RPF0712-How_to_Respond_to_An_Emergency_Loss_of_Income
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00:00:30.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,
00:00:38.000 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:41.000 | My name is Joshua. I am your host.
00:00:42.000 | And today I'm going to give you some ideas that will help you if you have just suffered a devastating loss of your income.
00:00:51.000 | All around the world, tens of millions of people are experiencing the complete and total loss of income.
00:00:58.000 | People are being laid off from their work.
00:01:00.000 | Business owners are seeing their profits and their revenues completely evaporate as their businesses are shut down.
00:01:06.000 | And tens of millions of people are being impacted.
00:01:10.000 | There is hardly a more vulnerable position to be in than when your income goes away and you have no idea when it's going to come back.
00:01:18.000 | So in today's show, I'm going to give you some ideas, some tactics, and some strategies that will help you to put your life back together again as quickly as possible.
00:01:30.000 | Now, these ideas and these tactics are not mainstream.
00:01:33.000 | They're not ordinary.
00:01:35.000 | They are hardcore.
00:01:37.000 | They are radical.
00:01:39.000 | But they will help you.
00:01:42.000 | If you have nothing else, listen to today's show and spend some time thinking about what you would do if you were in this situation.
00:01:49.000 | So that if you find your job is lost, then you can move quickly.
00:01:55.000 | Now, step one.
00:01:56.000 | Let's assume for the purposes of our show today, let's assume that you have just gotten laid off from your job.
00:02:02.000 | And in a moment, I'll describe to you that you're in a financially vulnerable position.
00:02:06.000 | Talk about that in just a moment.
00:02:08.000 | What you need to do is you need to do an honest assessment of your circumstances.
00:02:13.000 | What many people do in a time of crisis is freeze up.
00:02:17.000 | And they often lose their analytical abilities.
00:02:19.000 | They're so overcome with the emotion of the event that they forget about how to actually sit down and logically calculate where they are and where they're going, what their opportunities are, and how severe their situation is.
00:02:32.000 | Do not stick your head in the sand and hide from the facts.
00:02:36.000 | Get all the facts out and do a cold, logical analysis of where things stand right now.
00:02:43.000 | That's one of the most important things you can do in your situation.
00:02:47.000 | Here are some of the factors that you want to consider.
00:02:49.000 | Number one, what specifically caused your loss of income?
00:02:53.000 | If you understand why you lost your income, you'll be able to make better decisions.
00:02:58.000 | There's a big difference between your company just simply going through a temporary rough patch and them temporarily laying off perhaps their seasonal employees versus having a complete and total devastation of your income, of your industry, or a complete and total destruction of a market due to some massive worldwide economic calamity.
00:03:17.000 | So you need to ask yourself, "Why did I get laid off?"
00:03:20.000 | And that will help to inform the speed that you need to use when you try to solve your specific problem.
00:03:27.000 | The next thing you need to understand is what factors are involved for you personally.
00:03:31.000 | What is the economy like locally?
00:03:33.000 | How long is it going to be until you probably get a job?
00:03:36.000 | Is the devastation just simply in your company or in your family, in which case you could expect that if you could change a few situations and go to another place, then you could find something better?
00:03:46.000 | Or is the devastation regional or national or even international?
00:03:50.000 | That's a much more severe situation, and that's the kind of thing that you need to make much bigger plans for.
00:03:56.000 | Number three, what's the job market like?
00:03:59.000 | Do a quick analysis of the job market to get an understanding of how quickly you can become employed.
00:04:04.000 | If you got laid off because perhaps your individual company went into hard times but unemployment is low, you can expect that you'll quickly get a job.
00:04:13.000 | If you got laid off, however, because your entire industry or your entire region or nation is going bankrupt and the unemployment rate is very, very high, you've got a much more significant crisis and you're going to have to adjust your plans accordingly.
00:04:27.000 | And then finally, what is your current resource situation?
00:04:32.000 | How much money do you have saved?
00:04:34.000 | How much of a runway do you actually have?
00:04:37.000 | If you got laid off and you have monthly household expenses of $3,000 a month but you have $100,000 in the bank saved up for hard times, well, you're going to be in pretty good shape.
00:04:47.000 | You got plenty of time to make a decision.
00:04:49.000 | You don't necessarily need to disrupt your family too much in the short term.
00:04:52.000 | There's time for you to find opportunities and solutions.
00:04:55.000 | On the other hand, if your monthly household expenses are $3,000 and you have $300 in the bank, you have got a severe emergency on your hands and you have to move very, very quickly.
00:05:06.000 | So do an honest assessment of where you are.
00:05:08.000 | Now, for the purposes of this show, I'm going to assume that your situation is truly dire.
00:05:13.000 | I'm going to assume that you have almost no money saved.
00:05:16.000 | I'm going to assume that you have very poor prospects for work.
00:05:20.000 | It's unlikely that you're going to get employed within another week or two weeks.
00:05:24.000 | And so, therefore, you need to take drastic cuts and figure out how you're going to keep things together.
00:05:29.000 | I'm going to build from the worst case extreme scenario.
00:05:32.000 | If you are in that worst case extreme scenario, then learn from what I have to share with you in today's show and then vow never to be in a situation again.
00:05:41.000 | I've been laid off from work.
00:05:42.000 | Most of us have.
00:05:43.000 | And I'll tell you, it is a lot easier to handle if you have prepared accordingly.
00:05:49.000 | Life does not have to go from emergency to emergency to emergency.
00:05:53.000 | There are things that are outside of any of our control.
00:05:56.000 | There are catastrophes and emergencies that all of us can face that will be so significant that we can't overcome them.
00:06:01.000 | But life can be much easier if you will plan ahead, if you will prepare.
00:06:06.000 | So, if you are in a dire situation, use the pain and the fear of this moment to help you think about how you can avoid such a terrible circumstance in the future.
00:06:17.000 | Now, for the purposes of my show today, I'm going to assume that you have about $1,000 in the bank.
00:06:24.000 | Maybe this is due to some kind of economic stimulus or bailout package.
00:06:28.000 | I got a $1,200 check for yourself from the government
00:06:31.880 | because they've closed down everything in your industry.
00:06:35.160 | And I'm gonna assume that your job prospects
00:06:37.520 | are quite a ways off.
00:06:38.720 | So I hope this helps you.
00:06:40.240 | The first thing that you need to do
00:06:41.500 | is if you find yourself in a dire situation,
00:06:43.800 | you need to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut expenses
00:06:48.060 | as fast as possible.
00:06:50.140 | You need to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut,
00:06:51.760 | and you need to do it fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.
00:06:55.920 | The biggest mistake that people make
00:06:58.780 | in a dire economic circumstance is they move too slowly.
00:07:03.140 | They think, well, maybe I'll find a way,
00:07:05.220 | maybe I'll get another job,
00:07:06.360 | and because of that, they move too slowly.
00:07:08.520 | That is always the wrong move.
00:07:11.800 | If you look at your situation and you realize
00:07:13.960 | this is serious, you need to move fast.
00:07:16.680 | The faster you move and the more extreme you are
00:07:20.360 | in your movements, the more options you will have.
00:07:23.600 | It is much, much easier for you to take action quickly,
00:07:27.880 | to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut expenses everywhere
00:07:30.240 | and to move fast.
00:07:32.320 | That helps you to save your cash,
00:07:34.000 | which is the most important resource that you have
00:07:35.960 | in a time of financial difficulty.
00:07:38.000 | And then if you can fix your whole problem
00:07:40.320 | two months from now, you can quickly go ahead
00:07:42.400 | and rebuild your old life.
00:07:44.040 | If you need to pull your children out of school
00:07:45.920 | and you need to move to a cheap apartment,
00:07:47.880 | you can always, if you get another job,
00:07:49.440 | you can always move back into a nicer place.
00:07:51.480 | You can always re-enroll them in school.
00:07:53.800 | But what's much harder is if you wait,
00:07:56.560 | and if you move slowly, things just start to stack up,
00:07:59.280 | your bills get bigger and bigger,
00:08:00.640 | and you start to get more and more behind.
00:08:02.840 | So you need to move fast.
00:08:05.700 | Now, you also need to carefully prioritize,
00:08:08.520 | and you need to understand what is important.
