Chris McLean on debt recovery, clarity method, and money dysfunction

I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair question. It's a fair question. It's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair question. It's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen, and it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair question. Hey there, how are you all? This is Vic Cohen, and it is always a fair question. And we are starting the new year with a bang. Tonight's show is all about money. Yeah, whether you already have a ton of cash in the bank or you're just starting to save or let's say you're up to your chin in debt, this show is just for you. I found a guy whose life was, I'm gonna just say, I'm gonna just call it what it was. It was a total financial disaster. Only eight years ago. This is crazy. If any of you are feeling bad about your finances right now, this is to make you feel good. He was $105,000 in credit card debt. He was foreclosing on a home. That's another 170,000. That's $275,000. And then he found a way to turn it around. And that's what he is going to share with you and I tonight. And he's just a great guy. And I always love to bring people who cross my path who I think have a good story to share and are more than just information, but have a great heart. And that is exactly who you're about to meet. Chris McLean. Hi, thanks so much for coming. Oh, it's my pleasure. My hi sounded weird. Didn't it? It was a hell of a hi. Your hi sounded a little high. You didn't sound high, but the hi was a little high. I am not high. Thank you so much for being here. We're downtown. I know it's not easy to get to and it's a rainy night. El Nino is here. We're very excited about that, right? Yeah, we are. It's very good. And so listening to me describe where you were financially, how does that feel? Yeah. Well, it feels like a whole world ago and another person ago. Because all those things, you said and more, you know, are true about my financial situation. And it's hard to believe because, you know, all my life, like I've worked harder than anyone I know. I'm as honest as the day is long. I've made great money, but for some reason, for a lot of reasons, it always, I always had money emergencies and relied on the credit cards. How have you made your living, Sardin Rob? I've worked, you know, 20, gosh, 25 years ago, I started in the film industry in Detroit and I worked on an early Sam Raimi film. It was actually called, X, Y, Z Murders, written by the Coen brothers. Wow. Before they were the Coen brothers. And so I worked on features in Detroit and I thought, well, this is great. And every so often people would leave Detroit, go to the West coast and not return. So I thought, well, they must've found something. So it was time. Yeah, it was time. It was time. And so feature films in what capacity have you been working as a producer? Are you a shooter? Well, I started out in feature films in Detroit, working on feature films and a lot of commercials. And then I came to California and worked on a lot of features. As a producer though? No, I worked in what's called video assist. Video assist was started by Jerry Lewis years ago, where they plugged in a video camera to a film camera and they could see what, what the camera sees. So. In real time. In real time, right. Record it. So I started working on feature films. I worked on Indian in the Cupboard under Frank Oz. And I worked on Home for the Holidays under Jodie Foster. And I worked on, you know, under Janusz Kaminski, Steven Spielberg's DP and all that jazz. And worked on a lot of, a lot of features and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great It is. There's a lot of guys that was an issue and ladies. No, I'll tell you what the drug was. It was the drug of vagueness, just vagueness around money. You know, when someone's drunk, you know, when someone's drunk, they're not going to make great decisions. If someone's high, they're probably not going to make great decisions. And when it comes to money specifically, when I'm vague about money, I'm not going to make good decisions. And so in a way, vagueness was like being drunk with money. And what is a real clear description of what vagueness looks like? Vagueness, you know. How clear do we need to be to be what you would call not unvague or not vague? Yeah. No, I can give you a real litmus test right now to tell whether or not you're vague or not around money. Here it is. If you're in debt right now in your life, you're not clear. You're in vagueness about money. What if that was a choice to be in debt though? A strategy. Maybe there's a, you know, like a, a period of time. That is the worst strategy in the world to go into debt. Well, let's say, for example, like you had a medical emergency. I mean, things do happen occasionally that are, you don't want to live on the street. You've got to. Right. No, no, no. What you meant, a medical emergency, a job loss, you know, an illness, a death in the family. Those are things that happen to us. But vagueness is a day-to-day-to-day choice. That's a choice. Right. It's a behavior. It's a behavior around money. And so that's why I'm saying right now, if someone is in debt, they are in vagueness. It's not a judgment. They're just in vagueness, meaning that they're spending more money than they're making. What if they know what their exact debt is? Is that still vague? No, it's clarity around, it's clarity around their debt. A result that came from vagueness. It's knowledge, but it's not changing of behavior. You know, it's not changing behavior. So what it comes down to with me, the, I earned great money. What's great money? I mean, $100,000. $100,000 in the 90s. Gosh, it's hard to, I don't remember. How much did it make in 1993? But it was. But the point is I didn't live extravagantly. Okay. And I didn't, it was just by myself. I wasn't raised in a family or had a house. Basically, it was just, you know, not, let me put it this way. It's not clear what, I was not clear up until I ran into, just hit the wall. I was not clear what life really costs. What life really, really costs. You didn't have a list of my rent, my water bill, car payment. Yeah, that's part of it. I wasn't keeping track of how much, like, for example, like an auto repair would come up. It's like, oh my God, where am I going to get the money for that? Or insurance would come up twice a year. You know, like 450 bucks. It's like, oh man, what's $450, you know? And the thing is, it's not a surprise. Like every six months I would get this charge, but it's not being clear about what, you know, things actually cost. So you, you. You accrue $105,000 in credit card debt. Like that doesn't happen overnight. No, what, what happened again? Here's, here's another example about vagueness is that I, I was doing pretty well. My debt would kind of go up and down as up and down. I'd get on a feature and wipe out the debt and have money. But what happened in 2004 when the housing market was just going crazy, I thought to myself, man, I need to get into a condo now or I'll never be able to. You know, it's like the prices keep going up. So I did not. I didn't have clarity or I didn't want clarity as to how much, how much it actually costs to go from an apartment with a fixed amount to a condominium with taxes and HOA fees and maintenance. And that's homeowners if you don't know, HOA. All that stuff. All I knew is that I wanted a house. I wanted, I wanted a place to live. And all the mortgage people knew is that they wanted to give me more money than I could handle. And all they looked at was my credit score. No one, and I'm not blaming anyone, but no one ever sat down and said, you know, this is what it's going to cost. This is what it's going to cost to actually own the house. And, and, and, and so as a result, I went into it vague about it, got into the condominium and all of a sudden the mortgage, the taxes, the HOA fees, the homeowner fees, all that stuff, the maintenance went up, you know, was straining my budget. So then I started using credit cards little by little to cover gas or cover groceries or if I came up short