Speaker 1: Episode tote The Behavior Gap Why you don't do what
Speaker 1: you say you want to do with Carl Richards. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money,
Speaker 1: embrace simplicity, and live a rich your life. Here your
Speaker 1: host Jen and Jill. M m m m mmmm. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Frugal Friends Podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, And if you listen to our book
Speaker 1: club episode, you'll know one of the books that we're
Speaker 1: reading is The Behavior Gap by Carl Richards, and we
Speaker 1: are lucky enough to get to have him on the
Speaker 1: show today, so you guys can hear from him and
Speaker 1: hear a little bit more about what's inside the book.
Speaker 1: If you haven't read it, or if you have read it,
Speaker 1: you can hear kind of its updated version for what
Speaker 1: has been going on in the past few years. This
Speaker 1: is such a great interview. I'm very much looking forward
Speaker 1: to sharing this with you all. So much expertise, simplicity, kindness,
Speaker 1: humility pours out of Carl, and I think you're really
Speaker 1: going to pick up on that. Yeah, I think if
Speaker 1: you didn't know, if you didn't know, if you wanted
Speaker 1: to read the book before, I think once you hear
Speaker 1: this episode, you'll be interested because it's not a play
Speaker 1: for play um there, it's a you know, a little
Speaker 1: different than what's in the book, but you get a
Speaker 1: good idea of like the kind of person Carl is
Speaker 1: and and what his philosophy is. So but first before
Speaker 1: we get into episode, this episode is brought to you
Speaker 1: by the real heroes. So on this day, October one,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, Thomas Edison tested the first successful incandescent
Speaker 1: electric light bulb that lasted thirteen and a half hours.
Speaker 1: So before you clap, he thought it would take him
Speaker 1: three to four months, and it took him fourteen months,
Speaker 1: forty other researchers and thousands of failed tests, hundreds of
Speaker 1: different materials, And actually Edison was barely even there because
Speaker 1: he was fixing stuff on his other invention, in quotes
Speaker 1: a telephone, which was already invented by Alexander Graham Bell,
Speaker 1: So like, what was he even doing? But that didn't
Speaker 1: stop him from working his assistance to the bone. They
Speaker 1: tested hundreds of materials and when they found the combo
Speaker 1: that worked, Tommy Edison took all the credit and profit.
Speaker 1: So today we are reclaiming this day for the real heroes,
Speaker 1: the people who made the lightbulb that you are probably
Speaker 1: sitting under or next to possible because ideas are free,
Speaker 1: but the hard work is gonna cost you. It's gonna
Speaker 1: cost the real heroes. So claps and snaps for the
Speaker 1: real heroes. Did oh amazing? I feel educated, inspired, empowered, embittered, sad,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately we don't know their names. We often will
Speaker 1: never know the names of the true heroes. Amen, and
Speaker 1: you listening, you are a true hero. Know that you
Speaker 1: are one of these true heroes the work. We don't
Speaker 1: know your name, Amen, but we're we would love to
Speaker 1: know your name. That's not the question snaps for you. So,
Speaker 1: now that we've gotten off that soapbox, let's get into
Speaker 1: some values based financial choices and talking about the phenomenon
Speaker 1: behind why you don't do what you say you want
Speaker 1: to do, Because isn't that life? Isn't that budgeting and
Speaker 1: financial planning in its essence? So. Carl Richards is a
Speaker 1: certified financial planner and creator of the Sketch Guy column,
Speaker 1: which appeared weekly in the New York Times for ten years.
Speaker 1: Uh So, through his simple sketches, he's very well known
Speaker 1: for just really simple sketches. He makes complex financial concepts
Speaker 1: easy to understand, and the sketches serve as the foundation
Speaker 1: for his two books, the One Page Financial Plan and
Speaker 1: the one that we're reading, The Behavior Gap. So we
Speaker 1: are so excited to have him on. This was a great,
Speaker 1: great interview, so excited to share with you. There's such
Speaker 1: alignment with our ideas here, and so if you don't
Speaker 1: want to listen to us, you'll be able to hopefully
Speaker 1: listen to Carl. You know, sometimes it's just out of
Speaker 1: a different voice. But also he's got a lot of
Speaker 1: expertise and things to share with us, so let's give
Speaker 1: him the platform. Carl, Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast.
Speaker 1: We are excited to have you here, so excited to
Speaker 1: be here. Thank you for having me. You are clearly
Speaker 1: an accomplished human being, and we're so thrilled that we
Speaker 1: can share this space with you and learn from you.
Speaker 1: You've got a plethora of things to share on. We
Speaker 1: are primarily going to focus on I know we chatted
Speaker 1: before we hit record, going back to the archives, this
Speaker 1: book you wrote ten years ago that we are now
Speaker 1: reading in our Fall book club. So really excited to
Speaker 1: talk with you about that. But then also make it
Speaker 1: relevant for what we're walking through today. So just to
Speaker 1: jump in, Carl, we're curious to hear from you this
Speaker 1: concept that you kind of came up with, the behavior gap.
Speaker 1: What is it and to bring it relevant today? How
Speaker 1: have you seen it affect the way that we manage money,
Speaker 1: particularly in the last two years. Yes, such a good question,
Speaker 1: and thanks for starting there, because it's it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite topics. So the behavior gap has like a
Speaker 1: very specific meaning, and then what it's grown into be
Speaker 1: over the last you know, fifteen years, really is more broad.
Speaker 1: So the specific meaning is related to investment behavior specifically.
Speaker 1: And this is really kind of hard, at least it
Speaker 1: was hard for me to I'm sure your audience is
Speaker 1: way smarter than I am, but it was hard for
Speaker 1: me to get my head around at first. So it's
Speaker 1: it's the difference between and this was I remember actually
Speaker 1: the first time I realized it was like, that's great,
Speaker 1: there's a difference. This is like a little secret. There's
Speaker 1: a difference between invest doors and investments, right, like this
Speaker 1: is this is a crazy idea that there's a difference,
Speaker 1: But you are not your investments. And so the way
Speaker 1: this shows up is imagine if you're reading the newspaper
Speaker 1: or magazine or you see an ad online and it
Speaker 1: says that there was an investment that had a ten
Speaker 1: year return of ten percent. And this isn't a trick question,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't involve math like ten percent a year
Speaker 1: for ten years. Well, that's the investment return. That's the
Speaker 1: investment return. Right. The question becomes if you're an investor
Speaker 1: and you bought that investment at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: ten years, and you held it for the whole ten years,
Speaker 1: and you didn't add or take any money away. You
Speaker 1: just put money in at the beginning of the tend
Speaker 1: the exactly to the day, and you held it for
Speaker 1: the whole ten years. Your return would be the same.
Speaker 1: The investor return would be the same as the investment return.
Speaker 1: But the problem is we don't behave that way. Like
Speaker 1: nobody buys and this is I'm being a little facetious here,
Speaker 1: but nobody buys long term investments and holds onto them
Speaker 1: for the long term. That would be a silly idea, right.
