Lamar Odom’s professional basketball career has come to a halt for now. Dallas Mavericks team has officially parted ways with the player. We didn’t think we’d be covering Lamar Odom on our financial site anytime soon since he’s had a steady career and income and doesn’t post tacky, hardly-wealthy videos on the internet (Can’t comment on his reality show as we do not want to watch it). However, news has recently broke over the past few days of Odom burning his bridges, and we thought that it serves as a great example of what not to do.

It’s been troubled times for Lamar Odom recently. The trade from the Los Angeles Lakers was taken very hard. In addition to the trade, he experienced a death in the family and an unexpected teenage death from a car accident. The baggage was brought into his new team the Dallas Mavericks where he half-heartedly performed, showed up late, and dished out attitude and entitlement. It was a psychological recipe for disaster.

It all came down to a crashing end just this week. ESPN revealed the details:

Cuban confirmed Tuesday evening the crux of the heated halftime confrontation was Cuban questioning Odom’s commitment. Odom, who had played only four minutes in the first half, reacted angrily to the question, shouting “stop playing games” several times. Odom did not take his seat on the bench until after the third quarter began.
“Well, yeah,” Cuban said when asked whether that exchange was the final straw. “Just his response to it. Everybody goes through ups and downs. Every player does. We tried to put him in a position to succeed. You guys saw it, saw what we did. It didn’t work.
“And I just asked him, does he want to go for it or not? Is he in or is he out? I think he thought we were playing poker. I just didn’t get a commitment. And that was the end.”

It’s OK to not be OK

Lamar Odom is entitled to any grieving processes that he may be going through. For one, he is outwardly grieving from his Lakers departure. Secondly, he’s grieving over recent deaths. Coupled with unaddressed childhood issues and insecurities, it’s no surprise that he’s hurting. However, the NBA is not a nursery. It’s a franchise designed to bring entertainment to the masses and garner massive profits for various industries. Mark Cuban had already overlooked Lamar’s tantrums the “the first 17 times” but had dealt with enough. No one can help Lamar if he can’t help himself.

Sometimes it’s best to acknowledge your pain and be proactive in dealing with it. A distressed mind and body cannot be productive. Before it costs you your relationships and/or career, it’s better to work on it directly. Emotional pain is as valid as any other injury. To keep your own personal brand and integrity in tact, it’s important to take away all stress-inducing activities and rebuild yourself.

Quite simply, if Lamar doesn’t voluntarily take a break to get himself together, he may self-destruct. Before he develops more damage to his reputation, he’d better get away from the NBA scene for awhile. We hope this serves as a wake-up call and not a volatile turning point in his career. Should he ignore all the signs and keep going anyway, his destruction will be his own.

Should any team want Odom. they will have to buy him by June 29th for $2.4 million or pay out the $8.2 million that the player is scheduled to earn in 2012-13.

You Answer: Could this be the beginning of the end for Lamar Odom?

Image courtesy of E Online.

Children truly are a blessing, but they’re not free. While it may be a free process to make them (or so we hope), that’s where the line is drawn. Why so many individuals forget this thought for a few minutes or hours of glory just completely baffles us. Then there’s Terrell Owens and the women who procreated with him that leave us completely speechless at their careless behavior.

We hate that we even have to make a post with advice that should be so obvious, but single parent households and child support has completely taken over in this country. This mindset doesn’t discriminate as it permeates hardly wealthy homes and the wealthy elite alike. If you find a man or woman that you’re feeling and feel like “getting it in” but don’t want a permanent, life-altering consequence resulting from it, then WRAP IT UP! What happens after that will be a result of your actions.

Contraceptives aren’t just an investment against endless financial and time sacrifices, they can be an investment towards your health. STDs and HIV are rampant in the minority community. One person affected is one person too many. Medical care for these health conditions can be endless money guzzlers. You would think this reason alone would have people acting responsibly.

Terrell Owens is the perfect example of all things dumb at the moment, as his four nights of “mind-blowing fun” have left him with four mind-blowing monthly child support check obligations. TMZ breaks down his payments owed to each woman:

Baby Mama #1, Monique Reynolds
T.O. and Monique have an 11-year-old son together. According to the papers, he paid $20,000/month in support until last year, when it was reduced to $11,202. He also gave her $100,000 to buy a house.

Baby Mama #2, Kimberly Floyd
They share a 7-year-old daughter, for whom TO was ordered to pay $20,000/month for back in 2005. In 2008, they agreed to drop that to $15,000.

