Tax Refund EMERGENCY! “We NEED THIS MONEY TO PAY THE BILLS”

You know we have sunk into a new low in this country when tax time is now one of the most exciting times of year. Well, why is it one of the most exciting times of year, Michael? Well, that's because 40% of people depend on their tax refund in order to continue to be able to pay their bills. Without that tax refund, then they're going broke, essentially. That's right. 40% of taxpayers are counting on their tax refund to pay for basic necessities, according to a new survey by Trustpilot. And 22% of people plan to use that money to pay off debt. Now that makes me happy. It makes me happy to know that there are people that are going to use this money to get ahead. Because as far as I'm concerned, when you're paying off debt, that is getting ahead financially. And here's why this is sad, guys. Because, you know, tax time and getting the tax refund used to be like a little financial bonus that people would get every year that could help you take a vacation or, you know, save the money or, you know, indulge in something that you don't normally get to do, right? But now it's becoming more like a financial necessity. Like people need this money in order to be able to survive. Like how did it come to this? These are the top expenses that Americans say will be most affected by their tax refunds or any taxes that are owed. Things like groceries and household essentials. 47% of people say they'll be affected by that. Gas and transportation and bills, loans, credit card payments, etc. And, you know, the worst part about relying on a tax refund essentially to stay afloat financially is the fact that you don't even know how much it's going to be. You know, that fluctuates from year to year. In fact, sometimes you might even end up owing money, especially if you're self-employed. CBS News, they just did a poll recently and they found out that 77% of Americans don't believe their incomes are keeping up with inflation. And that's why you have so many people that are relying on this upcoming tax return in order to essentially make ends meet. And this is exactly what I'm trying to get people to avoid here on the channel. You know, everything that I tell people here is in order to get people to move away from this sort of lifestyle, in order to get people to be prepared for whatever comes next and be able to have money set aside. And you have that six months of emergency fund. You are investing, you know, savings each month. Like, you wouldn't have to worry about this if that's you. You know, if you have a six-month emergency fund, who cares about the tax refund? That's just going to be icing on the cake. It's not going to be next month's rent. You know what I mean? And you've got to take a real assessment of your life. Like, if this is you and you're somebody that needs to rely on this in order to get by, you have to start reassessing how you're living and how you're saving and how you're spending money. Because the truth of the matter is, you're probably not doing it right. And I think there's two main things that everybody needs to do if you're facing any sort of financial hardship, guys. Like, you know, for a while I was telling people you should cut back expenses. And while I do still think that is a good strategy, I think the better strategy is to find ways to bring in more income. Okay? You can do cutting back and bringing in more income at the same time and simultaneously those two things are going to help you out tremendously. And then you also have to pay off debt. Because that's less payments you're going to have each month. And that interest is just robbing your wallet every single month. And basically it goes like this. The less you owe anybody else, then the more of your income you can keep. So think of all of a sudden, you have $500 less in debt payments each month. You're able to increase your income by $500 more each month. And you're able to cut out $500 worth of expenses. Well, you just increased your income by $1,500 a month by doing that, even though your real income only went up by $500 a month. So it's very powerful to be able to employ all these strategies at once. And I recognize the fact that it's much easier said than done. And I know this because I've been there. I know what it's like to be essentially living paycheck to paycheck. Which also means I know how much that sucks and how important it is to get out of that cycle. Because once you do, it's like you feel like you're a new person. You're living a completely different lifestyle now. But you know who doesn't have to worry about money? At least not in the real world like we have to. The U.S. government. There was a funny story that came out this week. Thanks to my friend Ben for sending it over to me. Saying how Elon Musk has discovered the magic money computers in the U.S. government. Which essentially are computers that can just inject money into the American financial system instantaneously. And it's no secret that the U.S. government can create money out of thin air. We've talked about that numerous times here on the channel. They've been doing this pretty much ever since they took the dollar off the gold standard. This has been something they've been doing for a long time. Just now in recent years, they've been doing it to an extreme level. And that's why I always refer to this current economy as keeping the magic show on the road. Which is really what it is at this point. It's a magic show that's been created out of thin air by the magic money computer. And this is why there's seemingly no limit to the amount of government spending out there. And why they don't care that we waste billions if not trillions of dollars. You know, going towards things that are unnecessary essentially. Because all they've got to do is just create the money out of thin air. That's it. And something that people need to realize is it's not just the U.S. government that can actually create money out of thin air. In fact, every time you use your credit card or a loan of any type is made, essentially the same thing is happening because you are giving out money that doesn't exist yet. When you charge the credit card, the