Asatru Folk Assembly - 1⧸22⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 133 - Adulting with Allen： Financial Fitness

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00:02:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:03:00.000 Hello, and welcome to this week's exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:14.640 Got a very special episode for you this evening.

00:03:17.600 We're trying a new feature on the program, and I'm eager to see how this goes and excited about our guest today.

00:03:29.080 we have my good friend and the afa's law speaker witten alan turnage here to talk to you about

00:03:37.560 succeeding financially um and i'm gonna have alan give you his spiel here about kind of

00:03:44.840 his idea for this in general but one thing that is a recurring truth for a great many of us there are

00:03:58.200 So the idea of this show, Victory Never Sleeps, is about winning.

00:04:02.480 And it's about winning in a lot of different ways.

00:04:05.520 There's a whole lot of different areas in your life that you have an opportunity to overcome, to succeed, and to be more than you are.

00:04:13.800 And to maximize your capabilities.

00:04:17.280 And doing that allows you to be a better, literally everything.

00:04:23.200 The more successful and victorious you are in your life, you're a better son, better father, better husband, better co-worker, better friend, better leader, better follower, better any of those things.

00:04:38.100 and a lot of those things to too many of our folk as I've mentioned before we you know our people

00:04:45.400 battle with soul sickness in a maybe in a unique way or certainly in a in a profound way

00:04:53.880 that has affected generations of our folk and all of us are affected to one one degree or another but

00:05:01.600 so many of our people have lost sight of trying to win things.

00:05:07.920 There's a generation previous to myself and in all of the generations I can think of before that.

00:05:17.560 That was the idea. That was the expectation.

00:05:20.320 You tell your children, you know, you can be anything you want when you grow up.

00:05:24.940 Our people had dreams and they reached for the stars and some of them even grabbed them.

00:05:31.600 And there is so much that we can do, but we have, you know, a couple of generations in now to a lot of our people not realizing there's a whole lot they can do in their life to be successful.

00:05:43.440 One of those things I see a lot of our people really struggle with is what we what we call adulting.

00:05:49.120 And when I say that, I don't I don't say that as a laugh at, but I say it as a laugh with because it's something that, you know, in many different ways in my life, I've found myself, man, I need to figure this out.

00:06:05.840 uh-oh, when did I get old? All of a sudden, I'm 43. When did that happen? And I think a lot of

00:06:12.620 us are that way. And this, when I find myself at those moments in a lot of different areas of my

00:06:19.140 life, this man is a guy I go to to talk to about just those things because he's figured out how to

00:06:24.000 win in a lot of different ways. And so it is my pleasure to welcome him on the program today

00:06:30.160 to talk to us about adulting and succeeding financially.

00:06:35.140 Alan, welcome to the show.

00:06:37.060 Thank you, sir.

00:06:37.800 It is a pleasure to see you again, even if it's only on the internet.

00:06:42.220 Can you tell, before we really get into the swing of it,

00:06:45.300 can you tell folks a little bit about the concept and what we're trying to achieve with it?

00:06:52.660 Well, a couple of things.

00:06:53.760 I think overall, we in discussion conceived of this series with me approaching some of these topics that are uncomfortable a lot for a lot of people to talk about.

00:07:05.720 People don't like to talk about money. They don't like to talk about a lot of the things that come around as being 43 or in my case, 44 to be an adult, you know, and to struggle with with a lot of these ideas.

00:07:21.440 and and it certainly touches on uh it comes as a part of the soul sickness that you mentioned

00:07:27.600 our civilization our society our communities have been fractured in many ways and we don't have

00:07:36.080 the integrated uh top to bottom community to uh you know from uh where we used to be able to go to

00:07:47.120 you know the uh the guy in the neighborhood or the guy above us in the church or you know our

00:07:52.800 mom's friend who could uh who knew stuff and so uh i i really think that it is a proper function

00:08:01.760 of the church our church to uh to help people with these issues it's certainly uh important

00:08:09.200 to all the topics that we're going to touch on assuming that um you know that this series

00:08:15.280 continues like I hope it does. It's important that we have discussions about the things that

00:08:24.580 people need to know about. The religious part is absolutely important, but the community part

00:08:31.440 is also important. That's one of the things that keeps me excited about being a member of the

00:08:37.520 Austro Folk Assembly, the fact that we can be, that we can go to a Hoff or we can go to an online

00:08:45.400 meeting and meet people and talk about things that we don't get to talk about in the way that

00:08:53.400 we as a member of this community with this mindset and this worldview can talk about with a whole lot

00:09:00.500 of people. So I hope to be able to bring some of these topics to the fore. Certainly I have a

00:09:06.140 A long background, my practice, for anybody who doesn't know, has centered on bankruptcy exclusively since 1998.

00:09:16.180 So I've worked with thousands and thousands of budgets.

00:09:20.380 I know I have a general idea of what works.

00:09:23.540 I have a general idea of some things that don't work.

00:09:26.260 And I hope to be able to share some of that expertise tonight and help our people elevate the way that they approach their finances.

00:09:37.080 So your practice, you say, does that mean that you are a legitimate attorney?

00:09:44.060 That's what my bar license says.

00:09:46.420 There you go. According to the state of Florida.

00:09:49.680 And Georgia.

00:09:50.140 And Georgia.

00:09:51.480 No, I just wanted to, in case anybody out there doesn't know, yeah, you speak from a place of not just life experience credibility, but professional credibility in this arena.

00:10:07.240 And it's really a valuable tool to have you here, not only to present your material, but also to answer any questions folks might have.

00:10:15.720 So please keep in mind, as always, this show is either question-centric or on some of these episodes, certainly question-friendly.

00:10:28.600 Any question you ask, I do not know how long the law speaker has with us tonight, but I will stay on the show until I get done answering all the questions.

00:10:37.220 um but yeah please ask anything you like if it comes up and is relevant to how we're going

00:10:44.360 depending on how Alan wants to present we may get to them in context and if they don't relate

00:10:51.420 please ask them anyway and we will you know approach them at the end of the program when

00:10:56.140 we have time left over uh I'd also like to um throw out a quick thing it's kind of a top of

00:11:05.760 show thing before we get in the meat and taters here help us out word of mouth is our best friend

00:11:12.720 when it comes to getting a message out there i talk to the folk builders a lot one of the things

00:11:16.960 that prevents us from well prevents not the right word i guess one of the the avenues that

00:11:27.040 is available to us we have so many people that should be coming home to our faith and the house

00:11:31.120 true the thing the reason that they're not in large part at least vast numbers of them is they

00:11:36.720 simply don't know we're here so if this is something you like if it's something that you find

00:11:42.400 entertaining educational or spiritually beneficial to you please share like subscribe

00:11:49.200 tell people about it invite your friends invite your family um yeah so those of you that don't

00:11:55.200 know we come out live and are willing to take your questions at any point in time on uh youtube

00:12:02.400 odyssey twitch x better known as twitter uh rumble and vk so we're live at you on all those

00:12:12.800 platforms right now and we'll come out likely tomorrow as a podcast if that's how you want

00:12:19.040 to consume it on apple podcast on spotify iheart radio and on amazon so there's a lot of places to

00:12:26.240 get this if you're hearing it and you are a heterosexual white person that wants to return

00:12:32.640 to the gods of your ancestors you should join the house to focus simply uh www.runestone.org

00:12:40.160 read about things if you have questions you can ask them here you can send them to any of our

00:12:45.200 contacts you can send them to me and we'd love to talk to you about it and uh yeah if if you

00:12:50.800 should be here then we'd love to have you here with us we're doing really really special things

00:12:54.800 together and we'd love for you to be part of um that's really all i've got for the top of the show

00:13:01.360 alan please take it away okay thank you sir i appreciate that um as we used to say in a

00:13:09.680 different fundraising context you know the usual disgusting plea for money um you know one of the

00:13:14.800 things down toward the tail end of my notes is, you know, one of the reasons you want to be able

00:13:19.200 to budget a little tighter is so that you can give the AFA a little more generously. We are

00:13:24.960 doing great things. We are doing good things. We are certainly sound stewards of your money. So

00:13:32.720 whatever you give us, we're going to ring 11 cents out of every dime. So I have a short

00:13:39.200 presentation prepared. I assume that our technical advisor will enter in with a couple of forms that

00:13:47.600 I sent him earlier this week. I prepared ahead of time, this time for a change. So the first thing

00:13:53.320 I want to talk about is why we want to talk about budgeting. I think when we talk about money,

00:14:03.780 it's one of those things that is sort of everywhere and therefore it ends up sort of

00:14:08.600 being nowhere. You know, it's the sea that we swim in, in a lot of ways. And as a result,

00:14:15.940 it is both the cause and the cure for some aspects of the soul sickness. We have become

00:14:22.600 immersed in a materialist culture. As religion has become less and less a part of most people's

00:14:33.640 lives. Materialism has stepped in to fill that void for a lot of people. What can I buy? What

00:14:39.740 can I consume? And we have to break the hold of that. And the mindset, to me, a lot of it is about

00:14:48.320 your mindset. And people who find their way here, for the most part, have been able to see through

00:14:54.880 that false god of materialism. But we carry a lot of that chain along with us.

00:15:03.640 So why we want to do that? I mean, we want to be able both to build wealth because money, like anything else, money is a tool and you want to be able to build wealth.

00:15:17.100 And I'll give you pointers along the way as we go. But every dollar you spend, you should think of it as an investment.

00:15:26.580 Is this the highest and best way to use, to make transportation?

00:15:33.440 Is this the highest way to feed my family?

00:15:36.500 Those are the kinds of things that if you, and there's a difference between being a miser and being frugal.

00:15:42.760 I mean, being frugal just means that you get the most for your money.

00:15:45.540 There's nothing wrong with drinking good beer or drinking nice coffee, but you just want to get the most out of it.

00:15:54.540 Energy drinks are evil, though.

00:15:56.580 So, you know, exactly. See? Consumed by the Monster Corporation. So here in a few minutes, we're going to talk about budgeting. So both as a tool, because most people, and I never did until I started working in this arena, but you should, it helps to think of your money in an organized way.

00:16:21.280 Nick, if you're ready, let's put that first form up on the screen, the income screen, and people can print it, I guess, from, we can make it available for download or whatever.

00:16:32.520 But one of the things that you need to be able to do, sorry, the dog's barking.

00:16:38.240 One of the things that you need to be able to do is know what your gross income is and your net income.

00:16:43.420 You know, what do you make?

00:16:45.360 You know, over a 12-month average, what is your monthly income like?

00:16:48.760 Um, so what, what can you expect to earn and have, you know, week over week, month over

00:16:55.640 month, that's what you have to be able to spend out of.

00:16:59.260 And on these worksheets, I've got some tips from how to get to, uh, you know, from your

00:17:04.580 gross income, what you're paid as your salary or, you know, from your business income, um,

00:17:09.860 to get all the way down to your net income.

00:17:12.100 And the net income is what's available for you to be able to spend for your, um, you

00:17:18.420 know, for your living expenses. And then out of those living expenses, you know, you have to work

00:17:25.260 together. Here's the page. You know, the way that I like to think about it is that you start from

00:17:34.380 your necessities, okay, your mortgage payment, your utilities, what you spend from, there you go,

00:17:43.460 perfect. You spend those things first. You take your total net income, whatever that is,

00:17:50.180 and you spend your necessities, whatever your mortgage payment is, your utilities.

00:17:56.740 What do you spend on groceries? What are your healthcare expenses? Those are the kinds of

00:18:00.740 things that come out before your discretionary expenses. Your car insurance. I'm going to try to

00:18:08.340 talk you out of having a car payment, but at some point that, you know, that has been the bane of

00:18:13.700 all our existences. If you have children, they have school expenses. Those are the kinds of

00:18:18.260 things that you have to budget for so that you know ahead of time what you're going to have

00:18:24.340 left over when it's all said and done. If you have life insurance, that is a good expense.

00:18:29.220 If you're a young adult with a couple of kids, you're doing your family a disservice if you

00:18:36.420 you don't have life insurance. And again, then you come down, if you have a car payment,

00:18:42.780 and I'll try to talk you out of that in a way that we can discuss in the Q&A later.

00:18:48.520 But then, so you work down through these reasonable monthly living expenses. Those

00:18:56.280 are the kinds of things that you take, you know, that you're gross, whatever that, we'll talk about

00:19:04.340 wheels. So you take from your net income through your living expenses, and that leaves you a

00:19:13.440 disposable income. And for a lot of people, if you're living on a pretty tight budget,

00:19:20.520 then there may not be a lot of disposable income left over. But that is an important

00:19:26.460 question to know the answer to, too. If your net disposable income is $100 a month,

00:19:34.340 then that puts you in one place.

00:19:38.340 But if you're $1,000 a month, that puts you in a different place.

00:19:41.440 So there are two ways to live out from this budget.

00:19:47.480 Thank you, Nick.

00:19:48.340 There are two ways to get out from under that budget.

00:19:51.560 One is to make more.

00:19:54.320 And I don't say that facetiously at all.

00:19:59.040 the, you know, be the guy, you know, if you're working in a job, there's absolutely nothing

00:20:04.900 wrong with that. I spent a long time as a wage employee. I showed up early. I stayed late. I

00:20:10.980 did more than the boss asked me. I got promoted. Those are the kinds of things that, you know,

00:20:19.000 that get you into a higher income bracket. You also save money. And there are ways to get there,

00:20:26.760 it. Saving your money, but investing is an important part, as the old hack has it. Jesus

00:20:34.460 saves, but Moses invests. And so that's how we get, you know, by having side income. And, you know,

00:20:46.860 not everybody can get together enough money to have like a, you know, for example, a, you know,

00:20:53.380 a rental property, but if you could get those sorts of things and it takes,

00:20:57.280 it takes some work to get where you have, uh,

00:21:23.380 you time off okay did it did we miss that part i broke the internet um so nobody owes you the

00:21:40.900 you know uh you know some lifestyle that you think you're entitled to you have to get out

00:21:45.700 there and get it um and that's about the philosophy of money um because the philosophy of it is both

00:21:52.260 carrot and stick you know you have to have the ability to want more to get out there and get

00:21:59.140 more or you can just live with less there is absolutely nothing wrong with living a very

00:22:04.660 modest lifestyle and you know and keeping a realistic expectation with again with the goal

00:22:13.060 being that you that you want to have a make the most out of what whatever it is that you are

00:22:19.140 earning. So covered that. So then a couple of tips and then we'll go to questions and talk for a while

00:22:33.940 longer about these sorts of topics. But certainly for me, one of the things that I know, I'm an older

00:22:42.880 guy so i'm used to i've lived in an age before um there was all this internet money uh all these

00:22:50.160 money systems um like that but uh you know or even and took me maybe because of the job that i do it

00:22:59.920 took me a long time to get used to even having a credit card but certainly one of the one of the

00:23:04.720 tips for saving money is to take that money that you have at the end of the month that disposable

00:23:10.240 income that you have after your living expenses are paid, you take that disposable income

00:23:16.160 and you put that amount of cash into an envelope and you spend until you try to have some money

00:23:24.480 left over in that envelope when it's all said and done. You put that, you have your cash

00:23:29.200 set aside and you spend cash because it's a lot harder to take money out of your pocket

00:23:36.760 than it is to swipe that credit card or debit card, especially the debit card is, is to,

00:23:42.420 you know, in a lot of ways is that evil invention because, you know, it takes, it takes no effort

00:23:48.940 to swipe that debit card, 10, 15, $20 spending $20 is the same as spending $4 out of the debit

00:23:56.000 card. It's the same swipe every time. Whereas, you know, taking that $20 bill out of your pocket,

00:24:02.480 It's a different kind of decision. Do I need that, you know, do I, am I going to spend this money for this thing?