Baby Mama #3, Samelia Miller
Miller gave birth to a son back in 2006. He was ordered to pay $13,400/month in support.
Baby Mama #4, Melanie Paige Smith
T.O. was ordered to pay $5,000/month for their daughter back in 2007. This is the only case where T.O. has not yet requested a reduction … though his rep says he plans to ask for a modification.

There’s no wonder T.O. has filed court documents, desperately trying to lower his child support payments. Over 18 years, he will have to pony up $3.45 million for baby mama #1, $3.2 million for baby mama #2, $2.9 million for baby mama #3, and $1.1 million for baby mama #1.  With only his reality show income coming in and probably coming quickly out, knowing how bad he is with money, these women don’t stand a chance in Hell of collecting this money.

Shame, Shame, Shame

The only victim here would be the four children. Terrell nor these women get a drop of sympathy over here at Minority Fortune. Accidents happen, and we would be willing to overlook the first time. However, it’s time to take a hint after the first time. The saying goes fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Why this went on to repeat itself three more times is ridiculous. On top of it, T.O. has yet to settle down and will probably end up having a few more children in his lifetime. These women should have been aggressively stacking away money for a rainy day because all we see in the future are monsoons coming their way. Courts should mandate that partial support payments that exceed a certain amount should go to a child’s trust fund. We would not be surprised if these children have zero savings.

This is truly hardly wealthy thinking at its finest. You will commonly see men and women in hoods and lower income areas with numerous unplanned children. This is why this behavior is rampant with many hardly wealthy celebrities because they carry this mindset that they’re untouchable into their new million dollar careers. Sure, billionaires will deal with their share of scandalous behavior as well. However, we have yet to meet a billionaire that has fathered numerous children out of wedlock. They know what’s at stake, and they’ll go to any length to make sure children aren’t born out of their affairs. When you come into money, you’re a walking ATM. People will come for your hard earned money, but you hold all responsibility should you allow yourself to part with your money.

If you’re not with the man or woman that you plan on spending your life and raising a family with, wrap it up or just say no. If not, prepare for a rocky future with court hearings and empty pockets. After all, you asked for it since prevention was only a few dollars away.

Talk about writing a check that your butt can’t cash! Hip hop producer/ singer Ryan Leslie lost his laptop in October of 2010. In a desperate attempt to retrieve his missing laptop, he offered a million dollar reward. At some point, the person who found the laptop returned it to Ryan but never received the reward money. Surprise, surprise.

Apparently, offering big bucks for something that 1) should have been backed up at all times (ever heard of Carbonite?) 2) been generously insured 3) nowhere near the million dollar reward cost 4) cannot realistically be paid out is all the rage (See: Rocko ‘s lost laptop post). So it’s no surprise that this large sum was never accounted for, but the German finder Armin Augstein has sued in hopes of getting what was rightfully promised…plus interest, according to SOHH.

Be careful what you verbally bind yourself in. By publicly noting that you’d dish out a million dollar reward to the person who returned your laptop, you make yourself liable to fulfilling that agreement. A million dollar reward was so ludicrous in the first place that it should have never been put out there. The initial $20,000 was much more appropriate.

These big rewards simply make you a target for possible thefts in the future. By paying out more than any insurance claim ever would, you’re giving thieves an incentive to take you to the cleaners. So, the lesson learned here? Let your publicist and financial advisor do the offering on your behalf next time. Also, please secure and insure all of your precious belongings.

*Image courtesy of Eurweb.

The biggest flaw of a hardly wealthy person is that they take their earnings at face value. If someone has a salary of $60,000, that doesn’t equate to a person having $60,000 of income. Yet, a hardly wealthy person would think just that. If this was your salary, what would say your monthly spending limit should be?

Breaking it Down

First of all, you can kiss 25% of your income good-bye to federal taxes. This doesn’t include the 8-10% gone to Social Security, Medicaid, State, and Local taxes. Conservatively, this leaves you with $40,200. That’s $3,350 at your disposal on a monthly basis. While it’s ideal that your debt and bills, including rent, only take up a third of your income, we’re well aware that this isn’t the case for many. So, let’s take away half of that. At least 10% should go towards savings, while another 10% should go towards investments (we’re currently a fan of directly buying metals, mainly silver, not stocks). Most Americans have a myriad of monthly personal expenses like hair stylists, barbers, nail technicians, masseuses, gym memberships, etc. that also add up quickly, and sometimes exceed income, causing the credit cards to come out. We haven’t begun talking about staples like food yet.

