How To Take Finance from Bankruptcy to Wealth with Al Jones

Al Jones had to hit rock bottom before he recognized the financial hole he had dug for himself. He had weakened his financial foundation with a series of poor decisions, and a criminal case of identity theft had struck the finishing blow. It would take a lot of work to repair his credit.

Luckily, Jones was up for the challenge. He started educating himself about credit repair, and he eventually raised his FICO credit score to the perfect score of 850,  and he now wants to share his insightful journey with you.

We'll have an eclectic conversation today, including some details about his music lyrics word game "Lyrics Guru," available on App Store and Google Play.

Connect with Al on his "Dear Father Al" advice show on https://www.facebook.com/DearFatherAl.

Transcript

Al Jones: 0:00

life does not have to be the way I thought it was. You know, where you're constantly struggling with your personal finances. And if you just and say, you know what, I'm tired of living this way and make a change and commit to the change, things should improve for the better.

Magic Barclay: 1:04

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host, magic Barclay. And today our guest is Al Jones. Al is a native son of Phoenix, Arizona, and a 1984 graduate of Maryville high school, after being honorably discharged from the U S army, he moved back to his hometown and began creating user friendly games for puzzle books, mobile devices. Live shows playing cards and more, but before we get onto that, Al actually has several hats that he wears and he is a bit of a financial guru. So he's going to share some of that knowledge with us today. Welcome Al.

Al Jones: 1:44

Thank you, Maggie. Thank you for the opportunity to have me on your show. And it's always a pleasure talking with someone from across the pond, I guess they could say. So thank you again for the opportunity.

Magic Barclay: 1:57

My pleasure. Now, Al, I asked three questions of my guests. Everyone gives me a different answer. And I know we can glean so much wisdom from the answers that come. So here's your first one. And that is what can your expertise do to accelerate health? Not just physical health, but also emotional and spiritual health.

Al Jones: 2:20

One that my expertise can do is to let people know that they are not alone in this process. Here in the States, we've got three credit bureaus, and these are three entities that track the spending of consumers here in the United States on their credit cards, for example. And it can be a challenge. And interacting with these entities and of course, managing your own personal finances, especially if you encounter different hardships, divorce, lots of family members and stuff like that. So I'm just here to let people know that wherever you on the globe, that you are not alone in the process. And managing your personal

Magic Barclay: 3:17

finances. So just on that, this is probably going to be a little bit controversial that I'm asking this, but you know, there's a lot of talk going on about decentralizing, you know, Currency and making it a new world order, one world currency. And, you know, we've heard of the great reset, you will own nothing, you will be happy. So for people that know about that kind of stuff, and for people that may have just heard it in passing, how do these credit agencies or credit bureaus protect us from. I guess, losing the value of currency.

Al Jones: 4:01

in that regard, I don't, in my opinion, believe that it's their responsibility for them to protect us per se, they've chosen the responsibility to manage, our spending and report our spending. And we as consumers have allowed them, at least here in the U. S., we have allowed them to be able to do that. They keep track of our spending and, oddly enough, we have to pay them to receive a copy of our updated content and to make sure that content On our spending track record is updated. So when we want to purchase something in the future, and we want to have an accurate reflection of our spending habit by ensuring that each of these three separate bureaus has accurate information, then that would help us purchase goods and services in the future. on credit or borrowing stuff. But again, it's, I don't believe it's their responsibility to oversee us per se.

Magic Barclay: 5:20

Fair enough. On to our second question, which is all about finance. And that is, what are your top three tips to creating wealth, be it financial, personal, or emotional wealth?

Al Jones: 5:32

Top three tips to create wealth is to A, to know that you're not alone. And the process in gaining wealth, especially if you're feel that you're, you're down and you're just having struggles, know that you're not alone. Talk with people that in your opinion, that they are doing better, if you will, uh, financially than you are. So talk with them and gain some advice, gain some knowledge from them. Also admit that, okay. If you have a problem, admit that that problem exists with your personal finance and realize, you know, once a week. I just have this habit of buying overpriced coffee, overpriced tea, overpriced alcoholic beverages or cigarettes or whatever. Admit that you've got a problem and realize, you know, I need to curtail that. I need to keep that under control. Then once you've done that, then commit to take some sort of action to make an improvement of your life. Then once you've taken some action, taken some action to make an improvement of your life, then you're ready to move on. Then you can move forward and figure out, okay, what else can I do to improve my life and my financial situation?

Magic Barclay: 7:01

Terrific. And our final standard question, have you ever battled your weight? If so, how did you win the battle? And what can you offer the listeners who might be on this journey, particularly when stress is involved?

