Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking no budget Needed with Dana Miranda.
Speaker 2: No budget needed makes me think of like only add water,
Speaker 2: or like no milk necessary, Joel, we're eliminating certain elements.
Speaker 1: Or no shirts, no shoes, no service.
Speaker 2: Like I was almost thinking we should adopt like a
Speaker 2: new sort of honorary name for the podcast just for
Speaker 2: this one episode, right, like instead of how to Money,
Speaker 2: we should call it like how Not to Money? Since
Speaker 2: I think this is going to feel at odds with
Speaker 2: what we typically discuss here on the show, because budgeting
Speaker 2: it's almost synonymous with building wealth, with living the kind
Speaker 2: of life you want. But our guest today is offering
Speaker 2: an alternative to traditional personal finance advice in favor of
Speaker 2: empowering and flexible strategies. We're joined by Dana Miranda, author
Speaker 2: of the new book You Don't Need a Budget, which
Speaker 2: comes out later this month, and Dana is a certified
Speaker 2: educator in personal finance. She is also a contributor to
Speaker 2: the Times, The Penny Hoarder, Motley Full, Just a Ni
Speaker 2: a Few and so Dana, we're really looking forward to
Speaker 2: our conversation with you today. Thank you for coming on
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it too.
Speaker 1: Of course, glad to have you. First question we ask
Speaker 1: everyone is what do they like to euplore? John. It lets
Speaker 1: us know a little bit about kind of what you're into,
Speaker 1: how you spend your money. But of course, at the
Speaker 1: same time you're saving and investing for your future. But
Speaker 1: what are you slurging on in the meantime.
Speaker 3: Dana, I like to spend money on long term travel.
Speaker 3: So I like to travel just take you know, a
Speaker 3: couple of days or a week to go to a place.
Speaker 3: But my favorite thing is to go somewhere for like
Speaker 3: two or three months. And I live in Wisconsin and
Speaker 3: it gets very cold and dark here in the winter.
Speaker 3: So the last few years I've also been become a snowbird,
Speaker 3: so I like to travel somewhere at least a little
Speaker 3: bit warmer and less snowy for a couple of months
Speaker 3: over the winter and stay in an airbnb or some
Speaker 3: kind of short term rental. Very nice and yeah, and
Speaker 3: that ends up being pretty pricey.
Speaker 1: Also known as slow travel, right.
Speaker 2: Sure that sounds, or the slomatic lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I've heard some folks refer to it are you Are
Speaker 1: you going domestic? Are you going overseas?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What's your preference just.
Speaker 3: In the US right now? I'd love to do more
Speaker 3: overseas travel, but haven't haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so you mentioned Wisconsin. We were kind of
Speaker 2: chatting about this before we hit record data. But like,
Speaker 2: it's a wholesome state, it's salt of the earth people,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a good group of folks out there.
Speaker 1: I guess, what did you learn about money being out
Speaker 1: there in the Midwest.
Speaker 3: The base of my relationship with money, and from what
Speaker 3: I see in the culture around me in the Midwest
Speaker 3: is very focused on work. We learned work ethic, which
Speaker 3: what I didn't know at the time is called the
Speaker 3: Protestant work ethic, which is really just it's basically your
Speaker 3: duty to work, to work hard, to work diligently, and
Speaker 3: that's how you earn money. I grew up in a
Speaker 3: working class town, so we were not talking about investment
Speaker 3: strategies and how to make our money work for us
Speaker 3: and turn our money into more money. You just had
Speaker 3: You needed money to live, and you needed to work
Speaker 3: to earn money, and so that was kind of where
Speaker 3: where your worth lies, and all of the kind of
Speaker 3: lessons that I learned about money came from that. So
Speaker 3: if I was working hard and earning money, then I
Speaker 3: was allowed to spend money where it was basically the
Speaker 3: extent of the rules that I learned, and just stay
Speaker 3: away from debt because you need to earn your money
Speaker 3: rather than borrow it.
Speaker 1: So in some ways those sound like reasonable things to
Speaker 1: learn and kind of sort of true, right, Like the
Speaker 1: more you work, the more money you end up having.
Speaker 1: If you work. Matt and I had recently talked about
Speaker 1: this on a Friday flight. There was a study that
Speaker 1: said that, and I just think this makes sense, right
Speaker 1: that if you work more hours than your peers, you're
Speaker 1: going to have more money. You're going to be investing
Speaker 1: in your human capital. But that's also not the end
Speaker 1: of the story. Did you feel like that you kind
Speaker 1: of got short change in your financial education because it
Speaker 1: was too focused on the power of work.
Speaker 3: It's really incomplete and not completely accurate either, because work,
Speaker 3: and especially you know, high paying work and work that
Speaker 3: you can do for a long time or work as
Speaker 3: many hours as you want, is not accessible to a
Speaker 3: lot of people. So some people might have to stay
Speaker 3: home to take care of children or family. Some people
Speaker 3: have disabilities that restrict how much they can work, health issues,
Speaker 3: chronic health issues. Some people live in areas where there
Speaker 3: just are not a lot of work opportunities. And our
Speaker 3: culture of work and money, when it stops and only
Speaker 3: measures your worth based on how much you work and
Speaker 3: how much money you can earn from working, we really
Speaker 3: cut out a lot of those people in those circumstances
Speaker 3: and devalue them quite a bit. And then when we
Speaker 3: give financial advice based on that basic premise of spend
Speaker 3: less than you earn, we're also cutting those people out,
Speaker 3: because if you're not able to earn enough to pay
Speaker 3: for your life, then we really don't have any advice
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 2: Well, as we're talking about work, I guess maybe let's
Speaker 2: spend a second and talk about your career. Because you
Speaker 2: started working for a personal finance media startup, and during
Speaker 2: that time you were making more money. It sounded like
Speaker 2: you were enjoying your job. But I guess share a
Speaker 2: little bit about that experience as you've I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe you found yourself in a season of life where
Speaker 2: it seemed like it was working out for you.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. Yeah, Before I started working in personal
Speaker 3: finance media. I was a freelancer for about four or
Speaker 3: five years, a freelance writer, and I was making hardly
Speaker 3: any money. I was just scraping by. I just couldn't
Speaker 3: figure out how to really break into that career. It
Speaker 3: was also I started in twenty ten, so we were
Speaker 3: still kind of making our way out of the recession.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that because I had started broke to
Speaker 3: begin with, so I didn't didn't realize how bad the
Speaker 3: job market was because I was just getting started. But
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, I got a full time job working
Speaker 3: for this digital media startup that ran a personal finance site,
Speaker 3: and I was finally making a full time salary with
Speaker 3: benefits and saving for retirement and everything that comes with
Speaker 3: a good full time job, and at the same time
Speaker 3: getting this masterclass in managing money because I was writing
Speaker 3: about it for the site. I thought going into it
Speaker 3: that it was going to be really boring. I hadn't
Speaker 3: had any interest in personal finance before that, but I
Speaker 3: liked the idea of the job and the people that
Speaker 3: I would be working with and being a full time writer,
Speaker 3: so I gave it a chance. But I really fell
Speaker 3: in love with it. I really loved what I was
Speaker 3: learning about personal finance and the ability to break down
Speaker 3: really complex topics and make them kind of more accessible
Speaker 3: for people financially. I was learning a lot, but I
Speaker 3: don't feel like I went through the same kind of
Speaker 3: journey that a lot of people do when they first
Speaker 3: get into personal finance, which is everything that I'm learning
Speaker 3: is helping me to pay down debt and make more
Speaker 3: money and get my finances in order. What I really
Speaker 3: benefited from was just making more money, having a much
Speaker 3: more stable income, and access to resources that could help
Speaker 3: me kind of get everything else in order.
