Financial Literacy and Employment in the Age of COVID-19

So again the interpreters
voicing so we asked them to stop their
videos so that we could focus on us
signing it's part of the presentation
everybody can hear and closed captions
are running so if we're ready we're
going to go ahead and get started my
name is Andaleeb
Elayan and I work here at NVRC is the
finance and administrative manager for
about four years now
today's presentation and PowerPoint is
going to be providing you with some
vocabulary and some basic understanding
of Finance so that you can know things
to do example if you've lost your job
during this Corona Virus outbreak let's
switch over to Charles.
Charles are you ready just a second let me pull it up
Okay let's wait for Charles there we go
one moment please go ahead
Hi everyone I'm Charles and
I'll be talking about the next slide
we've got here that I quote you know a
lot of people think that they're not
good at earning money but the real issue
is they don't know how to spend it you
look at these lottery winners who win a
million dollars a year later a broke it
makes you think what did you do in that
year to make you lose so much money
they're obviously not spending their money wisely
and that's what we're here to talk about
Okay let me pull up the
PowerPoint just a moment here we go
Everyone have a moment to read
please.
Hi everyone we're going to try and be switching
between the PowerPoint in the videos
We want to make sure you can clearly see us while we're signing and also we're going to be recording so
we don't want the images to get too tiny
on the recording
So now the basics of thinking I'm going to take a moment give you everyone a moment to read through
the PowerPoint and then I'll pull it
back down to just its describe it.
Okay so let me take them on let me explain
their checking accounts and savings
accounts there are slight differences
between them checking accounts or where
you would you have your everyday usages
where you withdraw money from the ATM
you deposit your salary there's
typically no limits on that now your
savings account is for more long-term
usage it's for placing money and leaving
it in there and it typically has limits on the
number of withdrawals you can have in a month
So let me turn over to
Charles for the next two points
Sure so a money market account is used
for larger sums of money so if you have a
larger sum of money that you might use
over the next few months you would put
it in a money market account to use
interest but at the same time still be
able to withdraw money from that account so that's mainly for people with large sums of money
now a CD was more popular
in the past but people still use it it's
a mechanism for holding on to money for
a fixed period of time anywhere from one
month to a year so if you're looking to
buy a house or make a down payment on a
car and you want to put that down
payment somewhere where it's earning a
little bit of interest but you won't be
using it for a while you can in a CD the
bank will guarantee that you weren't
the interest on that money over that
time and then you're able to take it
back out after that time has ended okay
let me pull up the next PowerPoint give
every moment to read everyone a moment to read it
Yes please read through
Okay let me stop share screen so as the
PowerPoint just mentioned we're going to
talk about choosing a bank you need to
pick a bank that's the best match for
you you'll want to consider how close it
is to where you live or work so you want
something within your area also how easy
it is to access an ATM for that bank
there are two major kinds of banks right
now they're the brick-and-mortar type
where you go in and speak to a teller or
an online version which we're seeing an
increase of also a lot more usage of
apps which with banks you'll need to
check on fee structure check how much it
costs for what whether it's overdrafts
or withdraws they can be anywhere from
ten to twelve dollars it depends on your
bank some banks even include fees if you
go over a number of withdrawals within a
month keep in mind that banks are not
the same each one will have different
policies and fee structures and you'll
want to check out that before you choose
your bank also consider whether the bank
is national or local there is national
banks like Bank of America or local
banks here in Virginia that are giving
you a more personal experience so you
have to consider what your preference is
related to that so let me pull up the
next slide and we'll switch to Charles
after that.
Go ahead and read
Are we ready?
