Glenn's Near Death Experience From The Other Week

In this episode Glenn Leest gives an account of almost dying due to a severe bacterial and viral infection about 2 weeks ago. Glenn spent 4 days in the ICU at FMC and was out of the office for almost 2 weeks. 

• What caused the infection and why was it so dangerous.
• My airway swelling almost completely shut
• My experience at FMC and why I am thankful to all who helped administer care at the hospital. The entire team there was nothing short of amazing when it came to my care. My daughter drew a picture thanking everyone for taking care of her Daddy.
• Why this near death experience helped me shift my perspective on the things that matters most in life.
• Cody and I also talk about interest rates and their impact on home buyers
• Why our high cost of energy is compounding our inflation issues.
• We also talk about how policies affect the economy
• Flagstaff minimum wage is going to $16.80 in Jan of 2023. What impact will higher wages have on our community, cost of living and food prices?

Glenn Leest
Senior Investment Adviser
928-225-2474 Office
GLEEST@WTWEALTHMANAGEMENT.COM

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Senior Investment Advisor
WT Wealth Management
Office Phone: (928) 225-2474 Office
Email: intelligentinvesting@wtwealthmanagement.com

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Transcript

Welcome to Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest. In today's episode, I'm going to give you a quick update of what has been going on in my life over the last few weeks, has been quite the journey, so stay tuned. Going to be a great episode.

All right, I'm here in the studio. Me and Cody again, burning the midnight oil. Just rocking and rolling. We had an early, early appointment today, and then just a whole bunch of work and, uh, we're working on Black Friday. What, what are we doing here? I don't know what we're doing here. You know what? Okay. I will say that we did get some shopping done online.

I got a couple different things that I ordered and stuff, but, um, I want to talk today about, uh, the episode today. I want to really talk about kind of what's been going on in my life in the last couple weeks, and, and normally I don't, um, Share too much. But I, uh, I almost died a couple weeks ago and it was, uh, a little bit scary.

I, um, to give you kind of background, I, um, on like a Tuesday night, I came home and, um, went to go sleep and just wasn't feeling good and ended up not sleeping the whole night. And then I just, uh, Throat started to swell up and be super sore, couldn't drink, couldn't eat, you know, was having a hard time breathing and, uh, tried to just kind of wade through it, you know, take some ibuprofen rests and all that.

But by the, the following day, my, um, oxygen stats had gotten, Down into the seventies range, which normally they're in like a 94, 95. And so I was getting what's called hypoxic, meaning I was not able to get enough air and uh, and so I just, my told my wife I need to go to the hospital. And, uh, so we packed up and got me to go to the hospital real quick and, uh, my mom came over and watched the kids real quick, uh, and.

Got into the ER pretty, pretty quickly there. I will have to, I have to say FMC is amazing. They, uh, I'll be singing their praises. I, I used to work for them about a decade plus ago, um, but they just got a great outfit, so got checked in and, um, they just started doing scans and tests and they basically said my airway was swelling shut.

And we were like, why? Why is my airway swelling shut? What's going on? They're like, we don't know we're going to keep doing tests. But, you know, they, they bring, they brought in a specialist, which is like the, um, respiratory tech or respiratory doctor, and they came in and they said, Hey, we want to in-tubate you right now.

Um, we just did a scan of your, your, um, windpipe and it's a. Little under three millimeters wide when it's supposed to be 20. So that's like, uh, , that's like a tiny little straw. And so they're like, no wonder why you're having a hard time breathing. So they're like, we want to in-tubate you, which means they take a breathing tube down your throat and breathe for you, uh, to protect your airway.

And, um, I was like, no way. Um, I, I don't want to be on a, you know, you know, breathing machine for a week. I know that that is very hard on your lungs and just, uh, very traumatic. Even when you have surgery, you know, it's only for like an hour where they breathe for you. And so, um, even that carries its risk.

So I just politely said, no. I, um, I don't want to do that. I am still breathing. Okay. They started giving me some, like antibiotics and corticosteroids to help bring down the swelling, and they basically said, we got to check you into the, I. Uh, for monitoring in case your throat swells up anymore, we're going to have to do a tracheotomy, and that's just the way it is.