Speaker 1: What we do instead is we buy things and then
Speaker 1: the market changes, they go down, we get scared and
Speaker 1: we sell. They go up and we suddenly want to
Speaker 1: buy more like this normal sort of herd behavior. And
Speaker 1: what ends up happening is the investment return. Sorry, the
Speaker 1: investor return is always lower than the investment return. And
Speaker 1: I kept seeing that in my work as a as
Speaker 1: a big investment firm, that people would buy something that
Speaker 1: made sense to buy is a good idea, and then
Speaker 1: it would go down and they would get scared and nervous,
Speaker 1: which is also normal, and we can talk about that
Speaker 1: if we want to normal to feel scared and nervous,
Speaker 1: and then they would sell. A couple of years later,
Speaker 1: that same investment would go up a bunch and everybody
Speaker 1: to be talking about on the news, their friends would
Speaker 1: be talking about it, you know, the the Financial Pornography
Speaker 1: Network SANBC would be talking about it, and people would
Speaker 1: get really excited and they would buy it. And so
Speaker 1: what we would do is we would buy high and
Speaker 1: we would sell low. And that's the opposite of what
Speaker 1: we want to be doing. So that's that's what created
Speaker 1: that behavior gap. Now, the broader version of behavior, the
Speaker 1: behavior app is any well intentioned financial behavior. It's well intentioned,
Speaker 1: but it is producing a suboptimal result. And we can
Speaker 1: talk about specificals what we want. But that's that's the
Speaker 1: meaning of the behavior. I love the way that you
Speaker 1: just broke that down. I feel like my mind expanded
Speaker 1: a bit, just the way that you simplify it and
Speaker 1: and explain the difference between an investor and an investment
Speaker 1: and how that can impact us as the people who
Speaker 1: are the investors engaging with this other thing. And this
Speaker 1: is a little bit adjacent, but I just want to
Speaker 1: comment here your ability to simplify as quite remarkable. Obviously
Speaker 1: you've done a lot around you know, the drawings that
Speaker 1: you create and the way that you explain things. Jen
Speaker 1: and I recently talked in a podcast about how children's
Speaker 1: books are often favorite and I realized it's because usually
Speaker 1: we're breaking down complicated concepts and you've got to know
Speaker 1: You've got to know the concept well in order to
Speaker 1: simplify it. And that's clearly the case for you. You
Speaker 1: know this so well, and because of that, you're able
Speaker 1: to explain it in kind of a layman's terms a
Speaker 1: way that we can all kind of grasp onto. So
Speaker 1: I just I appreciate that about you and what you
Speaker 1: bring to the education of finances. And now to get
Speaker 1: back on let me just let me just comment real quickly,
Speaker 1: just for all of your listeners to understand something. It's
Speaker 1: really really important. You are not alone in not understanding
Speaker 1: the words that the financial services industry uses. And the
Speaker 1: people around you, and I don't mean to be gender
Speaker 1: based here, but especially the men around you who are
Speaker 1: all nodding, pretending like they understand there, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They're just they're just pretending. Like I've been through this
Speaker 1: conversation thousands of times and it's always quiet and over
Speaker 1: in the corner where nobody else can see, and they
Speaker 1: look around and they say, hey, do understand that word
Speaker 1: you use? Standard deviation or volatility or risk or diversification
Speaker 1: or so please. And I'm seeing this more and it
Speaker 1: makes me so happy. And I hope that especially your
Speaker 1: listeners understand that they are the ones in charge. It's
Speaker 1: their money, and so you can say, you can raise
Speaker 1: your hand and say hey, and I'm gonna use the
Speaker 1: term because it often is males in our industry. Unfortunately, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: I don't understand the word you just used. Will you
Speaker 1: back up and explain that to me? And I think
Speaker 1: the more we sit in that spot where we're like
Speaker 1: stop stop stop, stop, stop, stop with all these like
Speaker 1: fancy war words that you wave your hands around and
Speaker 1: say and will you please explain that? And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's an age, if it takes time, but
Speaker 1: I've gotten so comfortable lately, and I just had this
Speaker 1: experience yesterday. It was in a meeting where I was
Speaker 1: the one like I was. People were in the meeting
Speaker 1: to listen to me, but somebody used a word that
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, and in the past that would have
Speaker 1: pretended and this time I just said, Hey, could you
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I know that word. Would you explain
Speaker 1: that word to me? And nobody cared like the people
Speaker 1: were like and I'm sure other people in the room
Speaker 1: were like, So, I'm just trying to emphasize that, especially
Speaker 1: your listeners, like please understand, you're in charge. It's your money.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a meeting where you don't understand something,
Speaker 1: it is not your fault. It's their job to explain
Speaker 1: that to you. And you can say with confidence, Hey,
Speaker 1: back up a minute. You used a word back here.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I understand I understand the word. Will
Speaker 1: you please explain that to me? And if there is
Speaker 1: any resistance to that you're out right like like if so,
Speaker 1: I just I think that's just really important because we're
Speaker 1: all playing this game where we all pretend that we
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and there's some nefarious intent on
Speaker 1: the side of the industry. Often that like complexity is
Speaker 1: a selling tool, and even in the good parts of
Speaker 1: the industry where it's not nefarious, it's like they just forget,
Speaker 1: Like the people who really actually know what those words
Speaker 1: mean and are are good people trying to do good work,
Speaker 1: they just forget that. The rest of us. If we
Speaker 1: took a statistics class in college, we tried to forget
Speaker 1: it as fast as possible, Like we don't know what
Speaker 1: those words mean anymore. So please understand, you hold the
Speaker 1: power and it's their job to explain it so that
Speaker 1: you are on the same page. Because these things like risk,
Speaker 1: risk is the key one, Like you cannot assume that
Speaker 1: what you think they mean by risk is what they
Speaker 1: actually mean, And it's so pay for you to ask
Speaker 1: those questions. Thank you, Carl for that encouragement. I think
Speaker 1: we need it often. And as I'm hearing you say it,
Speaker 1: I'm reflecting on how whenever I've been in meetings and
Speaker 1: someone who is an expert in many ways kind of
Speaker 1: pauses and says, WHOA wait, explain that to me. I
Speaker 1: love it because it's it takes such courage and shows
Speaker 1: humility and a desire to learn and a freedom and
Speaker 1: permission for others to say, yeah, speak up. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what this means, it is not a reflection
Speaker 1: on the entirety of who you are. We don't know
Speaker 1: all things about all things. But I think, especially as
Speaker 1: you're kind of pointing out for women, that can be
Speaker 1: a we already can feel ten steps behind, especially in
Speaker 1: this male dominated space, like how do we play catch
Speaker 1: up and not give away that we might not know something?
