He Has $2 In His Checking Account!

0:28Americans told Washington what they want. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. My name is Jamal. I'm 24 years old.

1:02I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and this is Financial Audit. What do you do for a living in Las Vegas? I'm actually a debt collector for Nordstrom, so I've been doing that for... Nordstrom? That's what I'm saying. A debt collector for Nordstrom? Before you say anything, you'll like the numbers. Before you say anything, you'll like the numbers. Because I only say that because it's actually the best job I've worked in financially, and I'll explain a little bit more if you want me to. Nah, but who likes debt collectors? I'm going to be honest with you, neither do I. neither do i it was the only remote job that i can find at nordstrom i mean not nordstrom but in vegas in general really yeah well wait why did it have to be a remote job in vegas so i moved from ohio originally and i needed a job in vegas and so i originally started with yelp for like six months just to transition so i can get an apartment in vegas and then once i didn't scrunch my hair i'm so sorry i wasn't looking beautiful for you no you're good i'm sorry continue your story while I scrunch.

1:59It's okay. So basically what happened was once I moved out, I liked the fact that I was working from home. It was easier, good on my car. And not only that, I kind of lived alone. So I needed something that can financially handle my expenses and also, you know, live day to day a little bit easier. So what do you make now in this position? On a monthly base, I make roughly 2 ,600, but I also make incentive as well. So that boosts me up to 5 ,000 a month. Close to$5 ,000. On average? On. The incentive? Average, let's just say$4 ,200 to play it safe. Okay. Is that before taxes, after taxes? After taxes.

2:38Okay. Yeah. And the incentive is you getting that debt closed? Pretty much, yeah. So depending on how much I make on a monthly base in terms of collecting debt, that's how my incentive gets tracked. Okay. Pretty much. Yeah. Now, if you want to not get hounded by debt collectors, I mean, I can't help you unless you're on this show, but you can subscribe. And maybe that'll just give you a good luck button to not get called by debt collectors like you and your evil position of work. I'll be helping these people, okay? I help. I help. I really do. Oh, f*** off. That's stupid. No, let's not say that.

3:15Come on. Well, I'm glad you're doing better. What were you making? What was I making? Like, before Nordstrom? or and i'm gonna just yeah so so before northstrom i think i was making like roughly

3:30roughly 2200 after taxes a month yeah do you enjoy this position no no oh no not at all no this is this job isn't fun at all but at the same time it helps it's helping me build the dream that i want which is getting into real estate and i make just enough money so i can pay my bills and my expenses and still save enough funds to get into real estate. What is this getting into real estate? You're trying to get a personal residence? You're trying to get some rental properties? So I'm trying to get a residence and then also rent it out. So trying to become a landlord. Rent it out as in house hacking?

4:05Like you live there and then you get some roommates? No, no, no. So I live there, fix out the place a little bit, and then I'll get a tenant to live there and they'll pretty much be paying me the rent situation. Okay, so are you going to do like the BRRRR method? What's that? all the r's let me make sure i get all the r's right it's like buy rehab rent refinance repeat something like that okay okay and i'm no reason i say like that so basically the my process or at least the way i'm going about is i'm going to get the place and then once i get the place i'm gonna keep it for about two months if i need a nice fixing give it fixing if not um move a tenant in i have a lot of friends and also mentors that are in the real estate business so they have a way better idea on how to go about this.

4:51So my only goal right now is to save 10 ,000. And then once I save 10 ,000, that's pretty much emergency fund for Lord knows whatever might happen. And then from there, get into real estate and start building, I guess, get into investing as soon as possible, if that makes sense. Sure. Well, we'll certainly talk about that a little more, but we need to go through your financial situation and see what's up. I want to hear from your perspective before we go into it and everyone is a little more optimistic usually than it typically is when I go into it for some reason but I want to hear from your from your perspective what's your financial situation if I had to rate on a scale one of ten I would say a seven and I say seven and I'm only saying that because my financial situation was horrible last year I was living check to check a lot of times I ended up owing more than I had coming in so I had to fix that And then it was just last December when I'm like, you know what, I'm really serious about getting into real estate and I kind of don't want to bull**** myself.

5:51So let me at least, you know, make some sacrifices right now and try to make as much funds as I can. So that required me buckling down on my job at Nordstrom and actually paying attention so that I can hit top incentive per month, which I've been doing great so far. And also living frugally, meaning I'm only spending money on groceries and just my rent. So I've been trying, but I think I've been doing a great job so far. So what do you need my help with? Honestly, I need you to see if you can call me out on a bull**** or not. It's just especially with the last couple or the last statements I've been sending you.