Let’s break it down according to monthly income:

$3,350
- $1,675 for bills, debt, and housing
- $168 for savings
- $168 for investments
=$1,339

This leaves $1,339 for food, transportation, personal expenses, and whatever needs an individual or family may need. The average hardly wealthy person goes shopping every weekend, spending several hundreds on clothing items, meaning an estimated $800 is gone before food, transportation, and personal expenses are even factored in. Let’s put that in perspective for a hardly wealthy person’s expenses. We call this the “Next Paycheck Syndrome”.

Next Paycheck Syndrome

$3,350

- $1,675 for bills, debt, and housing

- $800 for shopping

=$875

After a few nights of hanging with friends, clubbing, etc., you can take a couple of hundred away, leaving you with $675 left. This doesn’t factor in food, transportation, medication (which many Americans do), beauty expenses, personal indulgences. The hardly wealthy will justify the extra expenses for which their income doesn’t support by saying, “I’ll pay this $250 off with my next $3350 paycheck in two weeks.” However, the reality is that they’re going NET $250 in the hole every month, if they continue the same lifestyle. It leaves their NET worth actually looking like this.

$3,350

- $1,675 for bills, debt, and housing

- $800 for shopping

- $875 for lifestyle, food, transportation, etc.

- $250 for more lifestyle, needless spending

= -250

This yields a $3,000 annual loss.

It doesn’t matter what a hardly wealthy person earns. They generally outspend their income and justify it with their “next paycheck”. This is their thought pattern. What should month expenses look like? Well, we’re unable to tell each individual exactly what their cost profile looks like as each case must be tailored to one’s debt, marital status, household members, dependents, location, tax bracket, health, personal interests, etc. We can only give a general profile, with which we hope everyone is able to reasonably carve out their own “minority fortune” plan.

The Ideal Spending Scenario

$3,350

- $1,675 for bills, debt, and housing

- $168 for savings

- $168 for investments

- $669 for food, transportation, and necessities

- $500 for personal expenses, shopping

=$170

Notice that we intentionally did not spend the entire paycheck, as most hardly wealthy people do. There should always be money left over for emergency funds. If your bills and debt are relatively less than 50% of your income, that’s a good thing! We’d consider doubling down on savings and investment, making it 15-20% of your monthly income. Do not blindly make all of your accessible money personal expenses money.

How Did You Fare?

If you assumed that more than 50%, $30,000, of your salary was at your disposal, you fit in the hardly wealthy category. With that logic, after taxes, you’d barely have $10,000 allocated to bills, debt, food, transportation, etc. We see that as highly unrealistic, unless you’re still living with your parents debt-free. If you fell in this category, you definitely need to sit down and realistically evaluate your expenses. You should only be spending .33% daily of your salary towards personal purchases. If it’s higher than this, it’s time to prioritize. Instead of envisioning yourself with the latest Prada Bag or Louis Vuitton shoes of the season, envision yourself vacationing in the south of France debt free in twenty years.

If you assumed that you had between 30-50%, we’d say you have hardly wealthy inclinations, the higher your estimate was in this range. If you were closer to thirty, this was a very reasonable estimate. However, you probably have an assumption that an entire paycheck is to be spent, even if it isn’t necessarily putting you in debt. Thinking 40% and above should be your wakeup call to evaluate your relationship with money. The advice to the hardly wealthy applies here as well.

The reality is that you should be keeping your personal expenses somewhere between 20-30%. If you chose a percentage in this range, bravo! Most Americans do not think in this way, and you’re above the pack. Keep in mind that your own personal expenses dwindle with each dependent you may have.

Hopefully, after this, you can see why we roll our eyes at every Grade F hardly wealthy millionaire on our blog. They may have earned $6 million, but they certainly don’t have $6 million to spend. Yet, their jewelry and clothing purchases alone surpass 30% of their income before bills, debt, professional services, family, and friends expenses come into play. This on top of that fact that hardly wealthy hardly ever outright purchase their homes upfront. Don’t let this unfortunate behavior happen to you!

Terrell Owens aka T.O. , a famous football player known for his wide receiver talents, can be seen in this short clip crying like a loser. The man with multiple records and awards attached to his name has the credit profile of the average joe who doesn’t manage their finances well. However, there SHOULD be a difference between T.O. and the average Joe. What gives?

Where were the tears as money was tossed around carelessly for cars, clothes, homes, women, bars, clubs, etc? Where were the tears as you flaunted endlessly for cameras when they were around? Better yet, where are all your “friends” that were conveniently around when the money was flowing at the club or they bummed a ride in your fancy cars? We wish we could be sorry for you, but you had all the correct resources at your fingertips. Instead of hanging around hardly wealthy people, you should have been associating with NFL team owners, learning how to keep your money long for a lifetime. You’re at the prime of your career and having money issues? What in the heck will be going on post career?

