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Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and

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Speaker 1: today we're throwing a financial festivals. We want to celebrate

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Speaker 1: your listener money wins. You know, a buddy, you know,

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Speaker 1: it would not be the holidays, it would not be

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Speaker 1: the end of the year if you weren't celebrating with

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Speaker 1: a massive party. And essentially this is what this is

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Speaker 1: in podcast form. All year long, we work really hard,

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Speaker 1: we talked about the news, we talk about we take

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Speaker 1: listener questions, we do the deep dies into specific topics.

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Speaker 1: But now we're at the point in the year where

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Speaker 1: we're gonna kick back and we're gonna celebrate. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: brag on you. Um these are the different financial winds,

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Speaker 1: the different ways that you were able to get ahead

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Speaker 1: with your money, and we want to be able to

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Speaker 1: we want to share these to be able to provide

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Speaker 1: encouragement for all the folks out there who might be

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Speaker 1: less sending, who might be who knows where you are

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Speaker 1: on your path to financial freedom. But hopefully you will

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Speaker 1: hear some of these things that folks were able to accomplish,

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Speaker 1: and it will provide you a little boost. It'll give

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Speaker 1: you a little you know, just a little bit of

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Speaker 1: pep in your stack. So we we solicited these questions

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Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram, and listeners turned out. I think

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Speaker 1: last year, Matt, we we actually had folks submit voice

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Speaker 1: memos of their listener wins, and I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 1: you and I were a little less prepared than last year,

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Speaker 1: but that was fun. It was very fun to do

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Speaker 1: that last year, and maybe next year maybe will do that.

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Speaker 1: But also there are just some folks who don't want

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Speaker 1: to sit down and do the voice voice memo thing

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Speaker 1: um and so even though we appreciate it, it's also

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Speaker 1: very fun to have other folks voices on the show.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there are some folks who responded that may not

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Speaker 1: have done so otherwise. So we're glad to have all

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Speaker 1: of these listener money wins. And hopefully, by the way,

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Speaker 1: like as we are celebrating the great things that listeners

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Speaker 1: have done with their money, you know this year, we're

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Speaker 1: also all learning at the same time, because I think

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of takeaways that we can get that

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Speaker 1: folks can implement learn from based on the way other

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Speaker 1: people have succeeded this year. But but Matt, before we

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Speaker 1: get to that, I wanted to mention one thing. It's

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Speaker 1: something that I experienced for the first time, and I

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Speaker 1: can't believe I even talked about this yet. This was

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Speaker 1: over Thanksgiving when Emily and I we our whole family

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Speaker 1: wound back to Memphis to celebrate the holiday with her dad,

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Speaker 1: and so her step mom actually ended up taking us

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Speaker 1: to this most interesting place that felt like a kind

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Speaker 1: of behind the curtain look into capitalist America the curtains

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Speaker 1: of oz. Yes do share. Okay, So what this this

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Speaker 1: place was? And apparently there are three of them in

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Speaker 1: the Memphis area where where her dad lives. It's an

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Speaker 1: Amazon returns store. So I have you heard about these?

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Speaker 1: I have heard. I know folks go there and there's

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Speaker 1: like a you know, the doors open at a certain

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Speaker 1: point in time and they're able to like I remember there.

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Speaker 1: I was listening to some reporting and there's some folks

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Speaker 1: and they will camp out and they can look in

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Speaker 1: and see the certain items and they know, like it's

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Speaker 1: like a mad dash. We're running there and grab. Is

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Speaker 1: that what y'all did? So no, not either, right when

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Speaker 1: they open, it's not quite like that. But these are

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Speaker 1: these are I think third party retail, so they're not

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Speaker 1: associated with Amazon, but they buy the return boxes with

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Speaker 1: the stuff intact from Amazon for I don't know how

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Speaker 1: much they pay, but then the first day they released

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Speaker 1: the goods, it's seven dollars for a box, and every day,

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Speaker 1: every subsequent day the price goes down. So it's like

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Speaker 1: the next day it's Wednesday, it's five bucks, and then

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Speaker 1: Thursday it's three bucks a box, and then but I

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Speaker 1: think by the last day of the week it's fifty

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Speaker 1: cents for a box. And so but we went there

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Speaker 1: and I just kind of wanted to see what this

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Speaker 1: was all about. Really, just kind of like how the

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Speaker 1: money reporting all about that, and I also would have

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Speaker 1: shown up with some dollars a month, so we did.

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Speaker 1: We we bought one thing and it was actually a

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Speaker 1: CD player, like a portable CD player, which sounds random,

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Speaker 1: but we had just gone to the library and we're like, man,

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Speaker 1: they have so many books on tape, but books on CD,

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Speaker 1: but we don't have a portable CD player. And so

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Speaker 1: that was one of those things where it's helpful for

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Speaker 1: car trips to grow. Especially my seven year old loves

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Speaker 1: listening to audio books, and so I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: that's how we can utilize our libraries and better by

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Speaker 1: having that, but it was just like you own a

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Speaker 1: Sony this one right exactly for you know, and I

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Speaker 1: haven't owned one in twenty years, but now I own

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Speaker 1: another one. But it was just the guys that always

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Speaker 1: had the yellow ones. They're like the sport ones shot

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Speaker 1: proof seconds, right. I'm so that we don't in waterproof

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Speaker 1: have to have those anymore. But it was interesting talking

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Speaker 1: to people about the things that they had found. Some

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Speaker 1: people like that super thinking about the cool stuff they've

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Speaker 1: gotten in years past, and like, oh I got or

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Speaker 1: in in recent months. I guess, like I got an

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Speaker 1: Apple Watch last week in one of these boxes, and

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Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess if you're in the a thrill

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Speaker 1: of the hunt kind of person, so is it like

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Speaker 1: a grab bag or do you know that like what

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Speaker 1: it is in the body? They will open the boxes

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Speaker 1: for you and then take them back up if you're

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Speaker 1: not interested, so you can take a look in there

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Speaker 1: and see what you're You're not totally just getting something

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Speaker 1: at random. You're able to see like, oh, wait, this

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Speaker 1: is a bunch of there's a bunch of random stuff

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Speaker 1: in there, though I will say, yeah, I bet there is.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's just kind of interesting to see that

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Speaker 1: that exists, and if you're one of those treasure hunter

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Speaker 1: kind of people, I will say, if you're good at that,

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Speaker 1: you could totally make a living just reselling stuff. The

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Speaker 1: folks there, who of who in that that's that's what

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Speaker 1: they do. They resell those items online. They've got an

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Speaker 1: eBay store, maybe even at store or wherever it is

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Speaker 1: that they want to sell stuff. Right. Yeah, but it

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Speaker 1: was cool. It's cool to see it, actually, So it

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Speaker 1: kind of makes me think of have we talked about

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Speaker 1: the uh, like the lost airline luggage warehouses? Isn't there

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Speaker 1: one in Alabama? There's I think there's one in Alabama.

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Speaker 1: But if you are, if you happen to be driving

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Speaker 1: through wherever it is, that they've got one of those,

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Speaker 1: I'll look it up and let me can link to

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Speaker 1: it in the show notes as well. But it's something similar.

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Speaker 1: It's unclaimed luggage that was lost, And yeah, you have

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Speaker 1: the ability to buy all sorts of random stuff, but

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Speaker 1: you might be also potentially getting a killer deal. There

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Speaker 1: were a lot of other things there, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I could totally get that, but I was like, no, Joel, no,

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Speaker 1: if it may resist, but it wasn't good for you.

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Speaker 1: So I was like, I don't need that stuff in

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Speaker 1: my life, right, but let's introduced the beer. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: and I are enjoying today a Christmas sale by St. Bernardus.