00:24:10.300 It, it makes me cringe when I drive, every time I drive by and I don't want to pick on Starbucks, I have no, I don't hate them any worse than I hate any other corporation.

00:24:22.000 But, you know, you drive by a Starbucks, there's 30 people in line waiting to spend $9 to get a cup of coffee.

00:24:28.320 can make it home for 50 cents and that makes it just doesn't mark up with me i mean i've got

00:24:36.240 um you know i i drink a couple cups of coffee a day i make them before i leave the house i make

00:24:42.320 one at the office so it even if you're getting your copy at the there i guess there are zippy

00:24:50.960 marks anymore what is it the circle k you know that cup of coffee that you get at the circle k

00:24:56.400 that costs two 50, you know, you can make it home for 20 cents. Um, and another big thing,

00:25:03.080 and it, you know, this is one where I finally got a, brought a lot of discipline into my life,

00:25:08.900 um, is eating out and especially for lunch. Um, you know, that lunch that you go out and spend

00:25:14.700 10, $15 now at, even at, uh, at a fast food place, uh, that's a, you know, that's a lunch

00:25:24.620 you could make at home for $2. So, you know, if you, if you save, if you save $5 a day, every

00:25:33.200 working day, $25 a week, you know, that's $1,200 a year that you could put aside for, you know,

00:25:41.840 to put a down payment on a, on a house or to, you know, as a, you know, to pay off the debts that

00:25:47.940 you have. Um, so it is absolutely critical that you, uh, that you spend money closer

00:25:55.880 to the vest, and when you keep, don't have to work until you're, you know, 70, 80 years

00:26:22.420 old so that you don't have to worry about where you're, whether you're going to be able to pay

00:26:28.740 your bills on time, you know, because you got, you drain your bank account all the way to the

00:26:34.940 bottom every month. Those are the kinds of things that, that make you live a more comfortable

00:26:41.280 lifestyle, just an easier lifestyle. And those will allow you to have a, have more peace of

00:26:47.720 mind. That's what a lot of all of this stuff is about to me is being able to live an, you know,

00:26:52.740 just an easier, more comfortable lifestyle. And one of the things I harp on with a lot of people

00:27:00.380 is about car payments. Maintenance is a lot cheaper than a car payment. You know, it saddens

00:27:10.940 me really the way that car payments go five, six, $700 a month. Now I have clients that come in now

00:27:16.260 that have $750, $850 a month car payments. And it's just, it's hard to dig that much money out

00:27:25.020 of your, out of your work life. That's your time that you're giving to some big corporations so

00:27:30.920 that you can drive a slightly newer, slightly nicer car. I mean, I've got the two cars that

00:27:37.300 I have, you know, one of them is a 2010 Ford truck and the other one's a 2011 Toyota.

00:27:45.500 So, and I keep it maintained, you know, you put $200 a month in that Toyota, it's going to live

00:27:52.460 forever. And that's my goal is to drive it until there's 600,000 miles left. And by then I can

00:27:58.080 save up enough money to buy a, you know, by then a 2015 Toyota or whatever it is that's,

00:28:08.400 you know, that's going to be a nice, you know, a decent replacement of that car just gets

00:28:12.200 you from place to place. Nobody cares what you, what your car looks like. Okay. As long

00:28:18.440 as you get to work on time and as long as your family is safe and comfortable getting

00:28:23.760 from place to place you don't need a you don't need a new car new enough you know it will get

00:28:30.560 you there in florida you need air conditioning

00:28:53.760 is that me fading out or is that the is that me driving

00:29:17.200 sorry i don't know why that kept keeps doing that

00:29:21.040 um we'll just blame it on the panhandle snow that's it well we were without power for

00:29:29.200 uh 14 hours but um the maybe so there you go that was my house this morning or

00:29:36.000 i guess that was my deck the view out my deck this morning so uh three inches of

00:29:40.880 sleet last night and no power you're still good so so you feel time i i know i don't want to mess

00:30:03.360 up his flow i know he's got a presence 16 hours okay yeah and i um and i was talking

00:30:10.800 even when my picture was out so i'm not sure that that's uh so that that's what um what was hurting

00:30:16.240 anything you know if you have kids um all of this a lot of this stuff becomes a lot more difficult

00:30:25.760 to navigate i'll say it that way um we made sacrifices uh to allow my wife to stay home

00:30:34.400 with the kids because i believe that that's an important aspect of um healthy childhood

00:30:41.440 you know the house that we bought was in terrible condition and we put a lot of our time and effort

00:30:48.400 into doing that sort of work ourselves so that uh so that the um equity that we built on that was not

00:30:57.120 equity that came from my having to pay somebody else to do it it's equity that we put in by

00:31:03.120 being able to do stuff like paint and do minor reconstruction work and electrical work that I

00:31:10.600 can do and those sorts of things that were able to get us into a better position than we could

00:31:18.100 have been if I was having to hire everything done. I used to work on home cars, but I wouldn't try to

00:31:24.160 do that anymore. Everything's computerized, so you got to be good friends with your mechanic so that

00:31:29.280 He doesn't overcharge you. But those are the kinds of things that allow you to, again, to live a good lifestyle out of the budget that you make instead of having to kill yourself to try to make more.

00:31:42.280 I used to laugh at the, because I would look at my income and look in our newspaper, if

00:31:50.940 you remember what a newspaper was, you know, that I used to get, but the newspaper that

00:31:56.000 I got, they would have a little grid every month, like if you're making X dollars per

00:32:01.360 month, you could, you know, you could qualify for this much house payment, and I thought

00:32:06.880 was absurd and I think it is absurd the way that the banks will they they will loan you into

00:32:12.400 bankruptcy because they will bust your budget trying to get you to pay too much for a house

00:32:22.320 and yes theoretically you could make it if you you know if you sit in the dark and eat rice and beans

00:32:28.400 three nights a week you could make the house payment that they think you could qualify for

00:32:32.240 but that is not a quality lifestyle. I know people, I've had contractors that have come to

00:32:38.880 me that talk about a lot of the houses in the richer neighborhoods, the wealthier neighborhoods

00:32:44.560 around Tallahassee, where the people who are making, they're having to put so much into their

00:32:49.840 house payment that they don't have money for furniture. You know, so they have this super

00:32:54.160 nice house on a super nice street and they're living on furniture that's, you know, that's just

00:32:59.920 awful, you know, plastic furniture and, you know, dormitory style, what's the thing, milk

00:33:08.940 crates, you know, that they're eating off of because they're, because they're, they

00:33:13.200 listen to a banker, they listen to a mortgage lender that, that let them qualify for a house

00:33:20.380 that they really can't afford. You have to live below your means, live something that

00:33:25.820 You can like with that budget worksheet that I showed you, if you, you know, if when you spend your way down, you can also work your budget backwards.

00:33:34.300 You can say, all right, once I spend these other items, this much for food, this much for my car payment, this much for my car insurance, how much do I have left over for a mortgage payment?

00:33:44.960 Can I pay $2,200 a month for mortgage payment?

00:33:49.060 No.

00:33:49.620 I mean, it just doesn't work that way.

00:33:51.840 And what ends up happening then, if you overbuy, if you overbuy on a car, if you overbuy on a house, then you end up putting some of your regular monthly living expenses onto credit cards, and that's where you get sucked into the black hole of debt.

00:34:05.000 and there's it's really hard to get out of that once you start once you get dug into that

00:34:13.600 position it's really difficult to come back from putting two three six hundred dollars a month on

00:34:21.540 a credit card and then pretty soon you're ten fifteen twenty thousand dollars in debt and

00:34:27.100 there's no way and there's i guess there's a way to do it but it is really hard to dig out from

00:34:32.980 that kind of hole so and then beyond that a couple of other tips a lot of a

00:34:43.900 lot of it to me the the frugal lifestyle to me is about mindset that's one of

00:34:53.380 the things and I you know people you know you're you're

00:35:02.980 Okay, so Alan, you cut off that frugal mindset.

00:35:26.200 Okay, thank you.

00:35:27.200 Frugal mindset, and it could be that the ice is still interfering with our internet over

00:35:31.700 here.

00:35:32.700 Well, the mindset to me is, again, keeping goals right in front of you, spending cash, not swiping a debit card.

00:35:42.600 But one of the things, and it seems like a small thing, and maybe it is, but saving nickels.

00:35:48.840 And I don't mean like nickel increments.

00:35:52.340 I mean like the literal coin, the nickel.

00:35:55.140 Okay.

00:35:56.120 The literal nickel coin is worth like seven cents right now.

00:36:00.260 The copper and nickel that's in a nickel is worth more than five cents.

00:36:06.360 So if every day, like one of the things that I do every day when I come home, I take all the nickels out of my change and I throw them in the nickel jug.

00:36:16.120 And it's just one of those ways that I have of keeping myself focused on saving money, building wealth.

00:36:23.040 Those are the those are the kinds of things that that that will put you ahead instead of keeping you behind on, you know, and staying just breaking even because you want to be able to take a breath once in a while.

00:36:39.080 So that's sort of my presentation.

00:36:44.620 I am absolutely open to sitting here for a couple of hours and taking questions about how to do budgeting, how to do wills, how to get out from under if you are under, how to, you know, how to make more out of the money that you're making.

00:37:05.040 My time is yours.

00:37:06.840 all right well thank you for that i hope people take advantage of it because there's

00:37:11.400 a tremendous value we have a an expert here um a couple of

00:37:21.080 a couple of things that i wanted to say but i didn't want to interrupt to say them

00:37:28.120 with your preamble i think a lot of people may not fully realize and i'd like for them to

00:37:35.640 that religion when done right also true and specific is about a holistic existence where

00:37:48.860 all the aspects of your life to the best of your ability can synergize with one another

00:37:53.900 towards right living um it's easy to conceive of things as overtly religious that involve

00:38:04.160 prayer or ritual or time at a half, but in Ausatru, the saying that we are our deeds

00:38:13.980 is easy to say, but sometimes I don't think we think of all those implications.

00:38:20.460 So you're Ausatru in the way you're an Ausatru husband, you're an Ausatru father, you're

00:38:25.140 an Ausatru son, you're an Ausatru friend, you're an Ausatru boss, you're an Ausatru

00:38:29.120 employee.

00:38:29.660 You live your faith in all the ways that you do things in your life. And by being able to be successful, that furthers your efficacy to do the other aspects of your life and to be, you know, to live our values.

00:38:45.660 values. Industriousness, perseverance, self-reliance. So many of these values come into play

00:38:54.660 specifically through our ability to be successful. And I think we think really often of money as

00:39:03.360 some kind of taboo bad thing, but it's not. It's a means to power in the world that we live in,

00:39:12.640 where you can accomplish things that you want where you can help causes that you value you can

00:39:19.040 help friends and family that you value it very much is a spiritual concept it's the first of our

00:39:27.920 runes fehu is it's about wealth and not just wealth in the sense of dollar bills or stacks

00:39:35.200 of gold or cows but in any ability to store up resource and then circulate said resource towards

00:39:45.840 what you will it to do it's a very relevant concept and something i i would like for

00:39:52.800 us to embrace as much as we can so we have a couple of questions lining up i would encourage

00:39:58.720 you guys to ask some more, but the first, and feel free to answer this as vaguely or not at

00:40:06.820 all if you don't want to, because it's really not people's business, but it's a relevant

00:40:11.100 question, I think. So Finraith would like to know, are you rich? Are there AFA members who

00:40:18.580 are rich. Alan, are you rich? No. I live a pretty frugal lifestyle. I still have a mortgage payment.

00:40:32.220 So to me, that is one of the marks of being rich in that sense. That's one of my own personal

00:40:41.520 goals is to try to get this house paid off. Um, but these are relative terms, you know, um, I

00:40:49.760 have a rich abundance of friends, uh, of which, uh, Matt and Nick, I consider, uh, among. And so

00:40:57.600 I have that, uh, richness, uh, going for me. I own three cars. So, I mean, that's pretty decent.

00:41:07.340 I think I have, you know, a modest amount of personal property. So, I mean, so, you know,

00:41:17.580 but rich in the sense of that, like when I hear that term, I think of someone with a lot more

00:41:26.300 wealth than I have, but I think that's what everybody does. You know, I've seen some scales

00:41:32.740 where, you know, people who have, you know, people who make $20,000 a year think people

00:41:40.920 who make $40,000 a year are wealthy.

00:41:43.060 And, you know, people at $40,000 think $80,000 is wealthy.

00:41:47.420 So I would say that I was on my way to being wealthy before my wife got tired of putting

00:41:57.240 up with my, uh, oddball sense of humor and whatever other issues I have that I could not

00:42:03.280 identify on a bet. But, um, and actually, you know, I, and I forgot to put it back in my notes,

00:42:10.020 but that's actually one of the ways to stay wealthy is to stay married. And, you know,

00:42:18.020 that's not always easy. I know we live in this transitional age where people, um, where religion,

00:42:24.400 politics, approaches to money can be divisive things. And I know that's one of the things that

00:42:32.520 I think worked at some of the seams of our relationship, but it's sad that two incomes

00:42:44.040 that can barely support one household, then after a separation, have to support two households.

00:42:48.520 I wish I I wish my mom had lived closer to Tallahassee and I would have moved back in with

00:42:58.460 her I mean there is absolutely nothing wrong with you know that's why like some of it for a long

00:43:04.340 time I used to drive through these areas and you know drive through downtown and there are these

00:43:09.720 huge what I think of as mansions you know four or five six thousand square foot houses but you know

00:43:17.440 when those homes were built in the 1800s, 1900s, early 1900s, those houses held three generations

00:43:28.740 of people. And, you know, it was because people knew that the way to maintain wealth is to keep

00:43:34.760 it in the family, literally, you know, be nicer to people so that they'll get, so you can get along

00:43:40.440 and, you know, get, so that you can, you know, live that more comfortable lifestyle up close to people.

00:43:53.760 That, I wouldn't say I'm the best example of being able to do that, but I mean, I know it's a theoretical possibility.

00:44:01.940 Well, and that's something that I think folks need to, I think a lot of us.

00:44:10.440 Make mistakes in our life, get ashamed of those mistakes, focus on those mistakes, and squander time and energy and everything else, trying to run from them instead of trying to stop digging and correct them.

00:44:32.740 And wherever you find yourself, you can don't don't always look at the end goal.

00:44:43.340 Look at the immediacy. If you try, you can always be better than you are now, wherever that is.

00:44:50.620 The best time to start is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.

00:44:55.560 Absolutely. And the other thing is to be when you're on the other side, when you are the aggrieved person,

00:45:02.560 The thing to do is to be, this is not a term that I advocate a lot, but to be a little tolerant, especially of our, you know, of your brother who errs in good faith.

00:45:14.160 And I think that, too, is a symptom of the way that we, as the, you know, the first, maybe, you know, I'm among the first of what you might consider the television generation, where we were raised on sitcoms and movies.

00:45:31.420 And you just get this idea that we can have this major problem and then we can get it all solved and get it all wrapped up.

00:45:39.620 And then we're back to being best buddies all in an hour and 20 minutes.

00:45:43.880 And that's just not realistic.

00:45:46.100 You know, you have to maintain frith with each other.

00:45:48.820 You have to maintain love, which, Matt, that's a word that you like to use a lot.

00:45:54.780 And I appreciate that it's a word that doesn't get used often enough in our faith or in our civilization in general.

00:46:05.060 But that's one of the approaches to being able to understand as long as people are trying to do their best.

00:46:15.620 But if they make a mistake, that's okay.

00:46:19.660 Now, if somebody is doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, you know, that's a, you know, that's a different part of the equation.

00:46:28.260 But we have to be a little bit, you know, thicker skinned about some of these things.

00:46:35.600 Two things I'd like to add.

00:46:37.500 First, on the idea of letting things slide and having some forgiveness, I've said this on the program many times.

