00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel. Today I'm going to talk about how you can never worry about money again with Jesse Meekham. Okay, So, frugality is a quarterstone of personal finance advice. Cut back, spend less, reduce waste, and for the average American drowning and debt. That's often solid money advice. But money isn't just meant to sit there untouched. It's also meant to be spent, to be experienced, and to be enjoyed. In fact, even the money you're saving now, well it's really just a third spending when you think about it. And let's face it, money is not easy to come by. We work hard for every dollar we earn. So maybe the answer isn't simply just spending less, right, Maybe that's not the answer to all of our money questions. Maybe just maybe it's spending with more intention. And my guest today he wants you to worry less about money. He argues that the path there is not endless deprivation like you might have heard about on some personal finance shows in the past. It's about changing the way you think about spending all together. Jesse Meekham is the best selling author of many books. He's a founder of wine app You Need a Budget, the beloved budgeting app that's helped millions take control of their finances. Jesse glad to have you back on the show, man. 00:01:26 Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here. I feel like your intro did all the work. Like you nailed it. 00:01:29 Speaker 1: Let's send it, Let's end this now we learned everything we need to learn. This is a quick one. No, there's ton man. I really enjoyed reading your book, and there's a lot I want to get into with you, and also just there's some interesting things I want to touch on based on our conversation from many years ago. It's just going to follow up with you see how things are going. But the first question we ask everybody who comes on the show is what they like to splurge on, Like what's your We call it the craft beer equivalent here on how to money, because it's like, hey, you're living in the here and now while also saving money for your future self. What's that thing you splurge on that people might think is a little insane. 00:02:03 Speaker 2: For just me personally, it is anything to do with woodworking, any any tool that I think I might potentially perhaps use at some future point. I cannot get it, even like a little jig to help with a certain little task, I can't get enough of. Family wise, I would say where the family splurges, where Julie and I are kind of tactical and combined is with travel. 00:02:27 Speaker 3: That's where we pull out all the stops. 00:02:28 Speaker 2: You won't you won't see us eating out around where we live, but once we're traveling. 00:02:32 Speaker 3: We're like, where where are the spots? What are we going to hit? You know? So that's that's a big one for us. Yeah, making those memories. 00:02:38 Speaker 1: And I think woodworking was your answer last time. So this has been a hobby passion for a long time. 00:02:42 Speaker 2: You know, I tend to kind of bounce from one thing to another, but woodworking is kind of settling, and it's it's totally opposite of computer work. It's slow when normally I'm kind of wired to make decisions quickly and move quickly and see progress quickly, and woodworking demands that you don't do that, And so I enjoy it as kind of a counterbalance to my natural state. You might say, I know I'm not really good at it. I'm getting better, but I just enjoy the like the novice phase of it. I feel like you can always take some new angle of woodworking and be a complete novice again, and I enjoy I enjoy that. 00:03:17 Speaker 1: I think there's I was literally just talking about this with a friend this morning. There's something about in middle aged life, being feeling like you're starting over at something you feel little inept, but then you cross over and you're like, oh, I'm not like a complete bozo at this thing anymore, and there's something really good for our brains. And oftentimes I think in middle age we stick to the things that we're good at, and there's something really good for our brains about kind of starting over and feeling like an idiot as we're beginning a new endeavor. 00:03:43 Speaker 3: I absolutely go. 00:03:44 Speaker 2: I had a friend of mine that said he didn't he wasn't afraid anymore. He was this very successful realtorney. He's just like, just I'm not I don't feel any fear like you would maybe in high school with something new, or heck, in grade school for sure, or right out of college. And so he started doing like improv classes and he was full of fear, but he was searching for something where he was just inept, you know, and then kind of feeling these feelings. 00:04:07 Speaker 3: Again that hey hadn't felt for a while. Interesting idea. 00:04:10 Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're making me think about the book and like what I wanted to get into, and I specifically wanted to start off by talking about worry. And I think we live in a culture where like worry abounds, right, Yeah, it feels almost like an American pastime, worry. It's his American as apple pie baseball. I think, I guess, why are you trying to take away something that's near and near to Americans? Dressing our hearts is to worry about stuff. And if we didn't worry about money, would money even exist? 00:04:36 Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, oh there you go. That. Absolutely. 00:04:38 Speaker 2: Money's an interesting thing because it tends to pop up. We don't went invented. It's just a thing. I've studied money, the thing quite a bit, and it's interesting how it'll just appear, you know, like the a thing to hold value until you need the other thing. 00:04:52 Speaker 3: That's what money is, essentially. But the worry bit. 00:04:55 Speaker 2: We've thought about worry and different framing of that for literally twenty years, like what is it we're trying to do? And sometimes we would say we're trying to eliminate stress. We're trying to help people gain control, you know, we're trying to help them to you know, like achieve their financial goals. But at the end of the day, the worry captures kind of both ends and everything in the middle, where they're worried about maybe sending their kid to college, or they're worried about just finishing college, these big things. They're worried about their job situation, they're worried about paying a mortgage, big worry. But then also they're worried about like they they literally, you know, buy a coffee and they're worried like, ah, should I be Can I afford that? 00:05:39 Speaker 3: Can I? 00:05:39 Speaker 2: And so it's this it's this ever present, low grade hum like you know, when the power goes out jol and you realize your house is actually quite noisy, Like all the humming is gone, the fridge is shut down. You're you know, you're maybe worried about the meat or whatever in the fridge, but it's coming back on a figures Yeah, no ac Like there's just no hum, and I feel like worry For a lot of people, it's just this low grade, taxing, subtly taxing hum that they aren't even aware is there until it's gone. 00:06:13 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:06:13 Speaker 2: I do want to get rid of it, whether or not. It's very American. I say we try a different way. 00:06:17 Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, No, I'm with you. I'm with you, and I think there is something It's interesting, like worry seems to be a part of how people interact with money at all income levels. Yes, yeah, at all network levels, Like it doesn't discriminate. I think lots of people assume, well, once I hit this certain number on my net worth or a man of my income, if my income were to double tomorrow, I wouldn't worry about money again. And that's just not true. 00:06:42 Speaker 2: It's not true. I know too many. I've been on both ends. I've been like scraping by. Julian and I just scraping by, and we were, you know, trying to figure things out. And we were able to eliminate worry with very little income. And I make far more income than I did then, and I still am tasked with the same overarch goal, which is I need to decide what my money's for. And I'm sure we'll get to that. But whether or not you make a lot or a little, I would only argue when someone says, hey, if you make a lot, you don't have to worry about money, and you won't fill it all, I would say, no, you're tasked with with something around, you know around. The more money you have, the more responsibility you bear to decide what it's for and to deploy it in a way that's aligned with what you really care about with you know, who you really are. It would be a tragedy if someone thought, oh, I have enough, so let's just let it be frittered away by every marketer with a new tagline. 