Why It's Impossible to Get Ahead When Everything Costs More

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]How much money I made last Friday? $330.

[00:00:03]You know how much we just spent at Engles? $317 [ __ ] dollars.

[00:00:09]All my money gone. This is why I can't say money. Cuz we have to [ __ ] eat.

[00:00:14]We have to eat. Why do we have to eat?

[00:00:16]If we didn't eat, I'd be skinny as [ __ ] >> Y'all realize how nothing feels affordable anymore? Like in Dallas, rent feels insane? Going out's virtually impossible. and groceries are just ridiculous. Like, why are we expected to act like this is normal? You have corporations buying up houses. Minimum wage hasn't even changed since 2009.

[00:00:39]Meanwhile, the cost of groceries have gone up 54%. Like, how does that make sense? Now, you have people working everyday jobs like me getting poorer while the rich just gets richer. And it makes no sense.

[00:00:53]I'm broke to the point where like I can't even laugh about it anymore because like it's not a joke. Like I'm actually broke. So I've decided if any of you guys want to come help me out, you can buy a really big box, put me in it, put Fragile, overnight ship me to another country for 80 bucks. I'll pay you the 80 bucks. I don't have to pay for the plane ticket, which would have normally been like 1,500 bucks. And if anyone wants to come with me, like we can go on a diet before I don't know and try and both fit in the box and put fragile. We'll put some air holes cuz there's no way I'm affording a $1,500 ticket to another country, but I'll do that for sure.

[00:01:35]$100 is the new $20. A lot of people are going to the grocery stores. They're realizing that their money is hardly getting themselves anything to buy. And it's kind of crazy because we're losing all our money to taxes, to fees, to cost of living increases. Bills are increasing every single year it seems like. And people just don't have that much money anymore.

[00:02:02]People are now having to take massive amounts of loans just to buy what they need or they have to have multiple jobs.

[00:02:12]They're working on the weekends. So now people are working multiple jobs.

[00:02:16]They're working 7 days a week. They pretty much don't get a day off in order to get enough income to buy what they need. And people aren't even just living anymore. They're just in survival mode, which is very sad to see. and it really showcases how bad the economy in America and AC across the entire world has really gotten. Let me know in the comments below what you think and take a look at the rest of these clips.

[00:02:42]>> We We can't keep doing this. Last night I went to the grocery store, two bags of groceries, $72.

[00:02:55]This morning, I stopped and filled up my tank.

[00:03:00]$60.

[00:03:02]I just put gas in it two days ago.

[00:03:05]I do drive a little bit to work, but no matter what you do, you got nothing.

[00:03:12]No matter how hard you work, no matter how early you go in, no matter HOW MUCH YOU MAKE, YOU GOT NOTHING. At the end of the week, you got nothing.

[00:03:25]Can't afford a house.

[00:03:27]Can't afford food. Can't afford utilities.

[00:03:33]Every time you go to the store, a bag of chips is like $6 or $7. A loaf of bread $5.

[00:03:43]gallon of milk $5.

[00:03:45]The only thing that's [ __ ] cheap is a dozen eggs.

[00:03:51]I've been thinking about living off eggs, have an egg for breakfast, have a hard-boiled egg for lunch, and have a [ __ ] omelette with no cheese for dinner.

[00:04:01]It seems like everybody in the world has nothing.

[00:04:07]But why are the people in government so rich?

[00:04:13]I had a I heard a theory the other day and they said that what if everybody in government made minimum wage for a year?

[00:04:21]Would things change? I don't know. They probably [ __ ] suffer for a year, but then they probably go right back to being the same way they were before.

[00:04:29]Nobody's got nothing. Elderly got nothing. You see old people at the at the gas station trying to buy gas and you can see it in their eyes. They got nothing.

[00:04:42]young kids just out of college. They got nothing. You can't AFFORD A HOUSE.

[00:04:46]EVERYBODY'S GOT NOTHING. And it's not [ __ ] cool anymore. It's never been cool. But everyone's at the end of the rope. I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what to do. No matter what you do, no matter how much you make, it's not enough cuz you still got [ __ ] nothing.