00:46:44.880 for anybody who maybe it's first time they're hearing it or who needs a reminder and i think

00:46:48.640 this is worth reminding all of us including ourselves also true is not a reaction to

00:46:56.240 christianity sometimes people find also true and then oh christians forgive we don't forgive but

00:47:05.680 that's nonsense and it's silly one of the fundamentals of our folk of our race of our

00:47:12.720 faith is nobility. The point is you have a option to extend grace and forgiveness to someone you

00:47:22.300 choose to. You're not obliged to. Austra doesn't make, you don't owe anybody forgiveness if you

00:47:28.140 don't want to, but it's a mark of nobility for you being able to rise above pettiness and extend

00:47:35.200 that in accordance with your will and with, you know, your judgment as a noble man or woman.

00:47:42.720 i think that's something we should consider um but also back to is alan rich so well no because

00:47:51.520 your point was really valid one of the reasons that alan is in fact rich is the fact that alan

00:47:58.320 does not think alan is rich if you have low expectations and then you achieve them and

00:48:06.480 then you sit atop them and crow about them that limits you in a tremendous way everybody thinks

00:48:12.720 everybody's got people they look up to or a status or a place they want to be. If you ever

00:48:20.320 find yourself, you have achieved the ultimate end-all goal of everything in your life and you

00:48:25.200 stop, chances are very, very good that you are delusional and you are preventing yourself from

00:48:31.860 making additional gains in your life. But I will say this, the reason he's on the program talking

00:48:37.720 about what he's talking talking about most of the rest of us in the afa think alan is

00:48:43.480 well off is is wealthy uh rich is kind of a loaded term like i don't think he has a money bin that

00:48:51.080 he dives into but yeah he's been very successful whether he you know whether whether he is is

00:48:59.080 claiming it or not the rest of us acknowledge it in uh you know are respectful that he's got

00:49:06.520 some stuff figured out and the second half of the question was are there rich afa members

00:49:11.080 really depends on what you mean we have got members from all across the economic spectrum

00:49:20.200 um i would say we have a higher percentage of six financially successful membership

00:49:27.960 now than we've had in the past we certainly have you know

00:49:32.760 a percentage of members that are very well off um in their life have their stuff figured out

00:49:41.320 have a you know have or have had a very successful career have saved up have a lot of means we have

00:49:48.200 quite a few that way we've got a lot of people below that we've got a lot of people in between

00:49:53.480 and we've got a lot of people that are really struggling but yeah we absolutely do have some

00:49:56.920 afa members that are very well off i don't think we have you know billionaire members or tens of

00:50:05.320 millionaire members but i would bet that we've got several members that their combined assets

00:50:10.280 are you know a couple million or more um some other stuff kind of kind of stacking up talking

00:50:19.400 about wheels well we're gonna get there because that's that's on my list and i interrupted your

00:50:25.320 thing by trying to remind myself, not realizing you're reading the comments just as much as I am.

00:50:31.400 So, oh, before we go further, Alexander, thank you very much. He bought us three coffees. That's

00:50:38.540 $15 worth of donation. Thank you so much for that. We appreciate all you guys that have been

00:50:43.480 so generous on the program and continue to do so. And thank you, Alexander, for your example of being

00:50:49.260 such a hard, industrious worker, man. You're knocking some stuff out in your itself. So we

00:50:54.180 are grateful for that as well. Those of you who don't know, Alexander Castro is a apprentice

00:51:01.620 folk builder for the Astru Folk Assembly out of the, I don't know, greater Jacksonville, Florida

00:51:07.000 area. And he is doing a tremendous job so far in a lot of different ways. And we very much

00:51:13.840 appreciate the hard work you're doing, Alexander. Thank you. Gofie Trent East would like to know,

00:51:20.340 law speaker. What was it about the AFA that made you want to join and commit so much of your life

00:51:26.420 to its success? Back in my day, I will say that I was raised as a religious person. And then,

00:51:47.540 You know, so religion was a big part of my life as a child. But then when I came into a young adulthood and began to question those sorts of things, especially when it became important to me, the idea of philosophical consistency.

00:52:08.920 I had to have an integrated worldview so that my science and my philosophy and my religion all matched up in a, you know, in a complete framework that that that was compatible together.

00:52:23.920 together um wandered long far away from christianity and then found um all's a true

00:52:31.360 started practicing with um the groups that were around at that time there were some groups in

00:52:39.120 florida some groups in the southeast that i got a lot of benefit out of and made a lot of

00:52:46.340 association with. Hi, Bodie. We got to know some of the folk. And then in 2010, in the

00:52:57.280 state park, right across the street, from where our hoff is now. See, that wasn't me that we.

00:53:11.880 Okay, you're still in the midst, but you are telling a poignant story. So we're going to

00:53:15.920 Rewind to it when we get you back.

00:53:26.380 Trying to give the law speaker a second here because I would like to hear his tale from 2010.

00:53:33.200 Hopefully he will be back joining us very shortly.

00:53:45.920 so first time that was bats okay so while we figure

00:53:55.480 all right he's popping i'm sorry guys we're having some technical difficulties we're trying

00:54:01.240 to sort it out as best we can um a variety of still frames of alan in various poses

00:54:08.560 that's entertaining uh in the meantime i'm gonna look and see if there's stuff that i can

00:54:13.800 just kind of pop on about that we're talking about. I'm going to wait till that's a little

00:54:23.620 bit more secure. Sorry, guys, I'm looking for stuff over in the side to get on about.

00:54:35.960 Okay, something else I'm going to bring up and talk about until we get them back on and we'll

00:54:39.220 them back to questions one thing that i've seen a lot with our folks and i noticed i noticed this

00:54:46.260 in the way we speak and i've also noticed it in the way that we conceive of stuff one of the

00:54:53.540 things that i've seen be the most difficult for our people is they don't have a eye to the future

00:55:06.500 they don't believe it's possible for them to be successful long term so they become

00:55:19.380 chocolatey rich in the way that they spend their money when they get it because if they get a lump

00:55:25.460 sum or they get a you know they're working a seasonal job and they get a big payout

00:55:29.860 they will take that and immediately spend it on cars or nonsense because they don't see the point

00:55:42.080 in saving it if they don't feel like, you know, that's a lifestyle choice. So they blow it on

00:55:48.780 irresponsible purchases because that's maybe the only time they're ever going to see a big

00:55:53.320 paycheck. And that is very understandable psychologically. But I've watched people go

00:56:00.560 through, you know, these perpetual feast and famine periods in their life because they're not

00:56:05.740 looking at the long game. They've already given up the long game. So they're just trying to win

00:56:10.700 the day to day. And that's unfortunate. It speaks to the soul sickness of our folk. It speaks to

00:56:16.740 some of the problems going on, but you absolutely can win and be successful. It may be more

00:56:22.240 challenging for you today in the environment you're in. It may be less so. I don't know

00:56:26.580 your circumstance, your family's circumstance, but there's lots of opportunities to win and

00:56:32.480 be successful. When I see Alan continue to move and not glitch up, we will get back to

00:56:39.000 his story because I think it was a good story he's about to tell us. He set the stage. It

00:56:43.120 was 2010, and then interference occurred. You look normalized. Will you tell us what

00:56:51.460 happened in 2010? Well, I was the sponsor of Moot that, that in the old days, and again, you know,

00:57:02.440 back in the, you know, back when those of us who were queuing this path, we used to have only an

00:57:10.680 annual gathering here in Florida. It was actually for the entire Southeast. And so I met Steve

00:57:16.260 mcdallan at a moot that i was sponsoring running um and uh you know he showed me also true in a way

00:57:24.260 that was that was more integrated in the way that we uh that we talk about it um where it's you know

00:57:31.440 where it is the whole lifestyle of you know where it's not just you know plucking your religion from

00:57:37.760 this shelf and plucking your philosophy from somewhere else um and that was that was the

00:57:42.460 beginning of my path to what I now understand to be the traditionalist way of viewing these sorts

00:57:52.200 of things. I know that a lot of us are familiar with Julius Avila and his writings, many of the

00:57:58.920 other traditionalists who I agree with in greater or lesser extent. But one of the things that Mr.

00:58:07.740 mcnallen showed me is the idea that that this is all one integrated thing um he sent me on that life

00:58:17.740 path where

00:58:21.740 All right. Well, we're getting this story in bits and pieces, so we can all answer the follow-up.

00:58:37.940 All right. All right.

00:58:43.580 Sorry. It may be my internet, but I don't think so.

00:58:46.920 so in 2010 our founder Steve McNallan showed you that this is an integrated holistic life path

00:58:59.340 and that's where we got with the story on why you're here and why you've chosen to prioritize

00:59:06.640 this so much is that where we're at it absolutely and then um so the and then so the feeling that I

00:59:16.400 got and continue to receive from the interactions that I have with what I just, you know, I try to

00:59:23.200 think of it as the way, you know, this is just the way, you know, also true is the name that we call

00:59:28.880 it, but this is the way that we, you know, certainly I am not Norse. I mean, I'm a, I am

00:59:38.160 Saxon by derivation. So my people certainly wouldn't have called it also true. It was just

00:59:42.700 the you know it was just the way we have our gods we practice our way and i think that it is a way

00:59:47.760 that has been successful um in the world view i think the um all of the best

00:59:54.940 things of western civil even things like understanding and um and tolerance and those

01:00:06.300 sorts of things those are germanic ideas you can one of the books in the gothi program i guess it's

01:00:12.640 still in there, the Germanization of Christianity,

01:00:17.200 you know, where it shows that one of the reasons

01:00:20.560 that Christianity became the dominant religion in the world

01:00:24.040 is the way that Christianity integrated

01:00:26.560 with the Germanic worldview.

01:00:28.980 And those two tools together became

01:00:33.720 what is now Western civilization.

01:00:35.880 So, and I think all the best parts of Christianity

01:00:40.880 um are things that derive directly from its adaptation of the germanic tribal practice

01:00:50.160 so and that's what i so so that's the way that i view these things you know is how can you know i

01:00:58.080 one of the things that i try to do is eliminate as much as possible um contradictory thoughts

01:01:05.520 in my head. Cognitive dissonance is the, you know, is the term for that where you try to hold

01:01:12.340 two opposing views in your head, right? Like, well, and biblical Christianity is one of those

01:01:20.620 things that created that for me, you know, because in order to believe that Christ is an important

01:01:26.020 figure in your religious aspect of things, you have to believe that the earth was created 6,000

01:01:31.820 years ago and i couldn't continue to believe that so um you know certainly also true our

01:01:40.940 worldview is compatible with science it is compatible with compassion for animals which

01:01:47.740 you know i like to eat animals but i also think that they should live a better lifestyle than

01:01:54.620 factory farming which is only about maximizing profit so there are you know all those sorts

01:02:00.700 of things can be brought into a worldview that is consistent with compassion for living things

01:02:08.940 while also realizing that it's okay to kill things under appropriate circumstances.

01:02:15.740 And a corporation is another thing, like a corporation can be a tool for a small businessman

01:02:22.460 to be able to run his business in a way that protects him. But when corporate capitalists

01:02:28.380 become in charge of the entire economic system that is not a good thing so we you know so that's

01:02:34.140 you know we need to put some checks and balances on that uh on that program

01:02:41.900 what about wills so i folks may not know um i have been harping on people to get their will done

01:02:50.380 for a number of years now um this is the man that i try to get everyone to send said wills

01:02:57.660 to or at least a notarized original copy to um i have found a place called what doyourownwill.com

01:03:09.740 i believe i think nick's still got the link yes doyourownwill.com it is that simple

01:03:16.940 it is exactly what it says uh it is legit in all 50 states um

01:03:23.420 there's no reason i and i'm gonna let alan get on this in a second but i want to mention

01:03:33.900 it is unfortunate one of the experiences being y'all's here you go if he is

01:03:38.940 being very aware of when we lose members of our afa family and sometimes we lose them to entirely

01:03:45.820 preventable and sad circumstances and sometimes it's just the course of things that people

01:03:51.980 uh you know grow old and pass away but in each of those extremes and everything in between

01:04:00.860 we've had members that pass away that don't have wills and there is a variety of outcome

01:04:09.260 at that point sometimes people have family that are very in tune with what the deceased would

01:04:15.900 have wanted or expressed that they wanted make sure they have that and that's wonderful there's

01:04:20.700 a lot of circumstances that hasn't been the case like one member in specific

01:04:28.060 his parents had recently converted to judaism

01:04:33.100 and his uh his remains are forever interred in a in a jewish cemetery and i know that's very

01:04:41.900 contrary to what he would have wanted but if you don't make your will and you don't make sure that 0.53

01:04:48.140 it's in the hands of people who can advocate for you you can't have that i don't want people to

01:04:53.020 have that um so alan would you talk to the the fine folks a little bit about wills why they

01:05:00.060 should have them how they should get them and what they should do with them uh i will and the um

01:05:08.620 i'm not i haven't worked through that do your own will.com but i assume and uh that that the

01:05:16.220 um that the people who run that site have done their homework and um so there are um

01:05:25.020 a couple of important things when it comes to having your last wishes honored um certainly

01:05:32.380 the you know the the existence of a will uh allows you to dictate to the maximum extent possible how

01:05:39.100 your property is distributed you know i want my uh library to go to matt i want my um bicycle to

01:05:47.580 go to my sister and absolutely so as you contemplate where you want your libraries and bicycles to go

01:06:06.540 we will await the law speaker's further instructions on this it is a really i want my last

01:06:12.940 okay he's starting to come back in now uh we talked about the disposition of your bicycle when

01:06:17.980 we last had you right and and and certainly your your last you know the way that your bodily remains

01:06:24.540 are dealt with can you know is is absolutely a topic um for the way that your that your will um

01:06:31.020 a topic for what you can include in your will. If you have children, you absolutely need a will

01:06:38.940 so that your children can be raised by people that you, you know, that you can appoint the

01:06:45.460 guardian for your children. These are important topics that, in my opinion, you're, you know,

01:06:53.400 you're, you're, you're doing a, that's $250 well spent to go to an attorney, even if it's just to

01:07:01.120 say, I went to this website, I prepared this will, does this look okay? And having, you know,

01:07:07.280 have a lawyer say, you know, just edit their way through it. I'm not that lawyer, I will,

01:07:15.060 I'm certainly glad to act as a repository of properly executed wills, but I am not qualified

01:07:23.240 to give you other than lay advice on things that you can do that you can and can't include in a

01:07:31.120 will. There are attorneys who specialize in that, and it's important. And again, if you have an

01:07:39.180 estate, and when I say an estate, I mean, if you have $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 worth of personal

01:07:47.340 property that's it's worth talking to an attorney to make sure that that gets distributed properly

01:07:53.260 and it's also if you have kids it's important to have to talk to people that would be the guardian

01:07:59.660 of those children are you willing to raise my children the way that i want you to do it

01:08:05.100 and then you name them as the guardians in the you know in the will and if you don't

01:08:11.100 in your will, if you don't have a will, we, as your protectors of your faith, cannot intervene

01:08:24.820 between you and your family. So if you die without a will, your family is in charge of what happens

01:08:30.360 to your remains. And maybe that's okay. And, you know, it, you know, certainly not the end of the

01:08:35.800 world to end up in a family cemetery to be buried next to your grandparents and their grandparents

01:08:43.360 and all of that. And that's a, you know, that's a noble, admirable thing. It used to be the way

01:08:47.540 of all of us. But in this disjointed society, if you, if you don't have a family cemetery plot

01:08:55.060 somewhere, there's no reason in the world why you can't join your brothers and sisters of the faith

01:09:00.740 in you know in one of our columbariums so everybody just so everybody knows we have um

01:09:10.340 we have the remains we have remains interred at thor's hof at odin's hof at njords hof

01:09:20.500 and at sigerheim um we don't yet at baldershoff just because that situation hasn't arisen but

01:09:27.540 there's absolutely a plan for cremated remains to be housed there should that be something that

01:09:32.900 you'd like to do um question that i have and i think other people have what is the right thing

01:09:40.500 to do if you have a will to make sure that in the event of your death folks

01:09:48.420 know about it and it gets executed um because i i wonder if there's a bunch of people that

01:09:53.300 have wills that are sitting you know in their closet somewhere gathering dust that nobody knows

01:09:58.660 about when these decisions get made it's it's funny i uh i had a friend in high school who had

01:10:06.500 his will made up which i thought was like the craziest thing but he had it you know he had

01:10:13.540 last will and testament written on this envelope and then like all this colored magic marker

01:10:18.420 around it and it just sat out on his desk so like if he was and the lifestyle that he lived it would

01:10:26.440 not have been impossible to come in and find him um uh overdosed from one of the things that he used

01:10:35.220 to indulge himself in and then his will was like within reach of where he was you know would have

01:10:40.240 been laying there um so that's certainly one way to do it um another way is to make sure that i

01:10:46.080 have a copy of it because, again, as our faith community strengthens and grows, if somebody dies

01:10:55.660 and I have a copy of the will, then we can get into the, you know, we can enter into the discussion

01:11:01.640 immediately so that your will, you know, so that your last wishes can be honored. That's, you know,

01:11:09.300 so and you know and especially if you can see it coming like if you're in some lingering illness

01:11:16.740 you know you can tell your spouse you can tell your buddies you can tell me i you know i don't

01:11:24.100 have to have a copy of it i know there are members of the afa who have made provisions i don't have

01:11:28.340 a copy of that i don't have a copy of but but as long as your friends know as long as your family

01:11:33.620 knows here's where my here's the repository my lawyer has a copy of the will and then soon as

01:11:41.140 you step off this mortal coil then you know then that uh those wishes can start to be implemented

01:11:47.780 that's you know it's not about the piece of paper it's about what you want to happen um with both

01:11:55.300 with your stuff and with your remains and the and the way to do that is to distribute that information

01:12:00.260 to people that you trust yeah the more people who know about it the better and know a source

01:12:08.120 to go to it's something that's absolutely happens um when a member passes away I ask Alan even if I

01:12:15.540 assume it's not the case I just check hey so-and-so passed away by any chance did they send

01:12:21.200 you a will no that has not yet that has not been the circumstance yet but I asked just in case

01:12:28.400 because that is really important to us.

