 A lot of money. Thank you all for coming. And I know for some familiar faces here from some fun camps that we've done. So today is a introduction to money mindset. And I just want to let you guys know that I'm an economist. Most of the folks here that you know are lawyers, engineers, doctors, tech guys, right? So I'm an economist. I studied economics when I was very young. And it's just kind of how my brain worked. When I got into the subject, I understood that this this was the thing I wanted to do. And one of the things that drew me to economics rather than business is that there's a mentality piece to it. There's a psychological piece to money. And most people don't talk about, they talk about money, but they don't talk about the relationship of the person to the money and how they think about money. So today's presentation is about developing your money mindset and increasing your financial literacy. So thank you for coming. I know it's a beautiful day outside. Mashallah, you guys could be doing a lot of other things throwing around the football or something. But Mashallah, you're here. And I'm going to do this interactive style. So if you ask a question, we can go with it. If it's not appropriate, I'll wait till the end. And so we're going to talk about a couple of things. So one is the six words to financial literacy. Okay, that's one of the most important things that we're going to talk about today. It's not a lot of rocket science information, but a lot of folks don't talk about this. I talked to my children about money. Both my older sons have worked. One worked at Baskin Robbins and one worked at Sprouts. And so I wanted them to make their own money. I wanted to ask them open-ended questions about how hard it is to make a few bucks. How hard you have to work to save maybe $2,000 in the summer? So that was my goal. Can you make and save $2,000 in one summer while you're off in high school? So something that they tried to do. And then I would ask them, how are you going to, what are you going to do with this money? Because I wanted to gauge what their mentality was for money. So one of the things I'll tell you is I had a roommate in college and he was from Los Angeles. And my father worked in Saudi Arabia. He was an engineer and my roommate's family was in Los Angeles and his mom worked at like a DMV. She had a clerical job and his dad just did odd jobs, fixed cars and things like that. And so one day my father had money and his relationship to me was to tell me, look son, I'll pay for your education. But don't spend my money carelessly. I'll pay for your education. Be careful with it. I work hard for it and I'll honor you. I'll pay for your education. And one day I asked my roommate, I said, what's your situation? He said, I'm here on loans. My car's on a loan. And all my college is on debt because my parents don't have anything to give to me. So it was great. I was like, wow, you're taking a lot of responsibility. No one in his family had ever gone to college before. And one day he came home and he had a $600 gold necklace. And I asked him, I was like, what did you do? He's like, hey, I did this work study thing and I got this prize and they gave me $600. So I went down to Macy's and I bought myself a $600 necklace. And the reason why I'm telling you this story is because I never forgot that moment in my life. I'm like, wait, this guy is all on debt. His car is debt. His college is debt. And he gets a little bit of money in his hands and he just goes and blows it on something like a gold necklace. It's not something you need. It's something you just want. So he had this mentality and I said, why did you do that? And he said to me, he said, I'm in debt. I'm always going to be in debt. I just wanted to get myself something to feel good. So what I learned from that story is that he associated dollars and spending with good feelings. Okay. I didn't know that this was something that was going on because I never had that. I always felt like money and spending was a responsibility and you do it for what you need to get to where you need to get to a college degree. Like my father's goal was to get you educated. So this kind of thing, this relationship that happened was very interesting to me. And now I went to his 50th birthday party. 30 years later, we've been out of college. 25 years later, we're out of college. I went to his house. His wife works. He works. They fixed up their house. I took a look at his garage. He had a brand new Audi A6. He had a Tesla. And I know from talking to him over the 25 years that they don't have savings, but his house is nice. His cars are nice. And he's still living with that exact same mentality that I knew that guy who was 23 years old. He's now 50. He has that same mentality. He has that same relationship with money. So that's one of the things that I wanted to talk to you guys about. Who, which one are you? Are you the good feeling spender? Or are you the person that's going to take responsibility for money? And you should think about your families. You should think about how your mom and your dad and your uncles and your aunts are. They're all different. But I want you to have that lens now of what is this person's money mentality and how is this family functioning? And as you guys are 16, 17, 13 years old, and you get your first job, I want you to think about what your relationship with money is going to be. It's going to be very important because it's going to establish and allow you to, how you're going to run your families, how you're going to budget, how you're going to try to be successful so that in case in the middle, in your middle ages, you lose your job. In case you, Allah swt tests you with wealth, how much have you taken care of your family? How extreme measures do you have to take? Some families have to fold up and move in with their parents, right? Because they haven't taken care of the basics. And some families have three, six months of savings. So they look for another job and nobody even knows. They stay in the same house. So we've got to really talk about this. So I really wanted to talk to you about my roommate versus myself. So we've got the spender and the feeler versus the saver and the planner, right? So we've got these two very interesting things. And one of the things I want you guys to know is that who you are? Are you the spender and the feeler? Or are you the saver and the planner? And there's very, very big difference between the two. So you take a guy who has, he has one, he has a person has one, pardon my drawing, he has one apple, right? This person one, he eats his apple. His belly's full. He's happy. The second guy takes half the apple and he eats it, right? It's gone. He takes the other half apple. He takes the six seeds that are in there and he plants them. He takes these, this apple and uses it as fertilizer for these six seeds. Yeah, his belly was half full. But inshallah, in the future, he might have two apple trees out of these six. Four will fail, right? And he fertilized them as well, right? He fed them to get them to nurture and grow. And so, you know, we've got this scenario here and we've got this scenario here. Now, what can this person do for his community and his family? This person can take care of his brothers and sisters. This person can take care of his nieces and nephews because later on he has a lot to give. He doesn't need the trees, he doesn't need all the apples from those trees, right? The masjid calls and says, we need help. He can help his masjid, inshallah. This person here, when he doesn't