or if a job fell through. It was just, you know, it's a little bit at first, but then it snowballs just like a snowball. Yeah. An avalanche. Yeah. An avalanche. It starts a little bit. It's like the, it's like the phrase, you know, you ask them, do you know how, you know how to cook a frog? Slowly. Yeah. You don't throw a frog into boiling water. You put them into cold water and turn up the heat. Right. And slowly, slowly the temperature rises and the frog thinks it's great and he gets sleepy and then he eventually wakes up dead. So anyway, so that's what it was with credit cards. Just a little bit at first, a little bit at first. And so to the people out there that are, that have debt right now, you know, they're one, one job loss away or one illness away or one unexpected thing away from all of a sudden having no savings and debt to going into deeper and deeper and deeper debt. Do you think that you were compulsive in your credit card spending? In other words, you know, you'd see something you liked and you just buy it. Did you get hits like almost, you know, like, you know, like a drink? Like it was kind of like that kind of thing, like excitement or was it more just surviving? It was just, it's just kind of surviving. And again, I didn't. Um, I didn't spend extravagantly, but I spent more money than I was making. Spent more money. So there was kind of a hit like, whew, you know, I avoided, um, you know, I paid my mortgage and all my bills this month. Thanks to the credit cards. You know, I, Christmas comes around. Whew. I got that, uh, you know, flight back to Michigan. Whew. Thanks to the credit card. I bought gifts for everyone. Thanks to the credit card. For those of you listening who, uh, let's talk to those who don't have any debt right now. Um. It's, it's also kind of a cautionary tale, right? I mean, if this clarity needs to exist all the time, not just when you're in, in the black. Right. Because it's very quick. You can easily get in the red, correct? Yeah, you can easily get in the red. But see, here's, here's the thing. People that don't have debt are living in clarity. You know, they have a real form and don't, and, and, you know, folks are listening. Don't think, no, no, no. They just make enough money. No, no, no. What happens? The more people, it's about behavior. The money just. Uh, amplifies people's behavior. So for example, if someone is, uh, sensible and clear about money and they make more, then they're just going to be even more sensible and clear about money. But if you give a person, you know, that's vague around money, more money, they're just going to wonder where it went, you know, time and time again. It's kind of like you see some NFL or, or pro players who have got millions of dollars. Right. And they're gone. It's gone. And, you know, I'm looking for this on Amazon. There's the book about, um, and you hear this statistic all the time from reputable sources that. 80% of the people that win the lottery within five years are bankrupt and worse off than they ever were. That's not how you got out of debt though. No, no, no, that's, that's, that's not how, but the point is you give someone, you give eight out of 10 people that win the lottery, they have more money than they've ever seen end up because it amplifies the behavior and they end up worse than they ever were. So, so now I know you do a lot of seminars and you, you really help a lot of people get through the rough. These rough times. And a couple, I know when we were talking previously, you'd mentioned that there are four basic, um, causes that are behind money dysfunction. Right. What are those causes? Vagueness is one of them, right? Yeah. Here's the thing. People, if you're sitting at home right now and listening to this, anyone can do this. There's, what happened to me is this. I didn't know why, even though I was making great money, not living extravagantly, why I always came up short. And, uh, when I hit, uh, the foreclosure and bankruptcy, because I, at that point I was advised, you know, legal counsel said, dude, you, you're into it for $275,000. You're never going to pay this off, go through bankruptcy. Well, that was just unheard of in my family. So what I did is I went through bankruptcy, had a clean slate, but I've never been so frightened in my life because here, here I was living off credit cards all this time, you know, as a buffer, like as a, as a buffer. And now no credit cards would touch. And I had to, and I had to learn, I had to learn how to handle money. So I sought people out and, uh, and, um, and I read a lot of books and here's what I came up with. Here's my experience. By the way, when I got through this, a lot of other people around that time, 2008, 2009, a lot of people were going to remember the great recession. A lot of people were going through foreclosure. So I came out better, you know, as a result, financially and mentally and spiritually through the experience. And a lot of people were saying, how'd you do it? How'd you do it? And I'd say, okay, here's what you do. You know, how'd you do it? How do you deal with creditors calling 24 hours a day? Here's what you do. Do they call 24 hours a day? Well, yeah, they do. They, they do, but they're not supposed to. In fact, the, uh, federal government set up the federal fair collections, uh, federal fair debt collections practices act in order to put a limit to what people can actually do. Anyway, regardless, I would explain to people and they'd get, they'd have a process to how to get out of debt, not just financially, but also emotionally and behaviorally. And then they'd tell someone and they'd ask me, I said, look, let's just get everyone together in a room. We'll do this at once. Well, the rooms kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I've given these solutions to up to 160 people at a workshop that I would do for nonprofit organizations. So I'm going to give you the first thing right now. So people, people at home. There are four of these? Yeah. There's four basic things. If people are having trouble with money. Okay. If you're having trouble with money, here's a way to get clarity as to where the money is. Okay. So just take a piece of paper and just draw a cross. Okay. Just draw up and down across. Not a religious. Not a religious one. No, not going there. But I prayed to Jesus a lot of nights to help me. So here's the thing. Just draw a square. And, and there's four reasons. These are four quadrants why people get in and draw a dollar sign in the middle. There's four reasons why people get into trouble. The first one, upper left-hand corner is a financial problem. Okay. You've got a financial problem. An example of that is if you live in Los Angeles and make $25,000, you have a financial problem. If there's a death in the family, financial problem. Loss of job, financial problem. Graduate with student loans. That's a financial problem. See, there's no judgment there. These are, these are financial, purely financial things. Okay. So a lot of times that's what's causing the trouble. Is it the money? Okay. Now go over to the upper right. And the other is behavioral. This is where we start getting into the interesting stuff is behavioral habits around money. An example that would be vagueness. Just not planning for taxes, not planning for car repairs, not knowing how much your life actually costs. Another, um, behavioral. Thing is picking up checks. You know, like when you go out to dinner, just habitually picking up checks. Um, another, uh, Running out on the check. Running out on the check. That's right. So you shouldn't be doing. That's probably, that's a sign for trouble with money. So that, so that says another thing behaviorally is, uh, just, um, uh, like at Christmas time, you know, Christmas time comes and you overspend. So these are behaviors that are going to get you into trouble with money. Okay. All right. Now go down. Yes. And this is a big one. And by the way, some people can have like two or three or all these categories at once. If you go to the down to the right. That's the emotional trouble around money. You mean, uh, living small, not believing in