[Music] Oh yeah, I've got a good question to kick us off from Kelly. She says, Is the economy doomed? I keep hearing that the economy is going to crash, that I'll never own a home, and that retirement is impossible. It's hard to stay positive with everyone telling me that we're doomed. Will things ever turn around, and how can I make sure I'm still able to reach success when things are a little bit scary? What do you think? What was the name? Kelly. Kelly. So, Kelly, let me start. Let me start here. First, I want to say we hear you, right? Like, so why is the common sentiment right now? Why do people think that the economy is doing well? You mentioned one. Housing is at, like, all-time or near all-time unaffordability, right? Like, it is very expensive to try to get into a home, try to change a home. Housing prices have gone up, interest rates have risen, and we've come through this. We've come through this infl aary environment where

the things that we buy every day uh gasoline groceries normal everyday week toe expenses have gotten more and more and more expensive and all the while the Market's kind of been doing okay. I mean we had a bad year in 20122 but 2023 was good and so far 2024 has been fine. There's a lot of things out there that feel painful that feel like oh things just don't feel wonderful right now but does that necessarily mean is that a sign is that an indication that the economy is doomed and you better buckle up cuz things are about to go bad. I can't escape this. It doesn't matter if I'm on social media or even at the neighborhood hangout events people will come up to me and go hey what do I how do I prepare for United States collapsing and I'm like what really this is the question and then by the way it it it doesn't stop there. I think about all the the businesses if you watch any type of cable news you'll see somebody

trying to sell you gold and then all over social media. Of course, the Bitcoin Bros, you know, are pushing it. And I always think to myself, as I was like, I wish somebody would actually have an honest conversation about what happens if things really do go bad. I mean, let's play this out, let's actually have a discussion, and I will just go and tell you as a personal finance professional, there is nothing in my Arsenal that fixes your financial life if this thing goes belly up. I'm just going to go ah and tell you. So let me go ahead and give you for $100 what you can do. And you know, I'm not telling you to buy something for me for $100. I'm actually going to give you my $100 or less prep kit for the apocalypse. All right, you ready? This is actually what I have at my house if you want to know. I have this, the only one that is not part of this is number four. This one's going to blow the $100 budget, but the first

three will be pretty affordable. I like water, so I have a LIF straw for my family. That one's important, I think. A fire starter is important. You can go on amazon.com and buy you a fire starter. You know, where you're literally starting your own fire. That's going to be cheap, that's probably less than 12 bucks. Okay, and then I have a hand crank radio that you literally can, you know, it's a flashlight, SL radio that is. You just give it a little elbow juice and this thing rocks and rolls. So you can take care of those first three pretty cheap. The fourth one's going to be more expensive, but it's also very important. You've got to figure out how you're going to defend your water, your food, and your family. So that's why defense is going to be super important. In the past, I've made some shock and awe where I had some shotgun shells or something on the desk. That's what you need to do so that as

you can tell I really have my tongue firmly pressed to my cheek, and the fact I do have those things in my house 'cause for $100, why not? I don't have seed banks, I don't have gold, I don't have Bitcoin, all those things. But what I would tell you, for people who are panicked about this and you see all this Doom Panic stuff all over social media throughout my entire career, which sadly I'm in the third decade of now, you know, is that there's always a reason to sell, there's always been a reason to panic. I think something to be afraid of, whether it's Wars, whether it's pandemics, whether it's um, terrorist attacks, there's economic, there's always something to scare people. I think if you went through history, just go do a Google search saying reasons to sell, and then do an image search, and you'll see all kinds of great illustrations, especially if you then overlay that with the S&P 500, and you'll see somehow this desire of humanity to continue to innovate, to grow will.

overcome, and maybe that's The Optimist in me, but I really do think that if I was giving people advice on how do you prepare for this besides the $100 checklist that I gave you, is I think you ought to start thinking about how do you create more luck for yourself, how do you prepare and create more luck because things are always going to be changing, things are always going to be evolving, and when I talk about luck, I'm talking about an ounce of preparation intersecting with that moment of opportunity. So I would encourage you, if you think housing's hard, if you think the stock market's scary, why not understand, you know, like Financial order of operations or millionaire Mission, figure out how to get your financial household in order and Bo there was some things that we even kind of brainstormed on what are things people can do to prepare for bad stuff, yeah, I think people are asking the wrong question, the question should not be, oh, what what do I do if the economy is going to bust and if this whole thing goes away.

because that seems like a very low probability outcome. What I'll be worried about is, what if it doesn't? That's probably the bigger risk. What if the economy doesn't blow up? What if the world doesn't come crashing down? What if the market doesn't shut down? Well, odds are you're going to live to a ripe old age, and you're not going to want to work forever, so you may want to start doing things today to prepare yourself for that future. And one of the best things you can start doing is, whether the Market's going down or going up, always be buying, even he BB, even if we see volatility, even if we see the market go down, even if we see another year like 2022, which was not a great year, we see another downturn like Co, or we see another fourth quarter of 2018, or we see another 2008 first quarter of 20 9, or we see another com Bubble Burst, or we see another fill in the blank. If you're someone who is investing in buying, it's

amazing how powerful your dollars can work for you through those crazy scary times. So our strategy, what we would recommend, is if you are nervous about the future, if you're nervous about what's going to happen in the economy, keep buying, keep investing, keep putting your money to work. Because if it does come to fruition, then you're going to be getting in at lower and lower and lower levels. And 10 years in the future, your future self can look back and say, Man, I'm glad that I had the resolve, I'm glad I had the discipline, I'm glad I stayed the course and made the hard decisions that are now setting me up for a bigger, more beautiful tomorrow. So always be buying ABB, baby. And then also having the emergency reserves and then just understanding where you fall into the financial order of operations.

Is the Economy Officially Doomed? (No Home Purchase, No Retirement?)

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