have an apple, he's going to go to this person here. So, we always make dua that we want to be the people that have the upper hand and we're giving and we're not taking. And so, this is the mentality. This is the difference. In the world, we have two eyes. We either believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or we don't. We're the Muslim or we're not. Same thing with other religions. So, you have to know that life is binary. You're either here or there, right? And we need to have these discussions in this mentality. Now, it's very important because this person has some good in them as well. If this person's here always saving, always saving, never doing something for themselves, then when they pass away, someone else gets it all, right? This person here enjoys life. This person here may not enjoy life. So, this person needs to be a little more like this. And this person needs to be a little more like this. We have balance. I know couples that are married is like, well, one person's always thinking about the future, but the other person's investing in the now, right? Another example I'll give is that I had a conversation with my wife in 2015. And, you know, I was saving for the kids college. My kids were young. They were in high school. They were in middle school. And my wife is like, well, this is the time when they start to go away to college, they'll be gone and we don't have family. We don't have family time. So, we made a decision that it's not always going to be for the later. We're going to spend some money in the now. We're going to do family vacations. So, we went as a family to Turkey in 2015. It wasn't easy for me. I'm over here, right? She's over here. It wasn't easy for me, but we decided rather than invest in another car, try to buy another asset, try to save more, we're going to actually invest in the now because our kids are young, our families together and we have to invest. We have to spend the money now in order to enjoy the vacation, to have those family memories so that when the kids are gone, they want to come back. So, that's my introduction. And you guys are still wondering what the six words are, right? We're going to get to that, inshallah, right? So, I just wanted to tell those stories because stories come to life. They're examples. You can use these stories. I'm sure you have stories, but I want you to go back to your families and ask like, what is your mentality with money? And observe. Observe your father. Observe your mother. Observe their discussions. How do they budget? How do they invest? And what are you going to do when you're out on your own thinking about college, taking loans? Potentially, do you want to go to a four-year college or do you want to do junior college and then two years of college? It makes a big difference in the amount of debt that you take on as children. And of course, I want to give the caveat this is not an Islamic lecture. I'm not a scholar, but we know that in Islam, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala hates death, debt. He hates debt. Reba, right? Reba is a whole, that is a financial hole in your pocket. Every time you fill it, the Reba will come out. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has guided us and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has guided us, many, many ways to stay away from it. And there's two things. May Allah forgive me if I make any mistakes. But there are two things that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has declared war on. War. Not that he hates it, not that it's haram. He declares the word war. And that is the person who takes debt and gives debt and witnesses a debt contract. Okay. And the other one is people who say bad things about the awliya, the walis of Allah. War is used for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in two things. So be careful. Be very, very careful. And this is your money mindset now. This is your Islamic framework. Okay. So I'm going to give you guys the six words now. InshaAllah. So the six words for financial literacy. I'll define them really quickly. And we can go along. One is income. And with income comes expense. These two words are very important. And they go together. Right? Income, it comes in. Right? Expense. It's expensive. All right? Very, very easy. Income and expense. The first two most important words. Now what are the different categories of expense? Everybody knows income, money in your pocket. However you do it. You can hustle. You can be a businessman. You can have a job. Right? You can get an inheritance income. Expenses. We're just going to categorize it. We're going to categorize it in rent. And if you own a house, it's a mortgage. I'll just say mort, mortgage. Right? And then there's most people have to have four walls, roof, roof to live in. And then the next thing I call is energy. Energy is electricity, gas, heat, and gasoline for your car. You need energy in your car to go someplace. Then the next thing is, you know, your car payments. You need mobility to go to work. And then the next thing is things like food. Right? So these are all expenses. This is the basic expenses. Food. Okay? So you've got income and you've got expense. Right? I'm going to save the other four words for later. But we're going to talk about these two words right now. And they're very, very important. And what I want to do now in the next segment, the time that I have here for the next 15 or 20 minutes, I want to talk about the comparison between four different types of people. Four different types of people are the poor, the middle class. Okay? The rich. Okay? Is that the last one? There's one more. Anybody guess what it is? No? No guesses? Okay, I categorize this rich, but then there's another category. The wealthy. Okay? Most people think these two things are the same. They're not the same. So let's talk about the poor. Okay? Someone has a high school degree. They work at Costco. They're on their feet all day long. Right? They earn a little better than minimum wage, $20 an hour maybe. They make $3,000 a month. In the Bay Area now, they pay rent $3,000 a month, pay a thousand, live with some roommates. Then they pay for their electricity share of their house. Then they have a car, maybe a small $10,000 Corolla, right? Or a Nissan. And then they fill it with gas. They buy food. Friday nights, they go out and enjoy themselves, have some atomic wings, right? Or mirchies, right? Look at that guy. Wow. He knows. Bismillah. So this person goes out and earns. So income comes in and then almost 100%. By the time the month is done, 100% is spent on these expenses. Okay? So at the end of the day, what is this person doing? Surviving. Surviving in California, right? So we call this hand to mouth. It comes in, it goes somewhere, it ends up in your mouth, and then you end up with pretty much zero at the end of the day. So there's a thing in economics called the average savings rate. In general, most societies, if you get $100, you look at a society and say, well, how much of that $100 at the end of the day is in their pockets for the next month? So right now, when times are tough and there's inflation, the savings rate falls to 0.7%. So $100 in your pocket leaves you with 70 cents, two quarters and two dimes. That's a very, very bad savings rate. You're not doing well. Not even 1%. Not even $1. Okay? Now let's talk about the middle class. The middle class person's educated, has a tech job, maybe $150,000 a year. Wifeworks makes some admin money, maybe another $50,000 a year. So $200,000, right? Middle