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Speaker 1: This is a classic looking forward to sharing this one

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Speaker 1: today and we'll talk about it at the end of

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Speaker 1: the episode. Of course we have to drink another Christmas beer.

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Speaker 1: Tis the season, but tis the season to celebrate listener

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Speaker 1: money wins as well. This is of course something we

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Speaker 1: like to do at the end of every year, and

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Speaker 1: especially Matt in a year like two, which kind of

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Speaker 1: felt like a financial yo yo of a year, I

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Speaker 1: think it's even more important. Yeah, it's even more important

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Speaker 1: to focus on the positives. The market is is obviously

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Speaker 1: down in a major way. Inflation still problematic. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're starting to see that trend reverse, but it's gonna

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Speaker 1: take time. Crypto is on the ropes or as we

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Speaker 1: called it, is it going extincts. I don't know, maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe at some point, uh maybe not. Also, but student

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Speaker 1: loan forgiveness still in limbo, like we talked about last week,

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Speaker 1: but a massive number of how the money listeners, despite

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Speaker 1: the economic headwins of this year, have been able to

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Speaker 1: make significant advances in their own personal financial lives, and

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Speaker 1: so we love creating this episode. We love hearing you

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Speaker 1: know what you guys out there have been able to accomplish,

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Speaker 1: and we like to share that stuff with your fellow

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Speaker 1: listener because it's inspiring, it's motivating. Also, it's enlightening. So

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Speaker 1: hopefully today we can all learn from something from each other.

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Speaker 1: And we're all so hoping that this episode might be

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Speaker 1: maybe the spark for some epic money moves for for

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Speaker 1: the rest of you. That's right, So let's kick things off.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with a type of money win. That's uh,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be accessible, I think for most everyone

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Speaker 1: out there who's listening. So Ashley over on Instagram she

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Speaker 1: said that I increased my furrow en K contribution, I

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Speaker 1: switched to mitmobile, and I changed my car insurance, saving

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Speaker 1: the one thousand dollars per year, which is awesome. These,

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are the kind of kind of moves

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Speaker 1: that we want to see folks making a few small

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Speaker 1: incremental stuffs like this. You know, they don't feel like

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Speaker 1: they're going to make a massive difference, but they add

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Speaker 1: up to significant results over time. And like I like

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Speaker 1: I just mentioned this is something that like everyone out

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Speaker 1: there can do right, like simply shopping around for better

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Speaker 1: rates and starting with your car insurance and your cell

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Speaker 1: phone provider. That's something that everyone should most definitely consider.

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Speaker 1: And those are the kind of things math that you

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Speaker 1: do one time, but the savings continue. You can you

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Speaker 1: can do to read them every single month or every

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Speaker 1: single six every time you have to pay that that

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Speaker 1: car insurance bill. You're you're going to save money. And

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Speaker 1: but it's one of those things that oftentimes were reluctant

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Speaker 1: to do. So I love that Ashley did it. She

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Speaker 1: shared that win one thousand dollars in a year. That's

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Speaker 1: a significant amount of money to have back in your

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Speaker 1: back in your pocket, especially when it doesn't feel like

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Speaker 1: it's denting your lifestyle in any meaningful way. She still

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Speaker 1: has car insurance, she still has a cell phone. It's

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Speaker 1: not like these are things that you know that she's

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Speaker 1: depriving herself off. She's just paying less exactly. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things I want to mention too, based

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Speaker 1: on Ashley's win is is checking out an independent broker.

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Speaker 1: Not going to just a specific insurance company, but find

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Speaker 1: a local independent agent where you live who can help

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Speaker 1: you shop around those policies. They can shop with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of different companies at once, which makes it just

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Speaker 1: less difficult for for you to go about getting that

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Speaker 1: getting that insurance rate reduced in your life. I'm actually

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Speaker 1: talking to our independent broker, like literally as we record this.

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Speaker 1: I sent her an email yesterday because she was asked

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Speaker 1: her buddy for some updated information and I will let

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Speaker 1: you know what my savings are, because, like we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: car insurance rates in particular have have skyrocketed, and that's

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Speaker 1: something I was thinking. I feel like mine skyrocket maybe

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Speaker 1: a little bit more than than maybe other folks don't. Like,

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Speaker 1: if it had gone up a little bit, I probably

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Speaker 1: would have just eaten it, right, But the fact that

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Speaker 1: it went up too much, I was just like, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: which is good. You want to back the I mean,

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Speaker 1: it sucks that it went up, but then you're like,

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Speaker 1: feeling the pain is actually good. It makes me actually

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Speaker 1: take actually exactly. And also don't forget that actually she

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Speaker 1: was able to increase her four w K contribution as well,

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Speaker 1: so she's not only is she saving more of her money,

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Speaker 1: so that simply just adds up over time. Mat like

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Speaker 1: you said, it's it's actually going to compound over time,

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Speaker 1: leading to a much wealthier future for her. Got that

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Speaker 1: money invested. Yeah, And on a similar note, Erica in

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Speaker 1: the Facebook group, she shared that after you guys sent

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Speaker 1: up for the millionth time, which we are prone to do,

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Speaker 1: I finally went shopping for new car insurance. She says

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Speaker 1: we'll save about one thousand dollars next year, although I

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Speaker 1: will have to add a teenage boy driver in the summer,

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Speaker 1: so the savings won't last long. That is true, those uh,

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Speaker 1: those teenage drivers are often expensive. Well, actually, great job

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely I don't know what you Matt. I'm not

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Speaker 1: looking forward to those teenage driver years. I'm hoping autonomous

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Speaker 1: have to worry about our our kids. Like one, the

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Speaker 1: increased insurance costs, but also just the insane reality of

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Speaker 1: I can just program the car and tell it where

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Speaker 1: to go, just like I I tell my robot vacuum

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Speaker 1: Ruma where to go. Which did I tell you that

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Speaker 1: we named it? That we named a creature from Harry Potter.

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Speaker 1: No nice the house elf. We were in the middle

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Speaker 1: of reading book five. But the ability to do that

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Speaker 1: from my phone, if only we have that technology available

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Speaker 1: to us when our kids are in uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: in their teenage years. Seriously, by the way, Erica said that,

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Speaker 1: we repeated it for the million time, which we are

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Speaker 1: prone to do, like and I think when you hear

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Speaker 1: something there's a reason for that. On our show a

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Speaker 1: bunch of times, we are repetitive for a purpose because

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Speaker 1: there are some things that are just more important than

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Speaker 1: other things, and so we like to focus on a

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Speaker 1: wide variety of financial topics and issues. But if you

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Speaker 1: hear us say the same thing about like roth Ira,

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Speaker 1: if you're like man, they talked about that thing a lot,

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Speaker 1: probably because it's really important, please take note. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: another easier money when that has an incredibly low barrier

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Speaker 1: of stuff that you no longer need. Uh Nadia over

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Speaker 1: on Facebook she did just that. She said that my

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Speaker 1: victory is that I am the d stash queen. I say,

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Speaker 1: she doesn't call it declutter, and she calls it d stashing.

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Speaker 1: I've recouped upwards of one thousand dollars plus on things

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Speaker 1: that I've just dashed. Just this week, I made about

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Speaker 1: a hundred bucks selling planner goodies that I don't use

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Speaker 1: or want. Super proud of these efforts, and Nadia, we

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Speaker 1: are super proud of you. Which actually I don't know

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Speaker 1: what planner goodies are. But is that like organization like

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Speaker 1: calendar planner? Yes, or maybe she meant to say planter,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Either way, though she

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Speaker 1: got rid of it, there's somebody else out there who

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Speaker 1: wants those things. That's something that she was not Nadia herself,

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Speaker 1: that she wasn't valuing. And dude, what's so great about

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Speaker 1: unloading a bunch of stuff like this, uh, things that

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Speaker 1: you no longer want or things you no longer need,

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Speaker 1: is that there are multiple winds going down at once here. Right,

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Speaker 1: So first of all, you've got few items taking up

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Speaker 1: paying extra money for self storage. Hopefully that's not the case.

