00:00 Speaker A
Average gas prices are topping $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022. This really is starting to show the impact of volatile macro environments cascading into household budgets. Let’s look into how exactly you can revisit your finances in these times of uncertainty. Joining us now is Tyrone Ross Jr., principal and founder at 401 Financial for this week’s FA Corner brought to you by Capital Group.
00:23 Speaker A
Tyrone, walk us through how exactly you should be repositioning your budget right now. It seems like these higher prices are not going away anytime soon.
00:36 Tyrone Ross Jr.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing that we are encouraging clients to do and I encourage everyone to do watching is look back three months of your checking account. Look at your spending, revisit your budget. See where you’re spending the majority of your money. Yes, it’s going to be very clear that uh the prices of, you know, things in the grocery store have gone up. But what that will also illuminate is where you may be spending money uh that you can reel back now that things are getting a lot more expensive. um and when other macro things happening in the economy, how you could position yourself to have a little bit of a safety net moving forward.
01:12 Speaker A
One of the things you talk about a lot is investments within cryptocurrency. We did see Bitcoin have a horrible first quarter to say the least. It was one of the worst performing first quarters since 2018. How do you sort of preserve your value when it comes to this cryptocurrency asset?
01:32 Tyrone Ross Jr.
I think the first thing and and I’ve been saying this for years, it’s just a long-term mindset. I think when you buy the ticket to get on the Bitcoin or crypto asset roller coaster that’s it’s just going to go up and down. You should have a long-term time horizon. Um it shouldn’t be capital that you have in crypto assets right now that you rely on that you need to buy groceries or pay your rent. That should just be very risky capital that you
02:00 Tyrone Ross Jr.
long-term bet on the future. So I think if you are heavily invested, I’ll raise my hand. Um you, you know, you want to have a plan around that, but you also want to make sure that it is capital is funds that you don’t need in the near or medium term. It’s a long-term bet and you should treat it as such.
02:22 Speaker A
Tyrone, what’s so interesting now is this be is this sort of becoming mainstream. We know that Fannie Mae will now accept crypto backed asset mortgages or crypto back mortgages. What if someone has been planning for maybe, you know, the past 10 years and now they think, okay, I’m going to use this to now put a down payment on a house. Now, all of a sudden it went from $126,000 to now we’re hovering around the 60 to 70,000. How what’s your best advice to maybe that person who thought this was for the long term and this was the time I was going to use it?
02:59 Tyrone Ross Jr.
Yeah, so to be very clear, I’m the biggest crypto hippie you will ever have on this show, but when I saw that news, I wasn’t excited by that. Now, Coinbase and Fanny May and who uh I think it’s another company involved saying that no matter how low the crypto gets, it won’t be an issue. It’s only if you don’t make the payments for 90 days.
03:22 Tyrone Ross Jr.
I’m not sure I put a lot of value into that. I don’t think crypto should be used for um mortgages, but if you have a plan around it, you’ve held it a long time and other parts of your financial life are secure, sure, because there are a lot of folks that were in the space early. Um they do have a lot of their assets in crypto, but ideally, you do it the traditional way, try to find a way to get 15 to 20% down and if your crypto is a part of that, Bitcoin preferably, um is great, but I mean to to settle on a 30-year mortgage and then have that backed by a very volatile asset is not something I would advise. Um but it can be interesting for a very, very small segment of the population.
04:02 Speaker A
Tyrone, we are getting a new jobs report out tomorrow for the month of March. Then at the same time we heard from Challenger, Gray & Christmas this morning that in the month of March, about 25% of total cuts were actually because of artificial intelligence. What are you telling clients right now on how to best prepare for this job market where AI is so impactful?
04:22 Tyrone Ross Jr.
Yeah, I I’m living it as as a a CEO myself and having conversations with clients and also with just folks generally. One, if you do have a job right now, do everything in your power to keep it. And what does that mean in 2026? In 2026s means, it’s not just using chat GBT like it’s Google. Get familiar with these AI tools. um managers, vice presidents, C suite folks are looking for people to embrace these tools. Also again, look at your side hustles where you may have other talents and skills. Now is the time to explore them. And lastly, do not take this as a joke. It is coming. Um it is going to get worse as far as the layoffs and I’m looking to, you know, compress a lot of the hiring that they did during COVID. So take this very seriously, learn what you can, ask questions, but just use it. And I think if you get familiar with it, you’ll be able to add value in your workplace and then you know, essentially become indispensable.
05:08 Speaker A
Tyrone, such great insight. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.
05:12 Tyrone Ross Jr.
Thank you for having me.
05:13 Speaker A
Of course. That was FA Corner brought to you by Capital Group. Thanks so much.