00:08:11.760 | The first thing that you have to do
00:08:13.120 | in a difficult economic crisis
00:08:15.080 | is care for yourself and your family.
00:08:18.640 | Money can always be fixed.
00:08:21.480 | That fix may be as simple as simply getting a job.
00:08:24.280 | That fix may be as difficult as bankruptcy.
00:08:27.400 | That fix, it varies depending on the situation you're in,
00:08:30.380 | but money problems can always be fixed.
00:08:32.920 | Trust me, I am a financial planner.
00:08:35.540 | I promise you, I have not yet found a financial situation
00:08:39.200 | that I cannot fix.
00:08:40.760 | But there are some things that cannot be fixed,
00:08:44.680 | and so you need to prioritize those things.
00:08:47.600 | You need to prioritize your own health,
00:08:49.760 | your own well-being, your own safety,
00:08:51.760 | and that of your family.
00:08:53.320 | Now, I'm not saying spend money in a crazy way
00:08:56.560 | on things that aren't actually important.
00:08:58.760 | Be careful, and we're gonna talk a lot about cutting,
00:09:01.120 | but you need to focus on what is important,
00:09:03.000 | which is you, your spouse, your children, your family,
00:09:08.000 | and you need to focus on providing for them.
00:09:11.220 | You need to focus on the next phase of life.
00:09:16.640 | What you'll hear as I go through some of these details
00:09:18.600 | is you'll hear a philosophy that is all about setting you up
00:09:21.900 | for the next phase of life.
00:09:24.260 | When you're in a catastrophe,
00:09:25.720 | you must keep your clear focus on the next goal,
00:09:30.280 | the next thing that you're working towards.
00:09:32.520 | Don't sit back and say, I'm gonna wallow in self-pity.
00:09:35.240 | No, rise up, set a goal,
00:09:37.680 | and start working towards that next thing.
00:09:39.920 | Keep that next step of success clearly in your mind.
00:09:43.440 | If you're unemployed, that next goal is get employed,
00:09:46.420 | but keep that picture firmly in your mind
00:09:48.480 | and orient everything about that.
00:09:51.240 | Now, you need to do a prioritization
00:09:53.920 | of the needs that you have and the needs of your family.
00:09:57.260 | When you're in a difficult financial circumstance,
00:09:59.800 | you must think clearly,
00:10:01.120 | and here are the most important things
00:10:03.680 | for you to spend money on in this order.
00:10:06.760 | Number one, you must feed yourself.
00:10:09.800 | If you can do nothing else with money,
00:10:11.740 | if you only have a little bit of money,
00:10:13.720 | the first thing you do is you must feed yourself
00:10:16.540 | and feed your children.
00:10:17.880 | When you are physically hungry,
00:10:19.720 | it's very difficult to do anything that leads to wealth.
00:10:22.780 | It's very difficult for a person who is dying of hunger,
00:10:26.060 | a person who's living in a famine,
00:10:27.860 | to dream about how great things are gonna be
00:10:30.620 | 10 years in the future.
00:10:32.020 | When you are hungry, that takes priority,
00:10:34.300 | and so your number one thing with money
00:10:36.340 | is to feed yourself and your family.
00:10:39.460 | Now, if you have enough money or enough income
00:10:42.080 | or some means of feeding yourself and your family,
00:10:45.180 | the number two thing that you need
00:10:47.060 | is to provide for the basic utilities of your life.
00:10:50.400 | If you live in a culture where you can live in a mud hut
00:10:53.940 | built out in a field somewhere and survive comfortably,
00:10:57.040 | even in that circumstance,
00:10:58.060 | you still have some basic utilities.
00:10:59.360 | You need some clean water.
00:11:00.820 | You need to bathe and keep yourself clean for good hygiene,
00:11:03.740 | but most of us don't live in those kinds of environments.
00:11:06.200 | Most of us live in an environment
00:11:07.820 | where we have utilities running into our house,
00:11:11.240 | where we have electricity,
00:11:12.260 | and our lives are built on these things.
00:11:13.940 | Our homes just simply don't work
00:11:15.700 | without water, without electricity,
00:11:17.860 | and so the second thing you need to do with money
00:11:19.540 | is to keep your utilities paid
00:11:21.360 | so that you don't get turned off.
00:11:23.100 | It is very, very difficult to feel incredibly motivated
00:11:27.780 | and optimistic about going for a job interview
00:11:30.980 | when you can't do something as simple
00:11:32.520 | as taking a shower before it
00:11:33.900 | because the water was turned off.
00:11:35.780 | It's very hard to feel optimistic about life
00:11:38.660 | when you can't even have a single source of light
00:11:40.600 | in your house because you don't have
00:11:43.380 | any electricity turned on.
00:11:45.340 | It's very hard to get a job
00:11:46.780 | if you can't have a working phone number
00:11:48.940 | where you can receive a phone call
00:11:50.420 | from a prospective employer,
00:11:52.500 | so you've got to keep your phone connected
00:11:55.140 | so that you can communicate.
00:11:56.820 | These are the next focuses
00:11:58.820 | that you need to focus on with your money.
00:12:00.820 | The third category, if you have a little bit more money
00:12:03.120 | to focus on, is your transportation,
00:12:06.260 | the ability for you to be physically moved
00:12:08.060 | from one location to another.
00:12:09.820 | Now, there's probably a lot of cutting
00:12:11.680 | that you could do here, but at the end of the day,
00:12:14.120 | if you can get a job and that job is 45 minutes away,
00:12:17.360 | you must maintain the ability to get to that job.
00:12:20.920 | Sometimes this is easier, sometimes it's harder.
00:12:23.560 | For a person who lives in an urban area
00:12:25.520 | with strong public transportation
00:12:27.880 | or many ways for them to physically move themselves
00:12:30.400 | from their place of residence to their job,
00:12:32.760 | you have more options.
00:12:34.160 | But if you live in a rural area
00:12:35.440 | where you need to drive a significant distance,
00:12:37.680 | you have got to maintain your transportation.
00:12:40.740 | And the number four is housing.
00:12:42.240 | If you have enough money,
00:12:44.980 | then you need to focus on maintaining a roof over your head,
00:12:47.620 | some place that you're in out of the elements.
00:12:49.780 | Now, that roof can look very different.
00:12:51.620 | That roof can be your friend's or your parent's garage,
00:12:55.060 | that roof can be a tent in the woods,
00:12:56.540 | the roof can be an RV parked at an RV park,
00:12:58.580 | or the roof can just be the apartment,
00:13:00.860 | and you need to analyze carefully
00:13:02.380 | what's best for your situation.
00:13:04.100 | But again, it's very hard for you to get yourself reemployed
00:13:07.260 | if you don't have a roof over your head.
00:13:09.140 | Now, I've slept in cars.
00:13:10.340 | You can sleep in a car and live in a car,
00:13:12.220 | but I'll tell you,
00:13:13.180 | it's hard to feel like a normal human being
00:13:15.340 | and put on a suit and go for a big job interview
00:13:17.780 | if you're literally sleeping in the backseat of your car.
00:13:20.780 | It's better than sleeping on the street,
00:13:22.680 | but it's still really hard.
00:13:23.780 | So you need to maintain a roof over your head.
00:13:26.520 | If you will focus on cutting dramatically though
00:13:31.520 | in every other area,
00:13:33.540 | and then if you'll prioritize these areas
00:13:35.620 | in the order discussed,
00:13:36.980 | you'll find that you can live to fight another day.
00:13:39.180 | You can figure out the next step that is in front of you.
00:13:42.040 | When you're in a period of economic crisis
00:13:45.560 | and economic uncertainty,
00:13:46.760 | your most important asset is money.
00:13:51.280 | The thing that you must hoard more than anything else
00:13:57.420 | is money.
00:13:59.400 | The more money you have, the more options you will have.
00:14:03.400 | Think to my example a few moments ago.
00:14:06.920 | If you had $100,000 in the bank and you lose your job,
00:14:10.480 | you have options everywhere.
00:14:12.260 | You can afford to sit and wait.
00:14:14.840 | You can afford to wait for a great job.
00:14:16.700 | You can afford to do something fun
00:14:19.100 | during the time that you're unemployed
00:14:20.360 | instead of just freaking out about finding another job.