Speaker 1: So you're writing about these topics and yeah, you're making
Speaker 1: more money from doing it, but you didn't feel like
Speaker 1: you were able to or you're actually implementing some of
Speaker 1: the things that you're writing about and kind of focused on.
Speaker 3: I wasn't a lot of it. Even though it was
Speaker 3: fun to write about and to explain a lot of it,
Speaker 3: didn't feel like it applied to me all that much.
Speaker 3: We were sharing a lot of really nitty gritty at
Speaker 3: the time. It wasn't a ton of investment advice. Like
Speaker 3: I said, We were kind of at the tail end
Speaker 3: of the recession, so it was more about helping people
Speaker 3: kind of make ends meet and stretch the money that
Speaker 3: they did have, things like even just credit card points,
Speaker 3: or when to use a credit card when it makes
Speaker 3: sense to, you know, have a credit card that has
Speaker 3: an annual fee, like all of these kinds of things.
Speaker 3: It was really interesting for me to learn that stuff.
Speaker 3: But I was in a position where I had a
Speaker 3: terrible credit score because I had had years of debt
Speaker 3: and very little money to be able to dig myself
Speaker 3: out of it, and so I couldn't even qualify for
Speaker 3: a credit card. So I was like starting way back
Speaker 3: behind the starting line of what we were advising for people.
Speaker 3: And this was supposed to be kind of the accessible
Speaker 3: version of personal finance that was like kind of the
Speaker 3: common folk personal finance that was a response to the
Speaker 3: kind of like Moley Fool or even like CNBC where
Speaker 3: they were mostly talking about investment and things that seemed
Speaker 3: inaccessible to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Is that one of the problems in the personal finance space.
Speaker 1: I think, I think you're pointing out something that is
Speaker 1: real here. I think Matt and I maybe like to
Speaker 1: think that at times times, the education we're giving on
Speaker 1: how to money is a one on one, but it's
Speaker 1: probably not. It's probably a two to oh one or
Speaker 1: a twoho two class or something like that. And then
Speaker 1: there are things that are three to oh one or
Speaker 1: even more advanced. But is it just that we don't
Speaker 1: have enough people speaking to the most important things that
Speaker 1: like almost to speaking to people who feel like they're
Speaker 1: starting behind the starting line.
Speaker 3: We definitely don't have enough of that, and I think
Speaker 3: sometimes when we do highlight voices that are speaking to
Speaker 3: those people, we're still not talking to people who themselves
Speaker 3: are in that position where we're often kind of theorizing.
Speaker 3: You know, we attempted to do We've attempted to do
Speaker 3: that in various personal finance sites that I've worked for.
Speaker 3: Is this idea of taking diversity of you know, diverse
Speaker 3: communities and diversity of experience into consideration, but not taking
Speaker 3: that too where you'd think would be the natural conclusion,
Speaker 3: which is to speak to people or higher writers to
Speaker 3: be able to speak to the actual experience of growing
Speaker 3: up in poverty or being exiled from your community because
Speaker 3: you're an LGBT person whose parents are no longer going
Speaker 3: to support you in adulthood. Experiences like that, we would
Speaker 3: sort of pay lip service to it, but don't hear
Speaker 3: enough from those people to hear what is actually practical
Speaker 3: advice that can help you based on your real circumstances.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: So you're talking aboutloved experience, and I will say that
Speaker 2: my lived experience was that budgeting helped me tremendously.
Speaker 1: Dana, let's talk. I kind of want to get to
Speaker 1: the mission I guess of your book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you say that you and a liberate folks
Speaker 2: from what you call budget culture, and so first of all,
Speaker 2: can you define that like what actually like what do
Speaker 2: you define as budget culture?
Speaker 3: Budget culture is what I call the dominant way that
Speaker 3: we think, teach, and talk about money in our culture.
Speaker 3: It's really similar to what I see in diet culture,
Speaker 3: which people are a lot of times a lot more
Speaker 3: familiar with, in that it kind of defaults to restriction
Speaker 3: and shame, and we focus on individual responsibility rather than
Speaker 3: accounting for the ways that the systems that we're part
Speaker 3: of impact our financial circumstances.
Speaker 1: I think you're right that shame has a big role
Speaker 1: in personal finance. So much of the time it has
Speaker 1: traditionally and some of the loudest voices often heap the
Speaker 1: most shame on people who have made mistakes, and so
Speaker 1: they ask for advice and then they're berated for having
Speaker 1: done the things they did when they didn't know any better.
Speaker 1: You're thinking of a certain guy from Tennessee that let's
Speaker 1: do this. I'm not trying to call, so I'm not
Speaker 1: pointing figures here in particular.
Speaker 2: I'm I think it also happens to be the physically
Speaker 2: loudest voice in the room.
Speaker 1: Sure, but I think there are other people this is
Speaker 1: this is a constant problem. I think in the personal
Speaker 1: finance space that shame is a cudgel that's used against
Speaker 1: people often when they don't have the resources, or the
Speaker 1: tools or the no house. I think you're pointing out
Speaker 1: something important there. Does it have to be the case? Though?
Speaker 1: Can there be a healthy approach to budget culture that
Speaker 1: doesn't involve those things where we kind of don't through
Speaker 1: out the baby with the bathwater.
Speaker 3: I think that any way of managing money that works
Speaker 3: for you, Like you said that, you feel like your
Speaker 3: journey involved budgeting and that was really important for you.
Speaker 3: I would never tell somebody, First of all, I would
Speaker 3: never say, well, actually that probably didn't help you, Like
Speaker 3: you know, your experience. And I would also never say, like,
Speaker 3: if you're doing it and it feels good for you,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't push you away from keeping a budget. I
Speaker 3: definitely wrote the book for people who are constantly being
Speaker 3: told you need a budget and that it has to
Speaker 3: be where you start your money management, and it's just
Speaker 3: not making sense for them. We need that variety of
Speaker 3: voices and people need to hear it's okay if the
Speaker 3: majority of the advice that you're hearing doesn't work for you.