So, uh, later that day I went another couple hours, I checked in the ICU and uh, I was there for four days and, uh, that was no fun at all. Um, being in the icu, I mean, I was very grateful that I got the care that I had, but it was a hard couple of days. Um, you know, everyone was really scared at how close I came.

I was getting really, really bad quickly. Uh, I lost a ton of weight, um, lost a ton of fluids and just, I looked like a wreck because I wasn't breathing and my body was fighting. And they, they eventually came back and, um, found out what the culprit was. It was what's called a super infection, which is a really nasty bacterial and a viral infection, kind of like a perfect storm.

And that was what was causing my airway to swell. So, You know, they put me on hardcore antibiotics via IV and, you know, start poking me, you know, every two seconds for blood draws and tests and scans. And it was just really hard. I actually, um, was bedridden for like four days straight. Like they did not in the icu.

Like, that is not a place where you're going to be roaming around and doing a whole lot. Uh, and actually went about five days without any food. So I got really emaciated and weak. I've never, never gone along, ever. Um, I think the longest I've ever gone without eating food was, Two days for fast. Um, but five days, man, that I was really shocked at how weak I got.

Uh, and they didn't want to feed me food because my airway was like swelling shut still. So even when I was at the hospital, , yeah, they, they give you the menu, but I couldn't order anything. I think at, at the last day, they finally let me order something and it was like, it had to be pureed, like, looked like baby food.

Um, but I was happy just to be able to consume something, get some energy back. So, um, I, I guess, you know, in retrospect it really made me kind of reevaluate some things and, uh, realize what's truly important. I, I think when I was in the hospital, You know, for those couple of days, you know, my wife was there the whole time and then my parents came and saw me, a couple friends.

It, um, it was really kind of challenging for me to kind of process through what just happened because I came so close to not making it and. Then, you know, got really weak and, and really just challenging. Um, you know, I was really surprised after four days I tried to stand up and I literally couldn't stand up, you know, it was just, I was so weak and I like muscles were all cramping because they hadn't been used.

So I feel bad for like those uh, those astronauts that go in space, you know, because I get this massive muscle atrophy. So I think I was there for four days in ICU and then they sent me home and um, I was then at home another five days just recovering and super week then. Not able to eat, you know, barely able to drink anything because my, my throat was so swollen and it was so painful.

Like it was like 10 out of 10 pain. Um, but one of the things I thought was really kind of cool is, um, the modern, uh, modern 21st century chemistry, right? So, You know, the medical field, while it can be expensive, if you ever have to do a check in to an ICU stay, they've got so many cool tools and medicines and things to help, you know, help you work through things.

I was really impressed. I mean, I was a paramedic years ago, but I just forgot like how much they can do. That's no matter like what you're dealing with or what you got going on, they probably got a medicine or a drug to help with that. And so, um, yeah, got home and rested for another four or five days and, um, You know, I, I had one of my coworkers just fill in for me.

He's, um, on my team, and I just said, Hey, look, if any clients call, um, you know, talk to them, you know, and, uh, let them know I'll be back soon. But it was, it was just really challenging and it made me like, look at my priorities and say, you know, yes, my career is important and I want to do well and excel on that.

But at the end of the day, like, you know, we, you know, Blink of an eye, you know, something like that can happen and radically change your life. And so, um, made me really want to spend more time with the family and to, um, enjoy, you know, the things I do have in my life and be grateful a lot more. So I definitely came out of the hospital a lot more grateful,  for all the things that I can do.

Like I can go work out, I can, you know, breathe and walk on my own. I can, and I've got everyone else in the family's healthy. So it's just kind of a perspective shift, but I. Pretty dramatic for sure. Um, and, uh, just really challenging. And then they, um, the thing that's been the hardest about it is they, uh, they still have me on a, they use really high doses of corticosteroids to bring the systemic swelling down and it kind of put your body in overdrive and so you don't get any sleep

So I've been, uh, kind of burned the candle at both ends, not sleeping very much. Like last night I didn't even, I didn't even sleep at all. I just was up the whole night and then came into work. So still functioning later in the day. I don't know how I'm doing that. So Cody shaking his. You're used to it, something.

But yeah, so it's just been a kind of a wild ride and, um, kind of just wanted to share, you know, kind what was going on. Cause I know a lot of my clients that, you know, if they called in or, you know, they may have heard from my office administrator, Glen's in the hospital, but that was probably the extent of what they heard.

