Latest / All About The Joy / Rewriting the Rules: Money on Your Own Terms - A Conversation with Dana Miranda

Transcript

Rewriting the Rules: Money on Your Own Terms - A Conversation with Dana Miranda · All About The Joy

• 0:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey everybody, hi, welcome to All About the Joy, hi Cynthia, hi Rick, and welcome Dana to the show.
• 0:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Yay, hello, thank you for having me.
• 0:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm so happy to have you here and let me just put up our little ticker so people know.
• 0:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God, I'm so organized and now I messed up where it is Captions.
• 0:25
  Rick Costa: Just got my LinkedIn notification.
• 0:27
  Rick Costa: All about the joy is broadcasting.
• 0:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Right, that's how we do.
• 0:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, that's the first thing.
• 0:32
  Carmen Lezeth: So, dana, I always like to tell people how I know you, if I do or don't, whenever we have a guest on the show.
• 0:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Last time, we had what was his name Hayden on the show.
• 0:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Hayden, yeah, show.
• 0:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Last time, we had what was his name, Hayden on the show, and I felt like I'd known him forever.
• 0:49
  Carmen Lezeth: But I had never known him at all.
• 0:57
  Carmen Lezeth: But you hired me.
• 0:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I believe you hired me or I entered a contest or something you paid me, that's all.
• 0:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I know you sis paid me, paid me to write an article.
• 1:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's why we're still talking.
• 1:02
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We had a writing contest when I was first starting Healthy Rich and you yeah, you had one of the winning essays, so you got paid and published for that.
• 1:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 1:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you for that experience.
• 1:17
  Carmen Lezeth: By the way, it was how do I say this respectfully?
• 1:21
  Carmen Lezeth: It was an honor, but it also felt, um, it was so genuine and that's not like like the way in which you did.
• 1:29
  Carmen Lezeth: It is not the way it's done in other places.
• 1:31
  Carmen Lezeth: And I know you you know that because you are a writer and you write, uh, content all the time for big time magazines like forbes and, um, all of them, you know what I mean like I think you've done a lore forbes.
• 1:43
  Carmen Lezeth: You've done all of them right you've done all um.
• 1:46
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of big names.
• 1:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Business insider fortune yeah, business insiders, I'm sorry, but you did forbes.
• 1:53
  Carmen Lezeth: I thought I saw, yes, okay, yeah, so, um, you've now written a book.
• 1:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you don't need a budget, which I'm gonna say a little.
• 2:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Look at, cynthia and Rick are going to take over the show.
• 2:06
  Carmen Lezeth: We're going to try that.
• 2:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi, alma, hey Alma, hey Amelia, hope you're doing well.
• 2:12
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm going to say a few things and then I'm going to let them ask you questions after you say what you want to say and we'll just be a simple kind of hanging out in the neighborhood kind of thing.
• 2:22
  Carmen Lezeth: But a couple of things.
• 2:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I've been in the financial industry since I was 17 years old.
• 2:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Before I went to college, I was working for a whole bunch of men and they were men in the financial district in Boston and if you read my book, at the end of my book you realize that's how I ended up going to college.
• 2:41
  Carmen Lezeth: That's kind of the end of the book, and I love them, adore them, think the world of them.
• 2:45
  Carmen Lezeth: But I have never enjoyed talking about money.
• 2:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I've never enjoyed listening to people talk about money.
• 2:53
  Carmen Lezeth: I've never had a good experience listening to people talk to me about money in any, in any avenue.
• 3:01
  Carmen Lezeth: But the way in which you approach money and I say this full on, without reading your entire book.
• 3:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I read the chapter that you have free online, not only at your website at youdontneedabudgetcom, but you can also see it on amazoncom.
• 3:15
  Carmen Lezeth: There's a free, entire, full, in-depth, great chapter as an introduction to her book.
• 3:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Please go read that Also.
• 3:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Go to her website.
• 3:24
  Carmen Lezeth: There's so many resources.
• 3:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Every chapter is lined out with resources.
• 3:30
  Carmen Lezeth: She's smiling because she's like she did all this.
• 3:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, I did, sis.
• 3:34
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And I'm not a reader, and I read it.
• 3:36
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's accurate.
• 3:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Oh, thank you.
• 3:38
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: And there's a lot on it nothing.
• 3:41
  Carmen Lezeth: And here's what I'm saying.
• 3:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I am going to read the book the minute it comes out and nothing.