yourself. There's a lot. Well, yes. Oh my God. Depression. That's going to cause money problems. But here's the biggest thing about emotion. And it's really about emotion and emotion around money. For example, if you buy expensive clothes because it helps your self-esteem, that's an emotional attachment to money. If you drive a really expensive car because you think I'll get dates this way. That's an emotional attachment. That's an emotional attachment to money. How do you disconnect from the emotional? Just by recognizing it? Clarity. The answer, by the way, is all these is clarity. You know, you're getting boring. Yeah. I know. I know. It's all clarity. It's all clarity. But that's the answer. But with emotion, when you use money to feel better. Yeah. Like if I, if I buy this house, I'll feel safer when in reality, that's not, that's not reality. And then the fourth one, which I found is most interesting is marital. Marital problems around money. And here's my biggest thing. And here's hope for people. Anyone out there that has, you know, trouble with, um, in their marriage and they're fighting about money. There's some, there's some really interesting statistics. Like Red Book just came out with a study that 38% of spouses admit to lying about money to their spouse. Okay. So people are lying about money. And of course they say it's 50% of the marriages end in divorce. And the number one reason for that is money. Well, here's what I'm, here's what I find. A lot of times people, the people that I've counseled don't have a marital problem. They have a financial problem. That bleeds into marital. And it's mistaken. That is the biggest point. That's exactly it. They have a financial problem, either financial problem, like they've lost a job or there's been a death, or they have behaviors like vagueness or just not working together to be clear, or they, you know, or the emotional aspect of money. And, and that is pressing, putting pressure on their marriage. So I found a lot of people don't have a marriage problem. They have a financial problem. That is. That is putting pressure on their marriage. So a lot of people, a lot of couples will get divorced. Right. Yet the problem still hasn't been solved because it's a financial one. It is a financial one. And still the issue exists. Wow. And you talk about that. You talk about a financial one. You think people are having trouble financially when they're married? Now get divorced. After the divorce, after the lawyers take, you know, take the money and the, and they spend all that. And then they split things. And now they have two households and they have to shuttle kids back and forth. It just gets worse. But what they fail to realize is that it's a financial problem. And when they're fighting, you know, about money, they're not looking at the behaviors they have with it. And most of the time they're pointing to the other person and saying, it's your fault. Well, let's say the person making $25,000 lives in Los Angeles. So the solution is move or make more money. Yeah. Or change your living expenses, like get a roommate. Is that what you're thinking? Right. For a financial problem, the answer to that is more money. Like if you're living, again, you're making $25,000, you need more money. You know, or you need a roommate, but you have a financial problem. Me, I didn't have a financial problem. I had, I had behavioral problems and I attached a lot of emotion around money that eventually got me, that eventually got, got turned into a snowball of debt that I just couldn't get out from. How does, you know, there's some feel there might be a moral implication when you declare bankruptcy. Like, you know, you're passing on debt to the, to the consumer and didn't fulfill your obligations as a consumer when you took the card. How do you negotiate that kind of like spiritually or, you know, and accept that as, you know, without beating yourself up or living in the spirit of, of doing the right thing? Right. That's a great question because here's the thing about money. Here's the other thing about money is, you know, I mentioned those quadrants and the one in the bottom corner, that's the most volatile is the emotion around money. The biggest emotion around money is shame. The more shame, a person has, the worse their money situation is going to get. Cause it's good. Cause you know, shame, you don't, you're not going to go out and tell people or ask for help. Like I'm much rather call a plumber and say, Hey, my toilet's backed up. You know what I'm saying? I have no problem with that. But like my money's messed up. I won't tell anyone cause it's shameful. So my point is that after the bankruptcy, I had to really work with the shame, not only that I got there, but that I got through there, that I got through bankruptcy because you know, the hard working Catholic family I came from, you know, that just wasn't done. The B word just wasn't even considered. So to answer your question, here's what I did. I just made what's called a living amends to my creditors. I have not debted since May 27th, 2007. What was May 27th? What did you just spend a card on on May 27th? Well, that was an interesting date. 2007 did you say? You know, yeah, 2007. Here's the thing. I say it with pride. It's like, I've not, I've not borrowed money since 2000, 2007. And it sounds like a noble thing, but actually that was probably the most frightening day of my life. Because on that day, the reason I stopped debting is because they cut me off. They cut me off. When you say they, I mean the seven credit card companies. I ran it up. I ran up everything to the top. On purpose? No, no, no. Just because, you know, it's got like a snowball. Like you get $100,000 worth of debt and you think you're going to lose your condominium. Your head's not in the game as far as work goes, you know, or life, you know, you're kind of spiraling down at that point. So my, what I'm trying to say, is that the only reason I stopped credit cards, see, here's what happens. When people, and people that have been in trouble in credit cards know this. Once you get, it's like a snowball. Like once you miss a payment, you know, that 5% card goes to a punitive 25% card. And all of a sudden you say, oh my God, this is terrible. So I've got to find another 0% interest card to transfer the balance. Right. And you go, thank goodness I did that. Well, all of a sudden you've got this other card open and you start charging again. And it happens again and again and again. Just because the interest alone on the cards, the interest alone was like almost $3,000. A month? Yeah. Just the minimum payments and interest was $3,000. Were you suicidal? No, no, I was just, I wasn't because I was just scared. And there was no one to talk to because again, the shame around money is so great. And the worse it gets, the bigger the shame. If I had a medical condition, I'd be running to the public health clinic or the ER, like telling everyone, you know, here's what's wrong. Can you help me? But when it comes to money, people live in shame about it. If the shame is too great, they blame someone else. And they try to get them to feel ashamed about it. So what I did after I went through bankruptcy and I felt really terrible about that. What do you mean? Sorry, I apologize for interrupting, but what do you mean they blame other people? How do you blame other people for your, you mean like the boss isn't paying me enough? Oh yeah. Oh, is that what you're- Literally, when things are not going right- Credit card people aren't fair. They rip you off. Oh yeah. They entangled me. They set a trap for me. They're now the charge me- They use me. 25% interest when I signed the contract, knowing, you know, that that's what's going on. Okay. And so, yeah, see, financial, a lot of financial stuff is lack of taking ownership in my case. Right. Because I didn't in the beginning take ownership, like I'm buying a condominium and sit down with someone. See, I sat down with a mortgage broker, and a realtor saying, buy it, buy it, buy it. I never once sat down with someone who actually owned a condominium or a home and said, how much does it