yeah, my I don't remember. >> There was a condo, there was something worth like 500 grand. I said sell it. >> Yeah. Yeah. I should >> Cuz you said you were going to be either break even or barely cash flow negative on it, and you didn't want to give up the mortgage, I believe. >> Mhm. Yeah, that was on the condo specifically. I did exit that >> pretty quickly. Um but my rental properties, back to my home state, yeah, I'm fully exiting them, and I'm just putting the money in the market. So, that was a financial mistake. Um I mean I definitely move a lot. You know. >> Did you >> Buy, sell, buy, sell, but >> Are you losing money on your house? >> The current house that I'm in right now while my new house is under renovation, I will probably break even. >> So, you bought a house while your house is being renovated? >> no, no, no, no, no, the house that I live in now is the house you guys have been to that I've had for a few years. >> Okay, yeah. >> But I've had a house for a little bit in like my dream neighborhood essentially. And but it's been a renovation kind of mess. So it's been taking a while. >> But on your other house that we've been to, >> Yeah. >> are you losing money on that? When you sell it, will you break even? >> break even. At best. Maybe a little loss, but not much. >> And if someone were to look through your personal finances as an audit, what would they criticize? >> Oh, this is interesting cuz we talk about low-cost index funds. I mean, I use The Money Guys as their financial services. Um they're my wealth managers. I decided to go with them in the end. >> Why do you need a wealth manager? I feel like you are smart enough and in it with finances that you could just buy an index fund, one fund, and be done with it? >> Which I could and I'm down for. Luckily, it's like they are very their fees are very very tiny. So I'm really not losing much. Um taking advantage of some tax loss harvesting is nice. Um it's good to have someone in your corner when you get to that next level. And for me, it kind of it came down to our conversation It's not as extreme as whether or not starting that burger restaurant or taking out >> [clears throat] >> starting that franchise. But I want to put all my energy into this business. I want to put all of my energy into growing Dollar Wise. I don't want to think about my investments. I don't need to think about diversification and international to what is Bitcoin doing? What's happening here? What's happening there? I don't want to think about that. They're the experts. I'm letting them work on letting Brian and Bo and my boy >> What are they investing in? >> I mean, it's mostly just replicating the market if we're being honest. >> Okay. >> Not so much yet right now though. Right now. We have an ultimate goal we're trying to get to within a couple of years, but >> So with all of the success that you've had, do you still finance your furniture? >> No. >> You paid it off. >> Well, I'm going to get new furniture in the new house. I might finance that. >> And what is the logic? >> What is the logic? No, I'm not going to finance it. At [laughter] this point I'm not I I doubt I'm going to finance it, but I don't >> Has your relationship with money changed? >> Um my fear's gone down substantially cuz I hit that minimum goal that we talked about I think our first time. Once I hit that you know, a lot of the conversation is does the goal just change? Well, the goal changed but my safety net goal did not. Once I hit that I was like oh I'm good. >> Can you say what that goal was? >> Um what was it? 5 million? I think. >> And why did you pick 5 million? >> You know, I was actually talking to the money guys. >> Mhm. >> I was talking to the money guys. Yeah. That's just what they said is like my safe line. When they did the audit on me and I was like I just kind of went with it. I just went with them. >> I'll I'll tell you what you have to do next because at your goal level, your risk does not decrease. And what you have to protect against at this point are lawsuits, >> Yeah. >> health, and any sort of personal accident that could derail that. And so now you have to protect against that. >> Yeah, lawsuits are really the only thing we're doing pretty well with great contracts, tying up the best lawyers, and um insurances up up the butt. Uh so that's good. Health. I am skinnier since last time you guys met me, but it's not as significant as it should be. >> For what it's worth. So how did you arrive to the 5 million number? >> Uh the money guys suggested once you get 5, you're chilling and they laid out a full plan. It's like yeah, >> What was the justification? >> the justification? It's like [ __ ] I don't remember. It was a couple years ago. I just always move on to the next thing more than [ __ ] you're trying to get an answer, isn't it? Um I don't know. Once they once they set a goal for me, these people that are my friends that I respect, I'm a very goal-oriented person. Since I put that on my radar, that was just it. That was it. It might not be as perfectly logical as we want it to be. >> And how is the relief that you've experienced expressed itself? >> Got a million to take more risk, willing to hire more people, willing