Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about beating down the biggest money obstacles
Speaker 1: you face, dude, a beat down. You're talking all all
Speaker 1: violet over here. It's like folks are gonna think you're
Speaker 1: into mixed martial arts or or something like. No. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hear good things. It sounds like fun, but too
Speaker 1: intense for my lessons. It sounds like fun until you
Speaker 1: get clocked in the face, like my neighbor did. He's
Speaker 1: really into it, and he was, you know, grappling with
Speaker 1: a guy. I think that's the term grappling. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no punching right, there's no strikes. But he said
Speaker 1: he was trying to get out of a hold and
Speaker 1: the guy he was grappling with swung his arm back
Speaker 1: at the same time that he quickly moved his head
Speaker 1: to try to evade, to try to escape or whatever,
Speaker 1: and he caught an elbow right above his eye. He said,
Speaker 1: its swelled up to the size of a tennis ball.
Speaker 1: But when I saw him, the swelling went down, but
Speaker 1: the blood had flown from his head to his eyeball.
Speaker 1: So he looked very, very evil. He looked you look terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that that's probably that's gonna be at least my
Speaker 1: excuse why I'm avoiding jiu jitsu because I gotta keep
Speaker 1: his face looking pretty kind of keep that money money
Speaker 1: maker looking freshman. We're podcasters, so it's not necessarily my
Speaker 1: money maker. But but you know, I still don't want
Speaker 1: to get clocked in the face. That it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like fun nor do I mean literally, that's the reason
Speaker 1: I work out is to avoid getting hurt, and so
Speaker 1: to put myself in harm's way. It sounds like the
Speaker 1: opposite of what I personally want to do. Although there
Speaker 1: are others out there who I'm sure really enjoy makes
Speaker 1: martial arts. But that's what we're gonna be doing today.
Speaker 1: When it when it comes to your money, that there
Speaker 1: are different obstacles that just like pop out of nowhere oftentimes,
Speaker 1: and we want you to completely destroy these obstacles so
Speaker 1: that you can achieve your financial goals. And and it
Speaker 1: makes me think of ways mad how waves will be. Like, hey,
Speaker 1: up in the future, there's this thing if you're gonna
Speaker 1: encounter in road, there's a police up there and half
Speaker 1: a mile, like moment is a little down it would
Speaker 1: be funny. Ways actually changed his voice like that. It's
Speaker 1: like obstacle in road. Well, there's a there's a cop
Speaker 1: up there on the ride, you might want to slow down, Joel,
Speaker 1: stop in an idiot and but yeah, those obstacles up
Speaker 1: if you can have someone point them out to you,
Speaker 1: these are the kind of things that are probably gonna
Speaker 1: impact your personal finances. Negatively, look out for them, start
Speaker 1: thinking about how you would react if you were to
Speaker 1: encounter that. That's kind of what we're gonna do on
Speaker 1: on today's episode. But Matt, quickly, before we get to that,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention I. I talked about the upgrading
Speaker 1: to a new phone, and I had hoped on holding
Speaker 1: out longer, which, by the way, did did you ever
Speaker 1: get a case for your phone? Still? Okay, so you're
Speaker 1: still caseless? What you think about this? Right here? Oh
Speaker 1: that looks good. Finally, so I've had my phone for
Speaker 1: a year. Finally got a case nice and still nice
Speaker 1: and thin. Yeah, I got the screen protector on there.
Speaker 1: Making better cases, thinner cases. These they used to be
Speaker 1: like these giant hunking You have to get the autter
Speaker 1: box and made your phone three times the size, right,
Speaker 1: which terrible. I mentioned that Google was going to hit
Speaker 1: me two and sixty two dollars before my old phone
Speaker 1: that i've for and I was like, that's pretty good,
Speaker 1: thanks Google. But they ended up paying me three for
Speaker 1: that phone. I sent it in and they said, actually,
Speaker 1: you underestimated the value. Will give you three hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: The same with my wife phone, which also had just
Speaker 1: this even more even worse cracks than than mine. So
Speaker 1: you can thank the semiconductor shorteras for that one. Friends,
Speaker 1: it's like supply chain problems. I think it was pain
Speaker 1: it is my game. I think it was less that
Speaker 1: they're paying for the actual value of the phone, and
Speaker 1: they're more just kind of trying to build customer loyalty
Speaker 1: because there's no way they're gonna be able to make
Speaker 1: their money back on that phone, Like no way at all, right, um,
Speaker 1: and so so really because everyone else was saying, we'll
Speaker 1: give you eighty bucks for it or ninety bucks, and
Speaker 1: so that's definitely above the market value. But you know,
Speaker 1: Google got me to trade on my own one that
Speaker 1: was busted for one that's just you know, not busted,
Speaker 1: and that's a sweet deal, dude. Yeah, just to get
Speaker 1: more money than you're expecting. Just feels like, I don't
Speaker 1: know prayer emoji hands. I'm just like thankful, blest hashtag
Speaker 1: blest due. That's enough to almost make me consider switching
Speaker 1: switching over to a pixel, but not quite because I
Speaker 1: don't want to be the green text guy. I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's your role. Literally get a crap for that last
Speaker 1: night from a friend and he's like, I would text
Speaker 1: you back, but I'm like, dude, come on, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about liking it, but then I realized that I couldn't,
Speaker 1: and instead it was gonna not give it the thumbs
Speaker 1: up and instead would have typed that out. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Well, you know me, I'm a dent extrovert.
Speaker 1: So if I realized that this phone is inhibiting my
Speaker 1: ability to make friends, I might have to make a
Speaker 1: sorry we told you that. I like that. I would
Speaker 1: text you more. Yeah, but I get enough time with
Speaker 1: you already. But if it's inhibiting other friendships, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: make Yeah, we get enough of that face to face time. Well,
Speaker 1: let's mention the beer we're having on today's episode. This
Speaker 1: one is called Bibo. It's by Creature Comforts, one of
Speaker 1: our favorite Georgia Brewery's it's straight up pills nurse. We'll
Speaker 1: give our thoughts on this beer at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode, but let's move on, mat Let's get to
Speaker 1: the topic at hand. We are talking about money, obstacles,
Speaker 1: how to beat them down, And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: our gen Z listeners are going to get this reference.
Speaker 1: But when I was thinking about beat down, so thinking
Speaker 1: about American Gladiators, which was the o G American Ninja
Speaker 1: Warrior right, thinking about them with the giant what is it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the most beat down people would get
Speaker 1: is when they're just standing there on that pedalestal, just
Speaker 1: getting just hitting hammered, getting whacked in the head over
Speaker 1: and over again until they just fall off. Still, just
Speaker 1: a fantastic show if you go, if you go um
Speaker 1: back back and watch it. What was it? It It was
Speaker 1: late eighties, early nineties something. Yeah, And so just the style,
Speaker 1: the look, kind of the field of the show is
Speaker 1: just kind of fun, fun nostalgia to partake in. But
Speaker 1: I could see some hipster breweries being like, all we
Speaker 1: do just play American Gladiators on TV. Like one of
Speaker 1: our favorite breweries always shows like these idyllic sheep, hurting scenes,
Speaker 1: throw whatever over In Europe, it's just their thing. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason. They like their show show like the European Countryside,
Speaker 1: but there should be another brewery and all they do
Speaker 1: is just show American glad Well, if we ever start one,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be our amout. I would be all about
Speaker 1: that well. And so when I was in college there,
Speaker 1: for some reason, one of the dining halls that's all
Speaker 1: they played was American Gladiator rerun at least when I went, like,
Speaker 1: that's what was on TV, and so I just remember
Speaker 1: that's that was where my affinity for American Gladiators started.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you don't know the show, basically a
Speaker 1: couple fairly fit young folks. They would compete to win money.
