Nobody’s Coming to Save You Financially (Ep. 339)

"My 20-year-old said, Mom, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to make sourdough bread and I'm going to start this sourdough bread business. And I said, OK, that's fine. But rent is due in the first of every month, because we bought a townhouse for her to rent. And she's like, OK, I didn't think it wouldn't be. I said, all right, I don't care how you make your money. It doesn't matter to me. But your rent is due at the beginning of the month. And, you know, she doesn't ask for things either because she knows better. But I was just making it very clear. I work 50 hours a week, if not more. And that doesn't mean that you get things. Do we help all of our kids? Absolutely, we do. If they need something, happy to help. It's what parents do. But I'm not going to provide a place for you to live when I have to pay for the utilities and the property taxes and the upkeep on said place. You're ultimately paying for that. So you may as well have just had your own mortgage."

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here. All right, today, let's talk about personal responsibility. Do I have a story for you today? I mean, this has been ongoing for months. And everything that, like, I don't know why it's just being slammed in my face for the last few months. But, you know, I can get ornery. I'm a little ornery over this today.

We tried to sell our condo. We had a rental condo and we were selling it. The first person that looked at it… Okay, let me backstory. Backstory. I remodeled the whole thing. Everything except trim, baseboards and doors. Okay. Windows are new. Flooring's new. Kitchen cabinets are new. Sinks are new. Vanities are new. Oh, I didn't put new showers in. Everything else is new. New mirrors above the vanities.

Like, because I was going to turn it into an Airbnb. And then I decided, nope, I don't want two Airbnbs. Let's just sell it because I do not like long-term rentals. They do not make enough money for me. Not my thing.

So we put it on the market. Immediately, it sells. Instantly. Great offer. All is good in the world. Inspection comes. And they're like, oh, there's mold in the attic. I'm like, nope, there was mold in the attic when we bought it. They remediated it. All is good. Provide the receipts that it's been remediated. Nope. Not good enough for that person. So they backed out.

And I thought, well, okay, I'm just going to make sure, right, that everything's good, because I wouldn't want to sell a house to somebody if it has mold in it. Nor would I want to put anybody in it if it has mold in it. So had the environmental company come in, do an environmental test. Nope. No mold spores. All is good. They tell me, don't worry about it. It's in the attic. Whatever.

So said person wants to come back, buy it again. Her realtor, who's unbelievably corrupt and should be turned into the board of realtors, which I've not determined if I'm going to do this yet or not. I may. She gets the environmental guy out there, tells him to do a swab of the mold, and thinks I'm going to pay for it because she thought I should have done it. I mean, it is my house. I get to decide, I guess. But apparently she gets to decide. I don't know.

So she refuses to pay the environmental guy to do the swab. So I end up paying the environmental guy to do the swab, had somebody come in, do mold remediation again, and put it back on the market. Because that lady decided she didn't want it, nor did at that point did I even want to sell it to her. So I don't frankly care.

However, me do that for you. Okay. This whole thing is just about self-responsibility. So no, you're the homeowner. You do this for me. Put a new damn roof on is basically the moral of the story.

Second buyer comes in and says, all is good. We're good with the mold remediation. Fantastic. Everything's all good. Oh, can you pay 3% of my closing costs?

What is that? Okay. Let's just get sidetracked there for a minute. What in the ever living, you know what? Why is the buyer paying 3% of your realtor fees and paying 3% of your closing costs? Holy moly. If you're selling a house right now, all I have to say is make sure you're jacking the price of that thing up so far that you can take a 6% hit and then 3% for your realtor. A 9% hit because somebody needs you to pay 3% of their closing costs because they don't have any money saved. I digress for a moment.

So they come in and it's a condo. So we have condo association, right? The condo association has been intact since like the 80s and everybody that started, it's dead. So we have this association that we just ignore. Nobody pays association fees. They don't. We take care of each side of the condo. It looks like a twin home. We take care of each side of the condo as if it's our own. We get along with one another. All is lovely in the world.

And so these people were trying to get a loan. And the bank said, no, there's not a master insurance plan. There's not this, this, and this. All these condo association things, which that's on me. I did not read that because I'm like, well, it was good. Like, we'll just insure it. My insurance lady didn't ask any questions about it. Like, life's fantastic.

And so I said, oh yeah, that's not good. So I will amend the condo association paperwork. Absolutely no problem. $2,700 later, we get that all amended.

They come back after the date of closing because it was supposed to close. So they come back after closing because their lender was taking forever on this decision. And then they were taking forever on the decision that we had to extend closing. So they come back after the original date of closing and say, well, we want all new condo association paperwork. And we want it written how we would like it written.