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, having that confidence to say just
Speaker 1: a second, I matter here and this is my money,
Speaker 1: and can you explain this to me? And I love
Speaker 1: what you're saying as well that if there's resistance to that,
Speaker 1: they're not the ones for us. If they are going
Speaker 1: to make us feel less than in the explanation, then
Speaker 1: are they people or an organization or a company that
Speaker 1: we really want to be engaging. And it's so helpful
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Thank you for sure. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: So I'm interested to see how you have seen the
Speaker 1: behavior gap play out in the last two to three
Speaker 1: years when this has been I mean because you wrote
Speaker 1: the behavior gap like ten years ago, So um, what
Speaker 1: have you been seeing over the last like two and
Speaker 1: a half years with the behavior gap playing out not
Speaker 1: just like in investments, but also in the whole picture
Speaker 1: of finances for people. Yeah, so this is a story
Speaker 1: as old as humans. And that's the interesting piece of this,
Speaker 1: Like this this sense and that that's the thing we
Speaker 1: need to understand about money, Like we expect that we
Speaker 1: expect it to be about spreadsheets and calculators. Like it's
Speaker 1: if we if we were taught anything about money in
Speaker 1: high school or college or anywhere, we were always taught
Speaker 1: about this sort of rational thing. It's it's a math problem.
Speaker 1: Two plus two always equals four, right, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: but then we go to touch it and it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's. I like to think of it as like
Speaker 1: an electric fence that you didn't know was electric. Like
Speaker 1: you touch it and you're just like WHOA, how why
Speaker 1: am I feeling this way? Or why am I fighting?
Speaker 1: Or why? Is? Why is what my dad said to
Speaker 1: me to not be spoiled coming up, Like why? Like
Speaker 1: why why? Well, because it's really more about emotion than
Speaker 1: it is about numbers. And so when you understand that,
Speaker 1: you start to understand some of the behavior, like the
Speaker 1: bad quote unquote bad behavior that we engage in when
Speaker 1: it comes to budgeting or spending or investments is actually
Speaker 1: like hardwired in us. It's there if we look at
Speaker 1: it from a historical perspective, some of this behavior kept
Speaker 1: has kept us alive as a species. Right, That's how
Speaker 1: hardwired it is. We are wired to get away as
Speaker 1: fast as we can from anything that's causing us pain.
Speaker 1: And we're wired to get as much as we can
Speaker 1: of anything that causes security and pleasure. Why it's around,
Speaker 1: you know. So if you understand that, then you understand
Speaker 1: you can be a little bit more empathetic with yourself
Speaker 1: because I like to think of this conversation is like
Speaker 1: a mixture of like an empathetic hug and a punch
Speaker 1: in the nose, and we just have to sort of
Speaker 1: go back and forth between those And the empathetic hug
Speaker 1: is just like you're wired. So let me give you
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example. So if you and
Speaker 1: there's words for all this from the academic literature, I
Speaker 1: mean Knamen want to know about prize for a bunch
Speaker 1: putting words on a bunch of this stuff. So if
Speaker 1: you got a raise every year for the last three years,
Speaker 1: you know, let's actually just use bonus. You've got a
Speaker 1: bonus every year and no raises a better raise. You
Speaker 1: get a raise every year for the last three years.
Speaker 1: Going into November, you're thinking about buying a new house
Speaker 1: or renting a new apartment, and because you've gotten a
Speaker 1: raise every year for the last three years, it's pretty
Speaker 1: it would be normal and reasonable for you to expect
Speaker 1: to get a raise in January of the fourth year.
Speaker 1: And so you therefore might, right, you might plan when
Speaker 1: you buy the house or at lease in rent a
Speaker 1: new apartment. You might say, oh, you know what, I
Speaker 1: can afford it because I'm going to get a raise. Well,
Speaker 1: that that's called recency bias, right, And and that's just
Speaker 1: us taking the recent past and projecting it into the future.
Speaker 1: And so that would be reasonable for you to do.
Speaker 1: But we have to put guard rails in our life
Speaker 1: because what if you made that plan, made that commitment,
Speaker 1: and you didn't get the raids right, And so that's
Speaker 1: an example of of something that would be reasonable and
Speaker 1: we can be empathetic to it, and it's something that
Speaker 1: we should protect against. And so the way we've seen
Speaker 1: that play out, I mean, that's an example of I've
Speaker 1: seen that play out housing. You know, should I buy
Speaker 1: a house is like this big decision for so many people,
Speaker 1: and it feels so out of resent my younger, my
Speaker 1: older kids and soon to be twenty one, like they
Speaker 1: don't believe they'll ever be able to buy a house,
Speaker 1: just because it's gotten so out of reach, right, And
Speaker 1: so having those conversations around well should I rent, should
Speaker 1: I say for down payment? What should I do? Those
Speaker 1: there's a there's an element right now of well, it's
Speaker 1: never going to be possible. Well we don't know, Like
Speaker 1: we're taking the recent past really like the last three years,
Speaker 1: and we're projecting it into the future. Now. Another place
Speaker 1: we've seen this play out with investments specifically is is
Speaker 1: And I almost hesitated even bringing up but Crypto, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I was thinking the whole time. You're talking yeah,
Speaker 1: like and I don't it's so hard, right, you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know. I mean, that's an interesting example of
Speaker 1: something that's been going on forever, right, Like the tulip.
Speaker 1: We can go all the way back to tulip bulbs
Speaker 1: if we want to. And we certainly saw this in
Speaker 1: when I believe it or not, when Google didn't exist,
Speaker 1: right and Netscape went publicly because it was the first browser.
Speaker 1: Right Like, we've seen this, Oh, we saw it in
Speaker 1: two dozen seven with real estate. We see this over
Speaker 1: and over and over where something gets really exciting, something
Speaker 1: new and novel. We feel like we've ever seen it before,
Speaker 1: and indeed we haven't. We haven't seen this specific thing before,
Speaker 1: but we've seen this behavior before. And then we say
Speaker 1: everybody's doing it, and so you can already feel all
Speaker 1: the like I've got to get in or I'm gonna
Speaker 1: missed it. We've got this fear of missing out. We've
Speaker 1: got herd behavior, We've got how how hard is it
Speaker 1: to resist, even if you're like disciplined, It's really hard
Speaker 1: to resist when everybody you know and people are retiring.
Speaker 1: It's a new model. And so that's one way we've
Speaker 1: seen it play out and to two really painful consequences.
Speaker 1: And the way to avoid that is too. Both of
Speaker 1: these things are around herd behavior and recency bias. That
Speaker 1: the key to them is to expand your definition of
Speaker 1: the recent past, like just stop and go, hey, wait,
Speaker 1: three years ago, this didn't exist if these people all
Speaker 1: right here, here's one conversation that I love around the
Speaker 1: crypto like and I call it. I call it the
Speaker 1: overconfidence conversation. So one conversation you can have is to
Speaker 1: just say, I'm thinking about making a major change, like
Speaker 1: I knew people who moved every penny they had and
Speaker 1: borrowed money. Right. We we all heard tons of those stories,
Speaker 1: and the problem is they were rewarded in the short term,
Speaker 1: like you saw the reward like some of them, you know,
Speaker 1: retired in front of you. So one conversation you can
Speaker 1: have is if you're thinking about making a change like that,
Speaker 1: just ask yourself three questions. The first question is, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you make the change, how would your life be different?
