Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Minority Mindset" channel.

That's only because the democrats actually pay for their spending and the republicans just put it on the debt.
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But, you get purchase protection via debit cards as well. Granted, it's mostly fraud related, but just a couple days ago I had some money clawed back on my behalf by my bank because a purchase I made was broken on arrival and the company couldn't get it working and refused to refund my money. The process was no harder than it would have been with a credit card.
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The neighbor should learn to make it him or herself. If you just want a mocha, those are extremely inexpensive to make for yourself. $50 worth of gear gets something that's largely indistinguishable from the real thing. But, even if you want the real thing, you can buy a machine for about $500 these days and it would likely be paid off within a few months at that rate. I got a mechanical frother off Amazon for about $20 and use it in the microwave for the milk. And I use a ninja coffee maker to brew strong coffee. But, for a more budget friendly option, you can get an airpresso. Those sell for about $20 last I checked and so for just a bit over $50 you can get the equipment, milk and coffee to have at least a week's worth of coffee. After the second week, you're saving money. So, it's not even a case of having to do without the lattes, the neighbor could still have the lattes, it's just that they'd be homebrewed.
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@KTWEBS No, gold is supposed to be a savings against the apocalypse. Stocks and inflation protected bonds are the only savnigs that protects against inflation. Bonds like I-Bonds and TIPS that have their payout connected to inflation will somewhat guard against inflation. But, a balanced portfolio of stocks will protect against inflation in a way that virtually no other form of investment will. Everything those companies do to generate shareholder equity will take inflation into consideration and over the long term, stocks beat inflation by a number of percentage points.
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If you're buying things you wouldn't otherwise buy or paying more than you'd otherwise pay, then you're not disciplined. That's the real problem with credit cards, you might be paying them off every month and racking up those points, but if you're spending more money than you would have spent, which most people do, then you've lost out. Some people do legitimately keep their expenditures to just what they budgeted, but most people don't, hence why those points programs exist, they wouldn't be offering it if they didn't routinely receive more money than not having those programs at all. Or, those programs would have been cut years ago.
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Yes and that's the problem. People who can do that are better off using their self-control in other areas of their lives than ensuring that they don't overspend because of plastic. This is a bit like paying off your debts starting with the highest rate and working on them until you get to the lowest rate and pay it off. On paper it seems smart. In practice, people rarely have the self-discipline needed to finish it. This is the same thing, it's unnecessary use of self-discipline that could be used for other purposes that have more than a 1-2% payoff.
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@Austin Duke That's exactly the thing, if you don't buy extra stuff or pay more than you would normally. The problem is that people don't normally show such restraint. There are people out there that do, but even in those cases, that extra cash back is costing you some added effort in exercising discipline that could be used in other areas of your life. In other words, there is no free lunch here. That extra money is coming from somewhere and people who use these cards are exchanging it for discipline they could be using to improve their lives in other areas.
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@croatiandirter Nope. Cashback is only good if it's actually spending that you have to do and you don't wind up spending more for it. In practice, that's usually not the case, if it was, then credit card companies wouldn't be offering it as a perk as it would cut into their profits by too much. Even in the best case scenario, that extra little bit of cash cost you the effort and selfcontrol needed to not expand your spending to avoid paying extra. That's effort that could be put into improving your life or increasing your bottom line.
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@swedeej114 You still wouldn't want to as then you'd have to comb through the records to figure out what your business spending was and what's going to be deductible. If your business spending is the only spending on that card, then there's a lot less effort that has to go into figuring out which expenditures are legitimate deductions.
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dachicagoan That's not why he's against credit cards. I'm not massively in debt, I'm going to be able to pay off my student loans within a year or two if I watch my money and make that my priority. He's against credit cards, even if you pay them off every month. He's against them because they promote overspending and what little rewards you get from using them is pretty much always offset by additional spending if you're not extremely careful. What's more, even if you are careful, there are just better uses of your selfcontrol than ensuring that the plastic doesn't induce you to overspend.