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Speaker 1: So it's nice that you are reclaiming space in your house.

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Speaker 1: But then secondly, you're reclaiming mental space, right, mental bandwidth

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Speaker 1: as well. Since this is a junk that you no

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Speaker 1: longer have to think about. This is stuff that you

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Speaker 1: can now free up your mind to focus on things

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Speaker 1: that you truly care about, not just the junk that's

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Speaker 1: cluttering up your space. Uh. And of course, lastly, obviously

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Speaker 1: you've got some extra money on hand that you can

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Speaker 1: now save or you can spend it in whatever way

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Speaker 1: you see fits. I love that it is true that

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Speaker 1: the stuff that we own it ends up owning us,

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Speaker 1: and it does take up mental space too. There's there's

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Speaker 1: things that I've been selling lately, Matt and on Facebook

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Speaker 1: to try to finishing up the year, trying trying to

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Speaker 1: finish up the year well with our Sell your Stuff challenge,

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Speaker 1: And I'm amazed at one it's nice to have the

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Speaker 1: cash come in come into my life, but I'm amazed

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Speaker 1: at just what a mental relief it is to to

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Speaker 1: get that thing out of my garage or out of

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Speaker 1: my sun room or whatever it is like just to

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Speaker 1: have fewer things in the house makes me happy, and

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Speaker 1: it makes it just makes me feel like, uh, just

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Speaker 1: a small little burden lifted off my shoulders. So I

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Speaker 1: think decluttering is underrated from both perspectives, So awesome job, Nadia.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, at the beginning of the year,

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Speaker 1: and we gave principal assets right that people could the people,

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Speaker 1: so the people could list out the things they've they've

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Speaker 1: sold and they could track how much money they've brought

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Speaker 1: back into their life doing this. But we also actually

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Speaker 1: did one about a wrath challenge, Matt where we wanted

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Speaker 1: people to be able to to track and see like, hey,

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Speaker 1: have I been able to max out the contributions to

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Speaker 1: my wrath in two And I know that's a goal

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Speaker 1: of a lot of folks who listen to the show.

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Speaker 1: And Alison on Instagram, she she said, I started contributing

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Speaker 1: to a wrath and I'm so close to reaching the

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Speaker 1: max contribution for this year. She said, your Money Challenge

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Speaker 1: episode inspired me to make it happy and so that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: And you know, uh, coming up with a spare six

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, it's not easy, but when you're able to

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Speaker 1: to break that larger, overwhelming amount down to a more

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Speaker 1: manageable and bite sized amount of five hundred bucks a month,

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Speaker 1: you're maxing out a roth Ira sounds a bit more

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Speaker 1: attainable all of a sudden, and so Alison, great work.

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Speaker 1: By the way, if you haven't yet maxed it out,

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Speaker 1: you still have a couple of weeks left, but then

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Speaker 1: you also have really actually through April fifteen to max

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Speaker 1: out your wrath for two So we would suggest maxing

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Speaker 1: that out before you start making contributions, because, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe you'll be able to max out the raw for

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Speaker 1: both years, and eventually maybe she can get an entire

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Speaker 1: year ahead of it so that when January first hits

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Speaker 1: she's able to I mean, this is how I like

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Speaker 1: to approach it. Just try trying to get ahead of

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Speaker 1: the ball. That way, you're able to deploy all of

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Speaker 1: that money all at once in the beginning of the year,

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Speaker 1: because historically, you know, what's proven is that you will

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Speaker 1: see higher returns from investing at the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: year rather than dollar cost averaging as you receive the shurtance.

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Speaker 1: So that's not true this year, but it is gonna

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Speaker 1: be true, like you said, for most years historically it's true.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's like, what is it? Uh? Past performances, No,

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Speaker 1: no problems for future results, and that's a good pro tip.

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Speaker 1: I think for most people, dollar cost averaging just makes

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Speaker 1: it mentally easier and it's easier to accomplish too. Right

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Speaker 1: financially speaking, most people don't have six K lump sum

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Speaker 1: January first, exactly, but I think that's a great thing

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Speaker 1: to strive for in the future. Totally yeah, Okay. Over

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Speaker 1: on Facebook tory, she says, I got a credit card

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Speaker 1: for each of my two preferred airlines several years ago.

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Speaker 1: Now I've built up enough reward miles to book a

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Speaker 1: few trips for a couple hundred off or even for free.

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Speaker 1: Besides the five dollar fee, you can't get out what

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Speaker 1: is it? I don't know. It's five dollars and sixty

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Speaker 1: cents that the taxes, and like the eleven fee makes

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Speaker 1: it exactly Actually so Amanda. She had something similar as well.

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Speaker 1: She said that a small win but still a win.

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Speaker 1: Finally got into the credit card rewards game, currently enjoying

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Speaker 1: the Amazon card sign on offer and man, this is awesome, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, somebody posted posted about in the Facebook group.

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Speaker 1: I think it was the face the Amazon on Black

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Speaker 1: Friday or Cyber or Cyber Monday. I forget which one.

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Speaker 1: I think it was an extra It was two dollars

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Speaker 1: Amazon credit when you opened up an ama A card.

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Speaker 1: I will say even me, I saw that in there.

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Speaker 1: I believe it was a listener Sarah who mentioned it.

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Speaker 1: I took advantage of it. So thanks Sarah for mentioned

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Speaker 1: I'm telling you the community people helping each other, it's awesome. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love it. And Amanda said that this is a

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Speaker 1: small win. But here's the thing, dude, I'll take these small,

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Speaker 1: doable wins over massive, impossible wins any day of the week, right, Like, Like,

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Speaker 1: we're all about folks finding practical ways to optimize their

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Speaker 1: personal finances, and it really can be as straightforward is

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Speaker 1: just getting a credit card that offers better rewards. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, you can easily find the cards

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Speaker 1: that that have the best rewards out there with our

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Speaker 1: credit card tool and you can head to our website

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Speaker 1: how to money dot com forward slash credit cards, click

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Speaker 1: the different sliders and that will filter out the cards

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Speaker 1: that you shouldn't be looking at and allow you to

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Speaker 1: focus on the good ones. Yeah, so getting a better

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Speaker 1: card is one thing to do. Could also be as

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Speaker 1: simple a small money move as as really seemingly insignificant

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Speaker 1: as switching banks, which is what listener Shreice did, and

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Speaker 1: she said her win was stepping away from Wells Fargo.

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Speaker 1: She switched to a credit union. So she went from

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Speaker 1: literally the worst possible place you could so you can

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Speaker 1: stock your money away to one of the best. And

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Speaker 1: we think that's great. Credit unions are lovely places for

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Speaker 1: you to do business when it comes to in particular

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Speaker 1: when it comes to taking out loans for things like

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Speaker 1: home equity loan or a mortgage loan or we don't

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Speaker 1: love them, but car loans, right, if you're going to

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Speaker 1: get one, a credit union is a better place to turn.

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Speaker 1: But uh yeah, don't do it. But if you do,

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Speaker 1: do it, go to a credit exactly. So I love

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Speaker 1: that Shereie now has a relationship with her local credit union.

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Speaker 1: She's got some of her money there, which I think

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Speaker 1: is great. But it's really it's not that hard to

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Speaker 1: switch your money from one place to another. And we

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Speaker 1: think that, you know, it's not just about the interest rates.

