Speaker 1: Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about why time is greater than
Speaker 1: money with Ben Miller. Actually, time it's easily our most
Speaker 1: precious resource, but it's not often that we take the
Speaker 1: time to figure out how it is that we're going
Speaker 1: to spend our minutes and our hours, which then inevitably
Speaker 1: turn into weeks and years. And then if you completely
Speaker 1: fail to do this like that is when you end
Speaker 1: up as the proverbial careerist, right where you're looking back
Speaker 1: at the wasted decades wishing that you would have done
Speaker 1: something differently. And luckily, our guest today, Ben Miller, he
Speaker 1: actually did shake things up. He traded a position on
Speaker 1: Wall Street with golden sacks for a fulfilling.
Speaker 2: Life out there in Colorado.
Speaker 3: He chose meaning over money, and he's actually on a
Speaker 3: quest to help others to discover what a fulfilling life
Speaker 3: is for them with the software that he's developed, Chronify.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna talk about that, and you know, I'm
Speaker 3: excited for what I think will be a wide ranging
Speaker 3: conversation all about personal finances, but specifically with time at
Speaker 3: the center of pretty much everything that we talk about today. So,
Speaker 3: Ben Miller, thank you so much for joining us today
Speaker 3: on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thanks a lot for having me. I'm excited to be.
Speaker 1: Here, Ben, We're excited for this combo and Matt and
Speaker 1: I we you know, you know, we like craft beer
Speaker 1: and everyone knows that at this point, no secret. But
Speaker 1: we spend I think the current beer is just one
Speaker 1: single can of beer and it costs like seven dollars
Speaker 1: and fifty cents, which a lot of people would say,
Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. I need a twelve is at the
Speaker 1: accurate price tag right there? I think so? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: liters has seven dollars and twenty nine cents. It's not cheap.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous, right, So we spend too much, some would
Speaker 1: say on craft beer, but we're also being intentional. We're
Speaker 1: saving investing for the future while we spend exordinantly on
Speaker 1: something that we care about. I'm curious, what's that for you?
Speaker 1: What's your craft beer equivalent?
Speaker 4: Hmm? My craft beer equivalent, I'd say, would definitely have
Speaker 4: to be strategy board games. So I'm outing myself is
Speaker 4: a huge door here. But those sometimes can go for
Speaker 4: like a one hundred bucks a pop, but well worth it.
Speaker 4: Hours of family fun.
Speaker 2: Okay, which game?
Speaker 1: Because I think when I share this love, Yes, we
Speaker 1: also are nerdy, our lovers of nerdy board games. But
Speaker 1: when we go on our beach vacation every night, every
Speaker 1: night we're there, we're playing a nerdy board game game.
Speaker 1: Carcassone Sellers of Catan, We're playing Puerto Rico acchoir a choir.
Speaker 4: So what game you guys know, the whole gamut? Then
Speaker 4: this is normally people's eyes glaze over when.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're like, wait, are you talking about Monopoly?
Speaker 3: Like yeah, no, no, we're not like leave that for the
Speaker 3: kids like in the nineties risks for children.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the big ones.
Speaker 4: Are you talking about Clue?
Speaker 3: No? Okay, so what game are you dropping one hundred
Speaker 3: one hundred plus dollars on especially level?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like kickst harder stuff. So all these like
Speaker 4: you know, big kind of space opera sort of games
Speaker 4: or whatever, and so it'll be you know, sometimes one
Speaker 4: or two hundred bucks and then you got to wait
Speaker 4: a couple of years for them to actually make it.
Speaker 4: But that's you know, my my wife and I are
Speaker 4: idea of a great Saturday night is like sitting down
Speaker 4: over the board game table and trying to prove to
Speaker 4: each other who's smarter.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of who is the most cutthroat.
Speaker 1: She lets you win sometimes, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Once, It's funny you mentioned Carcassone, Like we almost lost
Speaker 4: our relationship over that because I just we were.
Speaker 3: Playing Settlers that the folks are going after each other's
Speaker 3: throats for.
Speaker 4: We were we were like trading games, you know, kind
Speaker 4: of evenly matched, and then she started just whipping me
Speaker 4: on the regular, and I was like, what is going on?
Speaker 4: And then I discovered she had the app on her
Speaker 4: phone and so she was just getting all kinds of extracurriculum.
Speaker 3: She was honing, honing her skills. Yes, dude, I love it. Okay,
Speaker 3: So final question relatable games. What what game are you
Speaker 3: currently playing a whole lot or with friends?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say one of our recent favorites has been
Speaker 4: a game called ark Nova. It's like a zoo building game.
Speaker 1: Of all, oh, I'm running down right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you kind of whatever building closures and put animals
Speaker 4: in them, and I love it. Got to catch them
Speaker 4: all type.
Speaker 3: So nerdy, so dorky, but I love it. The last
Speaker 3: one we cracked Open, uh for the first time was wingspan,
Speaker 3: which yes, yeah, were one of the prettiest, prettiest, and
Speaker 3: you get to learn because you're learning about these actual
Speaker 3: species of birds and the eggs and how much they
Speaker 3: typically lay and where they nest, and I mean it's
Speaker 3: it's yeah, that's right, Okay, before we completely lose all
Speaker 3: of our listeners and we gotta start talking about money
Speaker 3: and for for you personally, I mean, like you said
Speaker 3: that you were pursuing what you would call conventional.
Speaker 1: Success for most of your life, Like you had good.
Speaker 3: Grades, the right school, big time job, but you found
Speaker 3: that it wasn't fulfilling.
Speaker 2: So what did you find was missing?
Speaker 3: And specifically, like what what caused you to have like
Speaker 3: a come to Jesus moment?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a it's a good question. I first of all,
Speaker 4: I felt very strange and like almost ungrateful because I
Speaker 4: was super, super lucky to have that position, you know,
Speaker 4: to be in that role. It was kind of like
Speaker 4: a pinch me sort of job that I felt like
Speaker 4: a lot of people would kill for. And so I
Speaker 4: was I was wondering what's wrong with me? Like why
Speaker 4: can't I appreciate this? But what really kind of made
Speaker 4: it come to a head. Was you know, I was
Speaker 4: watching people, you know, either either retire or you know,
Speaker 4: move on. And so I watched one guy in particular
Speaker 4: retire at like forty five, and he was, you know, minted,
Speaker 4: had a bunch of money and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 4: and so most people look at him and go, man,
Speaker 4: nice job, you know, you win the game. And I
Speaker 4: was looking at him and going like, geez, I hope
Speaker 4: that's not me. I hope by the time I'm forty five,
Speaker 4: you know, I've done more than just this. And that
Speaker 4: was kind of a shot across the bow for me
Speaker 4: where I knew, you know, I'd known for a while
Speaker 4: that it wasn't what I wanted to do with my
Speaker 4: with my entire life, but that that really kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, set thing in motion where I realized, like, Okay,
Speaker 4: how do I not become this? You know, how do
Speaker 4: I not become this person who's only done this? How
Speaker 4: do I how do I make something and help people
Speaker 4: by the time I get there.
Speaker 1: M So, your desire to go out there, strike it
Speaker 1: on your own, start your own business, start chronify? Was
Speaker 1: that more because you didn't think your Wall Street job
Speaker 1: was doing good in the world and you wanted to
Speaker 1: do good in the world, or was it more because
Speaker 1: you wanted more control over your time?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Was it? Was it both?
Speaker 4: How? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What was the thought process there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're pointing out a little bit of circularity here.
Speaker 4: I mean, because the very the very product that I'm
Speaker 4: out there, you know, out there trying to trying to
Speaker 4: put into the world now, is that is based on
Speaker 4: the precursor to or it's based on the product that
Speaker 4: I used to convince myself that it was time to
Speaker 4: move on. And so the I would say, I would
Speaker 4: say this, I realized early on that it that I
Speaker 4: wasn't doing something that I always wanted to do, or
Speaker 4: that I that I wasn't going to want to do forever.