6:26I just want to see if you can spot the bull**** or if it's actually looked like there's improvement. Well, let's take a look. So we have checking account with. Bustwood the Boys is here to let you know that every college football Saturday, FanDuel's dropping profit boosts that can turn wins into bigger wins. Sounds like we should rename Saturday Booster Day. Nice. 21 plus and present in select states. Opt-in required. Bonus issue does not withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem?

7:03Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

7:08We started with... This doesn't make sense. So what is this checking account? Okay, so this is my primary checking account, right? So as you can see... And it balanced$2.45. But listen, though, but listen. If you go through the transaction history, majority of that money went into savings account. No, that's fine, but that's still a dangerously low balance to have on our checking account. You have automatic payments, right? Not on my checking, no. Not on my checking. All of my automatic savings are on my credit card, and I use my checking to pay off my credit card. and then whatever I have left on my checking, I normally send that over to my savings.

7:43You don't have auto pays on your credit card of like an auto pay the full balance or anything like that? I do have, okay, so then yes, your credits are. So this is a very dangerous low balance to have. It is, it is. Oh, you want to make a coin on your bull, but there's some bull immediately. I mean, okay. So, yep, there's your deposits. You have some zells coming in, some transfer. You're transferring money in from savings. $109,$87,$26. okay the 109 what day was that$250 okay what days are those because this is in January January 25 30 17 24 17 24 25 30 okay so January I was moving um I was moving to a new apartment so the only funds that I can think of that required me to pull money out of my savings the first one I really hate saying this but I think there's like one for like close to 130 maybe 190 in there Valentine's Day was coming up and I couldn't find my credit cards because I lost pretty much my wallet and I needed cash to um buy some things from my girlfriend so I took some money out of my savings to cover that but then I put it back roughly my next check so the money was back in there um and then I think there's another one in there for like 300 if I'm not mistaken that got fold out that one was towards my brother um he needed help uh he does a little truck driving business or whatnot but he needed help uh with gas but he paid me back literally that same week and that same money went right back into my savings okay yeah you did send out cash of 150 or 180 cash app that one what's the name there should be a name on there i think shul shul dahabo oh dahabo yeah that's my mom uh she needed money um my mom doesn't work and she needed some funds to pay some bills so i gave her what i could how old is she she's almost 70 okay almost 70 she's social security and no um my mom is well so my mom brought us over here so i I was originally born in Kenya.

9:53My mom doesn't have the whole money saved up or anything like that. So it's just me and my siblings that are working. And it's not on me to financially help them, but I help out where I can if I have funds available. So that's where that money went straight to. And Rana Ross? Brianna Ross, my girlfriend. Yes. Okay, you're sending her a good amount. How much was that? $249,$109. The$249. Her side,$149 and then$109. The$149, I know the$249, that was, she needed some help with something. I couldn't remember what it was, but this was towards me when I was moving to my new apartment. She needed help with something, so I gave her that much.

10:33And there was another$149 that was, we split Costco groceries as well. So we used her credit card for it, so I paid her my portion on. So you just gave her some money to help her with something? Yeah, I couldn't tell you what it was. It was a busy month on January. I mean, I don't know, but I mean, you're giving your girlfriend money. Okay. As long as it's just a gift. Yeah. You're not expecting it back? No, no, I'm not expecting it back. No, no. That's not. The rest of the stuff is mostly just like Costco, some gas. There was a U-Haul moving thing, and that's fine. And so most things are good.

11:08I mean, you went out once with this. It was just Wendy's, but then resume now. Are you looking for a new job still already? No. So, like I said, January was a very hard month. I was, yes, looking at a job at the time, but I stopped. And plus, I haven't had a new resume forever. So I just wanted to polish it up a little bit. And resume now, I think, took like a couple dollars. But I gave it back because I forgot to cancel the membership. You sent you in front another$250. And then there was to your mom another$70. And then, yes, a lot of money was sent to the credit cards. I assume that's where a lot of the spending is going to be.

11:45But credit cards, credit cards, credit cards. And then also to your savings. Yeah. But again, dangerously low balance. You started with$89 and ended with$2. I have no explanation for that. I just, I, to be honest, I kind of just wanted to, I don't like seeing money in my check-in because my brain automatically thinks, okay, we have some money, let's spend it. So the savings that you transfer to, is it just a Huntington? It's the same one. I know it sounds dumb, but I've been trying to... But is that the savings that you transferred to? Yes, that's the savings I transferred to. There's only$1 ,644 in there.