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Speaker 1: It's about the better customer service, it's about fewer fees,

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Speaker 1: it's about all these other things that come alongside doing

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Speaker 1: banking with someone who doesn't hate you, and by the

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Speaker 1: way Wells Fargo hate you, so don't do business with

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Speaker 1: But switching is actually easier than you think. We'll link

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Speaker 1: to an article that we wrote about switching banks, how

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Speaker 1: to do it easily and effectively, where you should consider

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Speaker 1: moving your money. We'll we'll link to that in the

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Speaker 1: show notes on our website. But Matt, we've got more

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Speaker 1: listener money Wins to get to. Got some really cool stuff,

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Speaker 1: including like some relationship advice and some positive relationship movement

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Speaker 1: based around the topic of money. We'll we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: that and more. We'll get to that right after this break.

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Speaker 1: All right, we are back in the financial festivals that continues, Joel,

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Speaker 1: we ought to be popping some champagne instead, where we

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Speaker 1: just got a normal Christmas al. This is no normal, dude, no,

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Speaker 1: no sparkly stuff. This is so good. I think this

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Speaker 1: actually tastes a little effervescent in my mouth, and it

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Speaker 1: kind of does. It's got like a tart tart funkiness.

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Speaker 1: But we should stop. We'll save all this for the

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Speaker 1: end of the episode when we talk about the beard.

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Speaker 1: Because so just before the break, we're you know, we're

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Speaker 1: touting how getting the right credit card, how that can

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Speaker 1: be an attainable win for anyone out there. Well, like

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Speaker 1: maybe not everyone, though, right, because any time we talk

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Speaker 1: about credit card rewards, we also need to talk about

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Speaker 1: credit card debt because we don't want to encourage any

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Speaker 1: type of behavior that's going to lead to you making

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Speaker 1: monthly interest payments to the bank. Instead, we want you

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Speaker 1: to be done with that, in particular debt related to

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Speaker 1: consumer spending. Uh. And so our next encouraging note comes

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Speaker 1: from Emily over on Facebook, and she said that she

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Speaker 1: paid off thirteen thousand dollars in credit card debt in

429
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:33,280
Speaker 1: seven to eight months this year. I'm almost one debt

430
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:36,200
Speaker 1: free now also change jobs to get a fifteen percent

431
00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:41,000
Speaker 1: raise to Emily, congrats, that is amazing. I'm actually not

432
00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:43,520
Speaker 1: sure which came first, whether you paid off that credit

433
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:47,840
Speaker 1: card debt um or if she got the rays at work,

434
00:19:47,840 --> 00:19:49,840
Speaker 1: But either way, I think it's cool to start seeing

435
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:53,119
Speaker 1: multiple awesome things happening all at the same time. Making

436
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: more makes paying off debt go a lot faster. But

437
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:59,360
Speaker 1: I almost would prefer if she decided to pay off

438
00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 1: all that debt and then that discipline was able to

439
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,640
Speaker 1: sort of magically transfer into her ability to earn more

440
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:07,879
Speaker 1: money at work, you know, like because we kind of

441
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:11,880
Speaker 1: talked about this on the cross Fitting your Money episode

442
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,200
Speaker 1: cross Fitting your Finances, But there's a certain amount of

443
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:16,280
Speaker 1: discipline when you see it in one part of your life,

444
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:18,840
Speaker 1: I think it can transfer to your areas in your

445
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 1: life as well. And so either way, we're not sure

446
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 1: how it went down for you, Emily, but congratulations. Yeah,

447
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:24,760
Speaker 1: that's big time. And to be to be close to

448
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 1: a percent debt free and to have made that much

449
00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:31,240
Speaker 1: progress in one year's time is like worthy of high praise.

450
00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 1: Patch yourself on the back, Emily, for sure. And speaking

451
00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:36,960
Speaker 1: of debt, Matt Ashley, she said that just this month,

452
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,680
Speaker 1: she stepped across the zero dollar net worth line. She said,

453
00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:43,160
Speaker 1: twenty I'm twenty four years old and attacking student debt

454
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:45,600
Speaker 1: with all I might and I love I love hearing

455
00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:48,360
Speaker 1: that because you know, considering the student lo on pitfalls

456
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:51,200
Speaker 1: that tens of millions of people are facing right now. Uh,

457
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:54,000
Speaker 1: and you know, the the lack of forgiveness that was expected.

458
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:56,960
Speaker 1: Getting to a zero dollar net worth at such a

459
00:20:57,000 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 1: young age is admirable. Most people don't don't really send

460
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 1: year ol line because they have so much debt that

461
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:05,120
Speaker 1: they've taken on to pay for school for so many

462
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:07,960
Speaker 1: years that they don't reach it until their thirties now,

463
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:10,360
Speaker 1: So the fact that Ashley is there already the age

464
00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 1: of twenty four is impressive and so, uh, yeah, we

465
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 1: would say it's also impressive and important to start tracking

466
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 1: your net worth to know where you're at in your

467
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: financial progress. Your net worth is one of those things

468
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: it's easy to track. It provides a helpful snapshot of

469
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:27,359
Speaker 1: where things stand with your personal finances. So for most

470
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:30,440
Speaker 1: folks with any meaningful stock exposure, for instance, their net

471
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:32,520
Speaker 1: worth it probably went down this year, right and all

472
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:35,920
Speaker 1: likely unless you just contributed an insane an insane amount

473
00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:39,879
Speaker 1: of crazy person, yeah, to to make up for the

474
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:43,000
Speaker 1: deficit that you occurred. That's okay. Your net worth, which

475
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,200
Speaker 1: is basically just your assets minus your liabilities, is still

476
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 1: a valuable number to have on hand as you make

477
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,040
Speaker 1: financial progress. It's worth looking into every six months or

478
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 1: every year just to kind of see how you're doing.

479
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,840
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I don't know, cheers to you actually,

480
00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 1: uh to growing your net worth in to to starting

481
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:04,119
Speaker 1: in zero right now but making a meaningful amount of

482
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,440
Speaker 1: progress in the coming year. Alright, So shifting gears from

483
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 1: paying down debt, and striving after a positive net worth.

484
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 1: Nate said, my wife and I are on the same

485
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 1: page on finances for the first time, and it's been amazing. Now,

486
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: so I probably shouldn't pick favorites, but this win is

487
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 1: this one might be my favorite. It's definitely up there. Um,

488
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: And that's probably because Nate has like he's moved on

489
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: past the nerdy and like the technical side of money

490
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: and is instead focusing on what communicating about money well

491
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: with his wife has allowed him to achieve, which is

492
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:39,360
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't say it directly. He just said

493
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 1: that it's been amazing, but I translate that as him

494
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,919
Speaker 1: saying that he's experiencing a more satisfying and fulfilling relationship,

495
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: you know, like like this one, honestly like it. It

496
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: kind of gives me the like the warm fuzzies inside

497
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:53,920
Speaker 1: your heart just grew three sizes today, yeah, man, Like,

498
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 1: Like it's just such a small example of how of

499
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: how just being smart with your money right, like earning

500
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: more money, spending less money, investing more of it. How

501
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: none of those things should be the final goals, should

502
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: be the final destination, Like those should all be a

503
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:09,960
Speaker 1: means to an end not an end in and of itself,

504
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 1: and so it's just always crucial to remember that even

505
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: if you were to amass a mountain of money, that

506
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 1: that won't necessarily equal a healthy relationship. It takes you

507
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: talking about it, It takes all having shared common goals.

