Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and Matt.
Speaker 1: Today we're discussing designing smarter money goals. Angel the a
Speaker 1: student podcast listener, may have noticed that smarter was written
Speaker 1: in all caps on our outline or maybe in their
Speaker 1: podcatcher where we have this episode. But a lot of
Speaker 1: folks have seen smarter maybe within a business context, you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to different business metrics that their employer
Speaker 1: is trying to reach. But I'm not sure a lot
Speaker 1: of folks have thought about smarter goals when it comes
Speaker 1: to their their personal finances, when it comes to our
Speaker 1: own goals when it comes to our money, And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we're gonna talk about this episode, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a method that can help us, I think,
Speaker 1: be more effective in our goal planning. And you know it,
Speaker 1: sometimes in the in the work context, smarter goals or
Speaker 1: smart goals have not been great, I think, and and
Speaker 1: sometimes that's like a communication issue or a bureaucracy issue.
Speaker 1: But I think in our own personal lives, when it's
Speaker 1: like us in our goals, that it can be an
Speaker 1: effective method for actually achieving greater things when it comes
Speaker 1: to our money. So yeah, we'll talk about that on
Speaker 1: this episode, Matt. Before we get to that, though, I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention that I saw this interesting article and
Speaker 1: consumer reports about dash cameras that you put in your car,
Speaker 1: and you can get those for bucks something like that.
Speaker 1: They're not really terribly expensive for a cheap one. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: twenty bucks. I'm not gonna spend twenty bucks get like
Speaker 1: a FO dash game. I don't know if you're gonna
Speaker 1: if you're gonna get him, man, go all in get
Speaker 1: that primo dash cam. Why well, if you're actually gonna
Speaker 1: go through getting one, I mean, what would be more
Speaker 1: frustrating than actually not being able to see what it
Speaker 1: is that you need to see? And you did spend
Speaker 1: some money on the actual item. I'm not saying go
Speaker 1: out and like spend all of your hard savings on,
Speaker 1: you know, a FO one, but maybe not a twenty
Speaker 1: dollar one. Yeah, I probably wouldn't go with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I find on a sale it's a two dollar camera normally,
Speaker 1: but no, it's twenty dollars. I would give you my
Speaker 1: stamp of approval, my two thumbs upright, that was you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not up for spending like massive amounts on something
Speaker 1: that like a dash cam necessarily, but I think like
Speaker 1: even a cheap dash cam can actually give you what
Speaker 1: you're looking for in regards to like, you know what,
Speaker 1: this article was saying that it's helpful for and actually
Speaker 1: for insurance purposes. I guess yeah. And actually it's interesting
Speaker 1: that insurers don't offer their customers free dash camps, because
Speaker 1: I think it helps insurance companies most of all. But
Speaker 1: in this article they referenced a guy who was driving
Speaker 1: got pulled over for talking on the phone. He wasn't
Speaker 1: talking on the phone, and his dash camera could prove
Speaker 1: it because it takes video of outside the car and
Speaker 1: then inside the car at the same time. So three
Speaker 1: six action. Yeah, I bet you can't get that with
Speaker 1: the twenty dollar dash came Maybe maybe that's the eighty
Speaker 1: dollar one, but but yeah, like that's huge for him.
Speaker 1: He just was able to go down to the courthouse
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I've got video and I wasn't on
Speaker 1: my phone, take a look, and they dropped all charges.
Speaker 1: And so that's the kind of thing where like a
Speaker 1: small amount of money could actually prevent um us having
Speaker 1: to come out of pocket for a lot more money
Speaker 1: later on down the road. Yeah, I would definitely install
Speaker 1: one of those if my insure was providing one for free.
Speaker 1: If you're driving all the time, like like your dad,
Speaker 1: he's on the road a lot for work, I think
Speaker 1: it could make a lot of sense for someone like him.
Speaker 1: But man, like these days, seriously, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: biking just as often as I am driving, which actually
Speaker 1: makes me think. Didn't you win a bike cam that
Speaker 1: you're that you like stick on your bike or something
Speaker 1: like that Streets Alive last year. So it's a bike
Speaker 1: festival here in Atlanta. It's like a dash cam pour
Speaker 1: my bike. Yeah, yeah, that way, if there's a motorist
Speaker 1: that cuts you off or you know, God forbid hits
Speaker 1: you something like that, you have proof that they did that.
Speaker 1: But what's the deal. I haven't seen that on your bike,
Speaker 1: and I remember you talking about it, but yeah, give
Speaker 1: me an update on that. No, it was on my
Speaker 1: rad Wagon and then I sold my rad Wagon waiting
Speaker 1: on the next iteration. So yeah, yeah, I never saw
Speaker 1: in action. Yeah, well, dang it, it's pretty slick. You
Speaker 1: should have taken that off and like given it to
Speaker 1: me or held on to it for your next bike.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I won that one. Because that one was
Speaker 1: like a four camera something that really you included it
Speaker 1: on the bike? No, no, no no, no, I kept that. No,
Speaker 1: I up the camera. Oh I thought you said you
Speaker 1: had it on your Okay, I did took it off.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it on the next iteration. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if if you need convincing that a dash cam might
Speaker 1: be appropriate for you, we'll post a link to a
Speaker 1: YouTube video of the craziest like dash cam accidents in
Speaker 1: our show. Notes Man, I think a lot of them
Speaker 1: are like Eastern European videos, but there's some crazy stuff
Speaker 1: that happens over there, and dash cams are documented like
Speaker 1: a lot of weirdness, a lot of hitting runs, a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy like natural disasters, cows flying through the
Speaker 1: air in a tornado like whatever. This isn't Twister from
Speaker 1: the nineties. Yea, all right, maybe I made that one up,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of crazy stuff in those videos. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there would be just as much craziness going
Speaker 1: on if we had those mandatory in the US. I
Speaker 1: think they're actually mandatory in Russia because of all of
Speaker 1: the fraud that goes on when it comes to insurance claims.
