➡ The article discusses the struggles of a rookie police officer in Connecticut, Anthony Barlini, who despite earning a household income of $120,000, finds it hard to make ends meet due to the rising cost of living and his family’s needs. He is unable to afford a house even after working double shifts and considering a second job. The article also criticizes people who struggle financially despite earning a decent income, attributing it to poor decision-making rather than poverty. Lastly, it shares the story of a 70-year-old widow in New Mexico who is unable to retire and struggles to pay her bills with her social security income.

➡ The speaker emphasizes the importance of financial planning and investing in oneself. They often question their family’s financial decisions, asking if they’ve maximized their 401k contributions before making purchases. Despite their family’s annoyance, the speaker continues to stress this point, fearing the prospect of having to work at an old age due to lack of proper financial planning.

In a recent CBS News poll, two out of three Americans told us they’re stressed about their own finances. Three out of four said their incomes are not keeping up with inflation. That’s a lot of people struggling to make ends meet. And starting tonight in our series, The Best of Living, you’ll hear some of their stories in their own words. First, a single mother of three, ages one, four and eight, trying to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary of $37,000. Sweet. We’re ready to rock. My name is Michelle Boyjali. I am 37 years old. I am a teacher in St.

Louis County, Minnesota. Since the price of eggs and bacon has gone up, we’ve done a lot more cereal. Eat it with your spoon. You got to stay safe in the car, right? I’ve had to take on a second job just because everything has gotten so expensive. Hi, baby girl! I’ve been a teacher since about 2008. I love my brown shoes. I love my brown shoes. It’s definitely not something that people go into for the money. They go into it because they love it, which is why so many of us do have to work two jobs to make ends meet.

It takes multiple incomes to survive in this economy. I just left work, and now I am going to go door dashing for a couple hours. It looks like our first delivery. We have to go to Burger King. Thank you. So this first one is $4.50 guaranteed, and then sometimes we get tips. So, yesterday when I was in the studio… Yesterday, when I was in the studio, I did a DoorDash, and so I got my DoorDash. What did I order? I think I just ordered some breakfast food. It was after the Millionaire Morning Show, so it might have been two or three o’clock.

And I ordered DoorDash, and so I ordered some regular breakfast food. Now, I tip, in the DoorDash app, I usually tip about $20. Don’t matter where it is, what I order, unless I order a whole lot of stuff, then I’ll tip a lot more. But in a general sense, most of the things is downtown. When you’re in the downtown area, you have a whole lot of restaurants to choose from. But I just ordered bacon and eggs, and I think it was like hash browns or something like that. And the woman, it was a black woman. Now, first of all, let me say this.

I am telling you that I don’t see a lot of black, or not even black, I don’t see a lot of male DoorDash drivers. I see female DoorDash drivers. I see female DoorDash drivers more and more and more. The women are the ones, yeah, Avalon is right across, it’s kind of right across the street from the Hudson Cafe. Used to try out, I think it’s like the Joe Louis something. They kind of slow, but it’s really, really good. Women are the ones that are taking over the majority of these gig work jobs. They are trying to survive, they’re trying to hustle.

Foreigners are taking up a lot of the jobs and all of that too. I am still live named Smith. Women are taking up a lot of these gig jobs. That’s number one. But then I talked to her yesterday. So shout out to her, wanting to be a black woman. She was cool. And so I gave her an additional 10. So when I DoorDash people, I give them an additional 10. And I asked her what it looked like inside of the app. And I said, do we show you how much we tip inside of the app? And she said, no.

Now, for anybody that has dropped DoorDash, you guys tell me whether she was telling the truth or not, because I want to know. I said, does it tell you how much tips inside of the app? Does it tell you that I gave you a $20 tip? She said, no, it don’t tell me. I said, hmm. I said, so what does it show? She says it’ll show like six plus, six plus. And I said, well, what does that mean? She says that it’ll show us that we’re getting a tip of at least $6 or more.