Speaker 1: If you're right now, I've asked that question, certainly hundreds
Speaker 1: that probably not thousands, but almost a thousand times, right,
Speaker 1: And normally the answer that question because we're not talking
Speaker 1: about making these giant bets like and it's almost always
Speaker 1: the answer that question as well, I'd go on an
Speaker 1: extra trip a year, like my life's not gonna change
Speaker 1: dramatically like it's gonna be nice, but it wouldn't change
Speaker 1: a lot. So okay, we have defined that. The second
Speaker 1: question is if you're wrong and you make this change
Speaker 1: and it goes against you, and it's not hard to
Speaker 1: imagine that, like it goes to zero, like you lose
Speaker 1: all this money, you lose half this money, you can
Speaker 1: define how much it goes against you. But if you're wrong,
Speaker 1: and then the question is how would your life change then?
Speaker 1: And normally, because we're hardwired to feel loss more painfully
Speaker 1: than we are to feel gain in terms of how happiness, normally,
Speaker 1: the answer that question is whoa, my life would really change,
Speaker 1: like I'd have to go back to work or I'd
Speaker 1: have to I'd have to retire later, I have to
Speaker 1: sell something, like my life would really change. And then
Speaker 1: the third question is have you ever been wrong before?
Speaker 1: And that's just it's that intended to make you feel bad.
Speaker 1: It's just intended to remind you that we are almost
Speaker 1: always wrong. So then what do we do with that? Well,
Speaker 1: we dick with stuff the kind of more timeless principle
Speaker 1: so that that it's not should I invest in crypto?
Speaker 1: And my answer had always been like probably not the
Speaker 1: way you're thinking. And then people say, oh, that's because
Speaker 1: you think crypto is not going to go up. No,
Speaker 1: actually I don't know. I promise if we don't invest
Speaker 1: in crypto, speaking broadly here, right like, I promise if
Speaker 1: we don't invest in crypto, it will quadruple if we don't,
Speaker 1: and if you do, I promise it will get cut
Speaker 1: in half. That's not the reason we're making a decision.
Speaker 1: We're making this decision to because there's principles here, longer
Speaker 1: term principles like being diversified. So that would lead me to, hey,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. Is there a diversified way to
Speaker 1: take ten percent of my money and put it in
Speaker 1: this crypto thing? Right? That's that's the process I've seen
Speaker 1: people go through. I'm a hundreds thousands of times the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. That's amazing. Just last extreme and
Speaker 1: I think we talked about this a lot, living in
Speaker 1: the radical middle, calling it radical because not many people
Speaker 1: live there, but we can be drawn to the extremes,
Speaker 1: the whip lash decisions, the recency bias. I love that term.
Speaker 1: That's a new one for me. And I've seen this
Speaker 1: so much, like everything's going to crap or everything is
Speaker 1: so wonderful, and it's all just based off of like
Speaker 1: the last few months or the last few years, and
Speaker 1: for some reason we can't seem to pull ourselves broader
Speaker 1: and say, but what about the past decades? What has
Speaker 1: what have I seen over years and years? What can
Speaker 1: I learn from those who are a little bit older,
Speaker 1: who have seen more decades than I have, and make
Speaker 1: decisions based off of that. We just it's going to
Speaker 1: take a little bit more processing, not just related to finances,
Speaker 1: related to all sorts of stuff. We get so wrapped
Speaker 1: up and what's happening right now and how it might
Speaker 1: be the worst thing ever, and it's like, well, maybe not,
Speaker 1: we could temper this a little bit. And that's what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from you, is this tempering around making financial choices.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that, you recommend ignoring most financial advice
Speaker 1: that you hear in the media and having being empowered
Speaker 1: to make your own financial decisions. What recommendations advice do
Speaker 1: you have on how to discern how to make one's
Speaker 1: own financial decisions, like not just to follow whatever radical
Speaker 1: idea is out there at the moment. Yeah, it's so hard,
Speaker 1: and I would just I would as a blanket statement.
Speaker 1: And I actually would go toe to toe with anybody
Speaker 1: on defending this, like I would just ignore almost everything
Speaker 1: on TikTok, right, like just like almost everything. And and
Speaker 1: the the reason is, is there some good stuff being
Speaker 1: said on social media generally speaking? Yes, The amount of
Speaker 1: stuff that will actually kill you is infinite though, and
Speaker 1: that's the problem. And and so I just think it's
Speaker 1: a general I would stick with. I would, I would
Speaker 1: think more like books, I would. I I would try
Speaker 1: to get to first principles is what I'd really try
Speaker 1: to get to. I know that's like the big language,
Speaker 1: Like what does that even mean? I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: executly what it means, except that there are first principles
Speaker 1: when it comes to handling our money. And those first
Speaker 1: principles are typically researched, right, They've been tried, they've been tested,
Speaker 1: they've been around a while, like diversifications. At first principle, Right,
Speaker 1: how do I spend my money? How do I but
Speaker 1: tracking my spending? That's the first principle, Like until we
Speaker 1: get there. It's so tempting, especially in this like short
Speaker 1: and by the way, it's not just limited. I didn't
Speaker 1: need to pick on Tektok, but it's also the Financial
Speaker 1: pornography Network like those they and they're all dressed up
Speaker 1: with ties and suits and and they look really fancy
Speaker 1: and they've got big words on the thing and they've
Speaker 1: a ticker, and so it feels really credible. Well that's
Speaker 1: just it's exactly the same thing. It's just meant they're
Speaker 1: not there to give you advice. They're there to sell
Speaker 1: advertising and to get you to keep watching. Now, if
Speaker 1: they said, every day by good quality things and hold
Speaker 1: them for a long time, spend a little bit less
Speaker 1: than you make and save the difference, build a rainy
Speaker 1: day fund for whatever you want to define it for.
Speaker 1: Like if they said that every day, none of us
Speaker 1: would watch so that But that just sounds, you know,
Speaker 1: so simple and basic. And that's radical, I know, And
Speaker 1: I think that's I think I liked. I like this
Speaker 1: sort of what did you say? Radical? What radical metal? Radical?
Speaker 1: Radical metal? I love that term, Like if we could
Speaker 1: celebrate like I mean, let me just point. I hate
Speaker 1: to be over like I'm not actually really all that
Speaker 1: interested investing, but it's my background and it's really interesting
Speaker 1: to hear Warren Buffett talk about his investments. So this
Speaker 1: isn't This is a quote, right, he said, the hallmark
Speaker 1: of our investment success has been benine neglect, bordering on sloth.
Speaker 1: So we can somehow celebrate the idea that this single
Speaker 1: best thing to do with your money is almost always boring.
Speaker 1: It's almost always boring. So if we could just somehow
Speaker 1: if it feels exciting, and I love what you said earlier,
Speaker 1: like just put some space between you and the excitement,
Speaker 1: take a walk. Delay, like any big financial decision, delay,
Speaker 1: like you don't. There's almost nothing that you have to
Speaker 1: do today. If it feels like you have to do
Speaker 1: it today, I please don't do it today, Like go
Speaker 1: on a walk, like I have a little trick on spending.