Speaker 1: But but certainly, I mean That's the biggest reason for it,
Speaker 1: I think would be if you were involved in an
Speaker 1: accident and you had somebody that was trying to make
Speaker 1: an insurance claim and they're falsifying it, right, well, that's
Speaker 1: gonna come back and hurt you. If you're insured, has
Speaker 1: to pay for that, and so it's great, you know,
Speaker 1: in that case, would be amazing to have some actual
Speaker 1: video footage to back it up, to back up your
Speaker 1: side of the story. That would totally be an instance
Speaker 1: where it would be worth it. Have you ever actually
Speaker 1: been in an accident where there is a disagreement on
Speaker 1: actually what happened between me and the motorists, but not
Speaker 1: between like the police and what actually happened. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I had literally had a dude, I was in the
Speaker 1: far right lane. Guy, I was two lanes over on
Speaker 1: the left, cuts across all lanes to try to take
Speaker 1: a right and yeah, and and then he was like,
Speaker 1: you ran into me. What are you talking about? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't need a dash cam for that, but it
Speaker 1: probably would have helped at least. Yeah, That's what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Man. Uh So, I've never had an instance
Speaker 1: like that myself, but yeah, if you happen to do
Speaker 1: a lot of driving, certainly something to consider. It would
Speaker 1: also be amazing too if insurers took that into account
Speaker 1: and you know, to give you a discount on your insurance,
Speaker 1: you know, because you had that proof. Yeah, like having
Speaker 1: a security system at your home, you typically get a discount.
Speaker 1: Having something like a dash cam on your car makes sense.
Speaker 1: You should get a discount, absolutely, But you should buy
Speaker 1: the ones. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, get get that
Speaker 1: nice one on sale. All right, man, this episode, were
Speaker 1: drinking in Alpha Abstraction Double I p A Volume thirteen
Speaker 1: and this is my Wild Leap brew company out of Lagrange, Georgia.
Speaker 1: We've had a couple of their beers before on the show.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to enjoying this one with you, man,
Speaker 1: and we will share our thoughts on this brew at
Speaker 1: the end of the episode. Sounds good man, All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's get onto the topic at hand. We're talking about
Speaker 1: designing smarter money goals, and Matt, there were just like
Speaker 1: so many ways that we can evaluate ourselves for how
Speaker 1: we're doing in life. Yeah, like how much you can
Speaker 1: afford to spend with a nice dash cam? You Richie
Speaker 1: rich Over there all of a sudden, Man, I'm just
Speaker 1: in a weird mood. I don't know why I'm I'm
Speaker 1: harping all about these dash caams. I'm gonna take your
Speaker 1: credit cards away because you are in an interesting mood today.
Speaker 1: I don't want you spending anything you regret. I have
Speaker 1: wanted a go pro before, Like I've kind of gone
Speaker 1: through these phases where picture having a go pro, like
Speaker 1: especially on vacation, and just how fun that would be,
Speaker 1: you know, like just take in the ocean, coming in
Speaker 1: and out of the water with the kids. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you'd be a better version of yourself with a go pro.
Speaker 1: I just like cameras. You know, I'm a photographer. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's the part of it that I'm drawn to. Like,
Speaker 1: I got cameras here, you know, my house. I got
Speaker 1: cameras on my phone. I when it camera in my car,
Speaker 1: Well get them all, man, have cameras everywhere. But again,
Speaker 1: we digress, We digress, all right, Let's get back to it.
Speaker 1: So often we're measuring ourselves in so many different ways
Speaker 1: in life, and and I think obviously money is just
Speaker 1: one thing that we measure kind of how we're doing
Speaker 1: by And it's certainly not like the most important measurement
Speaker 1: of how we're doing. Typically, there are other categories that
Speaker 1: we place more importance on, right, like wellness or you know,
Speaker 1: our relationship status is and how how those are going,
Speaker 1: and generally are like our overall happiness and well being,
Speaker 1: that's what we're really concerned with. But money is something
Speaker 1: that can be used intentionally to aid us in some
Speaker 1: of these other important categories. But on the opposite side
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, it can kind of turn into an
Speaker 1: idol of sorts, right, I think, and have this opposite effect,
Speaker 1: and it can lead us down kind of a path
Speaker 1: that never satisfies because when is enough enough? Right? And
Speaker 1: that's a thing that any of us who have tried
Speaker 1: to get good with our money have had to combat
Speaker 1: and had to think about as well. Matt I saw
Speaker 1: this article and it talked about how actor and comedian
Speaker 1: Martin Short actually came up with nine categories that he
Speaker 1: evaluates every single years. Yeah, And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I was really impressed, because I think that looking at
Speaker 1: all of those non categories could be really helpful to
Speaker 1: kind of have an overall evaluation for for how I'm
Speaker 1: doing as a person too. And the categories were self,
Speaker 1: immediate family, original family, which meant his friends from growing up,
Speaker 1: his current friends, money, career, which means like doing fulfilling work, creativity, discipline,
Speaker 1: and lifestyle. And I mean I think like sometimes we
Speaker 1: as humans tend to be kind of like ships where
Speaker 1: our rudders turned just slightly, and then you know, just
Speaker 1: a few years down the road, we could be Uh,
Speaker 1: we could be a heck of a lot more off
Speaker 1: course than we thought we would be. We can end
Speaker 1: up in a place that we didn't intend to be.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think we can find ourselves in a
Speaker 1: state of drift and it can have a massive impact
Speaker 1: on our happiness. And the same thing with our money,
Speaker 1: like we can we can find ourselves in a state
Speaker 1: of drift over spending in certain areas, and it's time