508
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:22,639
Speaker 1: But I mean, this is something that we feel like

509
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: we used to talk about more on the show. But

510
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,200
Speaker 1: a big reason that we started this podcast was because

511
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: we wanted there to be an outlet for folks to

512
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 1: base come to the middle, and to meet and to

513
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: gather around something, in this case our podcast, to be

514
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: able to learn how to talk about money in a

515
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: way that wasn't intimidating, in a way that didn't seem

516
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: like you were sitting in a macro econ class, that

517
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: kind of thing. We wanted to present personal finances in

518
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: a way that would be essentially fun and approachable. Yeah,

519
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 1: it makes me think too of how many people feel

520
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: politically homeless right now, Matt, I think the same thing

521
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: is true in personal finance. There's a lot of really loud,

522
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: stringent voices on both sides. We want to be kind

523
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 1: of the rash will hopefully energizing fun guys in the

524
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 1: middle that provide good information, but that also like do

525
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: extreme middle without the dogmatism, so uh, and and that

526
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:11,479
Speaker 1: a lot of that is because the way we talk

527
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: about it matters, right, And the way we talk about

528
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: it with our significant other, with our friends, the way

529
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: that we talk about such an important subject as money

530
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: with the people around us, it matters. It influences, it

531
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: colors the way we think about it. But it does

532
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: the same for the people who we love the most too,

533
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: So you have to be thoughtful in that approach. And

534
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: I love that Nate has been able to have a

535
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 1: more positive communication style when it comes to money issues

536
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: in his life and in his family's life. And similarly

537
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: Christa on Facebook, she said, my wife and I maxed

538
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:43,920
Speaker 1: out our h S as we contributed to i RAS,

539
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: and we tracked spending for the entire year. She said.

540
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: I tend to be a hardcore saver, but you both

541
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: have helped us strike a balance between saving for the

542
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: future and spending in ways that matter to us now.

543
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 1: So thank you. And that's what it's all about, do Matt.

544
00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: It's it's finding that balance right because there are a

545
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: lot of people. You can get all the technical things right,

546
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: you can get the Investopedia style approach, and that's a

547
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: great site, and it's important to learn those things. But uh,

548
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,439
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here on this show goes beyond that.

549
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: There's a lot more to learn, simply beyond the mechanics

550
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: of saving more, investing more, earning more. And if we're

551
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: too preoccupied with how the machine works, then we can

552
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,400
Speaker 1: lose sight of the actual purpose of the machine, which

553
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: is to lead a happy, purposeful, and fulfilling life. Or however,

554
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: is that you wanted to find the good life? Well,

555
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: and if you don't know what your definition of the

556
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: good life is, if you're not sure what the why

557
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: behind your money is, we would suggest checking out our

558
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: Money Mission statement and going through that, spending thirty minutes

559
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: to an hour with this form we've created. It's free,

560
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: and we'll link to that in the show notes for

561
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: this episode two. Yes we will. All right, So we've

562
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: already heard from a couple of folks who saw raises

563
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: this past year, but let's mention a couple more. This

564
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: is from Alex and he said that I changed jobs

565
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: to increase my income by about which is that's a

566
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,479
Speaker 1: pig increase, but get this right. He also mentioned that

567
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: he was able to negotiate a one hundred thousand dollar rays,

568
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: but that was only ten percent for him because he

569
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: was already making He's already I'm just making assumptions over here, Matt.

570
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: That is insane and like like, because we've seen such

571
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: a hot job market, right like we saw this in

572
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,239
Speaker 1: particular at the beginning of this year. But these these

573
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: folks aren't alone and growing their take home pay in

574
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: a significant way. A lot of folks have been able

575
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: to do this. But we appreciate you'all letting us know

576
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: the progress that you were able to make. Congrats to

577
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: you both, uh, and we hope that you're able to

578
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: to just keep lifestyle inflation minimal, right, so that you

579
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: can allow at least a decent chunk of this newfound

580
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: income to propel you towards financial freedom in order to

581
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: buy you more flexibility, more freedom in the future. By

582
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: the way, right, he also mentioned that he renoted his basement.

583
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: Sounds like he was taking the d I Y approach,

584
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: which is awesome. And on top of that, one of

585
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 1: the making big bucks and also know how to swing

586
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 1: a hands, right, that's right, makes you the triple threat

587
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: or something like that, right, and on top of that,

588
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: he was helping other people with their finances, to which

589
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: I think is just massively underrated. He mentioned helping his

590
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: grandma out with her finances. And I've learned the hard way, Matt,

591
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: that you don't want to be dogmatic in your attempts

592
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: to help other people with their money. I learned this

593
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: especially in my early twenties trying to to help my

594
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: folks out. And there's just there's as my mom would

595
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: always say growing up, it's not what you say, it's

596
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: how you say it. And so I learned pretty quickly

597
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: that there's there's a way to do it right and wrong. Really,

598
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, I could see a younger

599
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: Joel being a bit brash. Yes it's true, it's true,

600
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 1: But yeah, I like that he's using the knowledge and

601
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: skills that he acquires has acquired over the years to

602
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: help those closest to him. That's a massive money win

603
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: in my book too, because if you're only retaining this

604
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: information for yourself and you're not sharing it with the

605
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: people who you love and care about, again, the right way,

606
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: like with with gentleness and kindness and and kind of

607
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: offering but not demanding that people take your advice. I

608
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,479
Speaker 1: think it's important to use your financial acumen to benefit

609
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: others because most people don't have any financial acumen, like

610
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: they are completely removed of it. Most of us didn't

611
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: learn the stuff growing up, and so any any time

612
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: you can use your powers for good, I think that's

613
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: a good thing. Agreed. We've got another one here from James,

614
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: and he says that my winds are incredibly boring. I

615
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: stayed on play max my wrath, I ra a put

616
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: more in my wrath four one K than I projected,

617
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: and I met my savings goals. Uh, James, to you,

618
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: we would say, like, if that's boring, then I want

619
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: to be boring boring for the win. Because meeting your

620
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: goals and then even exceeding them, I mean that should

621
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: be caused for celebration. It like, it doesn't have to

622
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: be sexy as long as it as long as it

623
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 1: gets done. And I would say that getting something done

624
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: like that in and of itself is sexy. I think honestly,

625
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:41,239
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot more folks out there

626
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: who probably had similar achievements this year where theyre was like, well,

627
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: for the most part of state on budget, I was

628
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: able to meet my investing goals I was able to

629
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: contribute towards retirement. Well, I'll agree that doesn't necessarily make

630
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: a flashy, sexy headline, but that is the kind of

631
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: hard work, day in day out that is going to

632
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: allow you, like we said, to achieve that of financial

633
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: freedom in the future. Yeah, they're not going to write

634
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: about you in one of those clickbaity Forbes articles. Yeah yeah,

635
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:09,719
Speaker 1: but it doesn't old who retired after seven years and

636
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 1: now travels the world, Like you've all seen this up

637
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: and they make six million dollars a month in passive income. Like,

638
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: how do they do it? It's not one of those things,

639
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: But it is you doing the right steps and and

640
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: doing the hard work that it takes to build up

641
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: your your own financial future. A man, it just makes

642
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: me think of last month. I did like a push

643
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: up challenge for thirty days with some other money nerds.

644
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: I think I talked about it recently, but uh, there's

645
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: something you knock it out. I did more than that, though,

646
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: because I saw other people exceeding their push up levels

647
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: per day, especially towards the latter half of the month.