Speaker 1: It's called the seventy two rule, and it's it's an
Speaker 1: Amazon I noticed on Amazon once I became an Amazon
Speaker 1: Prime member whatever ten years ago. Oh, I noticed books
Speaker 1: would magically appear at my house, Like I was like,
Speaker 1: how did I Like I would hear it on a podcast,
Speaker 1: I would go to Amazon. I would see it. I
Speaker 1: would say, by now, and then it would be there.
Speaker 1: In the day and a half between when I sent
Speaker 1: I was sure I had to read this book. And
Speaker 1: the day and a half later when it arrived, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not sure I need to read this
Speaker 1: book anymore. So I designed a I've got a wish list,
Speaker 1: so in Amazon you can have this wish list or
Speaker 1: is it called Yeah, I think it's called a list,
Speaker 1: just a list, just called the list I designed. I
Speaker 1: set up a list called the seventy two hour holding
Speaker 1: bid seventy two hour rule, I think it's named. And
Speaker 1: I decided that every single book had to go into
Speaker 1: the seventy two hour been before I bought it, and
Speaker 1: then if I came back seventy two hours and I
Speaker 1: still wanted it, I had total permission to buy it.
Speaker 1: There's hundreds of books in my seventy two hour but
Speaker 1: that I've never bought. And so I think just putting
Speaker 1: space between you and that decision and an investment, they're
Speaker 1: even more important. Like just wait, just wait right, Carl,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're giving us a blueprint, not all
Speaker 1: the specific answers, but the ancient paths, the well worn
Speaker 1: ways of engaging with finances and little by little experiencing growth.
Speaker 1: And this again is a principle that can be expanded
Speaker 1: across our personhood. Not just finances, but what are the
Speaker 1: ancient paths of rest? What are the ancient paths of
Speaker 1: community building? What are the ancient paths of smart financial decisions?
Speaker 1: And this is it the patients, the research, the What
Speaker 1: have the decades before shown us? What? What do we
Speaker 1: know of the way that we've engaged in this concept
Speaker 1: before and not just chasing after like the new shiny,
Speaker 1: glittery gem that we don't know yet what it's gonna do,
Speaker 1: or at least being cautious with it. No, I was
Speaker 1: just thinking through, like I can almost promise you, I
Speaker 1: can almost guarantee you that if you focused on paying
Speaker 1: down your mortgage, you would be happy twenty years from
Speaker 1: now that you did, Like I can almost it makes
Speaker 1: no sense financially, because I mean it does make sense,
Speaker 1: but everybody will tell you you could take that money,
Speaker 1: especially if you're mortgage is at three and I don't
Speaker 1: learn more like three and we just happen to get
Speaker 1: lucky and time things well, like it was three in
Speaker 1: the quarter. It wasn't by any skill. I just want
Speaker 1: to be clear, but like, it makes no sense for
Speaker 1: us to pay down a three and a quarter mortgage.
Speaker 1: I promise. I'm my wife and I know that if
Speaker 1: we focus on that for the next ten years, we
Speaker 1: will be happy we did despite the fact that everybody
Speaker 1: waving their hands is going to tell me it's stupid.
Speaker 1: I know more people, and I like, I just please
Speaker 1: believe me, I know more people in there. Let's just
Speaker 1: say fifty five. Let's just say say I don't know
Speaker 1: more people at around the age of sixty that would
Speaker 1: trade if you said I will trade you all you're
Speaker 1: in astment decisions, all your financial decisions for just having
Speaker 1: your cash back right, Like was that I can't remember
Speaker 1: who said that. Will Rogers somebody said, don't talk to
Speaker 1: me about the return on my money. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about the return of my money. I know more people
Speaker 1: that that's true for that would just they would gladly
Speaker 1: just say, you know what, just give me my money back,
Speaker 1: because all this hunting for the best investment, all it
Speaker 1: did was leading me to make stupid decision over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. And so that's one of those
Speaker 1: areas where I just think, like, if if you just
Speaker 1: bought the SMP five index at Vanguard with fifty bucks
Speaker 1: a month and you pay down your mortgage, you would
Speaker 1: be ahead of your neighbors in twenty years and the
Speaker 1: rest of them are going to run around and you're
Speaker 1: gonna feel stupid the whole time. You're gonna feel boring
Speaker 1: the whole time. And I'm trying to get to the
Speaker 1: point where we can celebrate that, Like I want to
Speaker 1: have t shirts made, like I'm a lazy investor? How
Speaker 1: do you like me now? Like just I want to
Speaker 1: somehow for a car, like some celebrate this sort of
Speaker 1: just radical boring, right, So anyway that would be a
Speaker 1: subset of the radical never oh man, So I love
Speaker 1: I love the concept of of like the simplicity, and
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one of the ways, Like I
Speaker 1: wanna I want to just get like a few actionable
Speaker 1: tips before we wrap up, like how do we close
Speaker 1: that behavior gap like in our day to day and
Speaker 1: are investing, Like what do we how do we do
Speaker 1: that and set ourselves up to make better, more logical decisions.
Speaker 1: It's so it's really really hard. Kneman who wrote probably
Speaker 1: the the book on this, thinking fast and thinking slow.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a three inch I have a one
Speaker 1: inch stick cruel. It's beyond my one instick cruel. But
Speaker 1: I've managed to still get through it. But in the
Speaker 1: first chapter, I believe it's really quite was kind of
Speaker 1: I thought when I first read, I thought it was depressing,
Speaker 1: but now I understand it. He said, Look, I don't
Speaker 1: have I have any hope that reading this book will
Speaker 1: actually change your behavior because I know all these things
Speaker 1: and I still do the same. I still make the mistakes,
Speaker 1: he said. My only hope is that next time you
Speaker 1: do something silly, you'll know what to call it, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's it's the point is it's
Speaker 1: really really challenging, and so the simpler you can make things,
Speaker 1: So that's the first step would just be anything complex,
Speaker 1: like just my wife's grandfather is he's passed away now,
Speaker 1: but he was a cattle rancher in Wyoming, and like
Speaker 1: he's the real deal. He had he has the Wyoming
Speaker 1: license plate of beef. Like like if you have the
Speaker 1: Wyoming license plate beef, you're like the real deal, right
Speaker 1: exactly just be And of course it was like a
Speaker 1: you know, it certainly wasn't a Toyota because you know
Speaker 1: it was an American made car, but so it was
Speaker 1: like a Chevy like something like the the the Chevy
Speaker 1: version of a Toyota Corolla whatever that is like basic
Speaker 1: car with Liza Blaces beef. It wasn't on his truck
Speaker 1: and he had enough one fifty like all that normal stuff.
Speaker 1: But I remember being up there one time and he
Speaker 1: had the paper open in the morning and up at
Speaker 1: his ranch and he was looking at the cattle futures
Speaker 1: and I was Mr Smart Financed, and I was like, Grappa,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? He shouldn't be trading futures. And
Speaker 1: he's like, what are you talking about? I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how much I can sell my beef
Speaker 1: for in a month. Like that's what these things were
Speaker 1: designed for, right, what else do you do with them?
Speaker 1: And I remember that, like what else? His look on
Speaker 1: his face of like what else do you do with them?
