Yeah, but I know I don't feel like I'm doing To IGP quick takes Spire, I'll just be all up some real quick Like a freestyle, but I'm fine Podcasts So inspire guys people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is Inspire Guys, People Quick Takes. Now what that means is that I'm getting straight to the point. So this is like one or two topics without all of the production of the normal show.
And let me first tell you how we got here. This is also episode 130 of Inspire Guys, People of Podcasts. If you're a new listener, please do join us on Apple Podcasts. Spotify and also Amazon Audible.
Search Inspire Guys, People, The Podcasts, and listen starting at episode one. That was a random commercial for no reason. Quick takes, I can't do all that. It's a quick take, we gotta get straight to the point.
I'm super busy, my lifestyle has changed significantly now that business travel is back up and running post. I wanna say post pandemic, but you know, we still in whatever, in whatever this is. But business travel has ramped up. You know, I'm a leader now, it's a lot that goes into it, but being here at Inspire Guys, people is really important to me.
So I'm continuing to grow this show and find creative ways to make sure that I bring new content. So don't be afraid, it won't be a quick take every week, but there will be some weeks where I won't have the opportunity to bring you a full episode. But I figure sometimes people don't wanna audit extra stuff anyway, so for those of you who just need a quick word of inspiration, encouragement, and biblical love from Jesus to balance your faith in business, here you are, we're quick takes. Okay, first up on quick takes, we are gonna talk today about five tips on saving money.
All right, so we talked a lot about money and success in the biblical sense on this show, and it's a really important topic and something that I get a lot of questions about. A lot of people always, you know, have some interest around money, which kind of points to the significance of it. So I wanna share these five tips. And again, let me say this before I share financial information and tips, I'm not a financial advisor, neither do I wanna be.
I ain't really got time for that. So anyway, do y'all like the intro song? You know, I just did that off the top just now. You know, I gotta have it intro music, even though it's a quick take.
Hopefully you like it. I actually like that so much. I'm like make a whole little song about that. Maybe I'll add it to the end of the show if I'm good enough to rap something that quick, or maybe it'll be on next time's quick take.
Anyway, five tips on how to save money. Here's the first thing, right? This is for anybody out there who's like, where do I start? And there's more tips than five, but I wanna simplify for today.
First things first. Okay, this is a very important rule. Well, I'll say number one, and it's not really on this list, but it's education. Y'all know I start everything with learning.
You know what I'm saying? How to be inspired, check out that episode. There's a framework behind everything I believe it starts with learning. So the number one mistake we change in is the six takes right now.
Number one is learning. One of the number one mistakes people make about money is they go off how they feel. And I get it, because we all got feelings. You know what I'm saying?
I got feelings. I feel like behind this. I feel like this, the right thing about it. Never trust your feelings, trust your education.
Educate yourself first. The biggest mistake people make is they jump into money topics, and they think that money isn't something that deserves to be learned. Because money is one of the only things that most of us have it, even homeless people get money. Like we all touch money at some point, and you don't need a license for it.
Like you can't drive until you get a license. You can't start a business without a license. You know, you can't do certain things without certifications, but money is one of those things we all get, and it's like, yo, you don't need no license to spend, so we spend freely. First, educate yourself.
Now, if you're too lazy to educate yourself, turn this off right now, because I'm about to educate you. So you don't wanna hear this, because you're lazy. No, but don't be lazy, man. Money is important.
It's a part of your life, and it's, you're doing yourself in injustice by not putting aside the proper time to educate, research, and do all those things. That means reading books, that means listening to podcasts like this, this is a form of educating yourself, taking the time to invest in yourself, to say, I'm gonna get better as it relates to money. Now, here's the thing I want you to realize as it relates to educating yourself with money. There's a bunch of different opinions out there just like with everything else.
Some people say, get that. Some say, get, no that. Some say, really, some say crypto, some say, stop. Once you educate yourself, it's about being able to make educated decisions, all right?
So like with me, my position isn't to just tell you to do what I'm doing. I share what I'm doing. I share some things that I do believe everyone should be doing, but here's what I know, ultimately. When I was equipped with the education, then I was now better served to make a decision about, do I want credit?