really cost? So I didn't take ownership of the process. And a lot of times in life when people are in a really bad place, instead of taking ownership then, because it's such a big problem, they'll look around, you know, and blame, how did I get here? So, I, do you remember where you were? I stopped you for a moment. Is that where you were? Oh, well anyway, but just to the creditors, I've never, I've never, I've never debted two things. I've never debted since 2007, because they cut me off. You know, they absolutely cut me off. And to make it worse on that day, Bank of America had a business line of credit with Bank of America, but that was also where I kept my personal funds. And what happened is because I stopped paying that card on that line of credit, they pulled every single penny I had out of the bank. I had my personal and business accounts at Bank of America, and I don't blame them, but because I wasn't- They wanted their money. Yeah, because it wasn't paying that line of credit, they pulled every single penny I had. So now here I am in the world, I have not a penny to my name. I had the money in my pocket, the gas in my car. I had zero in the bank. All my credit cards were run up to the max, and I had no way, I had no way to pay anything. What'd you do? I got help. I asked, then I asked other people, then I went to other people and said, I'm having trouble with money. Can you show me how it's done? Is there like a sense of just not living in reality? I mean, it sounds like a mental condition almost. It becomes one. It wears on you so much, you know, that you just don't, you feel so ashamed. And yet helps out there all the time. Now, I'm not, when I say help, I don't mean people are going to bail you out, because that's the worst thing that could happen, by the way, going to other people. I'll tell you right now, the worst help you can get from other people, it's going to them and asking to be bailed out. What if someone's totally broke? I mean, do you think you would advocate that? Do you advocate living on the street over that? No, no, no. I'm saying bailing them out, meaning, okay, I'm going to pay your debt, you know, and then you're going to pay me back. That's bailing someone out. I got it. But if I'm like that, someone says, okay, you can always come over to our place to eat and you can stay on our couch and you have a place, you know, you'll have a roof over your head. But anything other than me accepting responsibility, you know, is not going to change the behavior. So I went through bankruptcy, it was wiped clean, but it was really frightening because like I say, bankruptcy gets, here's the thing, bankruptcy gets rid of the debt, but it's not a paycheck. It won't give you a deposit like when you needed a place to live, you know? So all of a sudden I had to get help. I had to ask people, I'm telling you, it's so simple. You ask people who are good with money or successful with money or older people, ask them, how do you handle money? And they'll tell you. Why do you think you weren't good at handling money? Oh, because of the family origin, you know, the family I grew up in, it was just chaos. See, here's the thing, and I won't blame it on my parents, but I grew up in an alcoholic home, five kids, lots of screaming, fighting, always money problems. So from the time I was born, there was nothing but chaos around money my entire life. So is it any wonder as an adult, since I grew up in chaos around money, is it any wonder as an adult, as I grew up and replicated, you know, what that was? And that's exactly what I did. But I have met people who came from affluent homes, as I'm sure you have, who also have issues around money. Oh, yeah. But it perhaps could be emotional issues, or it's not always family of origin. Right. It's just in your case, it happens to be. Right, yeah, it was family of origin. And the people you mentioned that come from wealthy homes, you know, again, look at the four quadrants. Do they have a financial problem? No. Do they have a behavioral problem with money? No, not really, in the sense, like there's all the money they ever want, you know, but do they have an emotional problem around money, you know, a spiritual problem around money? Probably, you know, and then does that, anyway, so. I can't speak for them, but I'm just saying, money is not having it. More money doesn't solve people's problems, because there's a lot of ways that people can feel bad about it in a lot of different ways. So what I did is I got help, and then I started helping others, and I started teaching workshops. And the funny thing, and the workshops are very, very successful. In fact, I'm working on a book. My latest workshop now is called Money, Love, and Hope. And I'm working on a book by the same name, Money, Love, and Hope. And what was happening in the workshops is I was teaching people how to keep their numbers, just how to get clarity around what their life really costs. What does that mean, keeping your numbers? Okay, I'll give you an example. Here's the thing that anyone can do. Well, let me step back. Keep your numbers clear. Let me ask you this. What you're about to describe, for all of you listening and watching, is this something that anyone should, in your experience, you don't need to have gone bankrupt. You don't need to have been foreclosed on. In other words, are you suggesting some habits that someone who even has great credit and savings could still benefit from doing? If they want to retire with dignity, yes. Okay, so share with us. Absolutely. Here's the simplest method. And I'm going to tell you this right now. Folks, if you're listening, and Vic, if you're interested in this as well, I'm going to explain something to you that's so simple, so very simple, anyone can do it. Good, you're good at teasing. Good. Let's hear it, let's hear it. All right. All you need is a pencil and paper and 30 days. You're going to have to spend a lot of time and a lot of time and a lot of time to get clarity around your money. No matter where you are, if you're in debt, if you have creditors calling you, if you're fighting about money with your spouse. And again, even if things are looking good. Even if you look. And you just happen to be making a large income and not having debt. It's still important to have clarity. Right. And you can even, things are getting, things can even be better if you're earning a lot of money. And here's the thing I'm going to explain to you real quick. And it's real, real simple. In fact, when I first wrote this method, the clarity method, I wrote it so an eight year old could understand it. Literally. A smart eight year old or a dumb eight year old? No, here's the thing. A smart, it was, I wrote it so an eight year old could understand it. Right. And it still didn't work. I had then went back and rewrote it. So a frightened eight year old could understand it. And you're like, why did you make it so simple? A frightened eight year old? Because ask yourself, where did you learn about money? When you were a child. When you were like a five, six, seven or eight year old child and your parents were fighting. That's where most people learned about money from the fights of their parents. Right. Right. Right. From their parents. So when I teach people, I teach it real simply. So here's the thing. All you need to do is take a pencil and paper and for 30 days, you need to track your expenses. Okay. Okay. If you buy gas, it goes in the gas column. Starbucks. Yeah. That's food that goes into food. If you pay your rent, that's shelter. And I know we don't have time for this, but you do have like a, how many columns are there? 