bank hasn't received the money from you. They're extending credit to you in hopes that you're going to pay it back. And if you don't pay it back on time, you're going to pay interest. Same thing goes for a mortgage. They'll give you the money to buy the house, but every month you're going to pay back principal plus interest. So the money was created out of thin air because now all of a sudden there's more money coming back in than what initially left the creditor's wallet. And this is the biggest case, if you ask me, of why everybody needs to own a little bit of gold and silver, guys. In fact, gold just recently hit an all-time high of $3,000 an ounce. And it's probably going to just continue going up because inflation is showing no signs of slowing down. And when you hear things like this and you understand how money is truly created, that should be enough motivation for anybody to want to have at least some gold and silver. I'm not saying to throw all of your wealth into it, but you need to have some. And just remember, every time you see gold, for example, hit a new record high, it's not actually gold hitting a record high. It's the value of the U.S. dollar hitting an all-time low. So just remember that. Remember to try to reverse your thinking. Every time you see, oh, gold hits a brand new high, that just means that your dollar's just lost even more purchasing power and it will buy even less than it did yesterday. Now, there was an announcement a few days ago that the post office is going to be firing 10,000 workers and be cutting billions of dollars from their budget. And they're going to be working with the Doge Department in order to do it. And the post office is no stranger to financial hardships and gross mismanagement. I know this well, considering I have two parents that worked for the post office. My mom used to work there and now she's retired. And my dad still works there and tells me about all of the problems and the shortages of help that they already have. Apparently, a couple of things they're going to be addressing is the mismanagement of the agency's retirement assets and workers' compensation program, as well as an array of regulatory requirements that restrict normal business practice. Now, a lot of people are worried that the post office is going to be privatized and that's ultimately the direction that it's going to go. That's probably unlikely to happen. Then again, in today's day and age, who knows? Anything is possible. But the main reason why we need the post office is because private companies like DHL and UPS and FedEx, they don't actually deliver everywhere, in case you didn't know that. There are places where they will not deliver you an envelope or a package. Whereas the post office, as long as you have a United States address, they will deliver the mail to you. And the fact that they're looking at cutting 10,000 employees in the next 30 days could essentially have dire consequences when it comes to receiving the mail, guys. Like, for example, my dad is still working at the post office. And every time I talk to him, he's telling me how much overtime he's working because people don't want to come in. There's so many people that work at his local office that constantly call in sick. People that have been out on workers' comp for, you know, six months or a year for some old injury, you know, essentially fraud. He's even told me that there's a woman that has crashed the post office mail truck and been caught drinking on the job and is still working there because they are so shorthanded. Okay, that is firsthand knowledge from my dad. There was another person working at this post office that hasn't had a driver's license in five years, delivering the mail. How is that legal? How can they have somebody out there doing that? I have no idea. But one thing it does highlight is just how shorthanded the post office actually is and how desperate they are to keep staff, that they're willing to employ people like that just to be able to get the mail delivered. I mean, that is pretty awful. Now, the post office was already working on this departure of 10,000 workers before the DOJ department even became a thing. But now, they're going to be expediting this, apparently, now that they're involved. And supposedly within the next 30 days, they're going to let go of 10,000 people. And right now, the post office has 640,000 workers. So it's not a giant percentage of the amount of people that work there. But just think about it, if you're already having problems with your mail right now, or post offices are already shorthanded, how much worse that problem is going to get. But just like any other business, they need to cut their losses as well. The post office has had a hard time staying afloat for a very long time, especially with the decline of the amount of mail that people are sending. Even me, guys, I am not using the post office nearly as much as I used to. I've had a couple instances where I would mail a check, and the check never arrives to its destination. And one time, I even had it where somebody cashed that check, and it took me three months to get the money back because the person at the bank didn't do their job. You know, the bank allowed that person to cash the check, even though it wasn't made out to them, they never asked for an ID or anything. And I had to wait 90 days to get my own money back. You trust the post office, right, to be able to deliver that mail to the right person, and get it into the right hands, and then somehow it didn't, and now I can't trust it anymore. Here's something else that was sent to me by one of my viewers. Compass, the big real estate firm, they are looking to buy Warren Buffett's real estate brokerage, Berkshire Hathaway. And you know what I find interesting about this? It's the fact that we just heard last week about this big merger between Redfin and Rocket Mortgage. And what did I say in that video of why this is happening most likely? It's probably because the real estate industry is hurting right now. Okay, they're having a very tough time pulling off sales of any kind due to extremely low buyer demand and home prices and interest rates being too high. And so