class. That's pretty good. Okay? All right. They have a mortgage on a house. So they have this expense, right? The mortgage on a house have a nice house. They drive some pretty nice cars, maybe a five-year-old Lexus and a one-year-old BMW, right? So they've got some nice cars. They've got plenty of gas. They go out to eat. They buy good food. They buy halal meat. And they go on an extra thing that these folks don't do. They go on, you know, vacations. They go on Umrah, inshallah, right? Okay? But they don't know that they're actually in this class as well. It's just a different layer of the same thing. So when it ends up at the end of the month, 100% of it is negative, negative, right? So they're hand-to-mouth as well. But they live much better lives because America tells us if you got good things, you're doing good. So this guy's got the beat up Nissan, right? They have the BMWs in the Lexus, right? This person doesn't go on vacation. They go camping. This person goes on Umrah with the family. Mashallah. That's a good thing to do. But this is a very precarious position in these two categories. What is the risk here? You guys know what the risk is here? Tribulation from Allah SWT. So when you're living on the edge, when you have negative 100% going out every month, negative 100% going out, and then you need, in this case, this person's at Costco and they play soccer on the weekends. They hurt their ankle. And now they're out a week and a half on crutches. They can't work. So now their $3,000 a month is $2,000 and they got to borrow money from somebody. And where do they go? These guys go to payday loans. This is a very sad situation. Or they hit the credit card, the CC, the dreaded credit card. Now, this is called survivor debt. They're actually taking on debt not for a car, not for a house. They're taking on debt to survive. So now they're underwater. So the next month they're $1,000, next month they're $1,000, next month they're $1,000. This is why Allah SWT wants you to stay away from this. It's a downward cycle. It just goes, gets worse and worse and worse until some uncle, some unmobiles you out. Or you go back home and live with your parents and you're 30 years old. Subhanallah. That's the American kind of experience. I know people that are in this situation. I know a friend here. She has four kids. She's married. She's married 18 years. She's close to her 40s. She says, I go to Costco and I run into the same people I went to high school with. And they say, hey, how are you doing? Look, come join us at Tiritos on Friday night. Their life for the last 20 years is exactly the same as they were when they were seniors in high school. They just haven't changed because they're in this cycle. They never went to college. They never planned. They never grew. So here we are. We're here in San Ramon where we've got this really pretty decent middle class tech income, all that stuff. And the difference here is this family is also putting away equity. So this person maybe has a 401k. They probably have some investment, some stock for their future. Maybe the company has given them some stock. They do worry well. But on a month-to-month basis, they're hand-to-mouth. So these two are what we call hand-to-mouth. So this is something, a really big realization, really big realization. And I'm going to give you guys, inshallah, a roadmap at the end of this. Okay. So we talked about food and energy. All right. So now we're going to get to this category, this category, the rich. This person probably is a partner in a firm, owns a business. Maybe they're a 50-50-70 partner. They make the 200k plus another 150k. People who will make $300,000 a year are probably in the top 1-2% of society. If you go on Instagram, you think, oh my gosh, everybody's making six figures. No, they're not making six figures. Most people are making the average, I'm not talking about California, but you'll be shocked, the average male in the United States, all educations, high school degrees, PhDs, the average income is $58,000 a year. That's pretty low. California, you're like, oh my god, that's poverty. That's really poverty. The average woman, because women take time off, not saying they get paid less for the same job, they take time off for baby leave. They tend to have those kinds of things where they don't always work 10 years straight with no vacations like guys do. The average woman makes somewhere around $49,000 to $51,000 a year across the United States. They're levelizing for everything. These are important stats to know. The rich, this person's actually in the top, maybe 2% of society right now in America. They can own a business, they're a partner, they make a lot of money, they spend a lot of money, they live well, they're the ones that have the gated community, the 5,000 square foot house, so again, they're up at a high level. Sometimes they have two houses, that's awesome, because now they've got one rental coming in. They own businesses, but they work at a level that's six days a week, seven days a week, because if you own your own business, it's not nine to five. So even though they're making more money, they're also putting in more time, a lot more time. The other problem they have is that they have a lot of wealth at the moment, and every year they have wealth at the moment, but they're subject to lawsuits. Friends sue them, employees sue them, because they have a business, they're a fat cat, they're a big pocket. So where does America is a very litigious society? So they have a good life, masha'Allah, but I call this mo money, mo problems. A lot more money, a lot more responsibility, a lot more problems. And these lawsuits and things like that, because they're not, they're owning their own firms, they have more risk. So this is the rich, these guys are doing very well. These guys are doing very well. But the rule here is that when you're doing well, your business is top notch. You've got a computer algorithm that's beating everybody. Is that going to last 20 years? That's not going to last 20 years, because people are, in capitalism, people are looking at you, and they're looking at your business model, and they're saying, hmm, how do I beat this guy? This is capitalism. It's a race to the top. So very, very smart people are figuring out what your business does, what's your secret sauce, and they're going to do that. So the caution I have here is that you have a five-year or 10-year window when you make money. So if you keep buying the mansions and you keep spending at the high level, and you don't take care of your future, one day this business goes to zero, because the guy next door comes in and he takes your business. We see it with a Facebook. Facebook was the top of the charts. Nobody could touch Facebook. And I thought, man, this is a behemoth. Everybody in the world is on Facebook. Instagram came along, Snapchat came along, other places are coming along, and down goes Zuckerberg. He's not the top anymore. People are chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at his business. Now, Microsoft bought chat GPT. Let's see how Facebook does. There's a lot of competition here. So Imam Tahir tells a story, and I never forget this. He posted it many years ago, but people had heard about it. They wanted him to post it again. He said there was a person in Fremont, and he had a business. He was making so much money, so much money that he decided to move from his house and build this mansion very slowly. So slowly he's got a few years. He's building this mansion. All the while he's sending, masha'Allah, he's sending