Al Jones: 7:15

Oddly enough, I had a weight issue. Uh, and I think a lot of my issue was, stress. I was constantly stressed about paying bills, uh, my poor eating habits. really played into, you know, into factor. And when you have limited income and was unfamiliar with how to cook for myself, you start just eating bad food. You know, that's a lot of, we call it here, there's a lot of junk food. And that really affected my weight, the stress of making my weight go up and down. It goes down, there's a whole issues. So I did have issues, with my weight and I believe a lot of it was due to the stress of finances, uh, that I was, financial problems I was dealing with, relation problems, relationship problems I was having, uh, multiple divorces, unemployment, uh, multiple bouts of unemployment and identity theft. So all those stressors really made my weight just go up and down. I would say about 20 pounds variation would go up 20 pounds and down 20 pounds. And obviously you have some issues with your clothes fitting correctly. Your face body just looks. contorted, especially if you lose a lot of weight really fast. That was the issue that I had with my weight. And as far as a special event that triggered it, was just a long period of time. So it wasn't one specific thing that, you know, bing, it happened, and it triggered it, it was just a, a long period of stress that was just compounding, uh, over my life that just made my weight just go up and down, and I just, become frustrated with myself and self acknowledge and that I had a repeated pattern that I was recreating myself and then one day I look at myself in the mirror vocalize my frustration and made the self commitment to improve my life with the whole financial and it took about 15 years plus to get where I am now. I didn't file for bankruptcy as we call here in the states. I didn't go to some sort of Personal finance quick fix repair service. I did it on my own. And this also had wanted to let people that are dealing with situations like that, whether it's here or the states or wherever you can do it. Also, it's going to take some time. It is going to take some diligence. There's going to be many roadblocks. that are going to be in your way. I recall in my journey, I was reading some books, and there was a lot of books that were out there, and many of the books that were out there, and even to this day, they're still out there. Most of them are filled, I call, with fluff. So they want you to read, 200 page, 300 page book about improving your personal finance, improving, changing your life. Read this 300 page book, suddenly your life is going to change. and or, you'll also be tempted to purchase, whether it's a CD set to listen to, or a DVD set to watch, And again, most of it is filled with fluff. So after going through that and realizing, okay, after the first chapter, the first CD or DVD, whatnot, I said, this is crazy. I just got really frustrated because a lot of it was fluff. I just pretty much trashed most of the stuff. I said, you know, I want to do it myself and I'm going to document the process. and improving my life. So I started taking notes of what I need to do, what one should do, and that kind of stuff. So I documented the process along the way. And I wanted to share my journey, my bio, if you will, of my hardships, my challenges, relationship problems, financial problems, employment, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I wanted to share that with the masses in a clear and concise manner. So I wrote a book, first book I wrote, it was more technical and that was go to this website, call this phone number, do this and this and this. The challenge with that is if you're familiar with the internet and, you know, phone numbers and whatnot, things change. So I wrote all this stuff down, had it published, and the crazy thing was shortly after The book was published, a lot of the links were no longer valid, phone numbers changed, so here I am trying to promote a book, and people are trying to follow my instructions, and they said, Al, um, I tried calling this number, I tried going to the websites in the email, and it's no longer active, so that doesn't look good. So, fast forward a couple of years later, I decided to write an improved book, the book that I have now, that is called, uh, My Journey from Bad to Excellent Credit, uh, How I Achieved the Perfect 850 Credit Score, I wrote that book, but this one is more of a narrative, kind of bio, so, book versus, you know, click this link here, click this link there. So it's a story and people seem to like stories. So that's what I did with this existing book and the book is available as an audio book only. That way if you're driving, if you're sitting at home, wanting something to read, story to listen to, you can hear my story. And it's about, uh, one hour and 15 minutes, uh, is my story. So, and the, uh, brief synopsis, it says, uh, Al Jones had to hit rock bottom before he recognized the financial hole he had dug for himself. He had weakened his financial foundation with a series of poor decisions, and a criminal case of identity theft had struck the finishing blow. It would take a lot of work to repair his credit. Luckily, Jones was up for the challenge. He started educating himself about credit repair, and he eventually raised his FICO credit score to the perfect score of 850, and he now wants to share his insightful journey with you.

Magic Barclay: 14:06

Sounds good. So Al, we've covered financial stuff. In your bio, you mentioned apps and games. I'm very interested. Tell us about those. Thanks.

Al Jones: 14:17

All right, so what I have out now is a game is called Lyrics, L Y R I C, like Charlie, Lyrics Guru, two separate words, so Lyrics Guru, and website address for reference is www. lyricsguru. com. Lyrics, L-Y-R-I-C-S, guru, GURU dot M as in Michael, O as in Oscar, B as in boy, I as in ice cream. So lyrics, guru dot MOBI. the game, it's on the App Store, as well as Google Play, so you can have an Apple phone, you can have an Android, you can play either one as well. So, in the game, what you are presented with is a list of categories. For example, you pick the category Rock and Roll. And then what it will do is it will take you to a song to present a song title to you. Uh, let's say Blue Suede Shoes and that was Elvis song. So you're not going to hear tracks, you're not going to hear actual music. So it's just a word game. You're going to hear the background kind of bouncing music, but it's not going to be the performed track. Of the title. So you're going to see a title, for example, Blue Suede Shoes, and then you're given a list of four words. For example, cat, dog, run, and step. So if by chance, if you select the correct word, step, You know, don't step on my blue suede shoes is found within the entire lyrics of the song. If you guessed the correct word, step, for example, within eight seconds, then you get a point. The object is to get eight categories completed. And you're the lyrics guru.

