Financial Audit
is a Web Video series by Youtuber Caleb Hammer.
In each episode, a guest comes on the show in the hopes of receiving advice which will enable him or her to get into a better financial position. The episodes generally consist of the following sections:
- An introduction where the guest gives his or her name, profession, and annual income.
- Caleb goes over major debts that the guest has, such as student loan debt and car debts.
- Caleb goes line-by-line through the guest's credit card statement to assess the guest's overall spending. As per Caleb's 'tough love' philosophy, he calls out superfluous or unwise purchases.
- Caleb creates a budget for the guest and explains how long it will take to pay off each debt, set up an emergency fund, etc.
- Caleb gives the guest a 'Hammer Financial Score' which assesses the guest's overall financial performance.
Some episodes vary things up, such as by having returning guests in order to assess how (if it all) they improved their circumstances since the previous episode, or by having Internet-famous guests—including Caleb himself once, with other finance YouTubers taking over as the auditors for that episode.
- Agent Scully: Caleb has made it clear several times that he does not believe in astrology, manifesting, and other mystical beliefs the guests have. He's generally tolerant of these beliefs when the guests just mention them, but he objects more vehemently if a guest reveals that he or she is making financial decisions based on mysticism. An example is 'Doctor' Racso, who said that he was making crypto trades based on ''Indian'' astrology.
- Ambitious, but Lazy: Many of the guests have this trope in spades; they have huge dreams but won't even commit to holding down a steady job in order to gain the resources needed to achieve them.
- Anti-Mentor:
- Several of the guests want to be coaches of some kind (e.g., life coaches, spiritual coaches, dating coaches, etc.) despite their own lives being total disasters. Caleb has to explain that, until they get their own lives together, there's no reason to think they'd be good at teaching other people how to live.
- One notorious example of this is Priscilla, who ended her audit by giving Caleb some impromptu therapy and advice which he immediately noted could be dangerous if he followed it.
- Ascended Extra: Noah, the only one of Caleb's employees to have a financial audit, made subsequent appearances as a 'dating profile auditor' where he critiqued guests' Hinge and Tindr profiles. He also sometimes shows up for other purposes, like in the episode featuring Myles (who spent 6 hours per day in the gym, which he could do because he initially refused to work more than 15 hours a week since he didn't enjoy it); when Myles wanted to show off a martial arts move he practiced during his gym training, Noah was the one Myles used it on.
- Berserk Button: Caleb has a few of these.
- Guests who have children but are choosing not to provide for them.
- Guests who either have children or plan to have children but aren't saving for retirement, which Caleb notes will likely result in the children feeling obligated to take care of them when they are old.
- Guests who refuse to learn from their mistakes. Notable examples of this include Gia, who repeatedly got into financial and legal trouble on account of not having car insurance but still never got the insurance, and 'Doctor' Racso, who lost all his money crypto trading and then announced on the show that he was hoping someone would lend him $10,000,000 because he was sure he could 100x it by investing in the right altcoins.
- Guests who don't take the show seriously, such as by refusing to accept any of Caleb's advice, by refusing to provide Caleb with the bank statements and numbers he needs to make the guest's budget, or by revealing they only went on the show to get fame / followers / attention / etc. Guests who come back on for follow up episodes and reveal they didn't follow any of Caleb's advice also fall into this category.
- Character Catchphrase: Caleb has several.
- "Complicated airflow." When guests refuse to listen to him, he'll sometimes wonder if the 'complicated airflow' from his mouth, i.e. his speech, is making its way to their ears correctly.
- "Death debt." Any debt with an unacceptably high interest rate.
- "Dying on the Walmart floor." Caleb's colloquialism for not having enough money to retire and thus being forced to work until you die. He tends to use this one when talking to guests who have nothing saved for retirement, and especially the guests who say they aren't concerned about retirement at all.
- "Taquitos." His term for buying random snacks at a gas station. Named after a particularly cantankerous guest who insisted that his daily $3 purchases of taquitos at the local gas station were actually financially savvy because buying convenience food was, he claimed, cheaper than groceries. (Caleb was not impressed with this argument).
- "This is financial audit" and "Your Hammer financial score is [number]." Said near the beginning and end of each episode, respectively.
- Eskimos Aren't Real: A few guests go so far as to say they don't believe in money or capitalism more generally. Caleb has to explain that money is in fact both real and important.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Some of the guests have come into wealth but are failing to hold onto it. An example would be Cam, who inherited a house with an incredibly cheap mortgage but was already missing payments due to irresponsibility.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Lots of guests lose their money to these, which usually involve some combination of cryptocurrencies, 'passive income' schemes, and paying for scam degrees or certifications which they expect to pay off quickly and handsomely.
- Lives in a Van: Some of the guests have been reduced to this. One guest, Gia, was so bad off that living in a van was aspirational for her (she was living in a broken-down car and was hoping to get enough money to get a real van someday).
- Missing Steps Plan: Some of the guests' plans for getting wealthy have large holes in them. Marie, for instance, said she planned to reach financial independence within 10 years and then wanted to start buying rental properties to make 'passive income,' yet had no plan for how to even begin raising the capital either of those goals would require.
- Never My Fault: Many guests insist that their financial circumstances are the fault of everyone else besides them.
- The Slacker: Some guests just don't want to work, which explains their parlous financial positions. One of the more notorious examples of this was Zeke, who refused to get a steady job at any point during his three episodes (and was eventually banned from coming on again because Caleb determined Zeke had no intention of ever improving.)
- Skewed Priorities: Many of the guests are deep in debt but are still spending lots of money on frivolous things. Examples include Summer, who was so broke she was taking out payday loans to make ends meet but was also spending lots of money for a concert, and Eve, who was deep in debt but was also spending lots of money to go to the Olympics in France.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Some guests refuse to take gettable jobs in fast food or warehousing businesses because they think the small salaries or menial work are beneath them. A notable example is Brent, an unemployed man who went so far as to walk out of an interview for a government job because they asked him to judge a holiday decorations contest and he decided his time was more important than that.
- Tough Love: Caleb can be harshly critical of guests whom he thinks are making bad decisions, and he'll explicitly say that buying something or going into certain debts is stupid and/or unethical.
- Tragic Dream: Many of the guests have completely implausible or impossible goals, such as planning to pay off all their debts or achieve financial independence in a time frame that can't possibly work considering their income and/or demonstrated inability to save any of the money they earn. Some guests understand when Caleb explains this to them, while others keep insisting that they will somehow reach their goals.