00:14:23.380 | But if you don't even have a dollar to your name,
00:14:25.760 | you can't afford to pass by any income opportunity.
00:14:29.040 | Now there's a spectrum between $100,000 in the bank
00:14:31.600 | and not a dollar to your name
00:14:33.520 | that most of us will fall into.
00:14:35.900 | But regardless of where you fall,
00:14:37.560 | you still must hoard money.
00:14:40.520 | Money buys you options in a crisis.
00:14:43.240 | Money allows you to move from one life
00:14:45.520 | and move into the next.
00:14:46.760 | Money allows you to cross the country,
00:14:48.380 | across the world where there are more employment options.
00:14:50.880 | Money allows you to have housing over your head.
00:14:53.240 | It's hard to get housing over your head when you're broke.
00:14:55.600 | And so you must hoard your money more than anything,
00:14:59.440 | which is why intellectually, conceptually,
00:15:02.700 | what you must do is you must cut, cut, cut, cut, cut
00:15:05.600 | fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, hoard money.
00:15:08.200 | That makes it easier for you to quickly pivot
00:15:10.400 | to the next stage at which you can go ahead
00:15:12.000 | and start spending.
00:15:13.420 | Don't be scared to be radical and extreme.
00:15:16.080 | People who are radical and extreme
00:15:18.140 | who later decide they were too radical and extreme,
00:15:20.840 | just file that away and say,
00:15:21.920 | "Well, maybe next time I won't be quite
00:15:23.360 | "so radical and extreme."
00:15:24.920 | People who are not radical and extreme enough, however,
00:15:27.800 | often suffer for years.
00:15:30.120 | And that suffering is needless.
00:15:32.280 | If you would move faster and be more hardcore,
00:15:35.580 | you would get better results.
00:15:37.080 | Let's talk about those priorities.
00:15:42.620 | What I want you to do is I want you to stop all spending,
00:15:47.820 | at least in your head, and make a plan
00:15:51.520 | of how much money you have and how long it can go.
00:15:55.000 | Now, if you truly need to stop all spending,
00:15:57.160 | the first thing I would recommend to you
00:15:59.120 | is that you stop all spending.
00:16:02.280 | (birds chirping)
00:16:05.020 | I'm not joking.
00:16:07.340 | If you truly need to stop all spending,
00:16:09.140 | the first thing I would recommend to you
00:16:10.420 | is that you stop all spending.
00:16:13.900 | Cut everything.
00:16:15.440 | And then slowly add things in.
00:16:19.580 | One very practical way, if you find yourself in a crisis
00:16:23.580 | and there's all kinds of stuff being pulled
00:16:25.580 | from your bank account,
00:16:27.020 | is just simply stop all automatic bill pays.
00:16:30.660 | The first thing that I would do
00:16:32.420 | if I got laid off from my job is I would go home,
00:16:35.280 | I would open my bank, my bank website or app
00:16:38.400 | or whatever you use.
00:16:39.600 | If you do automatic bill pays,
00:16:41.160 | I would immediately stop all automatic bill pays.
00:16:44.460 | The reason I need to do this is because I need
00:16:47.320 | to have the choice of what to pay.
00:16:49.080 | Maybe that I don't have enough money to pay everybody.
00:16:51.920 | And so I need to focus on just paying the people
00:16:53.840 | that are the most important right now.
00:16:55.520 | In time, I wanna pay everybody,
00:16:57.240 | but right now I may not be able to pay everybody.
00:16:59.880 | And so your number one job is stop all money flowing out.
00:17:04.140 | One corollary of this would be,
00:17:08.500 | change your credit card numbers.
00:17:10.460 | One thing you might seriously consider doing
00:17:12.600 | is just simply changing your credit card numbers.
00:17:14.980 | Call the credit card company and say,
00:17:16.980 | I lost my card and will you please send me a new one.
00:17:19.960 | That will usually give you a new credit card number.
00:17:21.900 | Not always, make sure they get you a new credit card number.
00:17:24.140 | And then if you've got a load of bills being paid
00:17:28.180 | to your credit card, they'll stop.
00:17:30.120 | Now, it would be better for you to individually
00:17:32.720 | cut all those things off.
00:17:33.920 | And so if you're organized,
00:17:35.560 | you can get your credit card statement
00:17:36.880 | for the last couple of months and go through
00:17:38.160 | and make sure that you cancel all of your automatic billing.
00:17:40.640 | That would be better.
00:17:41.920 | But I cannot tell you how many people
00:17:43.760 | who are in this crisis situation
00:17:45.460 | have just enough money to pay their rent.
00:17:48.020 | And then all of a sudden some forgotten subscription
00:17:50.520 | renews after 12 months and takes the money
00:17:53.200 | out of their bank account right when they needed
00:17:55.040 | that money to pay the rent.
00:17:56.760 | I wouldn't mess around.
00:17:58.240 | I would stop all bill pay from my bank
00:18:00.400 | and I would stop all credit card numbers
00:18:02.400 | and I would change every single one of them.
00:18:04.720 | I recommend you consider that.
00:18:06.320 | I would move everything to manual payment.
00:18:11.320 | Manual payment might be writing a check.
00:18:12.920 | If you're good at keeping a checkbook
00:18:14.120 | and you know how to keep up on that, great.
00:18:15.560 | Manual payment might be swiping a card.
00:18:17.300 | I'm willing to consider that.
00:18:18.560 | Manual payment would probably be a lot of cash.
00:18:21.160 | Doing everything in cash transactions.
00:18:23.440 | There are pros and cons to this,
00:18:25.360 | but I want you to move everything to manual payment
00:18:28.480 | so that you can take control of your money.
00:18:31.640 | Now, if this is unnecessary, fine.
00:18:34.080 | But I'll tell you from my experience,
00:18:36.480 | one of the things that gets people into a hard situation
00:18:39.060 | is usually they don't know how to control their money.
00:18:42.040 | If that's you, pay careful attention.
00:18:44.400 | If you've gotten yourself into a situation
00:18:47.740 | where you've got bills coming out
00:18:49.600 | all automatically here and there
00:18:50.920 | and you just every now and then pull out your phone
00:18:52.400 | and see how much money is in your checking account,
00:18:54.320 | that's probably why you're in such a dire situation.
00:18:57.080 | And so this is a good time for you to learn some skills
00:18:59.840 | that are gonna serve you well in the coming years.
00:19:02.820 | Take control of your money.
00:19:04.160 | Let's start with food.
00:19:06.680 | I'm gonna give you some hardcore strategies
00:19:08.480 | to cut your food budget.
00:19:10.400 | The first thing that you do
00:19:11.760 | is you stop paying people to cook for you.
00:19:14.840 | That's obvious.
00:19:16.660 | You have time.
00:19:17.560 | You have time to cook for yourself.
00:19:19.560 | The next thing that you do
00:19:20.800 | is you stop buying expensive food
00:19:23.280 | and you move to eating like a pauper,
00:19:25.820 | eating like a poor person.
00:19:27.840 | You move from food for pleasure or food from enjoyment
00:19:30.920 | to food for nutrition, food for keeping you alive.
00:19:34.320 | And you cut out all expensive food.
00:19:37.400 | Now, hopefully you have some food stored in your house.
00:19:39.680 | Hopefully you have some stocks that you can go to
00:19:41.480 | and you don't have to go quite this drastic.
00:19:43.280 | But let's assume that you don't.
00:19:44.280 | What would I do if I were in a drastic situation?
00:19:47.240 | Well, the first thing I would do
00:19:48.120 | is I would go looking for free food.
00:19:50.080 | I would look up my town's food pantry
00:19:52.320 | and I would go and I would ask for food.
00:19:54.760 | That would be the first thing.
00:19:56.160 | Because free food may be just what you need to eat
00:19:59.280 | while you figure out the next step.
00:20:01.520 | So go and look to see if there's any kind
00:20:03.240 | of free food pantry.
00:20:04.720 | If there are some kind of government benefits
00:20:08.680 | that are available for people who don't have any food
00:20:11.840 | and they don't have any money, don't have any income,
00:20:13.420 | I would immediately file for those.
00:20:15.220 | If there's some kind of food stamps or WIC program,
00:20:19.800 | I would immediately file for that
00:20:21.400 | to try to get some source of money to go and buy food.