Speaker 4: And with that, I realized, Okay, okay, well I want
Speaker 4: to make sure I don't get on this like slippery slope.
Speaker 4: I want to make sure that I don't wind up,
Speaker 4: you know, just one more year, one more year, one
Speaker 4: more year. And then suddenly I wake up and I'm
Speaker 4: fifty five, and I haven't, you know, gone out and
Speaker 4: started a business, which is what I always wanted to do.
Speaker 4: I developed an overweening interest in personal finance throughout the
Speaker 4: first you know a few years that I was on
Speaker 4: the job and it and it took a while for
Speaker 4: it to kind of percolate. You know, I read a
Speaker 4: book called Your Money or Your Life, and that kind
Speaker 4: of planted the seed for me where I was just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: now that I think of it in terms of time,
Speaker 4: then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, the answers
Speaker 4: just drop right out. And so for me, I remember
Speaker 4: being literally at the Goldman Gym, like working out, googling
Speaker 4: like your Money or Your Life app and there was nothing,
Speaker 4: and so I decided to That was kind of what
Speaker 4: planted the seed for me that I should maybe try
Speaker 4: and build some very cool so real quick.
Speaker 3: Then what age were you when you started having those
Speaker 3: internal conversations where you were like, Okay, I don't want
Speaker 3: to do the do the one more year thing. Do
Speaker 3: you remember about when that was? Like how far along
Speaker 3: into your career?
Speaker 1: I guess were you?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I would say I first realized about two years
Speaker 4: into my career. I remember grabbing a friend of mine
Speaker 4: from college and saying, like, dude, if I'm still doing
Speaker 4: this at thirty two, grab me by the caller and
Speaker 4: make sure that I justify myself because I can see
Speaker 4: where this movie's going. Yeah, but you know, there's always
Speaker 4: there's always insecurity, scarcity kind of mindset that makes you go, well,
Speaker 4: maybe do I have enough? Can I move on? You know,
Speaker 4: one more year? One more year? Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you also don't want to kind of toss away.
Speaker 1: You've worked so hard for this for so long, and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm here. You don't want to be ungrateful,
Speaker 1: And maybe that desire to kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: continue down the path that you've set out for yourself
Speaker 1: and not blaze a new trail. I think that can
Speaker 1: be cause a lot of people to stay put to
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm curious too when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the book your money or your life, the main life
Speaker 1: changing concept for a lot of people is thinking about
Speaker 1: their money in terms of life hours, Like, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was that like for you reading that book? And how
Speaker 1: did that specifically kind of change your trajectory and your
Speaker 1: thought process.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest thing was just simplicity. I'm a
Speaker 4: stickler for simplicity. You know, there's just so much out there,
Speaker 4: there's so much data, especially now that it's just like
Speaker 4: you can be drowning in too much information, it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, analysis paralysis type of thing. And for me,
Speaker 4: what that book did was it kind of knocked things
Speaker 4: into line in terms of realizing, look, you can really
Speaker 4: distill everything down to one you know, kind of single
Speaker 4: kernel of truth here. You know, here's how many years
Speaker 4: you've got in the bank. And with that, it's just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: all these all these numbers that often make people's eyes
Speaker 4: glaze over, you know, net worth, expenses and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: if you can distill it all down into one little
Speaker 4: simple idea that actually has intuitive hooks. You know, people
Speaker 4: can imagine what it's like to you know, relax for
Speaker 4: seven years. Then if you've got seven years in the bank,
Speaker 4: then that's what that says. And by the way, then
Speaker 4: that factors in everything that it needs to factor in.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're if your wealth goes up, great,
Speaker 4: it's factored in. And if your expenses go down, awesome,
Speaker 4: that's also factored in. And so for me, it was
Speaker 4: just the beautiful, full simplicity of not having to track
Speaker 4: nineteen different things but being able to distill it all
Speaker 4: down to one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So is that what you would tell folks like
Speaker 3: I think there might be a lot of listeners tuning
Speaker 3: in right now and they're thinking, Man, I would love
Speaker 3: to quit my day job. I would love to maybe
Speaker 3: take a more entrepreneurial path. Would you want them to
Speaker 3: have a certain number of months or even years of
Speaker 3: living expenses set aside? If I guess a what position
Speaker 3: were you in? And then what do you think folks
Speaker 3: should maybe have in the bank before they kind of
Speaker 3: start going out on their own to pursue something that
Speaker 3: is a little more life giving.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's totally situational. You know. The conventional wisdom
Speaker 4: for you know, what do you want to have is
Speaker 4: call it like a whatever, a six month emergency fund
Speaker 4: or something. If you're going to do something entrepreneurial, it's
Speaker 4: it's way higher than that. You know, you're not going
Speaker 4: to get a business off the ground and fully running
Speaker 4: in only six months, and so you know, you might
Speaker 4: want to have a year or two at least set
Speaker 4: aside that you can that you can, you know, really
Speaker 4: get it going. But there's no there's no hard and
Speaker 4: fast rule, and so much of it is due to
Speaker 4: you know, if you're starting a business on the side
Speaker 4: and you've got an income and that provides you more flexibility.
Speaker 4: If you are a risk taker and you're willing to
Speaker 4: eat Ramen for three years or whatever, then then great.
Speaker 4: You know, Like for me, I had to kind of
Speaker 4: oversolve because you know, I had two little kids. Now
Speaker 4: I've got three, and we were going to move across
Speaker 4: the country and start a new lifestyle. So I had
Speaker 4: to build in some buffer. I felt really lucky because
Speaker 4: you know, I started my business in twenty twenty, like
Speaker 4: January of twenty twenty, and so I was planning on,
Speaker 4: you know, working from home and living off savings for
Speaker 4: a couple of years, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you know, COVID and kind of a lot of people
Speaker 4: had to do something pretty similar to that, you know,
Speaker 4: work from home and in some cases live off of savings.
Speaker 4: And so I was fortunate, but I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 4: a risk averse guy by default orientation, and so I
Speaker 4: felt like I kind of had to had to oversolve.
Speaker 4: But different people, you know, different strokes were different folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our understatement of the year, like, getting a startup
Speaker 1: off the ground isn't easy, right, and so like you're
Speaker 1: you're living that life, you're kind of in the middle
Speaker 1: of it still, and it can take a lot of
Speaker 1: time too, right too, and especially when it when it's
Speaker 1: kind of your fourth baby. Really you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: like you, you have a vested interest on multiple fronts
Speaker 1: for seeing this for seeing this thing succeed. So be
Speaker 1: honest with us. Have you been able to strike the
Speaker 1: balance you were looking for now that you're out on
Speaker 1: your own, You're like, I quit this job because I
Speaker 1: was working too many hours. But are you working too
Speaker 1: many hours doing the thing that you love now or
Speaker 1: have you been able to find a good balance.
Speaker 4: There's it's a continuous process to try and find that balance.
Speaker 4: You know, there's there's good parts of what I'm doing
Speaker 4: now and there's bad parts of what I'm doing now.
Speaker 4: When I think back to my time at Goldman, for example,
Speaker 4: you know, Friday night, when I walked out of the office, poof,
Speaker 4: I didn't think about work until Monday morning. And now
Speaker 4: it's the exact opposite. You know, no matter what I'm doing,
Speaker 4: there's always this background process running like, oh, how can
Speaker 4: I tweak this, how can I make that better? How
Speaker 4: can I you know, increase the value of this product,
Speaker 4: et cetera. Because it's it's you know, like you said,
Speaker 4: it's my baby. And so there's this double edged sword
Speaker 4: because on the one hand, you know, it's like it's
Speaker 4: harder for me to be, you know, at home and
Speaker 4: present with my kids then it would be if I
Speaker 4: had a job that I didn't care about, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, it's like they get to
Speaker 4: witness a father who's in love with his work, whereas
Speaker 4: if I was just kind of work a day, humdrum,
Speaker 4: you know, waddling to the office and coming back a
Speaker 4: little bit mad, then you know, that wouldn't be That
Speaker 4: wouldn't be sending the right message to them about the
Speaker 4: role that work is supposed to occupy in their life either.