Alright okay so let me speak to this
slide you know in today's day and age we
have 100 plastic cards in our wallet we
use them every day for different things
some of those may be gift cards so maybe
debit cards credit cards even rewards
cards we have a whole pocketful of
plastic cards these days now the plastic
cards themselves are not money but they
have money within them they hold money
so I want you to remember that as you spend
them they have a defined amount of money
However plastic cards can be better than cash
because if you have cash and
you lose it versus a debit card and
losing it a debit card is much more
replaceable it has security built in
whereas if you lose cash it's gone even
if you wrote your name on the cash it's
gone there's no way to trace it back to
you whereas a plastic card you know you
also have to remember that it because it
has a finite amount of money you can't
just use it at your whim you have to
remember to stay within your budget
regardless of whether you're using cash
or plastic go ahead and read the next
slide and it has a little bit more
information on plastic cards .
Okay let me pull it up
We good?
Great so just a little bit more
about loyalty cards some stories may
offer promotions where if you get a card
with them like the Gap or Old Navy they'll
give you a special promotions there can
be also cards for airlines like United
they may offer you a certain amount of
points for joining now if you're going
to go to that place often or use that
card often it can be a good deal
there are times to when it may be such a
good deal that it's worth opening a card
or a specific period of time getting the
deal and then paying off the card and
closing it but if it's a card that
you'll use often and a good deal me for
example I have a United card where I
earn points and I can get into certain
airline clubs and it's a good deal for
me because I use it and I use it well
however you don't want to sign up for
multiple credit cards because that will
put a hit on your credit score so you
want to balance it with how many credit
cards you actually need and will use
versus the good deals that you're getting
Okay let me pull up the next
slide
There's one more slide regarding credit
cards feel free to read through this
Okay just to give you a little bit of
history the word CREDIT comes from the
Latin word credo which means "believed"
basically means I believe that she will
pay me back so the money you're spending
on a credit card is not your money it's
the bank's money the bank is lending you
money to then spend on your credit card
which you then pay back to the bank with
interest unless you paid on time and
then you have a grace period
but that's important to remember that
it's not your money it's basically a
loan and that interest can bite you
after time if you don't pay on time
that's how the bank's make their money
they make their money in interest off of
you. Now a debit card is great if you
need cash back or cash from an ATM then
I would recommend you use a debit card
and some stores prefer that because the
fees of they pay are cheaper but for
everyday purchases I really do recommend
to use a credit card because it has
protections contained within the card
fraud protections it's very easy to call
the credit card company and get your
money back whereas an ATM card or debit
card you're going to have a little bit
more risk in that.
Yes so we go ahead and open up the poll?
Yes let's do that
So the first question go ahead and
answer YES or NO and we'll talk about
the answers to these later.
Can everyone see it okay?
Again go ahead and just
click with your mouse yes or no
Very curious to see what people answer
this.
Everyone voted? So how many voted ?
So far we have 11 out of 14. Three more people
were waiting on
If there are no more we'll go ahead
We have one no all right
interesting maybe 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 and it's done.
Now in general when you open a
credit card it does hit your create a
can hit your credit there's a soft
full and a hard poll when you open a
credit card it's going to show up on
your credit score and will have some
impact but how much of an impact depends
on whether it's a soft pull or a hard
pull hard pull is for something like
you're buying a car you're buying a
house they're going to do a hard pull on
your credit but it's only there for
about 20 or 30 days however if you
opened a card after card after card over
a short period of time then they're
gonna say something's wrong with this
person why are they opening so many
cards and that's going to impact your
credit score much more harshly.
Alright let's see the next slide okay
Go ahead and read through
Okay let me back up for a second
Should I go ahead and show the answers to the poll
No I signed the answers.
You don't want to see what
percentages said yes or no?
Everyone said yes except for
one person on the first question
and everyone said yes on the second so we
are okay so we don't need to show the poll
So now we're gonna go on and
talk about cash our cashless
So generally we don't recommend you carry
cash around with you every day it's
better to use a credit cards because if
you lose the cash that's gone if you
know how much cash you need for that day
for example going out to eat you just
need to carry a little bit of cash with
you that's fine. But in general you
want to leave that at home and you'll
want to use your card in exchange if
something happens your card is taken or
lost you can call real quickly and get
it cancelled and you can generally get
that money back for any an authorized use.