[00:05:06]And maturing is realizing don't no grown individual need to be outside trying to go on vacation with $100 in their pocket. I mean MATURING IS ALSO REALIZING I need to MIND MY OWN BUSINESS, BUT I'M A CONTENT CREATOR. So yeah, I said what I said. I was today years old when I figured out and I was informed that people really vacation and take trips with no money. Like I'm talking make it out to group chat, get to the airport knowing THEY DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY. You're getting on, you're boarding the plane and you get to where you was going, WHERE YOU'RE HEADED, WHERE Y'ALL ARE GOING, and that individual is casually just going with the motions knowing they don't have any finances, knowing they don't have any money. I guess just assuming that people would just front the tab for them, front all the expenses on the trip. At what point as grown individuals do we realize that if you don't have it, it's okay to not go. If it's not your season to be outside taking trips, at the store shopping, at the mall every weekend, if it's not your season, stop being afraid to sit out. The things that people will and have done just to be a part of outside is beyond me. And you can't get all your shopping done in one store no more. You got to go to this grocery store cuz maybe your meat just a little bit cheaper at this grocery store than it is down at the other grocery store.

[00:06:28]But then you go to the other grocery store cuz you probably get grapes for probably about 10 cents less on a pound.

[00:06:34]And then and then and then you go to the other grocery store cuz the milk might be a little bit cheaper. But it say you you do it all at one grocery store, you going to be out of $5,000. Then you you got to you got to search for a gas station cuz cuz down the road the gas station the uhoh down the road the gas at the gas station might be 15 cents cheaper but you go back way back yonder and it's it's it's $16 a gallon. Then you got to go back home and by the time you get back home your gas tank back on E. I just house. I mean, it's a difference between being just low on money and being in a hole and you low on money. Like, man, when you in debt and you low on money, you already know when you make them first couple thousand, whatever, you be like, man, damn, I really got to pay this [ __ ] out. Like, yeah man, if your money just got a little funny, you can go run it back up and then you'll be straight off rip. But bro, if you got this to pay, this to pay, this to pay, man, that first 10,000, 20,000, you be like, man, damn, this ain't nothing. And man, the thing with me, bro, it's like I got most of my debt down and then it started to build back up and then with the trade school and stuff they about to put on there.

[00:07:51][ __ ] I bro, that [ __ ] ain't going to never get paid. Like, and bro, people just don't get that. That's why I say, bro, everybody broke is different. Like, man, it could be like, man, if you just zero flat and you ain't got no debt, bro, all you got to do is go get a few thousand, flip that, boom, you back up.

[00:08:09]A [ __ ] like me, man, I get a couple thousand. I'll be like, man, [ __ ] I really got to dodge them folks like if I want to keep some money. I'll be like, bro, hell no.

[00:08:17]>> So, I'm just wondering like, how are y'all doing? How is everyone doing?

[00:08:21]Because I am making significantly more than what I usually make. I'm contracted on a roll right now and I should be comfortable like financially, but I'm not. I'm not at all. I don't even really know how I'm going to pay for gas for the rest of the week. And I just feel like this should not be an issue. Like, it really has never been an issue for me. and I live by myself and I'm used to paying bills by myself but and I don't have kids that I need to pay for like thank God but like what are you guys doing who have kids who like I mean a lot of you probably have another person like that you're splitting stuff with so that probably makes it easier but I know not all the mamas work out there so it's like how are we doing and then for the single people god forbid that make way less than me. Like, how are you doing? I just How are you doing?

[00:09:26]This is scary, you guys. I'm scared.

[00:09:30]Now, you've probably gone to the grocery store. You've put a few items in your shopping cart, and once it's time to get to the checkout, you're realizing how absurd the price is.

[00:09:43]you only got a few items and it's going to cost you an arm and a leg. Back in the old days, you could fill up an entire shopping cart for the same amount for the same dollar amount and you would be living pretty good. But that's no longer the case. It seems like shinflation and inflation of the prices has really taken a toll on the overall economy. If you don't have a significant other, how are you surviving nowadays?

[00:10:13]I quite literally have spent well over a decade teaching people how to properly budget their money, how to make any budget work, no matter what. If you make over 500 bucks a week, you can make it work. With the current state of the economy, I work in finance. I work with CEOs, executives, and business owners, not to mention their thousands of employees. I educate them on finance.

[00:10:34]And what I'm telling you factually is that it has never been harder in the United States to be a single person on one income and keep your head above water. It is the time right now where Americans should start living like other countries where you shouldn't have moved out of your parents' house. You should find a platonic relationship where you could just spend every day together. You can pull pull all of your finances, all of your resources, only pay one set of bills. That's probably your o only chance.

[00:11:05]Forced marriages, forced relationships might be another solution, regardless of how messy that might be. But I just want to say I feel bad. I feel empathy. And if you are struggling on one income, it is the time now where you need to lessen your expenses, increase your income, both, or have a roommate.