Speaker 3: There are other ways to do this, and you can
Speaker 3: listen to what makes sense for you. So I know
Speaker 3: a lot of people who read the book will probably
Speaker 3: still come out of it following a lot of really
Speaker 3: traditional financial advice because it's hard to go against the
Speaker 3: grain with the systems that we're part of. But it's
Speaker 3: important to have that voice in the room that says,
Speaker 3: when something doesn't make sense to you, it's okay to
Speaker 3: try something else.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, maybe there's an alternative path. And I mean
Speaker 1: this is I don't have to keep trying to jam
Speaker 1: a square peg in a round hole.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the reasons we were
Speaker 2: most excited to have you on too, because so I
Speaker 2: tend like I'm like that personality type that I literally
Speaker 2: still budget Dana, and I do zero some budgeting, Like
Speaker 2: literally I'm accounting for every single penny and I know
Speaker 2: where every cent is spent. But I'm also maybe a
Speaker 2: little what do you call that, adh not adhd ocd
Speaker 2: that's the actress looking for Whereas with.
Speaker 1: You, though you're you're a little more like shooting from
Speaker 1: the hit. I'm more free spirited, and I also have
Speaker 1: been pretty frugal over time, so I kind of generally
Speaker 1: know where I'm at most of the time. But I
Speaker 1: don't pinch pennies, and I don't micromanage where the money goes,
Speaker 1: and I don't say, oh, my grocery spending was twenty
Speaker 1: bucks over this month. Guess I got to get that
Speaker 1: in line. I just I don't think about money in
Speaker 1: that way, and as long as I am doing the
Speaker 1: you know, paying myself first and moving in the right
Speaker 1: direction when it comes to building networth, I'm just not
Speaker 1: stressing about the details.
Speaker 2: But for you in particular, like you are great at
Speaker 2: like ballparking figures like that is a gift, and I've
Speaker 2: seen you do this, whether it's estimating, I don't even
Speaker 2: know what, but like you are the.
Speaker 1: Number of jelly beans in a jar map, Yes.
Speaker 2: Like literally, it's everything, like anything from that's like physical
Speaker 2: like that, to just kind of ballparking, like how much
Speaker 2: something should cost? Like you are so dang good at
Speaker 2: ballparking figures, that's.
Speaker 1: Why should go on the price is right, Oh, that's why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you grow up watching right with your grandma. Right, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of folks who don't have
Speaker 2: that skill or that gift whatever it is that you
Speaker 2: want to call it. And so Dana, like, how would
Speaker 2: you recommend for folks to improve their finances without the framework,
Speaker 2: without the structure that a budget allows you.
Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned the paying yourself first, and I think
Speaker 3: that's a really good approach to kind of manage your
Speaker 3: money in a way that feels safe but also kind
Speaker 3: of empowering and affirming and non restrictive. So I lay
Speaker 3: out in the book kind of a series of exercises
Speaker 3: that I call a money map that can help you
Speaker 3: basically get the lay of the land of your finances
Speaker 3: and understand what the income you have coming in, the
Speaker 3: resources you have access to, the financial commitments that you
Speaker 3: have to meet every month, and the financial goals that
Speaker 3: you want to work towards. And once you know that,
Speaker 3: you can take that information and see then what is
Speaker 3: essentially left over to spend. If you follow all of
Speaker 3: those kind of steps, if you meet all those commitments,
Speaker 3: and you work toward those goals in a certain way,
Speaker 3: you can see what you have left to spend. I
Speaker 3: call that a yes fund, because when you're wondering whether
Speaker 3: or not you can afford to buy something, I want
Speaker 3: the answer to be yes, and so you can then
Speaker 3: turn to your Yes fund. It's inspired by a bank
Speaker 3: account that I used to have called a safe to
Speaker 3: spend account that no longer exists, unfortunately. But the reason
Speaker 3: that I recommend something like this instead of a budget
Speaker 3: is a budget tends to be a way to plan
Speaker 3: for how you use every dollar a lot of times,
Speaker 3: encourages you to track all of your spending and encourages
Speaker 3: you to set restrictions on how you spend money. And
Speaker 3: so a lot of times the answer is no when
Speaker 3: you're wondering if you can spend, and a money map
Speaker 3: is a way to when you're If you're not good
Speaker 3: at making those ballpark estimations, you can get it all
Speaker 3: sort of laid out and see what your financial circumstances
Speaker 3: are on paper, in the numbers, so that you can
Speaker 3: really understand if you start to move things around, how
Speaker 3: certain financial decisions and how certain spending decisions are going
Speaker 3: to impact other parts of your financial plan. So you
Speaker 3: can see if certain financial moves are going to mean
Speaker 3: you can't pay your rent one month, or if moving
Speaker 3: into a new place that has higher rent, how is
Speaker 3: that going to impact your savings goals or you're spending
Speaker 3: things like that. It just kind of gives you that
Speaker 3: information if you're not able to kind of visualize it yourself.
Speaker 2: Sure, Okay, Yeah, so I like that because what it
Speaker 2: sounds like. It sounds like a creative way to solve
Speaker 2: problems that are being presented by just not having an
Speaker 2: unlimited bank account, right, and so is a part of
Speaker 2: the Yes Fund getting creative and finding ways to fund
Speaker 2: some of the spending that you are looking to prioritize.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the purpose of it is to not have to
Speaker 3: think about what you're spending so much of where your
Speaker 3: money is going, because you will do the pay yourself
Speaker 3: first method by funding your commitments and funding your goals,
Speaker 3: and then the money that you have you can just spend,
Speaker 3: So as long as there's money in your account, you
Speaker 3: can spend that money without having to think about how
Speaker 3: it's impacting your goals and financial commitments. And for me,
Speaker 3: it's just a way of getting money off your mind,
Speaker 3: which is kind of what I'm always looking for, is
Speaker 3: to not have to think about money all the time.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a lot of people I think who
Speaker 3: really like budgeting or spend tracking maybe enjoy that more
Speaker 3: or feel a little more kind of orderly or in
Speaker 3: control doing that. I just prefer to not think about
Speaker 3: whether or not I can spend money, and so I
Speaker 3: like to set up my finances in a way that
Speaker 3: I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's so fascinating because, like so the reason I budget,
Speaker 2: and this is one of the ways that I think
Speaker 2: I was able to actually vocalize it when my wife
Speaker 2: and I when we're dating or engage at the time,
Speaker 2: but that we were able to get on the same
Speaker 2: page was that I was able to realize that by budgeting,
Speaker 2: that was a way for us to not have to
Speaker 2: think about it because we've sort of siloed it, right,
Speaker 2: like we've quarantined it, and it was in this part
Speaker 2: of our brain where we would intentionally proactively talk about it,
Speaker 2: but then after that we didn't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2: And so I guess we're arriving at the the same
Speaker 2: solution in two very different ways.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I could. I guess I could see
Speaker 1: how your approach there also does.
Speaker 2: That by kind of being like, all right, I can
Speaker 2: do whatever I want with this money because this is
Speaker 2: the yes fund, this is the safe to spend money.