• 3:44
  Carmen Lezeth: And here's what I'm saying.
• 3:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I am going to read the book the minute it comes out.
• 3:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm going to do my pre-order today after the show.
• 3:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Here's the thing.
• 3:51
  Carmen Lezeth: The way in which you approach money and finances and the way in which you talk to people is on motherfucking point.
• 3:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I love it.
• 3:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm happy to have you here.
• 3:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you for asking to be on the show, or your representative.
• 4:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I was like thrown and yeah, oh, I'm so happy to be here.
• 4:06
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I, you know, I never liked talking about money either.
• 4:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I got into freelancing just as a writer.
• 4:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I just wanted a creative career.
• 4:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was making no money as a freelancer and this was in like 2010s, you know that kind of era where blogging was kind of taking off and people were learning how to make money blogging, and so everything I was reading was about like being an entrepreneur and building a six-figure business and making money online and that, and none of it appealed to me.
• 4:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I hated that everything had to be about money.
• 4:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: When I just wanted to be a writer and I had an opportunity to apply for a full-time job because there was just an editor that I really liked and it just happened to be with a personal finance site and I thought, oh, this is going to be really boring, but it's a writing job, I'll get experience, I love the people that I'll work with, and I thought I'll just like do it for a year.
• 5:05
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I'll commit to that.
• 5:06
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: See what it's like to be a full-time, have a real full-time career.
• 5:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I just really fell in love with it because we were trying to talk about money in a different way.
• 5:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We were trying to kind of have that friendly, casual conversation with people and meet people where they were at, rather than like stock advice and a lot of investment stuff and a lot of you know and and admonishments, telling everybody what they were doing wrong kind of thing.
• 5:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I started to really like it.
• 5:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I liked what I was learning, but even then over time over the years about five years or so in I left that job.
• 5:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was freelancing and I started to see still, the way people were talking about money was like everyone was still kind of saying the same thing.
• 5:52
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There was still a lot of like here's the set of rules that you need to follow to be good with money and to do the right things with your money.
• 6:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And it still just wasn't sitting with me Right.
• 6:02
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I think I felt a lot like you did, carmen, like I didn't like talking about money because I didn't like the way that people were talking about money most of the time.
• 6:09
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I started Healthy Rich to have that a different kind of conversation that you're talking about and that's why I had those writing contests early on was to invite a bunch of different voices that weren't just my own, that weren't just someone who had experience in the personal finance industry.
• 6:26
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I wanted people to just tell their stories of what their relationship with money was like, and I learned so much from it.
• 6:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was so grateful for stories like yours and perspectives like yours, to just hear different voices that we weren't hearing in the personal finance industry and just that I wasn't learning from.
• 6:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know if I warned you of this, but we have people who'll come in the chat.
• 6:49
  Carmen Lezeth: There's a lot of people watching this show and I think, because it's a little bit more of a serious, we go have fun, though.
• 6:55
  Carmen Lezeth: We go have fun with you, we go try, but Brian is in the house.
• 7:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi, brian, thank you for stopping by, and Brian reached out earlier today because he was watching last week's episode as well and he made a note on YouTube.
• 7:10
  Carmen Lezeth: So thank you for that, brian.
• 7:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I saw you.
• 7:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you.
• 7:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I think the thing that's more important for me is not only that you brought in a lot of people with different voices, from different perspectives, whether they be Black and Latino, or LGBTQ or whatever.
• 7:30
  Carmen Lezeth: It wasn't even just that.
• 7:31
  Carmen Lezeth: It was the I'll say it lower income people that grew up in the hood, that grew up poor.
• 7:37
  Carmen Lezeth: You let us come in and talk about our perspectives on money, because usually, when you hear the financial gurus talk about money, they're always talking like over your head, and I'm not even saying using big words, I'm just saying that they're not getting it.
• 7:54
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, like they're not getting the simple thing, and I love one of the things about Healthy Rich where you talk about and I'm totally paraphrasing because I apologize, but you have an avocado as your logo and I just remember that kind of idea like the way in which we're going to save money is if we don't buy Starbucks and if you don't get your $4 or you don't eat expensive avocado toast, if you take that money and put it in a saving, and all that is just bullshit.
• 8:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, I'm going to shut up now.
• 8:28
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I swear to God, yeah, no, that's absolutely true, and that's so much what I saw in my experience too, and part of why I wanted to invite a lot of voices like queer voices and trans voices and Black and Latino people and disabled people and people with experiences that I didn't have, was just to to have that broader perspective.
