Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking from poverty to prosperity with Amanda
Speaker 1: from She Wolf of Wall Street. That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, without completely giving away her story, Amanda was
Speaker 2: born into, in her words, extreme poverty. And so what
Speaker 2: I mean by that is like, not I had a
Speaker 2: rough month after college, so I slepped in my car,
Speaker 2: but more like begging for food at gas station like poverty.
Speaker 2: Not that she's trying to like win the Poverty Olympics
Speaker 2: or anything like that, anything that anybody should do. But
Speaker 2: now she helps thousands of families create debt payoff strategies,
Speaker 2: she helps them to budget, she helps them to invest,
Speaker 2: and she's better known as She Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker 2: She has a self taught financial educator who's built a
Speaker 2: community of over three hundred thousand folks. Amanda, She's all
Speaker 2: over Instagram helping individuals a chief financial freedom. But how
Speaker 2: did she actually do it? We introduced one extreme and
Speaker 2: then we introduced another extreme, Like what happened between those
Speaker 2: two polar opposites, And so we're excited for her to
Speaker 2: share her story, her different achievements and how she was
Speaker 2: able to cross from one end of the financial spectrum
Speaker 2: to the other. Amanda Wolf, thank you for joining us
Speaker 2: today on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
Speaker 3: be here.
Speaker 1: We're glad to have you, Amanda. First question we ask
Speaker 1: everybody who comes on the show is what do you
Speaker 1: like to splour John, Because Matt and I we spend
Speaker 1: more than some people think is reasonable on craft beer,
Speaker 1: but hey, we like it and it's something we prioritize
Speaker 1: in our budgets, but we're also saving investing for the future.
Speaker 1: So what is that splurge in your life?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 4: So for me, I would say it's definitely travel, but
Speaker 4: I want to take it another layer beyond that, because
Speaker 4: I do think that you can travel on a budget
Speaker 4: if you're real careful. But for me, it's definitely staying
Speaker 4: in nicer hotels, places with really good, comfortable beds, because
Speaker 4: I've realized over the years. You know, like when you're
Speaker 4: in your early twenties it might not matter as much,
Speaker 4: but as you get a little bit older, your sleep
Speaker 4: on a trip can make or break it.
Speaker 3: So just somewhere where I'm like very comfortable in.
Speaker 4: A cozy bed, I would say that's the thing I
Speaker 4: splurge on specifically when I travel nice.
Speaker 1: I went backpacking recently slept on the cold, hard ground.
Speaker 1: It was still a great trip, but you're right, the
Speaker 1: worst part was the sleep sleep.
Speaker 3: Yes, like go camp. If you want to do that,
Speaker 3: you go do you boo. But for me, I want
Speaker 3: a cozy bed and a good time.
Speaker 1: Next time, I want a yurf with like a with
Speaker 1: a nice queen bed or hit.
Speaker 2: While Joel was sleeping on the cold hard earth, actually
Speaker 2: you did have a blow up little mattress. It was
Speaker 2: less cold, less hard. But my wife and I want
Speaker 2: a similar but very different trip where we got to
Speaker 2: sleep in California, king for the first time. Not to brag, Jewel,
Speaker 2: I slept wonderfully.
Speaker 4: It's okay, yeah, yeah, you know, like I could, I
Speaker 4: could do a really long hike, like all day, but
Speaker 4: I don't want to then go end on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, okay a shower Kate and I, yeah,
Speaker 2: we could go hiking with y'all. That's how we like
Speaker 2: to roll as well. And so in the little intro
Speaker 2: I mentioned that just kind of how you're all over
Speaker 2: social media. You've got something like three hundred thousand plus
Speaker 2: followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Do you ever take thirty thousand?
Speaker 2: You know, who knows teaching folks the ins and outs
Speaker 2: about money? And I feel like social media money information
Speaker 2: it can be kind of hit or miss. That being said,
Speaker 2: you auditioned out the good stuff. I'm curious to know
Speaker 2: how that got started. Well, I'm curious too if you
Speaker 2: ever thought that you would be. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you consider yourself an influencer or not, but essentially that's
Speaker 2: what you are, and you are teaching folks, you know,
Speaker 2: how they should be handling their money on Instagram? So
Speaker 2: how did that happen? Did you ever think that you'd
Speaker 2: be able to make a living, or at least part
Speaker 2: of a living by doing this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would say I'm as much of
Speaker 4: an influencer as you guys. Do you guys consider yourselves
Speaker 4: influencers tattoo?
Speaker 2: We're not socials as much.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like podcasters are a different breed, you know,
Speaker 2: like people don't show our faces all that off.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, yeah, so I guess a finfluencer. And no,
Speaker 4: I definitely didn't think I would ever be doing something
Speaker 4: like that. I don't particularly love attention, so I guess
Speaker 4: it feels a little different since you're kind of still behind,
Speaker 4: you know, a computer or a screen a lot of
Speaker 4: the time. But I'm naturally a little bit more of
Speaker 4: an introvert, so having a bunch of strangers know who
Speaker 4: I am it was definitely not something I probably would
Speaker 4: have anticipated. But to answer your other question of how
Speaker 4: I got started, essentially, money has always been a really
Speaker 4: big part of my life, a really big part of
Speaker 4: my story and upbringing, and I, you know, learned a
Speaker 4: lot of this stuff just on my own over the
Speaker 4: years and just kind of assumed that other people had
Speaker 4: learned this stuff from their parents or somewhere else. And
Speaker 4: you know, obviously I didn't get I didn't get that opportunity.
Speaker 4: So I was talking with one of my friends, helping
Speaker 4: her out with some of her money stuff, and she
Speaker 4: was like, you're really good at this. You should teach
Speaker 4: other people how to do it. And I was like,
Speaker 4: you know, I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 3: That would be really cool.
Speaker 4: I even had a little Instagram name picked out, but
Speaker 4: I don't know, I feel like people will make fun
Speaker 4: of me.
Speaker 3: And she was like, who do you think is going
Speaker 3: to make fun of you? And I said, I don't
Speaker 3: know my friends. She was like, she's like, well, then
Speaker 3: you're not. They're not your friends.
Speaker 4: If your friends make fun of you for trying to
Speaker 4: do something, you know, that interest you, or trying to
Speaker 4: teach people something, then they're not your friends. Let's look
Speaker 4: up the handle right now, see if it's available. And
Speaker 4: she took my phone from me, looked it up on Instagram.
Speaker 4: She's like, she will fall Street. Yes, it's available. This
Speaker 4: is a sign you're going to start posting and just
Speaker 4: and just put it out there. So that's kind of
Speaker 4: like how I got started, just over that hump. But
Speaker 4: it was something that was just really interesting to me
Speaker 4: for years and years, something I'd been teaching my you know,
Speaker 4: my friends, colleagues. At my last company, I had built
Speaker 4: a personal finance course and a corporate finance course. Uh
Speaker 4: within my ERG that I led, Like seven hundred people
Speaker 4: took it within the first couple of weeks, I know,
Speaker 4: and I was like, why the heck did I build
Speaker 4: that for everybody else for that company for free? So yeah,
Speaker 4: it was kind of like there had always just been
Speaker 4: this little nagging thing in the back of my mind,
Speaker 4: and then finally it was just my friend helping push
Speaker 4: me over that hump of just insecurity to actually start
Speaker 4: the page.
Speaker 3: But I never thought it would grow to what it
Speaker 3: is today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, best friends can be incredibly motivating, or good friends
Speaker 1: can be Matt and I know this, you know, motivating
Speaker 1: each other to start this podcast. I mean, I'm curious
Speaker 1: you mentioned kind of starting that personal finance class four
Speaker 1: hundreds of your coworkers. Are you still working like because
Speaker 1: you've grown she Wolf of Wall Street to be something
Speaker 1: incredibly large and impactful? Are you? Are you still doing having?
Speaker 1: Do you have a forty hour week job in addition
Speaker 1: to it?