Speaker 2: I don't like there's no second guessing after. In your case,
Speaker 2: I guess you're talking about setting that money aside to
Speaker 2: build wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I love that too, that you said you
Speaker 3: sort of siloed it. You created a space to make
Speaker 3: financial decisions, and then you could just go about your
Speaker 3: life and not have to constantly be making financial decisions,
Speaker 3: because when you are doing that, you realize that every
Speaker 3: single thing you do throughout the day it has something
Speaker 3: to do with money. Whether you're making decisions about how
Speaker 3: you work, or you're spending money, or even just making
Speaker 3: decisions about how to spend your free time or even
Speaker 3: just having free time, there's always this thing in the
Speaker 3: back of your mind that's like, I could be more
Speaker 3: productive right now, you're never not thinking about money. So
Speaker 3: anything that works for you and your family to set
Speaker 3: that burden aside, I'm all for ye.
Speaker 1: You're in that you have that some of that free
Speaker 1: time and you say maybe I should go do this thing.
Speaker 1: Oh wait that costs money. Should I spend money? Or
Speaker 1: should do something you know that less expensive with my
Speaker 1: free time? Like going? I like those are the kinds
Speaker 1: of I think decisions. We're like, I don't know that
Speaker 1: confront us all the time as just humans living this life.
Speaker 1: Or We've got more that we want to get to
Speaker 1: with you, Dana and including we want to talk about
Speaker 1: budgeting non budgeting tips that you have in the money space.
Speaker 1: We'll get to some more discussion with data writing for this.
Speaker 1: All right, we are back.
Speaker 2: From the break talking with Dana Miranda and why no
Speaker 2: budget is necessary. And Dana, let's talk about a few
Speaker 2: lines of attack some of the different chapters in your
Speaker 2: book that would be considered I would say heresy most
Speaker 2: of the personal finance, Well, you write that you don't
Speaker 2: have to earn your living?
Speaker 1: Can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 3: So is going off of what I was talking about
Speaker 3: earlier with work ethic when you really break it down,
Speaker 3: when you break down the idea that when we talk
Speaker 3: about earning a living, it is suggesting that you have
Speaker 3: to do something to be worthy of having a life,
Speaker 3: of having shelter and food and comfort and healthcare and
Speaker 3: the things that keep you alive. It's kind of an
Speaker 3: absurd concept if you really think about it, and it's
Speaker 3: the way that our economic system is set up under capitalism,
Speaker 3: that resources exist separate from us, and we have to
Speaker 3: do something to be able to purchase those resources and
Speaker 3: have access to them. So the idea that you have
Speaker 3: to earn a living, I really want to push back
Speaker 3: against and break that down again because that's not accessible
Speaker 3: to a lot of people. And we have to separate
Speaker 3: our personal worth and the way that we value other
Speaker 3: people from the work that they do, especially the work
Speaker 3: that they do to earn money, so that we're not
Speaker 3: devaluing people who are unable to work or choose not
Speaker 3: to work outside of the home for any reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I totally get what you're pointing out here.
Speaker 1: It also just I'm thinking for some reason about hunter
Speaker 1: gatherer societies or early agricultural societies and how just to
Speaker 1: stay alive life was work in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: So do you think I guess in my mind, work
Speaker 1: and human existence are inextricably tied together. Do you think
Speaker 1: that that shouldn't be the case in modern society.
Speaker 3: There's definitely a difference between the work that it takes
Speaker 3: to kind of live a life and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: keep yourself fed or safe for whatever. When you're talking
Speaker 3: hunter gatherer societies and working to earn money. So when
Speaker 3: you're working a job to earn money to buy those things,
Speaker 3: you're essentially having to prove to probably a corporation or
Speaker 3: some kind of company that is holding all the wealth.
Speaker 3: You're having to give them some of your time and
Speaker 3: skills and energy in order to get just a little
Speaker 3: bit of that wealth in order to be able to
Speaker 3: buy the things that those companies are selling. And so
Speaker 3: it becomes this kind of weird cycle of just needing
Speaker 3: to work for a living. So I think the you know,
Speaker 3: the idea of the Protestant work ethic that I mentioned
Speaker 3: is newly named thing, but it's kind of an ancient
Speaker 3: idea and it probably makes more sense when you're in
Speaker 3: a society where people are just taking care of their
Speaker 3: families and communities and themselves day to day and that's
Speaker 3: the work you're doing. Certainly as a human or any animal.
Speaker 3: You can't just get through life literally not doing anything,
Speaker 3: you know, getting up and moving. But most of us
Speaker 3: wouldn't want to either. But the difference comes when there's
Speaker 3: that line of like you have to work to earn
Speaker 3: money to buy that life, and that that option is
Speaker 3: restricted from a lot of people in various ways.
Speaker 2: Well, I like that you said that it's not that
Speaker 2: we should not have to do anything, because I think
Speaker 2: somewhere some of your booky you wrote that money should
Speaker 2: be easy and even you know, kind of going back
Speaker 2: to whether it's we're talking about work ethic or even
Speaker 2: when it comes to budgeting, And I mean, I think
Speaker 2: it's great to look at some of the different If
Speaker 2: you have a current model that's laid out before you
Speaker 2: and it's not working, certainly consider something different. But like,
Speaker 2: if I think to anything in my life that I
Speaker 2: was proud of, it oftentimes took a whole lot of work.
Speaker 2: Even as a kid, I can think back to like
Speaker 2: coming across some cheat codes on this video game and
Speaker 2: you'd enter in the cheat codes and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you got I don't know ninety nine lives or.
Speaker 1: Something like that. There was no like satisfaction there's and
Speaker 1: I don't know if beating the game isn't nearly as fulfilling.
Speaker 2: As opposed to like having slogged through with your friends
Speaker 2: over the course of weeks and months. I guess what
Speaker 2: are your thoughts there, just as far as the and
Speaker 2: maybe this is a part of that Protestant work ethic,
Speaker 2: but like I would say, an inherent goodness that comes
Speaker 2: from the sort of struggle where we are required to
Speaker 2: sweat and you know, sacrifice as well, Like that's a
Speaker 2: massive part of being able to achieve different goals, and
Speaker 2: there isn't the same kind of satisfaction in my view
Speaker 2: when you bypass that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think you have to think about what the
Speaker 3: purpose is. You know. The video game example is a
Speaker 3: really good example of kind of how we approach money
Speaker 3: in our culture too, because when you use cheat codes
Speaker 3: and you just basically skip ahead, you're considering the purpose
Speaker 3: to be beating the game or beating what's the thing
Speaker 3: at the end.
Speaker 1: Called the ultimate boss, beating.
Speaker 3: The boss at the end. But that's not really the
Speaker 3: purpose of playing video games. The purpose is to you know,
Speaker 3: have fun with your friends, or spend the time strategizing
Speaker 3: or discovering things in the world of the video game.