00:07:31 Speaker 3: You know, we don't want We don't want that. 00:07:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, we still want to be intentional with every doctor, even if it just means yeah, we were able to be more generous right with with what we've been given, like. 00:07:41 Speaker 3: Whatever it may be, more can bring a lot of working tools. 00:07:43 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, So you started wine now a long time ago, and people often associate budgeting with saving, but you wrote a book about spending, which is interesting, like why did the budget guy? And I know you can even talk about I guess you don't seem to like the term I loge to work. 00:08:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just sell it what it is. Yeah, okay, Yeah, it learns much baggage. It has too much baggage. 00:08:05 Speaker 2: If people understood the word budget the way I do and the way many many other people do that have been with us for a long time. I'm cool with the word. But we want to find people that want to decide what their money's for and live intentionally and eliminate worry and get really good at money. 00:08:20 Speaker 3: And they come. 00:08:21 Speaker 2: With preconceived notions around the word budget that I just don't want to deal with anymore. 00:08:24 Speaker 1: Budget spend anymore? What how, what's a better way to think of it? 00:08:28 Speaker 2: Budgeting is knowing deeply what your money is for and then watching it do that thing in my In my mind, budgeting is spending well. In my mind, budgeting and you it's like you and your money are perfectly lined up. But I just you know, we tried for about five years to redefine the word for the English language, and I don't know if you've tried that, Joe, But it's not easy to just change the definition of a word. So you won't see us mention the word budget very often unless we're just someone saying I hate budgeting, and we might say we hate it too. 00:09:00 Speaker 3: You know, come see what we're doing over here. 00:09:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, trying to change the dictionary definition is that's a that's a big goal. 00:09:08 Speaker 3: It's hard to do. Yeah. 00:09:11 Speaker 1: And then when it comes to some of the standard personal finance advice, that gets uttered too, Like you mentioned this in the book that you hate this spend less than you earn. It's been uttered millions of times, right, It's it's kind of seen as like a benchmark of if you can do that, like you can start to make progress with your money. And there's a lot of Americans who aren't even crusting that hurdle. But why do you hate that advice? Though? 00:09:31 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:09:31 Speaker 2: I mean you know here we are like money can only be spent, that's its only purpose. So when someone's like, no, I'm saving it, it's like, well, no, you're just going to spend it later. Like if you have a dollar in your pocket, are you spending that money or saving that money? And you're like, well, I'm going to buy groceries tomorrow, Well are you saving it until tomorrow? Is it savings right now? Like we have this weird thing where if we aren't going to spend it right now, it's savings, but not like three days from now, three days from now, it's still spending. So it's a weird thing. So what you're really saying is no money is just spending. And someone's like, no, no, no, I'm investing and you're like, well, yeah, you're buying something. You're buying a stock or whatever, and you're hoping that you get money back for it. 00:10:09 Speaker 3: And then what do you do with that money? Or what are your kids gonna do with that money? 00:10:11 Speaker 2: Because you're long gone, they're going to spend it, right, Or someone's like no, I don't spend, I'm going to give and imagine, like just trace that for a second. You give money to a charity, we're not going to call it spending for a second. You give money to a charity, and what does that charity do with the money? You better hope they don't just sit on it. They're supposed to spend it. They're actually by law required to spend I think some percentage of their assets or they aren't a bona fide charity per the irs. So even the IRS is like, listen, if you want to be a charity, you better be spending your money at you know, a five percent draw down rate or whatever. It is so you would be mad if you found out that charity was just sitting on your money because they're supposed to be spending it. Because that is how money, that's what money does. That's the only thing money can do is be spent, be exchanged. So when you go back to this idea of spend less than you earn, if you know that the only thing money can do is be spent, then what you're saying is do the thing, do less of the thing that is the thing's only purpose. And that's where it starts to break down. Now when we're talking about like, hey, we want to set aside some money for the future. Of course we're all in on that, Like whinab is built around that idea. 00:11:21 Speaker 1: This book is appreciating yolo philosophy. 00:11:24 Speaker 3: Yeah no, not at all. 00:11:26 Speaker 2: But the idea that you just save and save and save and never get to enjoy the fruits of that, I think is just totally off base. 00:11:34 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I think if you're if you're thinking about it like that, and then it's perpetually pushing the joy that money can bring out into this far off future that you can't even imagine. And that's why I think, like when you're talking about investing. There was that Fidelity study way back in the day that if people took a picture and morphed it into an older version of themselves, they were more likely to invest money for their future selves because they can identify with what they were going to look like. 00:12:02 Speaker 3: There was a purpose, yeah, exactly. Attention to the money was made real. 00:12:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and so there's something important about that so that we can be thoughtful about having money to spend later down the road for ourselves. But I think there's also this hyper frugal mentality that can set in where you're like, I'm just kicking the can and yeah, maybe i'll but if you're not thinking about it as future spending, it can almost feel like this this legalistic rule that you have to live by and you haven't really connected it to something tangible and real that you're going to experience in the future. I mean, like that's important, right, It is important. 00:12:39 Speaker 2: I mean, we're just trying to get people from bad at money to good at money, and it's a skill. I mean, you're talking about how to money like, we're talking about doing it well, and you are not doing money well if you are just frugal because you're afraid. And there are a lot of people that are frugal out of fear. Now, if someone comes to me there like Jesse, I am frugal because a game is a foot and I want to win at this game, and they describe this game where you can see them just lighting up inside, and I'm like, Okay, that person, they're just they're like loving the game. 00:13:08 Speaker 3: Let them play the game. 00:13:09 Speaker 2: Yes, but a lot of people are out of fear just saying I can't spend, I can't spend. And what we get them to do is answer the question of what their money is for and really start to press on that. 00:13:21 Speaker 3: What is it really for? What is it really for? 00:13:24 Speaker 2: And when they really start to press they learn more about themselves, they learn more about money's true purpose, and they start to spend without the worry, without the fear. They aren't making more money, but they have more clarity. And then they're putting their newfound intention right against that clarity and they're spending well, they're feeling like they're getting good at money finally, and like they're spending without guilt. You will have people that will save up money, go on a vacation and feel guilty that they are spending the money. I just feel like that's an absolute tragedy. 