So it doesn’t show them that they’re getting the 20. But then, nope, she said it doesn’t. She said it will show six plus. She said it doesn’t show the exact amount that they’re getting from DoorDash. Is that true, y’all? It shows the full tip amount, or does it show that you’re getting at least this amount plus? You said that’s before she accepts the tip. Does it show the full tip amount, Tiffany? It shows you after? Okay, so then maybe that’s what it is. She was saying that when she accepts the drive, it’ll say six plus, but it doesn’t necessarily show you the exact amount before she accepts to grab whatever the food is.

Okay, yeah, she didn’t say after it completes the order. So maybe that was a discrepancy, because I was trying to understand. I said, wait a minute. So it don’t show you before how much the tip is going to be when, yeah, Joe Louis’ Southern Kitchen is really good. Shout out to Tamika. You know what it is. It shows you the full amount before on DoorDash. Y’all saying that it shows you after the order is done. So maybe she was new to something like that or whatever. She’s lying. I don’t think she was lying. She was being pretty real.

Anyways, so I tip her 20 in the app, and then I always give an additional cash tip. So I keep cash, and I give her the cash tip, so I gave her an additional 10. So her tip was $30, and the restaurant was right up the street or whatever. The restaurant was literally like a block and a half away. But the thing about it is just that I see more women than men, and I don’t know what that is, and y’all can have this debate. Y’all tell me what y’all think is out of the chat.

I see less men actually getting into the hustling and the gig work, and I see more women starting to do the hustling and the gig work. Black cars is always men. Anytime you get a black Uber, it’s always men. Well, she didn’t actually show me anything. We was just talking. I didn’t want to see her information. Black cars, I always see men. Regular Ubers, a lot of times, it’s starting to be women. Starting to be women. And I don’t know what that is. I don’t know if it’s just this men that’s checking out. She don’t care anymore, any of that stuff.

But women are starting to get the gig jobs. A lot of times, they’ll have a regular job, and then they’ll start to do a DoorDash or Grubhub or Uber East or all of the above and all of that stuff. I always grew up thinking about the stereotypical American dream where you own a house and you have a yard to play in, and I think that dream is dying. I try to make every dollar count. A lot of the time, I’ll just wait to feed myself until the end and then just eat whatever leftovers the kids have in touch.

Put your cute little bib on. A lot of the people making the decisions for us are wealthy. Don’t know what it’s like to work two jobs. Don’t know what it’s like to have to pay for gas with quarters. And yet, they’re making the decisions for us. If they knew a little bit about the average person who is fighting every day to make ends meet, I think that maybe they would make decisions that were actually helpful for the average. She got little, little kids. Listen, bro, I’m gonna be honest with you. She need to go back with her baby daddy.

She need to go and say, you know what, babe? Whatever it was that we was going through, I’m willing to concede and I want to work it out. Because she got that fat right here. She got that fat on the bottom of her arm. If you pull this and it comes and it jiggles, if this jiggles too much right here, right here, if it jiggles too much, then you got to get back with your baby daddy. Your kids are too small. You got all of this. If all of that jiggle, then you got to get back with your baby daddy.

Real talk, I’m being honest with you because your prospects is lower. Somebody was talking to me yesterday and they said, yeah, you know, because she is, she getting a divorce or whatever. I said, how much she weigh? Honest to God truth. I said, how much she weigh? Oh, she a bigger girl, but she cute. I said, she got to stay in her marriage. It’s not the same for women as it is for men. It’s not the same. You got to pick a struggle. You got to pick a truck, a struggle. It’s not the same as it is for men.

And I get it. She busy. She door dashes. She trying to raise her kids. She a teacher too. You can’t be out here with them big arms and thinking that everybody is just going to rock out with that shit. It’s hard out here. And you trying to date and you got babies and you suffering. Go back with your daddy. They look like they got the same father too. Go back with your baby daddy. Ain’t nothing like humbling a chick by having her going out here and suffering trying to figure it out.