01:12:31.700 And don't think that's some kind of a strange thing.

01:12:34.900 Like it doesn't matter what is in there.

01:12:40.280 You can do what you want with your stuff,

01:12:42.300 with your remains, with how you want to do it.

01:12:44.740 But we are very, very committed to wanting

01:12:47.080 to make sure you have what you want done,

01:12:50.660 especially in your final will and testament.

01:12:53.100 um because we are we as god are and the and especially the superstructure you know we are

01:13:02.540 here to do what you know to serve you and to make you know that's uh you know that's the way that we

01:13:08.300 one of the one of the important tenets of this faith is to be remembered and um the one of the

01:13:16.840 best ways to do that is to leave a legacy, either a headstone at one of our cemeteries

01:13:25.540 or dedicate a wing of Sigurheim to your work. You could build the AFA Memorial Hospital there

01:13:38.920 in Gainesboro. That would be awesome. That would be spectacular. But really and truly,

01:13:43.380 And it's such an unforced error.

01:13:48.120 We have had people who are terminally ill and saw it coming for a long time and told us things that they wanted, but didn't make a will, and their family had different ideas.

01:14:03.580 and that's what was done with their remains and their and their assets

01:14:10.620 because it wasn't written down and that's really unfortunate we've also had people who

01:14:17.380 you know have chosen to take their own life without going through that step of letting

01:14:23.560 folks know what they want done with things and that's also left uh them and perhaps those that

01:14:30.100 depended on them in a very bad way so please do you know i i have seen elderly people that see it

01:14:38.740 coming a mile away that have long-term diseases that could get these things taken care of but

01:14:44.840 i've also seen young people with every reason every expectation to live another 50 years

01:14:50.460 to where tragedy strikes it's never too soon to get it taken care of and if you are a parent

01:14:56.860 please get it taken care of so you can make sure your kids are raised in the way that

01:15:01.920 you want them raised. That stalks us all. And so we should be as prepared as possible.

01:15:09.580 Absolutely. Another question. So say you wrote a monthly budget, stopped eating out,

01:15:17.820 make coffee at home, go thrifting instead of buying new at box chains, no car note,

01:15:24.060 Do all of that stuff, yet still paycheck to paycheck. What then?

01:15:34.920 The only other, well, first of all, congratulations, you're doing, you're living within your means. That's the first, that's the first step.

01:15:43.760 Because if you were, if you were, if you're doing it the other way, coffee out, go to the big box store to buy whatever unnecessary stuff that you're, that you're buying, then you're going into the hole every month.

01:15:57.000 And the only other, and so the rest of that answer is you have to make more money.

01:16:03.720 And again, that's, you know, I don't say that lightly.

01:16:07.740 I know that jobs that people get and develop momentum in have limitations in the earning capability, but there are lots of, you know, there are lots of, and I hate the term, but that's, you know, that's the modern parlance of it is the side hustle.

01:16:27.080 You can get a part time job. I have clients who work three jobs in order to make their to make their to have to make their bills work.

01:16:37.040 Um, because, you know, whether it's taking a second part-time job, like as a cashier at a grocery store or some, you know, uh, or, um, driving for Uber or Lyft or whatever, and, or, um, or whether it's finding some other thing that you're good at and like to do, it's, you know, it's sometimes just the oddest thing.

01:17:04.360 Like I had a client who one of his one of his income streams was he played the cello.

01:17:14.620 And so he had recorded some cello music and had uploaded it to.

01:17:21.860 I don't think it was Pandora or YouTube, but it was one of those live streaming things.

01:17:27.140 And so that was like he had residual income from that.

01:17:30.040 Now, it was only like $30, $40, $50 a month, but that's the kind of thing where he liked doing it, and it gave him a little bit of extra money.

01:17:39.880 You know, if you like building things out of wood, you can make little, you know, their stuff.

01:17:49.860 You can make bookends.

01:17:51.420 I mean, look at the stuff that, like, oh, God, I can't, you know, that comes into the AFA auctions.

01:17:59.100 you know the beautiful um artwork that people make crochet needlepoint those kinds of things that

01:18:05.180 can be sold i mean you can you can go to the flea market and and sell those sorts of things

01:18:10.780 and okay and again i know it's not easy to you know to uh you know to make that next nickel over

01:18:18.780 and above that but but that's what it takes you know um i work two jobs all the way through law

01:18:26.060 school so you know it it you know you you got to do what you got to do you know and then

01:18:35.660 you know you can complete your education that's another big part of it um

01:18:43.180 the bachelor's degree now is like the aptitude test used to be and i know it's going without work

01:18:49.820 or going with a minimum work style for the four years or six that it takes to get a bachelor's

01:18:56.860 degree but that is your that's the key to get into the door to get into management um for a long time

01:19:03.820 i thought i was going to work and be i mean i welded did electrical work so uh you know because

01:19:09.260 i was going to be the noble proletarian and work for my living um and there is absolutely nothing

01:19:14.300 wrong with that if you can get into a professional career like being a plumber or a hvac tech or

01:19:20.360 those sorts of things that require training those are highly paid skilled labor um but the grunt

01:19:26.940 labor welding that i was doing was not going to get me anywhere so what it did put me back in

01:19:31.620 school and you know so by getting in school and being pretty diligent about my education i was

01:19:40.680 able to, you know, climb the ladder into self-employment. Wasn't easy, but, you know,

01:19:50.680 but by being frugal and living a pretty modest lifestyle, I've become rich. I mean, modestly

01:19:58.660 well off. Well, something else I'd like to say that I don't see our people doing in large number

01:20:05.880 and other communities are very successful at and many of our you know ethnic communities when they 1.00

01:20:15.480 first immigrated here from Europe were very successful at we have bought into this hyper 0.99

01:20:23.160 individualism that's really weakened a lot of our potential us functioning as a community and

01:20:30.660 thing that i want to see more specifically more afa members doing being willing to work

01:20:37.220 together and help each other to accomplish your dreams on stuff if you're really at that spot

01:20:42.260 where you've done every you've cut out everything you can you don't know how to get any squeeze any

01:20:48.020 more out of it and you're still paycheck to paycheck and this is way more feasible sometimes

01:20:53.700 for single people or younger people that are just getting their feet under them but

01:20:58.420 going in together on something and pooling resources to where you're you know sharing

01:21:06.020 stuff sharing a space to live getting a business together and employing friends keeping your money

01:21:13.140 and your resources in your faith community to help others with jobs and things and we've seen

01:21:21.300 you know recently all of us have seen uh the indian community do this really effectively

01:21:27.540 of going in like hey let's get 10 of us to go in on this motel we can live here it's got a kitchen 0.98

01:21:35.560 it's got places for us to sleep places for us to stay we can work shifts and once we're you know

01:21:42.120 getting rich off of it because it takes off we can use that to then fund the next guy's thing

01:21:46.780 that they're doing and the next and the next and it's a really successful model but we've gotten so

01:21:53.420 jaded at being part of a community or you know sharing our abilities that i think we miss out

01:22:01.100 on a lot of that opportunity and and again the older you get with families and things it makes

01:22:05.840 that much more difficult but it's something i wish more of our people would consider

01:22:08.800 ah we got another question law speaker knowing what you know about debt and such who do you

01:22:16.020 personally think are solid mainstream financial pundits slash writers such as dave ramsey etc

01:22:27.220 dave ramsey's certainly one that i um recommend that uh that's where i get a lot of my uh tips

01:22:34.740 from i think he has a lot of good ideas i i don't recommend as stringent a bunch as as dave does

01:22:43.140 Because especially if you're already in debt, you know, I've heard him recommend to people that they give up their car and then try to pay off the difference, which I think is backwards thinking.

01:22:57.400 Rice, beans, beans and rice.

01:23:00.220 That's right. Beans and rice, buddy.

01:23:02.880 But, you know, but you don't want to keep paying for a car that you don't have.

01:23:07.780 um and then um rich dad poor dad um that that book also is a is a really good resource for

01:23:19.660 um again the and actually one of the books i listened to preparing uh for tonight is just

01:23:26.860 called the philosophy of money now he gets off into talking about investment um and like so the

01:23:34.520 last half of the book i didn't get as much out of but uh but to to get to the point of

01:23:40.360 you know where because i don't and everybody has their own view of the way that these things work

01:23:48.280 so okay so i'll tell you another pointer that i that that has worked well for me i

01:23:54.360 have a small hand a small little piece of a couple of local businesses here and it's you know and

01:24:02.960 And it's just, you know, I met friends through clubs and whatever, social clubs, not the

01:24:11.300 bar scene.

01:24:12.140 But I, you know, but I got to know some people.

01:24:14.760 I trusted them.

01:24:16.200 And so I have like a car dealer here in town where we buy and sell cars together.

01:24:23.080 Okay.

01:24:23.440 So I have a couple of cars.

01:24:25.540 I sell a couple of cars under his license every year.

01:24:28.320 And so, again, but, you know, to get there, even then, I mean, you could work a deal like that, you know, to have, you know, for a low-end car dealer, for a low-end vehicle, you could get in there for $2,000 or $3,000.

01:24:48.340 And, you know, you sell that $3,000 car for $4,000, and then you sell that $4,000 car for $6,000, and the next thing you know, you're a thousandaire.

01:24:58.320 You know, but that's what it takes. Actually, years ago, I read that to turn $100,000 into $110,000 is a matter of course, but to turn $100 into $110 is work. But that's what you have to do.

01:25:16.040 you know you like these guys and i don't like street hustles as general rule but these people

01:25:21.960 that are out here selling flowers on the corner right they bought those flowers somewhere and

01:25:25.880 they're selling them so they're you know they're they're doing their little part to make up you

01:25:31.800 know to make a side hustle and to make a little bit of money that they wouldn't have otherwise

01:25:38.200 and they're you know they're not sitting around bemoaning their fate they're getting out there

01:25:42.840 doing something about it um so those are the three um that come immediately to mind and dave ramsey

01:25:50.600 has made a career and and rightly so out of out of giving people advice on that case-by-case basis

01:25:57.800 i'm glad to talk to you and give you like the

01:26:02.760 six minute version of what i usually take an hour going through with my clients

01:26:08.200 but i you know i will help you do budgeting and those sorts of things it's uh it's a difficult

01:26:15.400 process if you haven't done it before um but it uh but it it can be rewarding to to turn that into

01:26:24.040 uh something a little bit more than than what you had just by i don't want people focus you know

01:26:30.440 the the opposite of that and the wrong way to look at it is to end up being too driven by money

01:26:37.240 You know, people who money becomes their God.

01:26:41.060 That is the wrong way to do it.

01:26:42.760 Money is a tool that can put you in a comfortable place to live a more.

01:26:50.520 The thing that's important to me is to live a spiritual lifestyle.

01:26:54.700 And the money that I have made and continue to make by this, by running this thing is, you know, allows me to.

01:27:07.240 get up and meditate every morning yeah there's

01:27:16.360 i don't know at different times um i feel like dave ramsey's stuff

01:27:22.280 has helped me and my family on just you know right in the ship and getting a spot where you're

01:27:27.880 comfortable progress is progress and everything doesn't have to happen all at once one of the

01:27:34.920 things that i like the most is the idea that if you have lots and lots of debts instead of

01:27:41.720 dispersing all of your resources to a variety of things if you put it all towards clearing

01:27:49.640 the small debts or you know depending on how things are set up you're able to see progress

01:27:54.920 one of the hardest things with accomplishment in general is we all have a really big

01:28:00.280 goal in mind be that a fitness goal i've seen this with weight loss you get somebody who's spent

01:28:05.320 you know 30 years in really poor health allowed themselves to get you know very obese and then

01:28:10.840 they want to immediately fix it and they try so hard and they try for months and they're trying

01:28:15.160 and they don't see a difference the distance between where they want to be and where they

01:28:19.560 are is so hard i'm a big fan of stats and metrics and things so you can see incremental progress

01:28:26.280 and if you've got a stack of debts, having one less, that's something. That's a win you can bank

01:28:32.840 on and literally bank on and you can take some peace of mind in. And it gives you confidence to

01:28:39.480 go after the next big one you go after. And it gives you that sense of accomplishment where

01:28:46.440 you look at last month, like three months ago, I only had $20 in the bank. This month,

01:28:51.400 i've got a hundred dollars in the bank you know that that's a that that you know i i i don't

01:28:59.400 that's hard to do you know if you're when you're when when you're when you're living thin like that

01:29:04.600 it's hard to make that sort of adjustment and it and you know like like you said with the person

01:29:09.480 who's has a lot of weight to lose and if they think well i haven't lost 100 pounds so i'm not

01:29:15.960 doing anything but to think well i lost two pounds so i'm making progress you know you gotta you know

01:29:21.880 you that's part of the psychology of money is you have to think in small steps you know i have i'm

01:29:28.520 better now than i was i'm you know i've got more in my bank than i i have one less debt this month

01:29:34.200 than i had six months ago those are you know so pat yourself on the back um for those sorts of

01:29:39.320 things i'll tell you and you know as i talked about before i uh you know i make a my my practice

01:29:49.560 of law is about filing bankruptcy and in the way back when when i started this practice i did i

01:29:56.840 admit that i felt a little bit bad about burning these banks down you know i thought people you

01:30:01.000 made this debt you ought to pay it but man i've come 180 about that now these you know predatory

01:30:10.520 i think every bank is a predatory lender um i think every loan is uh

01:30:18.520 crime against humanity i mean they're you know it's i i i know that we're enmeshed in it and

01:30:24.520 And there's not an easy way to get from where we are to where we ought to be.