You just have to make sure you
report it fast so that you can get that
card stopped and you can do that
generally online or through a phone call
the bank will then help you to investigate
all the uses and get your cash back
So go ahead and read your
bank statement every time you get it because that
also is going to give you a summary of
every place you've used your money
whereas if you're using cash on a daily
basis you're easily going to forget and
probably lose the receipts Now one other
thing that's mentioned on the PowerPoint
is about using cash in case of emergency
yes you do want to keep some cash on you
but not a large amount you just want to
have that emergency cash available in
case you need it let me go ahead and
pull up the next slide
We will take a moment to read through
that slide and then I'll speak to it
Alright I'll talk a little bit about
what's good debt versus bad debt debt
can have a purpose and it can be
good or bad depending on the purpose
Bad debt is something like too much credit
card debt that will really impact your
credit score and pull it down so that is
an example of bad debt it doesn't add
value to your life an example of good
debt would be a mortgage for a house
because as you purchase a house it
should grow in value over time it takes
a while to to gain that percentage but
you do after you sell it have an amount
that you can then use for retirement or
to buy another house so that's adding to
your life it's adding value also taking
loans for college if you take a big loan
to get a degree but you don't finish and
then you do not have the benefit of that
degree but you still have this large
loan that can be bad debt and one of the
reasons it's so bad it's because even if
you filed for bankruptcy that student
loan debt doesn't necessarily get wiped
away it can however be good debt because
if you get the degree and you have a hot
a job that's in high demand like
engineering or IT where you know that
upon graduation you can get a job
well-paying job and you can pay off that
debt that would be an example of good
debt now a car loan can be good or bad
as well if you get a car loan for a car
but maybe it's a little bit out of your
price range it's more than you need for
your everyday transportation you know
maybe I want a big huge truck but that's
not exactly what I need that can be bad
debt what would you do if the next day
you woke up and that car was stolen and
you're stuck with that large loan
another example of good dad can be
starting up a business and taking out a
loan to grow your business as that
business grows you're adding value and
you're able to pay off that debt and
still have some profit leftover another
example of bad debt is when you use a
payday loan company to cash your
paychecks I recommend not doing that but
instead setting up a bank accounts and
deposit
it there because it's free you're not
paying that those fees to deposit your
money in a payday lender.
If you do have a large amount of loans and
debt you may want to look at a loan consolidation
company where they can consolidate all
of your loans and you pay one payment a
month to that company until it's paid
off another example of bad debt would be
taking a home equity loan on your house
say you have a house that is worth a
hundred thousand and you only owe fifty
thousand you could take a home equity
loan on the remainder but you don't want
to go and spend it on a huge TV or a
nice car that money really shouldn't be
spent on remodeling things that add
value to the house so that later when
you sell it you can pay off both of
those loans and still have extra the
other thing you don't want to do is take
out a loan in order to invest the stock
market can be volatile and if you lose
that money you still have to pay it back
now there may be a situation where you
have an illness or death in the family
or an emergency comes up where you have
to use a credit card that's fine just
make a plan to pay it off next slide
please
now we'll talk a little bit about
investments
looks good
all right
Now investing is a huge topic but I'll try
to summarize summarize it for you all
say you have an amount of money and
you'd like that money to grow for your
future stock market can be a good way
good mechanism to grow that money
however it's not guaranteed now ways of
investing one of them can be investing
for retirement and your employer may
offer a 401k or 403b pro program where
they match possibly what you're putting
in you can also set up an IRA an
individual retirement account where you
yourself save for your retirement so
there are different avenues for
investment you can invest with a
financial advisor and give them your sum
of money and then they manage it for you
they invest it for you people like Chase
or Wells Fargo can offer that you can
also do it yourself through apps like
Robin where you choose the stocks and
you invest every penny so those are two
options you can either have someone do
it for you or you can do it yourself as
far as the kinds of investments again
there are many different kinds and I
encourage you to research on this topic
but one of them are stocks . Stocks like
Amazon where you buy a stock in a
company and you hope that that company