12:23It's actually updated right now. Two? Let's look at it. One second.

12:31As of right now, there's$2 ,502 on there. So, okay, it's gone up$900. Roughly, yeah. Okay. Well, that's not an emergency fund. Is this your only savings? Yes. And correct. It's not an emergency fund just yet. Okay. So the goal, you're trying to get to real estate, but you're really far from there. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, which is why I'm trying to build that money. I thought maybe we were a little closer when you were talking about that. No, no. Like I said, I literally just started getting my shit together in December. I'm like very new at this. So I'm trying to understand a little better. Yeah.

13:04Because clearly you don't fully have your shit together because there's two credit cards it looks like you pay off two capital ones that you pay off but there's definitely a balance being held on the discover card yes that one is a problem card and i'm only saying that because that was my first first ever credit card i got and at the time i didn't really understand how credit cards worked so i tend to hold a balance um i got it down to a very great balance uh of December for like$800. Um, but my birthday was coming around and I will admit to this. I got me a pretty expensive gift, which is starting to pay itself off.

13:45I got myself a MacBook pro cause, um, the one that I had originally got broken due to water damage. So I got a brand new one. And then what happened with this one is I'm using this one to like edit my videos and you make content. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's been doing great so far. I managed to on facebook i managed to make roughly six seven hundred dollars back so far within the month and a half that i've been working on making content content are you making so right now i'm just i'm just um solely focusing like on short films so like gym workout videos and stuff and trying to make it like fast but still motivating so i'm just making those type of content as of right now okay yeah now we have two credit cards that you pay off first we're gonna look at those to start with.

14:33So, we're getting$4 ,200 after commission. You know, a lot of that money went out of the checking account, but then we also have purchases of$918. So, almost$1 ,000 on Capital One, Save Your One. Yes. That was around my... And you paid it off, which is good. So, very happy to see that.

14:55Groceries, Wendy's, Ubering, Sunrise, International, and Uber. Mostly Walmarts and stuff. They're really cheap Walmart trips. I'm very curious. Yeah. And multiple on the same days. These, that's, like I said, I was moving in January. So I was just getting a lot of news. Yeah, some pound stuff. BJ's Wholesale Club makes holiday hosting so easy, we called in the ultimate host to talk about it. Mrs. Claus here. You think Santa has it tough delivering all over the world? Try cooking for hundreds of elves. Good thing BJ's offers low prices on all the menu must-haves, plus free same-day delivery on your first order of$100 or more.

15:35No more squeezing in trips to the store. The only squeezing here is the big guy into a suit after dinner. For terms, visit BJ's.com slash holiday and get the same great prices online as in Club. Fitness stuff. Okay, that's good. We always encourage that. Amazon, lots of Amazons. That's also probably new house stuff, I'm assuming, right around that time. And we have a Hulu subscription. Wendy's. You love Wendy's. No, it's not me, actually. It's your girlfriend? Yeah, I get her food every now and then. Yeah, every now and then, yeah. A lot. And PlayStation Network and Grubhub, Grubhub, Grubhub. McDonald's changed it up a little bit.

16:10So, good amount of BS spending on here, and then also just some new house spending as well. But we also have that other credit card where you made an additional$500 rounded of purchases. So now like$1 ,500. plus what we saw in the checking account go to things like gas and groceries and stuff like that and here we have some ongoing payments like your t-mobile subscription we have apple payments uh not t-mobile subscription but you know the ongoing payments smith foods pops up crazy amount on every account this is popping up smith's foods this is boom boom boom lots of amazon again then another apple thing and more walmart so i mean you're certainly spending a lot of money yeah yeah it's uh i'm trying to create myself a budget um and this january was not a great time to start for that i think i did a little bit better in february but january was not a good month yeah i think you're like the perfect person that's like built for my new resources section that i've made for everyone so i'll hit you up with some of those either after the video we can talk about them for a second but perfect good budgeting and good stuff like that okay perfect perfect and then the bad card also it says your credit score it's only 606 yeah it went down drastically and that's because of the uh the purchase that i made towards the macbook it um took like when was this the macbook was purchased like december 11th oh jeez yeah dude you only made 650 dollars of purchases of payments and then$7.73 of purchases you made on here.

17:48So interest,$58.18. Total interest charge this year so far,$117. That's what I'm trying to bring about. And this is your Hulu subscription. What I'm confused about immediately is you talk about this, you want to give yourself a 7 out of 10, which makes no sense anymore. Why are you in a position where you're only making$650 payments on a car that has already made you lose over$100 early in this year so far. And yet on this other car, we're going to Wendy's constantly. We're doing Amazon. We're getting things for our new place on Walmart constantly. We're spending all this money, all this bull****, all this crazy stuff.