00:20:25.680 | If I needed to ask friends and family for food,
00:20:28.040 | I would just simply ask them.
00:20:29.600 | It's hard for me to imagine any of us who are so lonely,
00:20:34.560 | who don't have a single friend or family
00:20:36.320 | who wouldn't immediately bring us groceries
00:20:38.040 | if we asked them for it.
00:20:39.740 | But what happens is because of our pride,
00:20:41.940 | we often don't ever ask.
00:20:44.600 | I would be happy in an instant
00:20:46.660 | if any of my friends were without food,
00:20:48.420 | I would be happy to immediately take food
00:20:50.000 | over to their house.
00:20:51.120 | It'll be cheap food, it won't be fancy,
00:20:54.040 | but I'm not gonna see my friends go hungry.
00:20:56.200 | And so consider asking for help.
00:20:57.960 | If you're going to buy food with the money that you have,
00:21:01.120 | start buying cheap food.
00:21:03.000 | Look around at what the historical cultures
00:21:06.240 | in your nation eat and start buying that cheap food.
00:21:09.120 | For those of us who come from rich Western countries,
00:21:11.440 | it's almost embarrassing how we've lost those skills.
00:21:14.840 | The majority of the world lives on some combination
00:21:18.120 | of rice, beans, corn, and wheat.
00:21:22.760 | All four of those will fill your stomach,
00:21:26.520 | give you calories to fight another day,
00:21:28.440 | rice, beans, corn, wheat.
00:21:30.200 | And where most of us live,
00:21:31.680 | those things are embarrassingly cheap.
00:21:34.480 | We don't necessarily love eating them,
00:21:36.040 | two or three meals a day,
00:21:37.320 | but they are embarrassingly cheap
00:21:39.720 | and they will keep our tummies filled.
00:21:41.620 | Now, if you've got a certain physical problem,
00:21:44.800 | for example, you can't eat wheat,
00:21:46.480 | well then substitute something else.
00:21:48.080 | Do rice and beans.
00:21:49.160 | I've learned to cook rice and beans better over the years,
00:21:53.040 | but I'm still not awesome.
00:21:54.240 | I don't love eating rice and beans.
00:21:56.000 | So I like to substitute other things.
00:21:58.320 | If I were totally broke,
00:22:00.040 | living in the United States or Canada,
00:22:01.880 | the first thing I would do is I would go to the grocery store
00:22:04.360 | I'd buy a big bag of flour,
00:22:06.120 | I'd buy a little bit of oil,
00:22:07.560 | and a little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar.
00:22:10.000 | I could feed my family for $100 a month
00:22:12.640 | with flour, oil, salt, and sugar.
00:22:14.920 | If I have a little extra money,
00:22:15.760 | I'll grab some peanut butter and some jelly.
00:22:18.120 | My listeners call these crisis, Joshua's crisis cakes.
00:22:20.720 | I stole the recipe from Stephen Harris years ago,
00:22:23.920 | but they call these Joshua's crisis cakes.
00:22:27.000 | Basically what you do is you take a bowl,
00:22:28.840 | dump a little white flour in it,
00:22:30.720 | add a little bit of oil,
00:22:31.920 | add some water to make a dough,
00:22:33.440 | add a little salt, maybe a little sugar
00:22:35.040 | if you want a little bit sweet,
00:22:36.240 | mix it up into a dough,
00:22:37.640 | find a hot pan somewhere,
00:22:39.120 | put a little oil in the pan,
00:22:40.500 | make the dough into some form of tortilla or arepa,
00:22:43.840 | and just simply fry it up in the pan.
00:22:45.920 | And then if you've got the money
00:22:47.080 | to buy peanut butter and jelly,
00:22:48.240 | go ahead and put some peanut butter and jelly on it.
00:22:50.120 | It's delicious.
00:22:51.080 | It'll keep you filled and it is cheap.
00:22:53.920 | Rice and beans are great if you know how to cook those.
00:22:55.960 | Dried rice, dried beans,
00:22:57.320 | you need some water, you need a heat source,
00:22:59.380 | but you can live very well.
00:23:00.660 | And rice and beans is in many ways
00:23:02.060 | almost a complete nutrition source.
00:23:04.640 | Corn is wonderful as well.
00:23:06.520 | The worst case scenario,
00:23:07.440 | I'd go down to a place like Tractor Supply or a feed store,
00:23:10.640 | I'd buy a 50 pound sack of corn for,
00:23:13.880 | I think it was about $7 for 50 pounds of corn.
00:23:16.480 | And then I'd take it and I'd just start making corn.
00:23:18.600 | I'd grind it up a little bit.
00:23:20.000 | You can now, if it's already available,
00:23:21.620 | you can buy corn meal or some form of corn flour.
00:23:24.360 | If you want it ground up, you can make tortillas,
00:23:26.520 | you can make cornbread, you can make things with that.
00:23:29.480 | If you just have the dried corn,
00:23:31.280 | you can dry it up yourself, you can soak it.
00:23:33.200 | You can make all kinds of recipes with that.
00:23:34.720 | Here, YouTube is your friend.
00:23:35.680 | I'm not gonna take my time to go through that in detail.
00:23:38.920 | But the point is that I could feed my family of four
00:23:41.120 | food for 100 or two a month, which is really valuable.
00:23:44.720 | And if you could make that up with some,
00:23:46.360 | perhaps some vegetables that if you don't have any money,
00:23:48.880 | maybe a friend gives you,
00:23:50.080 | maybe you can dumpster dive some food.
00:23:52.440 | There are hundreds of dollars of food available
00:23:56.060 | in dumpsters and trash piles.
00:23:57.720 | And again, most people would be happy to give you food.
00:24:00.480 | All right, so food is one of the simplest things to solve.
00:24:03.680 | But go hardcore and cut your expenses to the bone
00:24:08.100 | so that you have more options.
00:24:09.660 | Number two, think carefully about your utility consumption.
00:24:15.360 | Now, in some crises recently,
00:24:19.720 | some governments have made it so that utilities
00:24:22.960 | cannot cut off services for those who don't pay,
00:24:25.120 | but that's unusual.
00:24:26.580 | If you're facing a personal crisis
00:24:28.940 | and you don't pay your bills,
00:24:29.880 | your utilities will be cut off.
00:24:31.920 | What's worse is you'll still have those bills there.
00:24:34.200 | And so the first thing that you can do
00:24:36.320 | is become a hardcore miser of your utilities.
00:24:40.600 | Most of us are so wasteful
00:24:43.000 | with how we use our electricity and our water,
00:24:45.520 | and I'm included in that, very wasteful.
00:24:48.120 | I aspire to be more frugal,
00:24:49.440 | but oftentimes, it's not worth it.
00:24:52.080 | But you can have the basics of what you need
00:24:56.560 | and you can do it very, very frugally.
00:24:58.940 | The most important utility for you to keep connected
00:25:03.600 | is communications.
00:25:05.280 | Because you're not gonna be able to get a job
00:25:08.160 | if you don't have a phone number
00:25:09.200 | where somebody can reach you.
00:25:10.800 | And so you need to keep your communications connected.
00:25:13.880 | And for many of us in, again, rich Western nations,
00:25:17.440 | this is probably our biggest utility bill.
00:25:20.040 | It's not uncommon for me to consult with people
00:25:21.760 | who have a $90 a month cell phone bill
00:25:23.840 | or $150 a month cell phone bill.
00:25:25.960 | This is unnecessary.
00:25:27.240 | The first thing you should do is look around
00:25:29.280 | and find an inexpensive replacement for your phone,
00:25:33.300 | an inexpensive replacement for your plan.
00:25:36.880 | Usually, this would be some form of a prepaid plan.
00:25:39.320 | You can get this with different cell phone companies.
00:25:41.440 | One of the cheapest in the United States right now
00:25:43.200 | is Mint Mobile.
00:25:44.360 | If you go and buy a SIM card from Mint Mobile,
00:25:47.280 | I think their website is mintmobile.com,
00:25:49.520 | you can get a plan, if you'll pay 12 months up front,
00:25:52.240 | for a grand total of $180 per year.
00:25:55.360 | $180 per year is $15 per month.
00:25:58.560 | $180 paid up front in a year
00:26:01.720 | will buy you unlimited talk, unlimited text,
00:26:05.880 | and three gigabytes of data per month.