10. There's only 10 categories. What are they real quick? Can you rattle them off? Here are the 10 categories. Okay. The first one is charity. Okay. You've got to give something to someone. Less than you. That's on an emotional level. Just if you're squeezing the dollar so tight with fear, it's never going to work. So you got to give something to somebody. Because if the idea is we want to live in a world of abundance. You have to, right. You can't constrict the flow. So someone, you know, you have to give some, so some charitable act every month. I want to just interrupt you for one moment. Number one is charity in the columns. That's right. And I want to share with you, I worked on Deal or No Deal. And I was a writer, I was the writer for the show and I worked with Howie Mandel. And if you remember that show, there would be offers from the bank. There was a banker, you could see a silhouette. And there are people who often were on the show who were desperate for money. And they were so convinced that the one case they had picked of the 26 had the million dollars. They would keep turning down bigger and bigger offers from the banker. If you remember the banker may say, I'll give you $200,000 for that case. And they would say, no, because I got the million right here. And they would often say, I came with nothing, I'll leave with nothing. And that is exactly the mentality that you were talking about with the lottery. And that's probably also an emotional thing too. We get what we expect a lot of times, or what we think our value is. And it was a fascinating study. I mean, there was a couple that were literally, they were living on a floor somewhere. They were getting hundreds of thousands of dollars and they were so convinced they had the money, they kept turning it down and eventually they ended up with nothing. And there was another woman who wrote down, she was a penny pincher and she left with nothing because she was holding on so tight. So, okay, so we have 10 columns to keep track of our spending in a month. One of them is charity. Right, one of them, the first one is charity. The second one is, actually, can I go back and put this in the context? Let me, before I give the columns, here's the thing. When I was getting out of debt and getting help, here's what everyone was saying to me. You need a budget, you need a budget, you need a budget, you need a budget. That was the worst thing you could have told me. It didn't work at all. Why? Yeah, and by the way, if anyone ever hears someone say, oh, well, your problem is you don't have a budget, you need to do a budget. They're coming at it from the wrong angle. Let me give you an example. If I go to a doctor and I say to the doctor, doctor, my health, I feel so, oh, my physical health is so bad. The doctor says, well, tell me your history. Well, I've been smoking cigarettes for 20 years. I smoke about a pack, pack and a half a day and I feel like shit. And the doctor says, oh, perfect. Oh. Stop right there. I got it. It works 100% of the time. You ready? Stop smoking. There, problem's over. Stop smoking. Now, the doctor's right. If you stop smoking 100% of the time, you'll feel better. But there's like a 3% buy-in. You get what I'm saying? I'm a little lost. All right, well, here's the thing. If someone has a terrible habit like smoking for the last 20 years of their life and they go get help and the person says, oh, great, stop doing that. Well, they're addicted to the smoking. I mean, they can't stop. Right. They're compulsions. But what happens with most people when they have money problems means, if you look at the history, they've been vague around their money. The behavior's bad. They're fighting about it. So they go to someone for help and the first thing they say is, oh, stop that. Get on a budget. Stop that. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, cause there's no instructions. There's no instructions. I call it the pinata solution. Have you ever seen, you go to YouTube and see the pinata? No. Oh my God, go to YouTube sometime and type in pinata mishaps. And what it is, I call it, I call it. I just love the word mishap. I know, it's a great word. But here's the thing, if you go there, you know the pinata, like they put it there, they take someone, they blindfold them, they spin them around and then they start swinging at a target they can't see. That's the same thing as telling someone you need to do a budget. They've never done it before. It's a target they can't see. So you're suggesting that this column technique is a way of getting a sense of what you're spending so you can create the budget? Right. So for me, I said, all right, I'm not gonna tell you to do a budget because that's like telling you to quit smoking. You're just not gonna do it. Okay, don't get me wrong. A budget or a spending plan is the solution. How you get there is what everyone gets wrong. So here's what I tell people. Okay. I tell them, I have a two-step process. Everyone, the first, other people say, ah, step one, do a budget, you're done. Mine, I have a two-step process. You wanna hear what the first one is? No. Okay, I'm gonna tell you anyway. Yeah, totally. People come to me for help and say, look, here's how to get, out of your financial trouble. Step number one, for the next 30 days, don't change anything about the way you're spending money. That sounds easy. See, I get 100% buy-in every time. I want you to continue spending money like a drunken sailor for the next 30 days. Not anymore and any less than you normally do. Yeah, that is correct. And I say to people, how many people can, starting today, not change the thing they're doing for the next 30 days? Yeah, that's great. 100% say, okay. And I say, okay, here's the second thing. Step two, I need you to learn a little bitty habit, just a little tiny, little habit for the next 30 days. And by the way, the human brain is a habit learning machine. So I say, look, here's what I want you to do. At the end of each night, I want you to open your wallet or your purse. I want you to take out the five receipts, because literally, how much money do you spend every day? You get something for lunch, you go to Starbucks, you get some gas, and you might get groceries on the way home, right? Not that big of a deal. And I say, so at the end of each night, I want you to just take those receipts. I want you to put it in the 10 columns, look at them one at a time, write it down, put it in the 10 columns, and keep the ones you want, throw away the ones you don't want, and you're done. It takes less time to do that than it does to brush your teeth. People spend more time brushing their teeth than doing their finances. Well, you've given me this suggestion when we were talking about, because I want to have good hygiene around my- Good financial hygiene. Yeah, and it makes perfect sense. But I have this, it's like makes my skin crawl. It's crazy. I know. I don't know what it is. I know. I'm so reticent. It's so not fun. But it's so much easier than doing a budget where you're just making up numbers and missing every time. But here's what happens. I say to people, look, the same time it takes you to brush your teeth, just take those five receipts every night, put them in these 10 pages, and then go to bed. And what happens at the end of 30 days, here's the punchline. This is the fun part, right? You add it up. This is the fun part. At the end of 30 days, and you don't have to start on the first, you just start anywhere in the month and go for 30 days, because that'll include everything, your rent or whatever. You do it for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, you draw a line on each page, you add up the numbers, and you take those totals, those 10 totals, and you put them on the summary page. Now, for the first time in your life, you hold up one piece of paper, and you say, this is what my life costs. For the first time in your life, you see what life actually costs. But I got to tell you this, you know what happens? And this is what happens in my workshops. People say this, they go, huh, I read it for the magic words. They go, huh, I need to change the way I'm spending money. And I go, I'm sorry, could you repeat that? And they go, I need to change the way I'm spending money. You see the difference? Some people, when you teach people a budget, you tell them what they should do and how they should do it. But when people just get clarity for 30 days, when they spend the same amount of time as brushing their teeth by just adding the receipts, they're going to look at it and say, I don't, hmm, I don't like this, I need to change. Well, here's the deal. Go ahead. Okay. I