• 8:50
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But I also knew that I brought a voice to the personal finance industry that we weren't seeing much Like.
• 8:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Everyone around me had kind of grown up middle class, lower middle class, and I grew up in a white working class rural town in the Midwest and that perspective was just not being seen and it felt like we were often talking to those people or about them but never actually listening, you know, or letting letting them have a voice, because there's kind of an assumption that you don't know it.
• 9:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you don't have money, it's because you don't know anything about money.
• 9:21
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You don't have anything to say about it.
• 9:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But when I hear from those people, I'm like this is you know?
• 9:26
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I know that we understand what's going on with money, we understand how these things work.
• 9:32
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We just don't have money.
• 9:36
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's like you said.
• 9:36
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know wealth brings in wealth.
• 9:39
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know it's like if you don't have it to start off with, how are you going to keep growing?
• 9:45
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: You know, how are you going to save money, how are you going to even provide for your family?
• 9:51
  Rick Costa: Yeah, yeah, because people say all the time you got to spend money to make money.
• 9:54
  Rick Costa: Well, what if I don't have money to spend?
• 9:56
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right, exactly, and that's kind of where all the advice starts is well, here's how much you should be saving.
• 10:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Here's how much you should be saving, here's how much you should be investing, here's how much you can spend.
• 10:04
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But it kind of skips Like what if you just have to pay the bills, what do you do?
• 10:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, Hi, melanie.
• 10:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you for visiting us.
• 10:14
  Rick Costa: Hey, melanie, but go ahead, rick, I thought you were going to say something before I interrupted.
• 10:19
  Rick Costa: Yeah, something I was also thinking about is what do you think about the whole concept of the american dream?
• 10:24
  Rick Costa: Is it just a dream?
• 10:26
  Rick Costa: Is it achievable?
• 10:27
  Rick Costa: Or should people like calm down with that idea or like, what do you think?
• 10:31
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I don't know I think there's a lot, a lot of things to say about it, like I think that we shouldn't just promote a single dream.
• 10:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Everybody needs to live the life that they are trying to live, and that might mean running a business or owning a house or amassing a certain amount of wealth, but it might, you know, it might mean something completely different, but also it largely has been a dream.
• 10:57
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It hasn't been achievable for a lot of people for for most of the time in our country and it really has only existed for about half a century as what we consider to be the goal of life in America and wealth in America, and for almost all of that time it's not been available to most of us.
• 11:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it kind of feels like something that keeps people working toward that dream, as something that just kind of keeps people in line and like working the way that we want them to work, you know, in investing the way we want them to invest, saving the way we want them to save, sort of following these rules of money and really taking everything on individually and not thinking about the sort of larger changes we could make in our society to make something like that actually available to people.
• 11:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Can we talk about what some of those changes are?
• 11:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Because that's what I think is the crux of why your book and your vision is so different is changing some of the terminologies, changing the way in which we envision what Rick just called the American dream.
• 12:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Can you talk a little bit about that part?
• 12:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, in the book I talk a lot about your personal relationship with money, and I think that's a really important place to start is kind of reframing how you think of money and how you feel about money, how you think about work, also the ways that you bring in money and the resources that you use, but-.
• 12:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey Charlie, charlie is actually giving you-.
• 12:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, charlie, very nice compliment.
• 12:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, very appreciated.
• 12:41
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I love that Everyone has been so nice.
• 12:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I think I'm going to spend more time here.
• 12:44
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I love that everyone has been so nice I think I'm going to spend more time here.
• 12:54
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But in addition to that individual, it's essentially a mindset shift, a change in your relationship with money, that we also need to be working on these broader cultural and societal changes, because there's only so much you can do with your own mindset if you don't have access to money or wealth or home ownership or starting a business.
• 13:11
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Those are things that aren't available to people because of specific policies that make them harder to achieve or make them easier to achieve for some people.
• 13:21
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So those need you know we need to change that stuff at a at a policy level, at a higher level, in order to make it easier to have that better relationship with money.
• 13:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Can I give an example of something that happens every time I work for a client, and it just happened again two weeks ago.
• 13:39
  Carmen Lezeth: This is the difference is he got.
• 13:43
  Carmen Lezeth: This is somebody who's a multimillionaire.
• 13:46
  Carmen Lezeth: This is not somebody who doesn't have a lot of money, but because he has like a two point something million dollar loan out right, they are constantly looking and pulling his credit report, they're constantly doing it Right, and this is just one of many loans he has out.