money to India. He's sending money to his relatives. He's sending money to his sisters. They're benefiting. He had a sister in Toronto. He had a sister in India. He had a sister in another cousin. He's buying fancy cars for himself. What ended up happening right before his house finished is his business went from 100 to zero. All of a sudden, it was like the faucet just stopped. It just baraka from Allah and then nothing. Now he ended up not finishing his house and selling it way below what he spent on, because no one wants to buy on his finished house. He bid it off, got rid of it. But his relatives in India, they finished their houses. They're living well. So masha'Allah, the baraka of his money went to other people, but he didn't take care of his own. His kids in Fremont, his kids in Fremont are going to college on debt. When they were little, they had the best vacations, right? And his relatives in India and Canada doing well, because they took care of their houses and they didn't go crazy, but they took care of the basics. They're paying for their children to go to college and his children are not getting the benefit. So the baraka, he spread the baraka, but he didn't take care of himself. He didn't do that planting the tree and have a tree for others because he didn't keep a tree for himself. So this is the rich, right? There's a time, you know, atomic wings, great, great wing place, right? Somebody's going to move in next door and make a better wing place with pizza. He's not going to last. He's doing really well right now. So businessmen have to always hustle. So these guys are doing very well, but masha'Allah, they have to take care of the future. So when Allah gives you a lot, make sure it's there for the future. Secure it as much as you can, all right? Now we're talking about the wealthy. So the wealthy is actually sometimes have less money than this guy. And that's the person that was rich like this. His business was going on for five or 10 years, but he took care, this person took care of the future. So the wealthy person secures the future, okay? In the most halal way of course. So now this person had a business, he was here. There's two brothers, right? One guy went along this way and went to zero. The other brother was the apple farmer. He took care of it and now he's helping him. So this person here is wealthy, not because they have more money, but because they've secured their future. Because they know that their income is greater than their needs. Sorry for my writing here. I'm trying to be really good, but I feel like whiteboard is more interactive rather than PowerPoint. Your brain kind of shuts down. So I do the whiteboard, but then my handwriting is terrible. So I apologize. So the wealthy person secures the future and is wealthy because the dollars are greater than their needs. They can secure all this stuff. Every month it's done. When the masjid calls and says we need money, they can give it. When their sister's in trouble, they can give it. When someone needs an operation, they're scanning their phone just donating at the masjid. Friday, boom, it's done. We have a lot of these people in this community. This is how this community is built. So we have poor, middle-class, rich, and wealthy. So in order to remember it, hand to mouth, more money, more problems, secure your future, and wealthy. And I just want to say this. This is all tying the camel. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who puts the wind in your sails. You put up the sail, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala puts the wind in your sails. Right? This is from Rizq and Barakah. Some people are going to be struggling and poor because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows that if you give them money, they're going to ruin. They're going to get ruined. And some people are tested with wealth. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keeps them poor. And some people are wealthy and they're tested with wealth because then they're doing things they shouldn't be doing. They're going to places they shouldn't be going. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is ultimately out of the zaq. He's the one that gives you the risk. Your du'as and your barakah and staying in the halal, staying away from the bad is going to make this for you. So tie your camel. This is all tying the camel. And then trust in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So I just want to talk about that. Are there any questions on this part? Easy enough to remember? Not rocket science? Inshallah. Any questions? So yeah. So are the wealthy smarter than the rich? So do you know really, really smart people that are not wealthy? They try every day. They go out every day. They're doing every day. They just got the best degrees. It's a mix. So like I said Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala determines who's wealthy. I know people who for lack of intelligence, effort, grinding all the time, they're middle class or poor. And then there's people who don't really do anything. They just stumble upon a business plan. And they stumble upon a partner who needs money, $10,000. They invested. Boom. They're rich. So it's not always effort. And that's what I'm saying is it's not effort. It's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessing. But you can tie your camel. You don't let your camel just wander off and go, Oh my God, Allah didn't let me have a camel. Like that's the problem. Oh no, you know what? I'll just hear two prayers and you know Allah will give me. No, you got to get up and chase. The early bird gets the worm. Get up at fudger, go outside, work, study, do what you can. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will give you something. And if he doesn't give you with it, be patient and content. Stay close to him, turn to him, inshaAllah. And then know that if you're not going to get it still, mansions in Jannah, trees in Jannah, because those duas aren't being answered in the dunya. So this is the part of the presentation. So I want to get to the other four words. There's six words of financial literacy, income and expense of the first words. We talked about a lot of this. This is all just people's attitude towards money. If you take care of your degree and you work, inshaAllah you'll be here because you have a better job. The rule of thumb in America is that if you don't get a college degree, you are 40% more likely, 40% more likely to live below the poverty line in your county. 