Magic Barclay: 16:20

That sounds very fun. And I think a bit of a challenge I might enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How did you get into that? That's a far cry from finance and book writing. So how did you get into that, Al? So,

Al Jones: 16:34

okay. So with, uh, with Lyrics Guru, uh, growing up, I had always enjoyed listening to my father's record collection. He had a very diverse record collection. A lot of, uh, R& B, some R& B, love ballads, and soft rock back in the And most of the songs. For as I recall during the 70s, they always had some sort of story, Cats in the Cradle, Wildfire, you know, all kind of stuff like that. Those songs. And they always had a good story. So I have always enjoyed Being at home, most of the time I was at home alone a lot, so I would open up the, what they call the dust jacket. I'm dating myself. When you're looking at actual LPs and albums, it's got this dust jacket cover packet that you open up, and it has the lyrics, and sometimes they have little stories and background information. about the, the band, lyrics and stuff. So I would enjoy reading the lyrics. And since many of the song lyrics has some sort of story, I would read the lyrics and would try to envision what the artist was trying to say. writer was thinking about when he or she wrote the lyrics of the song. For example, wild, you know, wildfires about a horse. It's like, okay, just try to visualize a horse running and just kind of create a virtual world. in my head and expand my imagination. So what I had wanted to do, and I've always liked word game shows, for example. So fast forward, what I had wanted to do was to share my love, music, word games, With the masses. So decided one day, you know what, let me see what I need to do to create this app. Created the app, contracted team, got some contractors to build the app for me. I had the big picture idea of the game, but I contracted some people to do the actual coding. I pretty much did the big picture. Uh, the basic, if you click this button, it goes here, if you click that button, it goes there, but it had a team that actually did the actual hard coding with that. So we got that in place, Apple version, Android version as well, and we also have. A game wheel. It's like a game show. For example, a big game wheel. So if you go to the website, you'll see this big game wheel and what I do is I take the game wheel to local establishments that are interested in having some sort of game night and what we do is we spin the wheel, separate the crowd, Spend the will lands on a category pretty much the same like the app for example lands on a category rock and roll I give them a song title, you know shoes then again those two words and Whether this the group is split by teams or individual the object is to get eight separate Categories with little panels, correct? And you're the lyrics guru. So I do that as well. And the other thing that I'm really interested in doing, it's been a long journey in doing so, is to get the lyrics guru brand license. as a TV and or radio game show. I would really enjoy doing that. I did not host it specifically, but with the database of song titles and word lists that we have readily available, I think it would be good. I could fit, For a TV show, radio show that's interested in adding some value added content, you know, a radio station, for example, that wants to have, let's say, a 10 to 15 minute segment where they can have contestants call in, like a call in radio show. They would call in and they would play the game. They would win kind of fun prizes and they get a chance to experience the love of music and song lyrics specifically. So that's what I'm really working on at this time. So that's what I got so far.

Magic Barclay: 21:05

Sounds fun. I hope you get there. So we've covered a lot here today, Al, but look, we do love freebies. So before I let you go, what can you offer the listeners and where can they find it?

Al Jones: 21:18

Well, one of the things that I've got many hats. One of the things that I offer is advice and I also have an, an advice column and the advice column is called dear. Father Al. So if you're familiar with the Dear Abby format, well, I have an advice column as well, and it's called Dear Father Al, where I'm dressed up as a priest. And what I do is I provide common sense solutions to daily problems. So if by chance, if you have a problem that you need somebody to That will give you some common sense advice that's outside of the basic scope of friends and family that you would normally talk to. You just need somebody to give you some advice. outside advice, feel free to contact me 24 hours a day. You can also watch the broadcast and interject your questions and comments in the chat line as well. And you can find me on Facebook and the URL for the show is www. facebook. com slash Wanted to sling it to the right. Dear D E A R Father F A T H E R Al, A L Facebook. com slash Dear Father Al and you can watch the show and it's broadcast every Saturday from 2 o'clock p. m. to 2. 30 p. m. Pacific Standard Time I'm always looking forward to helping you. The viewers that are out there and the show has been going for quite some time and we're looking forward to keeping it going and I'm hopeful that your listeners that are listening to your broadcast if they have any issues that they need somebody that again that is outside of their basic scope of friends family loved ones they need someone To provide some common sense solutions to their daily problems that they will feel comfortable in reaching out to me to help them out.

Magic Barclay: 23:27

Fantastic. Elle, thank you so much for joining us. We've just had such an eclectic conversation that I just love this episode.

Al Jones: 23:38

And again, thank you for the opportunity. And a quick shout out to my nephew, Alan Williams, who plays for the, uh, Southeast Melbourne, uh, Phoenix. Professional basketball team, Alan Williams, uh, plays the city, the center, uh, number of 15. So if you go to one of the games, if by chance, if you check out the team's web websites or Twitter or something, let them know that you heard his uncle, uncle Al on your show today and say hello to him and, uh, wish him the best as well.

Magic Barclay: 24:17

Love it. Love the shout out and listeners. Thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate you listening. Go ahead and leave a review, share this episode and get in touch with our guest, Al Jones. For now, thank you. Go forth and lead your magical life.