Speaker 1: It was always served as a reminder to me, like
Speaker 1: let's just keep things really really simple, like really like
Speaker 1: the purpose, Like okay, so what what could we do practically?
Speaker 1: I think practically the first thing I would do is
Speaker 1: put space between you the stimulus and the response, so
Speaker 1: like I need to go buy this just a little space.
Speaker 1: And this applies like new shoes new ever, like I
Speaker 1: can't believe how many things I have not bought just
Speaker 1: by putting space. And again like I'm not an anti buyer,
Speaker 1: like buy things like awesome that I want to spend
Speaker 1: extravagantly on the things that matter to me and cut
Speaker 1: ruthlessly on the stuff that I don't care about. It's
Speaker 1: just hard to get clear about which one of those
Speaker 1: it is in the moment. So if I could just
Speaker 1: put a little space, a little space, so space keeping
Speaker 1: things super simple, Like just buy the SMP five hundred
Speaker 1: index at Vanguard, Like, go to Vanguard. They have a
Speaker 1: mutual fund called the SMP five Index. It costs you
Speaker 1: almost nothing to own and buy. The reason that matters
Speaker 1: is that gets you exposure to five hundred of the
Speaker 1: biggest best companies in the world. It means you're super diversified.
Speaker 1: The way to invest that's better than that, there might
Speaker 1: be one or two, but the ways to invest that
Speaker 1: are worse or infinite. So like, that's an example, just
Speaker 1: keep it super simple, right. The other thing I would
Speaker 1: do I would love to see more of us doing
Speaker 1: is just in that space between our use of money
Speaker 1: and our our thought of using money in any way.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about investing, spending, saving, whatever, and actually
Speaker 1: doing it, just ask why, like just like, well, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: why am I What am I solving for? Here? What's
Speaker 1: the What? What am I solving for? Because if you
Speaker 1: like I'm spending because I want, I'm going to take
Speaker 1: my friend to lunch? All right? This is an example.
Speaker 1: My wife and I for a while we would go
Speaker 1: to dinner and a movie with friends, and we do
Speaker 1: this every month, and we were like one day we
Speaker 1: were like, why are we doing that? Well, we're doing
Speaker 1: it because we like to connect with friends. Oh so
Speaker 1: going to a noisy restaurant and then sitting in a
Speaker 1: movie theater or where we don't actually ever get to
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, isn't giving us the connection? Oh? What
Speaker 1: would you know? Maybe if we got all the ingredients
Speaker 1: for dinner and they came to the house and we
Speaker 1: spent two or three hours preparing eating, sitting there. Oh
Speaker 1: turns out just aside benefit that was cheaper. That doesn't
Speaker 1: even That's not even the reason we did it. It
Speaker 1: was a better expression of the value. And the only
Speaker 1: way to get clear about the value was to pause
Speaker 1: long enough to go, hey, do we really like going
Speaker 1: to the beach? I mean, my life stances would be yes,
Speaker 1: but your answer may not be right. Do I really
Speaker 1: need another pair? Of that, because I promise you most
Speaker 1: of the spending you're doing is too. We've given money
Speaker 1: a job that it cannot do, and the job is
Speaker 1: is to fulfill some other hole, right, to make us
Speaker 1: feel a little better. It's self medicating, it's all of
Speaker 1: those that now you may need to do that, but
Speaker 1: if you could find what if I went on a
Speaker 1: walk instead, what if I watch the Netflix show I
Speaker 1: like instead? Like well I and all of that. Those
Speaker 1: answers come from asking, just pausing, noticing what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: My favorite phrase in that space is like interesting and
Speaker 1: no shame, no blame, no judgment, just interesting. You're thinking
Speaker 1: about buying another backpack? You know you have seventy two
Speaker 1: of those in the garage, Like like just interesting. And
Speaker 1: so those are the things that I would do. I
Speaker 1: know they're not as concrete, but I'm there's plenty of
Speaker 1: those concrete Susie Go reads the Orman's books if you
Speaker 1: want concrete examples. To me, the frameworks more important because
Speaker 1: personal finance is so personal, right yeah, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I am if obsessed with everything you just said because
Speaker 1: it's things like that we say all the time, like
Speaker 1: that was actually the dinner thing was an exact experience
Speaker 1: that I had when we were trying to get out
Speaker 1: of debt, and I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: give up, you know, doing happy hours with friends on
Speaker 1: the weekend. And I was like, what is the what
Speaker 1: is the need I'm actually trying to meet? Because it's
Speaker 1: not like I value the actual like drinks and food
Speaker 1: all that much. I mean, I like them, but it's
Speaker 1: not the setting that I value. It's the connection with
Speaker 1: the people. And so how can I get that and
Speaker 1: fulfill that a hundred percent instead of just like so
Speaker 1: like that's an exact example, like I said all the time,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad to hear other people have the same
Speaker 1: You're not going to listen to us. Listen to Carl, right,
Speaker 1: speaking of simple and straightforward, we got our next simple
Speaker 1: straight shared experiences radical middle of the Bill of the Week.
Speaker 1: That's right. It's for the best minute of your entire week.
Speaker 1: Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died
Speaker 1: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 1: To Bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill
Speaker 1: of the week, Carl. Every week we invite our listeners
Speaker 1: or our guests to share with us their bill for
Speaker 1: the week. And we sprung this on you right before
Speaker 1: the interview, and so I hope this um half hour
Speaker 1: has given you enough time to prepare. That's it's such
Speaker 1: an interesting question. I am Luckily I'm kind of removed
Speaker 1: from this because my wife and my financial planner have
Speaker 1: kicked me out of these discussions, which is awesome. They
Speaker 1: were like, look, we don't need you involved anymore. You
Speaker 1: just mess everything up by all this talking, talking talking.
Speaker 1: You just go do your thing at work. And so
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't, but the the oh, you know
Speaker 1: what just this morning? Apple is it? Apple one? I
Speaker 1: got like seventy two ads for Apple one this morning
Speaker 1: and it's a bundle apparently of iCloud music and TV
Speaker 1: and all the other Apple services. And I literally two
Speaker 1: days ago was like, how come I get an Apple
Speaker 1: charge every Like there's six of us in the family,
Speaker 1: like our four kids, and how come there's an Apple
Speaker 1: n and like it's so hard to keep track of
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh, Apple one for
Speaker 1: the family will actually be even if it was just
Speaker 1: a tiny bit more expensive, like an extra dollar a month,
Speaker 1: it would be worth it to not have to deal
Speaker 1: with the seven transactions, but it's actually cheaper. So I'm
Speaker 1: about to incur a new bill which will be taking
Speaker 1: all these little peck to death by ducks charges and
Speaker 1: bundling them into one charge. And it's even if it
Speaker 1: was a little more expensive, would be worth it to me.
Speaker 1: But it's gonna be cheaper. How about that. We are
Speaker 1: here for the more simple bill. I do love that
Speaker 1: simplifying transaction the bank account statement for sure. If you
Speaker 1: all listening have a bill that you want to share,
Speaker 1: whether it's about bundling or not being pecked by tiny chickens,
Speaker 1: visit for bol Friends podcast dot com slash bill. Share
Speaker 1: your bill with us, you know we love to hear it.