40% more likely. That's the same with that's the same rule with not having a college degree increases your chances of poverty in America by a lot and also having children too early out of wedlock. So you don't have the mother and the father supporting the child. It's one or the other. That is a very big weight on the family. It doesn't lead to success. So degrees and having two parent childhood child families is like the two things you need to at least in America get to another level. So those are just stats. I'm throwing stats out for you guys because I study this stuff all the time. So we've covered this part. Okay, so let's talk about the other four words. I'm going to leave the two words here. We can hear children having fun in the mosque in the background. Okay, so we've got income and expense and then we have let's use another color. We have assets and liabilities and asset, something you own. If you fall on hard times, you can sell it. If I own this electronic equipment, I can rent it out to some band. I can sell it for $400 because I've got the equalizer and the mics in the stand. Someone wants it. I could sell it. It's an asset. Okay, a liability is something you have created a contract where you owe money constantly. You're liable. You're always liable. Right. That's the word liability. So when you get a when you get a when you when you rent a house, you rent year to year or month to month when you sign a lease. So it's a one year liability. When you get a mortgage, you sign a contract for 30 years. Right. So this is a liability. This is a mortgage is a much bigger liability than renting an apartment. Right. If you things get bad and you lose your job, move to Nevada, cheaper place. Right. In one year, you're gone. You break your lease. Things get bad. Your house goes down price. You have to sell it. Take the loss. So liabilities assets, liabilities. Okay. And then the most important thing is you use these four words to always think about these last two words. Last two words are cash flow. So what is your cash flow plus minus? That's all you got to think about. So how did these four things jump around in your brain to create this plus minus attitude? Okay. And I'll give you an example. Everybody, every time I do a financial literacy talk, everyone asks me, should I lease a car or should I rent a car? Should I lease a car? Should I buy a car? Okay. So do you guys know the answer? Okay. It's very simple now. Okay. When you buy a car, can you do you have it later to sell it in case you need the cash? Yes. When can you sell it to get cash after your liabilities are done? After you paid it off? So you get a five year loan, you buy a really nice car. You know, most cars are built to last 18 years. So five year loan, you've got that car for 13 years, 12 at least. So when you buy a car, you convert the liability into an asset eventually, right? Every month you're owning it. You're owning more and more and more until you own it all. The bank is out of the way, right? Shall let the halal bank. I'll talk about debt here. Okay. Now you lease a car. What is that? What happens at the end of the lease? You give the car back. You paid all this money, all these dollars have left your pocket for three years, $2.99 a month, $5.65 a month. Oh, come and get an Audi. $4,000 down, $4.95 a month. Okay. We'll just do the Audi, right? You get this $4,000 down. Oh, what is it? Okay. We'll give you a deal. Let's make it $1,800 down, $4.99 a month for 36 months. Okay. You paid $1,800 plus $4.99 for 36 months for this car and you don't own it. You don't own it. Guess what the car dealers love? They know after 36 months Mr. Yusuf, Mashallah Yusuf John, 36 months. Where are you going to be? They know exactly where you're going to be. Tell me where you're going to be after 36 months. In the dealership, do you have any negotiating power? Why? Why you have zero negotiating power? Because you don't have anything to offer. You don't have a car. You can't get to work. You can't say, oh, well, no, I don't make it better. Oh, I don't like $4.99. Can you make it $3.50? No. He's going to be like, no, choose a crappier car. You can't drive the same car you drove for last three years. You got to step down. Your nuffs doesn't like it. You're like, I was driving an Audi. Now if I want $3.50 a month, I got to go get a Nissan Altima. Oh, my nuffs doesn't like it. Who cares? Are you worried about cash flow? Are you worried about your nuffs? Subhanallah. Subhanallah. So it's a very easy, it's a very easy problem. Assets versus liabilities. So I'll just give you a real example of what we just did. So you know, you have income in this box. You have expenses in this box. You have assets in this box. And you have liabilities in this box. Okay. Expense assets and liabilities. Okay. So the poor person, just look at this box. The poor person will use flows. We'll use a black, we'll use blue for in and red for out. Okay. So the poor person, money comes in. Where does it go? Where does it go? End up with zero. Let's do the middle class person. They live better, remember? Money comes in. Some goes here. Some goes here. Where's the most important box? They just missed it. No bullseye. You play darts and you hit the door. You don't hit the bullseye. You don't even hit the dartboard. Like people are living well, but they don't even know. They don't even know. Subhanallah. This is the tricks. You know what my favorite commercial is on Christmas? It's the Lexus commercial where all the families come out and the lights are bright and the Lexus has this big bow on it. Those cars are $65,000. That's not chump change, buddy. That's a lot of money. That's a future of your kid going to college debt free. You see not a small college. Okay. Oh, the other one is Volkswagen. I love this phrase. I love this one. I'm going to write it here. Sign and does anyone know it? You guys haven't seen that? You guys don't watch TV. You're good guys. Sign and drive. Oh, gosh, these commercials are so good. Sign and drive. Volkswagen. It's actually trademarked. Come in. Sign and drive. What does this mean? What does this sign mean? Sign liability. Just sign for five years. Sign and drive. No, you're not signing. You're signing a contract for liabilities. They leave that out. Sign up for a lot of debt. Take a car. That's what they should say. They leave that word out. Now, you guys are smart. You guys know now. Sign and drive. What is that? Or my favorite Volkswagen commercial. They don't tell you anything about the car. You have this kid in a Darth Vader suit and he goes like that. And then the dad turns the car on because you've got the remote start. The kids all excited. It's like, tell me about the car. How long is it going to last? What's the miles per gallon? If I buy it, how long is it going to last after I ask how long is this car going to last after I pay it off? That's the most important question. Nobody asks that. How long will this car last after get 100,000 mile warranty? Okay, so I digress back. The good tangent, hopefully. Okay, so income, expense, assets, liabilities, cash, flow. Oh, I just erased one of my most important words. Okay, so now we're going to do the next thing, which is cash flow for the rich. Okay, cash flow for the rich. Yes, there's income. There's expense. They hit the asset. They hit the liability. And then they, but they've got some money here. That's pretty good. Right? That's pretty good. You want to bounce. You want to hit both of them. Right? The problem is, is that your expenses, your mansions and your cars are so big that in your business, your income is in their threat. Right? Your income is under threat from competition, capitalism. Your mansions, 5,000 square feet, you have two kids. If they're going to go to college, like what? What's up with this empty house? Right? Do you need a four and a half million dollar house? No, you need a house. And then your liabilities, man. What are you doing? What are you doing? I mean, some people are driving $140,000 take on and get a used Model S 40 grand. I mean, still cool. Like really, and put this money away so that your Masjid, your community, your donation, your Akhara. Okay? So that's the rich and then the wealthy. Right? Let's do the wealthy by themselves. We're just going to erase all this. And you'll see how clean it is. All that garbage is gone. InshaAllah, the wealthy have this mindset. The mindset is, you know, box one, box two, box three, box four, right? Income, expense, asset, liability. What are they taking care of all the time? Incomes coming in, expense, asset, and keeping this to absolute minimum. Your cars are buying. You're