to do more things, willing to like if this is as far as I get, that's fine. Now I'm going to throw it on the table. >> And so you've just increased your expenses to make life more comfortable. >> Yeah, this studio well, less about that, but this studio is expensive. We spent a lot of money on this studio. We pay really good wages. Our overhead is crazy. I think it's probably higher than 300 a month. Um it must be. Uh really just doubling down, doubling down on the business. >> And it's just been an easier decision since you feel like you have this guaranteed safety. >> could have just siphoned all the money, you know? I could have just siphoned. But I decided to double down. >> made more because you've invested so much more into the business? >> Luckily, yes. Now that Dollar wise is very successful because it has like made waves through the budgeting market. Um yeah, no, it paid. Paid great. >> What happened to the Dollar wise app? >> Yeah, when it first launched, that was a Woo! So, one thing I learned, for all you people growing a business right there, third-party contractors, when building something from scratch, not always the best thing to do. It is cheaper, it is easier, it is less scary, they probably know what they're doing, but build in-house, do the investment. If you're actually confident in what you're doing, build it in-house. Cuz that's what we've had to do this these last like 7-8 months is rebuild everything from out. So, we launched with the contractors, a complete disaster, they wouldn't fix things on time. It was [ __ ] They launched with Simplifi Budget, we got a copyright issue, it was it was almost a lawsuit, had to switch it to Simplifi Budget or uh Dollar wise before we made any app fixes. Luckily, my team came in, we hired them, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, put all my money back towards them. They fixed the app to where the past in the past like 3 months, 4 months, the app's been good. It's all the you know, the issues are fixed. But now but it hasn't been that app that's like uberly competitive against all the other budgeting apps. So, what they've been working on the last 6-7 months, especially with all the new technology that exists today, is building this big 6.0 launch that is happening right after we filmed this and it's going to be incredible. I'm so excited to see how it competes against the Monarch again well yeah Monarch's like the big one right now but against all the other top dogs are now with the great level of insights people are getting into their money that's automated more than any other budgeting app actually giving you those tools and insights in your insights tab. I'm just so excited to see what happens. >> Do you worry that potentially the app is at risk if like a chat GPT or a Gemini came out with a like a financial AI that could basically integrate already and then give you like real-time insights and suggestions immediately for free? >> Yeah potentially. I mean I I know even Grok itself and what is it Perplexity? I think they have like a a finance mode. So there are things like that and that's a conversation but I think people like having an app they trust with their data cuz I don't know if people trust their data with AI. So a company that doesn't sell data actually protects that and that's what we've promised to do and that actually connects with these great third parties uh like Plaid and whatnot to sync their accounts automatically instead of having you like okay what's the update Jeff GPT? Okay what's going on now? What's going on now? Here's a question you know. So we already give you the insights everything's automatic it's all done for you and it's built in a way for a human to use not like what a chatbot thinks you want to hear in the moment. But someday honestly probably and we have a pivot in mind. >> Okay. >> In about a year. >> What's the end goal for Dollar Wise? >> Uh I mean I want to build it into not only the best budgeting app potentially go into the world of uh some banking potentially go into um I I want to scale it into a multi-hundred-million-dollar business. I want to employ a lot of people and I want to create an app that actually changes people's lives. More than the show does. >> What's the primary motivator at this point because you have more than enough money right now, I would assume, if you wanted to step away from YouTube, would you be fine to do so? >> Yeah, oh, for sure. >> So, you can live a perfectly quality life with all the money that you have saved up and invested. >> I think so. >> So, if it's not then to get to like a different level of wealth, to access different things in life, then what is the motivator? >> You know, it's interesting, I just saw a clip from your episode that was just released with a streamer I've never heard of, no offense to him, but you asked him if he would step away with $20 million or something. He said, "No, he'd be bored." I'd be bored. I love building [ __ ] I love working with people. I love having an impact positively on the world. Some people don't agree with it, and that's okay, we don't care about their opinion. They're, you know, whatever. That's their choice. But, I want to leave an actual resource and legacy