Speaker 3: You know what I actually do?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: I know, I know is probably the.
Speaker 4: Trauma that's making me hold on to it. But I
Speaker 4: like the idea of a consistent paycheck because, as you know,
Speaker 4: the freelancer.
Speaker 3: Life can be really to ultuous.
Speaker 4: So having income be like so up and down month
Speaker 4: to month makes me a little angsty. And you know,
Speaker 4: originally I told myself, Okay, you know, most businesses fail
Speaker 4: within the first you know, the first couple of years,
Speaker 4: So if I can get through that, then you know,
Speaker 4: I'll quit the nine to five. But honestly, I've reached
Speaker 4: I've reached past that point.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: But honestly, at this point, I've found that it's not
Speaker 4: it's not impossible to.
Speaker 3: Manage.
Speaker 4: It hasn't gotten to a point where I feel super
Speaker 4: burned out or anything. I'm just I try to be.
Speaker 3: Really smart with my time. But yeah, I am. I
Speaker 3: am still holding on to the nine to five.
Speaker 2: That's impressive, very impressive. Okay, So you mentioned the trauma
Speaker 2: and you joke about it now, but I mean, we
Speaker 2: would love for you to actually share about that because
Speaker 2: before you became one of the biggest influencers out there
Speaker 2: in existence, you had a pretty hard upbringing. And I've
Speaker 2: heard you say that money was your first memory, and
Speaker 2: not necessarily in a good way. Can you share your
Speaker 2: story with us?
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah.
Speaker 4: So for me, I grew up in poverty, and it's
Speaker 4: not to your point in the beginning. You know, it's
Speaker 4: not like I just didn't get to go to Disneyland.
Speaker 4: It's my parents were both addicted to really hard drugs
Speaker 4: growing up, so I went without a lot of my
Speaker 4: basic necessities, you know, begging for food from grocery stores
Speaker 4: and gas stations for my brother and me, wearing the
Speaker 4: same clothes to school every day, and was just really
Speaker 4: bullied growing up, and whenever I would ask my mom,
Speaker 4: you know, like why can't I get new clothes or
Speaker 4: why can't I have a bed to sleep in things
Speaker 4: like that, she would always just say, because it costs money.
Speaker 3: We don't have money for those things.
Speaker 4: And so like for me, that those are some of
Speaker 4: my like just first memories ever in my life is
Speaker 4: just not having money for things.
Speaker 3: So when I was.
Speaker 4: Really little, I was just like, Okay, I have to
Speaker 4: figure out a way to get money. It seems like
Speaker 4: that seems to be the answer to all of my problems.
Speaker 4: So I thought, Okay, I just need to be really
Speaker 4: smart because smart people have money. So I need to
Speaker 4: do really good in school. If I do really good
Speaker 4: in school, I'll get a good job, and I have
Speaker 4: a good job, then I'll have money for all of
Speaker 4: those things when I'm older. And so you know, that
Speaker 4: was my like five year old, six year old, seven
Speaker 4: year old brain was just reading like every book I
Speaker 4: could get my hands on, trying to be the best
Speaker 4: in school, just doing everything I could to become smarter
Speaker 4: so that I would have a way to get money
Speaker 4: when I'm older. Was always like the goal when I
Speaker 4: was younger, So that those are some of my very
Speaker 4: first memories as it relates to money.
Speaker 1: And then in what you're describing, we're not just talking
Speaker 1: about a lack of money, right, We're also talking a
Speaker 1: lot And this is like crucial in so many ways, Like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you can have a lack of money, but man, if
Speaker 1: you've got this amazing home life where your parents are
Speaker 1: encouraging you, helping with your homework, not struggling with addiction,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to make progress on some of
Speaker 1: those things. So how do you feel, like those the
Speaker 1: other spots in your home life that were difficult, how
Speaker 1: were they impacting your ability to get to the places
Speaker 1: you wanted to go?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I mean I would say it impacted it
Speaker 4: a lot because we moved around a lot, didn't have
Speaker 4: like a stable home, So I switched schools a lot too.
Speaker 4: I went to three schools just for sixth grade alone.
Speaker 4: I think I went to like twelve schools within just
Speaker 4: a few years. So moving around all the time and
Speaker 4: like picking up in the middle of whereever you are
Speaker 4: in a different lesson plan, especially when you're really really young,
Speaker 4: is tough. But I think because I didn't have a
Speaker 4: lot of attention at home. I was pretty disciplined myself.
Speaker 4: So I just got to the point where I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: well I can catch up. I'll get whatever you know book.
Speaker 4: I'll like if I'm changing schools again, I'll go to
Speaker 4: the teacher. I want to learn everything that they learned
Speaker 4: this year already. I'm going to take it home and
Speaker 4: study it as much as I can. So I think
Speaker 4: that that was that was a lot of It was
Speaker 4: a lot of just discipline on my side because I
Speaker 4: knew that the life I was in, I knew that
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be like that when.
Speaker 3: I was older.
Speaker 2: That's incredibly impressive, especially you said sixth grade, and Joel
Speaker 2: and I we both have both of our oldest daughters
Speaker 2: are in sixth grade. So I can only imagine how
Speaker 2: difficult that would be. And I remember my my self
Speaker 2: as a sixth grader and with incredibly hard.
Speaker 1: I was an idiot, like truly, and so yeah, to
Speaker 1: see how you responded to some of that ever admirable
Speaker 1: at that young in age, I don't. Yeah, so its hard.
Speaker 2: Like academically, it sounds like maybe that's how you're able
Speaker 2: to pull it off, But what about like financially, because
Speaker 2: you went to college. So how did that all come together?
Speaker 2: Given that maybe you were driven from an academic standpoint,
Speaker 2: you connected the dots, but then, yeah, tell us the
Speaker 2: rest of your education story.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was the first person in my family to
Speaker 4: go to college, but I knew that I had to
Speaker 4: get there because I knew that I had to get
Speaker 4: out of my situation. So I was good friends with
Speaker 4: a couple of people in high school who were going
Speaker 4: on college visits, and I'd be like, can you ask
Speaker 4: your mom or dad like if I can come with you?
Speaker 4: So I would go on college visits and just tag
Speaker 4: along on their family trips. Wow, with lots of my
Speaker 4: different friends. Most of their parents kind of knew, like
Speaker 4: something's not great with amanda situation, so sure she can
Speaker 4: come along.
Speaker 3: So I kind of just tagged along.
Speaker 4: And I would look at my friends who had who
Speaker 4: seemed like they had a good home life, like maybe
Speaker 4: they had a big house or their parents did you
Speaker 4: know whatever when you're young, whatever you think that like
Speaker 4: having money means. And I would just be like, okay,
Speaker 4: well you know, what are what is.
Speaker 3: Girl A doing? I don't want to save their names,
Speaker 3: like like what is she doing? Oh? Okay?
Speaker 4: So it seems like she's taking ACT prep classes. Well,
Speaker 4: I can't do that, so let me go to the
Speaker 4: library because they're expensive, So let me go to the
Speaker 4: library and see when I need to learn.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's going to go visit college.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, I don't have a ride there, so maybe
Speaker 4: I can tag along.
Speaker 3: So it was me just trying to emulate.
Speaker 4: What other people who had successful families in my mind
Speaker 4: were doing and just kind of trying to follow that route.
Speaker 4: And then you know, taking the ACT, applying to colleges, Like.
Speaker 3: What colleges are you applying to? How do you even
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm just gonna literally do whatever they're doing. Got
Speaker 4: accepted to the University of Illinois, and then that's when
Speaker 4: I went off to college, and I would say that
Speaker 4: my entire world opened up because I got to see
Speaker 4: not just leave the baggage behind from where I came,
Speaker 4: but I just got exposed to a complaint completely different
Speaker 4: network of people. I got to see how other people
Speaker 4: were living, and to just not have the same type
Speaker 4: of stress that I did in my younger years was huge.