Speaker 4: And so it's a balance to be struck. I definitely
Speaker 4: have not cracked that nut yet. And it's kind of
Speaker 4: like raising a kid where it's just like even if
Speaker 4: you even if you do figure out the perfect balance,
Speaker 4: you're not necessarily it's not going to be an always
Speaker 4: in forever thing. It's it's like two weeks from now, boom,
Speaker 4: something happens and you've got to figure out a new one.
Speaker 4: So it's it's a work in progress.
Speaker 1: It's like a pendulum in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, and then you've written about this as well,
Speaker 3: but like the risk versus reward isn't quite There are
Speaker 3: a lot of times when it comes to folks taking
Speaker 3: the standard nine to five jobs. Yes, you kind of
Speaker 3: hints it at this, but like there's almost like an
Speaker 3: obsession with safeness, like reducing a risk safety ism in
Speaker 3: our country today. And you've kind of talked about how
Speaker 3: you're kind of missing out on a lot that doesn't
Speaker 3: necessarily have to come from entrepreneurship. But there is a
Speaker 3: lot that you realize when you are starting your own business,
Speaker 3: Like the highs are higher, maybe maybe the lows or
Speaker 3: lower potentially as well, but you have the ability to
Speaker 3: tap into something that gives you that truly gives you joy.
Speaker 3: Is that something that you feel like you've seen as
Speaker 3: opposed to folks who just are kind of going along
Speaker 3: with a stock lifestyle and because of that, they're not
Speaker 3: really questioning how it is that they're making money, and
Speaker 3: they're also sometimes not questioning how they spend their money
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart,
Speaker 4: because for you know, it'll be six weeks of just
Speaker 4: this is ridiculous. I got to get a real job.
Speaker 4: You know, this is never going anywhere, followed by like
Speaker 4: the best forty eight hours in company history, and so
Speaker 4: it's like this you know, punctuated equilibrium of like you know,
Speaker 4: you zoom out and look at how things have gone
Speaker 4: over the last six to twelve months, Like, holy cow,
Speaker 4: I've actually been doing this. It's working, but the lived experience,
Speaker 4: week in week out is just exhausting. You know. It's
Speaker 4: just this this constant string of it's it's kind of
Speaker 4: like if you're whatever watching your investment accounts every day.
Speaker 4: The way that we're wired as humans is that if
Speaker 4: it's up fifty cents one day and down fifty cents
Speaker 4: the next day, you come out feeling a little bit mad,
Speaker 4: because like, bad's way more than goods psychologically speaking. But
Speaker 4: when you zoom out and then you know, go back
Speaker 4: and look at your at your brokerage account, you know
Speaker 4: after six months or after six years, it's like, oh, wow, okay, good,
Speaker 4: I made a good decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, so you brought up investing, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go there now. We our friend Doc g He
Speaker 1: talks about front loading the sacrifice, and it is, of
Speaker 1: course true that a dollar invested when you're nineteen is
Speaker 1: going to do more for you than a dollar invested
Speaker 1: at age like forty nine. Right, So, and we've heard
Speaker 1: more recently about something called consumption smoothing, where some economists
Speaker 1: have said, hey, instead of investing early, maybe you kind
Speaker 1: of you know, borrow a little more when you're younger,
Speaker 1: don't invest quite as much, start investing in your forties.
Speaker 1: How do you think about finding a happy medium though
Speaker 1: in those early years when investing is important, But I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's also possible to take it to the extreme.
Speaker 4: Yeah, i'd say one, do as I say, not as
Speaker 4: I do. I screwed this up big time when I
Speaker 4: was when I was in my initial career because I
Speaker 4: part of it was because I really wasn't enjoying my
Speaker 4: job as much as I should. And so I had
Speaker 4: this you know, if I'm unhappy at work, then I
Speaker 4: thought that the cure for that was like, Okay, sprint
Speaker 4: for the finish line and like get out of here
Speaker 4: as soon as possible. And so what that's a recipe
Speaker 4: for is like, Okay, you're unhappy at work, so yeah,
Speaker 4: let's go ahead and make ourselves unhappy at home too.
Speaker 4: And that's gonna somehow unhappy at work plus unhappy at home.
Speaker 4: That just makes you unhappy. And so you definitely don't
Speaker 4: want to be like sprinting for the finish line and
Speaker 4: just like is scrimping and saving and you know, investing
Speaker 4: every single little penny and not being willing to you know,
Speaker 4: experience your life. But at the same time, I I
Speaker 4: kind of get queasy when I when I hear people advocating,
Speaker 4: you know, that kind of economist dictum of consumptions moving
Speaker 4: to like, oh, yeah, borrow, to borrow to the hilt,
Speaker 4: you know, like when you're twenty two, and then don't worry,
Speaker 4: it'll all work out when you're.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're always going to make more and you'll be
Speaker 1: able to overcome the borrowing that you did when you
Speaker 1: were younger.
Speaker 4: Right, And so I would say, I would say, you know,
Speaker 4: live within your means first and foremost. You know, you
Speaker 4: want the bank account to be going up, not down,
Speaker 4: and so live within your means. And that means different
Speaker 4: things for different people. But then I think it's just
Speaker 4: as important, especially for people who are wired like I am,
Speaker 4: which is, you know, like a kind of caveman style
Speaker 4: like saving spending bad.
Speaker 1: Type when people ask me what's been like, I always say, caveman, that's.
Speaker 2: Exactly in the old Gico commercial.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just like that right exactly it bingo, And so
Speaker 4: that that's me. And so for people who are wired
Speaker 4: like that, I think oftentimes you need some encouragement to
Speaker 4: take some ownership of your spending it and do that
Speaker 4: craft beer equivalent type of thing. Because honestly, for me,
Speaker 4: when I kind of what made the lights come on
Speaker 4: was I was realizing myself, like, dude, okay, you're afraid
Speaker 4: to bust spend eighty dollars on this board game? What
Speaker 4: are you? What are you teaching yourself? If you if
Speaker 4: you like, if you defer this purchase, if you just
Speaker 4: like don't do this thing that's going to make you happy, Well, one,
Speaker 4: you're not going to be happy now because you're not
Speaker 4: gonna be able to, like, you know, play this game
Speaker 4: with your wife or whatever. And two, you're training yourself
Speaker 4: to think that, you know, happiness is cheaper than it
Speaker 4: is for you. The reality is if if happiness for
Speaker 4: you guys is like craft beer every day, then you
Speaker 4: don't want to lie to yourself about what that happiness costs.
Speaker 4: You want to like pull the first Fruits of retirement
Speaker 4: forward and experience them every day until retirement, in addition
Speaker 4: to when you're you know, sipping them on the beach
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's just the head off the top of the beer.
Speaker 3: We're not even pulling the full first foes forward, but
Speaker 3: it's just it's just a little bit, just a little
Speaker 3: bit of the taste. But what you're talking about here,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess up until now, we've we've been
Speaker 3: talking about earning money in career and finding fulfillment there.
Speaker 3: But what a lot of what you're talking about here
Speaker 3: has to do with how how it is that you
Speaker 3: spend your money. And so we're actually going to spend
Speaker 3: a lot more of our conversation with you talking about
Speaker 3: just that.
Speaker 1: We will get to more on.
Speaker 3: Time and money with Ben Miller right after the break.