Speaker 1: to reevaluate. It's time then to to rethink our money goals,
Speaker 1: designed some smarter ones that that we can actually stick
Speaker 1: to and that we can consistently implement. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: on the the topic of happiness, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people have heard of this twenty twin Princeton study
Speaker 1: where they found that happiness how it doesn't necessarily increase
Speaker 1: a lot once you earn more than seventy five dollars
Speaker 1: a year. Well, guess what, there's this new study that
Speaker 1: that seems to disagree and the points to the fact
Speaker 1: that people with incomes over a hundred thousand are a
Speaker 1: good deal happier than folks who make less. And it
Speaker 1: also shows that the correlation between income and happiness has
Speaker 1: steadily risen over the years. Maybe that's due to inflation,
Speaker 1: who knows about. The methodology was different in these studies,
Speaker 1: and obviously you know that plays a role. But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring this up, though, is it is important
Speaker 1: to see that money and having financial security it does
Speaker 1: play a role in our happiness, even though it isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the end all be all right. I think the
Speaker 1: real problem is when we confuse having lots of money
Speaker 1: with the things or the experiences that the money can
Speaker 1: afford us. Nobody sets out to hoard money, you know,
Speaker 1: like we all laugh at the idea of becoming scroogement
Speaker 1: ducks where swimming and skiing down all of our you know,
Speaker 1: all of our gold. But that can easily become our
Speaker 1: def vults when we don't identify and reevaluate our larger
Speaker 1: money goals. Yeah, man, we actually got an email recently
Speaker 1: from listeners Shay that actually, I think kind of spurred
Speaker 1: on our idea for this episode, and she wrote, I
Speaker 1: had never heard the term financial independence before listening to
Speaker 1: how the money then and the current COVID situation has
Speaker 1: made my husband and I realized it's okay to slow down, reevaluate,
Speaker 1: and think about our true values. She says, hint, we'd
Speaker 1: give away our cars before we gave away our six
Speaker 1: little chickens. And she says, I came up with a
Speaker 1: manter to reflect this newfound wisdom, and I've put it
Speaker 1: on the bottom of my computer. I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: right now and on my two credit cards. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to share it, and I think your listeners might
Speaker 1: benefit from coming up with our own mantra and placing
Speaker 1: it around their house, on their credit cards or even
Speaker 1: on their computer every time I try to shop online
Speaker 1: or might be wasting time instead of working on my
Speaker 1: side gigs. I asked myself this question. Does this support
Speaker 1: my journey to financial independence in a simple, liberated life?
Speaker 1: She says, it does. Wonders seeing that before she goes
Speaker 1: shopping online or before she makes a big purchase, and
Speaker 1: I love that idea. Of as we're making these goals,
Speaker 1: putting those goals front and center, sending them in front
Speaker 1: of us, like on the things that we see the most,
Speaker 1: whether it's your mirror as you're getting ready in the
Speaker 1: morning or on your computer, to remind you of what
Speaker 1: is indeed valuable and meaningful, because like, once you've got
Speaker 1: that goal and you've got that kind of simple mission statement,
Speaker 1: it can really guide you in in the follow through. Yeah, exactly, man,
Speaker 1: I love that she totally has the right mindset here
Speaker 1: for her. It's it's not about amassing huge sums of wealth.
Speaker 1: It's about continually realizing what is actually important. You know,
Speaker 1: in her case, that's a simple and liberated life with
Speaker 1: some chickens. Maybe even she'll get a goat someday, or
Speaker 1: maybe not because that's too complicated. Whatever she wants to do,
Speaker 1: it's up to her. But you know, taking these small
Speaker 1: steps to remind her of that helps to enforce behavior
Speaker 1: that will help her to continue in that direction. Basically
Speaker 1: sort of like you're saying earlier, Joel, SHA's rudder, it
Speaker 1: seems to be working perfectly. You know, it's pointing her
Speaker 1: in the right direction that she knows that she wants
Speaker 1: to go. So that's what this episode is gonna be
Speaker 1: all about. We're gonna talk about re evaluating our current
Speaker 1: money goals so that we can pursue more of what
Speaker 1: actually and really matters in our lives. So we'll get
Speaker 1: into the specifics of what that means for you right
Speaker 1: after the break. All right, we're back from a break
Speaker 1: and we're talking about designing smarter money goals. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get to kind of the smarter system and how to
Speaker 1: come up with your own money goals because they're different
Speaker 1: for all of us. Right, we just talked about listeners.
Speaker 1: SA one of the most important things in her life
Speaker 1: was her six little chickens, and that's so cool. So
Speaker 1: it's probably not like the specific chickens, although maybe I'm
Speaker 1: sure she loves them dearly, but it's probably if you
Speaker 1: dig a little bit deeper, it's what the chickens represent
Speaker 1: in her life, right, which is maybe self sustainability, the
Speaker 1: pace of her life, you know, maybe her connection with
Speaker 1: the earth. I think a lot of times, Uh, these
Speaker 1: different things in our lives represent something deeper than what
Speaker 1: you can actually just you know, see with your eye, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, And we're about to get to kind of
Speaker 1: maybe a system that can help. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that, matt Um, it's so tough to reevaluate goals
Speaker 1: that you haven't even really gun to create, right to
Speaker 1: design smarter goals if you don't have money goals in
Speaker 1: the first place. And so like, the first step that
Speaker 1: I think you and I would would recommend for folks
Speaker 1: is to spend some time in introspection. So much of
Speaker 1: creating money goals comes with knowing yourself better. And say
Speaker 1: obviously knows herself, she knows what's most important to her.