[00:11:24]That's that's the society we're living in right now. But prices are going to go down on day one, right?

[00:11:31]Okay.

[00:11:32]>> So, I was going to work the other day and as soon as I'm walking up to work to the uh I see my boss and he's like pulling up at the same time and he hops out his car like right next to me as I'm walking to work. My job is super close to my crib and he doesn't have on his work clothes. So, I'm I make a joke. I'm like, "You're definitely not going to work today, are you?" And he like, "Nah, nah. Uh he's like very calm." And I'm like I'm like almost taken a back how calm he is. I'm like I'm like, "You good?" He's like, "Yeah, I gotta talk to you." So, I'm just like, "The fuck?" I'm like, "I did something." He's like, "I I just got to talk to you. Like, let's just talk inside." So, we go inside and we go straight to the office and he pulls me in there and he's like, "Hold on, wait. I got to go get his manager."

[00:12:13]So, he go grabs his manager. And now I'm in the office with both of them. And he tells me, >> he's like, "Denzel, I got to let you go. I got to let you go. You just We haven't seen a a enough progress in the way you've been working behind the bar. I was a bar back at this bar and he's like uh we're just going to go with somebody else. Like you're a really good person, but we just we just want to go with somebody else.

[00:12:43]>> And it's so crazy cuz I was so calm. I wasn't tripping. I wasn't trying to like prove my point like for me to stay. I was just like, "Okay, cool." Like I'm just so detached right now in my in life right now. like whatever happens happens and I feel like at this point I know I'm creating everything that happens and I felt a lot of bad energy there anyway.

[00:13:04]So, but now I don't have a job. So, y'all run my content up. Make this go viral for me. Now, for real, I'm dead ass.

[00:13:16]>> Every day I just prove more and more how goofy I am. So, I was feeling to file my taxes this year because I swore that I got money back this year and usually I don't get nothing. Oh, I've been sent them through like two weeks ago on Turboax. I go to impulsively bodies boots that I seen through an Instagram ad and my card declined like three times. Now, usually I would just try another card, but something in my spirit was like, "Check the Bank of America app." My account is negative $180.87 87 cuz the IRS debited $537.

[00:13:53]So, I immediately opened Turbo Tax and it's all my fault, y'all. Now, when I filed, I thought it said I was getting $537.

[00:14:02]I'm looking now and it says I owe them $537, but in my defense, the numbers wasn't red. It ain't say a negative sign or nothing. Like, I was just speeding, but it's they for a little bit, too. But long story short, I'm out of $500 just because I couldn't slow down and read.

[00:14:19]Be careful, y'all. I'm turning 27 next week, and I just feel [ __ ] sad.

[00:14:25]Truly, I did not think this is how my life would be. And I think that's what makes it worse because I still live at home with my parents, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just everything's so expensive. At least I have a job in marketing because that's what I went to school for. But like other than that, I feel like everything after co just like went to [ __ ] And I feel like I've been like in the biggest funk for the past two months and I'm not I'm trying not to go insane. I every single day there's something [ __ ] up in the news and it's just like how the hell do I cope I feel like I'm going insane.

[00:15:04]Yeah. Um grateful for my family, grateful for my friends. It's just damn another year and I feel like I don't know. I just feel so extremely stuck. Like nothing is getting better. So it just feels like a 100 times worse. So that's where I'm at.

[00:15:26]Yeah. You need to start saving your money.

[00:15:30]You get your money and you go spend it on clothes, spend it on shoes, and spend it on food.

[00:15:40]And then you pay your bills.

[00:15:42]And then you go broke and then now you're waiting for your next check to go ahead and do the same thing all over again. When are you going to stop?

[00:15:54]When are you going to learn?

[00:15:57]The economy isn't getting any better.

[00:16:01]Emergencies can pop up at any given time.

[00:16:05]And you mean to tell me you didn't save nothing? You're not saving nothing.

[00:16:13]This is a problem. You got to change this. Start saving your money. Put some money in the savings.

[00:16:22]Stop spending money on unnecessary things that you don't need. Just get in the habit of saving money.

[00:16:33]Saving money is a habit that you need.

[00:16:36]that you need.

[00:16:39]So now your next check, take 20% and save that. Do not touch that. Put that away until your next check.

[00:16:51]If you can do that, continue doing that and don't stop.

[00:16:57]Thank me later.

[00:16:59]>> One way to tell that somebody is broke, all you got to do is listen to them talk. And if all they do is talk about how much stuff is, and I'm not talking about like the economy and how gas prices is going up. I mean like if you are around somebody and they feel the need to say out loud how much they paid for something as if it matters.