buying your cars. You're buying your stereo equipment. You're keeping your house small. You're building an investment portfolio. Now you have four legs to stand on. You lose your job for two months. You can sell a car because you own it, right? You're still going on vacations. You still should spend. Take your family to Turkey, right? Take your family to Turkey, but they're taking care of this in the first 20 years of their life so that later on they can retire at 40 or they're the people that can keep working and keep supporting the community, keep their foundation to the community. They've built a foundation. They're the people you go to when your mosque's roof falls and all the rains and they need $50,000. These are the folks that can give you the qarze hasana because they have it. Mashallah, this community was built on folks like this. The uncles in the community, the OGs, the founders of the community, they all put down $25,000 cash of their own pocket to build this community, to build this mosque. How many people have that? Middle-class people in America, I'll give you another stat. Middle-class people in America, if you ask them today, can you withdraw $2,000 cash? And I'll give it to you back on payday. They're living middle-class lifestyles. They don't have the 2,000 cash. 2,000 cash. Most people don't have $500 cash. They're making $150,000 a year. Your savings rate is really low. So I've been going 45, 50 minutes and I think I'm getting through my presentation. So I want to give you guys another story and I want to give you guys a roadmap. That's it, inshallah. Hopefully this is helpful. There's a lot of community online. So this is going to be online, inshallah. You can share it with people. May Allah make du'a for me. I try to do this for folks, inshallah. If anyone benefits, it's worth it. So it's just a mentality and like I said, I think all teenagers after the age of 16, 17, if you can, get a job, get a summer job close to home, ride your bicycle, your electric moped there, work, try to save money and really analyze your feelings. So I want to talk to you guys about billionaires now, billionaires. So we're talking about the wealthy. So can you guys, so a lot of billionaires, I already mentioned Zuckerberg, right? He actually invented an algorithm for Facebook. It's a very successful. So he made something, right? Elon Musk, you know, he worked at Tesla, he made something. But there's a billionaire that actually didn't make anything. He didn't make anything. He is the true, true farmer. All he does is put his money where other people work. Does anyone know who that guy is? He didn't make anything. Can you guys throw out any guesses? Yeah. Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos, he made an amazing algorithm that was, he made every house a bookstore and every house a book customer. And then he took that bookstore and he turned it into a global marketplace. So now you can buy watches, sneakers, he created something amazing. Jeff Bezos is one of the titans of making something. So the answer is wrong. But that's a great guess. I'm glad you asked that question. I'm glad you gave me that answer because people don't realize what a behemoth Amazon is. Amazon is logistically amazing. Yeah, next hand. Steve Jobs. What did he make? I said, who's the billionaire to make anything? He didn't make anything. His name is not known for a single product. And you guys all know his name. So Steve Jobs is a great answer, but it's a wrong answer. Any answers, any questions, any guesses over here? I'm going to give you guys one more guess. A little man over there, you have a guess. No, sorry. That's a whole other lecture, but thank you for the comedy. One more, one more, I'll do one more. No, no, Donald Trump started with a daddy. His daddy was very wealthy. He created a brand. He created a brand, Trump Towers, Trump Golf Courses, Trump This, Trump That. His dad didn't do it, but he was a wealthy, wealthy man. I'll give you one more guess. No, Bill Gates, he created Microsoft. Well, he didn't create it. He packaged it. And 800,000 government workers had to use Microsoft in their computers. So he got the software and he gave it to the government. And everybody had to use it because they wanted to deal with the government. So he turned the software into a monopoly. He is a titan of software. I'm going to give you guys the answer now. The name is Warren Buffett. What did Warren Buffett create? Nothing. What does he do? Why is he a billionaire? Because he goes to Steve Jobs and he goes to Jeff Bezos and he watches, not Andrew Tate, he watches, who's the other guy we guessed? Bill Gates, yeah. So he puts his money, this is Warren Buffett. Good old Warren, Warren Buffett. He puts his money where other people create great things. He is a investor. Yes. His company is known as Berkshire Hathaway. And he is worth 60 billion maybe with a partner. Him and his partner have run the company for decades. So he is what I call and what anyone can do with your smarts, the secrets I gave you here, right? This money mentality. Anyone can do what he does. Anyone can do it because he is the ultimate and I call this money farmer. He decides, he has money is like a seed. He looks at a little farm and he decides, oh, Steve Jobs, Apple, Coca-Cola, great brand. Oh, Microsoft, every government office uses it. And he keeps putting his money with the apples, the Coca-Cola's, the insurance companies. Everybody has to have insurance. You care if you get Geico or Progressive? Do you know he owns both? If you buy Geico, you give money to Warren Buffett. If you buy Progressive Insurance, you give money to Warren Buffett. He owns both. He's getting your dollars. So he is the ultimate money farmer. So what I want you guys to take from this as a roadmap is to have this mentality, to understand what is a roadmap for success? What does success actually look like? And how do people get successful? Right? And take care of your families, be wealthy, take care of your futures. And I'll give you another roadmap. So this is the roadmap. This is a roadmap that I gave my children. So we talked about how potentially poor you can be if you don't get an education. So we'll work on the roadmap now. And I'll end in, see how long do I have? A few minutes? Q&A. Yeah, yeah. We'll go to Q&A. Do you guys have Q&A? Is there questions? Let me just finish. I'll take five more minutes. I'm just going to give you guys a roadmap. And I want you to discuss this roadmap Insha'Allah with your families. I'm going to remove these words here because you've all memorized them. Right? You've all memorized them. Insha'Allah, six words to financial. I'm going to remove all this stuff so I can actually write at the top. I can make a decent, make it legible. Insha'Allah. And thank you again for being here. So I'm going to give you guys a roadmap. So number one, number one. If we think of Allah SWT, what's the number one piece of roadmap we need to do? We cover here today. Stay out of debt. Okay. So no reba. Stay out of debt. That's the number one rule. And barakah comes with this. It's great. You can make a ship with a bunch of sales, but Allah SWT doesn't put wind in it or won't go anywhere. So duas and stay on the path of Allah SWT and his messenger. Insha'Allah. All right. The next one, most important thing. If you don't have it, your chances of poverty are way higher. Education. You need a college degree as a piece of paper to get in the door for people to talk to you. Otherwise you got to go and invent something. You got to make your own money. So you