that helps people. I really do. >> But, would you walk away for $100 million post-tax? >> No. Billion, maybe. A billion dollars, maybe. Yeah, sure, why not? >> So, where does most of your revenue come from today? How is it broken down? Dollarwise would say the the pie chart. >> Dollarwise has played a big catch-up. For the vast majority of last year, it was financial audit, driven by AdSense and sponsorships. Memberships really took off last year. That's been huge. That pulls some pretty heavy weight, but now Dollarwise is so substantial, I'd say it's about still 40% YouTube, 20% sponsors, and then the rest comes from the mixture of our educational programs, and Dollarwise. >> One thing that we had discussed on this podcast, every time we've had you on so far, you have said that you were still deathly afraid of dying poor on the Walmart floor. >> Yeah, not anymore because I hit that goal. I mean, that was a big part of it. That was a huge part of it. >> So, it was as simple as setting a goal, achieving the goal, and then that's it? >> Yeah, cuz five five million dollars, I mean, it's more money than most people can imagine, but it doesn't give you like a huge crazy life for the rest of your life, not not by any means. But, I can feel comfortable that I can get my [ __ ] together for long enough for a long time. I can get my [ __ ] together cuz I can always work. I can always figure out things to do. I have always accepted that I might have to go get another normal regular job post YouTube once I got into this thing. So transparently, I've had this goal for a very long time and it's the exact same as what you said. It's like $5 million and I feel right now like I need to race as fast as I can to hit that and then once I hit that so funny you mentioned this cuz it is so directly applicable to my life. Once I hit that, then at that moment I can then start spending to make my life a little bit more comfortable and similar to what you did, I would love to hire on more editors and hire on more producers so we can actually obviously our profit would go down but then it would we would take exactly the maybe is the it's the unknown. Hopefully, you know, our profit would go up but the risk of doing that I don't know if it's worth it when right now like we can still remain profitable and I can still continue to like save as much as I can until I hit that network. So it's interesting to see that you actually as soon as you hit it, the mentality did change. If you could go back in time, would you have started to elevate your lifestyle and spend more back into the business before you hit that 5 million or do you think it was necessary to have that confidence once you hit it? >> Yeah, I definitely don't regret anything but since I know it all worked out, I would have put more into the business, not lifestyle. >> Do you think it was important to get crazy life to get the confidence like that the through and through confidence once you hit that number? >> Yeah, it was nice. It just allowed me to step the foot on the gas on everything else, you know, instead of being so afraid of everything. So, aren't you at five? >> Yeah, that's hard. >> It is hard. People don't realize like you can It's difficult but Is it cuz Graham didn't pay you anything when you started? >> That was it. >> No. No, cuz I mean I was trying >> I'm trying to start some [ __ ] No, because I made Jack work for free. >> Yeah. >> For such a long time that the early years of compounding have just caught up to him. >> have done one extra year. I only I think I I didn't work for free I mean I for a little bit like months but it wasn't anything. It was like but I mean I'm not at five because people don't real- People don't know >> hard. It's >> Saving up money post-tax is incredibly difficult. So, like you can be earning a lot of money, and you could be earning a lot of money for a pretty long time. Like, I feel like I've I've been earning good money, not like a lot, but like good money for 5 years now, probably. But, saving up post-tax is like so like so hard. Like, even to to save up the first like million, like it takes years and years of like high earning and saving post-tax. >> You have expenses, and then what you don't spend then is now taxed, or you spend money after taxes. It's just >> And when you're as bullish on Robinhood stock as I am, >> Oh, gosh. >> then obviously, it's going to hinder your economical growth. >> Honestly, I'd say about a third of my net worth has been through just pumping in during big dips the past couple years. Just had great rebounds. >> That's incredible. >> Like, the beginning of last year when tariffs first started, woah. I love that little dip. I made incredible money on that. >> Do you purposely set money aside for events like that? >> No, I got really I got really lucky. >> perfect timing. It just happened to be >> timing. Now, with the wealth advisors, with ThankYouMoneyGuy, um we are setting aside like a large pile of money for uh a few different things, but in case a big opportunity comes, whether that's, you know, commercial real estate or >> Yeah. >> buying a big dip. >> Do you feel like you still need more money? >> No, not at all. Not at all. It doesn't come It