Brandon (Money Rehabber / guest)
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
Thank you very much for having me on today.
Yeah, sure.
Absolutely.
So it all happened.
I, I've been involved in sports my entire life, love watching them, love playing them.
And it all happened going to New York Mets games and New York Yankee games.
And what I mean by that is you would go to the games and they have a promo offer for a credit card.
So I would go there, apply for a credit card, get a limit of $1,500 on two credit cards and
And I believe I was 18 at the time because I was going into my freshman year in college.
And I would just go.
I would go to Chili's, go out with my friends, and just charge, charge, charge everything as much as I could after dinner.
That's where it all started.
I come from a single mom who raised me.
And with that said, we had to hustle our lives in terms of making money and saving money.
And I should have known better.
What I mean by that is there was no safety net.
I didn't have anywhere to go.
I should have hustled more and more responsible with my money choices.
And again, at 18, you don't know these things.
Back then, social media was not there 100% at all.
We were still using beepers at the time.
Yes, yes, we do.
Yeah.
So that's how it all started.
I've been gambling since I was 15 years old.
That's my action.
And what do I define that as my action?
I drink socially.
I don't do any drugs.
I don't smoke cigarettes.
I never had a cigarette in my life.
It just doesn't do it for me.
But gambling was the one thing of vice that I just wanted to do.
I wanted action all the time.
There was nothing more exciting for me to be calling in a bet.
Nicole, back in the day, you would call up a bookie on the phone.
Hey, what's your name?
Hey, my name is Pineapple for 10.
I won $1,000 on this game.
$1,000.
Nicole, I was 18, 19 years old.
Sports gambling.
But my favorite thing to do, one of my favorite things to do is gamble at the horse track.
My first big win at the horse track was a trifecta.
A trifecta is you get three horses, win, place, and show.
I hit 5-7-1.
Those were the exact numbers.
It paid a total of $15.28.
I'll never forget it.
And this got me going.
That was the total amount paid, $500.28.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's always been sports gambling.
Not much in the casinos.
Only roulette, blackjack, poker.
I'll get eaten alive.
Craps, I'll get eaten alive.
I know I'll lose my money.
But for some reason, I think that I could win every sports bet.
I don't know why.
When I was 18 to my 30s, yes, I did.
It was just action for me.
I would win at times a lot.
I would win.
I would go on hot streaks.
I would win 15, 20, 30 in a row.
I would lose a lot of money as well.
I got into trouble.
where I owe $3,000, I couldn't pay it.
It's not an easy lifestyle, especially if you're dating someone.
What are you doing?
You're committed to that person.
Yes, you're 22, but you're still in a relationship.
You still made that choice to date that person.
And what am I doing?
I'm on my phone checking scores left and right.
It's uncomfortable.
Because there's never enough money at the house.
I always wanted to make more money.
So I had stuff.
I wanted to buy stuff.
I wanted to have nice clothes for some reason.
For some reason, that mattered to me.
And it should have mattered.
And again, you're 15, 16, you're in high school.
You're watching so many people.
And I've had good friends my whole life.
I don't have any sisters and brothers.
But I've had good friends, the same friends I've had since I was six years old in kindergarten.
And they're still my friends today.
Some of them are better off at times.
Their parents were more successful.
My mom was very sick in her life.
She couldn't do things that my other friends' parents could do.
And I said to myself, I have to make more money.
I don't want to be poor.
I want to succeed.
I always have that drive to work harder than anybody else.
My mentality is Kobe Bryant.
My mentality is Tom Brady.
My two favorite athletes, I gave it all.
I didn't have the mentality at all times like I should have had.
I was careless, irresponsible.
At the time, I didn't own up to it, but I knew it was going on.
I just wanted to keep doing it because it was the fun in my life.
That was my action in my life.
Nothing fulfilled me more than doing that.
With that said, what happened was as I got older, I made more money, really good money at times.
No, for my work, my career.
So I would never use my rent money towards it ever.
That was the rule.
My rent comes first, gambling second.
I have to be fair to the person I'm renting from.
And it's just doing the right thing for somebody.
I still had a good mindset.
I never changed the person that I was.
I had a good background.
I was always grounded with my mom.
My friends, again, always there for me at all times.
But they couldn't see it.
They know I have to gamble.
But I was the only gambler of my friends that used to bet a lot of money.
I'm not talking about small pens, like $100 bets.
$3,287.
Well, I know that number is...
very specific.
And the reason why is that's how much money I had in my account.
And I put that much money on a tennis bet because I knew it was going to win and it won.
And it was a guarantee.
I knew I was going to win 100%.
So I won that money.
I think it was six grand.
I think it was.
And the guy goes through.
He's like, what are you doing?