Speaker 1: She'd give away certain high price items before she gave
Speaker 1: away her access to taking care of awesome little chickens
Speaker 1: in her backyard. It's pretty hard to create proper goals
Speaker 1: without really knowing yourself. And you think it might even
Speaker 1: be easier to do this given some of the social
Speaker 1: distancing constraints that have been placed on many of our lives.
Speaker 1: But we're pretty inventive when it comes to ways to
Speaker 1: distract ourselves from doing the things that truly matter. So
Speaker 1: while most of us have a little more time, a
Speaker 1: little more space to actually do some of this introspection
Speaker 1: to figure out what do we want our lives to
Speaker 1: truly look like many of us have avoided it, and
Speaker 1: COVID feels like the perfect excuse to avoid it, even
Speaker 1: though it is actually the perfect excuse to pursue some
Speaker 1: of those things. It's the perfect time to slow down
Speaker 1: and actually look inside yourself a little bit. But instead
Speaker 1: we've we turned to flicks. Yeah, and also we like,
Speaker 1: we don't just turn to entertainment, but we looked at
Speaker 1: to other people. You know, so many of us are
Speaker 1: are used to making decisions based on what we see
Speaker 1: our neighbors, what our friends or coworkers doing and whatever
Speaker 1: it is up they're buying, or maybe like we're even
Speaker 1: following the lead of whatever media companies are feeding to us.
Speaker 1: You know, we're showing a constant stream of goods based
Speaker 1: on digital marketing algorithms. Uh. And unfortunately we haven't taken
Speaker 1: enough time to figure out if this is actually adding
Speaker 1: to our happiness in our our own satisfaction. We went
Speaker 1: pretty in depth on this on an episode way back
Speaker 1: in the day called The Why Behind Our Money? This
Speaker 1: is episode twelve, and figuring out your own personal you
Speaker 1: know why behind your money is so crucial to helping
Speaker 1: you accomplish those goals. Yeah, it's so much harder to
Speaker 1: stick with a goal if there's not like a really
Speaker 1: good solid why that you've thought through behind what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And Matt, it just makes me think of like in
Speaker 1: in school when we would get busy work from a
Speaker 1: teacher and I didn't care about those assignments, and I
Speaker 1: know most of the kids around me knew that it
Speaker 1: was just busy work. Also, busy works the worst, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and like you have to get this done, but
Speaker 1: you don't care at all, You don't put much effort
Speaker 1: into it. And I think that's the way it works
Speaker 1: sometimes when we set goals but we don't have a
Speaker 1: good why behind it, there's just less of an attachment
Speaker 1: and less of an interest in pursuing it. Well, the
Speaker 1: busy work wasn't necessarily helping you get where you needed
Speaker 1: to go. It was just to keep you occupied. And
Speaker 1: I think it's the same thing with with some of
Speaker 1: our goals. If we don't have a strong and healthy
Speaker 1: attachment to those goals that are pushing us in a
Speaker 1: direction that we definitely want to go, that it's easy
Speaker 1: to fall off the wagon for sure. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: on the flip side, the best teachers gave assignments and
Speaker 1: they're able to explain well the why behind the assignment,
Speaker 1: and knowing that why can make all the difference in
Speaker 1: terms of motivation. In a similar way, it right, not
Speaker 1: many of us aspire to have, uh, you know, Warren
Speaker 1: buffet like wealth, and if we're honest about the real
Speaker 1: priorities in our lives, it would actually mean shaking things up,
Speaker 1: maybe living our lives a little differently. Uh and you know,
Speaker 1: spending our money in incredibly different ways. In order to
Speaker 1: figure out your why in your goals, it's vital to
Speaker 1: not be inhibited by what you see around you, you know,
Speaker 1: but by what you're being fed by media or by
Speaker 1: what your friends are doing. Instead, we want you to
Speaker 1: think big about what your life could look like and
Speaker 1: realize that you can make meaningful changes by consistently taking action. Now, yeah, Matt,
Speaker 1: When I initially kind of went through the why behind
Speaker 1: money exercise in my own life, I found it to
Speaker 1: be so helpful. It clarified a lot of things for me,
Speaker 1: and it changed some of the things that I was
Speaker 1: actually pursuing. So let's get specific here, Matt. When I
Speaker 1: was young, first starting out in my career, you consistently
Speaker 1: took some action I well, honestly, the the introspection, the
Speaker 1: thinking about the why behind my money had a massive influence.
Speaker 1: There were things that I thought were out of reach
Speaker 1: for me. But when I did do this exercise and
Speaker 1: I took the time to see that, you know what,
Speaker 1: my money wasn't necessarily aligning with my actions in every way.
Speaker 1: And if I did do a little more of that,
Speaker 1: then I could pursue some of those things that I
Speaker 1: thought I couldn't afford, like traveling to really cool places.