then grows so then you can earn money
off of that stock another one is bonds
where you put your money you buy a bond
put your money in that bond for a period
of one to five years and the government
guarantees that you'll get that money
back plus interest
there are also ETFs exchange traded
funds and those are based on different
sectors of the economy so it can be US
economy can be Europe could be maybe the
IT sector and so what you can do is
rather than investing in many different
companies yourself
visually is you can invest in a sector
and they have many different stocks
within each sector that you're basically
investing in as you invest in that one
etf sector there's also mutual funds
which is very similar to ETS but it's a
more traditional way
so you're again investing over a long
term in several different companies so
because there are so many different
avenues for investing I encourage you to
do a little bit of research and find
which one best fits you and again there
are different levels of risk with all
investing and you'll have to analyze
your own personality and your personal
willingness to take on that risk before
you choose which path is right for you
if you would like your money to grow
slowly maybe not by as much as a more
volatile market and you're not willing
to take on as much risk you might look
at something like bonds if you are less
risk-averse you might invest in
something like pink chip where it's much
more volatile something like oil where
there's a lot more risk but there could
be a lot more reward as well and you
have to individually find which one fits
you best now the stock market is
basically it's made of us
it's made of buyers and sellers who come
together and trade and you can see as
you look at the stock market every day
it ebbs and flows and it those ads and
flows are based on what people feel the
economy how the economy stands whether
it's doing well or not whether they feel
it will do well in the future or not and
it's based on the mood of the people who
are investing which are you and me those
who buy and sell every day we influence
the stock market and if people don't
have faith in the economy then it will
go down the stock market will go down if
people have faith and feel the economy
is going upward the stock market also
will go upward and again I encourage you
there's lots of books and lots of
websites on this if you would like to find more information there's a wealth of it out there
Next slide please.
Should we do the poll first?
We have a second poll now.
All right question number two says do
you have a one to three month emergency
fund or I'm sorry three to six month emergency fund where would you put that money
What do you all think what would you do with that money
so it's number two is it should be a
Second one number two mm-hmm
that's thesecond question
Do you see the survey can you
see the comments on chat
So focus on question number two answer
just question number
two should we redo it or just go ahead
Yes just go ahead and click on the second question
Do you mind going ahead and clicking
through show the results when you answer
So now if you have a three to six month
fund and you are trying to figure out
what to do with it
it's better to put that in a savings
account rather than invested in stock
market you want to have it accessible if
you or your family gets sick and you
need to take that money out better to
have that in a savings account or a CD
rather than a long-term investment where
it's not as easy to get it out.
Yeah but
okay oh wait I just recommend you
remember hold up. Okay let me add to that
remember when you make a withdraw from a
CD there are going to be penalties so we
recommend if you need to be able to
withdrawal that money you put it in
savings or a money market if you have it
in the stock market and it begins to
crash you have to remember the risks
that are associated with that so if you
need to be able to access that money
it's better have it in savings our money
market account so let's move over onto
the next slide so now we're going to
focus on Employment
okay
So now with Corona Virus we've seen a
huge hit to the economy and to
employment over 40 million people have
applied for unemployment benefits and
you can see Charles will expand more on
that in a moment but the unemployment
benefits the government gives you a
small amount to help lift you up during
this time since the middle of March
we've seen a huge increase in those
numbers that means unemployment has gone
from 4.4 percent in March to 14.7% it
has recently gone down a little bit
since that so a lot of employees are now
working from home and they're seen
benefits from working at home instead of
having to travel to an office but it's
also been a huge change now the
government has decided to send out a
stimulus that's to help people - whether
it's for whatever they need for travel
anything they might need to spend it on
it's basically to support the economy
and begin to lift it back up so let's go
onto the next slide just a moment please
okay here we go
Let's take a moment to skim this and
I'll be going into more depth on these
We good? Good all right now as someone
who's usually employed I never give much
thought to unemployment but with this