Speaker 4: So I would say it was a pretty even though
Speaker 4: I you know, I took out college loans, and I
Speaker 4: had a lot of grants for college. You know, it
Speaker 4: was still to me it was worth the loans. I
Speaker 4: got to really become the person who I am today.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that strikes me about kind
Speaker 1: of how you seem to react to things is that
Speaker 1: your boldness and your persistence and how if there's something
Speaker 1: you're not quite sure like, you find a way to
Speaker 1: figure it out. Which and that's it seems to be
Speaker 1: the case with how you learned about personal finance too,
Speaker 1: which I want to talk about, but I think that's
Speaker 1: like so important. What made you start to ask those questions?
Speaker 1: Were you just like, there's no way I can live
Speaker 1: the life, continue to live the life I've been living.
Speaker 1: I've got to do something different, and the only way
Speaker 1: to get there is through kind of humility and starting
Speaker 1: to ask some of those questions for the things that
Speaker 1: nobody really taught me.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so I was not particularly shy and U to
Speaker 4: you to your point, I knew that the way I
Speaker 4: was living, I did not want to continue to live
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't, I cannot do this.
Speaker 4: I was just around like a lot of really bad people,
Speaker 4: and they would always tell me, uh, you know, you're
Speaker 4: you know, kids who grow up with addicts end up
Speaker 4: becoming addicts. Like, I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy.
Speaker 4: You know, you got to stay away from this stuff.
Speaker 4: And for me, I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 4: touch any of that stuff anyway, But how do I
Speaker 4: get out of this situation? So it was just like education, education,
Speaker 4: How am I going to get educated?
Speaker 3: How am I going to learn? What can I do?
Speaker 3: So it was just like the driving force behind behind everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things you learned about, obviously was
Speaker 2: handling your money well, because after college you got your
Speaker 2: your first job, your first real job, and then you
Speaker 2: went on a mission to learn everything possible about personal finances, yes,
Speaker 2: specifically or filing your taxes in touch.
Speaker 1: Which is an education in and of itself.
Speaker 2: It's always eye opening for everyone out there. But talk
Speaker 2: to us about your early twenties and you know what
Speaker 2: sort of changes did you make as you kind of
Speaker 2: entered into adulthood and were in charge of your own finances? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, realized the system is a lie.
Speaker 4: You don't just graduate college, get a great job, and
Speaker 4: then have money for everything you want in life.
Speaker 3: That is how that works. Yeah, So anybody else about
Speaker 3: to graduate college.
Speaker 4: If you're listening to this, get ready, because that is
Speaker 4: unfortunately not the way the cookie crumbles. So when I
Speaker 4: graduated college, at this point, I'm like, great, got a job.
Speaker 4: This is super exciting. Fast forward like a few months
Speaker 4: later and I'm like, wait a minute, why do I
Speaker 4: still not have any money? What is going on? Like,
Speaker 4: I have these college loans and I'm gonna to start
Speaker 4: paying really soon. I have some credit card debt. I'm
Speaker 4: paying one of these amounts, but there's like several different
Speaker 4: amounts listed on the bill, and I don't really get
Speaker 4: what I'm looking at. You know, why am I still
Speaker 4: living paycheck to paycheck? And to your point, it was, Yeah,
Speaker 4: after my first full year of working, I would say
Speaker 4: that it was a really big reality check because I
Speaker 4: realized that I had made you know, about seventy seven
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, and because I was in a sales role,
Speaker 4: so I got bonuses throughout. So it's one of those
Speaker 4: things where you kind of don't realize how much you're
Speaker 4: making because it's more than just your you know, a
Speaker 4: regular paycheck every two weeks. So I got that plus bonuses,
Speaker 4: and I made seventy seven thousand dollars after my first year,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know until I got my text turn
Speaker 4: and I was like, what the heck is going on?
Speaker 4: This is the most money I've ever been exposed to
Speaker 4: in my entire life. And this was like twenty ten money.
Speaker 4: So yeah, let's go ahead and figure out what that
Speaker 4: number is. But yeah, just for inflation is way more.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, this is the most money I've ever
Speaker 4: been exposed to. Why do I still not have any
Speaker 4: of it? Like my credit card amount still hasn't lowered.
Speaker 4: I still owe tons of money on uh my student loans.
Speaker 4: And that's when I decided, Okay, I've got to learn
Speaker 4: how money works. I apparently don't understand how this stuff works.
Speaker 4: And so I literally I called Chase Bank my credit card.
Speaker 4: I was like, can you explain what is current balance?
Speaker 4: What is statement balance?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What does minimum ount do? What are all these things?
Speaker 4: She explained it to me, and I'm like, Okay, that's
Speaker 4: why I'm paying fees every month because I am not
Speaker 4: paying the statement balance.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 4: Then I was like, what is this four oh one k?
Speaker 4: I'm like putting money into this guy John in my
Speaker 4: training class. When I first got hired was like, make
Speaker 4: sure you put you know, at least five percent into
Speaker 4: your four oh one k or whatever it was. And
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, didn't know.
Speaker 3: What it was.
Speaker 4: So then I literally called Fidelity and I was like,
Speaker 4: can you explain what a four to one k is?
Speaker 3: What is this money I'm putting in? What is this match?
Speaker 4: And I literally just started going down the line. It
Speaker 4: was like I need to figure out this money stuff.
Speaker 4: And it was a matter of me literally just calling
Speaker 4: some of these institutions, googling stuff, watching YouTube videos, reading books,
Speaker 4: all of that, like I just I'm like I need
Speaker 4: to understand this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I love to you. Ever, overcame one hurdle, right,
Speaker 1: which was the education piece. Then you overcame another hurdle,
Speaker 1: which was the income piece. When you realize there's another
Speaker 1: hurdle like lingering there and it trips up so many people, right,
Speaker 1: which is the personal finance education hurdle. Fortunately, we're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more personal finance classes being mandated in high
Speaker 1: schools around the country and more than half of seniors
Speaker 1: are going to get some sort of personal finance class,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. But even that might not be enough,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of self education that's going to
Speaker 1: be necessary to really thrive as an adult. Why do
Speaker 1: you think so many people think that income alone is
Speaker 1: the solution and that they can out earn their spending.
Speaker 1: And what do you see when it comes to the
Speaker 1: she Wolf of Wall Street followers, like, what are their
Speaker 1: biggest hang ups when it comes to personal finance? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think that the biggest misconception of just make more
Speaker 4: money and you'll have money for everything you want is
Speaker 4: that we don't know how much we spend.
Speaker 3: We are terrible guessers.
Speaker 4: And I would say that this extends to yeah, the community, friends,
Speaker 4: like anybody you meet, if you are not actually taking
Speaker 4: a look at how much you're spending. If I say like, hey, Matt,
Speaker 4: how much do you spend on groceries every month?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: You probably know, right because you're in the space, right,
Speaker 4: But if you were to just ask a person on
Speaker 4: the street, they're going to probably just come up with
Speaker 4: a random number. But it's like, that's just one category.
Speaker 4: Let's also talk about the dining out park exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I've found that people are guessing.
Speaker 3: By like half. They'll be like, oh, probably.
Speaker 4: Like you know, three hundred, four hundred dollars a month
Speaker 4: and then we'll add it up and it's like, no,
Speaker 4: it's more like seven to eight hundred, and they're like what, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's all the extra trips after work when you decide
Speaker 4: to go get little treats on your way, and you know,
Speaker 4: all that stuff adds up. So I would say that
Speaker 4: the biggest misconception, you know, the driving factor is not
Speaker 4: knowing how much you're spending on different stuff, because if
Speaker 4: you don't know how much you need for things, it
Speaker 4: doesn't matter how much money you earn, because you're just
Speaker 4: going to keep buying more of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what you're talking about now is like, so
Speaker 2: far your story has kind of documented your amazing rise.