So, um, you know, a couple of my clients that they, um, have called them and talked to them about what's going on, just answer any questions. But it was just kind of a, a crazy couple of weeks there and. So anyways, I'm alive. I'm, well, I'm back to, back to being better. And um, you know, at the end of the day, you know, your investments and your money.

Um, we want to be good stewards of it, but at the end of the day, it's not the end all solve all. Like, that's something I really realized that, uh, I wasn't worried about what my hospital bill was going to be. I wasn't worried about my investments. I wasn't worried about, you know, whatever. I was just like, Hey, you know what?

I want to be alive and well and healthy. And there's always more money to be made, you know, down the road. So I know some people struggle with that. Like, oh, I don't want to go to the hospital because it's so expensive. You're like, yeah, but if you don't go to the hospital, it maybe get really bad for you. Like, yes, take the ambulance.

Like, you know, if you need it, take it. Like, if you need the care, get the care. Because you know your health is one thing that once you lose it, it becomes very hard to get back. So anyways, Cody, uh, you are in your last semester of school. Yes, I am three weeks left. Looking forward to it. Three weeks left. Cody Cody's been sharing in the agony of, uh, he, he's been doing a couple all-nighters too with his last, uh, couple, uh, final projects and whatever.

So, uh, we, we both have not been getting a whole lot of sleep lately, . So maybe tonight I'll get some sleep. But, um, anyways, um, the other thing I wanted to cover in today's episode is just. How important it is for us to invest in our own health, uh, whether that be our physical health, our emotional health, our mental health, um, because they're all intertwined.

Um, if someone is. Mentally not doing well, it's going to affect them physically. And then if they're emotionally not doing well, that's going to affect them physically and mentally too. And so it's so important for us to take time for ourselves. Um, and that's something I've struggled with over the last year and I've really tried to make progress in it to say, Hey, I've got.

Time set aside for me, you know, for me to be the best version of me, for me to decompress, de-stress. Um, I've actually been a really big fan of having a coach in your corner, you know, mentor, a coach, a advocate, a therapist, whatever you want to call it, um, has been huge to just. Have someone that's on your team that just says, Hey, I want to help you be the best version of you.

And sort through things, sort through what's going on in your life, sort through the, the ups and the downs and the challenges. And so that's something that I've really tried to take charge of over the last year saying I want, I need to consistently, you know, be doing all those things to take care of my physical health, my emotional health, my mental health, um, because this job is very, Stressful at times, especially in 2022.

It's been a wild ride in the market and um, a lot of those things are beyond our control. You know, I don't control the market and, uh, some of my clients, you know, hopefully they understand that I don't control the market too. I've had some clients that over the years, they're like, well, you know, why aren't we making money?

I'm like, well, cause the whole market's down. Like, there's got to be something out there. I'm like, I'm all ears. If you know something, I'd love to hear about it. Um, so anyways. Yeah, so back at the office, we are recording our episodes. I'm excited. We got a whole month of great guests coming up. I've got really four or five amazing guests on the show that'll be on.

So you want to stay tuned for our next couple episodes. Uh, we're also, uh, kind of, I'm going to give you guys a quick little market update about what's going on, what's going on with our portfolios too. Um, we have been actively trying to. Forecast what's going on in the economic world. And it's, um, definitely been challenging.

One of the biggest challenges we've been facing, I think as a nation and as people, is rising interest rates. That has really been a hard, um, hard thing for us to, to deal with. And, and, and in one way to think about it is if you were to go get a mortgage this time last year, you're probably at like three, three and a quarter percent.

Well, now you're at eight, eight and a quarter. That same house, uh, today was the exact same price, say 400,000, you know, last year or 400,000 this year, just for comparison. Um, that extra interest rate probably doubled your payments. That's, that's how much. So what that's doing is those higher interest rates are really making it.

More challenging for individuals to be homeowners. Um, they have to come up with more cash down. They have to, um, you have a higher payment, uh, each month. And so the idea with them raising interest rates is to, uh, slow, slow growth, you know, and make it more expensive to borrow. And when it's more expensive to borrow because, cause, okay, so if you had two different scenarios where you said, Hey, okay, I can get a loan for 30 years at 1%.