How are you winning all this money?
Are you cheating?
I go, no, I'm not cheating.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
As quick as I can win is how much I'm going to lose.
So what happened?
Okay, great questions.
Never borrowed money from my friends for gambling, ever.
What I did, though, was credit cards, personal loans, personal loans, personal loans, times seven, I think it was, total, or maybe eight.
First one, I was at the bank I did business with, so I knew I was going to get approved.
Because why?
My direct deposit's coming out of that account, so I knew I was going to be able to pay it back.
That was, I think, the first one I got was for $3,000.
I think I was 24 at the time because it wasn't easy.
I had to prove my income.
So I had to show my W-2, my pay stubs.
So I got that.
Then it just kept rolling, 3,000, 5,000.
But then once I understood the system and how it worked and how the underrated is the one that makes the final decision, how I could challenge the underrated, I'm like, let's go.
Game on.
I'll do this.
Trust me.
Now I know all the facts.
I did my research.
Now I know what to do.
And you're saying, what do you mean by that?
I would ask for $10,000 purposely, like a sales call.
I want to go ask for more money and then let them talk me down.
And that's what happened.
The 10,000, hey, you know what, Brandon?
We can't approve the 10,000.
We're going to give you $7,500.
Sure.
How quick can I sign that paper?
As quick as I sign that paper is when I sign on to a company and I sign my direct deposit form.
And that's how it was for my loan.
Let me sign that, get it in my account right away.
So let's just say example, $5,000.
Boom.
That $5,000, $2,000, I'll go home and bet right away.
It was so sick at times.
I would bet, I would bet I'm a color car was coming up next.
If I wanted to, I would bet on anything.
It did not matter.
I just wanted action for some reason.
And again, I,
I guess you can say maybe it's out of boredom, but I have a good life.
I have good friends.
I have good family.
I just want to be actually at all times.
It was so much fun for me to come home.
And what I mean by that, I'll give an example.
Let's just say you're having a losing day on a Saturday.
It's a big college football day.
You would wait until Pacific time to be a pack 12 games.
Yes.
Because all you're doing in the worst you could do in sports gambling is chase your bets.
You know, to this day, I'm still going to say no.
And everyone else that you probably, if you talk to my friends, they probably say, yes, he definitely was.
To me, it was, it was my action.
It was an entertainment in my life.
There are things that my friends do that's entertaining to them.
To me, this is what I want to do with my life.
I wanted to be a professional sports gambler my whole life.
That's, that's what my career, what I wanted to do.
And honestly, of all the vices, I shouldn't have done this.
I should have had better outlets.
I should have worked three jobs to,
So the highest I had was, I think a 717 or 715, one of those.
And again, I had to get more loans.
I couldn't pay him sometimes because I would have three loans, seven credit cards, I think at one time.
And I'm talking about good credit cards.
And that was not even the pay.
For gambling, that was to pay for other things like my everyday expenses.
They're saying, well, you have a $20,000 limit.
Yeah, what are you doing with your money?
I had no idea.
I was careless.
I don't even know what I was buying.
I know I was buying a lot of clothes.
I was buying a lot of DVDs back in the day.
It was just out of control, my spending.
But the worst thing was when your relationships are just casually dating,
Your partner knows what's going on at a point.
But to be honest, my friends never knew.
I'm not an actor, but for this, I was the best actor for the last 25 years of my life, to be honest with you.
No.
No.
I ended the relationship because my opinion, the relationship ran its course.
I couldn't give the other person exactly what they wanted.
It was unfair to them.
I cut it off, good or bad.
I had to do it.
I had to make that decision.
It wasn't right.
There are some good people in my life, but it's not fair to them.
They should have someone that'll be there for them 100% of the time and give it all.
And I cannot do that.
That's not fair to them.
So again, there are a lot of lonely nights too.
Not an exact number, probably between 15 to 17,000.
And again, going back to the credit scores, my credit kept diminishing.
It went from a 717 or 715 to as low as a 460.
Now, I don't have my own house.
I never wanted a house.
I don't want it.
I always like renting.
When you have bad credit, good luck getting approved for an application.
Good luck getting electricity at your house, gas company.
Good luck.
It's not easy.
So again, my cell phone service, I've had the same one since college.
If I change it, they're going to run a credit report.
Insurance sometimes, it goes up because of my credit.
It is not good at all.
It is not healthy, but at the same time, no one is gonna, and I had a friend who helped me do this, to be honest with you, in 2020.
I had a friend that we negotiated stuff with the credit card companies in 2020.
We had a good payment plan.
I negotiated with Capital One, Chase, Discover Personal Loans.
And I was doing well in the beginning.
But it was 2020, 2021, I started a new career.