Speaker 2: Thank you post graduating, having that first year of your career,
Speaker 2: which on a though, like paying credit card debt, like
Speaker 2: that makes you an average American, right, like the average
Speaker 2: American that's got like six seven thousand dollars on their
Speaker 2: credit cards. But what we want to talk about next
Speaker 2: is how you're able to just to completely smash some
Speaker 2: of your different financial goals. We'll get all of that
Speaker 2: and more right after this.
Speaker 1: We're back from the break. We're still talking with Amanda Wolf.
Speaker 1: She goes by the moniker she Wolf of Wall Street
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and she is been inspiring and helping hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people in their personal finance journeys after
Speaker 1: making an incredible one of her own. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I've heard you say that the first step to getting
Speaker 1: better with personal finance was facing the facts. And we're
Speaker 1: just talking about the fact that people don't know what
Speaker 1: they actually spend on stuff they're guessing. And there's stats
Speaker 1: about that too, about hey, how much the average American
Speaker 1: what do they think they spend on subscriptions every month?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, probably one hundred and twenty bucks and
Speaker 1: then no, it's north of four hundred bucks for the
Speaker 1: average person. Do you think that people fail to make
Speaker 1: progress because of that one simple thing of not looking
Speaker 1: in and seeing, you know, what the actual data looks like?
Speaker 4: Totally, totally, And I think it's and I know it's
Speaker 4: for a lot of reasons. One is, I think it
Speaker 4: can be really scary. I know that that used to
Speaker 4: be my feeling, especially if you have debt, especially if
Speaker 4: you're like got some thin margins over there and you're
Speaker 4: kind of barely scraping by, it can feel really scary.
Speaker 4: To open your bank account and look through those things.
Speaker 4: It can be almost traumatizing when you realize what you're
Speaker 4: doing to yourself. I actually was just meeting with someone recently.
Speaker 4: She's not on social media, but I was helping her
Speaker 4: out with you know, and I was like, your first
Speaker 4: job is to go and track your spending over the
Speaker 4: last six months. She was like, I couldn't stop crying,
Speaker 4: Like I didn't realize that's how much I was spending,
Speaker 4: Like what a waste of my money. I had no
Speaker 4: idea where it was going at. I'm working so hard
Speaker 4: every day, day in and day out, and I am
Speaker 4: just throwing my money away on stuff I don't even
Speaker 4: care about. And I'm like, right now, use that passion.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and move forward towards, you know, more
Speaker 4: productive things. But I think it can be just completely
Speaker 4: debilitating to your finances if you don't sit down and
Speaker 4: just face the facts.
Speaker 3: Every once in a while, as.
Speaker 2: I hear you talk through some of this, Amanda, I'm
Speaker 2: struck by how much action you take. Basically, like you
Speaker 2: learn about something or you kind of catch catch you
Speaker 2: with of something and you're like wait a minute, and
Speaker 2: then you like go chase that thing down. So whether
Speaker 2: that's like deductions from your paycheck, how much you're paying
Speaker 2: to a credit card company.
Speaker 1: Or researching something and all the tabs you have open doing.
Speaker 2: Prior to recording. Yeah, but I guess I'm curious talk
Speaker 2: about the maybe the like, on one hand, you've got
Speaker 2: goal setting and you've got okay, the perfect plan where
Speaker 2: you have to like lay everything out. But then on
Speaker 2: the other hand, you kind of have like a more
Speaker 2: pragmatic like I'm just going to take the first baby
Speaker 2: step and start moving in a direction that's going to
Speaker 2: get you closer to your goals. And so one end
Speaker 2: is very i don't know, academic and lofty, and on
Speaker 2: the other hand, it's just very gritty and how can
Speaker 2: I slowly improve my life a little bit today? How
Speaker 2: do you marry those two things? And I guess what
Speaker 2: steps would you recommend for somebody to take, Like is
Speaker 2: it to sit down and think through those goals or
Speaker 2: is it to do something maybe a little more practical, like, hey,
Speaker 2: look at all of your expenses from the past six months.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think starting with either one of
Speaker 4: those things is totally fine, And it's more about knowing yourself,
Speaker 4: like which one of those two things feels less scary
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 3: Is it just doing the you know, mind numbing, let
Speaker 3: me add.
Speaker 4: Up what I've spent type of thing, or is it
Speaker 4: doing the heart thing where you sit down and think
Speaker 4: about what you want in your life. Those are both
Speaker 4: two really important things, because if you don't know what
Speaker 4: you want in life, if you don't know what you
Speaker 4: want to spend your money on, it's going to be
Speaker 4: really hard to.
Speaker 3: Stop spending it on whatever you're spending it on now.
Speaker 4: Right So it's so easy to go and just swipe
Speaker 4: your card and do all the fun things. But if
Speaker 4: you're like, oh, wait a minute, I really really wanted
Speaker 4: to go to Barcelona next summer, and I know that
Speaker 4: it's going to cost a lot of money. So once
Speaker 4: that's now in the forefront of your brain or whatever
Speaker 4: your thing is now, all of a sudden, it makes
Speaker 4: it way easier to not spend on other stuff because
Speaker 4: you have a goal that you're striving for. So I
Speaker 4: think both of those things are important. Sit down and
Speaker 4: see what you're spending on, see where you can cut back,
Speaker 4: but also do the heart thing where you figure out
Speaker 4: what you want. So whichever is less scary to you,
Speaker 4: I think would be the perfect place to start.
Speaker 1: This may sounding a weird question, but how do you
Speaker 1: feel about the role of joy in your kind of
Speaker 1: making financial progress? So somebody might say, hey, but Amanda,
Speaker 1: these things I'm spending money on, they bring me a
Speaker 1: lot of joy in my life. And yes, I'm terrified
Speaker 1: about the debt I'm racking up in my lack of
Speaker 1: security when it comes to my financial future. But these
Speaker 1: purchases that are moving the needle on my happiness. How
Speaker 1: would you kind of help people figure that and kind
Speaker 1: of sort through that reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that.
Speaker 4: I mean, especially if you have debt, I would say, well,
Speaker 4: let's take a step back.
Speaker 3: Are you actually happy?
Speaker 4: You're telling me that this debt doesn't make you feel scared,
Speaker 4: It doesn't make you concerned that you're not like have
Speaker 4: somewhere to live one day, or that you're going to
Speaker 4: have to work for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think I think that we tell ourselves that things
Speaker 4: make us happy just because it's easier than facing facing
Speaker 4: reality sometimes and being honest with ourselves.
Speaker 3: But I would argue that all of those.
Speaker 4: Things are probably not actually bringing them joy and go
Speaker 4: without them for one month, two weeks, give it whatever
Speaker 4: you can and just see do you actually miss it
Speaker 4: or not?
Speaker 2: I love it? Okay, So kind of on that note,
Speaker 2: you shared how when you travel now you're making sure
Speaker 2: to prioritize the room with like the nice bed, make
Speaker 2: sure you get a good night's sleep. Like when you
Speaker 2: were attacking some of your different financial goals, like paying
Speaker 2: off those credit cards, maybe your student loans, were you
Speaker 2: allowing yourself some of those splurges within that period of
Speaker 2: time as well, or was it more like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: going to feel the deprivation in order to quickly achieve totally.
Speaker 4: Not like a rice and beans type person over here.
Speaker 4: Ok I think that type of person. I think that
Speaker 4: type of financial advice is like the diet pill of
Speaker 4: money and it's not sustainable. Do I think doing like
Speaker 4: a no spend month, or you know, cutting no eating
Speaker 4: for like two weeks or a month or something like that.
Speaker 3: I think that can.
Speaker 4: Be really helpful for people who are having trouble getting
Speaker 4: out of their own head when it comes to spending.
Speaker 4: I think things like that can be helpful. But if
Speaker 4: you have if you're not going to ever be able
Speaker 4: to like go do anything fun for two years while
Speaker 4: you pay off your debt. I just don't think something
Speaker 4: like that is sustainable, and I think that you'll probably
Speaker 4: end up giving up part way through anyway. Unless you know,
Speaker 4: unless that's that brings you joy and you know that's
Speaker 4: going to be your driving factor to get stuff done,
Speaker 4: then you know, go do it. But I think for
Speaker 4: most of us that's not that's not the case.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I did still travel while I had student loans, and
Speaker 4: I didn't really do it when I had credit card debt,
Speaker 4: but I kind of knocked that out pretty fast when.