doesn't come from anything that I want additional in lifestyle. I'm getting my dream house in my dream neighborhood. >> How much is that going to be? >> Uh house 1.6, renovation five. >> $5 million on a 1.6 house? >> no, no, no, no, no. 500,000. >> What? My god. >> 500,000. >> Well, when I hear five, I think 5 million. When I hear 500,000, >> That would be insane, though. >> He's just >> And I got my Model X, I'm very happy. Um So, part of that might be you haven't moved into the house yet. >> Yeah, maybe. >> you move into the house. >> It's not the house, it's the community. [clears throat] It's walkable. Like that's what I craved. I crave a place with parks and shops that's safe and actually laws are enforced. Um that's, you know, where I'm excited to be. So, it's it's more of that than the house. >> Do you feel financially secure? Do you feel like you need more money? >> financially secure, but I feel like I need more money. Uh it's so funny. I had these long discussions with Gemini and ChatGPT and Grok. They know everything about me. They know every single one of my investments. >> Stop. >> Seriously, they And I update it on a regular basis, so they know exactly where I stand. And I've gone through every single tax strategy to be able to buy a house that I want that I think would be a dream house. >> What's that? >> What do you mean what's that? >> you say? Like what that would be? >> Oh, price range-wise? Or what? >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Oh, no, no. I mean, I want a house in Las Vegas with a view of the strip >> Yeah. >> that's completely private where all you see from the front, my vision, is just all you see is a gate. >> So, you're going more >> see the house. And then with a yard, yeah, yeah. With a with a big yard, with a view of the strip. Uh and those tend to be about 7 to 10. And me doing >> chunky. >> It is. And so, then it is, well, 7 to 10, you know, let's just say because realistically I use some of the house for business, but the mortgage cap is 750, which leaves a lot of money that's not deductible. And then I'm like, well, I could do a box spread and I could borrow against my portfolio, create capital losses, and then buy the house with it. And I do all the calculations, but I've determined that right now to comfortably afford that, I need another 3 to 5 years of income cuz I never want to buy something and then be reliant on income to to it. I I assume if I buy something, I want to be okay where if my income goes to zero the next day and I just have my investments to live off of, that'll fund everything I need with a 30% buffer in the event the market goes down or something unexpected comes up. >> Why do you want that? I understand the view part, but why do you want to be further away from society? Why do you want >> No, no, no, that's not further away >> you want more space? Like what are you doing with it? >> Oh, I love when you go out and it just feels peaceful where you just feel like you're in the middle of nature. I don't like going outside and I see like house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house, house. I love you you open it into a space that just feels like you're in a bit of a forest that feels tropical and I want like, you know, koi ponds and like trickling water through the place. It it I don't want a mansion, but I just want that land and space and privacy with the view that just feels like you're in your own little sliver of like heaven, if that makes sense. >> know, actually when you ask like if I need more money, no. But now that you did say that, I do have in the back of my head a really cool thing someday would be like a really cool hill country Texas ranch. I love a Texas ranch. Just for just I love animals. I do like land. That'd be cool. But so I guess that would be it. That'd be it. >> Yeah. >> But neither of you still fear going broke. >> I don't fear that. >> Oh, I would say for me there's a certain small percentage that you just don't you don't know what you don't know. That's always what it is for me. >> My philosophy is like Uh if the US economy goes to zero and we're all each other, I'm ready to put a in my mouth, I don't know. >> If the US economy goes to zero? >> Yeah, if we're in like the you know, World War Z end of the world. >> You wouldn't fight? >> No. No, no, no, no. I'm too My my my anxiety, my panic attacks, I would just end it. No. >> I feel like people would say, "Yo, isn't that the guy from the financial audit show?" And they're like, "Oh my gosh, yeah, it is." And they're like, "Yo, come with us. Like, we'll save you." >> I I don't I don't want the the No, no, no, no. I think me and my girlfriend we've decided we'd uh you know, bunker up. So. It's expensive. Well, >> part. >> Oh. >> Oh, okay. >> Where did you meet your girlfriend? >> Instagram DMs. >> You slid into her DM? >> Other way. >> She slid into your DM? >> Yeah, I never slide in. Wait, do I? I'm I probably have before. Yeah. I love it for his DM. >> What did she say? >> It was something funny. I don't remember exactly. It was It was It was something cheeky though. That's That's usually how you get me to respond. >> And then what? You clicked on her profile, you're like, "Okay, I like