And the career was very challenging because I had a staff locations that I couldn't do.
And my phone was nonstop.
And it was just too much happening at once between me
The stress with my credit score, gambling becoming too mainstream now, it's legalized in more states now.
It was just too much for me to process.
And you add COVID on top of it, it was just a lot for me to intake at once.
And I could have went to my friends, but I didn't because a lot of my friends have families.
I didn't want to interrupt them because their one friend is gambling.
But at the time, that's what I thought.
They would have been there for me.
I just had too much going on mentally in my head where I just couldn't do it.
I stopped paying them.
I stopped paying them.
I started getting certified mail.
Certified mail.
It was crazy.
They were going to go to court with me and take me to court.
I did not care.
It would come in.
As soon as I saw it, boom, rip it off.
Garbage.
See you later.
I'm not going to think about it.
And I can't do that because what are they going to do, Nicole?
Start garnishing my wages.
Nope, I quit the job.
I'm not going to let them do it.
I quit that job.
And it was a bad decision on my end, a really bad decision.
I lied to my friends.
I said, hey, due to stabbing concerns, due to COVID, I used COVID this year, so they had to let go of people.
I had a great boss who let me do my thing with my job, my career, and I just let him down.
I quit.
I'll never forget writing that email, typing it up.
It's all because of the debt struggles, paying stuff, COVID.
stress, not having an outlet source.
Oh, my mom passed away in 2012.
Thank you very much.
So I really haven't been the same mentally at all at the same time.
But I wouldn't say that was my addiction.
I'm not calling it an addiction.
I wouldn't say that's what made me gamble.
I just missed her because she always told me that I'm going to miss her a lot when she's gone.
And that's the truth.
I did.
I do.
But here we are now, okay?
I figured it all out.
I have.
I said, I had to change my ways in my life.
I had to figure this out.
No one's going to do it for me.
No one's going to, all people, no one wants excuses.
Yes.
Yes.
Because I couldn't get a job right away and I had to work labor jobs and work my butt off.
I was doing it overnights.
It's not easy.
But you know what?
And through everything, I needed that.
I needed that motivation.
And I've changed.
And this change has happened within the last 12 weeks.
I am different.
Oh, this is recent.
Yes, Nicole.
Definitely recent.
I am back at a high level the way I used to be.
It took me 12 years to get to my point that I am today.
It feels good.
Yeah.
Not a hundred percent for now.
Yes.
I still want it, but I don't need it in my life anymore.
And the reason why I'm saying that is it's become too mainstream where all the states legalize and friends that I would never thought we gamble, gamble.
They try to give me advice.
I'm like, I don't want to hear it.
You don't know what you're talking about.
You really don't.
It's just not me anymore.
That chapter in my life is over.
I work hard for my money.
I'm saving it.
I'm doing things with it.
I'm enjoying my life.
I like going out, having fun.
Again, when you are gambling and losing, you don't want to be around anybody.
You have to be introverted.
I am an extroverted person.
No, no.
I haven't gambled in three years.
The last 12 weeks is getting back to how I used to be, getting back on track in my life, going through my credit report, calling Experian,
TransUnion.
One thing about you, and I was so thankful that you got back to me from one of your reels that you posted on Instagram, is you're very good in your sector.
You're on point.
And in terms of money goals, I guess...
What I would say to you is, obviously, there's no gambling anymore.
So that money is not getting allocated for that.
What I wanted to ask you is, what would you say are the correct steps of saving money?
Were you paying bills at the same time?
How would you calculate that?
And what kind of formula would you use?
Not you personally.
What would you use for someone like myself and everyone else listening?
Retirement, vacation, those two things specifically.
Working several jobs right now.
One of them, I learned a transportation business, something I did not know before.
I'm a CFO of that company.
It's a new company.
So I look at the books.
I reconcile them every Monday.
I've been doing this for over two years now.
I'm also doing other jobs as well, just to make money.
That's all I'm about is how do I make the most money possible?
How do I save?
Because a lot of my life is gone.
And was gone because of all the money I had to pay in debt and everything.
Let's bring it back to what?
Back to basics.
Let's come up with a plan.
And that's why I'm here with you today.
Because I know you, you know that plan.
You can give us advice on how to do it.
I would say total about $3,300 a month.
Okay.
So I only have one credit card company coming after me.
I have 10 of them.
Only one of them.
One.
And that's only I pay $200 a month.
And that's a total of $3,200 that I still owe.
And that's it.
There's no interest on it.
The money that I owe, there's zero interest on this.
Zero.
Yes.
So what happens is it was charged off.
Capital One used another company to outsource it.
So it's the lawyers that are paying.
They're the ones coming after me.
They say, if you don't pay this...
We're going to garnish your wages.