Or I can get a loan for 30 years. At 30%, you're going to say, I want the 1% loan. Like, that's hardly any interest at all. And, and, but yet the 30% man that is going to be just crushing, you know, to ever pay that off. So, you know, the, the amount that the interest that you pay makes a huge difference. And especially on something like housed, it just has really been challenging into the real estate market.

We've seen house prices come down 15 20% from their highs early this year, and I, I really think that the higher interest rates have had a huge. They've, they've played a huge role in making that, you know, uh, harder for individuals to qualify, qualify for a home, or maybe they can only afford certain payment per month, and so they have to bring down what they're going to be paying for a house.

And so the sellers, in order to actually sell the house, may have to bring down the listing price to, you know, actually be able to have someone buy it. So it's been just kind of an interesting environment. We've still seen our gas prices and energy prices just keep soaring, you know, they, they got better for a little bit.

Right back up to, I want to say it was like four 50 a gallon in Flagstaff. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it got to the height of like, 5 20, 5 30 maybe, and they maybe dropped into the threes and now it's still back up into the four. So the, the price of energy really impacts so many things when you think about it. So, uh, just drive down the I 40, drive down the I 17 and you'll realize how much of our, our infrastructure is, is transportation via big Ricks, and they all run off of diesel and they all run off of gasoline.

They're, they're not solar powered. So if your price of. Fuel goes up, you're going to have to charge more for transporting it, and that's ultimately going to be passed on with whatever product you're selling with a higher price for that. So, um, the, the energy issues have really been compounding the inflation inflationary, um, you know, challenges that we've been facing.

So, um, I know that every time I go to the store, It's like, how much was that again? ? It seems like it's another 10% since the last six months. Everything is just going up and up and up. So I hope that we start to look to do more, um, more sound energy policies. Because I think what, two years ago, three years ago, we were enter net exporter, meaning we are energy independent and we're no longer that way right now.

Um, I think the current administration has. Authorized the least amount of gas and oil exploration permits in the last like 60 years. So they've really trimmed it back. Wow. Um, and, and I, I'm not opposed to going green and renewable energies, um, but I think it all has to take place. Um, and it has to be in a timeline that, that makes sense for the individuals.

If you just force everyone to go into electric cars overnight, that could really cause some serious disruptions in the economy. Um, like I said, they don't, all the big rigs drive gas and diesel. You know, I don't see any solar ones out there or battery powered ones yet. I mean, I'm sure they are, but they're just not mainstay.

So the, the energy prices have really been rising, um, and even internationally, the, um, Russia and Ukraine has been a huge. Uh, catalyst for the higher energy prices. It's kind of like we haven't been exporting and drilling a lot, plus, uh, Russia hasn't been exporting a lot, um, to other nations. Cause other nations have block hated them.

So, um, it's really put a crunch like the EU is really just struggling with, uh, with their prices for energy. They've just gotten, uh, just insane and. We're just now coming into winter season too, so who knows, you know what the extent of natural gas and, and heating costs are going to be this wintertime, but it definitely going to be a, I think a rude awakening for sure.

Makes me glad I have a wood stove at least that way I can chop up the wood, throw in the fireplace and man, does that thing keep the house warm? I actually got it installed. Last winter from, uh, wizard's Hearth and Home came in, installed it, and they just did an amazing job. And, uh, that fire man, it just, it heats, it's like the 2000 square foot house.

It'll get the whole house toasty. Wow. Um, get it up to like 73, 74 almost, where you're like sweating inside. Um, and then the nice thing is you just store wood outside and you just cover it and it's, you know, it's, uh, stays, stays, uh, Flammable or stays usable for, for a while. So anyways, that was just, I think when we first moved into our house, we moved in the middle of winter and the heater went out.

It was like a brand new house and something was wrong with the heater. And so for like two or three days, we didn't have heat and it was, we had little space heaters, but it was so unbearably cold without central heat. And we didn't have a stove at the time, and it was just like almost unlivable, like I was genuinely concerned.