Here’s the latest on inflation. The government reported today that in the past 12 months, prices rose just under two and a half percent in our special series. The cost of living Americans are sharing their struggles to make ends meet tonight. A rookie cop in Connecticut, married three kids household income $120,000 and looking to buy a house. This is his story. In his own words, married Americans are sharing their struggles to make a percent in our special series. The cost of living Americans are sharing their struggles to make ends meet tonight.

A rookie cop in Connecticut, married three kids household income $120,000 and looking to buy a house. This is his story. In his own words. My name is Anthony Barlini. I’m a police officer in Waterbury, Connecticut. I’m 29 years old. I’ve been a police officer about a year. Let’s go. But every day is a struggle for me too if I still have to worry about my next paycheck where my next meal is coming from. I’m just like anybody else out there. Good morning. It’s Officer Barlini. I’m patrolling streets because you want to make sure that if you see something, you can do something about it.

So I’ve been looking at houses pretty much every day. I’ve wanted to buy one for a few years. To put 20% down our house. That’s a lot of money. Even I can’t do it, working double shifts. In today’s economy, even if I got a second job. What’s the city? We can’t do it, working double shifts. To put 20% down our house. That’s a lot of money. Even I can’t do it, working double shifts. In today’s economy, even if I got a second job, wouldn’t be able to afford it.

How was your day? Good. My wife Sarah and I were waiting for our daughter to go up the bus. We’ll eat something real fast. Then we’ll go look at a couple homes. Oh, there’s a bone in there. There is. There’s a bone, yeah. We’ve been having trouble finding the right home because the bigger the house you want, the more expensive it gets. And we need the room for the family. We saw privilege. We saw privilege sharing the United States of America. Dog, you got two dogs and three four kids.

And where you think all your money is going? You got two dogs that’s running on the couch. Three four kids. What did you think was going to happen? Most people have, they don’t have an earning problem. If you have a combined household income of $120,000 a year, you should not be struggling unless you’re making bad life decisions, bro. Honest to God, if you don’t want to struggle to stop making struggle decisions, what the fuck you having all of these kids for? And then you trying to resolve and I tell people all the time, I said, listen, man, it’s way harder to climb the mountain when you got rocks in your backpack.

That could be dead. That could be people. For the people that think that they could just figure it, you’re going to have to be 10 times tougher, 10 times harder on it if you’re not focused. You’re going to have to have some smart decision and life skills. I said, you know what, I can only have one daughter or I’m only going to have one kid because I want to make sure that I allocate as much resources into her and I didn’t want it to affect what I wanted to invest my money in.

I didn’t want to invest no more money into a munchkin. I wanted to invest money into what it is that made me more money. Kids are super expensive. Super expensive. Super expensive. Jay say we don’t we don’t rock out with people unless they put a picture in their profile photo. Aye? Okay, kiddo. All right. And can dogs be just as expensive? Let me hear the rest of the story. And if y’all saying that somebody that makes $120,000 a year and combined household income is poor, then y’all really need to get out of y’all bubble.

If you’re saying that somebody that makes a combined household income when on average the combined household income is around $70,000 a year across the United States of America. If you’re saying that they’re poor then you are completely missing the mark. You are completely disconnected from what’s really happening out here in these streets. Oh, he’s judging poor people. These people ain’t poor. These people make bad decisions. It’s a difference between being poor and making bad decisions. Stop conflating the two. Just because you’re struggling don’t mean that you’re poor.

You just got bad life skills and you got bad budgeting and you’re making bad decisions. Being poor, poor is an income issue, okay? It means that you don’t make enough money. A poverty mindset is how it is that you utilize your resources and where you feel like you’re still struggling even though you make a decent income. Stop conflating the two. Being poor is much different than having a poverty mindset. Most people, a lot of people that make over $100,000 a year is having a poverty mindset.

Stop saying that, no, I’m judging people that make bad decisions with the amount of money that they make. If you’re making over a combined household income of $120,000 and you’re struggling, that means that you have a poverty mindset. That does not mean that you’re poor. You are not poor. You don’t know what poor looks like at $120,000 a year combined household income. Stop conflating the two. Stop being, stop, stop feeling like you’re a victim. You’re not a victim. You’re making bad decisions. All right? I see you’re not poor if you’re making $100,000 a year.