And all I had to do, Nicole, was just be honest, be vulnerable.
That's all I said.
This is what's going on in my life.
This is what happened.
If you just tell people the truth, if it's just realistic and you break it down and say, this is what I can do.
And you own your own life.
Because one thing I've learned, life is one thing is not a dress rehearsal.
You're going to do it over again.
And it's so much fun that you said that about the interest.
Like, wait, no, there is no interest on it.
All right, I also have rent and I also have a car that I had to buy.
And can you please, you're good at this.
I think you're going to get the number.
What do you think my interest rate?
Now, again, it's not a new car.
What's your credit score now?
So if you look at credit karma, it's 480s.
But if you look at experience itself, where it breaks you down every single thing, it's in the fives throughout the three.
So going back to this, 28%.
28% insurance, $150 a month.
When I was four years ago, my insurance was $96 a month or $90 a month.
That's only because I live in New Jersey where the insurance is out of control.
$1,050.
$1,050.
So after getting it reduced down to the original car payment is 607 a month.
Yes.
I think you know me by now.
I do know that.
You know me by now.
Yes.
I don't go out to eat.
So I cook.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't throw food out.
So if I go to a store and buy stuff, the food's getting eaten.
There's no need to go out to eat.
I have all this food in the house.
There's no need to.
half of that 500 bucks at least to your savings and nicole this is only because i have this going on right now i literally have i have my resume um i had someone redo it for me real quick because i don't want to reformat and i honestly just have ai do the violence underneath it
but I just didn't want to reformat it.
That's all done now.
So I'm applying for high-level jobs now again.
This is only holding me over.
Correct.
I have no choice.
Yes, absolutely.
You're right.
100%.
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, the 70%.
I agree with you.
Absolutely.
And again, like I just told you before, just to hold me over for now.
Right.
No, and thank you for the advice.
I will say, I did just come back from vacation.
I haven't taken a vacation in four years, and one of my favorite places where I want to go is Las Vegas.
Let me tell you why.
Please let me get into that.
Trust me.
It's not what you're thinking.
Trust me.
I was there on business.
They have a pool out there.
They have a survivor football pool contest.
Are you familiar with that?
So me and two of my friends, we entered a contest out there because the grand prize is $10 million.
It's the biggest football pool there is around.
But yeah, that was my vacation.
It was a business trip.
And you're saying, what do you mean by business?
I went there for a purpose and a reason.
I always wanted to work at a sports book.
my whole life.
I wanted to be involved.
I wanted to be on the air.
They have this network called V-CIN, Vegas Sports Information Network.
I listen to them every morning.
My favorite show is Follow the Money.
It's 4 a.m.
to 7 a.m.
Pacific time.
So I went there to meet the guys in person.
At 4 a.m., I was at the casino, not betting, sitting down at the sports book, relaxing.
That's all I was doing.
Met them.
However,
I wanted to meet the top guy there, not the owner, his right-hand person, who's the VP of three of his casinos.
Six o'clock, Thursday morning.
Hey, Mike, nice to meet you.
I want to respect all your time.
I know you're going on the air to do two segments.
Can you just carve out 10 minutes for me?
I mean, a couple of minutes?
Absolutely.
Finances his segments.
He gave me 10 minutes of his own time.
Had a great conversation.
He was going to give me somebody else's email, but instead, what did he do?
Email me.
Brandon, email me right here at this email address.
So I did that when I flew home on Friday.
That's why the resume service that I use had it all done for me.
Boom, sent the email to him.
That's what I want to do.
I also met the owner out there who gave me his business card.
He gave me two minutes of his time.
The thing is, like anything else, you have to do your research.
You have to know what they like, the ins and outs, because in life, what I've learned is if you're good,
I never even won.
Okay.
I'm listening.
Okay.
I'm listening.
Yes.
I'm familiar with it.
Correct.
No, but I'm very aware of being risk averse.
No, I don't know who said that.
Right.
You're correct.
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for the recommendation.
I honestly never even thought about that, having a brokerage account, to be honest with you.
But if I'm going to trust anybody, again, someone who's a financial guru and has made a career out of this, so absolutely, I recommend it.
Why would I say no?
It doesn't make sense.
It's the truth.
No, it feels good.
And again, thank you so much for the recommendation.
I think it is.
I never even thought about that, to be honest with you, until you mentioned it.
I am familiar with brokerage accounts.
I just never thought about doing one.
This wasn't me all these years.
But maybe that does make sense.
Maybe that's an option I do turn to.
Yeah.
Thank you for that, Nicole.
Thanks.
Seriously.
Thank you.
That means a lot.
Right, no, you're right.
I agree.
I can't disagree with you.
I'm 100% on board with you.
I agree.