Bidenomics - The Class You Never Took

Today we are focusing on the economy, with the increase in inflation, unemployment, gas prices, and so much more we need to prepare....NOW. Larry Faulkner, now a retired police officer, is a self made millionaire and certified financial education instructor. Larry is a best selling financial author and now spends his days helping people get a handle on their finances. Believe me, having been a police officer I can say that if Larry can become a millionaire on his salary, so can you! 

Guest Bio: 

Larry is a best-selling, award winning author of The Illustrated Guide To Financial Independence and Messages From Your Future: The Seven Rules For Financial, Personal and Professional Success. He is a self-made millionaire and has made the journey he writes about in his books and articles. Larry is a Certified Financial Education Instructor and teaches classes to diverse groups of people from prisoners in jail, all the way to groups of interested professionals such as doctors, lawyers and police officers.

​Larry lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Lisa, of 30 years. The couple is financially independent and loves the life they have designed and built together. One of their passions is travel and the couple enjoys travel adventures all over the world.

https://www.faulknerfinancialfreedom.com/

https://www.faulknerfinancialfreedom.com/copy-of-the-illustrated-guide

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Transcript

Unknown: 1:13

I welcome back to don't tread on liberty. We've had a little bit of a hiatus, we've been off big road relocation. And now coming to you from our brand new command center high atop the White Mountains in Arizona. So with me today, I brought in a financial expert, because a lot of people are worried about the economy and rightfully so. But our guest today, a self made millionaire, a best selling financial author. He's actually a certified financial education instructor. And he's a retired police officer. Mr. Larry Faulkner is with us, Larry, thanks for being here. How are you? Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. Hey, I appreciate you coming on. And I'm going to ask you about your latest book a little bit later. And remind me to tell you about the similarities between you and me. A little bit later on, but I want to jump into the economy right off the bat. Obviously, a lot of people very nervous. Yeah, late inflation, gas prices, all of those things and unemployment. So I'm going to ask about inflation first. The Wall Street Journal says that they're expecting another 5% jump just in food prices, the first part of next year, Heinz foods, you know, the ketchup, guys, they're gonna raise prices 20% In January, this is not good. What are your thoughts? My thoughts are this really a challenging time, it's not so much or investments that get hit here. Except for your bond investments. The problem is your daily food budget, your daily household budget, that's what really gets hurt. So you have to do some things to minimize the impact there. I suggest buying them in bulk when you can like a Costco they give you bulk whether you want it or not. That's a good solution. And, you know, keep an eye out for sales, because it could get rough. I was alive back in the 70s. And I remember that, and it was, it was very difficult. It's not like that, of course. But you know, it's it's not the greatest. It's not like that yet. You're talking about the gas lines under Carter, I'm sure. Yes. But it could get to that, especially with Biden declaring war on the fossil fuel industry. And I think gas prices are going up. In fact, gas buddy.com says they expect $4 a gallon. Easily all over the country. I know California always has that. But most of us don't. So what are your thoughts about gas prices? And how's that gonna affect everybody? Well, you know, it's a shame because I was paying close to$1.50, not quite, but close to$1.50 for gas. And now I'm paying $3 for gas. So you know, even Texas would you know, oil rich oil refinery state. And we're, we're still getting hit here. And you go around the country where people put all these taxes on them. And man, it really jacks up the prices. It's, it's really a problem. And you know, this is just going to be a problem. You're just going to have to wait, just what they want. I think they want you to limit your trips wanting to limit your travel, I want you to just limit that seems to be the theme of the day. Yeah. Yeah. So much for American greatness. Let's limit everything to the point where you have nothing. That sounds like a great plan. So over half the states are also talking about raising the minimum wage next year. Obviously, that always crushes businesses, especially for the lower earners. What are your thoughts about that? I mean, is that going to drive off unemployment? Is that going to have fewer people working? What do you think? Well, I think already, people won't take jobs unless they get paid more. So that would seem to say that the marketplace is demanding more. So if they pay more, though, have more employees, they pay less or minimum wage, they have fewer employees. So if we let the marketplace maintain that I think we have a better chance. raising minimum wage is a sure way to increase inflation. Yeah, and I mean, I'll push back on you a little bit. I mean, minimum wage jobs are not meant to be career positions, right? They are not these are entry level jobs for kids. Right. And, and so you know, when you're tell McDonald's