18:25And we're only putting$650 towards this? Would you put$1 ,500 towards your other two cars that were spent on mostly crap? Okay, so with Discover, yes, I'm trying to pay it off. And yes, I see that the interest is really high. Not trying very hard. Well, I paid the$650. That was one payment. And I also made another payment two days ago for another$250. And I'm making another one again. What's$250 when you're doing$1 ,500 on those other cards? Which are not all groceries or necessities. There's a lot of BS in there that you do not need right now. Need, specifically. You're right. So what? What is this priority?

19:06Is this not a priority to you? are you talking about the discover yeah it is a priority i want to get rid of it but yet again i'm i guess just like anybody else i'm kind of scared in terms of like okay if i put this much money towards it will i have anything in my savings i had a weird mentality is that even just about putting a certain amount of money towards it it's about not putting all that certain amount of money thousand five hundred dollars towards the bs it wasn't all the thousand five hundred dollars towards bs there was some groceries in there but let's just say like even the extra let's just say Only$500, which I'm pretty sure more of it went to things you did not need.

19:39Actually, I promise you. But let's just even say$500 for an example. What if you just cut that and you had an extra$500 to put towards this? This pays it off probably a month and a half earlier at this rate. What's the point? I can't tell you. I don't know. My goal was to pay it off slowly and have it paid off by May. I'm trying right now. like I said I put 250 tours if some put another 250 so I'm trying to put at least 500 tours every month so I can get it down to a zero dollar balance now seeing how it is at a high balance I stopped making purchases on it other than I think the most recent purchase that was like $20 and that was um for my Adobe subscription for Premiere Pro but other than that I'm not making any other purchases on it is the interest I took it off I took it off I switched that over to the saver one seeing how I get cash back on that so there's no other reoccurring purchases on there so this is where i think you should take advantage of a couple things i you know i formed partnerships with good resources and this is where it'd be good for you rocket money would be fantastic for you you know rocket money i haven't heard of them budgeting and it's my favorite that's what i switched over to from mint so rocket money is good you know i'll get you set up with that after this video and then also fizz is another one it's a card that you use where i think you should put the primary spending it's a debit card that one helps you budget it helps you not spend over on certain categories and two it also helps to build the credit score which you will need to for this real estate game you want to get into when you're sitting at 606 a debit card that helps with credit scores it's fantastic so you need to get on both of those immediately okay so i'm not against it i'll definitely get on to it i know right now no no i'm saying i'm not against in the sense like I'm open to suggestions because I never knew that existed.

21:28So right now, my card is going up by another 20 points, but my main priority is trying to get that Discover on, and that sounds like bullsh** to seeing how I've only been putting a small amount of balance. But the way to get there is to budget. The way to stop spending money on all this extra crap is, one, just don't do it, two, budget. Because you clearly just don't know how much is going to there, or if you did, then you would put it towards the Discover card. And if you do know how much money is going there and you're choosing not to put it towards the Discover card, then you're literally just prioritizing Wendy's over your Discover card.

22:01You're right. You're right. So which one is it? I mean, I'm seeing how we're so, like I said, horrible financial decisions that I made. And this is the first time I'm getting my together. Seeing how we are within like this is month three of the new year. I want to get rid of it as soon as possible. And yes, I will stop going to Wendy's for my girlfriend and, you know, start eating in a little bit more. But it's just like one of those things where I just kind of assumed if I can just put like a little 500, maybe 600 here and then it'll go down. And if I just stop making purchases, just kill it.

22:36I can kill it today. I don't know if I'd want you to 100 percent kill it today with because that would be all of your money. Basically, pretty much all of them. Pretty much. And that would put you in a risky situation, which could put you in a worse situation than you're in now. So what I was going to do was, because I'm making a little bit of money from Facebook, I was going to get whatever I get from that because I made the purchase from the Mac Pro. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to put it towards the Discover. Yeah, it's not even a question. Yes. Okay. All of it. How much will that be and when?

23:09Right now, there's a total of$600 that's still pending. Last time I checked, Facebook gets paid out every 20th of each month. Um, let me see. So this is, it's going to be paid out the 23rd of March is when my proceeds get paid out. You want to see it? No. Okay. Good. Then yes, that goes to that. And then from here, you know, I want you to open up an account with Rocket Money. preferably just because that's my favorite but obviously use whatever works for you but that's just my favorite and what i use now and time to budget dude what's your rent on a monthly basis um my rent right now is that 1203 minimum monthly payment on this card is 79 what's your vehicle situation paid off i know what is it though uh it's good 2012 toyota camry Okay.