Speaker 1: They would uh. The only thing standing in their way though,
Speaker 1: was some incredibly ripped dudes and females who wanted to
Speaker 1: punish them physically. And so the Gladiators basically is what
Speaker 1: they were known as. They were always throwing obstacles in
Speaker 1: your way, slamming you down or to knock you up
Speaker 1: a pedestal, shooting stuff at you, literally tackling you. I mean,
Speaker 1: whatever it took to prevent you from scoring points. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, real life, it's not really like American Gladiators, sadly,
Speaker 1: I guess in a lot of ways because it would
Speaker 1: be pretty cool. But but obstacles are reality in basically
Speaker 1: every arena of life. And that's just that's incredibly true
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the area of personal finance. And
Speaker 1: today we're gonna talk about, you know, those gladiators, like
Speaker 1: obstacles standing in your way that are trying to prevent
Speaker 1: you from reaching your goals. We're gonna like put those
Speaker 1: on the horizon, tell you which ones might be coming,
Speaker 1: and and also talk about how to beat down those
Speaker 1: obstacles you can succeed with your money. Yeah, because chances
Speaker 1: are it hasn't been only smooth sailing, you know, on
Speaker 1: your route to paying off debts or investing for your
Speaker 1: for your future. Getting stuck and not being able to
Speaker 1: make progress as a problem that I think all of
Speaker 1: us has have faced at times. Uh. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna spend this episode running through some of the
Speaker 1: different obstacles that are attempting to derail you on your
Speaker 1: path to financial freedom, uh, and then specifically what to
Speaker 1: do about them. But Joel, you know, like going back
Speaker 1: to the American Gladiators, I think one of the best
Speaker 1: parts of the show were the gladiator's names, like like
Speaker 1: Elektra or like Laser. Those are a couple that that
Speaker 1: stand out in my mind. But similarly, it is important
Speaker 1: to name and identify these financial obstacles as well, because
Speaker 1: you know, if they're lurking in the shadows without you
Speaker 1: even realizing that they're there, you're gonna get completely blindsided.
Speaker 1: And that is what we're trying to avoid today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna guess Malibu was your favorite of the
Speaker 1: Gladiator which I don't. I don't, which had like the
Speaker 1: really long hair California guy, but still like super Bike,
Speaker 1: you I do remember that they're all super they're all
Speaker 1: totally ripped. YEA. Well, it turns out that we all
Speaker 1: have varying degrees of control over the financial obstacles that
Speaker 1: we face. So maybe let's let's start Matt with some
Speaker 1: of the obstacles that are going to feel the most unexpected,
Speaker 1: the most out of our hands. And so one of
Speaker 1: those things that we're feeling acutely right now is rising prices. Right,
Speaker 1: and no matter how much we complain, none of us
Speaker 1: are gonna be able to have an impact on something
Speaker 1: like the cost of eggs. So part of that is
Speaker 1: just general grocery inflationship and then part of its the
Speaker 1: Avian flu going around, and so now eggs are a
Speaker 1: lot more expensive than they were just twelve months ago,
Speaker 1: and so but it's still a very affordable way to
Speaker 1: get high mus a protein. To get that protein. Agree, Man,
Speaker 1: we're talking a lot about physical films. It was tough
Speaker 1: to get. Like the other day, getting a dozen eggs
Speaker 1: for three bucks, I was like, man, this used to
Speaker 1: be a dollar fifty nine. And so it's it's tough
Speaker 1: to stomach that, but you're right when you think about
Speaker 1: it logically, it's like it's yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, but
Speaker 1: the reality of rapidly increasing costs basically everywhere return is
Speaker 1: something that none of us could have expected just a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. It's it's been forty years where
Speaker 1: we've had pretty stable inflation along the lines of two
Speaker 1: percent a year. It's kind of been like clockwork, and
Speaker 1: so we've we've we know that inflation is occurring, but
Speaker 1: most of us don't feel it in any meaningful way,
Speaker 1: and so we don't think about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: that this experience can actually be helpful, I would say,
Speaker 1: in making us realize that there are more possible unknowns
Speaker 1: than we had previously considered. I mean, the pandemic is
Speaker 1: is just a perfect example of that, Matt. When we
Speaker 1: talk about obstacles that we have to overcome, some obstacles
Speaker 1: we can predict. Other obstacles we can't. They're unknown, and
Speaker 1: we still have to be prepared for unknown potential obstacles too.
Speaker 1: That's right. And the lesson from these obstacles, these things
Speaker 1: that are completely out of our control, is that being prepared,
Speaker 1: even for things that we can't fully imagine like that,
Speaker 1: that is still an important thing to do. And specifically
Speaker 1: this means saving and spending our money so that we
Speaker 1: have some financial margin. This is going to be incredibly important.
Speaker 1: And so if you're spending every single dollar that you
Speaker 1: make and you're living paycheck to paycheck, then the financial
Speaker 1: impacts of something like inflation right of rising prices, it's
Speaker 1: going to have a much more severe impact on your
Speaker 1: life than someone who's only you know, spending like half
Speaker 1: of their paycheck. If you're you're spending less than you make,
Speaker 1: then it shouldn't take long for you to have a
Speaker 1: degree of margin within your life, because man, if you
Speaker 1: are living on the edge, if you do not have
Speaker 1: any of that margin. Uh, as expenses continue to get
Speaker 1: more expensive, well, where does that put you? Right? Like
Speaker 1: that put you on the on this precipice of falling
Speaker 1: into this abyss where you might even be reliant on
Speaker 1: credit cards, right on debt in order for you to
Speaker 1: just maintain the standard of living. It was maybe feasible
Speaker 1: for you to do that yesterday, but today, with prices
Speaker 1: being where they are, it's a lot more difficult. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I agree. I think margin is one of those important
Speaker 1: words in personal finance. You want to have more of it,
Speaker 1: even though you don't necessarily know the scenario that you're
Speaker 1: preparing for. Having more margin allows you to pivot in
Speaker 1: the moment, even when something unexpected, because it's the best practice. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, it is. And shifting from like
Speaker 1: the macro to the micro because inflation is this macro
Speaker 1: thing that affects all of us. Well, let's kind of
Speaker 1: talk a little more personal finances because you know, unexpected
Speaker 1: expenses that we experience in day to day life are
Speaker 1: obstacles that can mess us up in a big way.
Speaker 1: So this is not something that's affecting every single one
Speaker 1: of us in a very similar way. This is what
Speaker 1: if the you you suddenly find that some of the
Speaker 1: pipes are leaking in your house, or that your crawl
Speaker 1: space is taking on water. You know, those are tough
Speaker 1: obstacles that cost real money to remedy. Man I was
Speaker 1: actually doing some research for an upcoming interview, and she
Speaker 1: was talking about some some housing issues she had had
Speaker 1: on whatever YouTube videos and how she it cost her
Speaker 1: some real money to to prevent some of those water
Speaker 1: issues from from messing up her her investment property. And
Speaker 1: so basically like, if you turn a blind eye to
Speaker 1: these issues, you're gonna find yourself in a worse situation. Right,
Speaker 1: if you don't put in the French train, uh and
Speaker 1: you flood the basements, you find yourself in a worse
Speaker 1: situation tsking you even more money, or even something like
Speaker 1: car issues, right, even though you're you're probably not assuming
Speaker 1: that your transportation is gonna bite the dust tomorrow, being
Speaker 1: prepared is still important. I had a Subaru back in
Speaker 1: the day. Suber is a great cars, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: my engine just crapped out on the freeway and it
Speaker 1: was one of those things where it was a really
Speaker 1: really expensive fix. I wasn't planning on that, Like, it
Speaker 1: wasn't something where I was like, cool, I think this
Speaker 1: could happen sometime in the next six months, but it
Speaker 1: was still something I was financially prepared for, even though
Speaker 1: it hurts, like the dickens to pay for that fix. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Medical debt is another example of one of these you know,
Speaker 1: some of these stumbling blocks that people don't plan for.