Speaker 1: All right, let's keep talking about time and money such
Speaker 1: an important relationship. And some people I might think, Matt,
Speaker 1: that you and I think that money is the most
Speaker 1: important thing. Heck, we've been doing a podcast about money
Speaker 1: for almost going on six years now. We talk about
Speaker 1: it three times a week, right, and yes, money is
Speaker 1: clearly an important thing, but we always talk about it
Speaker 1: as a tool, right, it's a tool that allows us
Speaker 1: to pursue other things in our lives, some of which
Speaker 1: are more important. And so we're talking with Ben Miller
Speaker 1: about why time is actually more important with money than money,
Speaker 1: and so, Ben, why is this connection between time and money?
Speaker 1: Why is it so important for us to make that connection?
Speaker 1: And for instance, like a recurring one hundred dollars a
Speaker 1: monthly expense, it might make us feel a certain way,
Speaker 1: but then thinking about it in terms of how many
Speaker 1: hours of our life that spending is cost us, that
Speaker 1: it kind of hits us differently, doesn't it?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? And I think I think ultimately all this stuff
Speaker 4: hinges around the concept of enough. You know, that's like
Speaker 4: a really tricky word when it comes to finance, and
Speaker 4: so if you don't have a good framework, you're just
Speaker 4: not able to really understand what enough even means. And
Speaker 4: so ultimately what enough means is going to be different
Speaker 4: for different people. That's going to be based, you know,
Speaker 4: primarily upon their spending, and then you know they're going
Speaker 4: to have to apply some kind of a multiple of Okay,
Speaker 4: here's how many years I think I'm going to live
Speaker 4: during retirement or whatever it may be. But we don't
Speaker 4: want to get complicated here. The idea here is that
Speaker 4: like when you think about spending your money, you want
Speaker 4: to make sure that it's a good deal. You don't
Speaker 4: want to make sure you're not like frittering it away
Speaker 4: on things that you don't actually care about. But likewise,
Speaker 4: you don't want to make the other type of error either.
Speaker 4: You don't want to refuse to spend money on things
Speaker 4: that are actually good for you. So use that, you know,
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars recurring expense, like I think about, for example,
Speaker 4: date night with my wife. And so so I'm a
Speaker 4: guy who like feels a little bit queasy every time
Speaker 4: a dollar leaves his wallet. And so normally when I, like,
Speaker 4: you know, pay for something, when I'm signing the check,
Speaker 4: I'm just like kind of shaking my head, you know,
Speaker 4: hopefully inside my head and not actually the people that
Speaker 4: I'm at dinner with, but like I'm thinking, like, oh, gosh, Ben,
Speaker 4: you really screwed this one up. Like there's more money leaving,
Speaker 4: Like the money's going the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't have got the appetizer.
Speaker 4: Right exactly exactly. And so for me, that's the way
Speaker 4: that I'm wired. But when I understand things in terms
Speaker 4: of time. Then all of a sudden, I can have
Speaker 4: ownership and permission because for example, that that you know,
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars expense, I might look at that, run
Speaker 4: the numbers and go like, okay, that is delaying my
Speaker 4: retirement by three months. Just let's just say, then if
Speaker 4: I look at that you know, date night with my
Speaker 4: wife and go okay, this is delaying my retirement by
Speaker 4: three months, then I go, okay, is that scary to me? Well, one,
Speaker 4: I love my job and so like you know, delaying
Speaker 4: my retirement is not really all that scary. And two,
Speaker 4: I'm investing in the relationship that's the bedrock of my family,
Speaker 4: and so if anything, I'll do it twice as much,
Speaker 4: like this is a great deal for me. So now
Speaker 4: when I sign that check, instead of just feeling like,
Speaker 4: uh wrong, money's going the wrong way, I feel like, Okay, good,
Speaker 4: this is approved, this is you know, kind of been
Speaker 4: blessed by the system, and it's something that I that
Speaker 4: I feel good about rather than bad about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and kind of going back to what you're saying
Speaker 3: about knowing what it is to have enough and as
Speaker 3: far as delaying your retirement by a certain number of
Speaker 3: months or even years, I guess for maybe a giant purchase.
Speaker 3: But you write about too, how it's not even about
Speaker 3: reaching some sort of golden date, right like and within
Speaker 3: the fire community, it's like what's your number yea, and
Speaker 3: it's you talk about how it's not often about that
Speaker 3: and on how to money, Like when we talk about it,
Speaker 3: we call it the basically how financial independence exists as
Speaker 3: a spectrum, but you talk about it within the sort
Speaker 3: of context of being able to curate problems? Can you
Speaker 3: talk about some of the other benefits how even if
Speaker 3: you're not necessarily focused on a hard retirement date sort
Speaker 3: of like like you're not because you love the work
Speaker 3: that you do, but it does provide some other benefits.
Speaker 4: I love that. I mean, curating problems is a concept
Speaker 4: that's near and dear to my heart. Like I think
Speaker 4: that one of the best things about you know, quote
Speaker 4: unquote financial independence. And I don't want to creep people out, like,
Speaker 4: you know, there's there's a lot of like there's a
Speaker 4: lot of baggage that comes with this term of financial independence.
Speaker 4: So what I'm talking about when I say that is
Speaker 4: like basically having enough money to choose how you spend
Speaker 4: your time, just to just to put it in broad strokes.
Speaker 4: And so one of the best parts about that state
Speaker 4: of the world is being able to determine, you know,
Speaker 4: just based on your soul discretion, what's worth your time
Speaker 4: and what's not worth your time. And so it's not
Speaker 4: like this abject refusal to ever earn a dollar again,
Speaker 4: is just the state of the world where you can determine, like,
Speaker 4: this is a problem that I really want to spend
Speaker 4: some time on, This is something that animates me and
Speaker 4: makes me feel good, versus this is something that I
Speaker 4: wish somebody else would do, you know, because that's that's
Speaker 4: this kind of illusion people think that like work is
Speaker 4: the enemy. And you know, I can tell by the
Speaker 4: you know, the product that you guys create and how
Speaker 4: much joy that it's obvious that you take in creating it,
Speaker 4: that this is not something that it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: if you'd you know, ten million dollars dropped out of
Speaker 4: the sky tomorrow. It's not like Joel and Matt would
Speaker 4: be like peace, you guys are we're out last episode,
Speaker 4: it's coming out todays out forever exactly like you you
Speaker 4: would probably kind of keep on going, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: at a reduced pace or something. I don't know, but
Speaker 4: like you'd you know, if you're creating something that you
Speaker 4: actually like seeing in the world, then it doesn't have
Speaker 4: to be all about money. So I hope that answers
Speaker 4: your question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely talk to us about mindset. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to get super fre frew here or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but like it's it's true that we're humans.
Speaker 1: We can't necessarily change how we think overnight, and even
Speaker 1: if we did, right, it wouldn't make our our paycheck
Speaker 1: fatter immediately. It doesn't solve everything, but our mindset plays
Speaker 1: a role in the kind of progress that we make.
Speaker 1: So so how do you think about the scarcity mindset
Speaker 1: and how it can it can maybe stemy our journey
Speaker 1: towards financial freedom, right, like if we're if we're too
Speaker 1: focused on that, like, oh man, my dollars is gonna
Speaker 1: run out, like you can almost create uh, like mental problems.
Speaker 1: Are you ever on our path actually free?
Speaker 4: Right? Yeah, exactly, And I think that's it's beautiful because
Speaker 4: you're pointing at the fact that there's a ditch on
Speaker 4: both sides of the road. You clearly don't want to
Speaker 4: be like setting yourself up for a cat food retirement,
Speaker 4: you know, just like completely blowing all your money on
Speaker 4: stuff you don't care about, but likewise you don't want to,
Speaker 4: you know, just wind up that guy who's got seven
Speaker 4: million dollars in the bank and was you know, was
Speaker 4: not spending any of it and and wasn't able to
Speaker 4: enjoy any of it because like people, people missed that
Speaker 4: second leg of the swap, that second leg of the transaction.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're good about money, then you're building
Speaker 4: up your bank accounts, you're investing, you're doing all that
Speaker 4: type of stuff. But like savings are always in everywhere
Speaker 4: just delayed consumption. Like that's all you're doing when you're
Speaker 4: saving money is your deferring it to some future date.