the way she looks." >> Yeah. Yeah, and then we just started talking and >> And how long until you knew that you wanted to take some things seriously with her? >> About a month. About a month. >> days? >> Seriously enough. Uh a week of very intense dates. I was like, "Okay, you know what? I'm interested >> And then you guys live together now? >> We do now, yeah. >> Okay, and how long until you guys started living together? >> We went a little quicker than normal. Uh 4 months. Definitely quicker than I would advise and stuff, but just some things like lease situations and whatnot kind of lined up and we're like, "Nah, if we're going to try it, let's try it." >> What if it doesn't work? It doesn't work. >> What are the main ways that having a relationship has improved your life? Like, if you were to list out all of the stats of life, business, work, confidence, anxiety, what ways have improved the most? >> Well, definitely getting good sup- That's I have a good support system, and she also calls me on my [ __ ] let me tell you. Woo, she calls me on my [ __ ] So, and I'm not getting babied. Like, whatever if I have an opinion or I'm even like upset at someone at work, she'll call me on my [ __ ] And she'll like >> What does she say? >> advocate. I was angry about how an employee was acting at one point. I I don't want to give details cuz they're listening. And she was like, "No, Caleb, you're being a dick. You're being I was like, No, no, I got listen. Um, you know, decent good debates. We also have very similar interests in terms of like uh I mean, we have interests aligned enough to have a really good time with each other, and that's really nice. Good support system, and I mean, I I don't want this to be my life, but studies suggest for men, their closest dynamic in the vast majority of their life outside of childhood is their wife. It's not always the fact the same for women to their husbands, but for men to their wives, that is like their closest and most the person they put everything towards. And I'm glad I found um you know, I don't know if she'll be a wife or not, but you know, we're thinking about that, and I'm glad I think I found the one for that, so. >> When do you think you're going to come to a decision on that? >> I mean, I think I already kind of have. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> What's the most expensive gift you've gotten her? >> Chanel bag. >> How much was it? >> 10. >> $10,000? >> Yeah. Never have Never done anything like that in my life, but I was like, you know what? I make good money. I love this woman. It's been her dream since literally childhood. It is her birthday. >> Yeah. >> That was your dream? >> Uh well, yeah, she's very into fashion. Collectibles, uh collector vintage type [ __ ] So, it was like classic flap, you know, historic bag. >> What was her reaction to a $10,000 bag? >> She cried like crazy. >> not Why not buy her the replica version of that? And just say it's the real >> What, Jack? >> Did she know it was real? >> the nicest thing she's going to get for a very, very, very long time. But, it was like her one thing. I was like, I had a really good year. I love this woman. I've never bought someone something so expensive before. It was what when I asked her sister, it was like, this is what she's always talked about. I was like, okay. [ __ ] it. Let's swallow that. That's That's a hard one. >> With all of that said, with how incredible of a year that you had where it was wildly profitable, and the amazing smile that you put on this woman's face that you love and she was so happy. She cried. It's been a dream. Why would you still not buy a replica? >> [laughter] >> Seagram. Do you see what I'm saying? Like do you see how ludicrous it is? >> It's the same thing. >> the most profitable year you've ever had. You could never even dream of making so much money. >> $9,500. But it holds value. >> What was the >> What was the process like of buying a $10,000 Chanel bag? >> I went in and I was very lucky that they actually had one. I was very lucky they actually had one. >> How do you know and how do you scan that someone isn't interested in you for either the money or for the social media popularity? >> Yeah, that's hard. That's where Well, I mean, you see you see the flaws in someone pretty quick and if they can't put up with my flaws of which um there are many, you know, that would be hard to stick around and just for like I'm not that kind of rich, you know. It's we're not on that level. This is still just like YouTube at the end of the day. And um pre-nup out of the gate. You say yeah, I'm getting a pre-nup. I'm getting a pre-nup. It's going to happen. That's a good way to weed them out. >> Why don't you lose weight? >> I do and have. I think I'm 20 lbs down from the last time you guys saw me. Uh but you're right. I mean, yeah, it's not as much. >> Is it a priority for you? >> Um Uh it continues in cycles of priority. Um I'll be honest, the last 2 weeks have been bad. I've been really good last few months. The last 2 weeks have been bad after a big freeze where we're all stuck inside and I used that as a slide. That was bad. I just need to get right back on it. Um Girlfriend's great for that. Huge