Speaker 1: But it can be debilitating on multiple fronts, right Like,
Speaker 1: not only can medical expenses cost you a ton of money,
Speaker 1: but there's a chance that something has happened that might
Speaker 1: keep you from being able to work, which would keep
Speaker 1: you potentially from earning an income, right Like, it hits
Speaker 1: you on the way in and on the way out.
Speaker 1: This is one of those problems that exists across our
Speaker 1: society that we need to find and a better way
Speaker 1: of addressing. But there are some ways of preventing possible
Speaker 1: medical issues. Specifically, there are personal physical steps that we
Speaker 1: can take, like not smoking, eating well, actually exercising from
Speaker 1: time to time. Maybe not the jiu jitsure though, yeah,
Speaker 1: which causes uh increased medical medical bils, but there are
Speaker 1: other ways to push back against medical debts that is
Speaker 1: egregious as well. We talked about that in episode for
Speaker 1: nine with Marshall Allen. But aside from some of the
Speaker 1: I guess financial steps that you can take to keep
Speaker 1: medical debt from becoming this obstacle that's going to take
Speaker 1: you out, there are some of these smaller additional ones
Speaker 1: as well. And the reason we highlight medical debt because
Speaker 1: with it being the number one reason for personal bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: it is something that you should be thinking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we often don't think about those little steps that
Speaker 1: we can take ahead of time, but those are crucial, right,
Speaker 1: So if you want to avoid health problems, like just
Speaker 1: going for a walk around your neighborhood four or five
Speaker 1: days a week for twenty minutes is gonna be like
Speaker 1: this preventative health step that's going to have a positive
Speaker 1: tacon on your body and on your ability to withstand
Speaker 1: future hurdles that life throws at you from a physical stance.
Speaker 1: But but so often we discount those things and we
Speaker 1: don't think of them as important even though they are.
Speaker 1: And you know, it makes me think about this, uh,
Speaker 1: this Mike Tyson quote Matt that I think I think
Speaker 1: this was something he said. He basically said, everybody has
Speaker 1: a plan until they get punched in the mouth. So
Speaker 1: he's talking about his opponents typically who got rocked pretty
Speaker 1: hard because they're like, oh, this is all I'm gonna
Speaker 1: beat Mike, and then they get punched in the face
Speaker 1: one time and they're planning shifts dramatically, um typically into
Speaker 1: survival mode. But so even though you don't know which
Speaker 1: setback you're gonna face, whether you're gonna face we're gonna
Speaker 1: face something on a macro level, or you're gonna face
Speaker 1: some sort of micro economic catastrophe in your life, planning
Speaker 1: head is so important, and building up that emergency fund
Speaker 1: is really what we're talking about here. It's gonna give
Speaker 1: you the ability to endure those setbacks without completely derailing
Speaker 1: your progress and crumbling your goals in the process, because
Speaker 1: you've got cash to back you up. When those problems
Speaker 1: do arise, like and they're gonna happen for all of us, right,
Speaker 1: you can't prevent them from happening, but you can minimize
Speaker 1: their impact on your psyche and on your finances, and
Speaker 1: that is so important. So partly what we're talking about
Speaker 1: here is is having that base emergency fund set up. Matt,
Speaker 1: we you and I we've always given the number two thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixties seven dollars as being the base
Speaker 1: amount to shoot for. If you don't have an emergency
Speaker 1: fund in place yet, or you have less than that,
Speaker 1: that's the number you want to hit because that's going
Speaker 1: to allow you to to overcome a lot of those
Speaker 1: financial obstacles that your mind the counter without going broke
Speaker 1: or without taking on debt, and then you know the
Speaker 1: next goal is to have somewhere between three and six
Speaker 1: months of expenses saved up. Once you get to a
Speaker 1: place like that, those obstacles they feel a lot smaller,
Speaker 1: They don't feel like as big of a deal because
Speaker 1: in your bank account, you've got enough money to be
Speaker 1: able to handle that, and then you can work to
Speaker 1: replenish that you're not just immediately screwed when something unexpected occurs.
Speaker 1: That's right, And I think it's good too that we
Speaker 1: started with margin, right, How how we talked about how
Speaker 1: that's the solution oftentimes, uh, and then we moved on
Speaker 1: to an emergency fund, because in order to create an
Speaker 1: emergency fund, you need to have margin within your life
Speaker 1: when you have some small amounts of margin like that
Speaker 1: will allow you to overcome something like inflation, that that
Speaker 1: allows you to overcome small price increases. But what we're
Speaker 1: talking about with an emergency fund is the ability to
Speaker 1: overcome some of these larger hurdles, some of these bigger
Speaker 1: expenses that are going to crop up in our lives
Speaker 1: that do have the potential to to derail us. And
Speaker 1: so it's important, uh, not only to have margin, but
Speaker 1: then to beyond that, be working towards having, like you said,
Speaker 1: ultimately three to six months worth of living expenses in
Speaker 1: the bank. But you we actually are going to get
Speaker 1: to several other obstacles that get in our way when
Speaker 1: it comes to handling our money. Well ways for us
Speaker 1: to beat down those obstacles, and in particular, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to a couple that are within the realm of
Speaker 1: our social lives. And so we will get to those
Speaker 1: plus others right after this. Alright, let's keep let's keep going.
Speaker 1: Let's keep talking about money obstacles and and how our
Speaker 1: listeners can beat them down in order to continue making
Speaker 1: financial progress. And some of these goes again with this
Speaker 1: violent rhetoric, punch it in the face. You know, like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have thinking of those of the pants, those of
Speaker 1: the clown things that I had when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and you you could punch it and it would pop back up,
Speaker 1: and oh yeah, I love those things. I think about
Speaker 1: your money obstacles kind of like that. Well, And and
Speaker 1: some of our listeners, you know, they're gonna face We're
Speaker 1: gonna face mac or we're gonna face micro challenges. We're
Speaker 1: gonna face like the our own particular set of obstacles.
Speaker 1: So it's not gonna be one size fits all necessarily,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about internal and external obstacles which
Speaker 1: all have just kind of different impacts and they need
Speaker 1: different reactions from us. But but some of our listeners
Speaker 1: might be saying, you know what my obstacle is, I
Speaker 1: don't make enough money. And that's a real obstacle to that.
Speaker 1: Some people face a lack of income, which is reality
Speaker 1: for a decent chunk of folks. And the reality is
Speaker 1: we're just talking about rising prices that you know, it's
Speaker 1: gotten harder to put it on the table and to
Speaker 1: pay rent, especially as both of those items in particular
Speaker 1: have become more expensive. Inflation is eating into the real
Speaker 1: wages of lots of people too, making it feel like
Speaker 1: they're they're earning less than they used to. Even if
Speaker 1: their paycheck's got up a little, it's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't go as far on the things that I'm buying.
Speaker 1: And and even if that person are that listener recently
Speaker 1: got a raise. And it is true that making more
Speaker 1: money isn't going to solve all of your financial problems.