Um, but we had already moved out of our other house, and so I don't even know how that. Was maybe there was an inspection done or the contractor said he installed it but didn't. I don't know what the story was in that, but I just remember that being a very cold couple nights until we got it fixed. They actually, I know what happened is, um, the thermostat went out, so we replaced a thermostat.

and then heater still wasn't working, so we replaced a CPU on the, on the heater, uh, cause it's a natural gas and that still didn't work, still didn't cause anything to go right. And then we looked underneath the house and none of the ducts were connected. So they, they had put the ducts down underneath the house, but never actually connected them to go underneath the house and be able to fil trade out the air through the different rooms.

So it was like a week, week and a half before we got heat and. Anyways, that, that was when I was like, okay, we got to have a, a wood burning stove. So that way at least I've got a backup plan, or I've actually been thinking about maybe doing like a, um, a electric generator so you can buy a generator and have it linked into your power system so that way if your electricity goes out, You can just have gasoline or diesel throwing the generator, turn the generator on, at least your, your, um, basic appliances will still work.

Your refrigerator's not going to go bad sort of thing. So I, I may look at doing that because I think that's a far more effective way to bridge the gap in case a power goes out. I think those systems are like 1500, $2,000, so they're not insane. Whereas a whole solar system with the panels and the battery's going to be like 20, $30,000, which I kind of mentioned that too.

We. Yeah, the week we had a client come in and um, he'd been listening to our show in podcasts and was like, you know, you guys seem pretty cool. I want to talk to you about my investments. And he's been a serial entrepreneur for years. He actually used to live in Great Britain and then came to America and he is like, he said something that was interesting.

He says, America is truly the land of opportunity. He says, me being able to be this successful in Britain just wasn't going to happen. Um, and I was like, really? Well, what do you mean? He said, One. One example is the rules about, um, rental properties. He says in that country, in order to have a rental property, you have to pay cash 100% that you cannot borrow on a rental property.

Whereas in America, you can totally borrow money and have a rental property. Aside from your primary living, living situation, as long as you can qualify for the loan. But in Britain, they just don't allow it. So in, in talking together with him, he had run a biodiesel company and I was like, wait, what? What, what, what do you mean biodiesel?

And so, They would basically take the, the grease from restaurants and, uh, refine it and turn it into fuel. And so you could actually pour it into your gas tank as long as the car was set up for it. Um, I think that's how it works. And then you can burn it as a, uh, fuel source, like, um, I think they call it like ethanol is like one version of it.

Um, and so that was interesting just talking to him about that. I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. And uh, he was saying, For a while, his company was being subsidized by the state governments, and so the state government would basically pitch in X amount of dollars, uh, per gallon that they produced of this biodiesel.

And he says it really disrupted the market because they would sell the, the, the gallon of biodiesel pretty much at cost. They weren't even trying to make a profit. But because they got those like dollar per gallon subsidies, they were making a killing. So sometimes when you have government interventions and trying to promote policy, sometimes they can really, you know, have some weird, you know, weird effects on, on way things go.

Um, but also the other thing that he said he had done is he had a, um, a solar panel system. Set up in his, um, he had like a business in Cottonwood and they set up this massive solar, uh, solar, um, system, uh, out there. I want to say. He said it was like some absurd amount, like 500 or $600,000. It was like a crazy amount of panels, like, like couple hundred panels out there.

And, um, he said at the time they, um, they were offering incentives at the state level. I think it was like 10 years ago where, The federal government or the state would reimburse you half of your front costs to install the solar. So even though it was like a half a million dollar job, I think he was only in it for 250,000.

Then he borrowed the money to float that money through, and then, um, the, the system was actually generating electricity and feeding it back into the system as well. And they're making money off of that. So he. In the last 10 years, he's probably made, you know, a couple million dollars of just electricity alone.

And so he is paid all that loan back. Plus now, you know, the, you know, things just kicking off energy. So it's kind of a cool, cool little thing I was like listening, hearing about. And so, uh, I want to have him on the show and talk about just, uh, fuel and energy and what's going on there. Cause I find that stuff pretty interesting.

Um, Yeah. Like who would've thought like people would be, uh, using grease, you know, filtered grease to, to run their cars, but kind of cool. Kind of cool. So, um, yeah, been a kind of crazy week. Um, some of the things that we're doing in our portfolio is we're really looking at, um, Our commodities exposure and saying, you know, what is the type of commodities we want to have the most exposure in?

