America’s Middle Class Has Been Lied To For 60 Years — Here’s the Proof

"The poverty line is three times the cost of food based off of 1963 prices."

"The United States poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963 adjusted for inflation."

"we shouldn't be using three times the cost of food because the cost of food went from 33% of budget to 6%. You should instead be doing 16 times the cost of food, which means that the real poverty line is actually closer to $140,000, not the 31 $32,000 it is today."

"if you are not here, if you're not done with this yet, you were in what I call the financial danger zone. And right now, you have to make the most significant sacrifices. That means no more vacations, no more eating at restaurants, and no more Netflix until you get out of these two things."

"you need to be spending all of your extra time on earning more money or spending less money. That way, you have more money to invest. So, go out and drive Uber. Go out and do dash. Go out and work an extra shift. Go out and learn how to earn more money. go out and take a class, go out and read a book."

"create a financial system, something like 75,15,10, which [snorts] says for every dollar that you earn from now on, you always know how much money you're going to save, how much money you're going to invest before this money hits your bank account."

"75 cents of every dollar that you earn is the maximum that you can spend. 15 cents of every dollar that you earn is the minimum that you invest. 10 cents out of every dollar that you earn is the minimum that you save."

"What every wealthy person understands is they know how much money they're going to save and invest before they earn the money. What the majority of people are doing is they make money, they spend their money, and then they save and invest if there's any money left. And a lot of times there's no money left. This is why you need to be investing your money first."

"the three asset classes that have built more wealth than anything else over the last 100 years are stocks, real estate, and business."

"as soon as you go into the stock market and you invest a dollar, you become the owner of a company. You buy one share of McDonald's, you own one piece of the McDonald's Corporation."

"Do you want to pay off your mortgage one year early, which will give you a guaranteed, let's say, 6% return if you have a 6% mortgage, or do you want to put that money in the stock market where markets have historically gone up by 10%."

"What wealthy people understand is I can afford it means I can buy it with cash. The exception is your house."

"when it comes to luxuries, I like to follow the rule of five, which is if you can't buy five of them, you can't afford one of them."

"people will work to earn more money. And for some reason the financial problems don't get solved. They end up getting worse. And the reason why is because as you earn more money, you also become more creditworthy. Banks will look at you and say, 'Hm, you got a new raise. How about a new credit card? How about a new line of credit?' And so now you make more money and now you qualify for more debt."

"Now that you have a system, earning more money has more power. Because now what you can do is you earn more money and now you know how to use that money. You don't just spend all of it. You're going to spend some of it. But now you can invest more and now you can save more."

"as a licensed attorney who is at your attorney, I can tell you that when people realize that you have money because when you follow this, you're going to build your wealth. Well, they're going to want to take their hands and put it in your pocket and take some of it up for themselves. So, this is when you need to start protecting yourself."

"one of the biggest costs for Americans is your taxes. Not only do you have to pay your income tax and your payroll tax, but you also have to pay your property taxes. You also have to pay capital gains taxes anytime your investments make money. You [snorts] also have to pay sales taxes. You also have to pay corporate taxes if you own a larger corporation. You might also have to pay tariff taxes. You might also be paying state and local taxes depending on where you live. And so this is where you want to understand how you can legally pay less money in taxes."

"the last thing you want to happen is for you to die. And then the government decides where your money goes. And now your family is going to be fighting over who gets your money. So you can protect that by getting an estate plan earlier. That way you have a plan on what's going to be happening with your money."

"The reason being it's calculated based off of an old number. It's calculated based off of food prices based off of 1963. The problem with that is number one, the reported inflation rate. It's probably not the real inflation rate. And the second problem with that is well people are spending a smaller percentage of their income on food while their other costs have been going up."

"you need a system. Unfortunately, we're never taught this stuff in school. But hey, we go. We have YouTube now, right?"

"Remember, this is the financial danger zone. Right now, you got to get rid of the Netflix. Stop going on vacation. Stop eating at restaurants until this is done."

"The whole idea is you're going to invest and save before you spend all of your money."

"Now you're going to work to earn more money. And you want to earn more money now because, well, you know how to use your money. And now this more money can help you actually build more wealth and invest more money."

"The majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with little to no investments and drowning in debt. And things are not going to magically get easier next year."

"But in the middle of all this chaos is opportunity. That opportunity is ability for you to grow your wealth even faster. Assuming you don't fall into these 10 money traps that I'm going to show you in [music] this video."