have to have an education. God, these pens just, they look great when they first start writing. Education. Okay. You got to have that. And again, you want to do it with the least expense. So least expense and no debt. Okay. You need good names, obviously. You want an accredited university. UCs are great. Michigan public schools are great. Private schools, if you have the money, go. Right? Okay. The next roadmap is when you get out of college, insha'Allah, with as little debt and as little expense as possible so that your parents have money for your younger siblings. You know, if the older one goes to college and takes all the money, and yeah, younger siblings don't have. So Le Mans looking at his older brother use of there, right? So you want to make sure your parents have help all your children, right? So you get out of education with the least debt, no debt and the least expense, insha'Allah, make it easy on them. And you have to get a job, right? Okay. You can start your own business, but you have to know whether you're a job person or a business person. And if you're a business person, you have to fund your business. You'll be living rent without any income for a long time. So you get your job. This is the basics. You don't have to do this. This is the basics. You get a job, but not just any job. Cost goes a job, right? But you want a job with a couple of really important things. One is you want a job with a career track, meaning if you're there and you give five years and get smarter, do you have a place to go? Are they going to promote you to senior? Are they going to promote you to manager? Are they going to promote you to principal? Are they going to promote you to partner? So you want a job with a career track, not a dead-end job, right? Even I know people that sell purses online, they make tons of commission. But if they don't make commission, seven years from now, they're going to be doing the exact same job, right? And that purse company might not be around, right? So career track, okay? And it's very important because we talked about this, is you need healthcare, right? Because what happens to the middle-class family that's hand-to-mouth that has medical expenses? A father gets hurt, has to have a $50,000 surgery. So your basics foundation is job, career track with healthcare, and hopefully some 401k. Right now, if you work at Starbucks, they actually contribute some of your income into like a little 401k. That's incredible. I have someone I know, a young person who's so happy with Starbucks. He's like, why do I have to do anything else? They're giving me 401k, they're paying for my Phoenix University, and I get a job. I'm like, okay, well, Phoenix University is not a great name. Your 401k is okay. That's great. But you're on your feet all day. What if you break your, what if you hurt your ankle? You can't work. You want to get better. I'm glad Starbucks is doing this for an 18-year-old kid, but you don't want to be 25 and be there. You want to be, yeah, use it, use it as a ladder to get somewhere else. And then the last thing is that, did I write down here? Healthcare plus, we call it the 401k, basically investments. The company helps you invest some money. Right? Okay. And then the rule to do all this, of course you can vary, but the rule to do this is to live on 80% and farm, money farm, with 20%. Right? 80-20 rule. If you make $100,000, live on 80, invest 20. Okay. And now with YouTube, you'll find 1,000 people telling you to invest in the worst things possible. And you'll find 1,000 people telling you what Warren Buffett is doing every day, every quarter Warren Buffett shares. He sold this share, this share. Okay. We went to war in Ukraine. Okay. Warren Buffett bought Occidental Petroleum because he knew the war in Ukraine will increase the price of oil and gasoline, and he made a healthy profit. He knows. Right? You can do that. Okay. So you live on the 80%. Insha'Allah, live well, go on vacations, take your kids, and invest the 20%. Okay. And you know, America is, is Mashallah, a great place, a great place to do, because it's the, there's one of the only few countries, maybe UK, but America does this the best. Okay. Is it, there's a rule of law and the markets that allow a janitor, a landscaper, anybody who's working at the very lower rung of society and income to actually, if they're smart, they can become very, very wealthy. And it also allows the rich to go into debt and end up with nothing. It's a game of shoots and ladders. I don't know if you've guys seen shoots and ladders. You end up in the wrong box, boom, you're down. You're like three steps back. You hit the ladder, boom. So America, Subhanallah, has the rule of law and has the markets. My family lives in Pakistan. There's no stock market in Pakistan. You can buy land, then you can put some bricks on it, you can make a house and rent it out. Then you do rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. If you don't have money, you never get started. In America, you can start very, very low. You can start very, very low. I have a, I bought a house. I called a landscaper, Hispanic guy. I got a referral. His name was Jose. Called Jose. I said, Hey, Jose, I want you to come and do my yard in the backyard. It's all dirt. I want some concrete. I want some grass. He said, I can't do that. I said, why? He's like, I'm living Texas now. I said, well, when did you go to Texas? You know, my friend told me you work in California. He said, I work in California for 24 years. I saved my cash. I found a town in Texas and I bought $390,000 homes. Three homes for $90,000 each. He's like, my wife and I, we live in one. She works and I work and I'm giving the house on one side to my son. I'm giving the house on one side to my daughter because I know that my son and my daughter are both going to be right next door. So $270,000. He bought three homes in Texas. He moved and I said, wow, you have a money mindset. You have a money mindset and never forgot that guy because he's so smart. I'm like, this guy's a landscaper. He's got it. I was starting my career. I was, I got chills. I'm like, Subhanallah, no one told me that you could do this. I had a master's degree in economics. Oh, invest in the capital market. This guy knows, he knows land. He knows cash. Cash flow, asset. Boom, done. He's like, I'll be fine in Texas. He's all, I'll find gigs. He's all, I don't have to worry about my housing. You know, smart guy. So this is the roadmap and you know what happens is I just want to end here, Subhanallah. America, like I said, has the law. It has the markets. Other countries don't. I want to say two things. One, one is I looked at this, I looked at this book called happiness. It's studied all the happiest people in the world. One thing I learned from that book is that only 3% of the people on the entire world, okay, 3% get to move permanently. So my father came from Pakistan, moved here permanently. My kids are raised here, born here. All of your parents did that. Okay. Some came from Afghanistan, maybe Somalia, maybe Hyderabad, India. Shout out to Hyderabad over there. I know he's very proud. So this, this ability that your family had that brought you to America and brought you here in this country, everybody in the world is fighting tooth and nail to dig, climb, swim, fly over here and make it here. Okay. So you have to appreciate this. So Subhanallah, when you do your prayer afterwards, thank Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and your parents for taking the risk to be here because this, this, if I put a dollar value