Speaker 3: If everyone can just jump to the end, then there's
Speaker 3: really no reason to have the game. There are other
Speaker 3: ways to do that. So I think a lot of
Speaker 3: times we approach money in that same way of like,
Speaker 3: all we want to do is a mass wealth and
Speaker 3: a mass the most wealth and hold on to it
Speaker 3: as much as we can. But that's really skipping to
Speaker 3: the end. The point of having money is to be
Speaker 3: able to live the lives that we want, and if
Speaker 3: we're not doing that, then we're really missing out.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're poking a finger in the eye
Speaker 1: of the Fire movement there a little bit, which, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm with you on, like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there is that sort of element let me
Speaker 1: gather as much under my wings as I can, and
Speaker 1: often without the thought process for what a life well
Speaker 1: lived looks like. And not that every one of the
Speaker 1: Fire movements like that, not at all. We've had a
Speaker 1: lot of friends who ascribe to that, and there's some
Speaker 1: wisdom I'm gleaned from that movement. But I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, Like, what's it all for is an important
Speaker 1: question to ask along the way.
Speaker 3: There's a ton of variety in the Fire movement, and
Speaker 3: I think the conversations there are really interesting. It certainly
Speaker 3: started with that idea of just make as much money
Speaker 3: as possible with as many sacrifices as you can handle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then sort of branched off where a lot of
Speaker 3: people I think, started to see this idea of financial
Speaker 3: independence sounds really great, so that they don't have to
Speaker 3: work for a living, which is a great concept. But
Speaker 3: then they thought, but I don't want it to be
Speaker 3: at the expense of my life for five or ten years.
Speaker 3: I don't want that to be the only thing I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about. And so then we have Slow Fire and
Speaker 3: other movements that have come along to kind of expand
Speaker 3: that idea, and I think it's bringing up really interesting
Speaker 3: things in the way that we relate to money and work.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think, yeah, the healthiest part of the
Speaker 1: Fire movement has brought up in the past five years,
Speaker 1: and it's been around those kinds of conversations and it's
Speaker 1: created different paths towards financial independence and a little less
Speaker 1: of an adversarial relationship to work. I think maybe that
Speaker 1: was at the beginning that was kind of the moniker,
Speaker 1: but that's changed. I want to ask you about debt.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of things that you write about
Speaker 1: that I think also would be kind of if it
Speaker 1: was a personal finance textbook, they'd be like, sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't know if we can include that. Right. You talk
Speaker 1: about leveraging debt to improve your financial situation, but can't
Speaker 1: take me on more debt create more money problems for
Speaker 1: people down the road. How do you think about the
Speaker 1: role of debt in people's lives.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah. I talk about debt products as a resource
Speaker 3: that's available to you right in line. Like when I
Speaker 3: talk about making a money map. There's a column for
Speaker 3: your income, there's a column for your assets, column for
Speaker 3: community resources you have access to, and there's a column
Speaker 3: for debt resources, so credit and loans that you could
Speaker 3: tap into. And I think it's really important to see
Speaker 3: debt that way, because if we just approach debt with fear,
Speaker 3: we could be restricting a lot of times the resources
Speaker 3: that we have access to, especially if we're not able
Speaker 3: to or for some reason don't want to expand what
Speaker 3: we can earn in income using debt. It can help
Speaker 3: you live the life that you want to live, or
Speaker 3: access things that you need that you might not otherwise
Speaker 3: be able to. And we know that we talk about
Speaker 3: it with businesses a lot leveraging debt. Almost every business
Speaker 3: is based on some kind of debt that they're leveraging
Speaker 3: and they're just kind of managing it. Business businesses as
Speaker 3: an entity or business owners don't tend to have this
Speaker 3: idea of needing to get out of debt as quickly
Speaker 3: as possible. It's just kind of one of the resources
Speaker 3: available to them. And we don't extend that same grace
Speaker 3: a lot of times to individuals, especially working class or
Speaker 3: middle class individuals, but we do tend to extend it
Speaker 3: to like really wealthy individuals a lot of times. But
Speaker 3: we could kind of use it in the same way.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: That's actually I think that's an interesting point that you
Speaker 2: bring up the fact that, I mean everything that you
Speaker 2: just said, the differences between an institution or a business
Speaker 2: and their ability to take on debt, and it just
Speaker 2: hanging out as opposed to how it is that we
Speaker 2: as individuals approach our debt typically. Is it because our
Speaker 2: finances are simpler? I'm curious if you have a theory
Speaker 2: as to why it's more acceptable for businesses as opposed
Speaker 2: to individuals.
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of a broad systemic thing. So
Speaker 3: when we look at sort of the way that our
Speaker 3: financial systems and our sort of society and culture in
Speaker 3: general are organized, it's really to favor people who are
Speaker 3: already wealthy, individuals who are already wealthy, and to favor
Speaker 3: businesses amassing more wealth, and so we give them the
Speaker 3: tools to do that. And all of our financial products
Speaker 3: and services are crafted through legislation that we create and regulation,
Speaker 3: and so those entities are able to appeal to the
Speaker 3: people creating those regulations that can kind of shape and
Speaker 3: craft those products, and individuals don't have that same kind
Speaker 3: of leverage a lot of times to influence that regulation
Speaker 3: and legislation. And there's also in that sort of system
Speaker 3: where we want to just where wealth is kind of
Speaker 3: a mass in a very small sort of portion of
Speaker 3: our culture, it doesn't benefit that system to have a
Speaker 3: lot of individuals be able to tap into a lot
Speaker 3: of resources, because that kind of has to go one
Speaker 3: direction in order for those financial institutions to make money
Speaker 3: off of us borrowing from them. If we were able
Speaker 3: to borrow just as easily. The system wouldn't work in
Speaker 3: the same way. So I think it's kind of a
Speaker 3: broad sort of critique of our financial systems and of
Speaker 3: capitalism that is a little bit beyond kind of what
Speaker 3: I get into as a personal finance educator. But when
Speaker 3: you're thinking about why do we have that distinction, I
Speaker 3: think it's important to kind of ask those systemic questions.
Speaker 1: Another thing you say at one point in the book,
Speaker 1: you say, you don't have to pay all your bills,
Speaker 1: and that would be like a personal finance one on
Speaker 1: one course. It would be like, pay your bills on
Speaker 1: time every single month would be the advice given. Why
Speaker 1: why do you maybe think that's not quite on point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And my editor really pushed me because I originally
Speaker 3: said you don't have to pay your bills, and she said,
Speaker 3: maybe just you don't have to pay all of your bills.
Speaker 3: She's oftened it a little, which is probably a good idea.
Speaker 3: The idea is less that you can just let your
Speaker 3: bills pile up and become overdue, and more of looking
Speaker 3: at your kind of living expenses, which we often think
Speaker 3: about as fixed expenses, looking at them as more changeable
Speaker 3: and considering them as financial commitments that you've made, So
Speaker 3: you have to actively make a commitment, which means you
Speaker 3: can also choose actively to uncommit from something. So I
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier, you know, thinking about how the amount of
Speaker 3: money you're putting toward housing in rent or mortgage or
Speaker 3: something impacts the other things that you're doing in life.