Speaker 3: I was younger.
Speaker 4: But I would say when I had student loans, yeah,
Speaker 4: I still traveled, but I didn't go stay in like
Speaker 4: a five star luxury hotel. You know, at that point,
Speaker 4: I'm taking the annoying red eye flight that has two
Speaker 4: layovers to go to Europe because that flight was four
Speaker 4: hundred and eighty dollars or whatever, you know, or using
Speaker 4: credit card points to get the hotel, or you know,
Speaker 4: staying in an upscale, hostile type of situation. So I
Speaker 4: was still traveling, but I wasn't going over the top.
Speaker 4: I wasn't doing Michelin star restaurants and like buying a
Speaker 4: Chanel bag and then you know, staying in a ritz. Carlton,
Speaker 4: I wasn't doing that type of stuff, but that doesn't
Speaker 4: mean I couldn't still go do something.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you took the happy medium approach I loved,
Speaker 1: was just like, yeah, let's get rid of this stat
Speaker 1: It's it's an important thing, but it's not going to
Speaker 1: completely upend my ability to live my life in the
Speaker 1: meantime totally. I want to hear about your kind of
Speaker 1: take on side hustles because when you first got your
Speaker 1: job out of college and you were kind of dead
Speaker 1: set after kind of fillowing your taxes for the first time,
Speaker 1: on getting your personal finances together, how did you think
Speaker 1: about making more money? Because it seems like side hustles
Speaker 1: have been apart of your financial story from the get
Speaker 1: go essentially, and they still are, like you still yeah,
Speaker 1: like she Wild Wall Street is still a side hustle.
Speaker 1: So so I don't know, how do you think about
Speaker 1: side hustles and their ability? Obviously, the steady paycheck is nice,
Speaker 1: but the side hustles are something that you're like, you're
Speaker 1: going back to the well again and again.
Speaker 4: On that, I would say, like, do as I say,
Speaker 4: not as I do, type of thing, But now I
Speaker 4: do think that they have a time and a place
Speaker 4: in everyone's life. But I also can see how people are,
Speaker 4: you know, fighting against the hustle culture that we have
Speaker 4: found ourselves to be in. Because I don't think that
Speaker 4: you should have to hustle to be able to afford
Speaker 4: your groceries by any means, but I do think that
Speaker 4: it can be really helpful to catapult your your wealth.
Speaker 4: So for me, like, if you are young, you don't
Speaker 4: really have a lot of obligations.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I drove for Lyft for a couple of years. That
Speaker 4: to me, like I got made so much money doing that,
Speaker 4: and you can do it on your own schedule, so
Speaker 4: it's not like I had to miss out on doing
Speaker 4: fun things with friends. You know, Sunday morning, I would
Speaker 4: like basically I was just taking people to church or
Speaker 4: brunch and I would go do that for for a
Speaker 4: few hours.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Well, can I tell you one thing real quick, man,
Speaker 1: I drove one ride for Lyft and I made a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks because they had this special sign up bonus
Speaker 1: truly no joke, and it was like for new drivers
Speaker 1: a thousand I swear it was only on their website
Speaker 1: for like two hours.
Speaker 2: But I found it was like a ghost in the
Speaker 2: machine and grabbed that ghost by the throat.
Speaker 1: I gave made a thousand bucks. That was my lyft
Speaker 1: driver career.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Okay, well you win, you get cold
Speaker 4: Star for you That is insane. I did not get
Speaker 4: that bonus. I think mine was one hundred dollars bonus.
Speaker 4: But no, I mean it was so easy. You know,
Speaker 4: I live in Chicago, so Mondays after work, I would
Speaker 4: sometimes go do two rides and it would be on
Speaker 4: a Bears game like day, like a Monday, right and
Speaker 4: I would go and make two hundred dollars sometimes on
Speaker 4: just two rides. It took wow, you know, an hour
Speaker 4: of my time. And doing things like that can be
Speaker 4: to can just completely catapult your So wherever you live,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe you're not living somewhere where there's Bears games,
Speaker 4: but if you have debt, or if you're like I
Speaker 4: just want to get ahead, I don't want to I
Speaker 4: want to be able to go on an awesome vacation
Speaker 4: and I know that my current financial situation isn't going
Speaker 4: to allow. Or I just want to retire early, or
Speaker 4: you know what, I don't need to be sitting on
Speaker 4: my phone or watching TV. I'm just going to go
Speaker 4: make a little extra money. I don't think there's a
Speaker 4: problem with that. I do think there's a time and
Speaker 4: a place. I don't think you should have to do
Speaker 4: it forever, though, I totally agree.
Speaker 2: And what you said earlier too about folks really like
Speaker 2: cutting back to the bone. That might be a small
Speaker 2: point where we disagree, because I feel like in small doses,
Speaker 2: like where you know that there's a finish line that
Speaker 2: the ability for that to, like you said, not only
Speaker 2: catapul your income, but if you are able to kind
Speaker 2: of catapult your wealth by having cut back on some expenses.
Speaker 2: I think for some people. I think some people out
Speaker 2: there might like really thrive off of that self flagellation.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I'm going to feel it about their own
Speaker 1: drill instructor. Yeah, yeah, I'm with Amanda. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could do that a lot very long. Oh.
Speaker 2: I don't think I could either, But if there was
Speaker 2: like a finish line, like if I knew that, like okay,
Speaker 2: once I eliminate the credit card debt or once you
Speaker 2: fill in the blank. But I guess the problem there, though,
Speaker 2: is that you have the temptation to always move the
Speaker 2: goal posts. And so I'm curious for you, Amanda, like,
Speaker 2: how does your upbringing impact your relationship with money now?
Speaker 2: Because you are certainly not in the same position where
Speaker 2: you were five, ten, fifteen years ago, But do you
Speaker 2: find yourself continually moving those goal posts where you say, Wow,
Speaker 2: if I actually like zoom out and look at who
Speaker 2: Amanda is now, you would not have believed yourself prior
Speaker 2: to having lived it that this is maybe the position
Speaker 2: you would find yourself in. But we can so easily
Speaker 2: find ourselves just kind of continuing on in that sort
Speaker 2: of rat race. Yeah, can you speak to that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: So I think I've pinched myself probably every day because
Speaker 4: I have been at both extremes, Like I've been at
Speaker 4: the point where I was I like to call it
Speaker 4: mathematical gymnastics, where I was like doing mathematical gymnastics trying
Speaker 4: to figure out like, Okay, I know I get paid
Speaker 4: on this day, and my cell phone bill is due,
Speaker 4: you know, on the fifteenth, but I have until the
Speaker 4: twentieth before they'll actually shut it off, and then my
Speaker 4: rent will be due on the first. But I know
Speaker 4: I'm until the fifth to pay it before, like I'll
Speaker 4: get in trouble for that, you know, So like I've
Speaker 4: lived that.
Speaker 3: Life that sounds anxiety and yeah, and then I've also
Speaker 3: lived a life where I'm like, oh my gosh, now.
Speaker 4: I have more money than I've ever had and now
Speaker 4: I feel now this almost feels uncomfortable, Like we all
Speaker 4: have problems. Some problems are better than others, right, good
Speaker 4: problem to have, but it like that used to make
Speaker 4: me really anxious too, like WHOA, what do I even
Speaker 4: do with all of that?
Speaker 3: Do I?