Speaker 1: And now it's time for pew. I was reading our
Speaker 1: reviews the other day. I was reading our reviews the
Speaker 1: other day, which is something I don't typically do, but
Speaker 1: somebody specifically said they enjoyed the like at the one
Speaker 1: of one of the best strikers on the U S
Speaker 1: women's team soccer team is I think it's Natalie, but
Speaker 1: her last name is Pew and when she scored. My
Speaker 1: daughter is a soccer fanatic. And we were at the
Speaker 1: game when the national team played here in Salt Lake
Speaker 1: and Pugh scored and everybody just goes, it's amazing. I
Speaker 1: love that man. Okay, So this is the part of
Speaker 1: the show where we all answer one question, um, and
Speaker 1: we tend to get a little vulnerable, but we don't
Speaker 1: require that of our guests. Um. But today's question is like,
Speaker 1: what's a unique value that guides your financial planning, like
Speaker 1: a core value or something? So, yeah, the top of
Speaker 1: my so my second book was called the one page
Speaker 1: Financial Plan. Of the top of a one page financial
Speaker 1: plan is what I call I don't think I called it.
Speaker 1: This is in the book, but what I now call
Speaker 1: a statement of financial purpose. And the goal of a
Speaker 1: statement of financial is to get underneath, like what's what's
Speaker 1: really driving all this? And mine is um time with
Speaker 1: my family mainly outside, and then service in my community
Speaker 1: and my church. That's really like that to me is
Speaker 1: the value that I want. Now, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to give a secondary answer to this because that's
Speaker 1: the value I want driving all my decisions. That's the
Speaker 1: value I hope drives all my decisions. You know, it
Speaker 1: drives a lot of my decisions that I'm working on
Speaker 1: deeply is fear right, Like I'm still worried there's a
Speaker 1: lion in every bush. And I've done this thing that
Speaker 1: men my age were told we were supposed to do,
Speaker 1: protect and provide, and I've done it like that's been
Speaker 1: what I was told I was supposed to do. And
Speaker 1: so that's led to tomorrow. Like I don't open my
Speaker 1: email seventeen times a day because good news is in there.
Speaker 1: I opened my email seventeen times a day because I'm
Speaker 1: sure that tomorrow's the day or today is the day
Speaker 1: that it's all going to go away, right, Because that's
Speaker 1: my job is to scan the landscape and make sure
Speaker 1: there's not lyons. And so this hyper vigilance has led
Speaker 1: to massive problems like just physically and mentally and emotionally
Speaker 1: that I've had to really work hard on. And I
Speaker 1: think I've been shocked at how many people relate to that.
Speaker 1: And so I'm I'm unwinding that and making it more
Speaker 1: about no way and it's not actually there isn't turns
Speaker 1: out there's not lyon in any of the bushes, and
Speaker 1: there's always been enough and really that this gets slippery
Speaker 1: really quickly. When we get into the secret, which I
Speaker 1: think is the most dangerous personal finance book ever written,
Speaker 1: this idea that the universe will always provide. But I
Speaker 1: think that is essentially what the Earth is saying, is
Speaker 1: like there, if we can just get clear about what
Speaker 1: we really need, having some for our needs, there's enough
Speaker 1: for everybody. It's it's when we get this need that
Speaker 1: more than for our needs, then there suddenly we live
Speaker 1: in a scarcity world instead of an abundance world. And
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to unravel that. So the value I
Speaker 1: want is time with my family mainly outside. The value
Speaker 1: that's often driving my decisions is fear. Mm hmm. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sharing that. I think, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people can relate to that,
Speaker 1: and so it's like, it's nice to know that somebody
Speaker 1: with so much expertise and so much experience still has
Speaker 1: to parse out that that like fear and logic, like
Speaker 1: going through that to know that it's not I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's you're not a bad person. If that's like
Speaker 1: what you're making your choice is based on, it's just
Speaker 1: something to identify into work through. That's amazing. How about you, Jill,
Speaker 1: While I'll match your level of vulnerability, Carl and Jen
Speaker 1: loves this round to be quite vulnerable. But I would say,
Speaker 1: and our listeners who are longtime listeners would know this.
Speaker 1: My values and what I hope that my spending is
Speaker 1: wrapped around is community, generosity and beauty, and a lot
Speaker 1: of things fall into that. There's many subcategories within that.
Speaker 1: And so I engage with my finances at a deeper
Speaker 1: level at least twice a month, so it is at
Speaker 1: the forefront. But I can't say I'm always making stellar decisions.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's lifestyle creep that is drawing me to I
Speaker 1: want this, and I want that, and I want to
Speaker 1: have this, and and that curiosity with self does need
Speaker 1: to enter in of okay, but why and then what
Speaker 1: is that actually going to provide to me other than
Speaker 1: the potential of stress around spending more money When I
Speaker 1: used to be content living in a hundred seventies square feet, like,
Speaker 1: what is going on for me at this point? And
Speaker 1: how do I get back to that sufficient level? But
Speaker 1: when I when I'm my my best version of myself,
Speaker 1: my finances are aligned with community, generosity, beauty, and that
Speaker 1: comes all the way down to the way that I budget.
Speaker 1: I made a spreadsheet that I find beautiful with really
Speaker 1: soft colors that it actually works. As I plug in numbers,
Speaker 1: the tally changes and I feel like a million bucks
Speaker 1: because I created this spreadsheet that I find beautiful, and
Speaker 1: so I love engaging with it and having this at
Speaker 1: the forefront of my mind. That's yeah, what about you, Jen, Um?
Speaker 1: So mine mine is similar to your carl. Here's carl
Speaker 1: is to spend have more time with my family. So
Speaker 1: flexibility has been like a big goal in creating income
Speaker 1: and a level of investing that will will provide like
Speaker 1: being able to have work flexibility, but like not necessarily
Speaker 1: working hard enough to where we're going to retire super early.
Speaker 1: I am coming off of, like we we transitioned from
Speaker 1: this like super saving mode to having a baby and
Speaker 1: totally pretty much ignoring um we were we were just
Speaker 1: saving one income without really any purpose um. And then
Speaker 1: when we were able to think again to like think
Speaker 1: about real estate investing and that that became like all
Speaker 1: consuming And I didn't any on any of the extremes
Speaker 1: were not I didn't really like I didn't like the
Speaker 1: extreme saving. I didn't like the extreme disregard. I didn't
Speaker 1: like that backlane gave me anxiety, um, and I didn't
Speaker 1: like the extreme, like everything you had to put into
Speaker 1: getting real estate, like so so now I'm looking for
Speaker 1: like flexibility. I thought I had these things that were
Speaker 1: aligned end with my values. I thought those were the
Speaker 1: things that we're going that we're going to be the result,
Speaker 1: Like those were the plan, and now I'm kind of
Speaker 1: finding a new route like that. I really just want
Speaker 1: to have flexibility in work and when we retire, just
Speaker 1: like saving enough to retire before and you know, eventually
Speaker 1: we'll need like a double knee surgery or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's looking like it's coming. That's that's where
Speaker 1: I'm at. And I said this. I said this to
Speaker 1: a friend the other day, and it sounded so bad
Speaker 1: when it came out of my mouth, but he echoed
Speaker 1: the feeling. It was like, I just want to make
Speaker 1: money and I want to do as little work as possible,
Speaker 1: and that I think it's the guiding value of my
Speaker 1: life and work being things I don't enjoy, Like I
Speaker 1: love this podcast, so it doesn't feel like work. So
Speaker 1: I wanna I want to like make money doing things
Speaker 1: I enjoy, and then I want to like go be
Speaker 1: with my family, which I enjoy. That will not make
Speaker 1: me money, So let's do it. Carl. We were already
Speaker 1: reading one of your books as part of our community.