whole pandemic I decided to research it
as I've gotten lots of questions about
it so unemployment is state-based each
state has a fund where they collect
taxes from employers based on their
employee salaries and it's all put into
this fund this is not something that you
as the employee pay the employer pays
this for each of their workers the state
collects this tax into an unemployment
fund and with the passage of the cares
Act they've actually added a second
program for those who typically would
not be not qualify for unemployment
those who work for Uber or Lyft or
Doordash or organizations like that they
are now eligible for what's called PUA
pandemic unemployment assistance which
is a version of unemployment that
typically people would not be eligible
for now in order to receive unemployment
you have to meet two criteria one is
that you had to have been laid off or
let go from your job or had your hours
reduced if that describes you you can
apply for unemployment insurance if you
quit or you are fired
or something at fault your own fault
then unfortunately you would not be
eligible for unemployment under normal
circumstances it's only if your business
was closed or you were laid off to at no
fault of your own and you claim
unemployment based on the state where
you work not where you live
so if you live in Virginia but you work
in DC you would apply for unemployment
in DC not in Virginia however your self
employed
and you work for Uber or Lift or one of
the food delivery companies then because
you are traveling over multiple states
you would apply in the state where you live
Now if you worked for a week and
then got laid off or quits you would not
normally be eligible for unemployment
you had to work for a longer period of
time six months to a year before you're
eligible now you do have to pay federal
tax on the unemployment you receive it's
about 10% plus state tax depending on
your state some do and some don't tax
unemployment now once you receive that
unemployment you do have to claim every
week and let them know that you're still
currently looking for a job you've gone
to a job fair and whatnot but you have
to claim that every week and then when
you find a new job you claim that and
your unemployment will stop next slide
Now this form that you see on the slide
this w - I'm sorry w-4 has undergone
some changes recently
so this w-4 2020 is the newly designed
version the old versions are now
obsolete and I'll talk to you about how
to fill this out now if you're a w-2
employer employee and you fill out a w-4
for your employer normally you would
fill out an exemption you know one two
three four having many exemptions you
want to claim that is no longer the case
now you just claim whether you're single
married or head of household and how
many children you have under 17
I'll show you the next slide you can see a
little bit more up close the types of
things that you'll need to fill out okay
go ahead and read the next slide
and that really spells out which fields
you'll need to fill out on the w-4 next
slide
okay let me explain the w-4
so it's pretty simple to fill out
obviously put your name your address
your social security number whether
you're married single or if you're a
single parent with children then you
would go as head of household and then
you'll mark whether or not your spouse
and you both have a job they want to
make sure that they're taking out the
right amount of taxes so that's
important to mark and then however many
children you have under the age of 17
because you will get a tax credit for
each of those children and if you also
are getting income on taxed from another
source and you want to make sure that
your tax is at your w-2 job are raised
enough to cover the other taxes then you
would denote that on your w-4 and then
you would give that to your HR
department and they would take out taxes
accordingly know if anything changes
about your situation maybe of a new
address you are newly married or newly
divorced you would need to fill out a
new updated w-4 so you do need to update
that periodically as your situation
changes alright let's look at the next
form this is the w9
so the w-9 is another popular form this
is for self-employed individuals
independent contractors you know artists
people who drive uber lyft an actor and
actress where they're working for one
time at different entities not for one
business all the time so with this you
would fill out your name or your
business name if you have one your
employer identification number your
address or your social security number
depending on which one you use if you
have a business you may have a business
ìin rather than your personal so it's
just social security number just depends
on your specific situation so again
you'll fill out your address and then
you'll sign it and you'll give it to the
entity who has requested it the one that
you are working for so say NV RC has
hired you as a contractor and they asked
you to fill this out then you would fill
it out and then give it back to mvrc and
again you fill it out similarly
similarly to the w-4 now even though
you're filling out the w9 it does not
mean that the entity is taking out your
taxes for you you are responsible for