that they have to raise minimum wage, I mean, the first thing that the franchise owner is going to do is cut his payroll Because? Because he's not, yeah, because he's not going to take a hit to his bottom line. So if it's costing him more to have these employees there, he'll just eliminate them. So that means more people out of work. I think that's a bad thing. Yeah. And as far as people demanding more Well, I mean, get educated, get some skills and get out there and get a better job. I mean, this is not meant to be a career. These were entry level jobs for high school kids. And now, you have a whole slew of people thinking that this is, you know, supposed to pay them 100 grand a year or something to flip burgers. Right. But even the high school kids, I've seen them make more than minimum wage at grocery stores and other places, just bagging groceries. Yeah, absolutely. And Chick fil A is a prime example. I think they they pay like $18 An hour or something. So you can find these companies that do this willingly. I just feel like anytime the government mandates stuff, bad things happen. Absolutely. That's true. And it will increase inflation, believe it. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about solutions. Because people hear all the bad news and this and that, but what can people do to prepare for the inflation? Well, what they can do is, you know, this just takes a little more organization. So what they can do is, you know, plan trips, you know, you have to limit them. You also have to concentrate on buying in bulk. I mentioned that, but you know, what will eventually happen is that it's going to limit the amount of times you can eat out or go with your friends. And maybe that's the point as well, I'm not sure. They seem to like to isolate people. I don't know, you know, lockdowns and mandates and, you know, just seems to get worse every day. You could be right about that. You could be right. One of the things you could do is maybe socialize more with your friends that that would help more rather than going out, take turns going to each other's house. I found that that's pretty cost effective. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of things you can do at home to save money and get creative. And I agree with that, too. So I read your book. It's from money, disaster to prosperity, the breakthrough formula. And right off the bat, you lay out in the book that your retired police officer, right. You served in Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. And and now you live in Texas, right? That's correct. Okay. So like most people know, if they listen to this show. I'm retired law enforcement. I'm originally from Ohio, and I grew up in Texas. So how do you like that, Larry? That's wild. So we have some things in common, but I really enjoyed the book. And it's very interesting. Because it's more of a it's not really like a finance book, per se. This is more about the psychology of finance. And just like a lot of other things, like relationships, or what have you a lot of this stems from your childhood, as far as how you relate to money. Yeah. So I don't want to steal your thunder here from the book, but just kind of give a little bit about how you ended up figuring this out. And were able to put this together in writing. Well, you know, what started way back when I'm taking calls, and I'm responding to them. And, and I see people who are just living a terrible life. I mean, they're even making money, they have a production job, they're making decent money, and everything is trashed, you know, they, their life is chaos. And I asked them, Why do you live like this? And they go live like what? You know, we I don't understand. It's, everything's fine. But you look around the house, and it's a disaster. Everyone's behavior is a disaster. It really makes you think. And then we went from that, I did that. And then I taught police officers and police officers, or funny group, they have to be right have to be right have to be right. You know this because they're attacked in so many different directions. So they're almost obsessed with it. So when I start talking to them about finance, they immediately push back even when they're super unsuccessful, even when they're super in depth. They can barely pay their bills. Yep, they'll sit there and argue with me, you you know how that group is. And we went from I went from that, and I taught that for a while. Then I taught doctors lawyers, I found pretty much the same thing. People have views about money that has nothing to do with math, absolutely nothing. And then I taught Once I retired at jails, and I taught primarily a group of veterans which was nice because they had a lot on the ball. But they're there because alcohol drugs or alcohol and drugs plus or home relationships. So that created all those problems. That's almost to the man, why they were there. And I would talk to them about money and they veterans have the wherewithal to put it together. And that was a lot of fun. But they had so many problems with drug addiction, terrible childhoods terrible pass, it was hard for him to get past this and talk logically about money. Then I volunteered and tried to teach projects. And that was that was just soul crushing. So many people there didn't have the wherewithal to sit through a simple meeting with me that the talk about finances, it was really rough. So that was the impetus of this book. And I managed, I looked for a partner, and Michelle Bowles was kind enough to volunteer, and we teamed up