00:26:08.320 | I recently was consulting with somebody
00:26:10.980 | who was in a very dire financial circumstance,
00:26:15.060 | and I recommended to him,
00:26:16.220 | he had a little bit of money left on his credit card,
00:26:17.780 | a little bit of credit limit,
00:26:18.620 | and I said, "First thing you need to do
00:26:19.580 | "is you need to get yourself a cell phone plan
00:26:21.260 | "for the next year."
00:26:22.220 | I recommended to go and get a new plan with Mint Mobile.
00:26:25.020 | If you have a little bit more money,
00:26:27.500 | $300 will give you unlimited talk,
00:26:31.540 | unlimited text, and 12 gigabytes of data per month.
00:26:34.300 | Now that would be important,
00:26:36.440 | especially if you're gonna use your phone
00:26:37.920 | for a source of internet communications.
00:26:40.360 | You might be needing to do job searches
00:26:41.860 | or communicate with people online through email.
00:26:44.240 | And so having the ability to tether your phone
00:26:46.340 | and have 12 gigabytes of data
00:26:48.400 | might be really valuable for you.
00:26:50.080 | So that's something I would seriously consider.
00:26:51.960 | I would seriously consider buying a phone plan like that.
00:26:56.180 | If you have an expensive phone
00:26:57.500 | that you have a bunch of payments on,
00:26:59.760 | they're probably not gonna come
00:27:00.800 | and repossess your phone,
00:27:02.320 | but you might need to go ahead
00:27:03.240 | and pick up an inexpensive phone.
00:27:05.360 | If I were completely flat broke
00:27:07.440 | and I had nothing but a few hundred dollars to my name,
00:27:11.880 | I would get my food from the dumpster
00:27:14.020 | and from the food pantry,
00:27:15.560 | and I would make sure that I had
00:27:17.040 | a workable, inexpensive cell phone
00:27:19.800 | and reasonable cell phone service.
00:27:23.160 | Because with that,
00:27:25.160 | I have the ability to generate more income.
00:27:28.440 | I have the ability to learn new skills.
00:27:30.640 | I have the ability to take courses,
00:27:32.440 | download podcasts,
00:27:33.520 | study through iTunes University or YouTube University.
00:27:37.520 | I have the ability to reach out to employers.
00:27:39.280 | I have the ability to start businesses.
00:27:40.580 | I have the ability to do all kinds of things.
00:27:42.720 | I have the ability to take day jobs,
00:27:44.200 | day laboring jobs where somebody says,
00:27:46.040 | "I'll call you when I need you."
00:27:47.140 | I can go out and just do random services for people,
00:27:50.020 | but they have to be able to get ahold of me.
00:27:52.560 | And so I would get my food from the food pantry
00:27:54.960 | and the dumpster and keep my cell phone going.
00:27:58.880 | Super important.
00:28:00.240 | But keeping your cell phone going
00:28:01.680 | doesn't necessarily mean cell phones for you
00:28:03.840 | and your children.
00:28:05.000 | Keeping your cell phone going
00:28:05.920 | doesn't necessarily mean an expensive plan,
00:28:07.800 | but that's gonna be your number one utility to keep.
00:28:11.240 | The next thing, of course, is electricity and water.
00:28:14.000 | There are lots of things that you could do,
00:28:16.540 | if you wanted to, to cut those expenses to nothing.
00:28:19.400 | If I were in a truly dire circumstance,
00:28:21.880 | I would wanna make sure I had the water on in my house
00:28:23.880 | because that's my source of drinking water.
00:28:25.920 | I would also want it to be on so that I could keep clean
00:28:28.480 | and not be smelly going to a job interview and smelling bad.
00:28:31.880 | But that doesn't mean I need 20 minute showers.
00:28:34.240 | Doesn't mean I need hot water.
00:28:36.400 | I've taken bucket baths with a gallon or two of water.
00:28:38.880 | You should try it sometime
00:28:40.440 | to prove to yourself that you can do it.
00:28:42.480 | But if you just take a bucket,
00:28:43.800 | fill it up with a couple gallons of water from the tap,
00:28:46.340 | grab yourself a little cup to dip out of,
00:28:48.560 | strip off, moisten yourself, lather up,
00:28:51.680 | and then rinse, you can get completely clean
00:28:53.320 | in a couple gallons of water.
00:28:55.320 | My wife and I, we practice some of these techniques,
00:28:57.380 | even with our children, when we were RVing.
00:29:00.560 | We were able to RV with three small children.
00:29:02.240 | Our record was we stretched 51 gallons of water
00:29:05.340 | for six days.
00:29:07.000 | That's a lot less.
00:29:08.320 | When most of us often use 50 or more
00:29:10.280 | or a hundred gallons of water per day
00:29:12.120 | because we're just simply wasteful,
00:29:14.440 | you can do a lot less.
00:29:16.400 | You can use a lot less.
00:29:18.120 | Now, if you wanna take a three minute shower, fine.
00:29:20.520 | But the point is conserve.
00:29:22.880 | Don't wash the dishes and let the water run.
00:29:24.840 | Use dish buckets, use all of the tools
00:29:27.240 | and techniques that your grandmother would have used
00:29:29.380 | if she woke up in your situation.
00:29:31.220 | Cut your water usage.
00:29:34.340 | Same thing with your power usage.
00:29:35.660 | Now, if you had to go hardcore,
00:29:36.920 | you could get your power for free.
00:29:38.660 | You could harvest power when you're going out
00:29:40.740 | in other places.
00:29:41.580 | You can charge your phone from a random outlet
00:29:45.120 | that you find out and about.
00:29:46.340 | You can charge your computer at the coffee shop.
00:29:48.180 | You can go hardcore with it.
00:29:49.620 | But for most of us,
00:29:50.460 | it's just a matter of simply being conscious.
00:29:53.020 | One thing you can do, if you need to cut to the minimum,
00:29:55.580 | go around your house, unplug everything,
00:29:58.280 | unscrew every light bulb in the house
00:30:00.400 | and put yourself in a situation
00:30:02.500 | where you have to intentionally choose to use it.
00:30:06.160 | You might wanna go to bed when the sun goes down
00:30:08.320 | and get up when the sun comes up.
00:30:10.360 | Adjust your life rhythms.
00:30:11.860 | But cut those bills down to as close to zero
00:30:16.880 | as you can possibly get them.
00:30:19.040 | You wanna keep those services going,
00:30:20.760 | but you need to cut them to as close as zero
00:30:23.120 | as you possibly can.
00:30:25.080 | Now let's talk about transportation.
00:30:27.280 | You must be able to get to work if you have a job.
00:30:30.680 | So you've got to have a source of transportation.
00:30:34.320 | You also often can use a vehicle to be a source of profit.
00:30:41.540 | You could give people rides.
00:30:44.740 | You can haul stuff.
00:30:45.580 | You can go and pick stuff up from people
00:30:47.940 | who are giving it away and sell it
00:30:49.580 | and flip it on Craigslist.
00:30:51.220 | I've known people and interviewed people
00:30:53.040 | on Radical Personal Finance.
00:30:54.940 | They were completely broken in debt
00:30:56.380 | and they made their business
00:30:57.300 | by flipping things on Craigslist,
00:30:58.780 | going and getting stuff for free,
00:31:00.300 | fixing it and flipping it on Craigslist.
00:31:01.980 | You can do that.
00:31:02.940 | And so a car is gonna be extremely valuable for you.
00:31:06.300 | But if you wake up and you're in a dire financial situation
00:31:08.500 | and you have an expensive car,
00:31:10.140 | probably one of your first priorities
00:31:11.700 | is going to be to get rid of that expensive car
00:31:14.160 | and get something cheap.
00:31:16.260 | Now there are a lot of ways
00:31:17.140 | that you can cut your expenses here.
00:31:19.440 | If you have a big car payment,
00:31:20.540 | your car is at risk of being repossessed,
00:31:22.220 | your number one priority is to get yourself a cheap,
00:31:26.380 | paid for car so that your car doesn't get repossessed.