Speaker 4: And so that scarcity mindset type of thing. People people
Speaker 4: kind of get lulled into this this you know, false
Speaker 4: sense of things when they think that, you know, budgeting
Speaker 4: is like a symptom of a scarcity mindset or something
Speaker 4: like that. It's not you're you're by by budgeting or
Speaker 4: by you know, saving money or by you know, considering
Speaker 4: the future. I think it's actually evidence of an abundance
Speaker 4: mindset because you're, you know, you're admitting to yourself that
Speaker 4: there is a future worth saving for. And so I
Speaker 4: think I think it's important for people to strike that
Speaker 4: balance the right way, not spend too little, not spend
Speaker 4: too much, you know, kind of try and find their
Speaker 4: own goldilock zone of being able to you know, spend
Speaker 4: in a way that is aligned with their goals is
Speaker 4: going to get them where they want to be eventually,
Speaker 4: but be able to enjoy, be enjoy think, be able
Speaker 4: to enjoy their lives along. The way I did things backwards,
Speaker 4: I was like financial independence. This was my mentality back
Speaker 4: in the day. Was like, okay, financial independence asap and
Speaker 4: then happiness eventually. And that was for me completely backwards.
Speaker 4: You know, I wound up having to get off that
Speaker 4: train and realizing that like, Okay, this is not sustainable,
Speaker 4: Like I'm gonna burn myself out before I get to
Speaker 4: you know, fire or whatever it is. So I need
Speaker 4: to take a more measured path, you know, build a
Speaker 4: machine that's actually gonna be able to sustain itself all
Speaker 4: the way to conclusion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, I think some of the saddest things to me
Speaker 1: when I read some posts in the fire reddit forums
Speaker 1: and stuff of people who win.
Speaker 4: Don't spend too much time there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, No I don't.
Speaker 2: But I'll see a case the cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll see a cautionary tale of somebody who who says, listen,
Speaker 1: I bought into this hook line at Sinkery, and I
Speaker 1: missed a bunch of important time. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: the family events that because I was too scared to
Speaker 1: buy a plane ticket. My girlfriend dump me. That's the story,
Speaker 1: because I mean there's all of these kinds of stories
Speaker 1: out there that You're right, there's a ditch on both sides.
Speaker 1: And so that is like what we're always talking about
Speaker 1: here on the show is the balanced middle where yeah,
Speaker 1: have a have a high savings rate, but don't forsake
Speaker 1: the important stuff in the meantime on the road every day,
Speaker 1: every minute, is it is worth saving? And if we're
Speaker 1: if we're so heavily focused on the future, and I
Speaker 1: think Matt and Now we've probably been there at different
Speaker 1: times too, maybe not to as much of an extreme
Speaker 1: as some of these fire adherents, but you're missing out
Speaker 1: on a lot of the good and awesome things that
Speaker 1: you can enjoy now too.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Okay, So what you talk about is how not only
Speaker 3: do we need to own our saving and investing, but
Speaker 3: we also need to own our spending right, And that's
Speaker 3: just the language you give to being intentional with your spending,
Speaker 3: because oftentimes folks are only focused on that acquiring side
Speaker 3: of the equation as opposed to the spending side of it.
Speaker 3: And so, do you have any thoughts or any advice
Speaker 3: for folks on how it is that they can transition
Speaker 3: to spending more money? Right as folks are starting to
Speaker 3: make that switch, you do have to be a little
Speaker 3: more intentional with how it is that you're spending money.
Speaker 3: Hopefull you are, there are small ways that you are
Speaker 3: spending even when you are young and you feel broke,
Speaker 3: but there are these small, tiny little splurges. But it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it exists on a spectrum. And as folks are achieving
Speaker 3: varying degrees of financial freedom, how do you encourage folks
Speaker 3: to think about spending more money than they're used to?
Speaker 4: I mean, Step one is knowing what you value. Step
Speaker 4: one is understanding you know, for you as an individual,
Speaker 4: what are your priorities? What is it that you're actually
Speaker 4: all about? You know? And so if that's time with
Speaker 4: your family or if that is you know, building some
Speaker 4: building towards some fulfilling mission in the world, whatever it is.
Speaker 4: If you're spending money along those lines, then there's a
Speaker 4: good chance that there's a fair amount of alignment. You know,
Speaker 4: when I look at my habits, when I look at
Speaker 4: the types of things that I'm spending my money on,
Speaker 4: it's it's again, it's a two edged sword, because I'm
Speaker 4: trying to simultaneously identify things the places that I can
Speaker 4: trim the fat, so to speak, places that I go, oh,
Speaker 4: I didn't realize I'm spending so much money there. Okay,
Speaker 4: then I should probably tone that down, you know, let's
Speaker 4: be more intentional on that its own. But I'm also
Speaker 4: looking for places that I can double down. I'm looking
Speaker 4: for places that I can go, Okay, this looks like
Speaker 4: an unusually good deal, you know, this whatever date night
Speaker 4: with my wife or a gym membership or or whatever
Speaker 4: it may be. These positive habits, how can I lean
Speaker 4: into that, and and how can I find other things
Speaker 4: like that that are aligned with my priorities and things
Speaker 4: that I really want to to be more about. Because
Speaker 4: you know, if you want to figure out what's important
Speaker 4: to somebody, there's a good argument that you should just
Speaker 4: go look at their you know, their credit card register
Speaker 4: and see what they've been spending their money on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and their calendar whatever they've been spending their time.
Speaker 1: To be exactly, we say something matters, Oh, time with
Speaker 1: my kids matters. Well, I don't know how much time
Speaker 1: are spin it right exactly like did you did you
Speaker 1: hop on the bike with them this over the weekend
Speaker 1: or whatever?
Speaker 4: I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love that you focus so much on time, Ben,
Speaker 3: because you know, because you might look at somebody's bank
Speaker 3: account and they may not actually be spending their money, right,
Speaker 3: and so you have the ability to see from their
Speaker 3: spending or a specific from their lack of spending.
Speaker 1: That, man, what what is it that you actually do value?
Speaker 1: Because there is a way to kind of choke that off.
Speaker 1: Whereas the time that like our days, no matter what,
Speaker 1: we are spending our time doing something we're forced to
Speaker 1: no matter like, you can't stop time. It is taking
Speaker 1: along no matter what. And so even if your Netflix
Speaker 1: and chilling literally the whole day, yes, or even if
Speaker 1: you have a completely you're like, oh, I can't wait
Speaker 1: for Saturday, the calendar is completely wide open. Well, you're
Speaker 1: going to do something with that time is. So what
Speaker 1: you actually do with that, I think does reflect on
Speaker 1: what it is that that you truly do value. I
Speaker 1: think if you were to sum it up like that,
Speaker 1: we are kind of the sum of our habits, the
Speaker 1: things that we spend our time doing. We kind of,
Speaker 1: I don't know, become in a sense formed by those habits. Right,
Speaker 1: And and there are some habits that have negative financial consequences.
Speaker 1: In your in the software that you developed Chronify, you
Speaker 1: talk about the impact of habits on our lives. How
Speaker 1: do you do that in the software? And and then
Speaker 1: how do you help people understand their habits and the
Speaker 1: financial and time consequences of them?
