They understand the pain of pain. Like they've proven this. They've done it, their research.
They, you know, think they haven't spent a lot of money to understand why we buy, why we consume, right? With trillions of dollars to do this kind of research to know that, look, you know, like psychologically, like you gotta know the buyer psychology, right? They've studied and know that it's more painful for us when we pay with cash. Like it represents pain in our brain.
So we rather pay with a card. It's less painful. It's easier, more convenient. It doesn't feel like you're really spending. Like when it's cash, it's gone.
It's going, right? Like you don't see that when it's a swipe. It's less painful in your brain. And they understand that.
So they use it. And then think about it. How do they market it? Look at your bill. Like when they send you your bill of your credit card, what does it look like?
They got your new balance. And then they make this bold here. What is it? What does it say? Minimum payment.
Minimum. And in fine print in the bottom, they'll tell you, hey, if you pay in full, you will save a lot of money. But it's in fine print.
But in bold, right there in the corner, right here, they just want you to focus here, here, here, here, here, here. You don't have to pay everything. It's all good.
Just pay minimum. I got you. Just pay this. But that's the slow and grow. You understand?
That's how they're getting us. So they get you to focus on the lowest payments, even on your statement. So that way it starts to accumulate. That's how they keep you. That's how they hook you.
That's how it's called like an anchor. They're anchoring you there. You know what an anchor does?
They have a lot of penalty fees, late bill, transferring a balance. Every time you're using ATM, you know, they're connecting it to your brain with pleasure, with doing things quickly, right? Entertainment, you know, your simple everyday expenses.
Like, it makes life easier, and you're not tracking all the other fees and payments and how it's accumulating with interest. And now it's messing people's life up. And when you start to look at where people's lives are financially, look. 30% of Americans can't even cover a $400 emergency expense if something comes up.
So what do they do? Oh, shoot, this is happening. Oh, I don't have that because they don't have their savings, right? So they go to their credit cards.
That's the next best thing, right? So they're using their credit cards as like a savings account, like emergency fund. And it shouldn't be.
Before, just understand they're getting you to focus on... paying more money. So we got to be wise in how we're using this because look, when you do the math, if you have debt of $10,000, you start to figure out how long, like this is how you start to get out of it.
If you guys have debt, because we need to start using things wisely, right? We need to pay off our debts. We need to pay in full if we're in here so that we don't get caught up in the interest on the wrong side here. Let's say you have $10,000 of debt. You need to do the math.
Figure out how you're going to pay it off, how long it's going to take. Create a target. Okay, so let's say that $10,000 I'm going to pay off in two years.
That's my goal. That $10,000 debt, I'm going to pay it off in two years. That's my target. Okay, so now I'm going to take that $10,000, I'm going to divide it into two.
So now it's $5,000. Yes? So $5,000 each year, I need to figure it out. So now I divide it by 12. So that's, boom.
by four weeks now into days. Now I have some clear targets of how much I need to be saving, how much I need to put away, how much I need to put into paying this off. So now I have a target, yes? Next thing you do, very important, just automate it to go right in there. So know your numbers, do the math and say, okay, I need to do this much every week or this much every month.
So I'm gonna do an automatic pay to go in there because I am not going to allow. interest to kick my family's butt or to ruin my finances, I'm going to get on the good side. How?
By getting out of this. And then I'm going to get into this IUL type of policies because now I can afford it because I don't have this debt, right? Now, instead of putting it in here and to paying off debt, I'm going to put it into my own account where I can accumulate cash and set myself up for my family, my future, and my retirement.