00:13:56 Speaker 1: And I've been there, man, I've been there. I remember like some of the biggest, bigger expenses that were just I knew it was the right thing for our family, but I just had this. I mean, I remember almost having a panic attack one time making signing a contract to add on to our house. And we knew it was the right thing for our family, and we knew that we had saved and like we were able to pay for it in cash, which is on American in and of itself, but even still, I was like, I remember being like, this is the right thing, signing the documents and then freaking out and then I just had like it took a conversation between my wife and I to kind of like, oh, let's where are these emotions coming from? And there is but there is something about that that low grade hum and worry and then sometimes it can even reach a fever pitch. One of the things you talk about in the book, too, is you say that like a lack of respect for money has made us worry about it more. I'm curious, like what you mean by that. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of times in order to get rid of this worry that we think money is causing, we will kind of relegate money to a corner. One of my favorite books, your Money or Your Life. It's it bifurcates money and life. It's like it's either this or this, and that book has a great message. Don't don't let me steer anyone from a week from reading that. But it's the bifurcation of money or life. Or you'll have people say, like my financial life. I mean, I got books upon books where it's just like, you know how to build a financial life or whatever, and that the premise of it, to me is is wrong. The idea that money is somehow separate from us, that it's just a chore, it's just a tool. It's this thing we just have to learn to manage now we're adulting, or whatever phrase we're going to use. If we can start to see money truly for what it is, which is that it is us. 00:15:40 Speaker 3: Like when you, like. 00:15:41 Speaker 2: You Joel, when you are getting an education raised by parents, learn all these things as a kid, start to network, start to gain skills and expertise, start to exchange that in the market you are getting money back. I mean what else could we say you are offering, except like you're in higher raising your entire childhood, everything you know, all your blood, sweat, tears, calorically, what you ate this morning to make the brain go. Everything is feeding up to you adding value in a market and someone giving you money. So it's like, all you're really offering is here is Joel, Here's everything, he knows, everything he is, Here's what Joel can do, Here's how Joel thinks. And then the person's like, I like all of this that Joel is bringing. I will give Joel money. 00:16:27 Speaker 1: That's one star review on the podcast appah. 00:16:29 Speaker 3: Absolutely, and we will not have that everyone. We will not have that. 00:16:32 Speaker 2: So what you get is money for that thing. And that's why I feel like the best thing you can say that money is is you. 00:16:39 Speaker 3: You know. 00:16:39 Speaker 2: It's it's like this the listener right now on the podcast like what you give and then what you get it's just you back, and it's stored in this thing we called money, and it just will sit there for a bit, stored up like your economic energy. And I hope everyone understands. I don't mean like we value people based on money, not even we have inherent value. But what I'm talking about is how we think of money itself is you. Then we're starting to elevate money in someone's eyes, like, that's not just a chore, that's not just a task, that's not something evil, that's not something that's wrong to want. 00:17:15 Speaker 3: That's me. And when it's you, then money management, that boring phrase we use, is really more about self care and really about taking care of self and I hope a level of self respect because that is you. And then when we've elevated money up there, we can start to be like, Okay, this really important thing that you're feeling, where you feel like it's important, it has value, what is this for? 00:17:42 Speaker 2: We've kind of raised the stakes and then we ask the core key question to get people. 00:17:48 Speaker 3: To start to think. 00:17:49 Speaker 1: Basically, it's not just a quadrant of your life. Money is touching every element of your life, and so you have to realize that and think of money in that way or you're going to be like, if your thoughts about money are going to be degraded, they're not going to be high enough, they're not going to be you're not going to treat money as intentionally as you. 00:18:06 Speaker 2: Should exactly, And people right now might think like, I don't want money in my entire life. I don't like it. It stresses me out. But I'm telling you, if you can learn to love money, and I'm talking about in this really healthy, great way where it's it's self respect, if you've learn to see money as just you, then it's not wrong to have money in every part of your life. 00:18:29 Speaker 3: It just is. 00:18:31 Speaker 2: But now you have this thing, you have a little bit of you in every part of your life, in the health and the relationships and those things we all can agree are extremely valuable. Money isn't those things, but it does affect all of those super important things in our life. And when we can see it for what it is, it's just us, then we can start to treat it the way we should, which is just as you said, intentionally. 00:18:54 Speaker 1: What are some of the hurdles of that, because I'm thinking of like even just maybe growing up and you heard some money maxims right that that made you think, well that if you thought about money too much, or if you were too in love with money, right, or they're like, there's greed is good, right, Gordon Gecko right from ye from the movie Wallster. I mean, there's all of these things that have made us. We either respond to that and we're in the affirmative way, or we respond to it in the negative way. And so maybe we've subtly let a lot of these influences as we've grown up, like color the way we think about money in a way that's maybe we're too attached to it, sadly, or we're not attached enough. 00:19:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, it's it's extreme. Someone who might try and like they might feel like they're going to try and land in the middle. They're like, I don't love it, I don't hate it, and then they'll say something like it's just a tool. They'll say that it's just a tool and they're trying to land in the middle. It's neither good nor bad. It's agnostic, and it is not neither good nor bad because people aren't either good or bad. 00:19:56 Speaker 3: People are people. 00:19:57 Speaker 2: They're complex, you know, they're they're dynamic, and money is people. So however you use the money, we hope if you're getting really good at money, it's just more and more an expression of you. Of you, whether you're the woodworker, the runner, name your thing, it's more of you. But these maxims that these stories we've been told and the stories we tell ourselves. I would want to just have people recognize that they can tell their own story like they can. Isn't it funny? Drill, Let me just like a little aside. It's so funny how we'll all be like, well, I'm not greedy, I don't want money, like I don't love money. I've been told I shouldn't love money. And yet look at the amount of time we all spend trying to get. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: A little yeah, you know, yeah, and so. 00:20:41 Speaker 2: We're at least all hypocrites. But I don't want to call hypocrites. I think we're doing the right thing. We're trying to figure out how to add value in the world, and money is a place where we can kind of intermittently hold that value. So we're we're just doing our thing. We're all just out here surviving, hopefully thriving, and we spend a lot of time trying to get this thing that we're and I think we don't need that second part. Let's keep getting the thing, Let's keep getting money, Let's keep figuring out how to earn more, how to add more value in the world, how to do what we love, all those things. But let's not then have this amazing professional who's at the top of their craft, adding value left and right and just killing it. And then when all of their value is transformed into money through the market, then they say things like, Oh, money's just a tool. 00:21:26 Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting you talk about that? And it's so true that we spend so much time, we give over a lot of our lives, something like what eighty thousand hours of our lives to a career is I think the projection? And we're talking about offering so little time on the back end once we've turned those hours into money to think about it, or even to think about whether or not we want to work eighty thousand dollars to get that money, or we want to live a different life that is simpler. That means we don't have to work quite that much or dedicated as much of our lives to our career. What is it about us putting so much effort into the effort to make money, to bring money into our lives, and so a little effort about how to use and funnel those dollars intelligencely. 00:22:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist. My tinfoil had is somewhere around here, I should probably throw it on. But I mean, the system is built to get you to consume. The system is built for growth, growth, almost for its own sake. I think growth is good, but growth at any cost is unhealthy. That starts to feel and sound like cancer if you think about it in that way. So where the system is built for consumption, it's built for not delayed gratification, but instant gratifications. It's built for having something now and worrying about it later. And all that tends to just make something actually quite simple apparently complex. And when you have you know, you can put genes on a payment plan. You can put a burrito on a payment plan. I mean, I just bought something the other day from Amazon. I noticed now they're doing the for payments or whatever, and what I was buying was twenty two. 00:23:02 Speaker 3: Dollars, you know, So if you don't want to put it in. 00:23:06 Speaker 2: For easy installments, as the late comedian Mitch Hedberg said, I've always loved this. He's like, there'll be for easy payments, and he's like, and then one a hard. We don't know which one that one is. So it's it's an interesting thing where they make it complex. They meaning this system that we've built for growth at any cost, promoting consumption, and it is a treadmill. And if you don't actively or maybe it's a maybe it's a stream. If you don't actively kind of notice I'm being pushed this way, you will be moved. If you stand still, you're actually moving. And so there takes some intention and I hope that the book teaches people you can be intentional. You can answer that question that's so important, question of what your money is for, and start to kind of walk against that stream. It doesn't take a ton of effort. Like we spend eighty thousand hours a year earning money, we don't have to spend a commenser amount figuring out what our money is for. It's a fraction of that, but it's a high leverage activity. 00:24:02 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:24:02 Speaker 1: All right, I got more. I want to get to with you, Jesse. Clearly I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask Jesse what keeps him up at night. We'll get to that and more right after this talking with Jesse Meekon, we're talking about reducing, maybe eliminating how much we worry about money. Eliminating. Okay, so then tell me it, all right, we'll just get personal here. Do you worry about money? 00:24:28 Speaker 3: Now? 00:24:28 Speaker 1: When's the last time you worried about money? And what would you say? What it was? Is the key for you that helped make money worries go away? And then how has that change your life? 00:24:38 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:24:38 Speaker 2: My first, the first bit I talked about in the book, where Julie and I had these goals. We were making ten twelve dollars an hour, newly married, twenty one to twenty two years old, young like almost kids, right. 00:24:49 Speaker 3: And we were worried about money. 00:24:53 Speaker 2: So I built this little spreadsheet that eventually became software and eventually is the thing that pays the bills for us and all the other people that work here at why app. But at that point it was just for me and Julie and we had these just these rich like these goals that were so aggressive. We got to save for a car. We didn't want a car. We had to save for a computer. We needed a computer. I was going to be in the accounting program. You need a computer. So we're sitting there just grinding away, and I'm on my way to class. One day I walked past this little bakery and they had these old fashioned donuts this are the best kind. You could ask them to microwave, but for fifteen seconds, which is a little hack, it becomes perfect. And it was a fifty cent don't It's probably like ten dollars now, who knows what inflation's doune to that donut, But it was fifty cents back then. And I remember walking by there and being like wanting it, you know, just a little car boost. I on my way to class. And I was twenty two, so I was immune to sugar, you know that time of the day. So I'm sitting there and I'm just like, I want that, and I felt like I couldn't buy it fifty cents. I had enough money for it, but I didn't feel like I could. I just felt all of this constraint, this restraint. I don't know what it was, but this bearing down on me. And I'm like, man, this is there's something off here. And I came home to Julie and I was like, something's off, and we relooked at our plan and we kind of renswered what is our money for? And we made it more for us. We had just been kind of taking the advice live on less how much less less? Right, It's just always less and it's just like less less, less, save, save, save, invest compound interest, and it's just like, what do we want our money to do? And it was like we finally asked ourselves that question for the first time, and it didn't It wasn't a radical thing, like we weren't like, oh, now we just spend everything. It was more like, Okay, we're going to do a date every week and it's gonna probably look like a five dollars little Caesar's pizza, but it'll be a date every week. And that that to us, was actually substantive if you if you know and you can believe it, but people, people know that a lot of people have been in that spot. Or we would say things like we're gonna do a gym membership. We know it's expensive to us, but we're gonna do it. That's important. And we just carved out a few things that made it more ours. And I did carve out money literally for donuts, and we carved out money for Julie where she could just spend without worrying. It's like we have money here for you, just a little bit of spending money. 00:27:02 Speaker 3: It made all the difference. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: And we realized that we were just having money be what we thought it should be for instead of asking ourselves really, like what is it for for us? Yeah, and even well meaning people reading you know, the best advice that you still need to ask yourself the hard question of like, for me, what is this precious resource for? 00:27:26 Speaker 1: And there are great rules of thumb, and there's great advice out there, but if you can't connect it to how you're living your life, and you feel like you're living somebody else's system like that is that gets demoralizing after a while. You can only keep it up for so long. 00:27:38 Speaker 3: And then got to make it to those. 00:27:39 Speaker 1: Real life outcomes. Yeah, I love this line from the book you wrote, money does its best work when it enables experiences and disappears. Can you unpack that? 00:27:49 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:27:49 Speaker 2: So people are like Jaz Jesse's obsessed with money, you know, like that must be all he thinks about, right, And when I'm here on the podcast, Mike, you bet I'm thinking about it. 00:27:58 Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it on behalf of all your great letststeners. 