Speaker 4: Sure, I think, well, unsurprisingly, it's all about time. And
Speaker 4: so when I think of when I think of a habit,
Speaker 4: and you think about something as tricky as human behavior,
Speaker 4: you know, changing a habit is not easy. And so
Speaker 4: what we try and do is we try and you know,
Speaker 4: marry together the left brain spreadsheety sort of numbers side
Speaker 4: of the equation with the right brain, you know, holistic
Speaker 4: emotional side of things. That's where you're going to make
Speaker 4: all your decisions anyway, So let's work through like an example,
Speaker 4: if you have a habit. Let's say you you know,
Speaker 4: you're at the office. You you get like a fancy
Speaker 4: sandwich at work for lunch or that type of thing,
Speaker 4: and you're thinking about a habit change. You're going like, Okay,
Speaker 4: my waistline and my budget are saying that maybe I
Speaker 4: should maybe think about this habit. Then you might think
Speaker 4: about packing lunch to work, for example. And if you
Speaker 4: do that, then you may get to the end of
Speaker 4: the month and you realize, like, Okay, I save two
Speaker 4: hundred dollars by packing my lunch to work instead of
Speaker 4: buying this fancy sandwich. And if you do that, then
Speaker 4: if you've made some progress and you've already kind of
Speaker 4: accumulated some investments and stuff, you might look at your
Speaker 4: brokerage account at the end of the month and go
Speaker 4: like it's up or down by five to ten grand,
Speaker 4: and it's like, why did I do this to myself?
Speaker 4: Why did I deprive myself of this you know, midday
Speaker 4: treat or whatever. But you're kind of missing the missing
Speaker 4: the point because you're you're looking at You're going two
Speaker 4: hundred dollars versus ten grand, This is out of my control?
Speaker 4: Why do I care? But the reality is the power
Speaker 4: of habit, especially as it relates to time, is that
Speaker 4: that you know, two hundred dollars a month is two
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month, and so that's twenty four hundred
Speaker 4: dollars a year, which if you're going to invest money
Speaker 4: and try and live off your money forever, then that requires,
Speaker 4: you know, assume the four percent rule four percent real
Speaker 4: return after taxes or whatever. Then you need sixty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars to fund that habit in perpetuity. And so it's
Speaker 4: no longer comparing this two hundred dollars savings with you
Speaker 4: know this ten grand that your brokerage account went up
Speaker 4: or down. You're comparing you know this, this ten grand
Speaker 4: that your brokerage account went up or down with a
Speaker 4: six sixty thousand dollars impact of this habit. And so
Speaker 4: what we kind of do by looking at things in
Speaker 4: terms of time is right, size all of this and
Speaker 4: adjust for the fact that, look, if you if you
Speaker 4: decrease your expenses, then yes, you know you're running faster
Speaker 4: toward the finish line. But the beautiful thing is when
Speaker 4: you metric it in terms of time, you also see
Speaker 4: that the finish line is running towards you because if
Speaker 4: your expenses go lower, then enough is lower, and if
Speaker 4: enough is lower, it takes less time to get there.
Speaker 1: Well that sounds like, I don't know, it make you
Speaker 1: feel better knowing that not only are you e dining closer,
Speaker 1: but like the finish line is inching further in your
Speaker 1: direction too. Yes, then we got a couple more questions
Speaker 1: for you, including curious to hear your take on paying
Speaker 1: for convenience you're essentially buying time back. I would love
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on that. We'll get to a
Speaker 1: couple questions on that front right after this.
Speaker 3: All right, back to our conversation with Ben Miller and
Speaker 3: uh been right before the brake, Joel, you know we
Speaker 3: were talking about your app Chronify. Personally, I was secretly
Speaker 3: hoping that your one of your craft bre equivalents was
Speaker 3: going to be watches, like like like because I don't
Speaker 3: think we've ever had anybody on the show where they
Speaker 3: were like, oh I like to collect vintage Rolex's, Like
Speaker 3: oh yeah, I've got a bunch of pocket watches Omega
Speaker 3: Speedmasters or something like that. I only say this because
Speaker 3: there's a brief period of time where I really got
Speaker 3: into them, and I thought, is this something?
Speaker 2: Am I going to be like a watch guy? And
Speaker 2: I was like, no way, these things are way too expensive.
Speaker 1: It would be a fitting hobby for you, though, Ben,
Speaker 1: it would I would be.
Speaker 4: I'm ashamed to say I've just got a fit bit.
Speaker 4: That's that's what I'm right.
Speaker 3: Hey, I've got a bracelet that my daughter made on
Speaker 3: my rest. But been like different optimization gurus out there,
Speaker 3: like they've kind of created a cult around productivity, and
Speaker 3: oftentimes you can kind of enter that space when you're
Speaker 3: talking about time and it's our belief that I think
Speaker 3: oftentimes this goes overboard and it leads many folks to
Speaker 3: just like a nose to the grindstone mentality where you
Speaker 3: are foregoing any pleasures in the here now. So you know,
Speaker 3: some optimization is helpful, but do you think it can
Speaker 3: be overdone?
Speaker 4: Optimization is something that can absolutely be overdone. I think
Speaker 4: people who are wired like I think you guys are
Speaker 4: and like I am, you know, there's a there's a
Speaker 4: temptation to really to really go ham on optimization. But
Speaker 4: you gotta you gotta make sure that you're you know,
Speaker 4: accounting for your humanity here, like you're not a robot
Speaker 4: it's not a it's not a it's not a matter
Speaker 4: of putting in the right code and then just executing
Speaker 4: until you die. It's it's about finding something that's not
Speaker 4: only you know, going to get you where you're going
Speaker 4: and do it on time, but also you know in
Speaker 4: being able to enjoy and savor it all along the way,
Speaker 4: because ultimately, like you get to the end of the
Speaker 4: end of your life on your deathbed, all that matters
Speaker 4: is human connection anyways. And so if you're if you're
Speaker 4: optimizing for anything other than that, you're kind of messing
Speaker 4: it up.
Speaker 1: Hmm. I love that. Okay, let's talk about paying for
Speaker 1: convenience because it's saving you time, right, which is, as
Speaker 1: we said, kind of the most critical resource here. But
Speaker 1: Americans are also spending a lot of money on convenience
Speaker 1: that they might not be able to afford. I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: some kinds of paying for convenience makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: but then other kinds make a whole lot less sense.
Speaker 1: Grub Hub, for example, I don't get it, like I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do it, But then there are other
Speaker 1: things where I do pay someone to let's say, mow
Speaker 1: my lawn so that Saturdays I can spend on the
Speaker 1: hiking trails or with kids doing activity stuff like that.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on paying for comedians and where
Speaker 1: do you draw the line?
Speaker 4: Oh, man, I'm kind of an Aweschuck's midwesterner, and so
Speaker 4: like I was feeling incriminated because like I still mow
Speaker 4: my lawn and it's probably a horrible use of my time.
Speaker 4: It's like I, I it's different for different people, you know.
Speaker 4: For me, it's like I kind of look for those
Speaker 4: two firs or three firs in life where it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 4: well it might be it might take me less time
Speaker 4: to drive to the gym, but maybe it's you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going there anyways to exercise, and so maybe I
Speaker 4: should walk. For me, I look at mowing my lawn
Speaker 4: and they're kind of like a similar rubric where it's
Speaker 4: just like, Okay, well I was going to get some
Speaker 4: physical activity, I might as well, you know, do something,
Speaker 4: do something productive with it. But in terms of paying
Speaker 4: for convenience, I think it's all about your values. It's
Speaker 4: all about you know, one, live within your means. That's
Speaker 4: rule number one. If you're breaking that one, like, sort
Speaker 4: that out before we get into this stuff. But if
Speaker 4: you're able to live within your means, then it's about
Speaker 4: figuring out what your what your values actually are. And so,
Speaker 4: like I think of one of the habits that always
Speaker 4: kind of comes up on the top of my charts.