once did it and it wasn't, another person who was advocating this idea said, I did it wrong. So I think here's the deal. If you are going to do it, guys, ladies, if you end up just writing down every day, what you've spent, it's just going to create a little more work or a lot more work at the end of the month, but that's even better and it's a great start. If let's say you say, I don't remember these 10 different areas of spending, I'm just going to write down each day what I spent. You'll just have to break it down at the end of that 30 day period. What I find so interesting about me, and I've already mentioned it, is that I recoil so much. And I think that it's probably because I enjoy some lack, I enjoy the vagueness. The vagueness. Around what I'm spending on Starbucks and these kinds of things. And you had said to me, which I don't really want to get too heavy here, but it kind of was fascinating. Now I'm doing the big tease. You said that, again, I don't want to get too heavy here, but you said, God is in the numbers. I'm like, what does that mean? And what you meant was that, I'm going to say what I think it means and then please tell me if I'm correct. Now I get a prize, right, if I'm right? You get a credit. You get a cookie. Yes, okay, good. God is in the numbers, meaning that I'm in spiritual alliance with something bigger in life than just earning and living. Right. That my ego, my fear around money, my I deserve this or I deserve that, or I need to buy them a present even though I don't have the money, or I need to pick up the check because they picked it up last time. All that stuff is my ego telling me how to spend the money. And if you know anything, by the way, I just graduated with a master's degree in psychology. And so- Congratulations. Thank you. For three years, I went to that school to ask one question. How do I change people's behaviors around money? What is it about behavior? Like other people want to save the world or help people with parents issues or children issue or what. Me, I don't care about any of that. I went to university and got a degree in psychology so I can help people change their behavior so I can learn what changes people's behaviors around money. And what did you learn? Give us the shortcut so we don't have to spend the money on that degree. I'll give you the shortcut. The shortcut is that people have, when a habit is in your head, when the habit is in your head, it's locked. There's actually a thing called the basal ganglia that stores habits. When you have a habit, like cavemen, early cavemen, when they found a safe passage from the cave to the watering hole, they stuck to the path because they didn't wander around saying, I wonder what's over here. And when you lock a habit into the brain, it's a way of also saving energy and you can't change it. And you just can't change it. So what happens is that when people, when you have money problems and people say, you know, you need to do a budget, which means you need to use your willpower to change your habits around money, people are never gonna do that on a physiological and mental habit. And then they feel bad about themselves if they can't change their habits. So what I'm saying is, number one, don't change anything. Don't change anything at all. At least not for the first 30 days. Not for the first 30 days. Don't change anything. But you want to learn a new habit. Now the human brain, if you study how it works, we are habit learning creatures all the time. Like a new restaurant opens up. Okay, if a new restaurant opens up, you're gonna like pull into the parking lot and not know where to park. You're gonna go through the door, not know where to sit. You're gonna look at the menu, not know what to order. But the second time you go there, boom, you're gonna go to the same parking spot. You're gonna sit in the same section and you're gonna order from the same area and probably the same thing. People learn habits. They learn habits so fast. So what I'm saying is, don't try and change your habits around money. Learn a small little new habit of just logging your receipts for less than five minutes a day. And what happens is that when people see, now see they've started a new habit. Right. And when people see after 30 days where their money went, they say to themselves, I want it to go somewhere else. I want to do other things. Are you advocating that after the 30 days to continue tracking your money? That's the answer. That's actually the interesting thing. That's the trick of the whole thing. You trick us into continuing it. Yeah. People are tricked into having clarity. And you know why? I told you that when people, when you form a habit in your mind, it's nearly impossible physiologically, mentally to break. So if I can get people just for 30 days to enter their receipts and to know where their money goes, and then they can look at it on one piece of paper and say, this is where my money went. It is nearly impossible for them to say, oh, that was good. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'd rather just go back to being vague and not knowing. You see the new habit they formed. The new habit is clarity around money. Well, it's kind of like, it sounds like when you, when people are compulsive, if it's around drugs or alcohol or whatever, they say it's no longer fun when they realize it's not fun. Right. It's like, you know, when you see the numbers, being in vagueness is no longer working. Right. Not that it ever was, but it probably felt like it was because whatever fears were being not addressed, there was a false sense of safety. Right. And that addresses what you just said. That addresses, remember you said a couple of times, like just hearing that makes me feel kind of queasy. Yeah. Because you know what I suspect that's from? Is that just asking you to log your receipts at night, just where'd the money go? You know, just having you look at it, people get the same reaction. They go, God, I feel kind of queasy about this. What they're perceiving is that they're going to be on a budget. That's the feeling of being on a budget. It's restrictive. It's like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And I won't be able to spend money there. Right. But I'm not asking people to do that. That's the first thing I ask them. I say, don't change anything. Right. And the truth is that by having structure and having clarity, clarity. Yep. We get, we get a lot of money. We get freedom. Because you make different choices based on reality. You make, I made, see, here's the thing. I'm not telling people what they should do. I'm saying this is, this is a guy who went through like credit card debt and seven credit cards and maxed out and a mortgage I couldn't afford and foreclosure and bankruptcy. And everyone kept saying, by the way, if you, when you go through chapter seven bankruptcy, part of the process is you have to take a course on, on budgeting. Was it in your budget to take the class? Or was that free? No, no. It was, it was a reduced amount. It was a reduced amount, but they make you do that. That's funny. They didn't charge you. No, no, they did. They did charge. Yeah. But they took cash only. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cash only there. Cause you know, not a lot of credit cards at that point. And your checks aren't welcome there. And, and it was on budgeting. And I was like ready to vomit when I was taking this thing because they're like, this is never going to happen. But the point is that everyone that takes a budget class, it's automatically, it's like, it's like, this is a dieting class. We're going to tell you, we're going to change everything. And it's not going to be fun. And I tell people, no, don't change anything just write down what you do spend without any guilt. And at the end of 30 days, you'll see where it goes. What if you're married though, Chris? Oh my God, this is the best. Do they both do it? This is the best. They keep one book of the 10 categories. Okay. Okay. And here's the thing. If they have an honest marriage, if they have. Is there such a thing? I'm kidding. That was a joke. I'm not that cynical. Well, with 38% of the people lying to their spouse about money, this, this, I'm telling you, this works more than anything. Here's, here's the thing. If they keep, because here's what happens. Let me tell you a quick story. I was in Costco in Burbank. This, this tells the whole story. I was in a Costco. I love when Chris talks about the Costco in Burbank. Love the Costco in Burbank. And it is, and there was a family in front of me that were not, English was not their first language. So they were talking in Armenian. And I had. And they were Mexican, which made it crazy. Crazy, crazy. Okay. And I thought, I don't know exactly what they're saying, but I knew exactly what they were saying. Here's what's going on. You have the mother, father, and two daughters, about seven years old and nine years old. Okay. The mom, they're at the checkout line. And the mom comes up and holds up this like purple, this cute little purple girl's jacket and says, blah, blah, blah, blah. On sale 25. On sale 25. And immediately the father rolls his eyes, crosses his arms, argues back. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Woman says, on sale 25. And the guy turns his back, walks away on the mother. All right. They go. And so here's the thing. Now here's the dynamic. Let's look at the two sides. And I'll look at it objectively. The father, let's take him for example. Poor guy. Like everywhere they go, everywhere they go, there's always something else. There's always something else. No matter how hard he works, he's always buying something. So I can empathize with him. But look at the other side. Here's the mother. She has two young daughters. They're moving targets with clothes. They're growing. And, you know, girls are finicky. She's trying to find something that's on sale and what they'll wear. Okay. You understand? So she has a really hard time. Because they don't sit down and talk about and have reality. Now I've asked men, men, how much do you think it costs to clothe two young girls every month? Oh my God. They think it costs like $6. And you ask mothers the reality. My point is, if they were doing this method with 10 categories and looking at what things actually cost, they could say, okay, according to this, we can spend $100 a month on children's clothing. But I mean, you'd have to do it longer because one month. No. But it gets us. But my point is, here's what I'm trying to answer is this. The guy thinks that's a mom is buying everything she sees. When if they had clarity on how much they're actually spending, he might look at her and say, oh my God, you're doing such a great job. I thought you were spending everything on the kids. But in reality, you're spending very, very little. And the things you find on sale are helping our family. And they are now divorced. And that girl's living in an orphanage. But you understand? Yeah, totally. The guy thinks it's her fault. But that's the argument you're talking about. He doesn't know what she's actually spending. And the mom, every time she finds something on sale that they can afford, has to fight with the husband over a $25 jacket. If they knew how much things really cost, the husband would back off. And if she found something like that, he would turn to her and say, great job, babe. Well, Chris, just so we see this through, we've got the third one. It's going to be 30 days. Now that's going to result in a budget. Correct? It results first in clarity. OK. And then what happens? And then people start making, here's the thing. They make different choices with their money because so much of the spending is unconscious. It's one purchase at a time. That's not too much. I can afford that. That'll be OK. But when you add it up over 30 days of going, I'm sure it'll be fine, you look and see how much you're spending where. to back us into a budget in a way? Well, it gives people clarity and they make different choices. And when they're making different choices, then they are effectively budgeting their money. I think we need a new word for budget. Clarity, clarity, clarity. I like that. Clarity, because do I have time to tell you? You need a clarity plan instead of a budget. Right, a clarity plan. Can I tell you one last thing? The last class I held, there was a woman who's a line producer on a reality show. And line producers are the people on a show who are in charge of the money. They budget the money and follow every penny. Exactly, exactly. And so we're sitting in the class and I asked everyone why you're here. And I asked her and she said, you know, I'm here because I handle millions of dollars every single day, but I can't handle my own. I can't budget my own. And I go, okay. And so I introduced this method and we got to run through the 10 categories, by the way. But I said, here's what we want to do. I don't want to change anything. I just want you to track it five minutes a day. And she did this. So at the end of the course, we met every week and at the end of the course, at the end of 30 days, I asked her, I said, so, what did you learn? And she said, you know, I learned, I don't want to do this. And I don't want to spend, you know, I don't want to get like a third $7 beer. And I don't want to do this. And I want to get a house. And she mentioned all the things she's changed. And I looked at her and said, wait, did I ask you to do any of that? And she did this thing. She goes, no. And the second guy is a renowned photographer, a wonderful photographer who's run his business, you know, and I asked him, what did you learn? And he said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And I said, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to sell that. And I go, wait, wait, wait, did I ask you to do any of that? And he goes, no. So my point is, when people see for the first time where the money goes, they will make different choices. They'll be clear and they'll make different choices. And that is budgeting. We're going to have to wrap it up very shortly. Is there anything we've not covered that you wanted to hit? The 10 categories in order of priority are charity. The second is savings. 10% has got to come off the top. Or you're going to, you're going to retire working at Walmart. Third is shelter. You got to pay your rent. You can't, that can't lapse. Number four is healthy food. You got to buy food. Five is transportation. Got to make sure the car's running. Six is medical care. Transportation would be car payments, gas, insurance. Everything. See, that's the thing. When you add it all up, people just look at their car payment. They don't think about gas, insurance, maintenance, tires. That shit, that stuff. Where do snacks go? Like, is that food? That's food. Yeah, that's food. Chewing gum, food. Anything that goes in your mouth? Anything that goes in your mouth is food. Transportation. Number six is medical. All medical stuff. Okay. Number seven is insurance. All your insurance. Your homeowner's insurance. All that jazz. Number eight is personal expense. This is like toiletries and manicures and haircuts and clothing. Okay. Number nine is entertainment. You see how far down the line entertainment is? But you think it's important to have that too. It is. But people often put it on the top of the list and then go worry about the rent, worry, drive their car when the brakes should have been changed 5,000 miles ago. And finally, the 10th and final category is debt repayment. The people that are going to snowball are the ones that are putting debt payment first. Everything else later. That seems contrary to common sense. It is. But at the time it makes sense. But in the long run, that's what happened to me. Wow. Okay. Hey, Jeremy. Jeremy's are running the studio here. Hey. He's the big cheese. Are you going to start writing your numbers down? Yeah, you know, I think I'm going to take up that advice. It sounds like a good thing to do. Does it make you squeamish like it makes me? To write everything down? Yeah. Well, you know, I started saving receipts very recently. And I'm not necessarily being very meticulous about how I categorize the receipts at this point. But my goal is to each month go back and go through the receipts and put things in order. Here's the thing, Jeremy. I think that's a great start. But I think Chris would agree with me. You're better off doing it each night. Because you're going to end up looking at a big bag of receipts and it's really intimidating. And you're just not going to do it. You're going to look at it and say, oh my God, look at how much time that's going to take. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing, Jeremy, if you have a home office, anyone, this is hugely important. Oh my God, anyone that freelances or runs a small business, hugely important. They're missing out on the, oh my God, once I started keeping more money by not paying taxes, by keeping track of my deductions, I was making money. Yeah. Yeah. Going way down. But Vic has a great point. You leave it to the end of the month. Oh my God, you're going to say, I'll do it next month. And I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. No, you're absolutely right, actually. It's like the discipline of each day. I can see that happening. Yeah. And I know like top of your list is going to be cigars followed by beers and then hard liquor. Right. If you find a way to make that a deduction. Is that food? Would that be under food or entertainment? Well, see, here's the interesting thing about what you just said. If someone goes out to dinner on a date, you know, husband and wife date, they have to start thinking every receipt they have, they look at it and say, wait, where does this go? Where does it go? Where does it go? Well, it's easy. They can say it's at that point it's entertainment. Okay. If it's dinner? Yeah. If it's dinner, if they go out. Because that is also food though. I know, but is it, but food is also, see now, I understand what you're saying, but if you go out on a date. Okay. Let me put it this way. If I meet people at the office after work. Right. And eat like two baskets of buffalo wings. Right. Which is way too many. Yeah. But with the folks at work after to celebrate someone's birthday, is that food or entertainment? I don't know. It's entertainment. Because you're going out to a place that's entertaining. Okay. And buying food that you normally. So you're going to have nothing in that slot for food that night. Right. Because it's going to be an entertainment. Entertainment. Yeah. Okay. Because here's the thing. You know that list I gave from one to 10? It's an order of priority. When we cut back, and this is the part people have to face. When they cut back, because they, because they want to make different choices, you start from the bottom and go up and cut back. Okay. So what that means is you cut back on debt repayment. Because? Because if you're, if you're, here's the thing. You cut back on debt, on debt repayment. Because if you're going in, if you're using your cards, you have money going out to pay the cards. But in the meantime, you're using the cards. On the other nine columns? Yeah. On the other end, you're using the cards. You'd rather not be debting anymore. That's right. It's like cutting the head off of a snake. I got it. Okay. The second thing, but when you go up and cut back, the next category is entertainment. And you cut back. So my point is, if you go after work, if you go out with a gang to a place, to a bar, and you have two $7 beers and two baskets of, you know, buffalo wings, is that food or entertainment? That's entertainment. Okay. So you go, you look at the entertainment and go, damn, maybe I shouldn't order the second $7. beer. Maybe I shouldn't pick up the tab. Maybe I should, you know, and all of a sudden you can cut back. Where, what do gifts, work gifts go under? Well, work gifts are gifts. Oh, that's a column. Well, yeah, because by the way, there are 11 categories. The 11th category is if you have a business. For every business you have, you have a separate category. Okay. All your business. So for example, you just have. Entertainment, these 11 columns exist. Well, yeah, the 10 are personal. Two separate. No, no, the 10 I listed are personal. Right. Okay. If you have a business, that's going to be an 11th category. And all your business expenses go in there. Well, then that's going to be one big lump. Yeah, yeah, it can be subcategorized. Okay. But the point is, as far as a category goes. I got it. You're not mixing personal with business. Right. That is so big. Okay. Because now this is, no matter what it is, if it's a business expense, it is an expense of the business. Okay. And it is a deduction. We're going to have to finish up here. Okay. Okay. Okay. So two things. One, let's say one of you wants to find Chris, talk to him further. Where can they reach you? And what's the best way to get a hold of you? The best way to get a hold of me is, let's go with, you know, I'm working on my materials right now. So I would say if you need more information or help, or if you're stuck or frightened or fighting with a spouse and need to figure out how to stop that. About money. He's not going to. About money. Something else. Right. Right. I'm not a marriage counselor. Not yet. I might have a degree in psychology, but that's not the purpose of it. It's for money purposes. Just go to beyondfilmatme.com. That's beyondfilm, F-I-L-M, at M-E dot com. Beyond B-E-Y-O-N-D. F-I-L-M. Yep. Right. The other question, the final question I have is, throughout this whole thing, I can hear someone thinking, well, Chris has the money gene. This is stuff that you actually are born with. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Great. But Chris, you know, these kind of people who are really savvy, even if they've had some rough spots, they have a gene in them. And I suppose your answer to that is you're living proof there is no such thing as a gene. But you understand what I'm talking about, right? You're talking about defective gene? Yes, or the gene. Like, in other words, those guys you hear on AM radio on Saturdays who are talking about financial planning, they have the gene. Yeah. This is just basic self-care. Anyone can do this. In 1970, one out of seven Americans had a credit card. One out of seven. So what did the other six out of seven do without swiping at McDonald's? They got paid and they spent what they had. This whole thing about credit is a phenomenon in our society. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Remember, yeah, before, like, remember, one in seven people owned a credit card. The other six, if they wanted something, they had to open their wallet and take out the money. Terrible times back then. Terrible times back then. Chris, you've been amazing. Thanks. Such great information. I'm definitely going to keep my numbers. I started before the show. I started writing them down because I knew I was going to be seeing you. And I'm going to talk to you in 30 days. Yeah. And I'm curious you can tell me what you think of my numbers. I'm curious. And the point you just raised? If you do that in 30 days, you'll have something to take to someone and say, this is what I'm doing. I'm curious. Yeah. I want to know what you think. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks again. You were, again, so interesting. And you made a subject that it's hard to talk about for a lot of people. Something that we can grab onto. Right. And you gave us some great action steps to take. So thank you and good luck with your money, love and... Money, love and hope. Hope. That'll be the workshop and the websites. The moneylovehope.com. You can go there and soon we'll have that up and running and offer hope to people. Thanks again. My pleasure. And thank all of you. If you haven't, please subscribe. Love to have you listen to all the shows. We've got some really great ones from the past and more coming up. Thanks. Thanks, Vic. Yeah. I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair question. It's a fair question. It's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair question. It's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair question. I'm Vic Cohen and it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair, it's a fair quest, quest, question. Great. Thank you.