Speaker 4: Like, I know I should just be investing large chunks
Speaker 4: as I have it, but like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 4: feels really scary. So yeah, it's weird being on both
Speaker 4: sides because then I kind of went through a cash
Speaker 4: hoarding phase as well, where I was holding onto like
Speaker 4: way more cash than I needed. And it's a balance
Speaker 4: to get away from like what you're used to you
Speaker 4: because especially for me, because you know, I have the
Speaker 4: full time job and then once she Wolf of Wall
Speaker 4: Street started growing, and there would be you know, I
Speaker 4: have a course that I sell, and you know there's
Speaker 4: brand partnerships, which I don't do a lot of them,
Speaker 4: but you know, every once in a while and it's like,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you're just making more money than
Speaker 4: you ever thought you could make.
Speaker 3: It can feel scary.
Speaker 4: Which might sound counterintuitive if you're listening to this, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: having more money is scary. No, having more money is
Speaker 4: definitely better, but it feels scary sometimes when it just
Speaker 4: kind of hits you all at once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that, ok Okay. So the question that
Speaker 1: the perpetual question that gets asked in personal finance is
Speaker 1: the relationship between money and happiness, And you're highlighting something
Speaker 1: that actually, sometimes the more money you get, it's not
Speaker 1: that it isn't a better problem, but it is some
Speaker 1: form of a problem at least. How do you think
Speaker 1: about the relationship between money and happiness as someone who
Speaker 1: grew up having basically no more money, zero financial security.
Speaker 1: Now you're doing quite well, You've built up a lot
Speaker 1: of financial security. What does that look like because you've
Speaker 1: run the gamut, you've been across both sides of that spectrum.
Speaker 1: What does what does that relationship look like? In your mind?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will say having more money is definitely happier
Speaker 4: than not having money.
Speaker 3: Having more money, yeah, because.
Speaker 1: What about limiting returns? Though on happiness of more money.
Speaker 3: Having more money allows you to.
Speaker 4: Pay to go do things that you wouldn't normally be
Speaker 4: able to do right, Like maybe if you hate cooking,
Speaker 4: you can hire like a personal chef, or you can
Speaker 4: hire pre made meals if you're not going that big right,
Speaker 4: or if you hate cleaning, you can hire a cleaner
Speaker 4: to come and clean your house every month or week
Speaker 4: or whatever. Having money allows you to outsource things that
Speaker 4: you don't enjoy doing. It allows you to travel nicer,
Speaker 4: It allows you to give money to.
Speaker 3: Causes that are important to you.
Speaker 4: The only time that I don't think it's worth it
Speaker 4: is if you have to crush other people to get there.
Speaker 4: So I don't want to, like, you know, if I have,
Speaker 4: you know, people who are doing work for me, I'm
Speaker 4: not going to like pay them the absolute cheapest rate
Speaker 4: that I possibly can. I'm going to pay them what
Speaker 4: I think is fair. So me like trying to keep
Speaker 4: as many pennies to my name as possible isn't like
Speaker 4: the name of the game, but it's being able to
Speaker 4: like use them and use that money in ways that
Speaker 4: make me feel good. And I would say I've not
Speaker 4: reached a limit like where I'm like, Oh, I'm good forever.
Speaker 4: I don't need any more money. Ever, I do think
Speaker 4: that money can make you immensely happier, you know, beyond
Speaker 4: if we're ignoring the whole Like, of course, your health
Speaker 4: is very important, your mental health, all of those types
Speaker 4: of things are more important than I would say wealth.
Speaker 4: But wealth also allows you to have better health and
Speaker 4: better mental health. It allows you to go to the
Speaker 4: best doctors. It allows you to have a great mattress
Speaker 4: to sleep in, It allows you to buy new shoes
Speaker 4: and see therapists and do different types of things.
Speaker 3: Right, money fuels all of that.
Speaker 1: This is where I have to drop in this episode
Speaker 1: brought to you by Casper.
Speaker 3: That is the mattress I have actually oh to.
Speaker 2: What's I don't know, Purple or some of those other guys.
Speaker 2: But and like, as I hear you kind of recount
Speaker 2: your your financial journey, like you obviously had help from
Speaker 2: other folks, but a lot of the changes you made
Speaker 2: were just overwhelmingly DIIY. So a little question here, like
Speaker 2: do you think that most folks out there can just
Speaker 2: whip their finances into shape on their own without expert help?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: I think it depends on your own personality and just
Speaker 4: kind of knowing yourself. If you are disciplined and are
Speaker 4: able to like sift through all the stuff that's out
Speaker 4: there and get through all the lingo, then yeah. But
Speaker 4: I also I don't think it's bad to hire a
Speaker 4: professional as long as you are going to have a
Speaker 4: seat at the table as well. We've heard of stories
Speaker 4: like Rihanna who almost went bankrupt to having a bad
Speaker 4: financial advisor.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You hear about it with celebrities all the time.
Speaker 4: They're hiring the best of the best, and I've seen
Speaker 4: bad situations across even like students you know, in my community.
Speaker 4: But I think it's okay to have a professional, but
Speaker 4: you need to at least have a base level understanding
Speaker 4: of your money, and I do think that most people
Speaker 4: most people can get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: where if you fully rely on somebody else, you are
Speaker 1: liable to get taken. You have to have enough in
Speaker 1: education to ask at least the right questions if you're
Speaker 1: going to hire somebody to help you out. I think
Speaker 1: that's important advice. But we've got a few more questions
Speaker 1: we're going to get to with you, Amanda and including
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about budgeting. But I love what
Speaker 1: you do on your Instagram and for people who like
Speaker 1: to kind of voyeuristically peque into other people's budgets, Amanda
Speaker 1: does that quite well. We'll talk about that with Amanda
Speaker 1: right after this, we are.
Speaker 2: Back for the break talking with Amanda the she Wolf
Speaker 2: of Wall Street and that's Wolf with an E. By
Speaker 2: the way, that's how is that how your the handle
Speaker 2: was available?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Also that's just how you saw my last exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Joel mentioned Joel mentioned budgeting, and truly some
Speaker 2: of the favorite videos that you create are just kind
Speaker 2: of when you kind of come through the budgets of
Speaker 2: folks who follow you. You kind of mentioned earlier somebody
Speaker 2: who you had had assigned. Hey, let's come back and
Speaker 2: next time we talk, let's figure out what it is
Speaker 2: that you're spending your money on. I'm curious in your experience, like,
Speaker 2: what are some of the most common issues that you
Speaker 2: see with the with the average budget, with the average
Speaker 2: individual that comes to you for financial help.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would say that it's a few things.
Speaker 4: One like, just at face value, that people tend to
Speaker 4: spend way too much of their take home income on
Speaker 4: things like cars and houses. Like sometimes people are just
Speaker 4: buying way too much house, more than they can afford,
Speaker 4: and then it's eating up, you know, forty five percent
Speaker 4: of their take home income. And then they also have
Speaker 4: a car, and then they also have daycare, and then
Speaker 4: they don't know why they have no money.
Speaker 1: Amazing. We've made coffee out to be the culprit when
Speaker 1: the car typically is the one.
Speaker 4: The car, the cars, I'm like, where are you guys
Speaker 4: getting these cars?
Speaker 3: Yeah? The cars are.
Speaker 4: Just some of the most mind blowing ones for me.
Speaker 4: You know, people will spend eight hundred dollars a month
Speaker 4: on a car, and I'm like, you need to get
Speaker 4: a camera and my friends and then we can talk,
Speaker 4: you know. And if cars are your thing, that's fine,
Speaker 4: but you can't. It's just like not everything can be
Speaker 4: your thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's a very expensive what we would call
Speaker 2: craft beer equivalent. But like, hey, if you if you
Speaker 2: at are a certain point in your life, if you've
Speaker 2: got enough socked away in investments, if you make enough
Speaker 2: every single month and you're just your cash flow is
Speaker 2: just through the roof, so be it totally. You go
Speaker 2: ahead and get you that you new Rivan Joel or
Speaker 2: if I'll throw me under the bus. But man, no,
Speaker 2: we're totally with you. Yes, some of those bigger budget
Speaker 2: line items can completely demolish those budgets.
Speaker 1: You mentioned cars in houses. What else do you see
Speaker 1: when you're looking over those budgets.