Speaker 1: I had to make some sacrifices to be able to
Speaker 1: go on a cool trip to a place like Shanghai
Speaker 1: or Norway. Those didn't come easily right. Um, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're living in a sub hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollar home with a roommate to help pay most of
Speaker 1: the bills. Was totally worth it. Yeah, man, you do
Speaker 1: some house acking, you can definitely do some international travel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think it would have been easy to see
Speaker 1: what my friends around me were doing and try to
Speaker 1: imitate that, like living in a fancy apartment complex with
Speaker 1: all the great amenities, but without that like intentional look inward,
Speaker 1: writing these things down, doing some real soul searching, I
Speaker 1: would have found myself missing out on some of those
Speaker 1: great opportunities, and I probably would have spent my money
Speaker 1: in a way that that really didn't resonate with what
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to achieve. Yeah, and for you, Joel,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you were able to be a little
Speaker 1: more intentional about that time, right. You're able to think
Speaker 1: through what it was that was making you happy. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily remember a specific time where I sat down,
Speaker 1: but I did know that this is what I wanted
Speaker 1: my life to look like, right, Like, there weren't specific
Speaker 1: things that I knew I wanted to except that I
Speaker 1: did know I didn't want to necessarily have to go
Speaker 1: into a like a traditional nine to five job, and
Speaker 1: I was tempted to, right because health insurance is expensive,
Speaker 1: and especially to when when you're looking at growing a family,
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly something you consider. You get a corporate gig,
Speaker 1: you get a normal quote unquote normal job, and you
Speaker 1: got your benefits covered, you got health insurance. But I
Speaker 1: knew I really didn't want that. That just wasn't It's
Speaker 1: just not a part of I guess who I am.
Speaker 1: I didn't want that. Kate didn't want that for us
Speaker 1: as well. We just love the flexibility that we had
Speaker 1: from working for ourselves. But the problem there was that
Speaker 1: our income was inconsistent, and so for us, one of
Speaker 1: the big steps we took in order to maintain that
Speaker 1: work flexibility and kind of control over our time was
Speaker 1: that we saved up a lot of money and we
Speaker 1: invested that money in real estate. By by having long
Speaker 1: term renalms man, that allowed us to kind of diversify
Speaker 1: our streams of income so that even though we were
Speaker 1: self employed, those ups and downs, you know, throughout the years,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't have an impact as much on us. And
Speaker 1: so in our case, it was something that we identified
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like a specific thing like like you know,
Speaker 1: with you as traveling, you're like, I want to be
Speaker 1: able to travel every single year, going these awesome trips.
Speaker 1: For us, it was kind of like the opposite. I
Speaker 1: was just like, I just want to be able to
Speaker 1: stay home and not go outside. Uh, and before us
Speaker 1: to commute to work. So obviously everyone's motivation is going
Speaker 1: to be different, and even arriving to that motivation can
Speaker 1: look different for different folks as well. You know, so
Speaker 1: if you haven't done that before, right, if you haven't
Speaker 1: taken the time to figure out know what the y
Speaker 1: is behind your money. Seriously, there's no better time than now,
Speaker 1: and so for real, like right now, grab a pin
Speaker 1: and a piece of paper, switch your phone to airplane mode,
Speaker 1: and just take fifteen minutes to think through what you
Speaker 1: want your life to look like. If you are in
Speaker 1: your twenties, think through what it is that you want
Speaker 1: to spend your time on when you're thirty. Maybe if
Speaker 1: you're in your thirties, like, think about what you want
Speaker 1: to be spending your money on by the time you're
Speaker 1: forty years old. Think through what you want your typical
Speaker 1: mornings to look like, what you want your vacations to
Speaker 1: look like. We want to encourage you to think through
Speaker 1: what your ideal life would look like, so you know,
Speaker 1: right now you can go ahead and hit pause on
Speaker 1: this episode. We're serious. We're also going to take a
Speaker 1: break ourselves, but when we come back, we'll outline how
Speaker 1: to make sure you're actually achieving goals to get you
Speaker 1: to that ideal life, and we'll get to that right
Speaker 1: after this break. All right, we're back from the break
Speaker 1: and hopefully back from your break thinking about your fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of introspection exactly, which is I'll really take right now.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you know you might need to meet with
Speaker 1: your partner or significant other or a good friend to
Speaker 1: bounce some of these things off of You're typically not
Speaker 1: gonna get it done in fifteen minutes solo, but maybe
Speaker 1: maybe you did, and at least I think you can
Speaker 1: get somewhere. And hopefully you realize too that the things
Speaker 1: that you wrote down, the things that are the most important,
Speaker 1: many of them don't cost that much money. Some of
Speaker 1: them might be closer to getting a used chicken coop
Speaker 1: on Facebook, getting those six chickens and starting your own
Speaker 1: little urban farm. It doesn't really cost that much money
Speaker 1: in order to make that happen. But Matt, let's keep
Speaker 1: going on from there. Having a Y is like this
Speaker 1: essential motivation that can influence the goals that you end
Speaker 1: up coming up with. It will influence how much you're saving,
Speaker 1: how much you're investing, all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: you can't just stop at the motivations. It's time to
Speaker 1: get practical, and I think that's where the smart or
Speaker 1: smarter approach can be really helpful. And I mentioned at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the episode that the smart goal system.
Speaker 1: We've had it actually in my workplace for a lot
Speaker 1: of years, and I've actually seen it fail in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. In the corporate context, the follow through
Speaker 1: is not often good. The intentionality when it comes to
Speaker 1: coming up with these goals and all that great, and
Speaker 1: I think that's where the disconnect is. But I do
Speaker 1: think that on an individual level, or a familiar level,
Speaker 1: this system can actually work to help us create goals
Speaker 1: that we can follow through with and that are meaningful
Speaker 1: enough that that it's worth pursuing. Yeah, and the goal,
Speaker 1: you know, for taking this smarter approach is to essentially
Speaker 1: link this big y you know, like hopefully you've identified
Speaker 1: it already, but if not, over time you'll kind of
Speaker 1: develop what it is that drives you your motivation, like
Speaker 1: Joel said, But we have to find a way to
Speaker 1: link those bigger goals to our daily actions, to the
Speaker 1: things that we we do every day. On the RAG,
Speaker 1: we're trying to bridge that gap between the theoretical the
Speaker 1: things that we think will make us happy in our minds,
Speaker 1: to the practical the things that we do every single day.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and talk through this man so smarter.