your your own taxes and paying those to
state and federal so keep that in mind
next slide
so let me try and summarize a little bit
the differences between an employee and
a contractor and their positive and
negatives fellows as an employee you
have a boss over you who's your manager
you can receive benefits you have a set
salary as an independent contractor your
earnings can vary but you have a more
flexible schedule and you can make the
schedule as you choose you also are more
independent whereas as an employee you
have a boss to report to you can see in
the list there's some quite a few
benefits and negatives to both
situations let me go onto the next slide
money tips now there's a lot of them so
I'll try to condense these to you
there's lots of books that tell you how
to spend your money wisely - the money
isn't everything you may have a goal I
want to have a good life I want to have
a good house and of course money will
help you to achieve that goal but money
is self is not the goal money you can't
feed you you can't eat money money can
buy food for you but money is just a
point for you to help you get from point
A to point C money is that middle ground
to help you achieve your goals but you
but you have to remember that money is there to
keep your you and your family healthy
and to keep them safe money is not your
friend
money is a neutral old white guy on a
bill it is not your friends it may help
you to get what you need but money is
not the end-all be-all I do want to
emphasize risk and everything we do life
has risk there's risk and investments
there's risk and saving your money
there's risk and carrying your money
around but you personally have to
analyze whether what you're doing with
your money has risk and if you're
willing to accept that risk money it's
easy for money to slip through our
fingers and to lose opportunities
because we're not spending our money
wisely now as for the third bullet here
I'll see a lot of people who get raises
or get promotions and start earning more
money and they just start spending more
money as well I really encourage you to
save that additional percent that you've
gotten from your promotion and save more
rather than spend more rather than
buying that new TV add more sheer
retirement fund you can always enjoy
your life later buy those things later
but save first money is there to make
sure that you're safe in the event that
you lose your job or something comes up
now let Andaleeb talk more to this
another piece of advice is pay attention
to how you're spending your money each
month maybe through a budget a lot of
people have no experience with budgets
but it can really change your life it
provides you an automatic an itemized
list of everything you spend on so that
you can plan before you go out to the
restaurant you can do a little
evaluation to determine if maybe it
would be better to bring food home and
cook it also allows you to prepare to research
before you make purchases
maybe go online and really quickly
checking before you buy something in a
store just I recommend you do some
research online to do some comparison
shopping it helps you better control
your money so that you don't overspend
it really will empower you to better
plan your money and not get so worried
about how your money is being spent in
the long term ok
okay let me switch over yeah there's a
whole list of different scams that are
out there but I'm just gonna go over the
few that I really see hitting the deaf
community one of them being getting
calls from people claiming to be Social
Security asking you for your social
Social Security number
now just so you know the Social Security
Administration will always mail you a
letter first before they ever call you
so if you've gotten a letter from them
and someone calls you you can expect
that that's probably legit there's also
stories of people calling claiming to be
the police or the FBI and saying that
someone's going to come get you if you
don't pay this bill now again they will
send you a letter first so if someone is
just calling you out of the blue it is
not to be believed
there are also scams playing on natural
disasters calling they're called
grandparent scams and so what will
happen is someone will call and say that
they're a relative of yours and they're
trapped in this disaster and they need
money so what you do is instead of
believing that that's the person that's
your relative you need to text your
relative to contact them through
Facebook or another means and make sure
that they really are in trouble and if
not obviously you can ignore it
if they are you can help so if you get
calls from anyone saying give me money
and you haven't gotten a letter and you
haven't gotten any other communication
from them don't believe it
now there's another big scam especially
with senior citizens where someone will
call and say you have not paid your
doctor's bill and you need to pay it
right now on the phone you know if
someone is not sure that they paid their
bill they might be tricked into paying
and then the person just has your money
you can't get it back so what you can do
instead is say please resend me that
bill and then I will pay it once I get
it but do not make the payment through