00:28:00 Speaker 2: But what you want is when your money is planned, when you know what it's for, with clarity, when you've introspected and then you've said, Okay, this is what my money is for. As you do that, you know more and more about yourself, which then informs what the money is for. So it's this beautiful little cycle of introspection and then more accurate expression of you. When you get there, you'll realize that money is doing your bidding. And then Christmas Day, when you're sitting there watching your nine year old, I'm channeling a little bit from last year watching your nine year old open a gift. I'm not thinking about the credit card bill coming in January, because I've known that some of my money is for Christmas all year long, right, and so we've set aside a little bit for Christmas every single month, a twelfth of Christmas every single month. So in the moment money is not there to cloud it and mess it up, it has disappeared. And in that moment, I'm just watching the nine year old open this massive lego set. But I know we're going to build together later later for hours, and that's all part of it without me being like, Okay, when's that bill? 00:29:06 Speaker 3: Man? I hope we didn't go too crazy. You know. 00:29:08 Speaker 2: That's the bit where we when you're when you're going on vacation. A lot of wine evers are Disney goers. A lot of or maybe a lot of Disney goers become wine I'm. 00:29:16 Speaker 3: Not sure how. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: It's interesting the causality correlation thing, but a lot of them they they want to have this magical experience that Disney tries to create, and they want to go in and keep making it magical. And you will find this big ven diagram where people are. They save up, they're using wine up. They know some of their money is for this Disney trip, and then when they get there, they want the magic. They clearly want it right. They don't want money to be there, like are you sure? 00:29:41 Speaker 3: Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you? It's got to disappear so it can just be the moment. 00:29:47 Speaker 1: And do you think that produces more joy for those experiences for people? 00:29:52 Speaker 3: Absolutely? 00:29:53 Speaker 1: I gotta imagine. Yeah, if it's hanging over you like the Sword of damoicles right, you're just like, oh, but how how is this bill going to get paid? And for a lot of people, if you're the average person, whether it's a Disney trip or whether it's Christmas, you're freaking out about paying the bill later on. 00:30:08 Speaker 2: Sometimes it's one spouse the other spouse is you know, they call them the spender and that one's the saver, and they have these little labels. But sometimes just one spouse is freaking out and the others kind of somehow pushing it, pushing it out of the way. They probably learned it from parents or something like that, and so that can be that's kind of a double whemming. Now the relationship is strained and the present moment isn't quite as great as it could be. 00:30:32 Speaker 1: So how do you think then about prioritizing now the donuts right versus later? Which is like, at some point, maybe you don't want to work anymore Jesse, right, and so or you want to spend more time in the woodworking shop and fewer hours like running this business, so that that has real impacts on the way we live in the here and now and also in the far off future. How do you know which dollars to allocate to which spending bucket? 00:30:58 Speaker 2: Essentially, yeah, if I were to tell everyone mine, they'd be like, I don't like it, And that is appropriate, right, because it's mine, not yours, And it's like DNA. 00:31:09 Speaker 3: It's a lot that's related. 00:31:10 Speaker 2: But there's this last little bit that makes everyone unique, and that's the part that makes it interesting. So like, if you and I were to sit over dinner, I'd be like, so, Joel, like what lights you up? What's what's your money for? I wouldn't want to know that it's for the electricity bill, although that is a miracle if people pause and think about. 00:31:24 Speaker 3: It for a second. 00:31:25 Speaker 2: But I'd want to hear like, Okay, yeah, we both we both like electricity. Cool, but like what do you love that I would never spend money on. That's where I would get to know, like the last little bit of Joel DNA. That would make for a fun dinner conversation. 00:31:35 Speaker 1: That's why I love our first question of the podcast every time because it gives me that's like every to everyone. 00:31:39 Speaker 3: It comes on right, Yeah, you get to a little a little bit about them. 00:31:43 Speaker 2: Most of the DNA is the same. But there are only five answers to the question of what money is for. It's it's either for now, for later, for ease of the system itself, for you, or for change now. Inside those five are an infinite number of possibilities. And you questioned what's now versus later? And I would say it's versus is an interesting framing. They all what we need is to make sure that the person deciding what their money is for. 00:32:15 Speaker 3: Sees all five regularly. 00:32:18 Speaker 2: So if we're only ever living in like just the now, we are missing out on the fact that Christmas is coming, or that car tires need repairing, or that retirement might need to happen at some point. So they we can't just be thinking about now, even though when we're first starting, now is the most important because it's the moment. But what you're doing is you're removing worry from the present moment by deciding what is literally for now, right now, an urgent bill, right something over overdraft situation, something like that. So now is handled, the worry is gone. But then everyone knows, like, well, hold on, Jesse, like the cars making a weird noise, the HVAC is making a unbecoming. 00:32:59 Speaker 3: Of HVAC noise, and we need it right. 00:33:01 Speaker 2: Now, yes, and always right after the warranty, always just right after. But what you're just like that, so that starts to bring worry back into the present moment. You're worried about those strange noises, the car wearing out or whatever it is, so you start to address that in the moment and you say, well, I'm going to set aside money for new car tires, I'm going to set aside some money for Christmas and for this HVAC unit. And you know you're looking like, oh, and the kids do summer camp. Oh yeah, I'll set a set a little money for summer camp too. So when those moments that are at the moment in the future, when they arrive, your present moment is still worry free. Summer camp comes, the big bill comes, you just pay the bill. It feels like every other day, so that present moment is protected. Then when you start looking at ease, what we're wanting to do is get people to earn money this month that they then spend next month. We're trying to break the paycheck to paycheck cycle that causes so much worry and stress and anxiety on its own, where people are having the time build a paycheck and oh, that bill goes with this paycheck, and then a partner is also earning money and they're like this, it's just this valueless activity where people have to do this dance of bills and timing of paychecks. If you can get and whinevers do if they can get to a point where they're spending money this month that they earned last month. The whole system runs smoother, and that's where we're protecting the present moment because the system itself is pretty optimal. Then this is bersouri gets fun. When you're starting to say some of my money is for you or for me in this instance, then what we're doing now is saying, hey, the present moment is worry free. 00:34:38 Speaker 3: We handled now. 00:34:39 Speaker 2: We know that those later things that come they will be handled to our system is operating well. I want more of me in this present moment. I want more of my money to be an expression of me in the moment. That also starts to eliminate worry because you start to feel this congruence between