Speaker 4: Well, I think I think it's because sometimes I'll end
Speaker 4: up going back and forth the email or chatting with
Speaker 4: people before I actually post it to try to understand
Speaker 4: how they got to that point, whether it's they have
Speaker 4: debt where they just literally have no money left over.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the other most common reasons
Speaker 4: why people get to a point where things are not
Speaker 4: going as well as they want is just due to
Speaker 4: lifestyle inflation and just being you know, getting caught up
Speaker 4: in what their you know, what their neighbors are doing
Speaker 4: and buying. And I think that as we earn more money,
Speaker 4: it's okay to spend more money, but don't spend all
Speaker 4: of the more money. Right, So, if you get a
Speaker 4: ten percent raise this year, don't increase your expenses by
Speaker 4: ten percent. We let's you know, increase them by three
Speaker 4: percent or even five percent. But the more we spend
Speaker 4: over the years, the more we're going to need in
Speaker 4: retirement later, and the more we're going to need in
Speaker 4: our savings to cover for some of those things, and
Speaker 4: so all of that adds up. So I'm totally like,
Speaker 4: if you get a raise, great, what is a nice
Speaker 4: little treat you've been wanting for yourself. But let's go
Speaker 4: ahead and try to rein it in and keep it
Speaker 4: realistic so that it doesn't just turn into a big,
Speaker 4: you know, spiral where we can't afford.
Speaker 3: Our life anymore.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, aman to bring the bringing the balance to
Speaker 2: the conversation which we're we're.
Speaker 1: Your your sister, I say, Okay, I'm curious, we talked
Speaker 1: about budgeting. You're listeners, you're you're the people who follow you.
Speaker 1: Are they know about budgeting because you talk about it
Speaker 1: consistently and you go through other people's budgets, which is
Speaker 1: a really helpful thing. So how are other people spend Oh,
Speaker 1: they make one hundred thousand dollars and they spend this
Speaker 1: and such, and this is how much they have left over.
Speaker 1: That's a really helpful thing to see because I think
Speaker 1: so much of the time we don't know what other
Speaker 1: people are doing with their money, and so we don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with ours. But for people who
Speaker 1: are saying, listen, budgets, budgeting is a four letter word.
Speaker 1: Don't want to do it, not going to spend the
Speaker 1: time it's going. We talked about the fear factor. How
Speaker 1: important is budgeting and how would you maybe coke somebody
Speaker 1: into doing it and help the encourage them to get
Speaker 1: over kind of that aversion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I would say you have to get over
Speaker 4: the aversion if you want to feel financially secure. Ever,
Speaker 4: because we tend to build up unknown stuff to be
Speaker 4: really big and bad, and a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 4: somebody will be super anxious about their situation and we'll
Speaker 4: look at it and then they realize, oh, it's not
Speaker 4: actually that bad, Like, yeah, I have debt, but actually
Speaker 4: I have more in savings than I needed, but I
Speaker 4: was afraid to get rid of my cash so I
Speaker 4: can pay it off. Or you know what, with just
Speaker 4: a little bit of discipline, I could be done with
Speaker 4: this debt in six months, or I could be debt
Speaker 4: free by Christmas, or you know whatever. I think we
Speaker 4: tend to make it like a bigger deal in our
Speaker 4: head when we don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: So sitting down facing the music is.
Speaker 4: Going to be really important, but also being like the
Speaker 4: to sit down and see what you're spending. That initial
Speaker 4: activity is the biggest one. You don't really need to
Speaker 4: dig in deep every single month forever, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: unless things start falling off you know, the rails again.
Speaker 3: So for me, I like to call it like the
Speaker 3: no budget budget, where I basically have I have two accounts.
Speaker 4: All of my bills that I already know how much
Speaker 4: they cost because they're pretty much the same every month
Speaker 4: come out of one account.
Speaker 3: The other one.
Speaker 4: I call it like my swipeable account. So as long
Speaker 4: as that swipeable account doesn't meet my floor, you know,
Speaker 4: because you don't want to have zero dollars in it,
Speaker 4: you don't want to overdraw it. But like let's say
Speaker 4: you have a floor of two hundred dollars. If you
Speaker 4: know that, if it dips below two hundred dollars, you
Speaker 4: overspend that month on your swipeable stuff. If it's above it,
Speaker 4: then that means you have a little extra and you
Speaker 4: can put it towards something else. So you know, I
Speaker 4: use that account for a gas, for shopping for groceries,
Speaker 4: for all the all the stuff I'm just swiping throughout
Speaker 4: the month. So that way, like, if I want to
Speaker 4: go out to more dinners this month, then I just
Speaker 4: need to cut somewhere else, whether that's spending less on
Speaker 4: groceries and I need to get a little more creative.
Speaker 4: Maybe I go to two grocery stores this month, I
Speaker 4: got a Trader Joe's for my veggies, and I go
Speaker 4: to you know, aldi form met or whatever. You can
Speaker 4: kind of manipulate it that way. I don't think you
Speaker 4: have to neurotically track every dollar forever, So I would
Speaker 4: say just know that the if you're feeling really scared
Speaker 4: or overwhelmed, starting like that first step is the hardest.
Speaker 4: You're not going to have to go and track the
Speaker 4: last three months every single month. You're going to just
Speaker 4: it's that first activity that's the hardest.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How do you think about some of the new
Speaker 1: fangled fintech products and how they're impacting people's finance. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the apps that allow you access to
Speaker 1: your paycheck early or buy now pay later, which, hey,
Speaker 1: that guess what, people have eighteen of those going on,
Speaker 1: and so they don't actually see the money come out
Speaker 1: of their account instantly. How's that impacting people's budgets and
Speaker 1: ability to get ahead with money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I would say the getting your paycheck early,
Speaker 4: I mean that's dangerous because we never want to count
Speaker 4: money we don't have yet, So it's almost like you're
Speaker 4: taking a loan from yourself from the future. I feel
Speaker 4: like when with those types of apps and then the
Speaker 4: buy now, pay later, I just I really feel like,
Speaker 4: if you have to finance a pair of genes, you
Speaker 4: should go to the Salvation Army because you can't afford them.
Speaker 4: My friend, if you have to break a payment up
Speaker 4: for a piece of clothing that isn't so critical, then
Speaker 4: I think, you know, that's a that's a bigger problem
Speaker 4: because it's not it's not a winter coat or like
Speaker 4: you're not gonna, you know, freeze to death, like if
Speaker 4: it's a pair of designer jeans or a leather jacket
Speaker 4: or just something that's I yeah, I just I think
Speaker 4: that it's doing a disservice to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we really like your approach, Amanda, makes a whole
Speaker 2: lot of sense, and it's certainly how we try to
Speaker 2: approach personal finances as well. But where can folks learn
Speaker 2: more about you? Where can they follow you?
Speaker 4: Especially as well, yeah, so Instagram, I would say, is
Speaker 4: my main social media platform, so she Wolf of Wall
Speaker 4: Street and that's Wolf with an E, or my website,
Speaker 4: She Wolfelwallstreet dot com. I have lots of free like resources, trackers,
Speaker 4: things like that, so go.
Speaker 3: Check it out.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, we'll link to all that stuff as well
Speaker 1: in the show notes up on our website. Amanda. We
Speaker 1: so appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me. I've had a lot of fun, Joel.
Speaker 2: That was a fun conversation to speak with Amanda aka
Speaker 2: She Wolf of Wall Street. You know, she was talking
Speaker 2: about breaking up payments on a pera gan. She actually
Speaker 2: a somewhat recent post she kind of broke down the
Speaker 2: difference between spending a ton of money on nicer items
Speaker 2: for ye, like the affordable option and kind of where
Speaker 2: you would land financially based on the number of wares
Speaker 2: that you get out of, like a cheap pair of
Speaker 2: jeans versus the primo jeans that you might wear for years.