• 14:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, it's a revolving credit line.
• 14:05
  Carmen Lezeth: So the banker sends an email to him.
• 14:10
  Carmen Lezeth: He forwards it to me because his credit report, his credit score, has gone down for some reason.
• 14:17
  Carmen Lezeth: There was some late payment or whatever.
• 14:18
  Carmen Lezeth: So it went down from like 825 to like 783 or something you know what mean.
• 14:24
  Carmen Lezeth: And he was like we need you, carmen, I need you and you guys need to work on this.
• 14:30
  Carmen Lezeth: I need my credit score up or whatever.
• 14:31
  Carmen Lezeth: And I'm like, if he you know what I mean like of course, we had to go find out what happened.
• 14:37
  Carmen Lezeth: And basically what happened was there was a payment that was made late, like a year ago, and it dinged his whatever.
• 14:42
  Carmen Lezeth: But he has not just a team of people looking for his to figure out what happened.
• 14:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And then all they had to do is make a phone call by the way, make a phone call to the mortgage company that the payment was late and they're working on fixing that.
• 14:57
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it's changing the reporting somehow.
• 14:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I didn't even know that was an option.
• 15:01
  Carmen Lezeth: You have money, it is because you have a team, because you know I didn't do it.
• 15:12
  Carmen Lezeth: I then gave it to the next person in line to handle, but the banker is looking at his credit report to let him.
• 15:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Most people don't even know what's on their credit report.
• 15:15
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's this idea like when you have money, you can then also fix things that you can't do now fix things that you can't do now, Right, yeah, I've seen a 700 credit score.
• 15:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Most people have not seen that.
• 15:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: No, when I first started working in personal finance, I had been working as a freelancer and earning max like $12,000 a year trying to do that.
• 15:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was just really not getting by as a freelancer.
• 15:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But I had a credit score like in the five hundreds and which is considered bad yeah, which is considered poor and I didn't even look at my credit report.
• 15:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I hadn't thought about it cause there was nothing I could do about it anyway, so it didn't really matter.
• 15:57
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was.
• 15:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I know I was getting calls from collection agencies, probably, but and so I just wasn't answering my phone, but for the most part no one was even trying to collect on the debt because I didn't have any money coming in.
• 16:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But once I had a job, I was able to put down $200 for a secured credit card and take that out and with just that tiny, just that balance of $200.
• 16:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And then, but just because I had that extra $200 that I could put down for years before that that was not even an option and it was so quick I started doing some other things after that, but so quickly, after just having a credit card, my credit score went up like a hundred points in a few months just because I was able to show that I could be the kind of consumer that a credit card.
• 16:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: My credit score went up like 100 points in a few months just because I was able to show that I could be the kind of consumer that a credit card company wants to work with.
• 16:50
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And that was just because I was making an income.
• 16:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So, yeah, I, credit scores are the.
• 16:55
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I find I just I find them very vexing because we kind of treat them like they measure your responsibility.
• 17:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I really want to swear for you, because I know you're not going to swear for me.
• 17:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I couldn't even think of the right word, but yeah, I see credit scores, like people see BMIs with weight.
• 17:19
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It's kind of like that number you just hate because it just makes you sound really bad, but you're not and it's just like something that can change your whole life and your whole way of looking at money.
• 17:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right, and the way people treat you.
• 17:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Bmi is the same thing.
• 17:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's an arbitrary number that's created with a formula that doesn't actually show whether or not you're healthy, but then people use it to make decisions about what kind of healthcare to give you.
• 17:51
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And it's exactly the same with credit scores.
• 17:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You can be responsible quote unquote with money, but if you're not doing the right things that credit card companies want to see, you'll have a low credit score.
• 18:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I want to say hi to.
• 18:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I always forget listening.
• 18:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi, anthony, I'm so sorry, so sorry.
• 18:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Hi Tony, how are you?
• 18:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Sorry, sorry.
• 18:15
  Carmen Lezeth: We always want to say hi to our regular people who say hi to us.
• 18:18
  Carmen Lezeth: But you talk about the whole diet culture and how it relates to how we deal with financial stuffage, and that's kind of what Cynthia is talking about.
• 18:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Is like only being thin and only being a certain weight is you know, and you have to go on a diet, because if you don't weigh 110 pounds, then something's wrong with you and so you are a bad and horrible person.