who you are and what you your money is doing. And then finally this money that's for change. It can be like change comes out you like I don't know, maybe you text me this morning and you're like, hey, I got to move the podcast, and so I'm you know, we're changing schedules, things that come at you. You just changing around. But it can also be change like how do I want my life to look? 00:35:18 Speaker 3: What do I want? 00:35:19 Speaker 2: What kind of intention am I going to put here, and it can be like changing careers, changing locations, having a kid, getting married, getting divorced, these big changes. You can start to recognize that money can enable those changes too. So now not only have we protected our present moment from the future, not only have we optimized the system for the present moment. Not only have we added more of ourselves in the present moment, but we are now changing the very moment itself by saying what do I really want? All of it is built to have you trade off between those five possible answers of what your money is for to have that present moment. The only place where we can worry is in the present, and we eliminate it in that moment. And then you just keep working, working that system, keep asking yourself what's the money for? And it's one of those five just introspecting and then expressing. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: So so I'm on kind of a Larry McMurtry kick. If you've ever had Lonesome Dove, it's like one of the best books. I not, oh, I'll read it, highly recommend. But I was reading another one of Larry Manmrchry's novels because that's where I'm at right now, and your chapter on ease kind of overlap with this money conversation in the book that was happening about like who's actually rich, And they were talking about this guy who's always got like a wat of bills right that he can go spend at the pool hall or whatever, versus this other guy who's got his money tied up in investments, and they everybody seem to agree that the guy with a thousand dollars in cash was richer than the guy who actually had like more more assets. So like talk about ease and how does ease get in the way of investing or both of those things, Like, because like it's true, right that there is something about more money we have on hand, whether that's an emergency fund, whether that's just more free cash to spend in the ways that light us up, that can create this sort of like ease effect that you're talking about. Yeah, but then there's also the reality of like building up assets for future ease. 00:37:17 Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, absolutely, yeah. 00:37:19 Speaker 2: And when we when I say ease in the book, I mean literally the ease of your money system itself, not like sitting on the beach with a Martinez martini. That's that's a different kind of ease. So this is is like the system itself is easy. Your money system is easy, and it becomes easier when. 00:37:36 Speaker 3: You have that wat of cash. 00:37:39 Speaker 2: So when we when we walk people through it, we're like, okay, right now, when you earn money on Friday, there are already bills waiting for that money. And then you pay those bills, the lot of money goes down and you just are kind of hoping and waiting for the next paycheck. In the meantime, bills accumulate and you're kind of hanging on for dear life. Something happens. It's it is a it is not an easy situation to live in. There's a lot of just valueless timing of things. You know, you see a bill that notice you can't pay it. Then it just kind of pings you, but you can't do anything about it. And then later on you have this little pile of bills again you're like, please please pay day come it comes, you handle it. We want to just flip it around. You should have a pile of money just waiting and then a bill arrives and you just pay it. And ideally it's even on auto pay, like you know, if you're using a system where you're aware of what your money's doing. You'll know, you'll see bills come through, you won't get you know, hoodwinked or anything. So it's on auto pay, it just goes out and you're not doing this dance of timing bills and paychecks and waiting with like white knuckled on you know when the next pay day is. It's funny because a lot of people, once they've been doing the system for a while and their system really is easy, they forget when payday is like the money just lands and it's just like it's it's nothing. 00:38:57 Speaker 3: I guess that's what I want. 00:38:58 Speaker 2: I want payday to just fill like any other day where you're just like, yeah, okay, money's there, money wasn't there. 00:39:03 Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. 00:39:04 Speaker 2: And so we are talking about easing the system itself to where it gets out of the way of decision making, basically because we want people to focus on what their money is for and that's that's a decision situation. 00:39:17 Speaker 1: So one of the things you mentioned personally, I saw you that you you paid off your mortgage early, but I think you said that you regretted paying off your mortgage early. Yeah, And why is that, and how does this and how does this intersect with kind of what you're talking about here? Is it because you missed out on spending money in the here and now? 00:39:36 Speaker 3: That would have no Okay, it was just a math thing. Okay. 00:39:39 Speaker 2: It was like, yeah, rates are now at a supposed you know, supposedly high. 00:39:43 Speaker 3: They're like what at six percent? Like they're so low. 00:39:45 Speaker 2: But we've like you and I, we all grew up adult you know, adult wise, we all grew up with rates at like two and five eighths or three and a quarter, I mean, insanely low. It's essentially like better than free money if you you know, you argue that INFLA probably eats more of that. And so if you have a you know, if you've bought money at two and five eighths, you're essentially being paid. And so it was just for me a math thing. But that's Jesse now saying it. Like people you need to recognize, Like I stand by what I said, like, oh yeah, if Jesse now was back then, I would make that decision. But Jesse now is a different person than Jesse back then, and I have to respect that. Like back then, I wanted just the roof over my head to be free and clear, period a roof over my head and six other people you know at that time. We had it one more later. But what happened or what happened now is I looked and I'm like, I have assets, Like I just have more headroom, and for me to hold a mortgage now, I don't, But to hold one now would be like, oh okay, I do, Like there's assets that counteract that, and it wouldn't be a big deal. It was just a math thing, you know, like the rate was so insanely low, and I'm like, I should have just kept paying my tiny little mortgage. 00:40:57 Speaker 1: So was it more of an emotional decision? Like you said, it's like you're mad. 00:41:00 Speaker 2: That emotional Okay, yeah, yeah, back then it was emotions like I want to do that, and I I think we're allowed to say what would I do now and respect what we did then and people forget that, Like, but I was different then than I am now. I hope that I've improved in ways, right, I hope I'm better dad than I was back then too. Like that's all allowed, that's all fair game. But sometimes bothers people where they're like, well wait a minute, you know you would change. It's like, well, yeah, because I'm different. I've had different experiences, Like literally my net worth is different than that guy that made that decision back then. 00:41:34 Speaker 1: That's all, Okay, That's how I mean in just a micro version of that, I remember paying off a student loan that had like a two point six, seven, five or eight or something free money, and I was like, I should have maxed out my ROTH that year, Like what was I thinking? And that's you can with retrospect say I would have done something differently and also be like it wasn't that big of a deal though either. 00:41:52 Speaker 3: You got to respect the guy that was in the room again. 