Do I not want credit? Do I want debt? Do I not? So some of us, don't just listen to people and do what they do.
Stop copying and pasting. We got to copy and paste Min Talatie, and that has got to stop. All right, don't copy and paste. So first you learn, here's step two, which is really my original five.
Maybe we'll go back to five, okay, it's five steps. So here's my original five, just education is a bonus step. Remember when you had a piggy bank when you were a kid, depending on how old or young you are. I know it's like millennials, we range like, I'm barely a millennial, you know, I'm at the top of being a millennial.
So it's like our age range is so all over the place with the people listening to this show, some of your Gen X, Y, Z, A, B, C, whatever. So depending on how old you are, you might have had a piggy bank. Here was a dope thing about the concept of a piggy bank. It was really simple.
It was that they made it easy to put money in and hard to take it out. You want to easily be able to save money, put it aside, but you need to put money somewhere where it's hard to get it. Number one, tip number one for saving money, put your money out of sight. The biggest mistake that a lot, okay, there's a lot of hyperbole involved with me.
I call everything the biggest mistake. Everything is the most important thing. Okay, just take it as a figure of speech. If you a new listener, I do that.
Let me do that, please. Let me do that, please. I ain't really got time for this. I love that line in the intro, by the way.
It just came out. I just told the truth, because I don't have time to be doing this right now. I'm still working, but it's after business hours, okay? Just in case any of my corporate friends are listening here and I have put in my time today and I'm about to be putting in over, over time after this, which it's only overtime if you get paid for it and I'm on salary, I don't get paid to work extra hours.
Anyway, but I do it. You know what I'm saying? It's not like my job, I like what I do. All right, so here we are.
Put your money out of sight. What happened is once the piggy bank went out of style, which is largely probably because we no longer carry a lot of cash on us and our money went digitally, the biggest mistake people make, which is what I was about to say, is they create an account, right? In a New York account has a second, a checking, I can talk. I knew it was gonna be a moment.
We almost made it through without me saying that. We start one account, it has a savings, but it's the same account. So every time you log into your checking, you can see your savings. Now, it's okay to have that, at least in one account, in my opinion, but that's not your real savings, okay?
I like that the savings that's a part of my checking is really just like, okay, I just wanna keep moving money back and forth and calling it savings. But I don't believe that you can properly save money or I'm not gonna say it's impossible. It's tougher to save money that you can see, okay? So a lot of people, like they put the money in that savings account and constantly pull from it because you see it every time you log in.
What you need to do is take the piggy bank mentality. You need a digital piggy bank. Here's what I mean. Now that you no longer carry hardcore cash all around, which means you don't have 10 and $5 and $20 to put into a big piggy bank, then you gotta break the thing to get it out.
It's like, man, that's a, you know, that's a huge step to break that. So that's why I like the piggy bank mentality. You need a digital piggy bank. So what do I mean?
Now that a lot of your money is digital, you need to think, how do I digitally put my money out of sight? Somewhere where it's easy to put money in, easy to make a transfer, but not as easy to get out. Let me further explain that. So I have a couple of options you can have here, right?
A couple of dynamics to this. Like number one is, for instance, you could do an online bank, right? So there are online banks out there and you could do your research always, you know, I'm not gonna tell you which banks to go to or which bank I go to. They're not paying for me.
You know what I'm saying? They're naming their banks. But what I do want you to know is what I like about digital banking is that, you know, like one of the banks I use is like, you can, you can transfer money pretty much right in it, right? But if you wanna take money out, it'd take a few days, bro.
And before the pandemic, the online banks have much higher interest rates on their savings. Now people who know me, I have, you know, encourage several people to start accounts for their kids this way. So, you know, if you know me, you probably already know what bank I'm talking about and I've had these conversations with people, because I think it's important to be able to put money in a place that you can't see, right? So, ultimately, this online bank is a place that, again, pre-pandemic, because they're not brick and mortar, they can afford to pay you back more on the money you're saving.
So as an example, you might be getting 0.012% on the interest rate in your savings account at your regular bank. So like you can have $10,000 in air for a year and it hits you at the end of the year with a 2 cent check, right? That's the interest they're paying you on your money. While at the same time, if you wanna borrow money from that bank, they'll charge you like 8% on the money you wanna borrow and take out on the loan, isn't it interesting?