when times get tough, when it comes to any certain type of business, typically you will see mergers and acquisitions like this take place. And now Compass is looking to absorb Warren Buffett's company. And Compass, by the way, has been absorbing a ton of different small, especially independently owned real estate businesses across the country, maybe even across the world. In fact, the company I work for here in Miami, Beachfront Realty, I think was approached by Compass a few years back, and they declined to sell to them. But many other small brokerages around here in Miami did. And it actually really sucks if you're an agent working at one of these small independent firms, and all of a sudden you're absorbed by Compass, and now you have to follow their rules and their commission splits and everything else. And it would just suck if that happened. And you really like to set up where you're at. But one thing to think about with this potential buyout of Berkshire Hathaway's home services is what does Warren Buffett swear by when it comes to his financial advice? There's a famous line that he always tells everybody, which is, be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy. So right now, he must be feeling kind of fearful of where the future of the market is going, particularly the real estate market, so much so that he's willing to sell it to a company like Compass, who is being greedy, thinking they can just take over the entire real estate industry. So there is something to think about there, and it will give you some food for thought. But on the other hand, Warren Buffett is 94 years old. I don't know how many years he has left or how many years he's really going to continue being in the game realistically. So maybe he's just looking to cash out. Who knows? But as of right now, there's been no final deal reached. But Berkshire Hathaway's Home Services of America has about 820 brokerage offices and 270 franchisees as of 2024, and they have about 5,400 employees. I don't know if they consider them all just employees or they're talking about all of their agents as well. I would imagine just employees they're referencing here because real estate agents are not employees. They are independent contractors that work with the brokerage, not for the brokerage. And the reason why this is also a big deal and maybe a red flag for real estate is because Warren Buffett rarely sells any of his companies. But because real estate companies have been struggling in recent years, this might be the chance to say, okay, you know what? Let's get out of this. Also, Berkshire Hathaway was one of the big companies that was named in the lawsuit last year with the National Association of Realtors when it came to the commission lawsuits. They ended up settling for $250 million, but still, that's a huge hit to any company. Now I've shown you guys different crazy examples of listings here in Miami that will sit on the market for a couple years, sometimes even three years, I think was the longest one I've seen that they've been trying to sell a house here, at least ones that I've walked past in the videos. Well, somebody won up that and sent me this listing from Bloomington, Indiana. I got to share this with you guys. This is some kind of record in my book. They have been trying to sell this house in Indiana for the same price for the last 10 years, guys. And if you think I'm joking, here's the listing, okay? Listed right now, today, the last listing date was in August of 2024 for basically $2 million. And if you look down and go back to their listing history, going all the way back to 2015, they had the house listed for essentially the same price 10 years ago. And the lowest this home ever got in price was actually in 2019, just before the pandemic. And they had it down to as low as one and a half million and still no takers. And it's like, yeah, how many people that are living in Bloomington, Indiana can afford a $2 million house? You know, this is not Southern California. It's not Miami, where every house is $2 million, essentially. It's about, you know, a very middle class and very middle America type of place. But it is insane when you just see listings like this. It's like, how long does it take you to get the hint that your house is never going to sell for this price? I mean, a decade trying? It's insane. And in fact, if they would have sold it 10 years ago, they essentially would have been making far more money just when you adjust for inflation, guys. Look how much inflation has gone up just in the past five years. If you look at it for the last 10 years, if they would have been able to sell this house for even $1.7 million or $1.5 million back then, that would be equivalent to getting over $2 million today. But you see, that's how greed actually can mess with people's minds. And that's why sellers that just hang on for too long like this end up actually losing. And think about all the expenses, all the property taxes, all the insurance, that has to be done over the past 10 years on this house that the owner just had to pay for. Now, my guess is they probably live in the house and not in any hurry to sell. And every year, they're just kind of going fishing to see if anybody will bite. But clearly, after 10 years, when do you get the hint, you know? But going back to the beginning of this video, guys, if you are somebody that is struggling financially, just do yourself a favor. Try to find some way to increase your income. And find a way to decrease your expenses by $100 a month. And then look at the debt payments you have. Try to find a way to decrease that by $100 a month. And then you've already increased your, essentially, your net income each month by $300 just by doing those few little steps. And then you can kind of scale it up from there. When you get your yearly tax refund, you want that to be a bonus. You want that to be something that you can save or just kind of do whatever you want with. You don't want it to be something So, if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And if you don't want to wait for my next video to come out, check out this one on the screen right over here. And I'll see you in the next one.