Speaker 1: But and there there are way too many folks living
Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck who makes six figures, but finding ways
Speaker 1: to make more would help a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: and that's that's an important solution to this personal finance
Speaker 1: opticle on this right. But that being said, it is
Speaker 1: easier said than done. Some folks who are employed and
Speaker 1: in a high demand field, like it could just entail
Speaker 1: negotiating effectively, you know, with your current employer, or maybe
Speaker 1: applying for jobs with other businesses in the industry that
Speaker 1: that are going to pay you a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But for others, it's gonna mean maybe doing something that's
Speaker 1: gonna rec are a little more work, like starting a business,
Speaker 1: like a business on the side, or acquiring some some
Speaker 1: new skills in order to increase their earnings. And by
Speaker 1: the way, going to college paying lots and lots of
Speaker 1: money in order to acquire those skills is not necessary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it might be the best route for some folks,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not some sort of slam dunk. Oh
Speaker 1: if I go do this, it's gonna quickly mean I'm
Speaker 1: gonna earn a lot more money. It's just not that
Speaker 1: simple exactly. Yeah, And so you know, we we say
Speaker 1: all this because like, not earning enough, it can be
Speaker 1: a significant hurdle, but there is definitely a way to
Speaker 1: lower maybe the height of that hurdle through some savvy
Speaker 1: personal action where you are focusing on maybe one of
Speaker 1: the largest obstacles within your personal financeance, which might be
Speaker 1: uh an income that could be a bit bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and mat another another obstacle that people face is spending
Speaker 1: too much money, and that just a lot of people
Speaker 1: just can't control their spending. They find it massively difficult,
Speaker 1: and the biggest culprits are often your largest recurring expenses.
Speaker 1: Maybe you bought a house and the monthly payment is
Speaker 1: just outside to your comfort zone. Well, that means you're
Speaker 1: gonna be constantly stressed about where your other dollars are
Speaker 1: going because you've got this fixed payment and it's too much.
Speaker 1: And so now you're fretting about every single other purchase
Speaker 1: because you don't have enough discretion your income to pay
Speaker 1: for all the things that you that you want or need.
Speaker 1: And lord, let's say you bought a nicer car than
Speaker 1: you really should have bought, but you spread those payments
Speaker 1: out over extra years, taking out that seven or eight
Speaker 1: year car loan that we hate. That is also going
Speaker 1: to impact your ability to reach other financial goals in
Speaker 1: your life. And so, yeah, one of our suggestions would
Speaker 1: be if you spend far less on the items that
Speaker 1: are most impactful to your budget, on the biggest line items, well,
Speaker 1: the great thing is you won't need to sweat the
Speaker 1: small stuff and nearly as much. You're gonna be less stressed.
Speaker 1: You might not live in as awesome of an apartment
Speaker 1: or a house, or your car might be, you have
Speaker 1: a few more things and dents, but the reality is
Speaker 1: it's going to make you far less stressed out about
Speaker 1: all those other purchases you make in a month. And uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: even if your housing costs are lesson say five percent
Speaker 1: of your monthly income. Like, folks can find themselves spending
Speaker 1: in more frivolous ways, right, which might mean maybe you've
Speaker 1: gotten too cozy with credit cards or you know with that,
Speaker 1: maybe you're using the buy now, pay later services because
Speaker 1: they make it easier to get more of the stuff
Speaker 1: you want quickly, where you don't even realize how that's
Speaker 1: impacting your long term personal finances. The Internet, online retailers,
Speaker 1: social media even have made it so easy for us
Speaker 1: to become consumption machines. I swear every other post now
Speaker 1: on Instagram, like when you're flipping through your stories, that's
Speaker 1: where I feel like I've noticed it the most. Is
Speaker 1: an ad and they are showing me something that I
Speaker 1: could buy, something that is perfectly curated for something that
Speaker 1: I would like. The mat they know me well, they
Speaker 1: don't want They just want you to buy stuff. It's
Speaker 1: gonna make you happy. And I'm like, well, let me
Speaker 1: just go and click through and see what they see
Speaker 1: what they've got going on, like what kind of sale
Speaker 1: do they have going on? And obviously that just feeds
Speaker 1: feeds the beast, feeds the beast. Yeah, it gives them
Speaker 1: even more information. They're like, oh, he liked that, may
Speaker 1: not have made a purchase. But now we've got our
Speaker 1: we've got our hooks even deeper. They will, they will
Speaker 1: jud it to you into sumission. I'm gonna yeah, hopefully
Speaker 1: not have to tap out. But so okay. How do
Speaker 1: you deal with this obstacle though? And one way is
Speaker 1: by budgeting or if you don't like to be word,
Speaker 1: at the very least, it means tracking where your money
Speaker 1: is going. We would suggest using software like wine app.
Speaker 1: You need a budget is what that stands for. And
Speaker 1: you might hear us say that and think, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: doesn't wine app cost money? Yes, it does. It does
Speaker 1: cost money. But if if it takes you spending like
Speaker 1: a small amount of money every single month in order
Speaker 1: to save a ton of money, well guess what the
Speaker 1: net result is going to be. It's gonna be you
Speaker 1: coming out ahead. Or maybe that's you might need to
Speaker 1: join a gym in order to get fit. Yes you
Speaker 1: might not. You don't need to, that's for sure, But
Speaker 1: if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. If
Speaker 1: that's what is going to cause you to actually work out.
Speaker 1: By going with a friend to a gym, the cost
Speaker 1: bucks a month it's like cool, Yeah, it's it's worth
Speaker 1: the money if you're gonna be a whole lot healthier
Speaker 1: because of it, exactly. Or maybe you just need some
Speaker 1: guidance and something as simple as just searching for a
Speaker 1: budget within Google sheets or something that you can download
Speaker 1: a personal budget within Excel. Uh, that might be the
Speaker 1: path for you to take. But bottom line, if you
Speaker 1: don't know where your money is going, then you know
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to make progress with
Speaker 1: your money. Uh. And we're talking about kind of some
Speaker 1: of these steps that you can take to alleviate some
Speaker 1: of those frivolous spending, some of those small purchases every
Speaker 1: single month, but like you're talking about some of these
Speaker 1: big ticket items, right, like these recurring large expenses every
Speaker 1: single month. And it's worth pointing out that we're not
Speaker 1: afraid to consider making some drastic cuts in our lives. Right.
Speaker 1: And so if you are in a house that's no
Speaker 1: longer bringing you value, maybe like maybe you've got this
Speaker 1: fancy place and it's not bringing you joy, it's not
Speaker 1: fulfilling you in the way that you thought. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things to consider here, but I
Speaker 1: am not beyond you sailing that home. It's it would
Speaker 1: be a lot easier if you're renting and saying, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe the next place we rent will just be a
Speaker 1: lot more affordable. Obviously much easier to to sell a
Speaker 1: vehicle than a home because there's so many costs associated
Speaker 1: with with selling a home. But I mentioned that because
Speaker 1: I think pretty much all expenses should be on the
Speaker 1: table when it comes to us achieving our financial goals.
Speaker 1: And if that home is no longer kind of helping
Speaker 1: you get in the direction you want to go, it
Speaker 1: might be time to scrap it and go and pivot
Speaker 1: right into a different direction. Well, and that you mentioned budgeting,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned wine app and Google sheets, and you
Speaker 1: actually have maybe your budget public for how the money listeners,
Speaker 1: not not all of your details, but you you've you've
Speaker 1: basically your template. They can download it and we'll link
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes for this episode, and
Speaker 1: we will do that because I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people like it's helpful to have a place to get started,
Speaker 1: and I feel like your budget template is is you
Speaker 1: can help a lot of people. Fair warning, I overthink
Speaker 1: everything and so it might be more detailed than a
Speaker 1: lot of folks out there might be needing you might
Speaker 1: want to take. For all the nerds out there, modify
Speaker 1: and simplify. Yeah, for all the nerds out there, you
Speaker 1: might be thinking, oh, this is exactly what I need. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and let's talk about another obstacle to making good financial decisions,
Speaker 1: and that can be your friends. That's right. Cut them
Speaker 1: all out of your life because they're ruining your ability
Speaker 1: to make financial progress. Friends are just too expensive, that's right.