Speaker 4: It's a fast casual restaurant called Kava. It's kind of
Speaker 4: like a Mediterranean interpotal. Actually they just ipot and so
Speaker 4: maybe more people think about them, and then I'm aware
Speaker 4: of anyways, I think of that and I go, Okay,
Speaker 4: well should I feel ashamed of this? You know, like
Speaker 4: what are what are we doing here? And really what
Speaker 4: it is is it's a way for us to put
Speaker 4: food on the table that's you know, clean, healthy and
Speaker 4: convenient without the cooking and cleaning and just be able
Speaker 4: to kind of sit down with all five of us
Speaker 4: as a family and enjoy ourselves. And so I look
Speaker 4: at that and it's like, yes, we're paying more for convenience,
Speaker 4: but for us, it's mission aligned and so it's it's
Speaker 4: those convenience things. Is that's how I That's the rubric
Speaker 4: that I evaluated under is does it align with my mission?
Speaker 4: And can I afford it? And if both of those
Speaker 4: come back yes, then go for it.
Speaker 1: But do you get it delivered or do you go
Speaker 1: pick it up?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: No, we pick it up.
Speaker 1: We're not okay, we're not rights.
Speaker 2: That's what I like to hear. It doesn't have that
Speaker 2: delivery money.
Speaker 3: That's a demarcation on the financial independent spectrum is how
Speaker 3: readily are you ordering food.
Speaker 2: To be literally dropped?
Speaker 1: Are delivery?
Speaker 3: Five?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know that I've ever got enough money
Speaker 1: in my bank account to overcome like the what's like
Speaker 1: what's built inside of me?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Those extra dollars in particular, because if that doesn't align
Speaker 3: with your mission. So like, I like how you said that, Ben,
Speaker 3: because that kind of goes back to you know, when
Speaker 3: it comes to how we should think about spending more money,
Speaker 3: it's like, do I value this? It comes down to intention? Yes,
Speaker 3: because it makes me think about For a while there,
Speaker 3: I was cutting my own grass because not because I
Speaker 3: was afraid of spending the money, but because I wanted
Speaker 3: my kids to see me cutting the grass. There is
Speaker 3: a lesson there and seeing and for them, and I
Speaker 3: literally made them made them watch it the whole time.
Speaker 3: Sit here on this deep I'll watch it, watch that crass.
Speaker 3: But it's just I don't know there's there's a lesson
Speaker 3: to be to be taught there, and we're like, we're
Speaker 3: doing something similar right now when it comes to cleaning,
Speaker 3: cleaning the house, and because I'm like, we are in
Speaker 3: a financial position to where we could clean the house,
Speaker 3: but I want my kids to know what it is like,
Speaker 3: what it's like to clean the house, for them to
Speaker 3: pick up all their things, to dust their their blinds,
Speaker 3: Like literally, we did that this past Saturday, and I
Speaker 3: kind of I try to brainwash them a little bit.
Speaker 3: We call it super Saturday, but it's where we it's
Speaker 3: good branding and in the morning we go hog wild
Speaker 3: and we go to town on the cleaning. Because I
Speaker 3: we may not always do that, but at least for
Speaker 3: a period of time and maybe and definitely who knows,
Speaker 3: because maybe they'll get so good at it that I
Speaker 3: don't know, they're able to like knock it out faster
Speaker 3: and faster. But I think, like you said, man, if
Speaker 3: you are able to align the mission of what it
Speaker 3: is that you are doing with how it is that
Speaker 3: you're spending money or not spending the money, I think
Speaker 3: think that can lead to the justification to be parted
Speaker 3: with your dollars. Whether again whether or not you're saving
Speaker 3: money or whether you are actually spending that money. But
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I think that's what's
Speaker 3: at the core of this conversation.
Speaker 4: I absolutely and to me it comes back to curating
Speaker 4: your problems. Because you know, you might opt into cleaning
Speaker 4: the house while you opt out at mowing the lawn.
Speaker 4: That's just fine, you know. Like there it's different strokes
Speaker 4: for different folks, and it's something that everybody kind of
Speaker 4: has to figure out for themselves. What's important to remember
Speaker 4: is that it is this balance that needs to be
Speaker 4: struck because you don't want to be, you know, just
Speaker 4: completely diying everything and shooting yourself in the foot. You
Speaker 4: know by doing so. You don't want to be whatever,
Speaker 4: stitching your own shoes and weaving your own clothes, you know,
Speaker 4: at least for most people. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: you don't want to be outsourcing everything either, because if
Speaker 4: you outsource every problem in your life, you've just gone
Speaker 4: and outsourced your life. You need to participate in solving
Speaker 4: some problems because otherwise, like frankly, there's nothing left to
Speaker 4: life once you subtract you know, all the problems. What
Speaker 4: are you just gonna lay there blissed out and like
Speaker 4: looking at the sky, like there's there's.
Speaker 1: Like Peter from office space.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I think some people that's like kind of their goal is.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna eventually get to that. But what
Speaker 1: you're alluding to is our lives never run out of problems,
Speaker 1: they just look different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, And so it's it's about choosing which problems
Speaker 4: you opt into and being able to choose that is
Speaker 4: a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Ben, this has been a great conversation. Man,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. How can our
Speaker 1: listeners find out more about about you, about your podcast
Speaker 1: and about the chronified software that you've created.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've got a podcast, the Quantify Podcast, aptly named,
Speaker 4: and the main way is you can come and check
Speaker 4: out Chronify. In fact, if you go to chronified dot
Speaker 4: com slash how to Money, there's a twenty five percent
Speaker 4: discount waiting for you. And that's that's good as long
Speaker 4: as we're as long as we're alive and kicking. So
Speaker 4: that that's the first month, it's it's good forever. So
Speaker 4: I would love to I love what you guys are doing.
Speaker 4: I love the podcast, I love you know, the awareness
Speaker 4: that you guys are creating about the right way to
Speaker 4: think about this stuff. And so I really want to say,
Speaker 4: I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, No, we're glad. I'm glad to do it.
Speaker 1: We're just too idiots learning on the fly. Honestly, as
Speaker 1: we're having these conversations, we're and we're learning alongside our audience.
Speaker 1: We're not here from some perch up above trying to
Speaker 1: tell people how to live. And so that's why these
Speaker 1: conversations are so informative couple for Matt and I and
Speaker 1: hopefully for the audience too. So Ben, we appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on, man, Thank you, Thank.
Speaker 2: You nice joel Man.
Speaker 3: It's always fun to talk with somebody who is like
Speaker 3: missionally aligned, right, like Ben is thinking about his money
Speaker 3: and his time in a similar way.
Speaker 1: That we try to that we strive to at least.
Speaker 3: And I just said missionally aligned. And so I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go actually gonna go ahead and give my big takeaway.
Speaker 1: Because stealing Ben's phrases now it.
Speaker 3: Is well, one of the things that Ben said, like
Speaker 3: when it comes to like that was the advice he
Speaker 3: had for trying to determine what it is that you're
Speaker 3: going to spend money on, He said, like what is.
Speaker 4: It that you value?
Speaker 3: And similarly, what is it like what is your mission
Speaker 3: going to be? And this is a quick plug for
Speaker 3: the how to money mission statement. It takes some time.
Speaker 3: It takes a little bit of introspection, asking yourself the
Speaker 3: right questions in order to figure out what it is
Speaker 3: that your mission is going to be, in order to
Speaker 3: figure out subsequently then what it is that you're going
Speaker 3: to spend your money on. And so that was my big,
Speaker 3: big takeaway, And that's not necessarily anything new, and so
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I've got a new thought because when it
Speaker 3: comes to a lot of times, folks come to us
Speaker 3: with questions and they're like, Okay, should I pay off
Speaker 3: this debt or should I do something else with it?