Um, we're really excited about, um, petroleum, natural gas, timber, wheat, steel, coffee, soy sugar. I mean those are all, and even some flour, oil. Um, I think it's sunflower. Sunflower oil. Um, but it's a, um, uh, a really big part of all foods. If you look at ingredients, it's like a, um, it kind of helps the, I think it helps it bind together and have stickiness.

But I think they said, uh, I heard somewhere like, uh, Ukraine produces like 80% of the world's, you know, sunflower oil. So if they're not able. Consistently farm, consistently produce, you know, watch out for your food prices, they're going to go up because that, that one component of it's expensive. So, um, we're really trying to look at how do we take advantage of that and how do we make money for our clients.

Um, we we're waiting to see how the midterm elections go and those are kind of come and gone. Um, did all the states, did everything figured out yet I was kind of like unplugged for two weeks. But they still have a few states that they're still investigating into seeing what happened there. And Arizona found out.

Right. And we're, we're all done or are they still investigating? They're still investigating. I saw a thing go. Yeah, I, uh, I was like, I haven't heard one way or the other. So, um, you know, I think that that does play a big part in what we do because, um, I, I tell this to clients. I say, Hey, look, you're not, you don't necessarily pay me for my political opinions, but politics and who's in office.

They implement policies and policies affect the economy and the economy affects the stock market. So, um, we do have to pay attention to who is, who's in charge and making rules and who's making policies because they have a dramatic effect. I mean, sometimes, uh, a good, you know, A, a policy that may seem good on the surface can have an absolute, like, just awful unintended consequences.

Like one of them I think is, um, uh, a hard one I've always struggled with of justifying like, why people don't understand why this is not a good idea, is the, this really high minimum wage in Flagstaff. So it wasn't that long ago that Flagstaff had like an $8 minimum wage. I think it was like four or five years ago.

Um, and now come January it'll be 1680 an hour, which. Insane. I remember being a paramedic and maybe making 12 bucks an hour  like 10 years ago, and I thought that was good money. And sometimes I get 13 or 14 picking up, you know, overtime or night shift. And so, um, this, this whole movement of we need to increase our minimum wage.

Sounds good on the surface. Yeah. Who doesn't want more money? That's not necessarily how it always works. If you just increase the wages that you're forced to pay your employees, well, then what else do you have to do for your business to keep afloat? Well, you have to either cut back hours or. Charge more for your goods and services or give less of the good and service.

And so that's just a compounding problem. And if you want to have a reality check, go to, uh, go out to eat Flagstaff, pay the bill, and then go somewhere that you know is maybe cheaper. Like you go down to Phoenix or Tempe or even outside of the state and you find, wow, things are a lot cheaper. And so as that minimum wage is lower, you can expect to probably have lower food costs and lower, uh, you know, dining costs.

But when it's $16 an. 1680. That's almost 17 bucks an hour. That's insane. Um, and that's the minimum that you can pay someone. Well, what about the people that are, have more skills? Like what if you have a chef that when the minimum wage was $8 an hour, you're paying 16, so you're double the minimum wage.

Right. And then the last five years, now he's back to minimum wage. So minimum wage implies that they have minimal job skills. Right? Because if you had more job. They're going to not going to pay you minimum wage. And I've heard people say, oh, well, companies can get away with paying you less. You're like, no, we have a free market.

If you've got job skills and abilities, the market will reward you accordingly. Um, the more that you have, the better you can problem solve, the better you can work together as a team. The the bigger. You know, the more creative ways you have to go about, you know, solving people's issues or, you know, concerns, usually the more you get paid, you know, I heard one person say that is the, the amount of money that you usually make is directly tied to how big of problems you're able to solve for people.

So I was like, really interesting. So think about like an attorney. Um, you maybe getting some legal trouble and you hire this turning. Paying him out the wazo and you know, they're able to defend you and really represent you well and make it so you don't, you know, maybe you're falsely accused of something and maybe, you know, you pay that attorney 20, 30, $40,000, but it made, it made the difference between you going to jail for two or three years and you not going to the jail.

So that's what I'm saying. That was a big problem. Right. You falsely accused of something. Yes. You know, if someone come in and solve that problem and help work through that, I'm going to be willing to. You know, pay, pray quite well. So yeah, just the whole minimum wage thing has really been challenging because I've seen the price of food in Flagstaff go up tremendously.