Speaker 1: So Matt, this is uh where we break up the
Speaker 1: zory part ways my friends, Um, just kidding and and
Speaker 1: and that's certainly not true, right that that you need
Speaker 1: to lose most of your friends. But the reality is
Speaker 1: that people you spend the most time with, they're going
Speaker 1: to have an inordinate influence on who you're becoming, both
Speaker 1: for good and for bad. And uh, what are the
Speaker 1: author Jim Rone? He says that you become the average
Speaker 1: of the five folks you spend the most time with.
Speaker 1: This right, or if you want to go even more
Speaker 1: old school, Matt, the Bible. The Bible puts in another way,
Speaker 1: bad company corrupts good character. And so you know, as
Speaker 1: best friends, you and I, we can attest to the
Speaker 1: reality that we we've both had significant impacts on each other.
Speaker 1: I think mostly for good, I hope. Okay, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's some negative parts of it, but again, what's the
Speaker 1: net results? Net results, mostly possible, way way way positive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the the other people that we choose to spend
Speaker 1: time with and do life with are majorly impactful to
Speaker 1: who we're becoming as well. The more thoughtful, intentional, and
Speaker 1: google our friends are, the more likely we're going to
Speaker 1: take on those characteristics ourselves. So yeah, but the people
Speaker 1: that you spend the most time with, are they do
Speaker 1: they have the most characters? Are they? Are they the
Speaker 1: kind of people you want to become? I think those
Speaker 1: are good questions to ask, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it it sounds like it's all your friends fault
Speaker 1: and and they're ruining your finances. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the case. But again, who you're surrounding yourself with is
Speaker 1: indicative of who you're going to become, and so that
Speaker 1: is an important thing to be thinking about. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it actually makes me think of the fact that we mean,
Speaker 1: with us having moved recently, what that means is that
Speaker 1: we're getting to meet a lot of new folks were
Speaker 1: meeting new neighbors, making new friends, which is like positive, right, Um, However,
Speaker 1: it also means that we are meeting folks who may
Speaker 1: not necessarily share the same goals as us, right, and
Speaker 1: so in our old neighborhood, in our old life, and
Speaker 1: certainly we interacted with folks who we don't necessarily see
Speaker 1: eye to eye with on everything. But it is really
Speaker 1: interesting meeting new folks and realizing based on what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, based on how does they spend their time,
Speaker 1: based on what they're spending their money on that Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think we necessarily share the share the same
Speaker 1: share the same goals. And again that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we can't be friends and we can't say hey, be
Speaker 1: friendly and all those types of things, but it does
Speaker 1: mean I think that there is a level of intentionality
Speaker 1: that comes with making these relationships. It's important to be
Speaker 1: aware of the influence that other people can can have
Speaker 1: on you. Uh, and you know, I think this is
Speaker 1: why my community, specifically, why that's such an important part
Speaker 1: of the how the money philosophy. They always say that
Speaker 1: it takes a friend to make a friend, right, and
Speaker 1: so the impetus is going to be on us to
Speaker 1: find these folks and to get the ball rolling. And
Speaker 1: we've found specifically that that churches and schools there are
Speaker 1: places that are ripe for cross cultural friendships. Um. Actually
Speaker 1: backing us up, there's a new study recently that was
Speaker 1: published in uh Nature that found that the key for
Speaker 1: folks who grew up with very little money that they
Speaker 1: were able to move up the income scale because of
Speaker 1: the friendships that they developed future incomes I think shut
Speaker 1: up by something for lower income kids who spent significant
Speaker 1: amounts of time with wealthier kids. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: like we're not saying that you should only hang out
Speaker 1: with like elite wealthy folks. I'm not slinding into elon
Speaker 1: musty m right now. I'm not keen on like schmoozing
Speaker 1: and hanging out with like the private jet crowd. But
Speaker 1: your friends can be an obstacle to who you want
Speaker 1: to become. So this is a reminder that you can
Speaker 1: be intentional about who you are letting influence you without
Speaker 1: cutting friends you know who don't share the same goals
Speaker 1: completely out of your life. Yeah, we definitely don't want
Speaker 1: to sound like a heartless jerk who's like eradicate those
Speaker 1: fools who you've been friends with since high school because
Speaker 1: they're they're holding you back from reaching your financial goals.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you share different goals now, yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: easy you could potentially use what we just said and
Speaker 1: make your friends into a scapegoat and say like sorry
Speaker 1: Billy or sorry Jenny, um, it's your fault while I'm
Speaker 1: not making more progress of my money. And the reality
Speaker 1: is there's more onus on you than on your friends.
Speaker 1: But there's also a truth to the fact that that
Speaker 1: the people you you spend the most time around are
Speaker 1: going to influence you, oftentimes even in subtle ways. And
Speaker 1: so it's important to think about that not too completely
Speaker 1: get rid of important friendships that you've had for a
Speaker 1: long time just because they don't think about money the
Speaker 1: same way, but to be more intentional about the positive
Speaker 1: side of that. The friendships you can develop, they're gonna
Speaker 1: push you in the right direction. And it also doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you have to be completely pragmatic about all
Speaker 1: of your relationship right like like in particular, like the
Speaker 1: stage of life that we're in when we're meeting a
Speaker 1: lot of folks sometimes like we're gonna hang out with
Speaker 1: them just because we like them. And I think that's
Speaker 1: core to a friendship, right, Like there's something that you
Speaker 1: see and that other person, there's like a spark there,
Speaker 1: there's other shared common interests. But if you were to
Speaker 1: go into every single relationship thinking is this person wealthier
Speaker 1: than me? Like, that's just a cold hearted, like hard
Speaker 1: nosed way to approach relationships that we are not recommending.
Speaker 1: And it's not just bigger house, more more income, more
Speaker 1: successful career like those are those are That's not what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. You know, we're talking about some more
Speaker 1: of those intangible things and and are your friends supporting
Speaker 1: you in those ways? Are they influencing you in those
Speaker 1: ways to help you become the kind of person you
Speaker 1: want to be? Uh and Matt on that on that vein.
Speaker 1: I know social media takes a b but it's another obstacle, right,
Speaker 1: this stands always. You talked about how big tech and
Speaker 1: UH and big business is trying to get you to
Speaker 1: spend money on Instagram through all the ads that you're seeing. Well,
Speaker 1: it's true, right that there's there's a reality of that.
Speaker 1: Uh TikTok is ratching up the comparison game just with
Speaker 1: as influencers are kind of taking over, and we're getting
Speaker 1: more and more of our content that way as opposed
Speaker 1: to traditional media. And uh. A new survey found by
Speaker 1: bank rate found that social media makes half of gen
Speaker 1: z ears feel bad about their finances. So people in
Speaker 1: their twenties, almost half of them walk around feeling like
Speaker 1: crap because of social media. And it turns out it
Speaker 1: makes people feel bad more more than just about their finances,
Speaker 1: makes them feel bad about their appearance or the hobbies
Speaker 1: that they that they participate in, like disc golf not
Speaker 1: so cool on TikTok, I don't think you know. And
Speaker 1: so now there's there's there's definitely discolf influences golfers on
Speaker 1: Instagram because I get fed them like crushing these like
Speaker 1: massive drives, and I'm like, I don't even play discolf
Speaker 1: that much, but maybe Instagram saying that I should. Well,
Speaker 1: I think in that way, Instagram would be right. But uh,
Speaker 1: but a lot of us are spending meaningful amounts of
Speaker 1: time on these sites, and what they're doing is they're
Speaker 1: dragging us down. They're making us feel bad. And it's
Speaker 1: not like this drill sergeant kind of feel bad where
Speaker 1: we end up taking immediate action right where we're like,
Speaker 1: dang it, you're right, I will drop down and give
Speaker 1: you fifty push ups. It usually induces more in action.