Dogs, they need a yard to run around in. Turn right on George Street. I like the neighborhood. Seems quiet. There she is. You see my leg? Come on in. You have three bedrooms on this level. Two full baths. It’s a very nice house. What price point are we looking at? Probably around $300,000 to $325,000. There has been a low supply, but there’s still a demand. It’s a very competitive market. So I checked all the boxes. Let’s see if I had somebody to put an offer in before we got here.

If it falls through, we’ll come back and revisit it. You do get defeated knowing that homes are so expensive after looking today. I hope people in power, they change the price of things. There has to be. Why are people looking at a three to $400,000 house? You do not. And that’s what I’m saying. It’s a poverty mindset. This is so dumb. This is so dumb. You don’t have to. You make everything go cheaper. There’s no way they can just keep going up and up and up because then people won’t be able to live.

It’s just so expensive. No one will be able to afford anything. Inflation has been moderating in recent months, but prices are still nearly 24% higher than at the start of the pandemic. In our series, The Cost of Living, Americans are telling us about their struggles to make ends meet. And we conclude with a widow on social security. I just flew out of the. What’s the name of that airport? It’s. Let me see. I just came from there. I went and visited. I’ve seen everything over there near the basketball Hall of Fame.

That’s on one side. And then the other side was. What was it? Where was Yukon was? I just came from over there. It’s not that expensive. Y’all just picking the wrong properties in the wrong places and y’all feel like y’all need to be able to live. Where the big where the who’s who live. You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do that. You don’t have to be out here in these streets. Y’all just make bad. Honestly. Honestly, I just realized that most people are making bad life decisions.

That’s all it is, bro. Y’all making excuses and y’all making bad life decisions. You’re making excuses and you’re making bad life decisions. Y’all y’all just so stupid. Alright, keep on making excuses. Keep on making excuses. You got it. After rent, she has less than $200 to live on. Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty. My name is Olivia Marino Carlson. I’m 70 years old. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I cannot afford to retire. I live off of social. My name is Olivia Marino Carlson. I’m 70 years old. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I cannot afford to retire. I haven’t seen a Chevy Cavalier in so long, bro. I live off of social security, which does not pay all my bills. That’s why I’m looking for work. My husband was a mechanic. He developed MS. I took care of him until he passed away. I was working retail, lifting boxes. Living in a trailer home. So this is what these people really going through. It is. It was very hard. I’m going to the library to use the internet. You can’t even walk. She can’t even walk and she’s looking for a job.

I don’t even want to see this last part of the video, bro, because this is why I keep telling people that they need to invest in themselves. I’ll be hard on my own family, bro. I’ll be talking to my family and different family members and my brothers and stuff. And they get they hate. They hate to hear me talking about what they’re doing. Whenever let me tell you how much of an asshole I am. It’s my family. I’m going to tell you how much of an asshole I am to my family.

Whenever my brothers or something like that, they get something new. I’ll be like, oh, and then they be like, what’s wrong? I’ll be like, are you maxed out on your 401k? Man, I got this. Don’t be checking on. Don’t be I’ll be I’ll be on them. Hey, man, how much money? But how much money are you putting up? This and that and this and that. They always show me whatever it is that they bought after they bought it. They don’t come to me before.

They come after they bought it or they come after or whatever is happening. And I’ll be like, hey, man, look, look, I got the new such and such. I got the new such and such. Or dog, we about to go over here or man, I’m about to buy this house or whatever. And I’ll be like, does that make sense? So did you max out on your 401k? Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you get all of the free money? And so it don’t matter if they don’t like it.

It don’t matter if they get upset at it. It don’t matter if they bother about it. I’m still gonna say it. I’m still gonna bother you because don’t nobody want to be 70 talking about I got to go and get a job and I’m on a walk. I ain’t trying to live that life. [tr:trw].

See more of The Millionaire Morning Show w/ Anton Daniels on their Public Channel and the MPN The Millionaire Morning Show w/ Anton Daniels channel.