Speaker 3: So if you're living somewhere and regularly paying really high rent,
Speaker 3: that is impacting your ability to save for something in
Speaker 3: the future, or it's impacting your ability to spend day
Speaker 3: to day in the way that you want to. You
Speaker 3: don't have to feel like you're just stuck with that expense.
Speaker 3: You can get creative. And I share a story in
Speaker 3: the book about a couple who was living in LA
Speaker 3: with really high rent and they wanted to make a
Speaker 3: change in the way that they were working. So their
Speaker 3: income was going to be cut way down, and in
Speaker 3: order to accommodate that, they ended the lease early on
Speaker 3: their LA apartment and they bought an airstream and moved
Speaker 3: into that and now are years later, are still living
Speaker 3: in an RV and traveling around the country, so they
Speaker 3: have much lower cost of living to be able to
Speaker 3: accommodate that. So that's a big, extreme kind of lifestyle change.
Speaker 3: But I want to encourage people to look at financial
Speaker 3: commitments and think about what kinds of commitments can you
Speaker 3: cut if you need to, and also sometimes what can
Speaker 3: go overdo? What can be left to sit or pile
Speaker 3: up or whatever, and what are the consequences if you
Speaker 3: let that happen, and can you live with those consequences?
Speaker 1: Like some bills are more important than others, the mortgage
Speaker 1: more important than the credit card payment. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and as you are explaining to this, Dana, what
Speaker 2: I'm hearing you say too is that, like we have
Speaker 2: more agency and control over our finances as individuals than
Speaker 2: maybe your chapter headings would make you think that you believe,
Speaker 2: which is honestly refreshing, right, Like the ability for us
Speaker 2: as individuals to choose, you know what, I.
Speaker 1: Don't giving up the expensive apartment.
Speaker 2: I don't want to live here anymore because this is
Speaker 2: an important to me anymore. Like to me, like, that's
Speaker 2: the empowering message that I can totally get behind. And
Speaker 2: so I guess in a similar vein one of your
Speaker 2: chapter headings talks about not needing investment accounts, is there
Speaker 2: like a silver ligning that's gonna make Joel and Matt
Speaker 2: happy about it, all right, talking about that one.
Speaker 3: Make So the stance that I come into that conversation
Speaker 3: with is that investing is by necessity an ethical dilemma,
Speaker 3: depending on where your values stand. But where my value
Speaker 3: stand is that in order to make money from investments,
Speaker 3: the underlying companies have to make a profit, and in
Speaker 3: order to make a profit, they need to exploit something
Speaker 3: in the equation. So there are exploiting people for labor,
Speaker 3: they're exploiting environmental resources, they're exploiting consumers with unfair pricing,
Speaker 3: things like that, and that's how we make money from investing.
Speaker 3: And so just sort of that underlying system of extracting
Speaker 3: capital comes with an ethical dilemma. So I kind of
Speaker 3: start there, but then also talk about the reality that
Speaker 3: we don't have a strong social safety net in this
Speaker 3: country that allows you to age and stop working at
Speaker 3: some point very easily if you don't have an investment account.
Speaker 3: So the message in that chapter is investing is unethical
Speaker 3: but maybe inevitable.
Speaker 1: Do you think exploitation has to be part of it,
Speaker 1: or is every business built around exploitation, or could you
Speaker 1: reframe it and say that many businesses are built around service,
Speaker 1: and they have a duty to serve their customers and
Speaker 1: their competition with other people to serve those customers, and
Speaker 1: that they know if they want to stay in business
Speaker 1: and continue to stick around, they have to please the
Speaker 1: people they're trying to reach. Like, do you think there's
Speaker 1: an element of that too, or is exploitation kind of
Speaker 1: the only.
Speaker 3: Thing you see technically under capitalism, Like if you're getting
Speaker 3: into sort of a philosophical place, exploitation is built in
Speaker 3: because that's where profit comes from. If a company is
Speaker 3: making profits, that money is not going to the people
Speaker 3: who created the value necessarily. But that is a technical detail,
Speaker 3: and I don't think you need to make financial decisions
Speaker 3: based on that. I do talk in the book about
Speaker 3: considering investing in local businesses or building your own business,
Speaker 3: And there's a lot less of what we think of
Speaker 3: as exploitation in the way that those businesses tend to
Speaker 3: run because the people who are running them are stakeholders
Speaker 3: in their community. They have a much closer relationship with
Speaker 3: the workers that are adding value to the business, They
Speaker 3: have a much closer relationship with the consumers and the
Speaker 3: community that's being affected by it, and so the decisions
Speaker 3: that are being made there are going to be a
Speaker 3: lot more ethical and you can get a lot closer
Speaker 3: or to something that kind of makes sense. The problem
Speaker 3: with the way that our systems are set up is
Speaker 3: that it's pretty tough to make a retirement plan that's
Speaker 3: just based around investing in those kinds of businesses because
Speaker 3: you know, we have tax advantages.
Speaker 1: All businesses aren't taking investors most of the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a lot of or building your own business
Speaker 3: can be really tough and you end up putting a
Speaker 3: lot of money into it and like I said, taking
Speaker 3: on a lot of debt rather than just accumulating money
Speaker 3: like you could in an investment account. And we also
Speaker 3: have again regulation and legislation set up to steer people
Speaker 3: toward retirement accounts and investment accounts.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we can agree though that the more
Speaker 2: local you get, not to say that there isn't fraud
Speaker 2: that takes place on a local level, but just waste, right,
Speaker 2: Like the higher up you go and the more global
Speaker 2: you know, like not just national but even global, but
Speaker 2: something gets like there is a lot more room for
Speaker 2: there to be practices that are tough to.
Speaker 1: Tough to get behind. Regig just greater levels of bureaucracy
Speaker 1: and overhead and a distance from the customers. Yeah as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that's certainly a massive argument for
Speaker 2: things more at a local level. But Dandy, you've shared
Speaker 2: some critiques with the I don't know more of the
Speaker 2: traditional approach to personal finances, but we'll get to some
Speaker 2: of the different alternatives that you mentioned in your book
Speaker 2: as well'll get to that more right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We're still talking with Dana or Randa.
Speaker 1: Her new book is you Don't Need a Budget, and
Speaker 1: that I think it, Matt, When you first read the
Speaker 1: headline or where you first read the title of that book,
Speaker 1: you cried, a single tier. A single tier went down
Speaker 1: your face because you love budget so much. Me, I
Speaker 1: was like, I kind of agree with her, but I
Speaker 1: think I think it's situationally dependent at least. And data
Speaker 1: one of the things you talk about in your book.