What? Like, what in the, you know what? What? You want me to go to the other condo owner, because there's only two of us. So this is — that's not the problem. You want me to go to her and say, hey, can we amend and rewrite the entire condo association paperwork? 27 pages. We have to pay for the attorney, or I have to pay for the attorney to do that. And then we have to have them review it before they will buy this condo to make sure it's what they want.

When you buy the condo, you can go to the neighbor and you can pay for the attorney to do whatever. Because remember, I'm paying an extra 3% of your closing costs. And now you want me to fork out more money for you? How about I just give you the damn condo for free? How about that? Oh, but you would still have complaints even about that.

So we file the amendment for the condo, put it back on the market. Because those people are like — I said, nope, I'm not doing that. Absolutely not. They can do that if they want. So nope, they didn't get what they wanted. They backed out. Back on the market we go.

By this time, Mary Jo is saying, let's just furnish the thing and turn it into an Airbnb. Because that's actually less hassle. Dealing with people renting in an Airbnb is actually less hassle than buyers, believe it or not. We've had our Airbnb for two years now. And it has like, we've only had two bad groups in there and they leave it messy. They don't even wreck anything. They just leave it messy. And so that's not the end of the world, right? I just give my cleaning lady a little extra money. It's sort of her problem. And she's wonderful. So all is good.

Put it back on the market. New buyers come in. And of course, like I got new buyers right away because it's all remodeled. So new buyers come in. Oh, y'all.

So they write me a letter that says, we would love to have this condo. My husband is a sheriff and I am a stay-at-home mom. I used to be a teacher. We have a six-month-old. So now I'm a stay-at-home mom, do some tutoring on the side. Fantastic.

Offer comes in. $15,000 under asking plus 3% of their closing costs. And I'm like, no, absolutely not. So I counter, they counter, I counter, they accept. All is good. Have another purchase agreement.

A week and a half after the purchase agreement, it comes back that I believe it was they couldn't qualify for the loan at the purchase price. So can you lower the price of the home because their realtor is going to take less commission. So can you lower the price of the home so I still get the same amount, but the realtors get less and then they can afford to buy it.

Now, this isn't affecting me because I'm still getting the same amount of money, right? Lower price of the home means — and I agreed to pay 3% of their closing costs as well. We agreed. Scott just says, Mary Jo, just get rid of it, right? Like he probably would have given it away. So we pay 3% of their closing costs and they were somewhat easier to deal with.

But then it comes to their inspection. All is good. Right before they close, they're like, oh, hey, can you, you know, can you caulk around the tub? Because some caulking was missing. The shower head is dripping. The hose for the dishwasher was not lifted up so that water couldn't go back into the dishwasher. So can you lift that hose up? Can you put a string on that hose essentially? I mean, it's called some kind of loop BS. We used a zip tie. I was like, no.

Can you fix the threshold to the front door? It's cracked. No. My answer was absolutely freaking not. These are minor things. Oh, there were some electrical things that needed to be done. And happy they needed GFIs in the kitchen. Already had GFIs in the kitchen. But, you know, the code says every outlet in the kitchen needs a GFI if it is on food grade surface. Because, you know, I'm sure people are dying every damn day sticking knives into outlets.

So Scott goes in, changes all that, does all this stuff because Scott agreed, I will do everything but the door threshold. Because you would have needed a new door. Or it would have taken like ungodly long. And it is December in North Dakota. So no, fix it yourself.

And I was livid. I'm livid. Because A, you decide — and this is the self-care that people need to take, self-responsibility — that if you need me to caulk around a tub, that means that you probably shouldn't buy this place because you can't afford it.

I mean, let's think about that for a minute. We had to lower the price. One of them has a job. The other one does not have a job. Tutors part of the time. Worst thing they could have ever done was write a letter to me that said, I don't want to work as hard as you. So could you please lower your price and give us an opportunity? Because we want — I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

Now, I could lose a lot of followers over this. And you know what? It is what it is. That is great that you want to be a stay-at-home mom. I can appreciate that 100%. My daughter-in-law stays home. Wonderful mother. But you know what they don't do? They don't ask us for shit because they want to stay home. They go and figure out how they're going to do it or do without it because she chose to be a part-time stay-at-home mom. She still works every weekend. She works a couple of days during the week. She's trying to make money doing all sorts of different things.

You are 20… These people are like 23, 24 years old. You want your first home. You want to get out of the apartment. I can understand that. But you know what everybody else does? Is we work so that we can make money so that we can have those nice things.

So the longer that this thing went on, the more irritated I have gotten over the last few months, right? Let me have a mold test done and you're going to pay for it. You do the condo documents and you pay for that on top of my 3%. Because even in that scenario, the dad was co-signing for the loan. The kids couldn't afford the loan on their own. So dad is co-signing for the loan. Nobody has a down payment because we can't be patient enough or work hard enough to have a down payment.