It used to. Not that long ago, you could probably go out to eat and get, you know, get a decent meal for 8, 9, 10 bucks. Um, sometimes like seven. Um, and now like you're looking at 15, 20 bucks per person for that same meal. Um, it's just gotten more expensive and, and I've gotten used to it over the years, but still it's just.

Take a family of five out and um, like, well, it's either is either we go out to Outback Steak House or you guys go to college. We can't do both . Yeah. So that's one of those things where it sounds good on the surface, like paying people more, but everything just goes up and costs relatives. So, um, Now that people are making 1680 an hour, their rents have not gone down.

Their rents have gone up and exploded over the last couple years because now everything's more expensive. Now it's more expensive to live here. It's, uh, goods and services are more expensive and, and that floor raises it for everyone. So, like I was saying, with that chef that had more skills, you can't just keep paying them 16 bucks an hour.

Um, when you used to make double minimum wage, you have to bump them up to like, what would it be, 32 bucks an hour to have the same. So it's just, it, it just makes it more expensive for everyone, including business owners. And my heart really goes out to the business owners that are having to deal with this.

And, um, I've always wondered, so Flagstaff is, I live outside city limits. So I live in Kachina Village, right? And I can't vote in any city measures. I'm not allowed to. And I'm like, wait, my address says Flagstaff. Why am I not allowed to vote? Like I pay taxes. I have a business here. I, this is my town, but yet I have no voice.

And there's a lot of actually communities that are like that in the. Flagstaff Air, I think Tony Park Bayville, right? They zone them out. Kachina Village. Yeah. They just, they're not within the city bound. So they can vote on county measures, but they can't vote on city measures. So like, I have no, no voice in who represents me as the mayor or the city council or some of the propositions at the city level.

So like, I, I always wondered if you incorporated those other areas and they could vote, would they have voted differently on the minimum wage issue? Um, would they have said no? You know, this isn't the solution. This is going to make things worse. We've seen this over and over again. I, I believe that a lot of the problems, um, can be solved with creating more industry.

And the free market is a great, it's not a perfect system, but it's a pretty darn good system, right? You think about how the free market works. Um, I've got $5 and I'm hungry, and Cody has a sandwich and he is not hungry. But he wants to make some money. And I say, Hey, I am hungry. Let me give you $5 for that sandwich.

And you say, great, you know, I want to get $5 for the sandwich and we make this exchange and everyone's happy. Right? Right. Um, that's how industry and commerce should work, is it's a win-win for both people. It's not like one's getting this lopsided deal and getting taken advantage over the other person.

But, um, you think about people in the past that have really solved big problems. Usually get paid really well. Like Bill Gates, um, one of the wealthiest men in the world, he brought computing into the home, right? And really helped bring that to the, uh, make it so it's an everyday thing. Like people could have computers and, and it be palpable.

They're not just like these big things in a storage room somewhere. So, um, one of the richest men in the world. And, um, so he solved a lot of problems or, you know, all that. So anyway, so, um, uh, we're going to have some guests on next week talking about, Mental health. I got a nurse practitioner that's coming in that runs a mental health clinic.

That'd be fun to, to talk to him about mental health issues. We also have, um, someone that runs a veterinarian clinic that'll be on the show next week that I've known for a while and just ask him, Hey, you know, you're a small business owner. What is it like in Flagstaff and what are some of the challenges?

What are some of the things that have worked out pretty well? And, you know, how have you had to adapt in the last four or five years? Because, you know, they have a. Pretty big labor intensive, um, industry running a veterinarian clinic. And so I'm sure the minimum wage increases have put a strain on them as well.

In fact, , my mom goes to that same veterinarian clinic and she was like, uh, needed to get her, her, her horse looked at and she was like, gosh, how much is this going to be? It's going to be like three or $4,000 to have the vet. And she said, just the prices have gone up and I know the veterinarian. Probably doesn't want to raise prices, but they're, they have no other choice.

You know, they're, they're forced to pay higher wages for people, and so they just have to pass on those costs to the consumer. So if you're making 1680 an hour, but yet it doesn't buy as much as it used to, are you really coming out ahead? Honestly, you are at the same value money you were at earlier. . You may think it's more, but the economy's always going to adapt to minimum wage.