00:41:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Okay, I've got a few more questions. I want to get to get a little more personal here. We'll get to a few more questions Jesse. Right after this break back from the break still talk with Jesse Meek, I'm talking about never worrying about money again, not even sometimes hopefully. And I think we've laid out Jesse's laid out some really good advice for how to do that, and so much of it really does come down to a lot of like personal realities and being thoughtful about money, and I think, Okay, Jesse, I'm curious. My wife is a therapist, and I feel like the more I've gone through this journey with her, I've done more introspective kind of looking and it's changed how I think about money. Do you think maybe there's something? And I wasn't kind of planning on asking you about this, but there's something about just our lack of looking into into our interior, the interior parts of our lives, that prevents us from having a deeper, more congruent relationship with our finances. 00:42:54 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:42:54 Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's work, and I think we're wired to not want to do I think we're wired to be a little lazy, and that's probably like optimization of caloric expenditure maybe, but yeah, we're wired for it. And it is hard work to figure out what your money's for. Sometimes it's easy, You're like, yeah, it's for groceries, it's for gas, I know those things. But it gets harder as you kind of answer the easy questions. It's a little bit like one of those proctered tests where at first you kind of get warmed up. You're like, man, I'm cruising, I know all these accounting questions, you know, and I'm having flashbacks now and then you get to like the doozies and you're like, oh, I better slow down. 00:43:31 Speaker 3: I got to think about this. 00:43:32 Speaker 2: This is some real work, and knowing what your money is for takes real introspection. And I mean, bless your therapist's wife's heart. When you're dealing with a relationship, it takes both, you know, to really be introspective, honest, sharing, open, curious. My therapist's favorite word is curious, and I think that's a great way for people to approach their money is be like, well, I'm just curious. What do I think my money's for. No right or wrong answer, but like, let's just be curious about it and see what that opens up. 00:44:03 Speaker 1: I think that's that's a great way to think about it, to get curious about your money. Okay, last time we spoke, you had ditched credit cards. You were sticking with debit cards. How did that experiment go or are you still doing it? 00:44:17 Speaker 2: It went really well. It went so well that I still have just a debit card in my wallet. I have a credit card that I use for business expenses. But it's just that that's just like stuff on autopole. It's kind of boring the debit cards still just doing really well. 00:44:31 Speaker 3: I used Chase. I probably shouldn't disclose that. 00:44:33 Speaker 2: I don't know, but Chase is like the biggest bank, so that's probably pretty safe. They've flagged a few things and been like, hey, did you mean to buy that thing over in that other country? And I'm like, yes, I did, that was me and then they're like, oh, okay, good. So like they're on top of it because people will say, what about fraud, that's their biggest worry. But man, the best thing about it was it just made it made our system talk about ease. It just made the system easier. One account, one card, Julie uses it, I use it, and it makes the management. 00:45:06 Speaker 3: Just kind of fall out of the way. Yeah. So yeah, we haven't gone back. I can't. 00:45:11 Speaker 2: I think I started in maybe twenty two or twenty three. Okay, maybe it's hard for me to remember, but yeah, I do one year experiments, Like one year I experimented with not knowing what my money was for at all for an entire year because I thought I just built up good habits. That was a total disaster. But that experiment just no credit card. It made our system so easy. I was just like, oh, we're good to go, and. 00:45:34 Speaker 1: You know you're giving up some rewards, but you're like, who cares. It's it's not enough to move the needle. And that's how I felt about the just the super you can go super intense on the credit card rewards systems, right, oh yeah, and some people do, and some people do really really well with it, and more power to them. But I just thought I did, like for the ease of my system, I'm like two cards, you know, and and I could keep it basic. 00:45:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's that's like the person that's being like hyper frugal, because you see them light up when they talk about it. You have credit card point optimizing people like it's a game, and it's like he let them play the game. That's that's great. The banks are winning. On the whole, the banks win. And you have a few people that game it really well and take trips and whatever for free. That's fine, but it's being their trips are being paid for by all the people who are being taken to task by the banks, so like the banks aren't coming out of pocket, being like you've earned that trip, dear sir, here you go enjoy Malibu, like not at all. It's like a collective group of people that all paid late fees and interest, that are pulling their money together and saying, enjoy your trip, good. 00:46:36 Speaker 3: Sir, yea. 00:46:37 Speaker 2: And some people are and that's enough for them to be like, oh I don't want to do that anymore. 00:46:40 Speaker 3: That doesn't feel good. 00:46:41 Speaker 2: And other people are like I love playing this game, like, let's do it again. So to each his own. For me, it's just a simplicity play. Yeah, you know, that's it. 00:46:49 Speaker 1: Okay, I'm curious. So you have seven kids right now? 00:46:52 Speaker 3: About simplicity? 00:46:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, right, yeah, that's the opposite of it. Right In our culture, there is kind of this belief that that's the ultimate status symbol, that you can have that many children. 00:47:04 Speaker 3: I'm even aware of that. Okay, you know, gosh, yeah. 00:47:07 Speaker 1: This is a real thing. It's like, no, wait, having kids like that's sweet in this economy. 00:47:12 Speaker 3: You know, so you should be struggling more. I didn't realize I should be struggling. You're here, I've been walking normally. 00:47:17 Speaker 1: You're the Warren Buffett of like the current economic culture. So is that true or not? Like I guess there's there's some people who would who would say God. I mean you see the headline number about each child costing three hundred plus thousand dollars or something over the lifetime of raising them. Is that true? Is is having kids? Is it that expensive? Is it that much of a status symbol? Or have you found a way to buck that trend? Or have people just overblown it in their minds? 00:47:44 Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm like, I gott even ready for this question. This has got to be so out of left field. I had never even thought of about about it being a status symbol. But they are my most treasured possessions if I'm allowed to possess my kids. 00:47:56 Speaker 3: Right, So I feel the same way like. 00:47:59 Speaker 2: It's they are the They are treasures for me. There are a ton of work. They're more work than work. Right, you worry about them more. I've never I have not written a book called never Worry about kids again. 00:48:10 Speaker 3: Right, that's kind of. 00:48:12 Speaker 1: You can't write them. I don't think I cannot write that book. 00:48:14 Speaker 2: I don't know how. I don't know how to do that. Yeah, you worry about them because you love them so so so much. They're as expensive as you would like to make them, and I don't. I guess we haven't made them that expensive because I've never felt like it was financial. I mean, we were we do well financially, but I've even when we were younger, I mean we had our first kid and Julie exited the workforce. She was the breadwinner, making twelve bucks an hour, So like i've we had kids before. Man if I would have known it was a status symbol, that would be an easier decision, but I was just worried about paying for things. 