Speaker 1: You say that the head, the heart, and health should
Speaker 1: be motivating factors for how we make financial decisions. Do
Speaker 1: you think that traditional personal finance advice minimizes those elemental
Speaker 1: parts of who we are?
Speaker 3: Very much? I do. Traditional financial advice I think focuses
Speaker 3: very much on the head, which is your sort of
Speaker 3: more financial goals, the numbers, the spreadsheets, the way that
Speaker 3: you're thinking and making decisions. It's very much focused on
Speaker 3: just that part and minimizes a lot of times heart
Speaker 3: and health and heart is what I think of as
Speaker 3: like your passions and your values and sort of the
Speaker 3: core of who you are and your health is your
Speaker 3: best interest living life in a way that supports your
Speaker 3: physical and mental and social health. And we've sort of
Speaker 3: moved in recent years, maybe in the last five or
Speaker 3: ten years, to focusing a little more on financial wellness
Speaker 3: and thinking about how our financial decisions have that impact
Speaker 3: on the heart. We think about choosing work that we're
Speaker 3: passionate about. We think about how we can use money
Speaker 3: to support joy and peace and ease in our day
Speaker 3: to day lives, and not just towards amassing the right
Speaker 3: amount of wealth in the right amount of time or
Speaker 3: something that's very head focused. But I still see that
Speaker 3: we don't think much about our health, our physical and
Speaker 3: mental health and well being in the way that we
Speaker 3: teach personal finance. That kind of is still left out
Speaker 3: of the conversation.
Speaker 1: It's almost like someone needs to start a healthy, rich
Speaker 1: substock or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, someone needs to get that conversation going.
Speaker 1: Someone needs to jump on that ur L. That's the
Speaker 1: name of Data's site. You know what.
Speaker 2: Like, what keeps standing out to me, I guess is
Speaker 2: the fact that a lot of what you're saying we
Speaker 2: actually do agree with, as far as maybe the mechanics
Speaker 2: right or in this case, the way you're framing it
Speaker 2: here the head, like how the numbers work, this is
Speaker 2: how interest works. This will you have more money or
Speaker 2: less money at the end of the day if you're
Speaker 2: doing X, y Z. But it's almost as if the
Speaker 2: general mindset, like the overall attitude towards how you're thinking
Speaker 2: about your relationship to money. It's like maybe that's what's changing.
Speaker 2: Do you think that that's an accurate way to maybe
Speaker 2: summarize some of the different approaches to personal finances out there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, all three of those things are important. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that we're currently focused on the head and
Speaker 3: we need to move into you know, heart and health,
Speaker 3: but that you have to consider all three of those
Speaker 3: elements of financial wellness and rather than just focusing on
Speaker 3: the advice that helps you achieve specific financial goals, so
Speaker 3: it's important to see all of those layers in the
Speaker 3: financial decisions that you're making and to understand what you
Speaker 3: need to support all of those elements of your well being.
Speaker 1: Daniel, you've levied some critiques against the system, right, and
Speaker 1: I think we're particularly talking about the American system of
Speaker 1: economics capitalism in particular. I'm curious, though, when you look
Speaker 1: at the numbers. We live in the most prosperous country
Speaker 1: in the history of the world, and there is I
Speaker 1: think a reason that people are lined up to immigrate
Speaker 1: to the United States. Typically that's because they believe it's
Speaker 1: the land of opportunity. They have more ability to move
Speaker 1: up and down the income spectrum. Typically move up the
Speaker 1: income spectrum from wherever they are coming from, they have
Speaker 1: a chance at a better life. I even heard someone
Speaker 1: the other day who's from Canada and they said the
Speaker 1: best move I ever made was coming to the United States.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, that's really interesting because it's
Speaker 1: not like Canada is not a prosperous country. You have
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity there as well. So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I guess when you see that and you see that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who want to come here
Speaker 1: and see this as the land of opportunity. What does
Speaker 1: that say to you? I guess about the system and
Speaker 1: how other people perceive it.
Speaker 3: We have a really effective story in the United States
Speaker 3: about the opportunities that people can have under capitalism, and
Speaker 3: that continues to motivate people to essentially feed that that
Speaker 3: system and do things like support tax cuts for the
Speaker 3: wealthy or something because of promises that are made under
Speaker 3: the system. But more and more, as we move through history,
Speaker 3: more and more the decisions that we're making are making
Speaker 3: that kind of mobility harder. And I don't have I
Speaker 3: don't have the numbers behind this in my head, but
Speaker 3: it is getting harder since you know, about the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: as we really started changing the way that we regulate
Speaker 3: financial products and companies and work. It's getting a lot
Speaker 3: harder to have that kind of class mobility that we
Speaker 3: lionize in the United States, and the gap between classes
Speaker 3: of people is getting bigger and bigger, and so a
Speaker 3: lot of that benefit that is part of the American
Speaker 3: story is going to a very small percentage of people
Speaker 3: in a really kind of profound way, and it's getting
Speaker 3: a lot harder for the rest of us, like the
Speaker 3: vast majority of us to really be able to tap
Speaker 3: into that, and so we're kind of actually stuck without
Speaker 3: a ton of mobility. We're sort of stuck in wherever
Speaker 3: we whatever kind of class we were born into.
Speaker 2: I think when you look at home, affordability, that's something
Speaker 2: that probably I bet a lot of folks look to
Speaker 2: as like, man, my parents and my grandparents, they all
Speaker 2: have the ability to afford I guess at the time
Speaker 2: the housing boom, like they're all the ranges that were
Speaker 2: being built, so like everybody had the ability to buy
Speaker 2: their own home. But still I can still not think
Speaker 2: of a country I'd rather live than myself, even with
Speaker 2: the US and all of its flaws and all the
Speaker 2: flaws that capitalism has, I mean, certainly not perfect, but man,
Speaker 2: it's tough for me to look past like the innovation
Speaker 2: that takes place here in the US, Like even like
Speaker 2: healthcare as busted of a system we have, Like if
Speaker 2: folks are looking for like the very best health care,
Speaker 2: like when it comes to you know, just think about
Speaker 2: vain know the vaccines that we were able to roll
Speaker 2: out and stend out to the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: But even certain things like it makes me think of
Speaker 2: like cancer research and treatments, like people come from all
Speaker 2: over the world because of I certainly don't want to
Speaker 2: make an argument for that. Our healthcare system.
Speaker 1: Is it only costs twice as much as every other
Speaker 1: developed country, and what could be wrong. It is not
Speaker 1: perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we are
Speaker 1: because of the way we're structured. We are incentivizing the
Speaker 1: cures for a lot of these diseases and treatments for
Speaker 1: a lot of these diseases that aren't getting made anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And so in some ways, some of these other countries
Speaker 1: are riding our coatails. And so there's that element too.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what to do to fix a
Speaker 1: busted system, but I feel like, Dana, you pointed out
Speaker 1: some of the flaws incredibly well, and specifically some of
Speaker 1: the flaws out of the ways that we think about
Speaker 1: personal finance. Your perspective is an important one. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Dana for joining us on the show today.