The higher the minimum wage, the economy's going to increase the price of items. Yep, yep. So yeah, when, um, I remember when I was making 15 or $16 an hour in minimum wage with seven, I felt like a lot of money. I was like, man, I'm making double minimum wage. This is a livable, livable wage. And at the time, rent was like, Four or $500 a month.

Right.  on that, on those numbers. And now it's probably a thousand dollars a month for that same place, uh, 10 years later. Um, so it's, yeah. Did you really Come ahead. Yeah, you've got more money, but everything else has gone up in price too. You, you go to, you go even to fast food joints, you know, still even have dollar menus in this place.

Anywhere. Or like dollar 15. Dollar 15. You know, it'd be funny. I used to love those, uh, subway commercials where they'd say $5 foot long. You know, that was their spiel. They should have been like, uh, $5 and 25 cent foot long. We don't have enough time to explain how inflation works , but trust us. $6 foot long, $7 foot long, $8.

Like it just keeps going up. And now 12 foot long . And then it is a 12, $12 six inch now. And they've cut the, that's, that's like in literally inflation to it too. It is. Uh, I don't know that that would be a very popular commercial for Subway, but I always thought it would be funny if they did that. Um, that's just me as a, as a, a economic guy thinking, thinking those things are funny.

So, um, with that, um, we're going to sign off. We had a great day today. Just got a lot done and um, even got some, uh, black Friday shopping done too. So we're busy. So anyways, uh, if you want to give us a call, love to talk with you. My number here is 9 2 8 2 2 5 2 4 7 4. Um, if you want a second set of eyes on your, your portfolio, is it doing everything you need to be doing?

Is there ways to improve it? Um, no cost or comp. Uh, no cost. We will give you complimentary, um, assessment and show you what's going on and, and it. Everything to gain and nothing to lose by doing that. Right? Right. The, if you come in and get a second set of eyes on your taxes from another cpa, I believe that we should be doing that every couple of years.

Because what you don't know, you don't know like, right. And what if you have another CPA looks at and says, Hey, actually, They missed this, this, and this. And if we were to change it, because you can actually amend your tax returns for up to three years. So you can actually go back and if you found something that you missed, you can amend it and say, oh well that actually makes us going from owing money to getting a refund.

Right? So I think of the same kind of concept when we look at investing. If, uh, if just a couple of little adjustments can get you a couple extra percent or save you a bunch in taxes, that could be worth all the effort. Um, and. And, and all you have to do is just give us a call and just say, Hey, uh, want to kind of look at my plans and, you know, look at my goals.

Is this the best way, uh, that we can be accomplishing it? Because a lot's changed over the last year. We were just talking with the client earlier today about CD rates. You know, uh, CDs didn't make any sense. A year ago the certificate deposit, because they were based off interest. They'd pay you 1%, one and a half.

Um, but now, CDs, you could do a one year CD at 4.8%. So they've gone up and the CDs are F D I C, guaranteed they don't move around. I mean, it's not BD inflation, but, uh, you're not getting 4.8% in your bank account, I'll tell you that. No, not at all. . Yeah, so that's some of the stuff. We have a managed CD portfolio and we can shop out the entire universe of CDs.

Um, I've had a couple clients come in and, you know, they say, ah, you know, I don't really know what. Being charged on my investment account. I think there's fees being taken out. There's got to be something. And so we do a workup on analysis and we say, Hey, you know, we can actually provide a higher level of service, more attention to your portfolio.

For less and we could keep it all here locally. So those are all good reasons to give us a call. Um, give us number. The number here again is 9 2 8 2 2 5 2 4 7 4 or you can email me at, uh, intelligent investing WT wealth management.com. With that, I think I'm going to call it a day and. We'll be back at it next week.

So stay tuned. Got some more episodes, we've got some more content. Uh, if you like, uh, the show, make sure you like to subscribe. Um, if you want us to cover certain topics, love to do it, just let us know and we'll put together a show. And I can get a lot of great guests on too. So if there's certain people you've always wanted to say, Hey, I'd love to just hear them talk about X, Y, Z, I'll try and make it happen.

So with that Glenn Leest, signing off.