Speaker 1: I would say, it's not this motivational kind of feel
Speaker 1: bad exactly. And there's a difference between those two, right,
Speaker 1: And we all know this right in our brains. We
Speaker 1: we've seen some of these studies. A lot of us
Speaker 1: watched the Social Dilemma back in the day on Netflix.
Speaker 1: But social media media, it's it's truly creating unrealistic expectations
Speaker 1: and so using it far less is going to put
Speaker 1: some wind in your sales from an emotional and financial perspective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you actually think about it, like it's literally
Speaker 1: in the name right, Like, so social media, you're being
Speaker 1: fed what your friends are doing. So that's the social
Speaker 1: side of things. Uh, And it's being force fed to
Speaker 1: you like you're watching the news. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's that has a large impact on how passive we
Speaker 1: are as we can ume this. We're just sitting there.
Speaker 1: It's being fed to us. We don't have to lift
Speaker 1: literally without the hardly lift a finger. You just kind
Speaker 1: of like swipe it on your screen or whatever. But
Speaker 1: the reality is that much of what you see on
Speaker 1: social media is just fake, which you know this is
Speaker 1: no surprise to anybody out there, but like influences, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about, Like they literally do crap like
Speaker 1: running a seat like in a private jet just to
Speaker 1: take a selfie to to make you think that their
Speaker 1: jet setting somewhere somewhere cool. And even if it's not fake,
Speaker 1: most of what you're ingesting is going to be unhealthy.
Speaker 1: We we you know, we talk about the hot of
Speaker 1: Money Facebook group a decent bit. We feel that it's
Speaker 1: this bashtion of goodness and the like this medium that's
Speaker 1: just fraught with peril. And so if you're gonna stay
Speaker 1: on these sites like like Facebook, we'd recommend that you
Speaker 1: take some steps to lessen their impact. The Joel you
Speaker 1: always talk about the news feed eradicator plug in, Um,
Speaker 1: how that's a game changer. But the ability that we
Speaker 1: have to be able to skip some of the crappy
Speaker 1: aspects of social media like the news feed and go
Speaker 1: straight to specific groups where we are going to be
Speaker 1: intentional with our time, or the ability to go straight
Speaker 1: to the straight to marketplace because you're you're selling a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. That is what we want to encourage
Speaker 1: folks to do. Cal Newport talks about doing that in
Speaker 1: his book Digital Minimalism, where we set up these rules
Speaker 1: and how it is that we interact with social media. Uh.
Speaker 1: He wants you to use social media like a professional,
Speaker 1: like you're going in with a purpose, You're gonna do
Speaker 1: the thing, and then you're gonna get out of there.
Speaker 1: It can be a powerful tool for our good for
Speaker 1: awesome things, for the sell yourself challenge, Like we're not luddites,
Speaker 1: we're not trying to get you to step away from
Speaker 1: all technology, but the technology is using you and that's
Speaker 1: what we're trying. And you can also be like, but
Speaker 1: I gotta do this sell your stuff challenge and if
Speaker 1: I'm not on Facebook, then I can't help that, and
Speaker 1: then I'm not we need to do that, And then
Speaker 1: and then you could you could be like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I need to stay on social media for that reason.
Speaker 1: But the reality is you're you're consuming more than you're
Speaker 1: even getting rid of, Like you're you're spending more, you're
Speaker 1: wasting more money and time. Then you are saving it
Speaker 1: and you're using that as an excuse, and so we're
Speaker 1: okay with you being on social media. I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to be on there a little bit,
Speaker 1: but if you're letting it use you, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: And it's really really hard to use it the other
Speaker 1: way around, to use it profitably, to use it in
Speaker 1: a way strategically. Yeah, it's really difficult to accomplish, but
Speaker 1: it's possible, and something like that a plug in like
Speaker 1: the Facebook news feed eradicator plug in can help you
Speaker 1: do that. Um. But the more ways that you can
Speaker 1: implement just time limits and what you're seeing on social media,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a positive impact and it's gonna
Speaker 1: prevent social media from being such a such a meaningful
Speaker 1: obstacle to you gaining grounds with your money, a time suck. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: use this strategically, Like specifically, we've been using it more
Speaker 1: recently because we're meeting a lot of folks again, like
Speaker 1: I said, And the ability to make these connections on
Speaker 1: Facebook too then foster uh interactions in real life. Right.
Speaker 1: And that's something else that Kyle talks about in this
Speaker 1: book that's so huge, is embracing doing things for real
Speaker 1: and you're not doing things on social media. We've talked
Speaker 1: about our how the money we don't we're not really
Speaker 1: on the social as a whole lot. We we have
Speaker 1: an Instagram feed and you're welcome to go join it,
Speaker 1: check it out, follow it, but we don't do much
Speaker 1: with it, and at times it's like, man, we could
Speaker 1: do better. We could be like massive personal finance influencers
Speaker 1: on the socials if we wanted to post in seven
Speaker 1: just like here's me. Okay, here's the deal I got
Speaker 1: on the tooth baste, right, but it does not watch
Speaker 1: me brush my teeth. But it doesn't jive with how
Speaker 1: we want to live life and kind of with how
Speaker 1: we feel about social media and tough man, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a balance that we're trying to strike there.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's let's keep moving mat like we
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot of external influences, but after
Speaker 1: the break, let's talk more about internal obstacles and how
Speaker 1: we're moving Removing some of those can have major ramifications
Speaker 1: on our ability to take positive action with our money.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that right after this. We are back
Speaker 1: from the break, and again we are talking about beating
Speaker 1: down these biggest financial obstacles in our lives. And Joel,
Speaker 1: you alluded to this before the break, but let's talk
Speaker 1: about you that you Joel specifically, but all the listeners
Speaker 1: out there, and let's talk about me um. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about everyone out there as individual rules. Because it's easy.
Speaker 1: We think it's easy to point out, you know, all
Speaker 1: of these other reasons why it is that we're not
Speaker 1: as far along as we'd like to be with our finances.
Speaker 1: And it's not that those things aren't true, you know,
Speaker 1: or that they haven't impacted us negatively, all the different
Speaker 1: things that pop up in our lives, but you might
Speaker 1: be tempted to continue down a path of playing the
Speaker 1: blame game when you're just pointing fingers, you know, the
Speaker 1: things that might seem out of your control, or you
Speaker 1: could like really take yourself out of the driver's seat
Speaker 1: and adopt more of a victim mentality when ultimately so
Speaker 1: much of your future is dependent on you taking responsibility
Speaker 1: for our actions, seeing these obstacles and then doing something
Speaker 1: about them. We think that that is crucial, and that's
Speaker 1: why we're talking about this today. Yeah, you're right, Mad,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's not that some people aren't
Speaker 1: dealt a worse hand and that they don't have more
Speaker 1: to overcome, but the more you just point to the
Speaker 1: optacles in your path, the less likelyly you are to
Speaker 1: overcome them. And it's not that it's easy, and it's
Speaker 1: not that some people don't have a more difficult path,
Speaker 1: but the onus is still on us in order to
Speaker 1: make progress. And so what are those internal obstacles we
Speaker 1: would say that we've all got to overcome at some point.