Speaker 1: And where can our listeners find out more about you
Speaker 1: and your new book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me, and I also really appreciate
Speaker 3: you being willing to have the conversation and look at
Speaker 3: that kind of counter countercultural perspective. So you can find
Speaker 3: out all about the book at youdn'tneedabudget dot com and
Speaker 3: you can follow me on substag or to subscribe through
Speaker 3: email to healthy Rich at healthy rich dot co.
Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, we'll make sure to link to all that
Speaker 2: in our show notes as well. Dana, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for speaking with us today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me all right, Matt, that was
Speaker 1: a really interesting conversation with Dana. Miranda and I think
Speaker 1: she comes from a different perspective than you and I
Speaker 1: typically do, but we wanted to hear from her, and
Speaker 1: I learned a lot talking to her, and I really
Speaker 1: loved kind of reading her book and hearing her approach.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what was your big takeaway from this conversation. Well, say,
Speaker 1: I was encouraged.
Speaker 2: I guess Towards the end of the conversation, I realized
Speaker 2: that it seems like we've got more in common than
Speaker 2: maybe the title of her book or the chapter headings
Speaker 2: in her book might make you think. And when she
Speaker 2: was talking about choosing what bills to pay, you can
Speaker 2: have those clickable headlines, Matt and I totally understand that.
Speaker 2: But when she was talking about certain bills being more
Speaker 2: important than others. Like the root of what she was
Speaker 2: talking about and what she said was that, like, you
Speaker 2: have actively committed to taking on this financial obligation, this expense,
Speaker 2: and you can actively uncommit to doing that too. And
Speaker 2: so what is at the core of that is autonomy,
Speaker 2: an agency, and an ability for us as individuals to
Speaker 2: choose how it is that we want to live our life,
Speaker 2: as opposed to being like taking a more passive approach
Speaker 2: or posture towards your our personal finances where we're counting
Speaker 2: on the government to bail us out or to take
Speaker 2: care of this, or for somebody else, or not even
Speaker 2: the government, but even like some nonprofit where we're just
Speaker 2: sitting on the sidelines waiting for them to come along.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's necessary, right, There is not a hard times.
Speaker 1: There is a.
Speaker 2: Place for organizations like that, for churches, for just some
Speaker 2: of the systems that we've even set up through our government.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not I'm not one to say to burn
Speaker 2: it all down in that we need to be completely
Speaker 2: abolishing our garment. I'm not advocating for anarchy. Matt doesn't
Speaker 2: want kids to school lunches. We need we need rules
Speaker 2: for our government with the kids eat, I say, Matt.
Speaker 1: To function, but I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: I wanted to highlight the fact that I was encouraged
Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, we do have
Speaker 2: power to direct our lives, not only by what we
Speaker 2: choose to do, but what it is that we choose
Speaker 2: to spend our money.
Speaker 1: On and what we choose not to spend our money one. So,
Speaker 1: I think my big takeaway was when we were talking
Speaker 1: about debt and she was talking about nuanced in Shades
Speaker 1: of Gray in how we think about debt and which
Speaker 1: debts we choose to pay off and win. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of wisdom in that this is
Speaker 1: something I think maybe she comes at it from a
Speaker 1: slightly different slant than you and I do, but I
Speaker 1: think she's spot on like you and I are.
Speaker 3: Not.
Speaker 1: Debt is bad. Payoff debt as quickly as possible, short
Speaker 1: of people. Some debt can be good debt. Some debt
Speaker 1: can actually fuel your financial journey at times. I think
Speaker 1: if we be really really careful, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of nefarious forms of debt that can derail your
Speaker 1: financial journey, they might get you something that you want
Speaker 1: now that maybe you should have waited for and saved
Speaker 1: up for. But there are other times where taking on
Speaker 1: a measured amount of debt can help you make more progress.
Speaker 1: So just maybe we need a more nuanced discussion about debt.
Speaker 1: That's something we try to do here on the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we always have Yeah when people ask us questions
Speaker 1: about it. Well, yeah, don't take out a personal loan.
Speaker 1: Personal loans suck. Credit card debt sucks. But then there
Speaker 1: are other forms of debt that can be beneficial to
Speaker 1: your ultimate ability to earn more, to buy a house
Speaker 1: that you don't have, you know, cash to pay for
Speaker 1: the full thing for, like a mortgage can make sense, right,
Speaker 1: So just be thoughtful about debt, but maybe don't rule
Speaker 1: debt out of your life altogether. Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is one of those instances where I feel
Speaker 2: like we are in the extreme middle. We're kind of
Speaker 2: like refereeing a fight between Dave Raims and Dana Miranda
Speaker 2: when it comes to different things like this. But yeah,
Speaker 2: in the end, certainly glad that we were able to
Speaker 2: spend a minute and talk with Dana Miranda. Joel, Let's
Speaker 2: get to the beer that you and I enjoyed during
Speaker 2: this episode, which was a silent accord is what this
Speaker 2: was by Six Bridges brewing out of John's Creek. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever had a beer by
Speaker 2: these guys on the show is different Georgia or Atlanta
Speaker 2: suburb And no, I don't think I ever had any
Speaker 2: beer by these guys.
Speaker 1: But I picked this one up, saw it on the shelf,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that looks interesting. And this to me,
Speaker 1: I like the Matt label. Yeah, it makes me want
Speaker 1: to scratch up with my fingernail. This beer reminded me
Speaker 1: of a beer by another local brewery, Creature Comforts. They're
Speaker 1: Cocoa Bunny. Oh, because it's got the coconut and vanilla
Speaker 1: thing going on in This is in a milk stout.
Speaker 1: They do a milk porter, but this is a milk porter. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is good, but Coco Bunny's better think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just got such good roasty like this.
Speaker 2: Is the kind of beer that you can enjoy in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, like after lunch, if you're wanting some of
Speaker 2: those coffee like flavors but you're afraid of like getting
Speaker 2: that ninety milligram hit of caffeine this close to your bedtime.
Speaker 2: That's what's going through my head at least when I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I really shouldn't have any coffee this afternoon because it's
Speaker 2: gonna impact me instead, that's when you reach for a
Speaker 2: delicious stout like this.
Speaker 1: So I need to do more research on this. But
Speaker 1: I've read that coffee impacts people differently based on their genetics,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty I'm pretty sure I'm one of those
Speaker 1: people who coffee doesn't have nearly as much of an
Speaker 1: impact on as others.
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's because you sleep so poorly all the time.
Speaker 2: That could be that, Like your body's just like extra
Speaker 2: hit of caffeine.
Speaker 1: That's nothing, all right, But we got a jet for now.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it. For this episode. We'll put links
Speaker 1: to Dana's book into her substack in the show notes
Speaker 1: up on our website at howtomoney dot com. You know it.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be it, though, So until
Speaker 2: Next time, best Friends Out and best Friends Out