And yes, I'm going to say that and I'm not going to feel sorry for somebody in their 20s that doesn't have enough money as a down payment. Because I see plenty of people in their 20s that started working at 17, 18 years old, stocking money away and being smart with their money so that they could have some money for a down payment.

What is going to happen? What's going to happen when something happens to this condo? If something happens to this condo, they're going to have to stick their own money into it and they don't have it because they have their budget so tight that they have to have their realtor take less commission. That's insane to me. The fact that you can ask for those things is insane.

The fact that realtors are telling their clients to ask for those things — because the person that wanted us, the buyer that wanted us to redo the condo association fees, the realtor was pushing, we believe, we don't know for certain, we believe that the realtor was pushing the client to ask for that, or tell the client that that should be done on our side.

Well, guess what? It's a condo. You knew it was a condo when you purchased it. There's no condo association fees, but you knew it's a condo. You have to have the other person in agreement with you if you're going to do something.

What in the ever living heck are people thinking that we should just be taken care of? And as I was talking to people last week, just about health insurance and the craziness that is going on in the health insurance world, I am seeing online, people's premiums went from like $350 a month to $1,300 or $1,500 a month. They are doubling to tripling their health insurance premiums, massively high deductions.

Talked to a lady last week that husband owns a business with 50 plus employees. Their health insurance doubled. Well, she said to me, she made a comment to me about wanting the government to pay for health insurance. Oh my God, what's it called? Escaped me at the moment.

And you want the government to pay for your health insurance. I said, I don't want the government to pay for my health insurance. The government can't even take care of what they're supposed to take care of. And the problem is, is we have given the government the ability to do that and take care of Medicaid and to take care of those people that are not doing well. It's not working. It's not working.

And so what happened to self-responsibility? What happened to us taking care of ourself? Nelson talks about it in Warehouse of Wealth. If you've been listening to the podcast, Nelson actually addressed the health insurance thing a couple of chapters ago.

He said, when we came back from the war, we couldn't give pay raises. So how are we going to do this? How are we going to take care of people? Oh, we will give them 401(k)s and we'll give them health insurance and we'll give them vacation and we'll give them all this stuff. All these fringe benefits. So now the responsibility went from the person to the employer. So now it's the employer's responsibility to make sure that you have health insurance. Why isn't it your responsibility?

Why are you escrowing your house payment? You are now giving that responsibility to pay your property taxes and to pay your homeowner's insurance over to your bank. And you know that's not free, right? Like that all comes at a cost.

I will not escrow any of my stuff. None of my loans have an escrow on them. I refuse to do it because they take more money than they need for the insurance. And I then stop paying attention to what property taxes are doing. I stop paying attention to what your county commissioners are doing. You stop paying attention to how much your property insurance is. So now all of a sudden you don't even really realize that your property insurance went up. You just know that your monthly house payment went up because of escrow.

So I used to escrow it. 100% I did. Until they wanted to change my monthly mortgage payment by $100 more a month. And I was like, what? So I called my insurance company and they're like, no, your premium did not go up. So then I called the bank, because I only get mortgages through banks that service the loan. And so I called the bank and I said, well, what's happening? Why is this going up? And they're like, oh, we just like to have a little bit extra in the coffers in case it would go up. In case? That's $1,200 a year. No, thank you. I will pay that out of pocket. I'm not giving you another $1,200 a year.

So think about all of these things. Health insurance. Why can they be gouging us at this time? Why can they gouge us? Because we're not paying attention. The employer pays for half of it. We pay for half. Maybe the employer pays for all of it. Whatever. We're not paying attention. You do understand that's coming out of your paycheck. It is all coming down to you.

Why do we think that somebody else should be taking care of us? Why? Why should the bank be taking care of us? If we have a bank loan, if we have an operation and we don't know what our numbers are, but we want the banker to lend us money — well, essentially we're saying, hey, can you just take care of me? You got me? No, I don't got ya. Absolutely not. Take care of yourself.

We have gotten to a point, and I feel like it's worse now than it's ever been. We've gotten to a point that we truly feel like it's somebody else's responsibility to take care of us. Somebody else that works their butt off 24-7, runs a business that is profitable, does all the right things, and we're supposed to take care of somebody else because somebody else wants to be lazy and not pay attention to how they can also be in that same position.

Instead, what are we doing? If you want to be lazy, if you want to not have stuff and you don't want to have a home and you want to be gaming all day, or you want to just not work full time, that's fine with me. I don't care. I'm not over here expecting you to live your life like me. But I am not going to give you something because I have it from working really hard.