fitness person, huge dieting person. She's very smart, great cooking like and the gym is her life. So she's actually been really good on that. She holds me accountable and she calls me out on my [ __ ] >> What's your weakness in food? >> Fries, burgers, and shakes. That shit's good. >> And where? >> Damn America. >> [sighs] >> Oh. Um Shake Shack is incredible. Five Guys is incredible. P. Terry's is incredible. McDonald's is incredible. Chick-fil-A is incredible. >> What's the most underrated fast food restaurant? >> Underrated? I don't know why the people think uh Shake Shack and In-N-Out are even comparable. It's not even close. Shake Shack kills In-N-Out. It's not even close. I'd say that's underrated just because they compare them. It's not even fair that they're compared. Culver's. Culver's is Culver's is great. >> Yeah. >> Overrated Whataburger. >> Do you have any desire though to like really take it seriously with diet and the gym and like make a huge lifestyle change? >> Gym. Just get jacked. >> Gym. I I would love to. What I or else I would just do it, right? I'm kind of like a financial audit, I guess. Um Gym would be nice. But diet, yes. And I have been actually for what it's worth. And people actually we did an end of year video like we put all the clips from the year and stuff and people were commenting about the weight loss, which was It was It was good to see. >> Do you think that you getting, let's just say jacked, looks maxing, do you think that would have an adverse effect on the channel? Yeah, probably. Sometimes you and your current form is going to be more like maybe better for views. Like let's say >> [laughter] >> What do you say? >> Like Jonah Hill. Like Jonah Hill lost weight and he became less funny. >> Yeah. >> Right? Right? >> [laughter] >> Dude, I don't know. Um I love fat jokes. And I probably can't do as many fat jokes when I'm like clavicular. >> But maybe you could like having lost the weight though. >> Yeah, but at that point it probably just looks mean. People already think it's mean, but I don't care. So, yeah. [clears throat] >> I think Caleb, at the end of the day, everything that you've done is incredibly impressive. Especially you go back several years. I mean, where you were at, you were in a decent spot back then, too, but like you just seem like another one of those ambitious people that was like, "I'm going to put my head down and work and see what happens." And it was like, "Okay, you were doing well." And you continued moving in the right direction, but you have stuck with it, you've remained incredibly consistent, super hard working, super disciplined, and you have absolutely exploded. And every single time that we think "Uh this is probably about it. How much longer can he do these? Like, is this really going to be, you know, a profitable thing for a really long time? Or is he just hitting another ceiling?" And then every single time you just break through the ceiling and break through the ceiling. So, you've done an incredible job. Also, I will say of all of the things, it's like you're a great personality on on camera. But of all of the things, you're incredibly efficient at organizing people. And I think that that's what's led to the crazy rise of the business is that you're able to put the right person in the right job, and then know when someone's not either the right person or not in the right spot, and then be able to put them in the right spot. So, I think you've done an incredible job. Your output is insane. It's super respectable. >> Yeah, your efficiency is a 10 out of 10, and we look at your operation as our inspiration. And we see what you're doing, and we talk to you, and you are a huge influence now in the Ice Coffee Hour of figuring out what we could do to improve and not get stale. >> Thank you guys. I appreciate you. It's good to have good support system. You guys are always good to talk to. I have the most incredible employees. It's all because of them. The audience has stuck with me through through drama, through fun, through goons, through gaffes. So, the audience is absolutely incredible. And then most important, the guests on Financial Audit. None of it would be possible without them. So, I'm beyond thankful for them. >> And of course, we're very grateful for you to come back in the Ice Coffee Hour. Every single time we talk to you, it is an absolute pleasure. And for everybody watching, guys, thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in. And of course, we would not be here if not for you. So, every single day I try to practice a little bit of gratitude for the position that we're in and it's we would not be here if not for you guys. So, thank you sincerely from the bottom of our heart for watching this episode. Thank >> And we'll also link to your budgeting app in the description. So, it is there for anyone who wants to try it out. There you go. >> Mhm. >> We flew out to Austin for this. We're staying another day to film a bunch more episodes and then we're flying to Puerto Rico. Okay, and then we're going to fly back >> home and then leave back for LA. Our travel schedule's crazy, but we're doing it for you guys. So, thank you guys. >> Thank you, Caleb. >> Till next time.