on this, the fact that you went from the third world, okay, to the first world and sometimes bad for people, the third world come to the first world, it can ruin you. But if you guys stay good, you keep your dean, this is like winning your family won a $2 million lottery. It doesn't feel like that to you because your parents struggle, but they have won a $2 million lottery. You're starting at a much, much higher place than other people are starting. Why? Why? Because America Subhanallah, America Subhanallah has, because of the rule of law and because of the many ways to make money and transparency and honoring your wealth and all that, America has a ladder. So the first, first immigrant parents come in here, they're in ladder one. What do they try to do? Secure housing and a job. And then their kids, maybe you go on debt, you get a college degree. The kids go to the next level, get the college degree. Then if they're middle class and they realize the value of money, they invest and then their kids have inheritance. So you go from making it, college, fund, inheritance, trust fund, wealthy, right? You guys, I'm the second generation. I want to value the risk that my father, Subhanallah, my father took. My father came to America with a job and $150 in his pocket. That was it. $150. They bought him a plane ticket. You know, Mashallah, he had houses and he sold and bought and he's taking care of my mom. He's gone now, but he did that. So he, he, he provided the first rung of the ladder for me. My job is to get the second rung secured and make it rung for my third. This is how America is built. This is how the laws are made, if you're smart. But then there's all these guys, sign and drive, leases, they want to send you right down to the bottom and be a debt slave. And Allah swt has protected you from debt. He's told you, don't do it. So listen to him, listen to his Prophet. A lot of people don't have these rules. They don't even know that debt is bad. So you can either go up the ladder, you can go down the ladder. Subhanallah. May Allah make us people who are, who honor his religion, who, who value the things that our elders have done for us. May our elders stay healthy and have, be pleased with us and may they have good lives. And may we carry on this burden and we increase. And we're there for our communities. We're there for our families. We secure, we help secure the next generation and the next generation and the next generation in Dean and wealth, inshallah. So thank you all for being here. I'm going to open it up to I think five minutes of questions and then we're going to have the horridan and we'll, we'll cut it out, inshallah and pray over there. So any questions? So yeah, question. How can we consistently keep going up the ladder and not go down? Mindset. Don't let that mindset slip. It work. You know, it's Allah swt is going to give you success and he's going to give you barakah and tribulation. Barakah and tribulation. When you have barakah, plant the seed. When you have tribulation, patience. But stay the course. There's a lot of people. Oh, they buy a stock. Oh my gosh. Oh, it's gone down now. I'll sell it. They take a loss. Like, why did you buy it? If you didn't believe in Apple, why did you buy Apple? If you didn't believe in Microsoft, why'd you buy it? Are you going to let the news tell you every day? Oh, it's down. It's up. Oh, he's sitting in the tribulation. Cut out the news. The news is not good for you. Listen to people. Figure out who the people are that are going to tell you what to do right and ignore the people that are going to tell you what to do wrong. Right? Andrew Tate, hustler university. You want to go there? You want to go to UC Santa Cruz? You want to go to UC Berkeley? You make a choice. Everybody's going to tell you. So yeah, one guy's going to send you here and the bank, the bankers are the richest people in the world. They use your money to charge you to get rich. They use your money to charge you to get rich. That's debt. Okay? You have to stick with this mentality and your family. The other thing we have is that I know people at work. I've been in my job 20 years. They don't have any family support. They don't have a safety net. They don't have an uncle or a father or brother they can count on. They're all alone. COVID just kind of destroyed these family networks. They're like solo, right? So if they, if they rise or fall, nobody else benefits and nobody else saves them. They're on their own. We, Subhanallah, have family. We have community. We have a Zakat fund. So when you have a lot of money, man, give it in Zakat fund. It'll protect you, inshallah. Any other questions? Any other questions? Is your mind and money mentality totally changed? Inshallah. We're just here for being here. Thank you. I make dua for all of you guys. Oh, one more question. One more question. All right. You're the last question. Inshallah. I have a question about interest. So when you're like buying a car, most of the time is like 40, buy it. Is it 1800 down and then 400 plus like 2% interest for 36 months? That was lease. Yeah, but buying it is the same thing. You have to put money down and then you have to take the balance that you owe and you have to get interest on it, right? But every Christmas, every Christmas, look at the ads, there will always be a 0% interest option. It may not be the Audi S5, right? It's going to be the Corolla. It's going to be the Altima. There is 0% interest deals out there. And that's because the car lots need to get rid of those cars. Those cars aren't the hottest selling cars. You know, your Lexus IS is not on that list, right? But there are cars that are available for 0% interest. So if you really want to do your homework, it's there. It's there for you to win, but you have to fight that nuts. You know, if you're paying 350 for a Lexus IS or you're paying 350 for an Altima, you know, it's a big deal, right? It's one's a cool car. But yeah, you can find those deals. I have a credit card. Every 18 months, I have to be on top of it. I get a zero interest credit card and it expires in 18 months and they always send me bills. They always send me new checks. And I pay for my tickets. I pay for my vacations on there and I pay that balance off. And then when that interest, it goes from 0 to 7.5. If you miss that day, 0 to 7.5, I call them and I cancel my credit card the day two weeks before I call. I put it on my calendar. I say, my credit card is actually expiring on June 30th. So June 15th, I'm going to call them and say, I'm canceling my credit card. And they're going to be like, oh, Osmond, how can we keep you? Oh, they're going to have this sob story. No, you got to be like, I'm cutting them up. And then the person, the sales person, after they try to convince me to keep their credit card, you know what they say? They're like, good for you. They're working for the bank. Later on, they'll be like, good for you. Good for you. I understand. I said, I'm consolidating my debt. I don't want to be in debt. Oh yeah, good for you. Because they know at the human level, they're trying to sell you interest and sell you debt slavery, but they know their fitra tells them, good for you. Good for you. So zero interest deals on cars. And there's plenty of them. You just got to keep looking, looking, inshallah, you'll find cars. When you guys get to a college age and you need a car, get a nice reliable car that you can pay for. Pay it off, get an asset, inshallah. Thank you for the question. And thank you all for being here. Let's end with a du'a of ending a gathering.