If you want to do without, that is 100% okay. But do not expect somebody to be like, oh, I want to be a stay-at-home mom, so can we pay less for that? No, because guess what? I had to work really, really hard in order to have the money to put the new cabinets in said place that you're buying. I had to work really, really hard to pay the people to put said cabinets in place that you're buying.

Have we forgotten how things work? Are we so brainwashed by the school system to not understand that, that our parents, that Gen X and the late boomers have not told our children how the world actually works? Really?

My 20-year-old said, Mom, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to make sourdough bread and I'm going to start this sourdough bread business. And I said, okay, that's fine. But rent is due in the first of every month, because we bought a townhouse for her to rent. And she's like, okay, I didn't think it wouldn't be.

I said, all right, I don't care how you make your money. Doesn't matter to me. But your rent is due at the beginning of the month. I said, I work. And you know, she doesn't ask for things either because she knows better. But I was just making it very clear that I work 50 hours a week. And if not more, that doesn't mean that you get things, because you are 100% capable of also working 50 hours a week and making some money. If you choose not to do that, I don't care. Does not matter to me. But then don't be asking me for stuff.

Do we help all of our kids? Absolutely, we do. If they need something, happy to help. It's what parents do. But I'm not going to provide a place for you to live when I have to pay for the utilities and the property taxes and the upkeep on said place. You're ultimately paying for that. So you may as well have just had your own mortgage.

This whole condo thing just got me thinking about the health insurance when I was visiting with this person last week, that we have handed over — and Nelson talked about it. And for whatever reason, like it registered, but it didn't register to the extent that it did last week for me. It was sort of my aha moment of, my God, how many things are we handing over to other people to take care of? And we think that it should be that way.

I think we're going to see a massive change in the health insurance industry just because of the fact that people are saying no. Like I went down a rabbit hole on TikTok looking at what people are doing for health insurance that are self-insured, because my husband works still. So we get insurance through his work. He's looking at quitting his job and just doing stuff on the farm that needs to be done here, because we're always short. We don't have time to do it all. And he's in a position where he could quit. So he's looking at quitting and I'm thinking, well, health insurance is going to be expensive. I truly have never paid attention because I've never had to. I become one of those people. And now I'm down this rabbit hole. And the amount of things that are available is crazy.

I was also told recently by a family member that they should not have to pay for the nursing home because that's what they've paid into Medicaid for. That's what they've paid into Medicaid for their entire life. Okay, great. I get it. However, however, why are you trusting the government to take care of you? Why did you not just say, you know what, if it happens, great, I'll have this extra. But why did you not buy long-term care and take care of yourself?

I'm super excited about this long-term care conversation that I'm having with my friend Michelle in a couple of months. She's flying into Bismarck and we're going to do a whole podcast on long-term care. I sell long-term care. I don't sell a lot of it, but I do sell long-term care. I have long-term care because I'm not going to let the government take care of me.

But we have gotten to the point where boomers were told the government's going to take care of them. We should be seeing that that's not happening and we should be doing some self-reflection and self-preservation and taking care of ourselves. And we're not doing that either. Now we're just complaining and thinking that everybody else should take care of us.

Oh my gosh, I am on a 30-minute rant here. But that's my story. And it's been building, you guys. It's been building for months. And I have not shared it because I wanted it to be done. I wanted a check in my hand for this stupid condo before I had any kind of — before I recorded any kind of podcast about it. Because it was like the never-ending saga of just give to me, give to me, give to me. Like, what? Why am I paying for 3% of your closing costs?

Tarisa and I are going to do a podcast just on loans, because I'm out of time. You guys are sick of listening to me about this. But what I'm seeing with young people and loans, it's blowing my mind because I can't believe it's happening. So be on the lookout for that one.

All right. This had nothing to do with infinite banking. I mean, I didn't talk about infinite banking. It has everything to do with infinite banking in the aspect of be your own banker. Self-responsibility. Take responsibility of that yourself and quit handing it off to somebody else. It's that simple.

Go get the book, Farming Without the Bank, and email me if you have — I'm sure I'll get lots of thoughts and comments on this one. maryjo@withoutthebank.com. You can email me there if you have comments, questions, concerns. Sometimes you guys email me and there's nothing for me to respond to because it's just a comment. So if I don't respond to you, it's just a comment. Or if you are being belligerent, because some of you are, I laugh and delete. I'm not giving you my energy.

So anyway, you guys have a fantastic rest of your day.

Thanks for listening to the Farming Without the Bank podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you to take control of your finances in new ways. Don't forget to check out our website, farmingwithoutthebank.com, and engage with us on our Facebook page, Farming Without the Bank. Join us next week as we smash more financial myths and empower you to accomplish your financial goals.