Speaker 3: And oftentimes what we say is that it depends and
Speaker 3: specifically it depends on what you're doing without money. If
Speaker 3: you don't pay down that debt. Right, It's like, sure,
Speaker 3: you could eliminate some student loans where you're paying seven percent,
Speaker 3: but are you then going to take that money and
Speaker 3: invest it where you're based on historic returns, you're going
Speaker 3: to earn at least seven percent? Because if not, it
Speaker 3: might be a waste of money. Right, And so let's
Speaker 3: take that same principle and apply it to time. I
Speaker 3: think that's another way that I'm going to start using
Speaker 3: to deter and whether or not something is worth me
Speaker 3: spending the money on. Okay, I have now gained time
Speaker 3: in my life. I have essentially made time. Now what
Speaker 3: am I gonna do with that time? Am I going
Speaker 3: to use that time and funnel it towards things that
Speaker 3: are that I place a high value on, towards things
Speaker 3: that are missionally aligned with what I say are important?
Speaker 3: Or am I just gonna like sit around like like
Speaker 3: you know, I thought, like you were saying, am I
Speaker 3: going to end up on the couch browsing Netflix or
Speaker 3: something like that, looking for you know, just ways to
Speaker 3: pass the time? Well, if that were to be the case,
Speaker 3: and that would be a poor use of spending that money, right,
Speaker 3: Like if I pay somebody to cut the yard and
Speaker 3: instead I'm using that time.
Speaker 2: To watch more TV.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, if you're if you want to
Speaker 3: be like a movie critic or like, okay, then it
Speaker 3: could be missionally aligned. But for the vast majority of folk,
Speaker 3: that's it's just a default thing because Oh the sofa
Speaker 3: in the couch, it's comfortable.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit there.
Speaker 3: Oh the remote is just right here, and it's just
Speaker 3: something you kind of fall into. Folks are like, we're
Speaker 3: so tempted to just hit the easy button and we
Speaker 3: haven't thought through some of these more value driven ways
Speaker 3: that we could spend not only our money, but our time.
Speaker 3: And so that I just want to take that principle
Speaker 3: from money and I want us to also apply it
Speaker 3: to time. What are you then going to take the
Speaker 3: time that you've made or the time that you've saved.
Speaker 3: Is that going to something that you actually value?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my big take I think my bigg takeaway
Speaker 1: was when he said, thinking in terms of time, it
Speaker 1: grants you ownership and permission, right, And so he gave
Speaker 1: the example of going out to eat, going on date
Speaker 1: night with his wife and how when he thought when
Speaker 1: he thinks of it as just dollars floating out, he
Speaker 1: gets nervous. Right, He's a reluctant spender, which I can
Speaker 1: identify with. But when he thinks about it in terms
Speaker 1: of oh, yeah, it's going to cost me some time
Speaker 1: off for retirement, off my future ability to not have
Speaker 1: to work. Well, actually, it's not as big of a
Speaker 1: deal because this is a really important thing and I
Speaker 1: like my work. And so when it gave him actually
Speaker 1: the permission to spend money in a way that he
Speaker 1: was reticent to do, and I thought of that as
Speaker 1: being really empowering. And I think when we think about
Speaker 1: what something costs us, not just in terms of dollars
Speaker 1: and cents, but also in terms of hours of the day,
Speaker 1: it can really help us to reframe whether or not
Speaker 1: that thing is worth it or not. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does it make sense to spend the money on
Speaker 1: a convenience or on a new item for your wardrobe.
Speaker 1: I don't know, think about your hourly rate, Maybe figure
Speaker 1: that out. We've talked about how to do that on
Speaker 1: a previous podcast, and think about it in terms of that.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, is that new dress or that new
Speaker 1: sport code worth four point eight hours of my life?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe that reframes the purchase
Speaker 1: a little bit, and it either helps empower you to
Speaker 1: spend in ways that you do value or kind of
Speaker 1: puts the kaibash on spending in a way that you're like, eh, eh,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I love it man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not surprisingly, our takeaways are related, like whereas I
Speaker 3: mean you're specifically, I think what you're kind of getting
Speaker 3: at are the emotions that can surround purchases, like feelings
Speaker 3: of freedom or empowerment, or feelings of regrets or reluctance
Speaker 3: when it comes to spending your money. But if you
Speaker 3: are able to identify the things that you value in life,
Speaker 3: it makes not only saving but also spending your money
Speaker 3: so much easier. And I appreciate that Ben focuses on
Speaker 3: that side of the equation as much as hopefully we do.
Speaker 3: I think we spend a decent amount of time talking
Speaker 3: about That's why we talk about the craft beer equivalent, right,
Speaker 3: because we're looking for things from our guests that they value.
Speaker 3: You know, we want to frame the conversation around that.
Speaker 3: It's not just about saving and investing as much as
Speaker 3: humanly plants.
Speaker 1: I feel like in recent years I've been able to
Speaker 1: find more joy in spending in the ways that I
Speaker 1: care about, the ways that I say that I care about,
Speaker 1: instead of feeling reluctant to do those things, largely through
Speaker 1: kind of changing my framework. But it's important to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you mentioned beer. Let's get back to the beer we
Speaker 1: had on the show. This is called aproguav Tasty. It's
Speaker 1: by the Veil and Veil. Of course, we like spending
Speaker 1: ridiculous amounts of money on good craft beer from time
Speaker 1: to time, this one being no exception. Or your thoughts
Speaker 1: on the spear map.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I like it in the label. It's not
Speaker 3: like an ice cream cone. It looks like like the graphic.
Speaker 3: It's like a rad ice cream cone. Guy, But it
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily taste like sugart or anything like that. But
Speaker 3: this is one percent like a smoothie style sour lots
Speaker 3: of fruit going on.
Speaker 2: Man, This thing poured quite.
Speaker 3: Thick, and I was expecting it to be a bit sweeter,
Speaker 3: but it was not. It had like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: the kind of sweetness that you would get from real fruit,
Speaker 3: which oftentimes isn't super sugary, not artificial, but really tasted
Speaker 3: like fruit and beer form. Yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: no high fruit corn syrup sugars in here.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 3: This feels like all true fruit sugar sugariness that the
Speaker 3: guy going on here, but super good. I'm not normally
Speaker 3: a do you like apricots?
Speaker 1: Oh, I was just about to say apricots are underutilizing
Speaker 1: in beer. I think they're one of the best fruits
Speaker 1: to stick in a beer, and for some reason, very
Speaker 1: few people use them.
Speaker 2: I'm not a Yeah, I'm not a huge one. How
Speaker 2: do you eat apricots? You get them like dried out
Speaker 2: where they're like they're like giho.
Speaker 1: I always get him in beer form. Oh yeah, like peaches.
Speaker 1: I feel like peaches are more normal, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: a I love peach. I don't know the last time
Speaker 1: I had an actual apricot. That was probably when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. Oh is it?
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to say it, tomatow, But
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not my favorite, but I definitely enjoyed it
Speaker 3: in beer for I'm glad you and I got to
Speaker 3: enjoy and you did taste some of those tropical guava
Speaker 3: notes going on there a little bit as well.
Speaker 1: But uh, and definitely like an interesting body inconsistency too.
Speaker 1: Talking about the thickness, Yeah, it truly is like it
Speaker 1: it's like we're again, is like we cracked open an
Speaker 1: odwala and we're pouring one of those out or this
Speaker 1: or naked juice.
Speaker 3: I don't even know if they make out Walla anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't know anyway. That's gonna be it for this episode.
Speaker 3: Enough about our beer. You can find the links that
Speaker 3: we mentioned up in our show notes at how tomoney
Speaker 3: dot com, including the link to the special offer that
Speaker 3: that Ben's got out there for our listeners.
Speaker 1: It never expires for the rest of time, which makes sense.
Speaker 3: It all fits together. Yea, what do you do? You
Speaker 3: also wish that he would have said watches. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: feel like that would have been to like batman villain
Speaker 3: ish if he was just like if he's like obsess
Speaker 3: with time, like flavor, flavor each one on his neck. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that's gonna be it for this episode, buddy. Until
Speaker 3: next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,