00:31:30.540 | If I woke up, I had a few hundred dollars to my name,
00:31:34.260 | but I had a $30,000 car
00:31:35.620 | and I had no money to pay the car payments,
00:31:37.380 | my number one priority would be to get myself a $500 car
00:31:42.180 | or a $1,000 car that I could own
00:31:45.600 | so it wouldn't get repossessed.
00:31:48.060 | Now one of the best sources here
00:31:49.220 | would probably be to ask somebody for one.
00:31:51.620 | There may be a friend of yours who has an old car
00:31:53.420 | and they're willing to give you a deal.
00:31:55.100 | That would be great.
00:31:55.920 | Are they willing just to lend it to you
00:31:57.000 | for a period of time?
00:31:58.120 | If you need to go out and find one, go find one.
00:32:02.140 | Look by the side of the road, study all the classifies,
00:32:04.460 | try to come up with an inexpensive car.
00:32:06.100 | That will be extremely valuable for you,
00:32:07.380 | but you have to have a car with no payments
00:32:09.500 | so that you can have transportation
00:32:11.000 | that's not taken away from you.
00:32:12.560 | Let's talk about repossession.
00:32:15.820 | If you're facing the risk of repossession
00:32:20.060 | and it's a severe risk, I urge you,
00:32:23.740 | if you don't have any money,
00:32:25.200 | don't scrape together just something for a $500 car payment.
00:32:29.100 | If I woke up, I had a few hundred dollars
00:32:30.860 | or a thousand dollars to my name,
00:32:32.420 | but I had a $30,000 vehicle and a $500 a month car payment,
00:32:35.780 | I would not make another car payment.
00:32:37.900 | The first thing I would do with the $500
00:32:39.920 | that I had available would be to go and find a $500 car.
00:32:43.740 | Even if I had to negotiate something else,
00:32:45.540 | somebody selling, a friend of mine has a $1,500 car
00:32:48.340 | and I say, "Listen, I can give you $500 now
00:32:50.740 | "and I'll give you the other as soon as I can."
00:32:53.260 | And then I would park the expensive car,
00:32:56.100 | drop the insurance on it.
00:32:58.020 | Probably I would park it somewhere
00:32:59.580 | where it's not going to be immediately grabbed
00:33:01.920 | by the tow truck driver.
00:33:03.540 | I'd park it in a friend's garage or in a barn somewhere
00:33:06.060 | and get that thing listed and try to sell it.
00:33:08.900 | The first goal that you have is to try to sell the car
00:33:11.520 | as quickly as you possibly can.
00:33:13.480 | You don't want the car to be repossessed.
00:33:16.700 | Now it's possible it may be repossessed,
00:33:18.340 | but if the car is repossessed,
00:33:20.780 | the creditor will simply take that car to an auction,
00:33:23.820 | they'll sell it at an auction for a much lower amount
00:33:26.900 | than you can probably get rid of it at a private sale,
00:33:30.220 | and then they'll simply sue you for the difference.
00:33:32.500 | Now in a worst case scenario,
00:33:33.580 | that may be what has to happen
00:33:35.120 | because sometimes, or always,
00:33:37.480 | you have to come up with enough money to pay off the loan
00:33:40.240 | and often the car is not worth what you owe on it.
00:33:44.260 | So you have to come up with extra money
00:33:45.800 | to be able to pay off the loan
00:33:47.540 | and so you have to get another loan somewhere else
00:33:49.700 | for them to release the title to you.
00:33:51.620 | Well, if you have to do that, you have to do that.
00:33:52.940 | But again, this is where I would lean on a personal friend
00:33:55.340 | or somebody who could lend me a couple thousand dollars
00:33:57.140 | if necessary, but don't make a bad situation worse
00:34:00.100 | by letting the car get repossessed.
00:34:02.540 | The first thing you do, get a cheap car
00:34:05.300 | that doesn't have any payments on it,
00:34:07.540 | then figure out how to get rid of the other one.
00:34:11.060 | And let that be a lesson,
00:34:11.900 | don't ever borrow money for a vehicle again.
00:34:15.060 | With transportation situations,
00:34:19.880 | sometimes it makes sense to just simply park your car
00:34:22.400 | in your driveway.
00:34:23.240 | If you have to, in a dire situation,
00:34:24.600 | maybe you have a nice car,
00:34:25.860 | but you don't need it right now,
00:34:26.920 | you're quarantined in your house
00:34:28.240 | and you got nothing to do, park your car in your driveway.
00:34:30.680 | I recently stored one of my cars.
00:34:33.320 | It did have insurance on it,
00:34:35.280 | but we're not going anywhere, I'm not gonna use it.
00:34:37.560 | So I stored it with my insurance company.
00:34:39.320 | I called and was able to cut the insurance
00:34:41.560 | by just simply storing it.
00:34:42.920 | So it still has coverage, but it's parked in the garage,
00:34:45.660 | it's not being driven and that lowers the coverage.
00:34:47.900 | Sometimes you just drop the coverage completely,
00:34:50.420 | but be hardcore with it.
00:34:52.180 | If you only need to go somewhere once every couple of weeks
00:34:54.740 | 'cause you're quarantined in your house
00:34:56.160 | and you can't go and do something else,
00:34:57.740 | then park the car and just use an Uber or a ride share
00:35:00.460 | or get a friend to give you a ride.
00:35:01.980 | Carpool with somebody else to go to the store.
00:35:04.080 | But it's better for you to safeguard your cash
00:35:05.940 | than to be paying big car payments
00:35:07.420 | and big insurance payments.
00:35:08.400 | You need the cash, not your car payments or your insurance.
00:35:12.620 | Now let's talk about housing.
00:35:14.700 | One of the best things that you can probably do
00:35:16.740 | to save large amounts of money
00:35:18.260 | is to change your housing circumstances.
00:35:21.780 | Now there are a lot of things that you can do,
00:35:24.020 | but if you can change your housing circumstances
00:35:26.060 | for a period of time, it's better to change that quickly
00:35:29.420 | because that's usually the biggest expense
00:35:31.020 | that most of us have.
00:35:32.080 | Again, back to my $1,000, what would I do?
00:35:35.660 | If I had to change my housing, if I found myself laid off,
00:35:38.780 | I wouldn't make another rent payment,
00:35:41.240 | I wouldn't make another mortgage payment.
00:35:43.340 | I would immediately stop because if I get evicted,
00:35:46.220 | I can't spend all my money down trying to not get evicted
00:35:51.220 | because then if I do get evicted,
00:35:53.220 | I won't have another place to go
00:35:54.560 | and I won't have any money to get the next place with.
00:35:57.060 | So if I have $1,000 to my name,
00:35:58.580 | I'm not making another payment.
00:36:00.380 | I'm gonna keep the $1,000 'cause with that $1,000,
00:36:03.220 | I have an option for next.
00:36:05.500 | That may be enough for me to get into another cheaper place.
00:36:09.500 | That may be enough for me to do something.
00:36:11.820 | I don't know, buy an old RV and move into an RV.
00:36:14.220 | It may be enough for me to do some way,
00:36:16.220 | but if I have no cash and I get evicted with no cash,
00:36:19.620 | I'm sunk.
00:36:20.560 | You have to safeguard cash.
00:36:23.740 | So don't spend all your money on these bills,
00:36:25.940 | save your cash so that you can move into another place.
00:36:29.120 | Now, the first thing you should probably consider
00:36:31.980 | is leaning on friends or family.
00:36:34.320 | I'm willing to do all the hardcore radical things,
00:36:36.700 | move into a cheap apartment.
00:36:37.900 | I'm willing to move into a car.
00:36:40.260 | I've done it.
00:36:41.820 | But I'll tell you, it's not as nice
00:36:43.980 | as just simply being able to stay with somebody.
00:36:45.940 | And one of the ways that your friends or your family
00:36:48.100 | can help you is by simply giving you a place to live.
00:36:51.060 | It's a lot easier for them to give you a place
00:36:52.700 | to live temporarily than it is for them
00:36:54.820 | to give you lots of excess money
00:36:56.300 | so that you can pay rent to somebody else.
00:36:58.500 | And so if you have an opportunity,
00:37:00.100 | you can move into your parents' garage
00:37:01.740 | or move into a buddy's basement.
00:37:03.860 | That's the best thing to do.
00:37:05.700 | It's gonna be cheaper for you to make a move like that
00:37:07.880 | than it is to buy the infrastructure
00:37:09.540 | to go live in a tent in the woods.