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Also location, so you might want to go back to the 19th century and steal some land like the big boys did.
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My credit union will transfer increments of $50 from my savings account to my checking account for a $3 fee. It's still not a good deal, but it's a lot less than what I'd pay if it bounced. Which can easily be not just $35 at some banks, but also the money the merchant charges on their end. Which is crazy, these things should only be charged on one end, not both.
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@Olivia P Switch to a credit union. What I personally do is keep $500 of my emergency fund in a savings account at the bank I use for paying for things. The credit union charges me $3 to transfer the money needed to cover the overdraft in $50 increments. So, it's still terrible to have an overdraft, it's a lot less expensive than it would be if I were being dinged $35 per item. And in practice, if there were a number of small checks that were being overdrafted, I might only pay once.
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@tramaynethomas3960 Yes, the only thing that works is switching to a credit union where the profits go back to the customers who are also owners. There is a wide variety of fee structures, so one credit union might be a better deal for a particular type of customer than another, but there's far less incentive to have confusing fees when the money they make has to be returned to the customers minus the operating expenses.
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@milleniallgt9715 Check out US treasury bills. If you can afford to not have access to the money until next month you can get a much better interest rate than what any of the banks will give you. Which is perfectly fine for your emergency fund if you've also got enough credit card capacity to put things on the cards while you wait to access the funds from the t-bills.
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I stopped watching when you started repeating republican talking points. We've never had taxes so high that they put well run businesses out of business and that includes the period where the top tax bracket was over 99%. The laffer curve has been so thoroughly debunked that it shouldn't even be included as a possibility,
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He's talking about 20% of his income being $200k, there's no inherent reason for him to shoulder the additional risk associated with buying assets closer to a potential ceiling, as he could just stop working altogether if he wanted to.
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@waterlevelroute Precisely, there's a reason why risk and reward both tend to increase together. The most consistently wealthy people are the ones that can routinely identify when the risk hasn't risen as fast as the reward and can take advantage on that.
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@imrana3618 No they're not. I'd challenge you to find any mainstream stock that can go from $600k to $0 just because a bunch of crackheads moved in and turned the place into a toxic waste dump and removed all the copper from the walls. Stocks aren't particularly risky, as long as you bother to do your work in evaluating the company, or stick to index funds covering the market as a whole. A proper protfolio should always include a combination of stocks, bonds and cash. A better portfolio will include real estate in some form or another whether it be literal housing units owned by yourself or shares in a trust that owns them for you. The fluctuations of the stock market are normal and healthy, as long as you buy solid companies, and shift your holdings towards bonds as you get closer to retirement, it's largely a non-issue for most people.
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@CoffeeAndBusiness Tell that to the homeowners on the Love Canal or in Detroit. Real estate like any other class of investment can lose money, it's just a different form of investment that is best added to a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds.
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When it comes to the lottery, you're generally right. But, spending a couple dollars when the pot increases beyond the cost of the ticket * the odds of winning can be a reasonable thing to do. But, you're probably still better off putting that dollar in the bank.
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Ugh, please stop spreading these myths. The US has terrible upward mobility and the hardest working people are the ones that make the least amount of money. Moving up involves multiple generations not screwing things up.
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@trinhminh-ha6895 Paying off the mortgage is somewhat more complicated than the David Ramsey types would have you believe. The main advantage of paying it off is that you can only be foreclosed upon by the government, not a banker. But, if you've got a low interest rate like what's often available now, it's not so easy as even after factoring in the cost of interest and inflation, you may still be ahead if you invest the money rather than using it to pay the mortgage down.
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Which works out fine, until a pandemic comes along, and suddenly you're no longer either able to collect the rent or evict the tenants to find ones that will pay. Only idiots put all their eggs in the real estate basket. Stocks, bonds, real estate. Not to mention a bit of cash and supplies in case of natural disaster.
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