[00:17:16]Especially if it's materialistic stuff like a purse or hair or like a car or how much they did on they paid on some shoes or something like that. That's how you could really tell if somebody broke.

[00:17:27]I just watched a video of somebody saying talking about how you could tell if somebody broke if they giving business advice. For me though, I didn't had business advice from broke people and I don't had business advice from rich people. My opinion, I feel like it can go both ways. Just because somebody is not rich don't mean that their advice is wrong. But if you are around somebody that is truly broke, it's like it's also if they got like high insecurities. It's like they feel the need to constantly say out loud how much they paid for something. It could literally be anything. If you are around a truly broke person and they really insecure about it and they bad at money management, they are literally going to tell you how every how much everything they pay for. Whether it's their car, their shoes, their house, their kids, they going to tell you every price and know the price down to the last cent.

[00:18:15]That's the one thing I notic about real broke people. They going to tell you the price of everything. Even if you don't ask, especially when you don't ask. When you don't ask how much something is, they feel the need to tell you how much something is. When you could literally care the [ __ ] less, but they're like, "Oh yeah, I paid this much for this. I paid 1,500 for that." And they got like a whole attitude as if like they rich and they better or something like that.

[00:18:35]Baby, those the real broke people. These were the three things that broke me out of poverty. But I will say it is not the traditional budgeting advice. It's not it's not a math equation. Okay? When you're in poverty, you are in fight or flight, right? You're you're in survival mode. And the reason that's important is because the blood is going to tend to go towards the center of your brain, your amygdala. That's your reptile part of your brain. That's your instinctual part of the brain. It is not the part of your brain that's going to be thinking about the future, planning ahead, making logical decisions, thinking through things. Like this is not the math part of the brain. No, when you're in poverty, you're not in the math part of your brain. Okay? I used to teach high school dropouts and u math was the ones that was the hardest subject for them.

[00:19:22]And I realized the reason it was so hard for them is because most people who are dropping out of high school, in case you didn't know, are because they're in like really dire situations. Like anyways, we don't have to get into that. You can probably fill in the blanks there. And that means their emotional brain is online. And I was actually in school to study neuroscience at the time while I was like doing this job. And I was be able to connect the dots of like, oh, when I actually helped them regulate their emotions, they can think clearly and then they were able to learn the math and they were able to get their GD and pass and go on with their life and actually make plans for the future. H So these are the three things that broke me out of poverty and it's all using your prefrontal cortex. The these are all practices that help get blood from the center of your brain, your amydala, to your prefrontal cortex, which is what you need in order to get out of poverty.

[00:20:12]So the first thing is self-awareness.

[00:20:15]I needed to become aware of the thoughts that I was thinking and the feelings that I was feeling because the thoughts I was thinking like everybody's doing better than me. I'm behind. I I everybody has it way easier than I do. I have it so hard. Like all those beliefs then create something known as confirmation bias which then activates something called the reticular activation system in your brain which is near your uh brain stem. And it's more of an automatic response. You don't want you don't want to be stuck in a belief like that because then you're going to automatically filter out information in your environment that goes against that belief. Right? So I had changed the way that I thought I become aware of the way that I felt. The way that I cultivated this awareness was by having an awareness practice. Yoga, meditation, journaling, going on walks, being in nature, all that kind of [ __ ] So pick your flavor. The second thing that I did to break out of poverty was I had to get curious about money. Again, my teaching career taught me about curiosity.

[00:21:16]Because do you ever find something so fascinating that you're like, "Holy [ __ ] I just want to learn everything about that." And like your energetic state is very different. That's blood moving to the front of your brain. And so the more that you can do that, the more it will help you get ahead financially. Um, so you got to get curious about money because curiosity is a very light emotional state. If you have resentment, if you have hatred, if you have anger, they ain't going to help you think. And most importantly, it's going to shove blood back to the center of your brain. The third thing that I did to break out of poverty was obviously increase my income. But that's the thing that people always skip to.

[00:21:52]It's just like just it's a math equation.

[00:21:55]Those are the people that live there.

[00:21:57]Okay? When we're in a trauma state, we're not living here. We're living in the center, right? So, we need to get the blood to the front of your brain.

[00:22:04]That curiosity about money, that self-awareness, those are the things that build those precursor skills that you need to do in order to then start thinking about, okay, I need to increase my income. Pick a job that makes a salary that you want. Go after that. And once you get there, the rest will take care of itself.