However, with online banks, a lot of times, and again, these numbers have changed because of the pandemic, they had to take away a lot of their interest, you know, lower their interest rates that they would pay you back. But pre-pandemic, you might get 1 1 1 1 half to 2% back when that same money, right? So now you put in the $10,000 in air and now you're getting $200 back interest on your money. I know some people are at $200, it's more than 2 cents, okay?
So you gotta understand and start looking at money in a more realistic way, not in a Hollywood celebrity way, because if you listen to this, you might not be a Hollywood celebrity and if you are, please, I can talk, feel free to send a donation to germanewilsomusicat, yahoo.com, on PayPal. Thank you. Anyway, like I said, nine times out of 10, that $200 can mean something for your future, okay? We're regular people here, I'm a regular person, you regular, right?
We can do the right thing and build wealth for ourselves over time, doesn't happen overnight. So you need a digital piggy bank, all right? I know I'm spending a lot of time on this first one, because if you don't do this, it's gonna be hard to do anything else, because you're gonna see your money and you're gonna constantly get it, all right? Now here's an example of what I mean, of the digital piggy bank and use.
So if you put, like, if you have money in your digital piggy bank, right? Money that you put up, that you like, this is for my future, this is for emergency, this is for whatever, that's important. Then when those little bitty superficial things come up, it's not as easy to get to. Like, oh man, these shoes are on sale right now.
For the next 25 minutes, you need a $300 right now, you can get these Gucci shoes half off. It's like, man, I can't get my money for five days, because it's in the digital piggy bank. That's why I like that. You get what I'm saying, you start putting more money up and then it's harder to get out, but it's still your money, you can get it out, okay?
All right, tip number two, establish a floor, all right? So when it comes to saving money, you really need to establish a floor. What do I mean about the floor? At the end of the day, I'm going to Lord in this, in my account.
So a lot of times a good number starting off is, if you have nothing today, save $1,000. And however long you need, everyone makes different amounts of money, but you can do this, I genuinely believe this, save $1,000, and then when you say that, say this is my floor, meaning we all, like by the grace of God, you're alive, you're living today, right? So the concept that we're talking about, and why we're talking about saving money, is to get you out of this mindset, if you are in this mindset, you know, some of y'all might not be, you might have already grown away from it, I used to be in this mindset, where you looked at money simply as a tool to consume, right? It's like money represents shoes I want, clothes I want, think once, right?
And as believers, we already know we shouldn't be worshiping our wants. Some of us need to stop worshiping our wants. Don't worship what you want, meaning putting what you want above and beyond everything, right? Hey, I want a condo on the ocean in Miami, I want that, okay?
As not my primary home, as an additional property, that's something I want, okay, I'm sharing it with y'all. I don't usually get too personal on the show, I don't want you to know my business, but that's one of my goals that I want. I want a condo off the ocean in Miami, okay? In Florida, let me say that, I don't necessarily need to be in Miami, maybe Boca, Boca.
Let's go, I'm picture myself hitting the salsa. Hey, that's what I want, right? But at the end of the day, why did I say, why did I tell you on my business? I don't even, I don't even know why I just told you, oh, worshiping your wants, okay, I'm back, all right?
I was trying to think, why did I say that? At the end of the day though, that's something I want, I don't need that, like just being, I don't need that. So there's no reason, whether I had the money today or not, there's no reason for me to put that wood above needs. So when you establish a floor, this is the beginning of you saying, I'm saving money for the future because money is not a tool for me to consume, money is a tool and a resource for me to leverage and to sustain for my future and my family's future over time.
We worship our wants so much, we have looked at money as simply a tool to feed our flesh. That's flesh. Now I'm not saying, look, I'm not saying it's a sin for me to get the condo in Miami because I'm gonna get it sooner or later, but I'm not gonna get it until some of these needs are met. There's a lot of needs that still have to be met.
I'm talking future needs. I'm not talking about just today. I'm talking about things that I'm like, oh yeah, okay, you're gonna have kids where your kids gonna need a car one day, but they gonna graduate school one day, they gonna need a suit. You need money for that stuff.
