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Top 5 Financial Questions
23 Plays15 hours ago
In this engaging episode of the Uncommon Wealth Podcast, Phillip Ramsey tackles the top five financial questions people are Googling today. His aim is to provide a deeper understanding of essential financial concepts that arecrucial for anyone looking to improve their financial literacy. Whether you're curious about writing checks or preparing for retirement, this episode has something for everyone.
Phillip breaks down frequently searched financial queries, offering listeners easy-to-digest insights into writing checks, budgeting, understanding credit scores, saving for retirement, and investing in stocks. He underscores the importance of staying informed and learning practical strategies that can help manage personal finances effectively. As Phillip shares his knowledge, he provides listeners with the tools to empower themselves financially in an increasingly complex economic landscape.
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Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Wealth Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you. Welcome to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're going to introduce you to people who are living uncommonly. We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path that is uniquely right for you.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to an episode of the Uncommon Wealth Podcast where I'm your host, Philip
Top Five Financial Queries from ChatGPT
00:00:32
Speaker
Ramsey. Thanks for tuning in. Today I thought I would shoot a podcast and help ChatGPT decide what the topics are.
00:00:41
Speaker
And so I just Googled or ChatGPT'd, what are the top five things that people are searching for in financial services or finances? And here are the five things that it came up with.
00:00:54
Speaker
First thing, how do I write a check? Second thing, how do I create a budget and stick to it? That's interesting. Third thing, what is a good credit score?
00:01:05
Speaker
Interesting. ah How much should I save for retirement? Number four. Okay. And then how do I invest in stocks? So in this episode, I'm going to answer all five of those.
The Art of Writing Checks
00:01:15
Speaker
So get ready for that. If you are wondering how you can write a check, this is the podcast for you. I'm going to try to make this so engaging that it's going to knock your socks off.
00:01:26
Speaker
The truth is, this probably isn't a question you're and you're asking, but you've got to ask yourself, why in the world are people asking Google, how do I write a check?
00:01:38
Speaker
And it makes sense to me. Here's why. Because in this day and age, there's not a lot of people that have to write a check. Now, when I grew up, that's kind of the primary way that you would train transfer money. Instead of...
00:01:51
Speaker
Venmo or, or Apple pay or all these different ways you can transfer money now, which makes it very easy. If you have to write a check, you're probably like, how in the world do I do this? So I understand why you, you would Google that, um, fairly easy.
Mastering Budgeting Techniques
00:02:06
Speaker
you just have to follow it through, date the check, write the name recipient's name on the check, enter the amount and the numbers, sign the check. Um,
00:02:16
Speaker
And then if you want to add a memo for the purpose, you can do that. But here's the here's the interesting part that I feel like I screwed this up so many years until I figured out that, or I think somebody told me. So let me glean some information to you and let me pass this this kind of wisdom off to you. Is you never put and on the check until you get to the back.
00:02:39
Speaker
So what it looked like, let's say you wrote a check for $1,000. $321.14. would write $1,314.14. You'd write that in the number, and then you'd write that out. $1,314.14. one thousand three hundred and fourteen dollars and fourteen cents on the you'd write that in the number and then you'd write that out one thousand three hundred fourteen dollars and 14 cents or 14 and then you 14 over the hundred. And then you put, you know, dollars, the dollars is usually at the end, but you don't write like, I think I've done this in the past. 1000 or and,
00:03:15
Speaker
and fourteen dollars and 14 like like you you don't put more than one and in it. You only put the and when the decibels there. So there's my quick information for you. If you're writing checks and you're writing two things, maybe it's $315 and whatever the cents are and no cents.
00:03:36
Speaker
But that's the way you're technically supposed to do it. Now, will they cash it if you do it wrong? They will because I've done it for many, many years until I figured it out like no one should put and in the dollars amount.
00:03:47
Speaker
It should come where the decimal is, and then you write your cents, and then you kind of put a squiggly line to the dollars. That's how you write a check. i hope that made it and I hope that made it impactful for you. Okay, the second one is how do I create a budget and stick to it? Now, I love trying to kind of get in my head around the people who are Googling this. This is a real of real life deal, right? like And everyone's had this, especially... In December, like this is airing in December. Nothing good happens to your finances and your diet in December. You just throw it right out the window.
00:04:19
Speaker
And so to try to find how to create a budget and the next part and stick to it is very interesting. And I think. there's a lot of people who are searching for that.
00:04:30
Speaker
Um, so list your income and your expenses. i think that could be something you're good. You can categorize your needs and your wants, um, needs versus wants. You can set spending lists limits and you can track regularly and adjust. So regularly to me is usually weekly. Um, not monthly. That seems too overwhelming. There's too many transactions to look through, but weekly can really work. um And I think it is the key to having an uncommon life is budgeting. That seems kind of like a core value. So it's important.
00:05:01
Speaker
And ah if you're if you're Googling that, like reach out. like We can talk about it. There's definitely softwares and programs to help you with this. Every dollar is one of them. I used to use a company called Cube Money. and They've gone through some transitions, and I'm not really sure where they're at now. But you can look at them. and That's another thing that helps you kind of do this and track a budget, create a budget, all that stuff.
00:05:23
Speaker
YNAB is another popular one. And I'm trying to think. Off the top of my head, in other one but you can Google them. There's a
Understanding Credit Scores
00:05:30
Speaker
ah lot out there that'll help you with that. so third one, what is a good credit score?
00:05:34
Speaker
And do you need credit? I'll add that on there for a little bonus here. um A good credit score is generally like 670 to like 739 is considered generally good.