Speaker 1: But where else can people get more from you? Probably
Speaker 1: the best place to go is to behavior gap dot
Speaker 1: com and get the weekly newsletter. Um I my weekly
Speaker 1: newsletter is different than most in the sense that we
Speaker 1: took fifty two of our greatest hits. So these are
Speaker 1: the New York Times columns. We got feedback from readers
Speaker 1: from the New York Times, obviously hundreds and hundreds of emails.
Speaker 1: We refined the column and we narrowed it down. I
Speaker 1: wrote that column for every week for ten years. There's
Speaker 1: five plus columns. We narrowed it down the fifty two best.
Speaker 1: So I like to think that the sub title of
Speaker 1: the be a reapp news letter, we call it the
Speaker 1: weekly letter, is better than the New York Times because
Speaker 1: we we we we took those columns, made them better,
Speaker 1: and so that's what you get. You don't get this
Speaker 1: timely tips and tricks and here's the news of the day.
Speaker 1: It's literally like, here's the fifty two best. And at
Speaker 1: the end of fifty two weeks, we may actually add
Speaker 1: another fifty two. But right now, at the end of
Speaker 1: fifty two weeks, we say you've been all the way through,
Speaker 1: like there's start again. It's fine or run along. So
Speaker 1: the Behavior Behavior Weekly Letter is probably the best place.
Speaker 1: Oh that's yeah. We didn't even get into all of
Speaker 1: your drawings that are great, so yeah, definitely people should
Speaker 1: sign up for that and see those. You want more simplicity,
Speaker 1: get at Carl. Carl, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: It's been a joy and a pleasure to learn from you.
Speaker 1: Here's my my it was my pleasure. Thanks for the
Speaker 1: work you do and the great questions you ask and
Speaker 1: um super excited see did actually continue to make Yes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't know what to you're going to get from,
Speaker 1: like a guest that you don't know. And I just
Speaker 1: love it when someone, especially with a platform as big
Speaker 1: as as Carl Richards with writing for the New York
Speaker 1: Times and two books like is so like deserving of
Speaker 1: that platform because he's such a good guy. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love everything he said. Carl felt so relatable and
Speaker 1: I just experienced such alignment. And that's not to puff
Speaker 1: us up. I'll look at these great ideas, but I
Speaker 1: think it does affirm that, Okay, we're onto something good
Speaker 1: when others are saying it that come from very different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and to hear also the expansion, I am walking away
Speaker 1: with new terms, new ideas, new perspective from what Carl shared,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for that. And I really do
Speaker 1: hope that you all join us in reading his book
Speaker 1: checking out more from him, because I think what he's
Speaker 1: offering is truly genuinely, authentically helpful and not just a
Speaker 1: platform for him to walk away a rich, wealthy person,
Speaker 1: but truly helping people understand and make wise stewarding decisions.
Speaker 1: So thank you all so much for listening, thanks for
Speaker 1: also sharing this space with us. As many of you know,
Speaker 1: we also, in addition to this podcast, have a private
Speaker 1: community where we do monthly money challenges and we offer
Speaker 1: accountability groups the opportunity to engage with other like minded people.
Speaker 1: And we want to take this time to congratulate one
Speaker 1: of our members for a big win. This is Wendy.
Speaker 1: This comes from one day. They titled it, we recovered
Speaker 1: nine eight dollars from credit card. So I was going
Speaker 1: over the budget numbers last night with my husband and
Speaker 1: finally reviewed the card with the balance. I know. Turns
Speaker 1: out there were things on there I had charged as
Speaker 1: subscriptions but forgot. We're there to the tune of nine
Speaker 1: eight dollars. Well, I canceled those suckers before I went
Speaker 1: to bed and moved the other expenses to the debit cards,
Speaker 1: so we can truly attack this debt by not creating more.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but one of the companies gave me
Speaker 1: a refund of thirty seven fifty for the unused portion
Speaker 1: of the service. What a relief to not see those
Speaker 1: charges anymore. Well done, Wendy, as you're saying, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not massive, but it's these little chunks and little
Speaker 1: dings against that and not replicating the problem, just kind
Speaker 1: of plateau ing it and then taking stabs at it.
Speaker 1: It's excellent. And this is an interesting um strategy that
Speaker 1: you brought up, Wendy, because we're trying to pay off
Speaker 1: credit cards. If our subscriptions are still coming out of
Speaker 1: the credit card every month, then you are kind of
Speaker 1: shooting yourself in the foot a little bit so too
Speaker 1: when you decide to pay off a credit card moving
Speaker 1: those subscriptions to your debit card, just for the time being,
Speaker 1: You've got to get control of your spending and pay
Speaker 1: off those credit cards before you can use credit cards responsibly. Again,
Speaker 1: moving those to the debit cards so that you can
Speaker 1: really focus on not going into more debt on the
Speaker 1: credit card is so wise. So good job, Wendy. I
Speaker 1: hope others will will take note and do that today
Speaker 1: that the real heroes. Thanks everyone for listening. If you
Speaker 1: are interested and you want to check out our monthly
Speaker 1: challenge community, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: club to see what challenge we have coming up next.
Speaker 1: See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian.
Speaker 1: So what four and a half years in and I
Speaker 1: forgot to check my microphone, So apologies for my audio
Speaker 1: being different from the intro outro to the actual interview.
Speaker 1: You know, part of it was my mistake because after
Speaker 1: four and a half years, I trust you so much
Speaker 1: and I think so highly of you that I gave
Speaker 1: you the benefit of the doubt that you were recording
Speaker 1: natively in your mic. It was just a zoom that
Speaker 1: was off. I don't think that highly of zoom. I
Speaker 1: do think that highly of you, and I just I
Speaker 1: won't make that mistake again. Lesson, learn, don't give me
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt. It's it. Mistakes are made,
Speaker 1: but it uh the it wasn't that bad. Hopefully not.
Speaker 1: Hopefully the message spoke through and you can get over
Speaker 1: how terrible I might sound. Christian works magic, though Christian
Speaker 1: dy he works magic. So maybe there are people listening
Speaker 1: to this that didn't even notice. Maybe they didn't could
Speaker 1: be Yeah, here's to you, Christian, the real hero, the
Speaker 1: real hero. Yeah. Bringing in full circle,