24:08Yeah. Very cool. How many miles? Like, last time I checked, it was like 150K, but it still runs smooth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a pretty good car. Yeah. As far as I understand. I'm not a car person, but as far as I... I only had like one issue, and that was like three years ago. Well, we definitely want you to have an emergency fund for a car, even when it's getting up there. Even if it's a good car, you know, just making sure you're in a safe spot. Of course. Okay. What's your desired grocery spending on a monthly basis? I try to keep it under$300. I feel like$300 is not too much. And then different insurances and stuff like that.

24:49What are they looking like? Insurance right now runs me at like$180. That's your car? Yes. But yet again, it's on my brother's. Health insurance is taking from work? Yeah, it's taking from work. And then your renter's insurance? My renter's insurance. that's through my job and that's at$10. No, no, sorry, not my job. My property management and that's $10. So what's your car insurance one more time? My car insurance runs me at$180, but I split that with my brother. Why do you split it with your brother? Oh, because if I do it myself it's extremely high. Why are you splitting it with your brother?

25:23Do you share the car with your brother? No, no, no. So the car is insured under his name and it's my car and I try to put it under my name and it's like$500 a month just for... Why is he subsidizing you, though? Why is he subsidizing me? Yeah. What do you mean? He's not getting any value of the car. Why is he paying for half the insurance? So I pay for my portion, and he pays for his portion. So my portion is - Why does he have a portion, though? That's what I'm curious. If he doesn't use the car, if he has no ownership on the car, why does he have a portion? I'm going to be honest with you. I honestly don't know.

25:53And I'm only saying that because when I first got the car, in order to get it out the lot, I had to have covered insurance. Yeah, that makes sense. I just don't understand why you're not paying for the full thing. that 180 is the amount that i need to pay so i'm just like all right cool so that's the amount i pay and i pay him that amount so you pay him 90 though i thought you said nine no half of 180 so you pay him half of 180 or is 180 half of it no 180 is half so that's 90 sorry i apologize okay so 180 is half you give him 180 bucks i give him 90 sorry it's a long flight i am so sorry it's a long flight i'm just waking up okay just want to make sure i have your numbers right yeah you got okay so we got rent we got our insurances we got our grocery spending our card spending i'm gonna call it uh total paper money all the extra little things you need give you extra 100 bucks there on a monthly basis gas vegas very car dependent 45 i don't go out a lot.

26:53We'll call it 50. Yep. I feel that might take like once a month. Yeah, car dependency in cities is definitely a tax we don't talk about enough. It's expensive to essentially own a car in order to participate within the American economy, and then gas, and then insurance, and then... Which is why I'm happy that I work from home, because I know that will go very high. Any other monthly expenses? I mean, other than my phone, which is at$106 right now, that's actually getting cut off next month to$30 a month. Your cell service is only going to be$30? I used to work at Walmart, and I got a discount with them on unlimited talk, text, and everything for$30 a month.

27:45Forever? Forever, yeah. As long as I keep the plan rolling, then yeah. So that's getting subsidized for$30 a month next month Alright so we have your necessities At $1 ,852 A month if you actually Follow the strict budgetary Guidelines for Gas for your total Paper spending and For your grocery spending Let's include my Electricity As well That one right now runs me on average let's just say$65 and then internet as well seeing how we're from home that's another $75 and then 65 monthly wise I mean I don't think we should include the gym the gym's only$10 but yeah I mean I think that's a necessity okay so now we have you at$2 ,002 a month check my capital on while you're doing that that's 47 percent of your post tax which if we follow the most basic budgeting guideline of 50 30 20 50 on needs 30 on wants 20 on savings and retirement that 47 is just under 50 well essentially round it to 50 so boom that would literally be everything you just said there.

29:08Again, rent,$1 ,203. Your credit card minimum monthly payment is$79. Your grocery spending,$300. Your insurance of$90. Your total paper spending, anything you need for your place, essentially$100 a month. Gas,$50 a month. Your phone will be$30 a month. And utility, 65. Internet, 75. Jim,$10, which is$2 ,002 on a monthly basis, which is 48 % of your 48 rounded up percent of your post tax, which is 50%. So you did that. Well, what that means, though, is you cannot really increase any of those categories within that budget or else it just becomes too much. Okay. Does that make sense? That makes sense, yeah.