Speaker 1: It's an acronym right, each letter of smarter stays for something,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're gonna talk through. Now, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk through how these different terms apply to us and
Speaker 1: our money. And we're gonna start with S. Let's go
Speaker 1: on H. S is for specific while identifying your why.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked how that can be great motivation.
Speaker 1: It can be pretty vague when it comes to money goals,
Speaker 1: you know. So for example, if you know that you
Speaker 1: want to save a lot more money, well, getting specific
Speaker 1: and then saying that I'm going to save up for
Speaker 1: a down payment on my first house, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot more successful because you're being specific. You're telling
Speaker 1: it to a very clear and identifiable goal. Uh. If
Speaker 1: we just set out to save more money, well you
Speaker 1: can't really put your finger on that, but you can
Speaker 1: put your money on a specific dollar amount, yeah, or
Speaker 1: even just I'm going to save up a down payment
Speaker 1: for a home, and yet there's nothing else going on there.
Speaker 1: I think that specific number creates something tangible. It creates
Speaker 1: a real goal worth achieving, as opposed to yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna funel more towards saving up for the down payment,
Speaker 1: but not getting specific with it. And the next letter
Speaker 1: is M, which stands for measurable and it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: closely related to specific, but oftentimes when it comes to
Speaker 1: our personal finances, there are two factors that we need
Speaker 1: to make sure are measurable, uh, the time and the
Speaker 1: dollar amount. So let's tell about the downpayment again, Matt,
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. That's a great specific goal, but the measurable
Speaker 1: part of that goal is what's the time period I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be able to achieve that in. If it's saving
Speaker 1: up fifty dollars in the savings account in the next
Speaker 1: four years, then it's measurable, like, did I hit my goal?
Speaker 1: Did I get it in the timeframe that I was
Speaker 1: aiming for? And that's where the M and the S
Speaker 1: kind of work together really well. It's a specific number
Speaker 1: in a measurable time frame, which really helps you zero
Speaker 1: in on that goal that you're aiming for. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that data needs to be quantifiable. Uh. So the next
Speaker 1: letter is A. UH. Within the Smarter acronym, A is
Speaker 1: for attainable, right. Uh. We don't want you to necessarily
Speaker 1: shoot for the moon like we want you to stretch yourself,
Speaker 1: but make sure that you're being realistic about what you
Speaker 1: can achieve, as well as the time frame which you
Speaker 1: can do it in, so that you don't immediately give
Speaker 1: up on the goal. You know, a good place to
Speaker 1: start is by looking at what you've been able to
Speaker 1: accomplish in the past and then go from there. So,
Speaker 1: for example, you can look at how much you previously
Speaker 1: saved every single month, and then you can channel yourself
Speaker 1: to maybe save a little bit more. You're basing that
Speaker 1: number on something that you know is certainly doable because
Speaker 1: you have done it before. You're not just shooting from
Speaker 1: the hip saying that like I'm gonna say three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars every single month. You know, like that's not going
Speaker 1: to be very attainable. There's a similar advice to to
Speaker 1: what we say when we're when we're talking about budgeting, right,
Speaker 1: and we talk about starting like before you budget, start
Speaker 1: with tracking your money, because if you're able to set
Speaker 1: a budget based on what you have set previously, you
Speaker 1: are going to be more likely to be successful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me think about our podcast goals and aiming for,
Speaker 1: like Joe Rogan download numbers. That's unattainable, man, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Don't even include that you want something that that is
Speaker 1: actually within your reach. With this within your grasp, So
Speaker 1: don't overshoot, because that's a recipe for ditching your goals
Speaker 1: altogether when they become depression or depression. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: easy to ditch goals because they're unreachable. So it definitely
Speaker 1: has to be something that you can attain, all right.
Speaker 1: The r and the Smarter goal system is for relevant.
Speaker 1: Do you ever go back to it to do list
Speaker 1: and add items that you've already completed? Guilty yet just
Speaker 1: so and cross it off and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it, feel a little sense of accomplishment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it does add that, right, But this point is
Speaker 1: for people like that, people like you, Matt, and make
Speaker 1: sure that your immediate financial goals are moving you towards
Speaker 1: the true bigger goal of the why behind money. This
Speaker 1: goal has to be relevant to what you're actually pursuing.
Speaker 1: So we just gave the example of a down payment
Speaker 1: on a home. Maybe you don't care about homeownership, and
Speaker 1: in fact, you don't need to care about homeownership. We've
Speaker 1: talked about that on the show before. It's not best
Speaker 1: for everybody, although it works great for some people. And
Speaker 1: so this goal not only needs to be specific, measurable,
Speaker 1: and attainable, it needs to be relevant to the things
Speaker 1: that you're actually trying to pursue, what you want to
Speaker 1: become your reality essentially of what the good life looks
Speaker 1: like in the coming years. Yeah, and when it comes
Speaker 1: to some of the smaller goals that you might be
Speaker 1: crossing off your list, that's where in my mind that
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that you're moving towards that
Speaker 1: larger goal. Right. I understand the need for a psychological
Speaker 1: win here and there, but it's really important to make
Speaker 1: sure that the small money wins align with that larger
Speaker 1: money goal. Um. And that's actually where our next point
Speaker 1: kind of plays into that stands for timely. This is
Speaker 1: where we're acknowledging that smaller goals that you can reach
Speaker 1: on a shorter timeline, how they are just really crucial
Speaker 1: for success, you know, just the the bigger goal, the
Speaker 1: longer it's going to take you to actually achieve that goal.