Speaker 2: I would actually maybe maybe we'll link to that in
Speaker 2: the show notes. That was a really great social media
Speaker 2: graphic that she threw up there on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Something we talk about too buying it once as opposed
Speaker 1: to buying it five times. Because you bought the cheap thing,
Speaker 1: it didn't last, so we didn't even get to that.
Speaker 1: We're not all about the least expensive thing possible that
Speaker 1: would be cheap.
Speaker 2: But yeah, did you have a big takeaway from our
Speaker 2: conversation today?
Speaker 1: So many? I mean, Amanda's story is so inspiring, is good,
Speaker 1: but she's also just loaded with such great information because
Speaker 1: she's done the hard work over a bunch of years
Speaker 1: to learn this stuff, to master it, to the fact
Speaker 1: that she can teach hundreds of thousands of people. So
Speaker 1: have so much respect for her and Matt thanks to
Speaker 1: Amanda for coming on the show. I think my big
Speaker 1: takeaway was when she said, we tell ourselves that things
Speaker 1: make us happy, go without it for a minute, give
Speaker 1: it a shot and see if it actually does. And
Speaker 1: I think that's great advice because there are things that
Speaker 1: I've said will not make me happy just without trying it.
Speaker 1: And then I realized after giving it a shot, wait
Speaker 1: a second, that was actually it was good for me.
Speaker 1: I actually kind of liked it or vice versa.
Speaker 2: Is this an argument for spending more money, Joel, It's
Speaker 2: just to be like, I need more things in.
Speaker 1: My life that provide No, I'm talking about give me joy,
Speaker 1: specifically about like some physical activity where I was like,
Speaker 1: I'd rather sit there watch watch my favorite show because
Speaker 1: that's more enjoyable, And yes, it is more enjoyable in
Speaker 1: the moment, but it's not more enjoyable in the long term.
Speaker 1: There you go, and so, uh, there's just a good idea.
Speaker 1: Test it out, see whether or not it is actually
Speaker 1: a craft beer equivalent, and if it's not, if it's
Speaker 1: not moving the needle in the way you think, maybe
Speaker 1: the daily coffee habit. I don't want to go back
Speaker 1: to coffee, but I'm just going to for a second,
Speaker 1: because coffee is not the problem for most people. But
Speaker 1: if you're doing that knee jerk robotically and you're like
Speaker 1: that that's the best part of my day, maybe it is,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's not. Try try cutting it out for
Speaker 1: a week and making it home and see if it is.
Speaker 2: So great is that you can just give it a
Speaker 2: shot and you know what, if you find that you
Speaker 2: really miss it, you can go back to doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I trial and error, baby, But Okay, that's not
Speaker 2: my big takeaway though, mine will be when we're kind
Speaker 2: of when we were talking about goal setting, and she said,
Speaker 2: depending on who you are, maybe you are the kind
Speaker 2: of person that wants to She said the word mind numbing,
Speaker 2: which is what kind of got me thinking down this,
Speaker 2: and she talked about how like you can do the
Speaker 2: mind numbing number crunching, or you can maybe focus on
Speaker 2: the thing that lights you up. I think maybe she
Speaker 2: referenced like a trip to Barcelona or something like that,
Speaker 2: which maybe think there are two ways that you can
Speaker 2: approach it. You can go with the head or you
Speaker 2: can go with the heart. And I feel like the
Speaker 2: head approach is like thinking analytical and how it is
Speaker 2: how can I make some of these small tweaks to
Speaker 2: my money now in order to achieve whatever end goal
Speaker 2: might be out there. Because I think that's great for
Speaker 2: a lot of folks who don't necessarily have some big
Speaker 2: life goals yet. But if you have some massive goals
Speaker 2: that you're trying to achieve, if you have something that
Speaker 2: really lights you up from the inside, that like from
Speaker 2: the soul, from the heart, don't ignore those things, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't want people to hear this and think, well,
Speaker 2: I need to sit down and start tracking all of
Speaker 2: my expenses, like we're we were just talking about. I
Speaker 2: think instead what they can do is print out a
Speaker 2: picture of the affle tier or whatever it is, like
Speaker 2: if you were planning to go to the Olympics over
Speaker 2: the summer, right like, but put that goal or you
Speaker 2: missed it front and center, like, make sure it's forefront
Speaker 2: in your mind, because that can then inspire all sorts
Speaker 2: of changes downstream. It doesn't have to look like one
Speaker 2: size fits all. And I like that sheet in a
Speaker 2: way highlighted that you can take the discipline sort of systematic,
Speaker 2: dogmatic approach, or you can be a little more loosey
Speaker 2: goosey with it and kind of just throw yourself after
Speaker 2: whatever this goal might be that you're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1: Yeah so yeah, no, I like that too. You can
Speaker 1: go one of two ways, and really it's up to you,
Speaker 1: and it just a quick plug for the how to
Speaker 1: Money Money Mission statement. Will put a link to it
Speaker 1: in the show notes where you can go through a
Speaker 1: few questions that Matt and I have kind of laid
Speaker 1: out some prompts to kind of figure out, well, what
Speaker 1: is it that where can I funnel my money that's
Speaker 1: potentially going to produce the best ROI in my life.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good question to ask, and
Speaker 1: often it's hard. That's a really hard question to ask
Speaker 1: on its face. But if you ask some of the
Speaker 1: smaller questions underneath that question, you can get to the
Speaker 1: root of it, and then it can it can be enlightening,
Speaker 1: and it can help you make other changes to then
Speaker 1: make more progress towards the things you actually care about,
Speaker 1: and not just spending money on some of the junk
Speaker 1: that we, you know, knee jerk spend money on.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. Man. All right, let's get back to
Speaker 2: our beer. This one was called Enduring Belief. This is
Speaker 2: a Rye lagger by Treehouse Brewing Company, sent to us
Speaker 2: by Michael. Michael, thank you so much for sending this
Speaker 2: plus others our way, Joel, what your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really appreciate, Yes we do, Michael. Good beer
Speaker 1: and Treehouse is great beer. So thank you Michael. This
Speaker 1: this beer, Matt really good. It was in Rye Laggers
Speaker 1: typically sound kind of boring to me. This one was
Speaker 1: not boring at all. So good, so good, So I
Speaker 1: really enjoying this. We had those rye spices, those notes, right.
Speaker 1: It was a little multy and bready. It was also
Speaker 1: incredibly balanced, like you have some some nice little hops
Speaker 1: coming through too, like this was this was a really
Speaker 1: good beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just a lot more flavor in a Rye
Speaker 2: lagger versus kind of like your standard lagger. And it
Speaker 2: just made this a I don't know the combination of
Speaker 2: our conversation with Amanda plus this beer and here at
Speaker 2: our desk doing what we get to do, like I'm
Speaker 2: in my happy zone right here. This is awesome. Also,
Speaker 2: like the name of the beer, and during belief sounds
Speaker 2: like something from like a constitution, like we have this,
Speaker 2: we hold fast to this enduring belief of I don't know,
Speaker 2: you feel in.
Speaker 1: The blank you sound like Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 2: But uh, glad, you know. I got to enjoy this
Speaker 2: one today.
Speaker 1: But I have an enduring belief. But everyone out there
Speaker 1: listening can make changes to their money. And I think
Speaker 1: if if Amanda, well.
Speaker 2: I'm glad this wasn't an immediate plug for reviewing how
Speaker 2: to Buddy podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, I think, Amanda, this is where I thought
Speaker 1: you were going. Incredible example of people who can come
Speaker 1: from hardship still and overcome it and crush it so
Speaker 1: glad we were able to talk to her today. And
Speaker 1: if you want the show notes links to some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we mentioned, we'll have those up on our
Speaker 1: website at howtomoney dot com. And yes, of course, like
Speaker 1: Bat mentioned, leave a review for the podcast if you
Speaker 1: have it already.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't believe they allowed twenty six stars yet,
Speaker 1: but five stars will suffice. So thank you Advanced for
Speaker 1: doing that. Matt. That's going to do it for this one.
Speaker 1: Until next time, Best friends Out and best Friends Out.