01:30:31.480 But. And I'm also aware of the guy like the maximum that to a guy with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

01:30:38.600 But if you are struggling to pay your bills and you're spending more of your income than you're comfortable doing, paying toward your debt, if you have twenty thousand dollars credit card debt.

01:30:51.680 It's time to think about filing bankruptcy.

01:30:55.400 You know, and I can't make money off of your bankruptcy, so I don't care one way or the other, you know, in any kind of like it's not going to make me any money for, you know, but it's but it's something to think about because, you know, we we this is one of the other things that like in the political ramification of the way that we live our lives.

01:31:14.160 We try to live lives of honor and nobility that, you know, and with those sorts of ideals in the back of our mind, the rest of the world, the corporate world, they don't live that.

01:31:24.520 Okay. And we, you know, so there is nothing false about returning a life or a lie. And so, you know, if you're feeling frustrated about not being able to pay those sorts of bills, I would not hesitate to burn those guys down in a bankruptcy.

01:31:44.340 you know that's it's one of those things and

01:31:50.540 something that's a couple of things I've spent a lot of my life

01:31:58.300 doing counseling or working with with people um I've done a lot in my capacity as as a go-thee but

01:32:07.840 But before that, I used to work with children that were considered severely emotionally disturbed.

01:32:15.400 And these kids had seen really, really rough things in their life.

01:32:18.960 And there's this soft and I think really well-intentioned thing of coddling and telling them everything's, you know, awesome and everybody's a winner and all of these things to try to make them feel good.

01:32:34.920 but reality has a way of stripping away things that are without substance

01:32:43.140 very swiftly and shot in a shockingly brutal way but you can't take away real things

01:32:52.260 The most subtle, small, insignificant win doesn't matter what horrible things happen afterwards.

01:33:06.200 That kid can say, yeah, but in 2004, I was the best speller in Mrs. Johnson's second grade class.

01:33:15.580 That remains true once it's in the record books, no matter what happens.

01:33:20.620 and it seems little and silly but i've literally seen that make a world of difference if you're

01:33:28.220 struggling and you make something happen that you get a win in the win column that counts you always

01:33:36.060 have that and you can look back and how did you make that happen let's try that again on the next

01:33:41.900 thing and it sounds really small but it can make a very big difference and the other thing is

01:33:47.180 is getting to people to stop digging, especially, what's this, on the sunk cost fallacy, where you

01:33:56.380 get, and we all have found ourselves doing this. You make a bad choice, make a bad choice,

01:34:07.140 you invest in something you shouldn't have, and then you realize, uh-oh, and so you put more on

01:34:14.480 it just in case well man maybe if I can float it just a little bit longer at a loss something will

01:34:20.120 happen and eventually you build up so much crushing embarrassment and like you can't

01:34:31.820 accept the loss that you keep throwing in good money after bad and that is a very human thing

01:34:40.640 that I think all of us have felt at one time or another in financial situations, in relationships.

01:34:47.060 If I just keep digging, I'm going to find the bottom of this hole.

01:34:52.760 And I mean, miracles happen. I can't say that won't happen. If you spend all your money on

01:35:01.060 And on lotto tickets, you might just win.

01:35:06.320 But I think that the good odds, the vast majority of you, there's only a handful of winners.

01:35:13.320 There's a whole lot of people who lose.

01:35:17.360 To get you to stop, and this is all to say, one of the biggest things when you find yourself struggling, stop digging.

01:35:24.280 Stop making it worse.

01:35:25.720 and if you're in a spot where you can and you have to go to somebody like alan and you know

01:35:33.460 turn in your hand and try to get a reshuffle sometimes that's the smartest play

01:35:40.500 yeah keep that keep that in mind uh other stuff so

01:35:47.660 the 401k thing really confuses me and i may have missed the touch on it he made because i was away

01:36:00.080 from the phone with the kids i recently found out my company is taking 180 a month for my 401k

01:36:09.020 i can opt out but they do match and i have been living fine without knowing that money was being

01:36:16.920 taken should i keep putting it in since i can live without it or try to diminish my contribution

01:36:32.600 well so there's a long history there's a long story about the philosophy of that's that sort

01:36:41.000 of thing i um if you're a if you're in that posture i think a 401k is a reasonable a reasonably good

01:36:49.800 um investment vehicle um especially where they are matching it so that 180 you know is really

01:37:03.560 three you know it's really 360 dollars so the um without knowing a whole lot more about the

01:37:10.920 situation and your philosophy about it i mean the because the other because the other part of the

01:37:15.960 question is like you know is about risk aversion because you know i would certainly investigate

01:37:24.440 where that money is being invested you know they're taking this 401k money and probably

01:37:29.640 putting it into some sort of index fund. So if you're okay with, and again, a reasonably good

01:37:39.880 index fund, which an index fund is an investment vehicle where you have basically a

01:37:49.080 share in the stock market. And as the stock market goes up, your investment goes up.

01:37:52.680 If the stock market comes down, the value of your investment goes down.

01:37:57.880 um so the question it seems like to me the the question then becomes like if you had that 180

01:38:05.800 in your pocket what would you do with it could you turn that 180 into 360 a month

01:38:13.400 and also it's tax deferred which means that if you put that 180 back into your paycheck

01:38:19.560 Now instead of $180, it's $160. And so now instead of $360 in a savings account that you will

01:38:28.840 hopefully live long enough to get a big chunk of, now you have $160 that goes directly into

01:38:35.080 your bank account. Now, if you could then turn that into something, if you paid down your debts,

01:38:43.560 But if you're living without it, then it seems like to me that that's probably the best use of that $180.

01:38:52.760 I mean, again, without knowing a whole lot more, I wouldn't advise you to change that pivot.

01:38:58.780 And again, that's one of those ways of living out of your budget, like what I talked about at the beginning of this discussion.

01:39:05.680 And if you can live without that $180, I mean, if that $180 was back in your bank account, back in your check, I'd be telling you to save that too, you know, or pay off your mortgage with it or whatever.

01:39:20.060 But if you're living without it and living well enough, I would leave it in there because that $180 is really $360.

01:39:28.000 And you'll get it eventually, or your kids will.

01:39:31.480 Or you can adopt me, and I'll take it.

01:39:33.780 there you go share with your kids fairly keep that in mind this man is up for adoption

01:39:40.560 um is it okay next question is it true if a person who owes money on credit cards dies

01:39:50.620 the debts disappear

01:39:52.200 yes and no I mean it depends on um the the laws of the state that you live in um for most

01:40:03.740 people the you know their estate is such that it um and the estate by the way is just like all of

01:40:15.980 your property if you have eight hundred dollars in the bank and you don't own anything else you

01:40:20.460 know you have a you have a phone and a bed and eight hundred dollars that is your estate when

01:40:25.740 when you die. And so the so that that you can provide in your will that you're just debts be paid.

01:40:36.420 And so that, you know, that that would be the executor of your will then would would be obligated to pay those credit card debts.

01:40:45.360 But if you say, you know, I want any exempt because people each state has its own exemption, like you can have.

01:40:55.740 X amount of property that passes to your heirs without being without your creditors being able to get their hands on.

01:41:03.140 And if you're under that exemption, then the answer is that your, you know, that your debts die with you unless you provide otherwise in your will.

01:41:15.000 So it's. Now.

01:41:18.000 Now, getting into the topic of exemptions, for most people, for most people who live paycheck to paycheck, you don't have anything that they can get unless you have wages that are subject to garnishment.

01:41:33.680 But but if you have but if you're retired and your only income is pension and or Social Security and you don't, especially if you don't own a home or if you have your home, you know, homestead exempt state, you don't have anything that these creditors can get.

01:41:49.200 They can sue you and get a judgment. They can't get any money from you. So you're not helping yourself.

01:41:55.340 other than maybe, you know, stop the phone and running for a couple of months to pay those bills.

01:42:02.340 But sorry, I know that's more answer than the question was, but the general answer to that

01:42:09.400 question as a general rule is, yes, your debts die with you. Your credit card creditors cannot

01:42:15.340 get any money out of your estate. Not true, though, for cars and mortgages.

01:42:22.360 So please feel free to continue to answer more than the question implies, because one of the things I'm always trying to keep in mind, and I hope that the listeners understand this, too, because especially if I come at it with some kind of a reaction to the question, half of it is we want to give an answer to the person who's asking it.

01:42:46.940 the other half is for all of the other people who are listening that are wondering

01:42:51.660 we want to speak on the topic so that more people are able to benefit from it so we tend to and

01:42:58.620 closely and closely related questions that's why i try to range um a little bit far afield from the

01:43:05.420 you know from the narrow question well absolutely i feel bad because somebody will ask a question

01:43:09.660 that would get me on a rant that i'm like railing against something it's not the original question

01:43:15.980 i'm very happy all of those get answered it's to further the discussion for other people who

01:43:23.980 are listening watching and are listening in the future who might have a similar question or be

01:43:29.420 having similar thoughts or or whatever it's relevant to so please realize that when you

01:43:33.660 do ask a question and that's kind of how we answer um the next question kind of for a different

01:43:40.860 change pace a little bit. Since Tiers Hoff will be the first AFA Hoff to be built from the ground

01:43:47.580 up, do you have any ideas of how you want the architecture to look? Will it be built like a

01:43:54.220 traditional pagan temple, or will it retain the cathedral design of the other Hoffs? I wish the 0.91

01:44:01.040 other Hoffs had a cathedral design. That would be amazing. So a couple of pieces on that.

01:44:07.960 the Hoffs we have have the design that they have because that's where our ability to get Hoffs

01:44:18.200 falls so we certainly we want to find a building that suits our needs that's going to glorify our

01:44:24.700 gods that's going to serve the function that we need from a house of worship being

01:44:30.900 big enough building with a worship space but also a space together to eat to prepare food

01:44:40.660 to you know have kind of a multi-purpose area where we can have discussions on things but also

01:44:48.680 where we can do bloat and make offerings ideally to have a little bit of land or a spot where we

01:44:54.240 can inter the remains of our loved ones. But that comes with a number of other things that, honestly,

01:45:02.420 Christian churches are built in mind with. The idea of having a sanctuary space,

01:45:09.680 a pretty building, a kitchen, and a place to gather and share a meal is pretty common. And

01:45:17.780 it's kind of a built-in that that type of a building fits where others don't. The other

01:45:22.340 thing that comes to play is a uh zoning to where we don't have to get into a battle with that or

01:45:29.300 have unforeseen complications those buildings come with an existing religious zoning and so that

01:45:35.780 matters quite a bit too and so that's why we have the ones that we have we're very thankful and

01:45:41.460 appreciative and we love the hops that we have um the idea for tears off yes and no so i watched a

01:45:48.820 little bit of the side chatter in the chat room truth is we don't have a lot of really good ideas

01:45:58.100 of what original alsatru hoffs looked like we've got very little uh existent information on that

01:46:08.500 because so often specifically in the part of the world that lasted so long

01:46:14.580 hops were built out of wood that tends to decay and not leave the kind of detailed archaeology

01:46:20.820 that we'd like to find on that we have examples in uh certainly in the mediterranean of european

01:46:28.260 uh pagan temples in really grand uh hellenic or latin style and those are really cool that's

01:46:35.140 an awesome option if we had massive resources in marble i think that'd be really cool to do

01:46:40.420 and i'm not opposed to um realistically though yes we do very much have a vision for what we

01:46:46.500 want to see tiershoff look like has to conform to kind of the space available our ability to

01:46:53.380 make it happen but something that's been a guiding

01:47:00.420 idea in our mind and i and i think this rings true we'll we'll see and and i'm hesitant to

01:47:07.140 over commit because things change as time goes on and the realities of a project set in we have to

01:47:13.940 make you know we have to adjust with the changing you know landscape of what we know and what we're

01:47:19.940 capable of so that being said i am very much of the mind that the stave kirka in northern europe

01:47:30.100 is the like one step beyond the ultimate evolution of alsatruhof i think you see that in the

01:47:42.100 structure you certainly see that in the examples of the woodworking that we find from them and in

01:47:47.780 the motifs you see a lot of alsatru imagery even in the nominally christian stave churches

01:47:56.500 you see a lot of bits of our lore depicted in the carving you certainly see sometimes many of our

01:48:06.140 gods in the carving I think they are the closest image that we have of like the height of what an

01:48:15.560 Ausatru Hoth would have looked like at the time or at least conceptually I think that's a point

01:48:21.600 we want to kind of harken back to and pick up from as far as a visual they're beautiful but i 0.99

01:48:28.640 think there's a lot of things to do the other thing that's really important is we don't want

01:48:33.240 to be anachronistic there's no we don't want to make something that is old-timey for the sake of

01:48:39.420 old-timiness truth is one of our values and we want to be you know honest and relevant in our

01:48:47.400 in our depiction of things so we're certainly going to use modern methods and the you know

01:48:52.780 best technology that we have the skill and availability for at our current stage to make

01:48:59.580 something that's really beautiful and special for uh lord tier but that's kind of where we're

01:49:06.820 thinking so far and we have actually this last week we have a very specific example and design

01:49:14.620 that we've got our feelers out for

01:49:16.360 to see if we can get CAD drawings

01:49:19.240 or drawing's the right word, CAD schematics for,

01:49:23.480 and then talk to people and see about materials

01:49:26.500 and expertise on some resources we have for it.

01:49:29.440 But yeah, those are our thoughts at present.

01:49:34.880 Okay, so the next question.

01:49:39.600 Also, this is a question

01:49:43.740 that a lot of people probably think about but don't necessarily ask and i'm glad that you asked

01:49:48.140 it uh finn right do you think that the gods can help a person win the lottery i always hear people

01:49:54.460 of other religions like christianity and hinduism make make such claims alan do you think that our

01:50:03.100 gods can do that the short answer is yes um but the but the longer answer and this goes back to

01:50:20.060 a discussion that i had with a goatee who was in the afa at the time you know that um where we were

01:50:29.260 It was a slightly different question that we were discussing, but sort of a similar question in the idea of if our religion entails the idea of magical thinking, and I think it does, and if our magic works, and I think it does, then why don't we run things like we used to?

01:50:59.260 And the answer that this Gauthier posited and it has echoed for me in the long years since, it's because their magic works, too.

01:51:10.240 And, you know, so if you're, you know, so if there's a thousand people praying to Jesus and a hundred people playing, praying to Vishnu and 10 people praying to Odin and they're all praying for the same thing.