648
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: People started to ramp it up, and so if I

649
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: had just done three hundred a day over thirty days,

650
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: I would have done three thousand push ups, but I

651
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: ended up doing over four thousand push ups last month. Yeah,

652
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: and so I exceeded my goal. I love it that

653
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: you have a goal, but then you your goal even

654
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: is even too to hopefully do better than that. And

655
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:58,479
Speaker 1: and now I've kind of like gotten in the routine,

656
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna keep im gonna keep doing push ups

657
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: all December two. So you will be all right. I can, uh,

658
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,479
Speaker 1: as long as I can still call you mad exotic,

659
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: that's fine, you can all right. Chelsea from Texas, a

660
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: longtime listener, she had something similar to share. Actually, she said, Wow,

661
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe almost a year has passed since

662
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: I called in with we bought a house voicemail when

663
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: you two accused me of violating Texas open container laws

664
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: because she she said, like they're gonna walk down to

665
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: their friends with craft beers that kind of thing. Uh,

666
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: we cool it on the Yeah, you take it easy.

667
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: We don't want to encourage and the illegal behavior here.

668
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: But she said that our money win for is maxing

669
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: out both roth iras. She said, not as sexy, but hey,

670
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: it doesn't involve packing and unpacking. So we'll take it

671
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: looking forward to listening to this year's episode, and so Chelsea,

672
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sending that our away. And honestly,

673
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: while you're accomplishments, why they might you know they might

674
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: not be as flashy as the bot House kind of

675
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: accomplishment like you did last year. Maxing out to roth

676
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: Iras is clutch um. And just remember for everyone other too,

677
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: contribution limits actually go up five a pop next year,

678
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: and so if you if you want to max both

679
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: of those out, you just need to make sure that

680
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: you find an extra thousand dollars each. No pressure. This

681
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: isn't something that we're you know, we're not requiring everybody

682
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: to do, but we would encourage. We don't have that

683
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: ability man when we we don't, but we would love

684
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 1: to see everyone looking ahead, seeing those higher limits and thinking,

685
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason they're going up because it's inflation,

686
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: Like it's going to cost more money for you to

687
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: retire way off in the future. And so if you're

688
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: not increasing to how much you're you're sitting aside, you're

689
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: you're actually gonna you're you're falling behind. Essentially. It's makes

690
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: me think of you know, folks are like, oh, the

691
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: the cost of living adjustment has gone up dramatically next

692
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: year for Social Security, and it's like, well, yeah, a

693
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: good thing, because you're behind up until that adjustment was made.

694
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: Otherwise you're cramping your lifestyle to good bye exactly. And

695
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: so on one hand, there are gonna be folks who

696
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: see this increase and they're thinking, man, I can't swing

697
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: another five bucks. But simultaneously, we want you to push

698
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: for that. We want you to to continue to say

699
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: for your future self and that future version of yourself, well,

700
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: thank you for sure. Agreed. All Right, We've got a

701
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: few more to get to you, Matt, some awesome listener

702
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: wins that we just have to acknowledge, and as we

703
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: continue this financial festivals, we'll get to those, and we'll

704
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: do that right after this. All right, man, let's keep

705
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: aalling moving with our money party. That's maybe that's what

706
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: we should call money party. Uh So, this next one

707
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: comes from a listener and she actually emailed us her

708
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: win and this is her. This was in her email.

709
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: She said, I've had a job that includes a company

710
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: provided car for about a year now and it's great.

711
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: I don't have any car or insurance payments. Uh, and

712
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: I even get a lot of my gas reimbursed. However,

713
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 1: now I want this how to money company car. Can

714
00:32:58,760 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: we make that happen? I was like, what do you

715
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: what do you buy to say, maybe this is something

716
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: we can start to includial but she said, however, I've

717
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: noticed that I actually spend a lot of this extra

718
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: money instead of saving it or instead of investing it.

719
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: So I increased my automatic contributions to my tax will

720
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: brokerage account from five dollars per month to four dollars

721
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: twice a month. I just need to see less money

722
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: in my checking account and then I won't spend it.

723
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: Thank you for the nudge in this direction, and thanks

724
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: for the great podcast. Your non judgmental, friendly and beer

725
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: based approach the money has really made it fun to

726
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 1: learn about, Katie. Thank you so much for your email, Joel,

727
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's it's not what it is that

728
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: you say, but how you say it oftentimes. And you know,

729
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: we do our best here to to make money chats informative,

730
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: of course, but we also want them to be encouraging

731
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: and fun so that folks are able to it's you know,

732
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: like you get that little bit of sugar, which is

733
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: it spoonful of sugar with a medicine like that that

734
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: whole song. But that's what we're all about. You know.

735
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: We could go all drill sergeant with it and make

736
00:33:58,200 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: you hate your life while you learn about money, but

737
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: we want to take the opposite approach because what we think,

738
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: it's more effective and it's also more enjoyable. And uh,

739
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: I guess the drill sergeant approach works for some things,

740
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: but typically most people don't want to be called idiots

741
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: for handling money poorly, especially when they haven't really been

742
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: told in the first place what to do, Like they

743
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: just need the advice and to help and hopefully in

744
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: a manner that allows them to stick with the things

745
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: that they're learning and keep keeping progress exactly. Yeah, you

746
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: gotta put it in that easy to digest package. But

747
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: let's celebrate Katie's win to Matt because I love this

748
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: money victory that she accomplished. Like she's gonna be a

749
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 1: stocking away an extra three hunter bucks every single month

750
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: that will add up in Katie's future self is going

751
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 1: to thank her someday, Right, future white haired Katie is

752
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: going to be thrilled that she took this move. But

753
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: the behavioral side of this is what I find the

754
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: most interesting, because Katie isn't alone and just getting used

755
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: to spending money that she has in her bank account.

756
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: I think it's a common problem for most folks. If

757
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: the money shows up, if it's just sitting there looking

758
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: at you, just begging to be Sunda, go somewhere, so

759
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: not spend it Amazon, or head into my favorite boutique

760
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: and get it out of here and trade it for something.

761
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: But what she did, she took an intentional step to

762
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: prevent her from sabotaging her own finances and automating this

763
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: money choice means that she'll actually get the job done.

764
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: We talked about automating your finances, I think it was

765
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: back in the episode. And the truth is, it's hard

766
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 1: to have the willpower in the moment to do what's

767
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: in our best interest. Most of us on the fly,

768
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: when we're confronted with an advert advertisement for something that

769
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: we like or are interested in, we're not gonna have

770
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: the self discipline. We're not going to make the right

771
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: choice in the heat of the moment. And and what

772
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: Katie has done here means that she won't have to. Yeah,

773
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 1: so that actually makes me think of a quote that

774
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: I heard recently Joel so Seth Godin. A lot of

775
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: folks have heard of him before. He's like a marketing

776
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: like business genius. He's written a ton of books. And

777
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: actually it was an interview with him and he was

778
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: talking about a new upcoming book that he has written.

779
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:54,800
Speaker 1: I literally don't even remember the name of the book.

780
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: But what I do remember is this quote that he mentioned,

781
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: and it's from this this Uh she's an art and

782
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: I think she's a sculpture, a sculptor's sculpture. But she

783
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: said that process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.

784
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that one more time, just in case

785
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: you missed it. I know you didn't miss it, but

786
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: preach for the for the folks on the back, process

787
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: saves us from the poverty of our intentions. And when

788
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: he said that, like I mean, for him, he was

789
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 1: just like, well, that's what sparked me to write this

790
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: entire book. And I I mean, I see why because

791
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: you hear that, and you see, you can envision all

792
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: the different times in your life when you have the

793
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: best intentions, but what you experienced instead was the poverty

794
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 1: of your intentions, it's the fact that you weren't able

795
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 1: to actually do what it is that you were hoping

796
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: to do, and by setting up processes, whether it's taking

797
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,959
Speaker 1: a few specific steps at the end of every month

798
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: to make sure you're spendings in check, or in Katie's case,

799
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,320
Speaker 1: it was this automated behavior. It was money that was

800
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: being deducted from her paycheck that she wasn't going to

801
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: see that she wasn't going to immediately realize in her

802
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 1: bank account, and I guess it was going into her

803
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: bank account and then going into the brokerage count. But still, yeah,

804
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: it's automated. Yeah, either either way, it wasn't sitting there

805
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: begging her to be I just loved the focus on

806
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: the process here because I mean, there have been times,

807
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: I know in my past where I've thought about the

808
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: process before because it's like, well, it doesn't really matter

809
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: about the results, It's all about the process and what

810
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: you learn along the way. But this takes that and

811
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: it turns it and it demonstrates how important process is

812
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: when it comes to us actually being able to achieve

813
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: the different things that we want to achieve in our life.