Speaker 1: So we know that it's important to aim for bite
Speaker 1: size goals that will create momentum and keep you on track.
Speaker 1: And so we keep bringing up, you know, this down
Speaker 1: payment example, because a lot of folks have a goal
Speaker 1: of owning a home. Some don't, some do, But in
Speaker 1: full years that might seem really overwhelming, and it might
Speaker 1: be easy for someone to kind of get off track
Speaker 1: of that saving his goal, Like how do you actually
Speaker 1: go about saving that much money up in four years?
Speaker 1: You know? But if you break it down, what you're
Speaker 1: looking at is setting aside, you know, a little more
Speaker 1: than a thousand bucks every single month. It's very clearly defined.
Speaker 1: It's it's set at smaller intervals of time, and it
Speaker 1: will be a lot more difficult for you to get
Speaker 1: off track saving up that fifty grand for that down payment,
Speaker 1: you know, by breaking it up into into monthly bites.
Speaker 1: Until I know, even when it comes to our budgeting,
Speaker 1: if I don't check and update our budget like a
Speaker 1: couple at least a couple of times a month, I
Speaker 1: know what that means is that at the end of
Speaker 1: the month, we're eating literally like beans and rice and leftovers,
Speaker 1: because we'll blow through our grocery budget. We'll blow through
Speaker 1: our entertainment budget. So we're not going to be eating
Speaker 1: nice cuts of meat, We're not going to be going
Speaker 1: out to eat, going out on a nice fancied date.
Speaker 1: The last week, maybe even the last two weeks of
Speaker 1: the month if I haven't done a good job of
Speaker 1: staying on top of that budget. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to advocate for, you know, moving to a
Speaker 1: weekly budget, but I do know that's important for us
Speaker 1: to kind of set these small little milestones throughout the
Speaker 1: month where we were able to update our budget numbers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Rome wasn't built in a day. Uh what
Speaker 1: do they say if you want to eat something like
Speaker 1: like a huge animal, it's one bite at a time,
Speaker 1: Like that's the way you do it, Like an elephant,
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, yeah, an elephant like you, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna eat it in one sitting, like super quickly. Why
Speaker 1: would people want to eat an elephant? Anyway? They're gentle creatures,
Speaker 1: are very sweet. But like that is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that we're getting at here. Is is the timely
Speaker 1: portion of it. You only accomplish these things over a
Speaker 1: period of time going in the same direction. It's like
Speaker 1: that rut or turning just slightly to get you on
Speaker 1: that path to saving a little bit more every month
Speaker 1: to help you reach this goal. But fifty bucks in
Speaker 1: four years seems ridiculous. It seems absurd. Until you break
Speaker 1: it down into those bite sized chunks and then you
Speaker 1: can actually accomplish it. That's the important part of what
Speaker 1: team brings to the table. It actually makes me think
Speaker 1: of you remember the episode when I was talking about
Speaker 1: World Cup tickets because they announced how that how North
Speaker 1: America was going to host World Cup and six I
Speaker 1: think six years from now, hopefully we can watch in
Speaker 1: person soccer matches them by then. I'm sure we will,
Speaker 1: but uh, but yeah, I mean I based the numbers
Speaker 1: on what the tickets in Russia we're going for, and like,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous. I mean, it's thousands of dollars, and if
Speaker 1: we were to take our whole family, it would be
Speaker 1: a lot of stinking money. And in my mind is like, okay,
Speaker 1: there's no way we would ever go to that. But
Speaker 1: based on some calculations, I figured that if I just
Speaker 1: set aside thirty bucks a month, we would be able
Speaker 1: to attend the World Cup no problem, all six of
Speaker 1: our family members, which is crazy. Yeah, to think that
Speaker 1: we would take that many people. It's like that planning ahead, right,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it just takes planning ahead and just and
Speaker 1: bring can get it up into into the small bytes.
Speaker 1: But now it doesn't feel insurmountable, right, not at all,
Speaker 1: whereas it did. You know when you initially got the
Speaker 1: sticker shock of this is how much it would take
Speaker 1: to go to one World Cup match. It's like, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen. But breaking it down makes it
Speaker 1: possible totally. Alright, let's get down to the e R.
Speaker 1: So smart goals are kind of the way it's typically
Speaker 1: talked about, but you can add this e R onto
Speaker 1: the end smarter and and and that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And I think that helps even more because our goals
Speaker 1: need to be continually evaluated and reevaluated. That's the e ER.
Speaker 1: I know, some of the goals that I said back
Speaker 1: in the day just aren't relevant to my life anymore.
Speaker 1: For instance, travel, I'm really glad I've gotten to see
Speaker 1: a lot of the places that I've been, but international
Speaker 1: travel as a family just isn't as important to me.
Speaker 1: And so our goals have changed in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: So it's important to evaluate and then re evaluate those
Speaker 1: goals along the way. Your goals are going to look
Speaker 1: different as you grow and as you change. I would say,
Speaker 1: just like Martin Short, who we mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the episode, he evaluates himself on an annual basis
Speaker 1: according to those kind of nine markers of how he's
Speaker 1: doing it and what his life looks like and and
Speaker 1: if that's what he wants it to look like. So
Speaker 1: maybe revisiting your goals on an annual basis can give
Speaker 1: you that ability to see whether they're still meaningful or
Speaker 1: whether you want to pivot and go in another direction.