Speaker 1: Is not knowing our why, and that's going to continue
Speaker 1: to produce negative results for you. If you if you
Speaker 1: don't know what we call the why behind your money,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna take you more time to accomplish the
Speaker 1: money goals that you've got because you're aimless achieve them
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, exactly, And so yeah, not knowing what
Speaker 1: you want to accomplish is going to kneecap your efforts regularly,
Speaker 1: more likely to spend too much money, or you're going
Speaker 1: to just be and be aimless. Like I said in
Speaker 1: those short sighted money efforts, if you can't attach a
Speaker 1: why behind those efforts. And yeah, because if you haven't
Speaker 1: really thought through what you want out of life and
Speaker 1: how handling your money more effectively is going to be
Speaker 1: able to get you there, you're gonna be apathetic about
Speaker 1: their your finances. You're just gonna go with the flow
Speaker 1: you're gonna do with the people around you are doing.
Speaker 1: But the more you get in touch and I hope
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound too woo woo, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be some sort of Tony Robin style fella here, but
Speaker 1: with your own personal why when you kind of get
Speaker 1: in touch to that, when you figure that out, the
Speaker 1: more you're gonna be able to attach a larger significance
Speaker 1: to the trade offs that you're making now to It's
Speaker 1: gonna feel different to say no to something, to cut
Speaker 1: back your budget in significant ways in order to help
Speaker 1: you achieve those bigger goals, which is gonna lead to
Speaker 1: positive results and actually following through. And we've actually got
Speaker 1: this money Mission Statement math that you and I that
Speaker 1: we've created together, and it's a free resource, just like
Speaker 1: your your budget template, like this is a free resource
Speaker 1: that we want all how the money listeners to have.
Speaker 1: And if you would just spend a half hour answering
Speaker 1: some of these questions, download this PDF and and print
Speaker 1: it out. Think about it. Uh, it's going to have
Speaker 1: a massive impact on overcoming that obstacle from being aimless
Speaker 1: about what you want to do with your money and
Speaker 1: where you want to be years from now to kind
Speaker 1: of having a plan and knowing what you want from
Speaker 1: your life and knowing what you want from your personal
Speaker 1: finances to that's right. Yeah, we'll make sure to link
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes as well. But once
Speaker 1: you know what it is that you want, having a
Speaker 1: you know, a hy to anchor you, you still might
Speaker 1: be missing the how. And of course that comes down
Speaker 1: to the crucial component of knowledge, because you can have
Speaker 1: the right desires while not having the proper information to
Speaker 1: accomplish them. And you know, while the basics of personal
Speaker 1: finance are simple spend less than you make, there's obviously
Speaker 1: a ton more to sustained success and being able to
Speaker 1: achieve even higher level goals. We spend our lifetimes learning,
Speaker 1: so nobody will ever reach the point where they know everything.
Speaker 1: But we would recommend everyone out there to revisit our
Speaker 1: money gears because it should act as a helpful guide
Speaker 1: or or a roadmap regardless of how much money you make,
Speaker 1: regardless of how much money you have invested. That's episode
Speaker 1: three oh two, and we'll make sure to link to
Speaker 1: that as well. Yeah, but if you know your why
Speaker 1: and you know your how, like you're gonna be a
Speaker 1: person on a mission, You're gonna be heading places like
Speaker 1: if you have figured out okay, cool, I I know
Speaker 1: I want to invest my money for the future, or
Speaker 1: I know I want to have more money at some
Speaker 1: point to gain financial independence. Once you're able to figure
Speaker 1: out some of the best levers to pull in order
Speaker 1: to get you there, it's going to make the journey
Speaker 1: that much easier. And another obstacle, though, Matt, that people
Speaker 1: might face, right, another conundrum that comes up is not
Speaker 1: having enough discipline to get where they need to go.
Speaker 1: They might know there why, they might have some of
Speaker 1: that how, but then they're like, but I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of lazy, and I find it really difficult to actually
Speaker 1: follow through on on the things that I know and
Speaker 1: on those internal desires. And so maybe you're all excited
Speaker 1: because you you do have the knowledge and you have
Speaker 1: a y, but you fizzle out because you lack some
Speaker 1: of the discipline to keep going. And I think you're
Speaker 1: not alone, right, because even the most strident among us
Speaker 1: we fall off the wagon from time to time. But
Speaker 1: the key to this, to overcoming this obstacle, is to
Speaker 1: foster a longer term view of our finances. We've talked
Speaker 1: about grit on the show before, Matt and we we
Speaker 1: we actually called it the number one factor to winning
Speaker 1: with your money. And the reality is that grit is
Speaker 1: kind of like living life like it's a marathon and
Speaker 1: not a sprint, although so many of us actually think
Speaker 1: about it like the opposite, at least when it comes
Speaker 1: to how we're spending or using our money and displaying more.
Speaker 1: Grit is is realizing that setbacks that they're bound to happen,
Speaker 1: um that obstacles are gonna pop up, right, But but
Speaker 1: pushing through those annoyances and inconveniences because we have our
Speaker 1: eyes fixed on a specific prize, right, the why that
Speaker 1: we have is important and so lacking discipline it's certainly,
Speaker 1: certainly an obstacle, but and it's one of those things
Speaker 1: it's not overcome quickly. It's overcome through repetition and a
Speaker 1: little bit of mindset shift. Realizing that what you want
Speaker 1: to accomplish, that it's it's not gonna happen, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna occur overnight, right, And if there's a single factor
Speaker 1: that leads to a lack of grid, it's got to
Speaker 1: be shortsightedness, and so this this makes me think of investing. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: folks are going to fail to invest because they haven't
Speaker 1: thought through the long term impacts that it's going to have. Right,
Speaker 1: like twenty bucks a month, it sounds like appendance, So
Speaker 1: why even get started. But the reality is that because
Speaker 1: of the effects of compounding, even small amounts that you
Speaker 1: regularly set aside, it's gonna, you know, amount to something
Speaker 1: meaningful over time, like you said, Joel, But we can
Speaker 1: be to my opic. We can be too focused on
Speaker 1: tomorrow in order to continue the hard work of spending
Speaker 1: less than you make, of making sacrifices now because you're
Speaker 1: not you're not thinking about the future. All you're doing
Speaker 1: is thinking about now, and so you're not thinking about
Speaker 1: what life could potentially look like oft in the future. Instead,
Speaker 1: you're pulling those dollars into the present from the future,
Speaker 1: and you're spending that money left and right. That's when
Speaker 1: we choose the different modern comforts that we convince ourselves
Speaker 1: that we need today in order to be happy. What
Speaker 1: makes me think about something that you know, we and
Speaker 1: you and I've talked about on the show before when
Speaker 1: it comes to discipline, But also short sighting. This is
Speaker 1: implementing a rule that prevents you from buying stuff on
Speaker 1: a whim. Say, listen, I've got the seventy two hour
Speaker 1: rule and I'm gonna wait to buy that item. And
Speaker 1: I had to do this just the other day with
Speaker 1: my with my nine year old Matt, we were at Costco.
Speaker 1: She saw this like plushy, stuffy creature and she already
Speaker 1: has like so many stuffed animals it's not even funny.
Speaker 1: But she also has her own money and it's okay
Speaker 1: for her to buy the stuff that she wants, as
Speaker 1: we talk about, right, But what we what we're able
Speaker 1: to convince of in our last visit to Costco, was
Speaker 1: that she's going to have this seventy two hour rule too.
Speaker 1: It's okay if you actually want this item, but do
Speaker 1: you want it three days from now? Right? And so
Speaker 1: she was like, oh, okay, all right, then I will
Speaker 1: wait for right now, although unhappily, and we'll see if
Speaker 1: I still want this thing three days from now. And
Speaker 1: you know what, I have not heard a peepe from her.