We have a new investment for you, T.O., and that is…buy a clue.

Jamie Foxx might want to do a better job of screening his peers, as his acquaintance with Warren Braithwaite has led to the FBI conducting an investigation. Warren is currently being charged with drug smuggling, money laundering, fraud, racketeering, and more. These are serious charges, and if it’s true, Warren was a dangerous man. We imagine that Jamie was too busy to know everything about his buddy, but how could he have not seen any warning signs?

Diary of a Hollywood Street King reports the following about their relationship:

Sources within the Foxx camp tell me Braithwaite bent over backwards paying Jamie’s bar tabs, providing free construction and design just to build a friendship with the Oscar winning actor. Unlike most people around Jamie looking for scraps, Warren brought and provided his own, so Jamie let his guard down. Turns out Warren is a typical Hollywood fame seeker lacking any real talent other than criminal behavior, and Jamie Foxx was just a stepping stone and means to launder some dirty money.

Beyond the complimentary tabs and perks of Warren, Jamie Foxx may be in hot water simply due to association. The FBI has wire-tapped his lines of communication and planted spies amongst his properties. This isn’t a pleasant experience to have decades into your career, especially when it’s beginning to peak. This goes back to a lesson we reiterated many times during the beginnings of Minority Fortune: associate yourself with people who are like yourself or who you aspire to become. If not, there can be repercussions.

Celebrities having shady connections is not a foreign concept at all. As a matter of fact, many countries’ entertainment industries have heavy ties with mafias. There’s always been speculation that various US artists have had their share of connections as well. Young Jeezy is an example of an artist with ties to the infamous drug cartel, BMF.

The lesson to learn from all of this is to know who is around you. The more you have to lose, the more important it is to know. While it may seem like a lesson unattached to wealth status, it is. If you are a moral, up-standing person, then you need to make sure your inner circle reflects that. Let’s hope Jamie’s learned the lesson, and that he had nothing to do with Warren’s underhanded dealings.

Floyd Mayweather must have imagined that burning a hundred dollar bill would earn him a place in Forbes billionaire Hall of Fame. However, he would be devastated to learn that he isn’t the first to destroy fiscal currency, as it seems to be the sport of choice for nobodys with horrible credit and financial literacy (See: Z List Rappers Burn a Hundred Thousand Dollars). Yet, the boxer shelled out a Benjamin Franklin and lit it on fire for the world club to see.

Congrats, Floyd. You’re $100 dollars poorer. You may even have the honor of sitting on a throne with complimentary bars on it, free meals, clothing, and a new, long numeric name. It’s illegal to destroy currency. According to TMZ, you could be facing “six months behind bars and… a $100 fine.” Since you seem intent on destroying your career and legacy, so be it. As you spend your way to the bottom, we only hope that it goes to someone deserving.

We’re sick and tired of this reckless, uncivilized behavior. While millions go hungry in the horn of Africa, you’re burning something that could possibly be used to feed dozens of families in these poorer parts of the world. These actions truly reveal that these individuals like Floyd in reality are poorer than those in the poorest parts of the world, simply because their souls are empty and a slave to money.

Rapper Soulja Boy has recently fallen behind on his taxes to the tune of $26,000. The state of California filed a lien on March 24, 2011, according to Radar Online. It may not come as a surprise to anyone other than Soulja Boy himself. Rather than make sure his finances are in order, he’d rather produce video after video and PR lie after PR lie (see Soulja Boy’s lie about purchasing a G5 Jet for birthday on TMZ. With videos like these and a prior foreclosure on a Georgia home, we predict that Soulja Boy’s woes are in their infant phase.

Why Soulja Boy is truly poor despite having money

Those who are truly doing well financially make little noise about their lifestyle. Steve Jobs, a well known billionaire and mogul, has never been seen parading around in designer jeans, bling, and stacks of cash. His priorities lie in his legacy: building extraordinary products, businesses, and changing the world. For people like Steve Jobs, his wealth is an after-thought. It’s not his focus. This is typically the pattern of self-made wealthy elite.

This is exactly where these urban artists and hardly-wealthy go terribly wrong. Some of them possess extraordinary talent. Some of them possess no talent at all. However, their priorities are mixed up big time. Focus on building a legacy with everything you’ve got, and you’ll find that wealth will come.

Remember, your tombstone will not have your net worth or your assets imprinted on it. What legacy do you want to leave on this earth?