814
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: To be able to achieve the different goals that we've

815
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 1: set before. Is oftentimes the most successful people or the

816
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: people who make the most progress aren't the ones who

817
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: have the most self disciplined. They're the ones with the

818
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: best processes, the most repeatable habits, right, And it's it's

819
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: one of those things where I was like that for

820
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: a long time and and I've gotten better. I'm still

821
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: not great at it, but it's one of those things

822
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: where I've had to implement processes to prevent me from

823
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 1: never getting anything done and from never being able to

824
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: accomplish the stuff that I that I want to accomplish,

825
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: because I've often got great intentions, but my follow through

826
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: can be lacking. And so, yeah, having these automated processes,

827
00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: whether it's in money or just in life in other arenas,

828
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: that's massive in helping you actually achieve the things you

829
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: want to achieve. Yeah, I mean it. And it just

830
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: makes up for the points in time, like it makes

831
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: up for like the there's moments where we're all weak,

832
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: you know, like like where our willpower just fails us

833
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: a little bit, when we don't quite have the discipline.

834
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: And there there are times when when we're feeling great

835
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: about things and we're able to maintain that. But anyway

836
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: you're able to basically provide essentially like a floor that

837
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: keeps you from dipping below a certain level. That's the

838
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 1: kind of thing that we want to see you to

839
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: be able to accomplish create creating a recurring something that

840
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: happens on a recurring basis that prevents you from becoming

841
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: your own worst enemy. Exactly. Yeah, let's keep moving. So listener, Michael,

842
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: he actually I think he kind of deserves his own segment.

843
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: He got multiple bank and credit card signed up bonuses

844
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: to be able to allow him to enjoy what he

845
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: calls the finer things in life. He mentioned Michelin starred

846
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: dinners a little bit jealous. Haven't partaken in a fancy

847
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 1: dinner like that recently. But I actually really appreciate this

848
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: approach because if you can think about some of the

849
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,320
Speaker 1: different bonuses that you might be able to earn um

850
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: like these as a way to take part in some splurges,

851
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: then I think that can be a great way to

852
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: gamify your finances. You know, it's easy to kind of

853
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: take the opposite approach right where you're just letting dollars

854
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: just slip through your fingers. Through funky mental accounting and

855
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: justifying random purchases as you scroll scroll Instagram. But if

856
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: you're already crushing it on the saving and investing front,

857
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: but the way that you allow yourself to to spend

858
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:27,919
Speaker 1: more than maybe you otherwise would, if it's to grab

859
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: hundreds of dollars in bank accounts and in credit card bonuses,

860
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: then more power to you. That can be a way

861
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: for you to kind of justify that, you know what,

862
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: I am gonna live a little bit and we're all

863
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 1: about finding that balance between splurging on the things in

864
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: the here and now while simultaneously saving for our future.

865
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: Makes me think of one of our listeners has been

866
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: donating plasma for years at least once a week, sometimes

867
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: twice a week, I think, and he uses that money

868
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: to pay for vacations at his family takes those Disney trips.

869
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: I love kind of thinking about money that way, like

870
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: doing the siloing and saying listen, all right you. Otherwise

871
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: we we wouldn't be able to save and invest as

872
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: much as we want to if we were going to

873
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: take an awesome vacation like this. So the best way

874
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: for me to do it is to go make some

875
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: side cash we're gonna use that side cash to fund

876
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: the vacations, to silo that money, and to funnel that

877
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: money towards different specific expenses. And here's here's what's crazy.

878
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: This is all behavioral psychology here, because what an economist

879
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: would say is they would say, no, that doesn't make

880
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: any sense because all money is the same, money is

881
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: on fungible and so instead of that feeding that specific expense, well, truly,

882
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: what it does is it enters your account, and then

883
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: money from your general account then goes to pay for

884
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: that Disney trip. But then think about how less motivated

885
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: that guy would be to actually go and do that

886
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: side hustle, donate some plasma. Think about that's why debt

887
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: snowball works more than debt avalanche, because because the behavioral

888
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 1: side of it is so important. I think, I mean,

889
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 1: that's something that you and I have come around too.

890
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: I think maybe early on in the early years of

891
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: the show, we used to discount the power and the

892
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: impact that motivation and psychology, you know, plays on our

893
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: behavior in our ability to get things done. But I

894
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: think we're coming around on it. Man, We're not robots exactly,

895
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,319
Speaker 1: and so we have to have emotional beings, regardless of

896
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 1: how robotic you think you are and how you act.

897
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: And if this helps motivate you one to get up,

898
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: get out the door, to make some side money, or

899
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: to sign up for credit card bonuses, or to to

900
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: grab to switch bank account in order to snag that

901
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: extra five hundred bucks or something like that. If you're

902
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: like man, that allows me then to open the floodgates

903
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: of spending in ways that relief some pressure and that

904
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: allow me to keep investing in saving with the bulk

905
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: of my day job income. That's great. Like, I think

906
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: this is a great move. And you're right, it's it's fungible,

907
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: and an economists would say that it's all it's a

908
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:40,760
Speaker 1: silly way to talk about this stuff, but we're humans,

909
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: and so I think it is a good way to

910
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff. And uh, but Michael, he also

911
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: mentioned other ways he saved money this year. He said

912
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: he used policy genius help them switch his home and

913
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: auto insurance policies. He did a lot of stuff saved

914
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: him thirteen hundred bucks. And again you mentioned matt rates

915
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: going up in a precipitous way, and so there's there's

916
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:58,040
Speaker 1: a lot of people that if you haven't chopped it

917
00:41:58,040 --> 00:41:59,720
Speaker 1: around in the past couple of years. You really should.

918
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: Now is a time and you could save literally four

919
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: digits worth of of money every single year if you

920
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: do so. He also mentioned that he's on his second

921
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:09,879
Speaker 1: year of using win nap You need a budget which

922
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: we think is the best budgeting software out there. Probably

923
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: even though it costs money, it's worth it for a

924
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 1: lot of people. And then last thing for Michael, and

925
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:17,439
Speaker 1: this is a two for he repaired his own car,

926
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: saving something like seven hundred dollars and he said that

927
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,879
Speaker 1: he used tools that he borrowed from a friend, which

928
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,839
Speaker 1: I think is double win because not only did he

929
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:27,879
Speaker 1: did he make this fix on his own save himself

930
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: a bunch of money. Even though he said it took

931
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: him like a full day, he said he felt like

932
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: a man afterwards, which is awesome. But I think there's

933
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,280
Speaker 1: something great about borrowing stuff from our friends, from other people.

934
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: We should be doing more of that, not less. And

935
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: it's good for saving money. It's also good for building

936
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: community in relationships. And then make sure you you know,

937
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: offer up your stuff to your friends and family as well.

938
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, you don't want to take the cheap

939
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: path and only borrow uh and not do the loading outs.