00:48:48 Speaker 1: So something about that ignorance is bliss starting younger and then just like, yeah, I think if it's almost like the later the more you hold off, the later you wait, the more you have it built up in your mind, how much which it's been a cost and the sacrifice is going to entail. 00:49:02 Speaker 2: It's a maybe it's a little bit of a leap of faith. Yeah, but you will figure it out. 00:49:06 Speaker 3: You will have to. 00:49:07 Speaker 2: We figured it out, and I'm not the smartest, you know, smartest kid, and you figure it out. Gosh, I can't imagine life without that dynamic. But it's such a personal decision and it's so meaningful that for me to be able to say, oh, let's make it about the expense side is terrifying because it's so meaningful, So I would I would then just say, if you can get a lot of clarity on what your money is for, you might see the kid fits in just fine. And I have very close friends and wine app team members that have followed the method figured out what their money is for and what their money is for, and they've gotten good at money and they aren't worrying about it, and suddenly they decide to have a kid, or another one or a third one because they recognize, like, oh, I've this money thing was apparently the hold up, but it actually isn't. When when that money worry goes away, yeah, maybe other other proper you know, possibilities open up for people. So I'll stay in my line and say, figure out what your money is for and then be open to quite quite a ride in life if that ends up being your choice. 00:50:20 Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I like it. I like it. 00:50:22 Speaker 1: Yeah. I hate to think that money is something. 00:50:26 Speaker 3: That that is terrifying to me. 00:50:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I understand that concern. But I think a lot of kind of what you talk about in your book can alleviate kind of some of those worries, even to the point of feeling more comfortable expanding your family. Jesse, this is one more. 00:50:40 Speaker 3: Thing, one more than Joel. 00:50:41 Speaker 2: You can also just be what I call a rec league family and that removes. 00:50:45 Speaker 3: A lot of cost of kid What does that mean. 00:50:47 Speaker 2: Because you're not doing the travel sports and all the things, Yeah, like getting your kids private tutors and and you know, deciding that they're going to be a lecross phenom when they're four and then they need like you know, I'm being I'm being a little little facetious, but people can spend a lot of money not being a rec league family, and if you're a rec lead family, it stays pretty affordable. 00:51:07 Speaker 3: So that's that is. 00:51:08 Speaker 2: One choice that Julie and I have made. It's not just the money, it's also the time. And we're just like that we're a rec league and uh, you know, season's end. You don't play all year round, you don't play indoor outdoor, you just let your kids kind of dabble. And uh, that's one choice you made. That is if people were like looking for a specific thing, man, that's a that's a money that's a money pit right there. 00:51:28 Speaker 1: It is, right and also a time suck like so much. I have friends and in their kids are it's it's three practices a week and two or three games on the weekends. And I'm like, yeah, in the more kids you have, the less you can actually commit to that. It's just impossible and it's ridiculous. 00:51:45 Speaker 2: Maybe shows it. Yeah, we're like, we can't. We couldn't if we tried. You know, we have to hire it. 00:51:51 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:51:51 Speaker 2: A bunch of nannies be like, okay, you two take those people, and yeah, that's not the way we're gonna roll. 00:51:56 Speaker 3: So maybe consider rec league. 00:51:58 Speaker 1: I'm with you on that. 00:51:58 Speaker 3: I like that. 00:51:59 Speaker 1: That last piece of advice. All right, where this has been a joy. I've enjoyed having you on. Where can how the money listeners find out more about your new book? 00:52:06 Speaker 3: Man? So never worry about money again? Dot com? That's that's the book site. 00:52:10 Speaker 2: If they're curious what this weird acronym you know, wyeab, winnab dot com, y nab dot com. I'm not on socials, so there's nowhere to follow me, but they're they're welcome to write in like they can not write to me at Jesse at wineab dot com. And if they have questions that were spurred from from listening to how to Money, then happy to answer them and we can just have a little one on one, you know, conversation back and forth, so old school, you. 00:52:35 Speaker 1: Know, sounds good, sounds good. Thanks Jesse, I appreciate it, man, Thanks for having me. Oh man, It's been way too long since I've talked with Jesse, so glad to have him back on to talk today. And just man, I love the idea the concept of his new book, and I think he's pointing out something that is so ridiculously true, that that money is something that we perpetually worry about. And I love the way he's talking about eliminating the worry that we that low grade hum as he put it in the beginning, that we have towards money. And he was even just talking about, yeah, be frugal, that's fine, but don't be frugal out of fear. And I think that's just so wise. And I think many of us have at least or probably still live in that sort of frugal out of fear, Like I can't buy that fifty cent donut because then you just think about all these ways it's going to derail you. And then if you think, if you stop just for a second, snap your fingers and think about it. Rationally, you're like, oh, wait, a fifty cent donut. It's not it's not going to derail everything I've built. And so yeah, I think he talked about knowing deeply what your money is for and watching it do that thing that's intentionality. And then that last at the last little bit, we talked about getting curious about your money. And I think that is at the heart that's that's playful, that's really fun. You can do that by yourself, you can do that with a partner, and that sort of curiosity about what your money can do for you instead of just saying, oh, I'm saving it for when I'm sixty five and older. That's part of it, right, right, And you can be playful with the funds you've been able to save kind of in those retirement years. But it's also like what's possible now, Like what is possible now with the money that's coming in, How can I change my lifestyle in ways that Like what he said was it's more congruent with who I am, right, so that the money, how it gets spent, how it gets used, is more congruent with the person we say we are or who we are desirous of being. And I think that is something that comes later on down the line as we do more of that introspection and digging and we get a little bit curious. So how can you get curious with your money this week? How can you ask some of those questions so that your money so that you're not just upping your savings, right, which is a fine and dandy thing, but so that you are using the money that's coming in in a way that's effective. And because this money, the money that you make, it touches every aspect of your life. And that's what Jesse was getting at with the fact that your money is you is kind of one of the things that he's talking about in this book. It's such a reflection of who you are. It's almost like, show me your calendar and I'll show you what you care about. Show me the way your money gets spent, and I'll show you what you care about. And so if you think about your money in those terms, like, hey, it's a reflection of who I am. This says something about me, not just to the people around me, but to myself. And that's impacting how I think about me. Get a little curious about your money this week, Put some pen to paper, start noodle in out. If you want the how to Money Money Mission statement, will put that in the show notes. I think that can be helpful to provoke some of these questions so that you can use your money in a way that is just a more accurate representation of who you are, who you want to be, and you can continue to grow in that and hopefully never worry about money again. Thank you so much, as always for listening. I appreciate your time and attention. We'll put links in the show notes up on the website at howtomoney dot com. Until next time, best friend out,