00:37:11.820 | But if those options aren't available,
00:37:14.020 | then I would start looking.
00:37:15.340 | And I would look hard to say, what can I afford?
00:37:18.020 | Now, if you don't have any source of income,
00:37:20.260 | let's say that your rent right now is $2,500 a month.
00:37:23.940 | And you look around and you say,
00:37:24.940 | we're in a severe scenario.
00:37:26.780 | Unemployment is through the roof.
00:37:28.220 | I've got unemployment income, but that's it.
00:37:30.660 | And then it's gonna run out at some point.
00:37:32.420 | And there's a decent chance
00:37:34.380 | I'm not gonna be employed by then.
00:37:36.100 | Don't go and sign up for an apartment.
00:37:37.780 | It's $1,500 a month just 'cause it saves you $1,000 a month.
00:37:40.320 | That doesn't do you anything for you.
00:37:41.880 | Yeah, it saves you a little bit of money,
00:37:43.040 | but that's not nearly as effective as what you need.
00:37:45.680 | Figure out a way to live for free.
00:37:47.760 | I would, and I tested,
00:37:49.120 | what I would do is I would buy an RV myself.
00:37:51.800 | I could live as a father of four children.
00:37:54.160 | I could live, if I didn't have any other bills
00:37:55.760 | and I had a paid-for RV and a truck,
00:37:57.760 | I could live in a lot of places
00:37:59.040 | for a total budget of less than $1,000 a month
00:38:01.440 | and be in comfort.
00:38:02.460 | Now, that's not easy.
00:38:04.680 | That takes some skill, but I could do it.
00:38:06.400 | I proved it.
00:38:07.240 | I was curious if I could do it, and I could do it.
00:38:09.720 | And so I would take my, you know,
00:38:11.760 | scrounge together a few thousand dollars
00:38:13.240 | and I'd buy a $4,000 RV, something like that,
00:38:15.760 | where we could have a comfortable bed to sleep in
00:38:17.400 | and a comfortable place to keep our family together
00:38:20.240 | in a dire economic circumstance
00:38:23.560 | until I can figure something out.
00:38:25.320 | The worst-case scenario, I'd buy a tent
00:38:27.360 | and I'd move into a tent.
00:38:29.240 | One of the things that you will find,
00:38:31.720 | what I'm saying right now is shocking to a lot of people,
00:38:34.500 | but it's only shocking to a modern brain.
00:38:38.480 | And what happens is that we're prisoners
00:38:42.500 | of our modern lifestyle.
00:38:43.640 | We're prisoners of our modern experiences.
00:38:46.940 | Throughout most of human history,
00:38:48.360 | people simply slept on the ground.
00:38:50.060 | Somebody had a tent, they were wealthy.
00:38:53.380 | They had a nice tent.
00:38:54.220 | A lot of people just had a coat, right?
00:38:56.100 | One of the things that you read in the Bible
00:38:58.580 | is that a creditor was never, in the biblical law,
00:39:01.820 | a creditor was never allowed to take a man's coat
00:39:05.240 | as collateral, a poor man's coat as collateral,
00:39:08.200 | and keep it overnight, because a lot of people,
00:39:10.580 | that was the only covering they had,
00:39:12.580 | was a coat, a cloak, to wrap around themselves
00:39:15.100 | to keep them warm at night.
00:39:16.580 | And today I could take you all around the world
00:39:18.300 | and show you people with nothing more
00:39:19.580 | than a coat to their name.
00:39:21.180 | I'll show you refugees from Venezuela
00:39:24.580 | where their whole family is sleeping out on the open ground.
00:39:28.000 | They've got a sheet laid out, family of five,
00:39:30.380 | family of six, family of seven,
00:39:32.380 | and they've got a blanket or two that they're sharing,
00:39:34.420 | and that's it.
00:39:35.260 | Now, those of us who come from rich Western countries,
00:39:38.820 | we're such prisoners of our mind
00:39:40.360 | that we can't even imagine doing that kind of thing.
00:39:43.300 | People are shocked when I say something like,
00:39:45.100 | move into a van, right, move into an RV.
00:39:46.860 | But yet that is almost incomparably more comfortable
00:39:51.300 | than the circumstances that most people have lived through
00:39:56.100 | throughout all of human history.
00:39:59.460 | I'd buy a tent.
00:40:00.740 | I'd put a comfortable bed in that tent.
00:40:02.420 | I'd be living in a lap of luxury,
00:40:03.780 | and I'd ask a friend, can I put a tent in your backyard?
00:40:06.020 | Or find someplace to put it at a low cost or totally free.
00:40:09.360 | But I'd cut my living expenses to zero
00:40:13.020 | until I figured out how to get something else squared away.
00:40:16.420 | And I would stockpile all of the cash.
00:40:18.700 | Let's go back to my unemployment scenario.
00:40:20.380 | Let's assume that I only have unemployment,
00:40:22.220 | and I'm in a situation where I don't have a lot of it,
00:40:24.140 | I just have some unemployment.
00:40:25.460 | If I spend all of my unemployment money on rent,
00:40:28.460 | and I lose it all to rent,
00:40:31.140 | and I can't make something happen
00:40:32.500 | between now and finishing up the unemployment,
00:40:35.380 | I'm sunk, now I've got no money.
00:40:37.580 | So I would go to free or hardcore in some way
00:40:41.100 | so that I can keep my money
00:40:43.100 | so that at the end of the unemployment period,
00:40:44.400 | I might have $8,000 in the bank.
00:40:46.420 | Or with that $8,000 in the bank
00:40:47.940 | that I saved from unemployment
00:40:49.580 | by making some of these hardcore decisions,
00:40:52.380 | I can now do something.
00:40:54.800 | Again, I have enough money,
00:40:55.900 | I can move across country to where the work is.
00:40:57.780 | I can buy something nicer.
00:41:00.660 | I have enough money scraped together.
00:41:02.500 | I can get out of some of my debts
00:41:04.300 | so I can move into a new situation.
00:41:06.580 | I can afford to take a couple of months
00:41:09.020 | and find a job where housing is provided,
00:41:10.940 | or work something out.
00:41:13.100 | The point is the money buys you freedom.
00:41:15.300 | And so your number one goal is do as much as possible
00:41:19.260 | to cut your expenses as low as possible
00:41:21.660 | so that you can accumulate money,
00:41:23.580 | so that you can establish yourself at the next step.
00:41:27.300 | (birds chirping)
00:41:29.860 | Lots of other things you can do with regard to housing,
00:41:32.320 | but I think that's enough.
00:41:33.460 | Now, anything outside of those things, stop.
00:41:36.300 | Anything else, with the exception
00:41:38.740 | of things that make you money.
00:41:40.500 | So what I would do, if I were broke
00:41:42.380 | and the job market were bad,
00:41:43.780 | I would cut all personal consumption expenses
00:41:48.840 | with weird, crazy, hardcore, radical ideas,
00:41:50.980 | whatever's appropriate to my situation.
00:41:53.100 | Then I would stockpile the money
00:41:54.420 | and figure out how to start a business.
00:41:56.860 | I'm not being glib when I say that.
00:41:58.920 | I'm not ignorant of the hardness of that.
00:42:01.460 | I'd be looking for work,
00:42:02.380 | but sometimes it just simply isn't work.
00:42:04.960 | Sometimes you're facing a 20% or a 30% unemployment rate
00:42:07.980 | and there is no work.
00:42:09.780 | I've got friends from all around the world
00:42:11.060 | who live in those countries
00:42:12.120 | where that's a standard matter of course.
00:42:14.020 | There is no work.
00:42:15.660 | And the work that's available,
00:42:16.620 | there's so many people fighting for it
00:42:18.060 | that the employers sometimes don't even pay you,
00:42:20.220 | and yet, because they might someday pay you,
00:42:22.580 | people will take your job if you leave it.
00:42:25.180 | So the only solution is to figure out
00:42:27.200 | how to create some product or service
00:42:30.100 | that other people might wanna buy,
00:42:31.500 | and for that, you need capital.
00:42:33.100 | So back to my example.
00:42:35.940 | That's why you need money.
00:42:37.340 | You need capital so that you can afford to do something.