940
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: And there's also like tool banks around the country too

941
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:53,839
Speaker 1: that you can use and check and see like, hey

942
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: we can I get it from there as well. But yeah,

943
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: I love it. I love I love d I y stuff,

944
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 1: and I love of borrowing because this is one of

945
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: those tools to do the job. Like how often is

946
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: Michael going to need that tool? Probably probably not often,

947
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,359
Speaker 1: and so being able to then provide something that he

948
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,879
Speaker 1: also uses infrequently to other people who might need them

949
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: on occasion, that's a great way to do things. We

950
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: don't need all the tools right in our possession. That

951
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: would probably be overkill. All right, We've just got a

952
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: couple more that we're gonna get to hear Brandon over

953
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,399
Speaker 1: on Instagram. He said that Oregon has a little known

954
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: first time HomeBuyer Savings account program, which generally offers a

955
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: decent rate compared to traditional savings accounts. Individuals can contribute

956
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: a max of five thousand dollars per year and get

957
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: a ten percent rebate on contributions as a state tax credit. Wow.

958
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 1: He said that my fiance and I just made our

959
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: fourth year of contributions and that we planned finally buy

960
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: that house in three with four thousand dollars of state

961
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: tax credit support. Super cool, very cool is organ accepting

962
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,359
Speaker 1: newations for new residents. We just have to move there.

963
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 1: I did not know about this, this Oregan home buyer

964
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: savings accounts. It sounds like something that other how do

965
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: money listeners out there in the Beaver State that they

966
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: should consider. Will link to the details of the program

967
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: here in our show notes. But this is super cool

968
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: and definitely something for folks who are looking to buy

969
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: that first home that you should know about. Yeah, and

970
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's incentivized Brandon to save more forward

971
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: this home and it has given him a tax break

972
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: in the process, which is beautiful. And so yeah, Brandon,

973
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: best of luck as you're searching for that home next year.

974
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: But congrats on the progress you've been able to make.

975
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:35,920
Speaker 1: And and Doug on Facebook, by the way, on the

976
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,280
Speaker 1: housing note, he said house is paid off at forty

977
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: three years old, maxed out pre and post tax four

978
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: O one k h s A and I RA and

979
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: went from over I know, right, he said. He went

980
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: from over a hundred and thirty five thousand dollars with

981
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: the debt plus mortgage in two car payments ten years

982
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: ago to fully for debt free and on our way

983
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 1: to flexibility. I mean, amazing. Yeah, it takes time, right,

984
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen overnight. But this is the kind of

985
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 1: thing you might be thinking listening to this episode in

986
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: you or you're the listener who's twenty four years aldo

987
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, Matt, and it's like, I'm just I'm

988
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: just at net worth zero right now, right I it's

989
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: I don't know that I ever foreseen myself maxing out

990
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: multiple retirement accounts and then being debt free. But it's

991
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: a path, and for most people we're talking about like

992
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,439
Speaker 1: a decade at least usually more. That's that's what Doug

993
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: said to him. Took him ten years. But I just

994
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: want to say that for everybody else out there, because

995
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: it's easy to hear that and be like, oh, good

996
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: job forget discouraged. Yeah, but they get discouraged there like

997
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 1: how am I going to be able to do what

998
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: Doug did? Well? That. I mean, that's there's a reason too,

999
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 1: why we maybe saved this one for the very end,

1000
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: because if you lead with something like this, whereas I mean, seriously,

1001
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 1: he's killing it, He's he's investing in every tax advantaged

1002
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: retirement account there is. But yes, it took him a

1003
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,319
Speaker 1: decade to get to this point. And we want that

1004
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: to encourage you rather than be discouraging for you, because

1005
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, like, no matter where you are on

1006
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: your financial journey, like progress is going to be possible

1007
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 1: for you. And we've heard from folks all across spectrum today,

1008
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: like some have made progress just on the margins, but

1009
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: those little wins they do add up. Others have eliminated

1010
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 1: large amounts of consumer debt, which I'm I know has

1011
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,360
Speaker 1: to be just such a mental and financial relief. But

1012
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: then there's others out there, right like our twenty four

1013
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: you're a listener who just got back to a zero

1014
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: net worth, like you gotta start somewhere. Uh. And so

1015
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: the reason we're celebrating this financial festivals today is that

1016
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 1: every single one of these wins is worth celebrating. We

1017
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: want to remind you that this type of progress, it

1018
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: doesn't happen because of just hopes and dreams, right like,

1019
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: it comes by increasing your knowledge, by making plans and

1020
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: then taking action based on those plans. And we just

1021
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,879
Speaker 1: love highlighting these and and please know that we're we're

1022
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: over here celebrating with you guys, literally cracking a cold one.

1023
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 1: We definitely enjoyed our beer during this episode, but we

1024
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: appreciate everyone who sent in and was willing to share

1025
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: your financial wins with us, and we just hope that

1026
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 1: they have been a massive encouragement for everybody out there. Yeah,

1027
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: and I'm already looking forward, Matt. I know it's a

1028
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: full three and or six five days or way, but

1029
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: from Yeah, it's just it's so fun to see what

1030
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: what the progress people have been able to make. It's encouraging.

1031
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: It makes me want to get after it even harder.

1032
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: And I hope that's how everyone else feels too. It's

1033
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: it shouldn't I hope it's not discouraging anyway. I hope

1034
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: it's all good and it's all like, oh wow, I

1035
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: didn't realize that I can make that move. Yeah. Actually

1036
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 1: it's a good idea. Let me implement that moving forward

1037
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: in three so that I've got something to share next year. Sure,

1038
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: all right, let's go ahead then and get back to

1039
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: our beer, Joel, you and I we both enjoyed at

1040
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: Christmas aale and this is a beer by St. Bernardus.

1041
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts, buddy, So already just a killer beer. St.

1042
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: Bernardus non Christmas version. It's a it's a quad, which

1043
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 1: is just to me one of the most fascinating beer styles.

1044
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 1: It's to me, it's hard. It's hard to explain exactly

1045
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: the flavors that a quad brings, but it's it's often

1046
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: like dark fruits, kind of figs, nuttiness. It's uh. And

1047
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: this one has some Christmas spices added added into it,

1048
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: like a bit of zestiness. Yeah, zestiness exactly. It's got

1049
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: like kind of a Belgian funk at the same time,

1050
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 1: so I had a little more pep in its step. Yeah.

1051
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 1: It's the second emisode that during the it's I mean,

1052
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: it's really good. Like I I love the traditional San

1053
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: Bernartists quad, but I think the stat Bernartist Christmas Alee

1054
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: is just a big winner in my boat too. Exactly. Ye,

1055
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: some of these old school European beers like this, like

1056
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: a quad, like a Belgian quad. If you are not

1057
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: into the you know, the high hoppy, bitter I p

1058
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: A s, these are absolutely going to be the types

1059
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,720
Speaker 1: of beers for you. Super bretty, very multi, very um

1060
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: you know, a nice amount of sweetness going up, but

1061
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,399
Speaker 1: also not completely over the top. Just a nice, well

1062
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 1: balanced beer to drink here during the winter, especially around

1063
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: the holidays, so look out for these at your local

1064
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 1: bottle shop. You probably won't regret it. It's the perfect

1065
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 1: beer to drink while making a gingerbread house while you're

1066
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 1: getting the fire going and the fireplace wrapping presents in

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Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. Yeah that's it. Yeah, exactly, But that's gonna

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Speaker 1: be it for this episode, Joel. We hope everyone has

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Speaker 1: a great rest of your week. Will make sure to

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Speaker 1: have links to any of the resources that we may

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00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:58,959
Speaker 1: have mentioned during this episode up in our show notes,

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00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: up on the website how to money dot com most stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna do it, Matt for this one. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll see you back here on Friday for another Friday flight.

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Speaker 1: But until then, best friends out, Best Friends Out.