I don't wait to save money. Like don't wait for something to happen. That's our problem. We wait for everything to go wrong and be like, oh man, man, man, let me need a suit and some socks.
Like his 10th grade, 12th grade graduation mark, it's like, wait a minute. You knew he was gonna graduate 12th grade when he was born. You waited 18 years to buy a suit. I'm just simply saying that you could have established a floor and told yourself no matter what happens, I'm not gonna have lower than this because I have needs that need to be met in the future.
So I might have a want in the moment, but I got needs in the future. Establish a floor. And you understand that it's like an elevator. The floor goes up, it can go down, it changes, right?
You might need to increase your floor when you start making a lot more money. The end of $1,000 ain't enough to have an account. You need to have money to sustain you over time, okay? Sidebar, another bonus tip.
And I'm not the first person to say this. I've heard many people say this, but you need to know how much your expenses cost every month so if you got $5,000, I mean, yeah, $5,000 a month of expenses between your house, car, cell phone, all the stuff you buy, like you need to understand, okay, you have, it costs $60,000 a year to be you, right? So if the price tag on your lifestyle is $60,000 a year, then you need to look at your savings of like, okay, wow, it costs 30,000 for me to go six months. So that means I need $30,000 in the bank, maybe as my floor, just in case everything went wrong, like it did in the pandemic and life stops and everything, right?
I can, me and my family can last six months at least. If everything went wrong, if you wrongfully lost your job you have to be able to plan and prepare for this. This is all biblical, Joseph did this. He planned, God had him planned for the years of famine while he was in the years of prosperity, okay?
Use your prosperity to plan for famine, to plan for if things go wrong. Doesn't mean you want things to go wrong, but remember we don't worship our wants. Life doesn't do what I wanted to do, all right, cool. What's the other one, all right, establish a floor.
Yeah, I said lower your debt, right? I do think you need to lower your debt, whether or not you think you need to use debt or not is your decision there as good debt, there's bad debt, again, this is why you educate yourself that the difference between the types of debt, but I think regardless you do need to lower your debt, you need to control and sustain your debt. Don't continue to put debt on top of debt. Your debt shouldn't be greater than your savings.
You give it up saying like, don't put yourself in debt to a point where you live and check the check, all right? Check to check is not a great place to be, all right? That's just winging it. And number five, man, number five, earn it, okay?
I know that might sound simple, but it's a lot of lazy people out here who just want money, you want to hand out, you see you got a friend and make money, your friend went to the NBA, you just want to live off them. Look, earning it is about, you know, the gifts and the talents that God put in you. You don't have to have a lot of money, you know, again, a pair of a lot of talents, Matthew 25, 14 through 30, there's different amounts that God, you know, gives all of us. It's about him expecting you to exercise the principles.
The problem with us is we pay you too much attention to the amount who got the most money. They did this, man, I don't, no, I, at some point you got a mature to the point where all the comparisons, I don't add up to the compare, look, I'm not you, you, not me. I have no desire to compare myself to people because it's just a revolving door of depression and uncertainty, okay? So don't compare yourself to other people.
It doesn't matter who's making the most money or how much you have or don't have. It's about exercising these principles. And I appreciate you listening to today's quick take from Inspire Guys people. Please do know that I love y'all and we're gonna continue to build out content.
I'm working behind the scenes to start developing some video interviews and things like that. And we have some dope interviews that I'm currently scheduling right now this week, scheduling for the next couple of weeks. So I'm looking forward to this month sharing some really great interviews from some great people that work for great organizations and have great stories with you right here on Inspire Guys people. If you have questions, thoughts, you can email me, germane wilsonmusic at gmail.com.
Or if you follow me on Instagram, which is at misterbellweather. That's mr. underscore B-E-L-L-W-E-T-H-E-R. Feel free to DM me.
We have conversations and things. I get some very intriguing conversations through DM. Or on Facebook, I don't check that as much. But you can hit me up on Facebook as well, germane.
James, look, as much love to y'all. Hopefully you enjoyed this quick take, which kind of was maybe not that quick. Some of them gonna be quicker than this. I'm just letting you know.
Cause I ain't really got tough with this.