01:51:27.920 then you know then the the nominal change in the way that the universe unfolds

01:51:40.160 is going to be pretty slight um i also think that sort of thing depends on your intention

01:51:48.400 and you know so a lot of other things so i'll tell you in fact i'll tell you a short story right

01:51:52.900 not too long after I found

01:51:56.640 also true in fact I think it was before I even

01:51:58.660 found the AFA

01:51:59.500 I was at a brew club meeting

01:52:02.540 and somebody was giving away

01:52:04.420 like a big we did a

01:52:06.540 raffle every month at the brew club

01:52:08.460 meeting and there was a like this one was a

01:52:10.460 nice pile of a bunch of stuff that

01:52:12.500 I still have to walk on

01:52:14.480 the punchline but like I

01:52:16.460 said you know because I joined I started

01:52:18.540 brewing beer in order to brew mead

01:52:20.420 and I didn't

01:52:22.900 think ahead you know like to but i like like i didn't mumble the rooms over uh over the lottery

01:52:31.860 tickets that i bought the raffle ticket that i bought but i bought nine i bought nine tickets

01:52:37.300 um to this raffle and i won it now did do i think the all father his own personal self intervened in

01:52:45.780 that no um it would be now the way i understand it you know it was probably more likely um

01:52:55.540 my grandfather who was a brewer himself although he brewed corn liquor

01:53:03.060 which is you know what which was the thing of his day so the um uh you know

01:53:09.140 those are the sorts of things that with right intention um you know i i think it can i think

01:53:18.020 it can have an influence in the way that the universe unfolds uh i also think that it you

01:53:27.300 know that again in the you know that you have to ask for the right thing in the right way um

01:53:32.420 so that you know so that you're so that you're manifesting the right thing for the right purpose

01:53:41.060 and i also think that um in a certain way and i don't like to use the term chain of command but

01:53:50.580 maybe hierarchy is the better answer the better phrase uh for that the um the the idea to me is

01:53:57.940 like you know you don't like if if your garbage doesn't get picked up you don't call the governor

01:54:04.420 you call your county commissioner so if you want to win the lottery you should be asking your 0.80

01:54:09.220 grandmother uh not the gods they have bigger more important things to do than to help you

01:54:16.820 all right so to follow on that

01:54:29.300 this is something that's really important truth is one of our values when money that

01:54:40.260 it is very very tempting and very easy for us to just make something up but the truth is less

01:54:53.300 satisfying but it's also honest um can the gods do that certainly

01:55:01.940 uh my piety does not allow me to try to set limitations and say suggest our gods

01:55:08.180 cannot accomplish whatever they put their mind to accomplish

01:55:14.180 do i think that's super likely to be the outcome probably not um

01:55:21.380 what we just don't have the right perfect answer to that's not how things work

01:55:30.660 i think that every person of faith will like man if my god is the super awesome god how come he

01:55:36.740 just doesn't make me win all the time and all the people that like him have all the cool stuff and

01:55:41.180 all the bad people disappear because that's just not the way our universe is structured not how

01:55:48.200 things work and uh you know neither myself nor the law speaker know every in and out of the exact

01:55:55.800 mechanics of that hopefully the longer that we are gothar the closer we come to a better

01:56:01.200 understanding of those mechanics, but what we do know to be true. Our gods absolutely bless us and

01:56:06.980 intervene on our behalf in many different ways in our lives. Those take a lot of different forms.

01:56:15.600 Them, you know, making you win the lotto or making you win, you know, making your team win

01:56:21.540 the football game this weekend or whatever does not seem to be something that they engage their

01:56:29.160 divine might to make happen all the time.

01:56:33.700 Right. And, you know, there's the, there's also that thing of that often a blessing like that

01:56:38.780 is just a problem in disguise. There's the, I think it's a Chinese tale where the,

01:56:45.580 you know, where the guy, you know, the farmer says, you know, wow, my son got lost. Oh,

01:56:53.880 that's terrible. No, he came home the next day with, but he found, and he found a horse while

01:56:57.720 he was lost. That's great. No, the army came, you know, but the horse threw him off and he broke

01:57:03.340 his leg. That's terrible. No, the army came the next day and they were looking for men. And if

01:57:08.200 his leg hadn't been broken, he would have been drug off in the army. So there's, so there's that

01:57:13.000 series, and I don't remember how it all goes or how it ends up, but there's that series of, you

01:57:18.720 know, maybe not winning the lottery is the best thing that could have happened to you. Um, you

01:57:24.740 because you have to gut it out on your own and you know the um uh the it's the harshest winds

01:57:30.500 that make the that makes the hardest wood um as we say at noretoff and you know one of the other

01:57:37.940 things the problem with history is that it's lived forward but it's remembered backward

01:57:43.460 and the uh example that i came up with for myself is you know that if you um like if you

01:57:54.740 Say you're going somewhere and there's a big storm.

01:57:59.960 Well, maybe that's Odin trying to tell me

01:58:01.920 that I shouldn't go there.

01:58:04.640 Okay, or maybe it's Odin putting an obstacle in your path

01:58:09.640 so that if you overcome that obstacle,

01:58:12.180 then you prove your worth

01:58:13.500 and he will reward you at the end.

01:58:15.380 Or maybe it's just raining and it has nothing to do

01:58:18.880 with the gods or your ancestors.

01:58:21.460 So it's, you know, stuff happens and we just have to gut it out and, you know, and live with live by our own might and may.

01:58:28.740 And a lot of the time, the subtlety between all of those things is the art of doing this well.

01:58:37.840 um one of the things when i talk about this with with magic and magic it as long as i've been doing 0.91

01:58:46.260 this it sounds silly to say because there's plenty of lunatics that cheapen it by saying silly things

01:58:54.520 but i think that when people think of of magic they think of you know casting fireballs out of 0.90

01:59:02.800 your hands or, you know, fantastical things.

01:59:07.760 I really do believe it is the recognition and harnessing of synchronicity through either

01:59:17.880 divine favor or your own efficacy.

01:59:21.680 Can I tell a story?

01:59:23.320 You sure can.

01:59:24.900 And I apologize for interrupting.

01:59:29.100 but the so i keep a thor's hammer in every vehicle that i own um the word of god travelers and i

01:59:38.380 know that he has worded me through many mistakes of judgment um so um i was driving to atlanta

01:59:48.220 to practice my kung fu one afternoon and i got stuck in a little traffic jam

01:59:53.420 and then right right beyond that there was a state trooper and i thought you know it's like like man

02:00:02.880 you know that that's cool that i didn't get a ticket there um and you know and then i broke out

02:00:08.460 and i started i got my foot back in the gas and i thought you know i really probably should have

02:00:15.820 thanked thor for not getting that ticket and within five seconds of having that thought

02:00:22.960 The blue lights came on behind me.

02:00:25.180 So I think the lesson that I learned from that is to live with gratitude, which I try to do anyway, but to live with gratitude toward the favors that our gods do grant us, you know, because maybe that was Thor teaching me a lesson to, you know, to recognize him in the place that he does play occasionally in my life.

02:00:48.240 um i i have poured out many bottles of mead now on my horg since that in gratitude to

02:00:58.520 one boon and another and um you know i i feel like i'm in a better place for having done that

02:01:05.560 absolutely um a lot of us when we first come home to aussitrew

02:01:16.640 you know every lightning strike is a personal message from thor every every raven is a

02:01:23.660 the harbinger of the all fathers messages or

02:01:28.320 when you have if you live in a place that has daily thunder and lightning

02:01:36.740 you're less inclined to see every single one of those special occurrence when you live in a place

02:01:42.780 lots of ravens that are eating out the dumpster it becomes less majestic every raven isn't a

02:01:49.380 messenger from the all father every lightning strike isn't a message from thor some are

02:01:54.780 and being open to having the discernment to recognize the one from the other is a

02:02:02.340 an art and wisdom that that happens over the course of your life

02:02:06.240 taking each of those opportunities to be thankful and to, you know, be reverent is always a good

02:02:15.580 thing and never a bad thing. And I don't think that you err by having an excess of thankfulness

02:02:23.820 or an excess of piety. I think that one often errs by having a lack of both of those things.

02:02:29.640 and that's exactly right

02:02:34.220 you know that's why

02:02:35.300 also true that's why

02:02:38.300 the way is such a difficult way

02:02:40.200 because we do you know we try to walk this middle

02:02:42.320 path everything is not the

02:02:44.260 gods in our intervention in our

02:02:46.260 path but occasionally

02:02:48.120 it is occasionally it's the you know the

02:02:50.240 ancestors opening

02:02:52.100 a door for us that we

02:02:53.780 that it's up to us to walk through

02:02:55.960 and

02:02:57.640 you know so

02:02:59.320 So to learn one from the other is just is to is to live with that, to try to get there is just to live with that constant knowledge, that constant introspection that that that can help you learn one from the other.

02:03:15.360 Um, and, you know, I certainly do it imperfectly, but it's, uh, but I, but I try to be aware

02:03:24.140 and, you know, and open to the idea and open to the possibility that, uh, that occasionally,

02:03:29.460 um, my ancestors and my gods open a door for me, that it is my responsibility to step through.

02:03:42.660 Absolutely.

02:03:43.220 Absolutely. Oh, a couple of things. I want to acknowledge this before we get a little bit too far away. Rachel bought us three coffees. It's a $15 donation. Just wanted to say how excited my youngest daughter got when she saw Witten Allen on the big TV. You have a little fan out here.

02:04:04.420 um that's awesome i'm really glad that happens it's cool when kids get to see that um and thank

02:04:14.880 you so much for your donation i look forward to hopefully seeing you next month you will

02:04:20.160 not you rachel i was saying that you will see rachel and her beautiful family

02:04:28.680 and i guess i'll see you too and i look forward to that as well oh i should mention so i've

02:04:34.560 neglected the top of the show i'm sorry it's as good a time as any come on out come on out to

02:04:39.220 nordshoff uh for charming of the plow february 21st through the 23rd that'll be next month

02:04:45.740 both myself uh and the law speaker and rachel and uh my family will be there as long or along with

02:04:55.340 with other AFA members and leaders and fantastic people that you would like to meet and associate

02:05:03.820 yourself with. I would love to meet any and all of you that I haven't, or to see you again if I've

02:05:09.260 met you already, but I'd love to see you there. Also keep in mind that a month following,

02:05:14.760 from the 21st through the 23rd of March, is Ostara at Thorshof. That's in Linn. Okay,

02:05:22.940 So Charming of the Plow is in White Springs, Florida at Njortzhoff, and Ostara is in Linden, North Carolina at Thorshoff.

02:05:33.480 I'm excited to be out there and see all of our amazing people in the Thorshoff district and anybody else that is able to make it.

02:05:41.380 I'd love to see you at both of those celebrations if we can.

02:05:45.800 But yeah, keep that in mind and make sure you go to those if you can.

02:05:49.960 and i would also like to acknowledge a five coffee 25 donation from gw farnsworth who

02:05:58.920 donates just about every show that we have and it's very very appreciated so thank you very much

02:06:06.040 so if you if you come to doards off try to get there friday and bring your favorite poem or

02:06:14.200 For lore recital, that's one of the things that I'm trying to promote so that we can get it leveraged from the Friday program into Saturday into the like the more star-studded part of the show.

02:06:31.120 Because, you know, Scaldic recital was always a part of the celebrations that took place at the hall.

02:06:38.520 So, and it does not have to be directly also true. I mean, if you have written a song that you want to sing, or if you know a recitation that you want to recite, I promise I'm not going to do any of my Monty Python stuff, but I am going to emcee that part of the program.

02:07:03.460 So please bring your favorite inspirational poem or prose, whether it's from the lore or not.

02:07:16.300 So I look forward to hearing from all of our seniors, Gothar, with words of inspiration there.

02:07:26.040 So a question is, are instrumental pieces welcome?

02:07:30.820 Absolutely.

02:07:31.300 All right. So if any of you guys are musical and you can bring your instrument or find somebody local to lend you one, we would welcome that as well.

02:07:41.940 We'd love to see art flourish in Yastru Folk Assembly, be it visual art or performance art or written or consumable art.

02:07:54.860 all the different ways that art and beauty are expressed by our folk a lot of different ways to

02:08:00.860 do it right um because that's what community is absolutely it is fortunately i will not have my

02:08:10.300 yay bahar ready by uh by this by february uh-oh uh matt does like consumable art and if you're

02:08:20.620 going to present any consumable art i would like the option to test it to make sure it is suitable

02:08:27.260 for the folk i would also like the option to opt out if it does not look suitable for me

02:08:36.700 ah where are we at it says matt is a vegan you have to be really particular about the

02:08:42.460 stuff that you present matt is not a vegan matt and matt likes the chemicals uh if there are

02:08:49.420 chemicals that you withhold for Alan, if you could give me double, like two scoops of the chemicals.

02:08:57.660 So, all right. Yeah, some red velvet cake.

02:09:05.100 I can do that. So, okay, here's an intriguing question. If the AFA was a bigger religion with

02:09:11.340 millions of members, and if we were richer like some religious organizations, how do you think

02:09:18.380 money would be spent so i don't know alan go ahead and take a first swing at this if you'd like well

02:09:34.060 so the here's here's one thing and i and like in comparison right one of the

02:09:41.740 the characteristics of the Germanic tribes, as opposed to the Oriental tribes, by which we are

02:09:52.380 now dominated, is that our kings were known as ring givers. Okay, we became prominent.

02:10:03.100 But our leaders were prominent for their generosity, for their equanimity, for their generosity.

02:10:15.880 You know, so I can tell you one thing that wouldn't happen.

02:10:19.900 There wouldn't be crystal cathedrals and private jets.

02:10:23.760 You know, there would be something that looked a lot more like a, you know, like a flattened out pyramid.

02:10:30.880 And not, you know, our pyramid wouldn't have one guy at the top with this much and everybody else sharing nothing at the bottom.

02:10:39.440 You know, that's one thing.

02:10:42.480 And I think the other part of it is that we would have these integrated communities that we are trying to build that that would be local communities of like minded people who share the traditional ideologies that would make these sorts of communities work, that would help each other, treat each other with fairness and kindness and truth.

02:11:12.480 So that so that communities could be restored to the ideal that community used to have in this country up until maybe 100 years ago or so, and which still exists in a lot of communities.

02:11:26.600 I'm not I don't say it's totally disappeared, but it's been certainly the idea has been strained by the foreign ideologies that dominate us both spiritually and politically. 0.60

02:11:46.660 So I think that would be the you know, that to me would be the one one big change, you know, that and I think the other part of it would be.

02:11:56.600 that, you know, if we envision, I listen to a lot of books about history.

02:12:06.100 And one of the things that I find shocking now is the wars,

02:12:13.380 the desperate, bloody, legitimate wars that were fought over religious ideology. 0.68

02:12:22.340 You know, people, they were, you know, they were Christians, but they didn't pray the right way or they genuflected from right to left or whatever their whatever the issues were that made these little fine distinctions in the Christian sects.

02:12:36.340 sects you know i don't think we would have that um and you know and and and that those lines have

02:12:44.740 softened within christianity over the last hundred years or so but like the tribes the germanic 0.87

02:12:51.540 tribes i mean we would kill you and take your stuff don't get me wrong but we didn't care about

02:12:57.780 your religious worship as a general rule you know the um the wars that were fought were never about 0.61

02:13:05.940 religious practice and so i think in that sense there would be tolerance um you know fray has

02:13:12.660 this church odin has this church the lord has this church it's you know and we all it's all part of

02:13:19.860 the bigger scheme of our gods are manifested in the world but we don't we don't we wouldn't fight

02:13:28.340 you because you're wanting to worship fray and sit and face south while you meditate or whatever

02:13:35.380 those distinctions are it's such a it's such broad question and i think it's it's cool and

02:13:43.700 it's certainly a cool one to think on and it's an easy one to get lost on when you get on particulars

02:13:48.580 you know i

02:13:53.940 if we have like an also true kingdom or an also true empire or whatever

02:13:59.620 i mean the tolerance depends if your religion is

02:14:05.380 trying to harm us and trying to damage us things become really not real no no it's not and things

02:14:14.620 become really different but there's plenty of room when you have means to live harmoniously

02:14:21.400 and safety uh and safely a lot of the acts of of violence in in the course of history are done out

02:14:29.260 out of need and out of desperation.

02:14:32.160 And when there's a desperation and a existential need,

02:14:38.480 there becomes a greater willingness to do drastic things

02:14:42.420 or to risk drastic things for it.

02:14:45.000 What I think is also kind of true,

02:14:47.980 and I don't know that there wouldn't be crystal cathedrals,

02:14:51.060 but there wouldn't be crystal cathedrals

02:14:53.200 while our elderly are starving and not taken care of.

02:14:58.200 There wouldn't be. And that's the thing. I think Alan's idea of the pyramid, I think we'd absolutely have hierarchy, but it wouldn't be, you know, this pyramid, the idea that we take care of, take care of the folk.

02:15:11.040 that's something very important to me that I want us to do the best we can with the resources we

02:15:20.280 have and I would love to be able to do in a more comprehensive way if we had you know the dream

02:15:27.160 scenario of all those resources you mentioned I'm very proud of our AFA family and our ability to

02:15:35.880 support one another to the extent we do with the limited resources that we have.