00:05:47
Speaker
And then anything over 740 is considered excellent. um Again, there's always caveats to this, but honestly, I'm a person that feels like credit is not not bad. And having good credit is good. Like my uncle who isn't really my uncle Dave Ramsey would say like, do everything cash.
00:06:05
Speaker
it and It ends up kind of hurting you credit wise. So if you ever did need to go back to the bank, it sounds crazy, but they're like, Oh, you don't have a good credit history. and You don't have any credit. So it actually hurts your credit.
00:06:16
Speaker
I feel like there's ways around that. But um I think having a good credit score is valuable, especially when you have to need, when you need to go borrow money, they don't look at you have like you have leprosy and you're crazy.
Planning for Retirement
00:06:28
Speaker
So I'm kind of a component of having good credit score, figuring out how to manage that and pay your bills. I also like that. So I'm just trying to help. ah We are now halfway through this list. Number four is how much should I save for retirement?
00:06:43
Speaker
Now we're getting in my wheelhouse. And it depends is the answer. But when I i told chat GPT to like give me some answers to this, they said aim for 15% of your income or enough to replace 7% to 80% pre-retirement income.
00:07:00
Speaker
To me, that just asks the questions, well well, how much should I save? And it doesn't really tell you. But it's really telling you it depends on how much you got how much your monthly expenses are, how much you need coming in. And I think it's good to say replace 70% to 80% because hopefully Social Security will cover the rest of it to help you get to 100%.
00:07:22
Speaker
And taxes should be lower when you're in retirement. Hopefully. um There's definitely some things you can do that. That's why you hire a planner, an advisor to try to help you with your with your monies.
00:07:33
Speaker
But um a good rule of thumb is whatever you need monthly. So let's say you need $10,000 month. We're just making this up. Let's say moving forward, you need $8,000 a month to come in every month. And then you take that number and then you figure out what it would be to get that monthly. So if you took, I'm trying to do the math quick, $8,000 times that's would need to come in.
00:08:02
Speaker
and then you divide that by point zero and you see that's $2.4 million, dollars that is the back of the napkin math. It depends on how old you are and how much you got going on. Depends on a lot of things, but that's like the quickest way to do it. So take the number that you need monthly, times it by 12,
00:08:25
Speaker
divide it by 0.04 back of the napkin. Is that going to be for everybody? The answer is no. And there's a lot more calculations that come into it and you think through it. There's a lot of psychological stuff that kind of, you can talk through amount of debt load that you're carrying.
00:08:42
Speaker
All that really does take ah an effect. And that's why you would hire somebody like Uncommon Wealth Partners to to help you figure that out and have a confidence level
Getting Started with Stock Investments
00:08:50
Speaker
in that. How much should I be saving for retirement? Am I on track? Am I off track?
00:08:54
Speaker
Those kind of questions. Okay, enough for for that. But basically, that would answer the question of how much should I save for retirement? Okay, the last one is how do I invest in stocks?
00:09:06
Speaker
ah Which is a great question. and And again, trying to put myself in the shoes of the people that are asking these questions on Google. One, I think it's cool to see people are engaging in their future. How do I start saving ah for a future kind of time horizon?
00:09:23
Speaker
ah Stocks are a good way to do that. um You open up a brokerage account. You can do that with Fidelity. You can do that with Charles Schwab. You can do that with an advisor like us or another advisor. There's a lot of ways to do that. You can research yeah companies or you can use index funds. You can use mutual funds.
00:09:40
Speaker
ah You can use bonds. ah there's You could use treasuries. There's a lot of different ways you can do that. But we're talking about stocks. So. um There's a couple ways to do that. So I would say either stocks or index funds or mutual funds would be able to do that. And then you want to probably start small. So you just add $50 in just to see, do you like it? is that Is that easy transaction? You can even put a bank account attached to your brokerage account or your whatever account that you're opening up. You can even do this in a retirement account.
00:10:12
Speaker
um kind of You can start small and then you can just kind of see how that feels. And then as you kind of get going, and see the mechanics of it, then you can start and investing more. But I think dollar cost averaging is pretty powerful when then when you're systematically putting in the same amount of money over time. So that means that you're buying a little bit lower when the market's down, you're buying higher, it's good for old money. Anyway.
00:10:37
Speaker
There's a lot of that goes into it. I should probably do another podcast on dollar cost averaging because I do think that's really powerful. Just systematically taking the emotion out of it and just consistently putting it in every month.
00:10:48
Speaker
Just do something. um Again, start small and see if you like it. And then you can start kind of moving into a little bit more um of a strategy. Higher numbers. Anyway, so there you go. the The top five things when you ask chat GPT, the most things Googled of the financial services industry.
00:11:06
Speaker
I hope that helps. I hope that was insightful. Thanks for listening to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast. I am so grateful that you always listen. You're faithful. Thank you for that. And ah yeah, and for 2025, it's almost over. Hope you had
Reflections and Future Changes
00:11:20
Speaker
a great one.
00:11:20
Speaker
If not, what are we going to do different 2026? You know? All right, well, hey, continue to be thankful. I feel like as as Thanksgiving is done, i just feel like I want to have this just thankful like spirit in me to always be thinking about like what am I thankful for? Because I think that gratitude doesn't have to just be around Thanksgiving, but it needs to be like a lifelong thing.
00:11:44
Speaker
Anyway, there's your quick tip for the day. hope you enjoyed this one. and I kind of enjoyed shooting it.
Episode Conclusion
00:11:50
Speaker
Until next time, thanks for listening. Have good day.
00:11:56
Speaker
That's all for this episode brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit UncommonWealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.