Monthly Money Management Program
The $50/50 Club Story
By James Veal
Something needed to be done immediately regarding the severe lack of financial education and mentorship in helping African Americans build wealth. So, I created the $50/50 Club and incorporated that program as part of JRV Wealth Management Group in 2019. Since 2001, I have been teaching an incredible evening adult-based financial literacy course, “Sick & Tired of Being Broke”(PASCEP Program) at Temple University. It has become so much popular that they’ve added a Saturday morning course. These classes are usually from 6-8 weeks.
There is an epidemic in the U.S. with regards to the lack of financial education and money management skills to its citizens. This hasn’t just started, from grade school to college, you can bet one was never taught basic money management lessons throughout our lives. Wealthy parents I’m certain taught their children early on in life about money but the masses were certainty left out because those conversations hardly reached the dinner table. I was not taught these skills at home or in school either so I had to learn this stuff myself.
As a professional financial advisor in Philadelphia, I always promised to come back to my community and teach money management, stock and real estate investing, and entrepreneurship. I believe those are the top three financial pillars we need to concentrate on to ensure wealth in our communities. As I said earlier, I have been teaching the “Sick & Tired of Being Broke” class since 2001. Some of the things you’ll learn about in the classes are: Black Wall Street, getting out of debt, retirement planning strategies, investing in Bitcoin, electric vehicles, marijuana, and other stocks, compound interest, entrepreneurship, real estate, etc. We teach students a lot and our classes fill up very quickly.
After the classes were over, there was no telling or any feedback on the progress of the students. Were they taking the advice on what they learned? Are they buying stocks, real estate, or what have you? No one knew! Most of them never became clients because they did not meet our minimum asset requirements. They were usually younger and mid-age and still working at their respective jobs. People who were in or near retirement were our ideal clients.
What happened in 2019 changed everything. A student came up to me after the end of one of the course and asked me, “so what happens now?” What’s the next step? I heard this many times before but never gave it much thought because I knew I really couldn’t do much for them. But a lightbulb went off that same evening when I got home. I was thinking, my goodness, I’ve been teaching people all of these things about money and finance for all of these years and was not helping 90% of them. That’s when I came up with an idea and the $50/50 Club membership was born. Thank God and I can now help anyone.