02:15:41.560 When I've talked to banking people and I've talked to other professional peoples in different

02:15:46.300 capacities when we're looking for land or properties for Hoffs and various things,

02:15:52.060 they're always really impressed with our ability to accomplish with the relatively humble means

02:16:00.320 that we have. And when they find out our member number, it's really surprising how well we're

02:16:07.020 able to accomplish. And I think a lot of that is due to you guys being generous for us having

02:16:11.840 members that are willing to commit and give of themselves. And also I think, and I hope that

02:16:17.360 we've earned the favor of our gods and their blessings in a lot of this. And I believe that

02:16:22.400 have um i mean one of the it's it's funny because yes in that kind of scenario it would be really

02:16:33.520 nice to be able to have a clergy that we're able to have them and their family live well

02:16:41.440 and devote themselves full time to ministering to our folk and uh

02:16:48.080 furthering alsatru and religious service i think that's really important i would you know obviously

02:16:56.820 want to have hoffs that are done not the way we can get the best for our money but the way that

02:17:04.980 would be the best for our gods and our circumstance without having to you know we're in a spot right

02:17:11.080 now to where we try to make the most responsible use of our money so we're

02:17:14.720 where can we get the right lot with the right building near the right amount of our folk

02:17:24.380 at the right price point and nothing of that's perfect but it's the best we can do responsibly

02:17:31.700 with the situation that we have if we had you know but trillions of dollars wherever we're

02:17:38.180 envisioning this scenario then we'd be able to build one at the level of grandeur we think

02:17:43.920 appropriate with all the bells and whistles that we need exactly where we want but i think alan is

02:17:48.800 absolutely spot on on as well and we're trying to do it now uh with the means that we have

02:17:54.800 gather our folk together into communities to where we are able to live our day-to-day life in

02:18:03.680 sharing with our brothers and sisters and having community institutions that reinforce our values

02:18:12.000 and the things that we believe in and where we're able to care for our elderly our uh infirmed

02:18:18.800 our our veterans our people that are struggling and help and help our folk

02:18:26.240 and i think that you know obviously if we had all the money in the world or whatever the scenario is

02:18:30.800 we'd be able to do that much better and we'd be able to carve out a more integrated holistic

02:18:36.800 space for us and ours in the world and i think that'd be really nice if you said though today

02:18:42.000 hey, Matt, we're going to give you $100 million, go.

02:18:48.700 It would be irresponsible to just dump it all into some of these things

02:18:52.420 because we need to build the infrastructure to support them.

02:18:56.640 Right now, if I had all the money in the world,

02:19:00.640 I would immediately get Frazehoff and I would immediately pay off Njordshoff

02:19:06.100 and build Tiershoff and the great haul that we want at Sigerheim.

02:19:12.000 and buy a private jet you've got to admit um i wouldn't but i may buy a tour bus

02:19:19.120 i think like a like a band tour bus like a metal band tour bus to drive around with a bunch of us

02:19:26.400 to events would be awesome or buy each half a bus so that people don't have the excuse of i

02:19:33.840 i can't drive two hours to go to a half absolutely and no joke absolutely that tour bus again if we're

02:19:41.520 driving through where you're at and we got the space hop on in um i think realistically something

02:19:46.960 like that would be cool but we need to build up the spots of where we can do it before we're i i

02:19:53.680 want people to understand from this i know we're having fun with with the vision and that's cool

02:19:58.080 and i think it's important but on a very serious note it's not because i think it's really relevant

02:20:06.080 to the topic today too we have reached a point in our efficacy which is really nice and you know i

02:20:13.360 don't know what alan envisioned when he got involved with this but this is very far from

02:20:17.200 being the case when either he nor i got involved with this to where now it's not the challenge

02:20:23.760 isn't getting off somewhere we can do that we know how to do that we know how to do that

02:20:29.840 well and to do that and pay that off in a relatively short amount of time that's

02:20:35.520 i wouldn't say it's easy that's not the case but it is accomplishable and we know how to do it

02:20:40.080 the thing that's important is it's an investment once we do that it's the maintenance and the

02:20:46.240 taking care of and the treating it with the reverence it deserves and making sure that it

02:20:52.880 is a lasting institution and not something that goes derelict or falls apart or you know once

02:21:01.040 Once we're establishing a hof, we're making a commitment to the God of that hof that we're going to maintain that place of worship.

02:21:08.560 And that's a really important responsibility.

02:21:10.680 So the initial cost of the hof is something to consider, but also the ability and the resources, not just financially, but with manpower and commitment from that manpower to take care of that place and to keep it holy and well maintained.

02:21:26.160 You know, and it dovetails that, interestingly, when you have that discussion, back to Go to the East question about, you know, how I felt or, you know, what drew me to the AFA or how I, you know, how I felt when I first came into the AFA.

02:21:45.000 it it helped me understand or you know help self with that you know with that reinforced idea

02:21:56.440 that we're the normal ones we we are the ones who are um who are whole and integrated and you know

02:22:06.840 and traditional and and those sorts of things others are less so because they've been misguided

02:22:15.000 But to come to a huff and there are 20, 30, 60 people in there who share this ideology, who share this love of tradition, the love for the gods of our people, which then it so naturally unfolds the understandings that can come.

02:22:40.680 It really is, as we say, it's coming, you know, it really is that that sense of coming home.

02:22:46.220 It, you know, it's like a family reunion every time I go to the Hoff,

02:22:50.220 which is another way of saying if you haven't been, you need to go.

02:22:55.520 Yes, it's pain in the neck, you know, the, and, and, you know, we get so many inquiries, you know, there's not a Hoff in my state.

02:23:04.900 You know, when we, and that's what Matt was talking about, when, when I first joined the AFA, 0.94

02:23:10.680 in 2010, um, one Hoff seemed like a distant dream, you know, maybe one day we could get a Hoff

02:23:19.640 and now we have four, but, you know, but, and then people are frustrated because we don't have

02:23:26.040 50, you know, and I guess if there were 50, you know, well, you know, I can't drive from

02:23:31.640 Cincinnati. I live in Cleveland or, you know, I, so you get out of it, what you put in it.

02:23:38.240 And, you know, if you think about what travel used to be 100 years ago, you know, to, I mean, it was a three-hour commitment to go 15 miles.

02:23:52.640 So to commit to come three or four hours once a month to come to the Hof to meet the people who think like you, who will recognize you as a friend and brother, that's a small price to pay for the feeling that you get, that you'll go away from the reinforced ideal that we're right with.

02:24:22.640 because we are we are right

02:24:26.900 so i'm trying to keep going because i knew you were uh knocking up finishing off that bag of

02:24:34.740 chips well so just because it's unsightly but they're the quest protein chips so

02:24:43.520 purveyors of gorilla snot and quest protein chips and kirkland rum i will gladly support

02:24:54.480 you on the show you should consider advertising with the astro folks um

02:25:02.640 something important you might ask me about rum when you get to the hall on they'll do next month

02:25:07.840 um one of the other things about kind of the thing we're talking about the hops

02:25:20.320 i've been over this with some folks too and it's a double-edged sword we get people that are

02:25:27.840 very confused like why don't you guys have more hops why don't you get a half faster why

02:25:34.000 The idea that having Hoffs to our gods has been so normalized that they just assume that they are everywhere, I think really it is frustrating to those of us who've been struggling for it.

02:25:54.520 But on the other side of it, it's also gratifying that that's the reality of the world to these people.

02:26:03.480 Because, I'll tell you what, seeing my daughter play now in the yards of all of our Hoffs, that's living the dream, that is.

02:26:17.160 Good night, baby.

02:26:18.400 Good night, baby.

02:26:19.760 That is the height of what I could have ever imagined.

02:26:22.080 and the fact that's a thing for so many people that's a testament that we're doing something

02:26:31.320 right but the answer to that question is you know what's taking so long is because

02:26:37.080 you know we need to give more money and you know you hate to have to say that you hate i know you

02:26:46.080 don't like to have to ask people for money um but it's but it is absolutely the truth that that is

02:26:51.700 what it that's what it takes to pay these that's what it will take to buy the next half that's what

02:26:56.360 it's going to take to build tears off you know absolutely yes um and and again having worked

02:27:03.060 with hundreds of of budgets and people who and and i've worked with not with probably with hundreds

02:27:12.300 of people certainly dozens of people who live who have a very modest lifestyle you know who bring

02:27:18.480 home $4,000 a month, which is, you know, which is decent, but not excellent. But, but lots and

02:27:29.440 lots of those people who bring home $4,000 a month in turn, give $400 a month to their church.

02:27:38.120 And because they, you know, that's a commitment, you know, and it's so, you know, for the guy who's given $15 a month and wonders why we don't have a Hoff in his town, that's why.

02:27:56.900 Well, so there's a couple of things that I want to add on it.

02:28:00.320 I mentioned this, I think, on last week's show, but since this one's about money, I'll take the liberty of mentioning it again.

02:28:08.120 I mentioned earlier in the show, Ausatru isn't the anti-Christianity.

02:28:14.000 It's its own independent religion that isn't related to Christianity in any way.

02:28:21.500 We can talk about the modern practice of Christianity, and that's fine.

02:28:26.260 But biblical Christianity has no relationship whatsoever to Ausatru.

02:28:32.500 And so just because Christians do something and it's successful doesn't mean that we ought not to do it.

02:28:38.120 it's not germane to the discussion. So, and I say that to say this, a lot of people think that

02:28:46.320 the idea of giving a percentage of your income or of giving heavily to your church,

02:28:52.480 oh, that's Christian stuff. We don't do that. We just want all the stuff, but we don't want to pay 0.54

02:28:56.680 for it. That's silly and it's childish. And it's also not the way of our ancestors. The word 0.91

02:29:04.340 hoftoller isn't something that we came up with in this generation it wouldn't be wrong if we did

02:29:11.380 but it was a concept that allowed the gothar and the haas to function in our ancestors day

02:29:17.460 and i read something interesting you know just i think earlier this last summer maybe in the early

02:29:25.380 fall uh in the elder gods by stephen paulington talking about uh the anglo-saxons and their

02:29:32.260 also true practice during the like around the time of the conversion there

02:29:37.540 and the christian bishop was admonishing his flock like man look at these you know also

02:29:44.420 sure are out here lavishly giving to their temples and and to their gods and we can't

02:29:49.940 even muster up and get our people to give the tithes like there was a time where our people

02:29:54.740 gave generously to our hoffs when the when the christians weren't and were miserably with their

02:30:00.980 funds so i thought that was really interesting the other thing besides just like um when people

02:30:06.660 want to know the fastest way to get a hof in lubbock texas fastest way to get a hof in lubbock

02:30:17.460 is to help us pay off new york's off in white springs florida

02:30:22.900 and i know that's a hard thing to get our people to necessarily wrap their heads around

02:30:28.420 but i think it gets easier every time we get a half and move one next one we have a process

02:30:36.020 that we want to continue indefinitely as long as we have the means to take care of it and the folk

02:30:42.100 to be part of it and attend it and to maintain it to continuously build hoffs to our gods and

02:30:51.540 the we're building them in a certain order building them and or i say building we're

02:30:57.700 establishing them in a certain order and we have to finish the one we've got before we move on to

02:31:05.060 the next one and the quickest way to get us to continue that progress towards something closer

02:31:12.100 to where you wish it was is to enthusiastically help us with the current one we're on and

02:31:21.380 i mean i mean that i told literally because we had an event there um i was asked

02:31:27.700 a year prior to us getting thor's off you know how do we get a hof out here and i said well you

02:31:32.900 got to help me you know got to help me get us paid off out at odin's off and then we'll decide

02:31:39.860 and then we'll figure it out it just so happened just so worked out that you know i think like a

02:31:45.860 year and a month later we were able to get one uh in linden north carolina and get thor's off

02:31:52.580 you know we've had people who've wanted to see a hof in florida for a very long time

02:31:56.900 and when they ask you know how do you do that or what's going to happen or how do we get one near 0.93

02:32:00.660 us hey you need to help us pay off thorshoff sure enough you know two years after we got thorshoff

02:32:10.340 we have nordshoff in florida so that really is a thing and i mean it and it will inevitably

02:32:15.940 be true to some of you and to others of you you'd be like ah i wanted to get one in nova

02:32:20.180 scotia and it's not there but if you keep with the plan it'll get there and i can't promise a win

02:32:26.500 but we'll continue to do this and it'll continue to march forward as long as we have the support

02:32:31.540 and the means to do so um a follow-up to the lottery question on the lottery thing do you

02:32:38.980 think it is impious to pray to the gods for materialistic gain should we not instead focus

02:32:45.220 on having devotion to our gods rather than trying to gain something i think that's a false dichotomy

02:32:52.340 Alan, let's go ahead and have you take that first.

02:32:57.660 I don't think it's impious at all to pray for material success.

02:33:03.580 I mean, Njord is the god of wealth.

02:33:09.480 I mean, you know, Frey is the god of abundance and virility.

02:33:12.760 So our gods in and of themselves recognize that material wealth as a tool is a way to provide for the folk and to provide for your, you know, to provide a lifestyle.

02:33:32.280 That is a concept.

02:33:34.300 Go ahead.

02:33:35.960 Moderation in that sense, you know, is, you know, is the ideal to get there.

02:33:40.960 So I don't think it I think it would become impious if you, you know, if that became the entire focus of your, you know, of your practice.

02:33:51.260 But beyond that, to occasionally ask for a boon from the gods, again, I would suggest that your ancestors would be more appropriate and would be more directly involved and have a more direct interest in providing you with material assistance or opening the door so that you can provide better for your own material assistance.

02:34:20.440 um that that i think would be better directed toward your ancestors but again in the range of

02:34:26.120 things i would i certainly have no qualms as a part of you know a bigger wider ranging practice

02:34:35.040 to ask for uh some abundance from i mean that's part of the charming of the plow is the you know

02:34:42.040 so that we can ask for uh you know so that we can ask for abundance from from the earth to provide

02:34:49.120 for the sustenance that we need

02:34:51.080 so we can continue to provide

02:34:54.020 pious worship to our gods.

02:34:56.600 It's not improper at all.

02:34:58.760 No, I think that, you know,

02:35:00.120 there's a number of things

02:35:01.320 with the world that we live in

02:35:02.720 that we're conditioned in.

02:35:03.760 We're all conditioned in it

02:35:04.860 one way or another.

02:35:06.600 To recognize and kind of disabuse ourselves

02:35:09.240 of some of these ideas over time.

02:35:12.660 As I mentioned earlier in the program,

02:35:14.260 I'll choose a holistic way of living.

02:35:16.640 It's not, you're not saving up

02:35:18.360 for good things that are beyond the veil and all these bad material things that exist in the world

02:35:24.920 no the world is good life is good enjoying life wealth pleasure abundance those are all good

02:35:32.120 things what is we are admonished against and we are reminded of no hoarding your resources

02:35:41.400 and not circulating them not sharing them not being generous not practicing hospitality

02:35:48.360 That's wrong, and it's sinful in our understanding of the concept.

02:35:54.780 But having abundance allows you to do big, good things.

02:36:02.420 I have every reason to believe that our gods want us to be successful and want us to be happy and want us to be fulfilled and want us to have nice things.

02:36:13.320 I don't think that praying to them for those things is bad.

02:36:16.820 I think it's something our ancestors, you know, it's well attested.

02:36:20.640 That's why they would pray to our gods for a lot of reasons.

02:36:25.500 You know, Odin is the god of cargoes.

02:36:29.680 You know, many of our gods are you pray to them for a successful trading expedition or your prayer on the Viking expedition isn't so you have max bloodletting.

02:36:40.840 And it's so you're able to return home with maximum treasure and booty to contribute to your king or your cause or your estate or what you're doing with it.