and that's the result, that book was the result. It like I said, it's very fascinating. You know, you tie it to behaviors. And obviously, habits is a big part of that as well. And it's just like a lot of other things. You know, when you're into a habit, it's hard to break out. Right. And and sometimes it takes, you know, a separate pair of eyes to kind of tell you what's going on. But, but I totally know what you mean, finance is a hard thing for people to talk about, you know, it's embarrassing for them. They don't want to admit they have a problem. It's embarrassing, right? It's a sensitive topic. It's a personal issue. So I mean, kudos to you for being able to try to help people with that and talk to them about these types of things. One of the other things in the book that I really liked, was how you talk about money scarcity, right? Like they they beat this into people and it becomes it becomes a fear about money scarcity. And like I've already said, You're a self made millionaire. So like you and I have made enough money in life. I'm not saying I'm a millionaire, but I've done okay. You and I've made enough money in life to know that there's plenty of money out there money is, money is not scarce at all. So what can you say to people that are feeling like that right now, they have machines that print stuff, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there's plenty of it. You're limited only by your thinking. So if you adjust your thinking, you can adjust your your earning in it's really that simple. In the book talks about people who are just stuck in a box, and they just can't break from it. Even attorneys, even doctors like that, they can be totally stuck in that box, and they can't think outside of it. So if things are not going badly, they can't possibly fathom doing something differently to make it go better. It's really a dichotomy. It's really interesting. People are trapped by their childhood past experiences. Like all those domestic violence calls we used to go on, you know, it's the same, it's the same thing over and over and over again. The other thing that you rightly point out is like, if you want to accumulate wealth, you need multiple income streams. Right? I think a high percentage of all the millionaires and billionaires out there, they have at least three, most of them more than that different income streams. How important is that for people that want to pull themselves out and actually get financially stable? Well, you can go all through school never hear a word about this. It's not a mainstream concept at all. But when you talk to millionaires or billionaires, that's what they talking about. They talk about income streams. And you know, the more income streams you have, the more independent you become. So people have a regular job. And they also have side businesses. And if you're a person who, you know, you can't stand to be away from your spouse that long, that's going to be a little bit of problems, you have to maybe involve your spouse in the other income stream. But the more you have, the more you're able to build, the better off you are. And again, this is limited only by your thinking and your imagination. Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, this stuff has really nothing to do with math. My grandparents were a prime example of that. I mean, my grandfather was a chief draftsman engineer. He never made more than 35,000 a year, but they always had money and they pay cash for everything, including their houses. So they never had an ounce of debt. And they always had lots of money. So this is not like a math problem. This is a this is a behavior problem. It's not what you make. It's what you do with what you make. That makes the difference. That's absolutely true. If you do a follow the normal course of events, like, think about your friends in high school, how many of them are millionaires, almost none of them in the reason is because you follow the normal course of events. Like most people, you have lots of consumer debt, buy lots of stuff. And in the end, you get the same result. But if you do things differently, at the beginning, especially if there's a harder, you bet, it's harder. But in the end, it's so much easier. I tried to tell the kids growing up, this is the easiest path. You think it's the hardest, but it's not it's absolutely the easiest. And, you know, just to finish up talking about the book, I mean, you have like a workbook that goes along with every chapter ran. And so people can really deep dive into these concepts and actually work through them on paper, which I think is super helpful, just psychologically. The book again, from money, disaster to prosperity, the breakthrough formula. And then Larry, if people want to get in touch with you, or they want to get some advice from you financially, where can they find you? Oh, you know, I'm on Facebook, the finance Larry Faulkner financial author. And I'm also at, I have a website itself Faulkner financial freedom. And you can do it a Larry at Faulkner financial freedom.com will come right to me. And we answering questions all the time people write us. And I don't charge for any classes. Excuse me any classes I give, nor do I charge for any advice. It's all just education to give back. That's absolutely phenomenal. We need more people like you in the world. Larry, we really do. I appreciate you spending a few minutes with me. Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you. I enjoy your show and I appreciate your efforts. Thank you. Thank you