00:42:40.800 | Could be buying broken washing machines
00:42:42.740 | and fixing them and selling them.
00:42:43.900 | It could be buying apples at the wholesale orchard
00:42:48.020 | and selling them on the side of the street
00:42:49.580 | for a small profit.
00:42:51.880 | I don't know what it is,
00:42:53.480 | but all I know is it's very hard
00:42:55.940 | to start a business without money.
00:42:58.300 | So I'm gonna look for a job,
00:42:59.340 | but sometimes the jobs are not available,
00:43:01.620 | in which case, the only solution that I have
00:43:03.940 | is to stockpile the money that I have
00:43:06.740 | in order to start a business.
00:43:08.500 | That's why I need capital.
00:43:10.300 | So you stop everything that's not making you money,
00:43:13.400 | everything outside of those four categories,
00:43:16.620 | and you cut those four categories as low as possible
00:43:18.780 | through whatever creative things that you can,
00:43:20.980 | and you stockpile money
00:43:22.080 | because that money will give you options.
00:43:24.760 | Now, I beg of you, one of the biggest temptations
00:43:27.840 | that people have is during hard times to go into debt.
00:43:30.540 | There are times and circumstances
00:43:34.040 | in which that's probably the best move,
00:43:36.180 | but those times and circumstances are very rare.
00:43:40.240 | And in almost every situation, going into debt
00:43:43.840 | just simply prolongs your bad decision-making.
00:43:49.300 | Somebody says, "Well, I wanna keep this car
00:43:52.120 | "because after all, I've had this car
00:43:53.680 | "and it's got payments on it,
00:43:54.940 | "and I don't want it to get repossessed,
00:43:56.340 | "and so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go
00:43:57.460 | "and borrow money from my dad
00:43:59.180 | "so I can keep my car payments afloat."
00:44:01.140 | Well, if you had to give the car back,
00:44:04.440 | you might need to borrow money from your dad
00:44:06.060 | so that you can drive a car that's paid for.
00:44:08.800 | But if you borrow the money from your dad
00:44:10.320 | to keep the car payments afloat,
00:44:11.600 | and then you recognize that I can't fix my income problem
00:44:14.080 | in the short term, you're sunk
00:44:16.080 | because now your dad's gonna be out of money
00:44:18.400 | and your car's gonna be repossessed.
00:44:20.900 | So I beg of you, don't go into debt.
00:44:23.480 | Oftentimes, people go into debt to maintain their lifestyle
00:44:27.080 | because they wanna keep up appearances,
00:44:29.520 | they don't want their friends and family
00:44:30.760 | to know how much they're hurting,
00:44:31.640 | and so they're on the backside,
00:44:33.800 | they're just borrowing tens of thousands of dollars
00:44:35.640 | of credit card debt to keep up appearances
00:44:37.360 | and keep up lifestyle.
00:44:38.720 | It's understandable, it's the wrong move.
00:44:41.640 | You can very quickly rebuild lifestyle.
00:44:44.040 | You can very quickly get another place.
00:44:45.840 | You can go buy a new car when you have a job,
00:44:48.240 | but you've got to stop spending
00:44:49.880 | until you've solved your income problem.
00:44:52.560 | There is a ratio here.
00:44:53.520 | Again, if you've got lots of savings,
00:44:55.200 | maybe you see it out for a month or two,
00:44:57.420 | but you should be focusing on moving fast.
00:45:00.280 | Move fast, fast, fast.
00:45:02.520 | Don't go into deeper into debt.
00:45:04.220 | Another reason to move fast.
00:45:07.480 | There are times in your life that you need to move fast
00:45:10.120 | before your credit gets slammed.
00:45:12.420 | What do I mean?
00:45:15.880 | Let's say that I woke up and I lost my job
00:45:18.440 | and I looked around and I said,
00:45:19.260 | "You know what?
00:45:20.360 | We're looking at 20% unemployment.
00:45:22.480 | This is a truly dire emergency.
00:45:25.200 | This is bad."
00:45:26.680 | Well, the first thing that I would do
00:45:28.200 | is I would look around for credit
00:45:29.360 | and I would say, "How do I solve my housing problem?"
00:45:31.160 | And maybe I can go and I can get a cash advance
00:45:33.460 | on a credit card, unsecured,
00:45:35.680 | and I can use that to buy an RV
00:45:37.080 | that my family can live in cheaply,
00:45:38.980 | and I want to do that before I start getting behind on bills.
00:45:44.040 | Move fast.
00:45:45.640 | There's so many things you can do if you move fast,
00:45:47.520 | but if you sit around and wait,
00:45:48.680 | your options just get fewer and fewer and fewer.
00:45:50.600 | And so the key thing you want to cultivate
00:45:52.440 | is move hard and move fast.
00:45:54.960 | Sometimes you can use a difficult time
00:45:59.520 | to just do something you've always wanted to do.
00:46:01.800 | If you're going to live in a tent
00:46:03.040 | and figure out how to build an online business,
00:46:05.260 | why not move that tent somewhere beautiful?
00:46:07.120 | It doesn't have to be in the backyard
00:46:08.280 | in the middle of the city.
00:46:09.220 | Find some really nice place to go and build that tent.
00:46:11.920 | So use an opportunity like this to build something bigger
00:46:15.280 | and use it as an adventure.
00:46:16.480 | If you're going to live in an RV and there's no work,
00:46:18.560 | why not go and live in an RV in some nice places
00:46:20.480 | that you've wanted to travel and look for work there
00:46:22.700 | instead of staying stuck in a place
00:46:24.200 | where you don't have any work.
00:46:25.700 | Then finally, let this crisis fuel your determination
00:46:31.560 | to never be in these circumstances again.
00:46:33.940 | Let this crisis fuel your determination
00:46:37.880 | to never be in this dire of a circumstance.
00:46:40.640 | I'm not ignorant as to how hardcore some of these ideas are.
00:46:45.720 | I don't think I'll ever need them.
00:46:48.080 | I hope I don't ever need them.
00:46:49.600 | But if you're in a situation
00:46:53.400 | and you have to use these ideas,
00:46:55.880 | just let them fuel you to do things differently next time.
00:46:59.760 | If you just simply don't borrow money,
00:47:02.040 | and if you save money first and foremost
00:47:03.880 | so that you always have significant amounts of savings
00:47:05.960 | and you do that before you invest,
00:47:07.860 | then you never need these kinds of ideas.
00:47:10.640 | You never need to be so hardcore.
00:47:13.160 | So I promise you, you will get through this,
00:47:16.600 | but you'll get through it a lot easier and faster
00:47:18.520 | if you will focus and be hardcore.
00:47:20.780 | That's it for today's show.
00:47:22.920 | Thank you for listening.
00:47:24.400 | I've got a number of products available
00:47:25.840 | at radicalpersonalfinance.com/store,
00:47:27.800 | products on how to survive and thrive
00:47:29.080 | during the coming economic crisis.
00:47:31.160 | Many of these ideas were in there.
00:47:32.400 | One of the things that I taught in this course
00:47:33.680 | long before the current economic crisis
00:47:35.800 | was I taught about how to set things up
00:47:37.780 | so that you have options.
00:47:39.640 | The best time to buy an RV
00:47:41.260 | is not when you get laid off from your job.
00:47:42.660 | The best time to buy an RV is long before that,
00:47:44.400 | but that can be part of your backup plan.
00:47:46.040 | Lots of ways to get through this.
00:47:47.520 | I also have a course called How to Borrow Money Safely
00:47:49.280 | and Never Pay Interest Using Credit Cards.
00:47:51.140 | I would commend to you, if you own a credit card
00:47:53.420 | or if you ever will own a credit card, you need that course
00:47:56.520 | because one of the things that you need available to you
00:47:58.560 | in a circumstance like we're talking about here is money,
00:48:02.040 | and credit cards can be a very safe form of debt
00:48:07.040 | if you know what you're doing.
00:48:10.240 | Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/store.
00:48:12.080 | Check that course out.
00:48:13.200 | Thank you for being here.
00:48:14.320 | Thank you for listening.
00:48:15.640 | Just know this, you will get through this.
00:48:18.280 | Doesn't have to be an emergency.
00:48:20.180 | And on the other side,
00:48:21.640 | you have an opportunity to do things differently.
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