02:36:54.240 Developing wealth and comfort for you and yours isn't a bad thing and it isn't a wrong thing.

02:37:00.360 And I don't think that's bad.

02:37:01.460 I think being, again, being miserly, not providing hospitality.

02:37:08.220 Alan mentioned earlier the concept of king was always, you know, not that it wasn't regal and not that it wasn't authoritarian and all those other things,

02:37:17.320 but it was based on ring giving and providing and sharing that wealth with the kingdom and with your retainers and with the people

02:37:27.100 and making sure that the people had their needs met.

02:37:32.440 So yeah, using your wealth

02:37:33.900 and being able to circulate it appropriately is,

02:37:39.900 it's not only is it not bad, it's virtuous.

02:37:46.220 Next question is kind of interesting.

02:37:51.100 What do you think of art generated by AI?

02:37:54.560 Alan?

02:37:55.180 I distrust technology in general. So I think the way that, you know, some of the recent examples

02:38:12.580 that came out, you know, where they ask AI to, you know, to draw a Viking village and they're, 0.77

02:38:18.600 you know multicultural i mean i i don't like it back in my day if we wanted art we had to 0.90

02:38:34.760 carve the coal from the ground and rub it around on the rock 0.91

02:38:41.640 so i think that

02:38:48.600 So a couple of things kind of with the question. AI does really cool things. It's capable of really cool things. But it's a tool. And if you condition the parameters of a tool to reinforce leftist political ideology, then it is very damaging to what you can produce with the tool.

02:39:09.000 If you have the tool as a receptacle of all kinds of different knowledge that you have at your fingertips, it can be a really great thing.

02:39:16.460 There's a lot of things you can do with it.

02:39:17.960 I think one of the questions that is inherent to the question you asked is, is it really art at that point?

02:39:28.480 AI can do really cool looking stuff.

02:39:32.180 It can be a really tremendous tool, but I think the creativity and the artiness of the art comes from the sculptor or the painter or the composer or the lyricist or whoever's doing the art.

02:39:53.100 But again, I think as we grow in technology, it's going to look different. 0.80

02:39:56.300 I think Alan's, you know, old man thing is silly, but it's also true. 1.00

02:40:01.620 I think he feels that way to a degree. And I think I do too, as these things come on, things that are further from, you know, Alan's a little bit older than I am. And I'm, you know, a little bit older than a lot of you on here. I think that, you know, you're undoubtedly a little bit older than people that are coming up. And each of those new things may take you away from your comfort zone. 0.99

02:40:20.900 But I think there's a lot of ways it can be used as a tool.

02:40:26.580 I think given free reign on a lot of stuff, I wouldn't want to see it only be generated by AI.

02:40:33.480 If AI is a tool to help you accomplish things that you may can't accomplish otherwise, I think there's probably really good uses for it.

02:40:40.480 but like other tools it needs to be used judiciously and i think

02:40:46.880 you need the mind of an artist to really make something

02:40:52.400 one of the oh okay so i'll say this too there's a quality about good art and some of this is in

02:40:58.880 the eye of the beholder certainly because art affects all of us differently but there is a

02:41:03.920 transcendent quality to art in its highest form that i don't think comes just from ai now if you

02:41:16.320 know how to sculpt if you know how to utilize ai the way you would a paintbrush or a different tool

02:41:22.640 to sculpt something again i don't know i think we're in the in the early days of ai to figure it

02:41:28.640 out but it's something special that happens with the artist that makes the work transcendent and

02:41:37.760 not just really cool and i'll say this about um our murals that we have at the hoffs i think we

02:41:45.440 could get ai to make really cool stuff if we told them what to do on the mural to make fantastic

02:41:53.440 things but the murals that's fawn does whatever critique of the exactitude or whatever skill level

02:42:07.840 because he is a gofi who worships our gods something magical happens and something

02:42:15.680 transformative happens to where that piece of art is transcendent and is in a way embodies

02:42:26.720 the essence of that god in that place or serves as a um

02:42:31.120 I don't know the correct word, and there probably is one, but in a way it is able to house for a

02:42:46.780 time or serve as a place where that God can come and reside and be amongst the folk in a really

02:42:54.660 important way. It's been described by a lot of people, and I feel this myself, when you go into

02:43:00.560 the um the vay and our in our hoffs

02:43:05.240 the presence of that god is there and inhabited inhabits it in a way and the lens that it does

02:43:14.860 that through is those murals that are created by a gothi who is their artist and i think that's

02:43:23.720 lost if you're relying entirely on AI to do the process. Or on AI at all. So on a related question, 0.84

02:43:33.620 you know, I guess we didn't, you know, art for what purpose? I, you know, I wouldn't want AI

02:43:40.760 anywhere near one of those murals because I think that Swan is inspired by the gods in a way that AI

02:43:49.120 AI is excluded from necessarily just by definition.

02:43:54.880 If AI, if the art that we're talking about is like pop music, I don't care because I don't

02:44:00.080 want to ever hear it.

02:44:03.520 But a related question that came to mind while we're talking about it, I read recently that

02:44:10.360 algorithms, you know, the algorithm stuff that we're hearing so much about, that algorithms

02:44:16.900 are flattening art.

02:44:19.120 Because what they're trying to do is make music or paintings or art or whatever that appeal to the highest number of people.

02:44:30.620 So what they want, they, corporate art administrators, are trying to get that center 60, 70% of people to the exclusion of the everybody else.

02:44:51.340 And I think we are the everybody else.

02:44:53.200 So where algorithms are driving AI and they're driving art, modern art, you know, that's, I think it vulgarizes the entire idea of it, you know, and I'm, but if the question is, you know, I'm a, I'm a decent painter, but I need to do a little clip art thing to put a face in here.

02:45:15.580 you know, that may be a different question, but the, you know, but I think it's also related to 0.70

02:45:21.640 the idea that smartphones are making us dumb. You know, people used to have to remember phone numbers

02:45:29.000 and directions and those sorts of things. And the more that you rely on that

02:45:34.480 thing in your pocket, the less your brain works. Just like a, it's like having a little mechanical

02:45:41.560 arm lifting stuff for you like the weaker your brain muscle becomes because it's being

02:45:47.560 you know because you're letting the let that brain in your pocket do all the lifting

02:45:53.720 yeah it's a you know again there's when we use term ai it applies to a lot of different things

02:46:02.460 and as long as it's a tool the trouble is the eye part of it um i like that it can get a lot of stuff

02:46:10.020 figured out on the back end quickly that would take you forever to like accumulate like I like

02:46:17.040 about one of the coolest things about smartphones is language apps or like being able to look things

02:46:23.660 up very quickly and go down rabbit holes because you can very quickly do a lot of learning but if

02:46:30.080 you're not doing the learning in between if it's just a recitation thing you miss all the value of

02:46:36.560 the learning if the tool is doing the creating and not just a tool to you know implement your

02:46:45.180 vision if it is the one creating the vision then you're taking kind of the art out of it

02:46:49.540 and there's a lot of cool stuff that it can do but I think the term art really

02:46:54.340 throws a bit of a bit of a wrench in that but it's a tool

02:47:01.360 So, another question, if it hasn't been asked, why is it important to pay off loans the AFA

02:47:09.860 have on its properties, aside from being able to get more Hoffs?

02:47:18.640 I'm trying to find the hidden question because it seems a little bit self-evident, but Alan,

02:47:23.040 what is your thought?

02:47:25.160 well that's that's certainly the you know that's a big part of it is you know the interest

02:47:32.680 on the loan the the because interest accrues on the unpaid balance so the faster we can pay the uh

02:47:40.520 the the the faster we pour money against the principal the less total interest we will pay

02:47:47.160 and the less total money we will pay to uh to have new orders off and then that's more money

02:47:55.400 that will then be in turn ready to pay uh to start paying on phrase off yeah absolutely and

02:48:01.720 i think the other thing is a certain amount of security and this is one of the challenges

02:48:09.320 it is sexy to raise money for man we don't have a hoff now well let's raise money and then a hoff

02:48:19.480 will appear it's not really the efficient way it works what happens is you find the hoff you get

02:48:26.120 it and then you backfill which is a less sexy raise money well why we already got the hoff

02:48:31.560 like what does it matter how fast we pay it off and i get the instinctive but it exists so me

02:48:41.080 paying it off doesn't make it any more corporeal it's already been manifested it's short-sighted

02:48:47.720 for all of the reasons that alan mentioned and just you know a number of things and the security

02:48:54.360 of it being ours. And it depends on the situation of what the loan agreement is or however

02:49:02.540 we've done it to get the Hoth. If a loan involves a lending institution, then there's a lien

02:49:10.340 on the property and it's not really ours. It's kind of ours, but if we default and we

02:49:17.100 don't pay it off, it ceases to be ours and becomes theirs. That's most of the time the

02:49:22.840 situation. If we're taking out a loan from somebody who is an ally to us in some way,

02:49:30.360 then we're honor bound to do right by friends of ours that have extended themselves personally to

02:49:36.080 try to help us achieve our goals. If it's a member of, you know, the AFA who's loaned us

02:49:43.960 the money for it, then that honor obligation is redoubled. At least we owe, you know,

02:49:51.080 them to come out whole on something they've chosen to extend themselves on for the good of us and

02:49:55.960 for the good of the gods but yeah all those things the longer you're paying on it the more money is

02:50:02.360 lost towards interest and not able to be utilized towards the other projects the afa is working on

02:50:11.240 so as we talked about with finances earlier stacking up debts is a very quick way to

02:50:19.000 completely cripple yourself economically, trying to free up and pay off debts is a very good way

02:50:25.900 to shore yourselves up and enhance your functionality economically.

02:50:44.500 Okay. So following on the AI question, do you think it would be right or wrong to have

02:50:48.900 history books with ai pictures of historical figures we don't have photos of or books about

02:50:56.260 like the gods using ai pictures again it's a tool i think that if because because reality is a thing

02:51:08.420 if you don't have stuff and it needs to get you by i think it's a good placeholder i would

02:51:12.980 rather have something that is like uh for example if you're trying to colorize an older picture or

02:51:24.980 clear up a very fuzzy picture i think that's something i can do really well and i think that

02:51:29.700 given the alternative that's probably a really cool thing to do but i think it's the judicious

02:51:35.460 use of it as a tool as opposed to you know as alan mentioned especially the ai that you have access

02:51:45.060 to now that's heavily burdened with political correctness it's very easy to distort history if

02:51:53.300 you're not very careful and judicious with you know any kind of use you want to do of it

02:51:58.340 but i think the circumstance matters and i think ai as it develops matters a little bit and i think

02:52:06.020 another thing that's something to do is ai mock-ups for real people to then work from like

02:52:15.300 ai helping you with idea generation of stuff and compiling data for you to then choose how

02:52:23.860 you want to incorporate, I think, is another tool that artists use that makes a little bit of sense.

02:52:31.540 But delve into the details on that. Oh, we have a donation of $30 towards the Baldershof steeple

02:52:38.080 from Scott in Minnesota. Thank you, Scott. That's much appreciated. They've got really,

02:52:44.580 really good plans on what they want to do for the existent steeple. Those of you who may not know,

02:52:50.720 So the building that became Baldershof was left in very poor repair for a very long time, and our people have done an amazing job of restoring and taking care of and making that amazing place.

02:53:09.300 But the steeple, with so much water damage, was not structurally sound, and it had to get truncated due to the weather damage.

02:53:20.160 So there's plans in place.

02:53:21.260 It's always our intention if we use an existing building that when we're done with it, like not done with it,

02:53:29.320 but when we achieve our vision of how it should be, it needs to be at least 10%, at least as good as it was.

02:53:37.460 And then, you know, 10% better, at least.

02:53:41.120 That's kind of the standard that we want with that.

02:53:43.480 So this is going to be a really nice thing.

02:53:45.420 We appreciate your generosity towards it.

02:53:48.500 Last question that we have this evening.

02:53:53.900 Dear Dothi, I see people on the absolute worst of luck pursuing the lottery and even scratch tickets,

02:54:01.940 spending an absolutely absurd amount of money on them when they have nothing. 1.00

02:54:06.620 It's clearly a destructive addiction if you pray for the God's favor and then pursue it as a game of odds,

02:54:14.560 where the more you spend the better the chance it is no longer a matter of faith and is profane

02:54:22.800 so that's kind of a question kind of a i guess a statement question alan do you have a reaction

02:54:29.680 to that or or something well and i think i think what he's um getting at is our earlier discussion

02:54:34.880 about should we is it wrong to pray for the gods you know to help win the lottery and i

02:54:39.600 don't think it's a good idea it's like but it's but it's like but it's like everything else right

02:54:45.680 it's okay to have a couple of beers you know but you can't look to thor's example that you know

02:54:50.960 thor drank a whole cauldron of mead so i can drink a whole cauldron of mead and you know like just

02:54:56.560 like our gods did um uh once it once any behavior becomes destructive uh you know then then you're

02:55:07.280 outside the channel of of where you should be uh where you should be acting your gods to intercede

02:55:14.240 in your you know in in your destructive behavior or you know to to rectify your own poor decision

02:55:21.120 making and you know there's no there's like like what i said earlier there's no line in there where

02:55:29.280 a little bit is okay like sorry the way is that there a little bit is okay a whole lot like

02:55:37.440 in this question is wrong where's that line in between um the you know uh it's certainly

02:55:46.240 been said that attack you know the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math

02:55:50.800 um so yes is it if you engage in too much of that absolutely it's a bad idea and

02:55:59.280 um and should be counseled against it you know if you pray to odin a thousand times to win the

02:56:07.820 lottery and you hadn't won it yet he's trying to send you a message that that's not the right

02:56:12.180 avenue for you to generate wealth yeah our gods don't 1.00

02:56:18.920 there's no celebration of idiocy 0.98

02:56:28.360 and i don't think that we have reason to believe our gods are inclined to 0.98

02:56:38.360 be disproportionately charitable to people who continually make bad choices in their life

02:56:45.240 um the idea of finding where enough is enough and too much is too much

02:56:55.140 that's part of it what it means to be Aryan what it means to be noble is having the discernment to

02:57:01.260 figure that out and make that decision and it may look different for you and may look different for

02:57:07.140 Alan and it may look different for me but we have agency and with agency comes responsibility

02:57:15.240 We're grown men and we have the responsibility to make wise choices and do wise things in our lives. 0.91

02:57:25.480 And I think that our gods and our ancestors tend to reward us and look favorably when we are exercising our discernment in a judicious way than when we are squandering our resources on stupid things.

02:57:42.540 i think that's a really good rule of thumb i appreciate you all joining us this evening 0.69

02:57:50.100 i especially appreciate our guests this evening law speaker alan turnage

02:57:54.480 um alan will be joining us the fourth wednesday of next month as well is that correct

02:58:03.440 it is all right well we certainly look forward to that please

02:58:08.580 store up or send to vns at runestone.org any questions specifically to line up for the

02:58:19.040 law speaker next time he's on or we'll answer your all of your other questions on our next

02:58:23.980 episode if you'd like again vns at runestone.org yeah thank you for joining us alan we appreciate

02:58:34.000 you a great pleasure it was a pleasure to speak with you as always and uh to answer all the

02:58:39.200 questions all good stuff and i look forward to seeing you in four weeks yeah it's coming up quick

02:58:45.120 yeah all right guys we are i'm looking forward to talking to y'all next week

02:58:49.580 until then hail the icer hail the folk hail the afa and remember victory never sleeps

02:59:04.000 We'll be right back.

02:59:34.000 Transcription by CastingWords

03:00:04.000 Transcription by CastingWords

03:00:34.000 Thank you.

03:01:04.000 Thank you.

03:01:34.000 Transcription by CastingWords

03:02:04.000 You

Asatru Folk Assembly - January 23, 2025

1⧸22⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 133 - Adulting with Allen： Financial Fitness

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