the phone to a person you don't know
there are also many online scams so if
you are attempted to purchase something
online make sure that you do your due
diligence and research it and do a
comparison shopping before you buy
something online there's also the
anti-aging creams you know that say oh
look you look 20 years younger I see
that a lot nowadays no it does not work
you can ask your doctor they'll tell you
the same thing
you may
have nice shiny skin but it's not
changing anything about the internal
structure of your body to make you
younger
there's also email phishing scams where
they will email you and say please click
on this button download this thing and
it really is a scam it's going to
download something you don't want on
your phone or on your computer make sure
that if you get an email that looks a
little fishy Google it Google that
company Google something about the email
and see if it's a scam there are also
video phone scams that are really
targeting deaf people someone will call
and start asking personal questions and
claimed it there from Sorenson and often
people believe them and so they'll go
ahead and give them personal information
now I want you to be careful if someone
calls you and says is there from
Sorenson don't necessarily believe them
straight off do some research I also see
a lot of lottery scams where people will
say hey I got an email I won the lottery
but they haven't even played the lottery
you have to go and you have to take your
numbers on a ticket you have to purchase
the lottery ticket in order to win you
haven't done all that and you get a call
that you want to lottery ignore it
there's also a lot of social media
Facebook Instagram see a lot of this
false information in these videos that
are are spliced together to show things
that are not true
make sure again that you're doing your
due diligence and you're checking that
information because people can scam you
out of that money and there's no way to
get it back I also see people calling
and saying hey I'm from a church or a
religious organization please donate
some money you want to ask them for
their name and their EIN# before you do
that so you can do a little bit of
research and make sure they're a
legitimate organization there's also the
MLMs the pyramid schemes where people
have their friends or their family join
the business underneath them so they can
make some money
make sure you again do due diligence and
research that before you are tempted to
join any of those schemes so again I
can't stress this enough to please just
check it's your money and you need to
protect it so before you give it away or
spend it make sure that you understand
what's going on and take the time to
wait don't be impulsive
okay
All right I know you're thinking
hard about these poll questions okay
that's the end we want to open up for
any questions you can either open your
video to ask the question or you can use
the chat field to ask you a question
either way and one person I saw just
commented about scams he said that
sometimes people will call and say hey
I'm your relative I need help
and you'll say sorry ki let me say it
again sure let me repeat myself
so they'll call and they'll say hey I
need some help and the person answering
the phone will say oh is this bill and
the scammer will say yes of course this
is Bill you're giving them a name so
make sure that you're not accidentally
giving them more information that they
can use against you so ask them
something that they should know and if
they obviously can't answer that
question it's not the person you think
it is on the phone any other question
I see one here okay TSP versus Roth sure
so now TSP is only for federal employees
TSP stands for the Thrift Savings Plan
and they're actually two different kinds
there's a traditional and a Roth TSP and
which of those you choose depends on
when you joined the federal government
if you just joined I would recommend
using a Roth because you pay taxes now
but the money is then free to you later
when you retire you don't have to pay
taxes on it however if you've been
working for the government for a long
time I would not recommend using the
Roth because time is not on your side I
would recommend using a traditional
traditional TSP another question I see
here in the chat says I'm a contractor
can I also set up a retirement account
and you sure can it's called a SEP
self-employment plan step IRA so if you
own your own business you can set up a
SEP IRA and put money in that every
month or as you get money you can put a
portion of that you can put up to 25
percent of your salary into the SEP IRA
and again that's from your business
income there's also a simple IRA that
they have so there's a couple different
options for those in your situation
again I would recommend you talk to your
financial advisor about which one best
suits your situation So final questions
anyone Please if there's anything on
your mind I'd love to answer your
questions
I guess not
that's great thank you everyone
Sure and if you know anyone who missed tonight's
presentation let them know that it will
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YouTube thank you everyone who joined
and we really appreciate it have a
wonderful day