Speaker 1: Are you still trying to go to Mexico for an
Speaker 1: all inclusive vacation with your with your partner, that to
Speaker 1: Loom to to Loom, that's like the hotspot or it
Speaker 1: was like last year, a couple of years ago, I'd
Speaker 1: go to Koom, I'd hit that up. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: maybe now you're expecting a baby and you're like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not our goal anymore. No, now we're saving up
Speaker 1: money to do some home renovations to make it feel
Speaker 1: like a better space to bring our baby home to.
Speaker 1: It's important to be intentional, and I think using a
Speaker 1: system kind of like the Smarter Goal system can be helpful.
Speaker 1: But it's also only really helpful if we continue to
Speaker 1: look at those goals that we've set and make some
Speaker 1: changes when they just don't fit into our plan like
Speaker 1: they used to. Yeah, so there we go, Joel, that's
Speaker 1: the smarter system when it comes to our personal finances
Speaker 1: and goal setting. But man, you know what, we're not
Speaker 1: always going to get it right, and so we feel
Speaker 1: it's important to note that, like, we have to be
Speaker 1: able to give ourselves a break, you know, when we fail.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna always get it right the first time.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, don't be afraid to immediately
Speaker 1: hit reset and set another goal straight away. There might
Speaker 1: be an unexpected bill and that could derail your savings
Speaker 1: for the month, but that's okay. You don't have to
Speaker 1: throw in the towel altogether. You know. You just were
Speaker 1: talking about evaluating and re evaluating. Continue to do that regularly, uh,
Speaker 1: and and just stay committed to the larger money goals
Speaker 1: that you have by revisiting the different things that are
Speaker 1: going to be important to you. Yeah. Mat At the
Speaker 1: beginning of the episode, you kind of talked about a
Speaker 1: couple of different studies that talked about the impact of
Speaker 1: money on our happiness and there's not a direct correlation
Speaker 1: after a certain point in time. The idea of just
Speaker 1: building massive amounts of wealth in order to hoard it
Speaker 1: for ourselves. That doesn't appeal to many of us. It
Speaker 1: doesn't appeal to you and I, right, But it is
Speaker 1: important though, to identify what it is that truly will
Speaker 1: make us happy. Right And in many instances, saving well,
Speaker 1: investing well, being more thoughtful with our money does make
Speaker 1: a difference, does make a drastic difference in helping us
Speaker 1: to be able to achieve of things that actually do matter,
Speaker 1: many of which aren't even terribly money dependent, but so
Speaker 1: much if it starts with knowing ourselves and then implementing
Speaker 1: something like the Smarter Goal system. You can obviously choose
Speaker 1: to go a different route when it comes to implementation,
Speaker 1: but I hope that thinking through how we assess and
Speaker 1: then implement money goals for ourselves and how that kind
Speaker 1: of fits into the broader context of our lives was
Speaker 1: helpful for everyone today. Yeah, and Joel on a related note,
Speaker 1: away that you and I that we are able to
Speaker 1: implement uh a goal, albeit a pretty small goal, into
Speaker 1: our lives, and even on the show is craft Beer.
Speaker 1: You know, this is sort of like Shay. This isn't
Speaker 1: a major thing, it doesn't cost a ton of money
Speaker 1: like her chickens. Right. Craft beer doesn't cost a ton
Speaker 1: of money, but it's something that we are able to
Speaker 1: enjoy and it moves the needle a lot for us. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so every episode we have a craft beer man.
Speaker 1: This episode we enjoyed an Alpha Abstraction, volume number thirteen
Speaker 1: by wild Leap. What were your thoughts on this brew? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is another I p A in a long list
Speaker 1: of I p A s by Wild Leap, who's just
Speaker 1: around the corner from Atlanta, and this one packed massive
Speaker 1: melon flavors in the hops. It was super sweet, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of their I p s are actually just
Speaker 1: incredibly sweet and sometimes a little too sweet for my
Speaker 1: my palette. I don't love it when an I p
Speaker 1: A is this sweet, But I like what they're up to.
Speaker 1: I like the direction they're going in. Even though this
Speaker 1: isn't like top ten for me, it's still a really,
Speaker 1: really solid I p A from a great brewery just
Speaker 1: around the corner. Yeah, I'm with you man as far
Speaker 1: as the melon flavors, but I feel like, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it balances really well with the bitterness that accompanies those hops.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like they included the cantelope, but they
Speaker 1: also included like some of the skin as well, and
Speaker 1: you have to also eat that, right, But in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's a nice balance. It's a really juicy beer, and
Speaker 1: we'd recommend for you to swing by that brewery if
Speaker 1: you're heading down the interstate here in Georgia. Maybe you
Speaker 1: might even see Joe and I there. We have yet
Speaker 1: to hit them up, but we will one of these days.
Speaker 1: It's gotta make it happen for sure. All right, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be it for this episode. Our listeners can find
Speaker 1: our show notes up on the website at How's money
Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah, and just a quick reminder, put your
Speaker 1: money where your goals are and then put those goals
Speaker 1: in plain sight, put them on your computer. Whatever it
Speaker 1: takes in order to remind you consistently of the things
Speaker 1: that actually matter and the things that you're trying to pursue,
Speaker 1: and maybe it helps you avoid spending money in an
Speaker 1: errant way. So all right, Matt, that's gonna be it
Speaker 1: until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.