Speaker 1: There are other things though, back to Costco since then,
Speaker 1: No we haven't, but there but if she brought it
Speaker 1: up we're like, we will take you back there and
Speaker 1: we'll take you to buy it. And there are other
Speaker 1: things that she has continued to talk about, like she's
Speaker 1: wanted to watch four weeks and weeks and weeks, and
Speaker 1: so we're like, you've wanted this for a while to
Speaker 1: each other. Well, actually, happily for me, this was not
Speaker 1: one of those where they can message their friends. But
Speaker 1: it does do it like a little tracking and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, steps and all that, which I still can
Speaker 1: message you like while they're at with like the pre
Speaker 1: can responses. I don't think it's even got that. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but um well at least tracking is good. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I I personally hate those kind of watches. But she
Speaker 1: really wanted one, and it was one of those things
Speaker 1: where it was like, cool, we waited more than seventy
Speaker 1: two hours. You really wanted it, and they want it,
Speaker 1: and it's your money, so you can buy it. But
Speaker 1: even still, like, let's have the long view. Is this
Speaker 1: something that we're gonna want that we don't just want
Speaker 1: right now, but we were actually gonna want it days
Speaker 1: or weeks from now, and that will help us make
Speaker 1: better decisions that are more in our best long term
Speaker 1: interest as opposed to just buying the thing because it's
Speaker 1: in front of us, right, And of course that's harder
Speaker 1: to do with kids, but as adults it's hard to
Speaker 1: do as well, and we have to remind ourselves of
Speaker 1: those long term, long long term goals. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of our favorite quotes comes from Frederick Nietzsche. He
Speaker 1: who has a why to live for can bear almost
Speaker 1: any how. And you know, a lot of these internal
Speaker 1: and personal obstacles are really symptoms of an ultimate obstacle
Speaker 1: that that we already mentioned, knowing your why you know,
Speaker 1: or knowing your final end, as Thomas Aquanas calls it.
Speaker 1: But this is just so foundational for us to make
Speaker 1: any substantive and you know, like durable progress in our lives.
Speaker 1: We can make some changes now, but if we don't
Speaker 1: have that why, we're not going to stick with it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's difficult to have a desire to learn
Speaker 1: more about personal finances when you don't even know why
Speaker 1: you're reading a book right, Like it's it's incredibly challenging
Speaker 1: to continue to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when
Speaker 1: you're wondering why it that you should even get up.
Speaker 1: It's tempting uh to be shortsighted and choose ease and
Speaker 1: comfort when you don't have that long term vision of
Speaker 1: what you went your life to look like. And so
Speaker 1: while figuring out your why, it's simultaneously the most amorphous
Speaker 1: and unclear task at the same time, I think it's
Speaker 1: likely the most important stuff that too many folks skip
Speaker 1: out on because it's so difficult to wrap our heads
Speaker 1: around it, because it requires us to sit in silence
Speaker 1: and think about like it causes us to ask some
Speaker 1: of these bigger questions in our lives. And it's just
Speaker 1: not something that we've been trained to do. It's not
Speaker 1: something that we allow ourselves the space, uh nor the
Speaker 1: environment to allow ourselves to do that. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: one one little thing you can do, I think to
Speaker 1: help you visualize maybe it's it's hard to sympathize with
Speaker 1: your older self. And and if you can take to
Speaker 1: get on the face app and literally take a picture
Speaker 1: and make yourself look thirty years older, there's something visceral
Speaker 1: that you feel about that. Like Fidelity actually did a
Speaker 1: study and they found that people who did this and
Speaker 1: saw themselves uh thirty or forty years older near retirement age,
Speaker 1: sympathized with that older version of themselves and begin to
Speaker 1: invest more of their money for the future. And so
Speaker 1: I think maybe that's a litteral, a little step that
Speaker 1: you can take that might have an impact on your
Speaker 1: ability to say, you know what, if you're more of
Speaker 1: a visual I'm not gonna forever and at some point
Speaker 1: one of these days I'm gonna be sixty five, seventy,
Speaker 1: and I I want to make sure that I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about older me too. I'm being kind and generous to
Speaker 1: future Joel uh to future whatever your name is and
Speaker 1: uh so, Yeah, I think the face app is one
Speaker 1: of those like it's it's just like a little tangible
Speaker 1: thing you can do that might make a small difference.
Speaker 1: But really, Matt, Yeah, you're right. Knowing your why and
Speaker 1: going through the money mission statement that we have I
Speaker 1: think can be helpful and things. It's so important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's heelpful too. When you do the face app picture,
Speaker 1: choose a picture where you're wearing like a cardigan, because
Speaker 1: it'll really like match up with the with the old look. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to make yourself look really well, maybe some spectacles, Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't wear the punk rock t shirt that you have on.
Speaker 1: It's gonna look weird. Uh yeah, all right, Well, we'll
Speaker 1: make sure the links to all of those resources in
Speaker 1: our show notes. But let's get back to the beer
Speaker 1: that you and I enjoy During this episode, we both
Speaker 1: had a Bibo, which is a pilsner by Creature Comforts,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go ahead and read the They've got
Speaker 1: a few words here on the side of the can,
Speaker 1: and it says crisp and dry, classic noble. Do you
Speaker 1: agree with those? Those were all for the adjectives I
Speaker 1: was gonna use. You should work with the branding on
Speaker 1: Creature Company. I should know it. Really it really was crisp,
Speaker 1: and it just really tasted in light. Yes, for sure,
Speaker 1: it tastes like your uncle's beer, but better like what
Speaker 1: what he was drinking, Like the High Life, but a
Speaker 1: much improved version of it that just has like a
Speaker 1: taste touch more spice, yeah, less metallic. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: like some of those beers have like a I don't
Speaker 1: just a metallic macro produced beers. Yeah, just not uh smo.
Speaker 1: But I like I love the taste of just kind
Speaker 1: of like beer, right, um. But it's just not often
Speaker 1: that you have a good beer. Uh that that's just
Speaker 1: kind of in the classic style. Um, but a lot
Speaker 1: more breweries now are are making good pilsners, good loggers
Speaker 1: that taste kind of like that old school beer taste,
Speaker 1: but just like elevated, and this is definitely one of those,
Speaker 1: that's right. And if you just heard Joel say pilseners
Speaker 1: and loggers, if you're wondering what a pilsener is, a
Speaker 1: pilsner is a type of lagger. And so oftentimes pilseners
Speaker 1: have more hops added to the beer, and so oftentimes
Speaker 1: that's what gives it that lift. Well, oftentimes it's the
Speaker 1: Noble hop, right. I think that's actually the name of
Speaker 1: the hop, which I was just because of like nobility,
Speaker 1: like you think of like this old school pilsener. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many hot varieties now, but that's one of
Speaker 1: the most classic ones that they in a bunch of
Speaker 1: those originally and stuff like that. Originally pilsener like it was,
Speaker 1: it was a logger that was made in a city
Speaker 1: like maybe Pilsen or something, is that right, Germany, Germany
Speaker 1: or Belgium or something like that. Maybe it was in Chechoslakia,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but somewhere over there in Europe. What's
Speaker 1: where this beer was originally? This the style of beer
Speaker 1: was originally made, but it was a delicious, easy to
Speaker 1: drink beer, and I'm glad you and I got to
Speaker 1: enjoy one today on the show. And listeners can find
Speaker 1: our show notes up on the website at how to
Speaker 1: money dot com and awesome times, we don't have a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff in the show notes, but today it
Speaker 1: feels like there's a little more, so you should. Definitely
Speaker 1: there are some resources there for you. Definitely, so yeah,
Speaker 1: go go check it out. But buddy, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: it for today. Until next time. Best Friends Out, Best
Speaker 1: Friends Out.