• 18:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Is kind of the underlying theory and it's kind of the same thing if you don't have millions of dollars by the time you're 30, or you don't have a house by the time you're a certain age, or whatever it is, if you don't have a credit score then you're just poor and you're looked at a certain way yeah, it's true.
• 19:01
  Rick Costa: Yeah, it's true, and it's wrong.
• 19:04
  Rick Costa: One thing I wanted to bring up too is like and I got some of this from your book too, by the way I love your writing style.
• 19:11
  Rick Costa: I love how you you simplify it, you know, break it down for people that may not get it like we were saying I'm not me, I hate numbers, mean numbers, we hate each other.
• 19:21
  Rick Costa: But, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm a writer, yeah, yeah, all day over numbers.
• 19:26
  Rick Costa: But I remember always trying to get into my son, like, even if we don't have a lot of money which never really did I was like I'm not going to sacrifice, being happy.
• 19:35
  Rick Costa: You know, if I want to buy something that bad, then I'm going to do whatever it takes.
• 19:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I'm not going to be like, but I can't, I don't save every penny, I'm like, but I'm not going to sacrifice, being happy, like I think a lot of people miss that.
• 19:55
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, absolutely Well, and we're told not to.
• 19:56
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know, we are trained to shame other people if they're doing things that we think that they shouldn't be able to afford for whatever reason, and so then we feel that shame ourselves.
• 20:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I, I I don't remember the numbers, but I shared one study in the book that asked people about credit card debt and their perceptions of people with credit card debt, and people responded overwhelmingly that they used credit cards to um, for things that they needed in life.
• 20:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it was like medical debt or just to pay bills, that kind of thing, um, but when they were looking at other people, they assume that other people use credit cards to live beyond their means, like they're using it for things that they don't need.
• 20:39
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So we have this perception like, well, I need credit card debt, but when I look at other people, I'm shaming them for the way that they're using debt.
• 20:46
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Actually, most people are actually using debt just to get by day to day, because life is too expensive and we don't earn enough money.
• 20:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, and even wealthy people.
• 20:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, here's the thing, and I have worked for wealthy people now I can't believe I'm going to say this for like 30 years.
• 21:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my God, what am I doing with my life?
• 21:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Your?
• 21:04
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: experience is amazing.
• 21:05
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We have to have coffee, I need to have a whole other, different life.
• 21:10
  Carmen Lezeth: We're going to have another episode where I'm like we need to change my life because I can't.
• 21:15
  Carmen Lezeth: I just said that and it made me feel ill.
• 21:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Here's the thing None of the clients I've ever worked for before, or even now, are debt free.
• 21:27
  Carmen Lezeth: They're all mortgage to the hill.
• 21:29
  Carmen Lezeth: They have credit lines.
• 21:31
  Carmen Lezeth: They borrow from Peter to PayPal Because they have credit lines they have, and they, they like, borrow from peter to pay, like they, because they have so much credit worthiness.
• 21:37
  Carmen Lezeth: They just keep taking out money and passing it along and it's like now do they have a lot of collapse?
• 21:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Sure, they have a lot of property, but they bought that property with the loan they took out.
• 21:47
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
• 21:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Like it's weird.
• 21:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not saying they weren't wealthy to begin with or when they started, but it's a weird system where I'm like because I keep telling one of my clients you need to sell like five of those cars, three of those houses, and you'd be chill, you'd be fine, but instead he likes to run around with his head cut off.
• 22:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Like how am I going to make payroll?
• 22:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm like sell the Ferrari.
• 22:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not going to run around with my head cut off because you can sell something.
• 22:15
  Carmen Lezeth: That's not like back in the day when I couldn't pay the utility bill and I was worried they would like.
• 22:21
  Carmen Lezeth: That's when you get panicked, but they don't see that.
• 22:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
• 22:26
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Can I get your opinion on something?
• 22:28
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: So my husband has a tendency of if we go out anywhere, he wants me to always use this one credit card because we get points on it, and I tend not to do that.
• 22:40
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I like to.
• 22:40
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Either if I have the cash, I'll pay cash, or use my debit card because I don't want to pay away or things like that or pay it off in full.
• 22:54
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: What is your advice on that?
• 22:59
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Should you use a credit card?
• 23:01
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Should you pay cash if you have?
• 23:02
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: it, something like that.
• 23:07
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I think this is why I talk about your relationship with money and try to generally stay away from the prescriptive advice.
• 23:12
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: The very simple, generally stay away from the prescriptive advice.
• 23:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like the very simple answer that people would give is like if, if getting the points gives you more value than you lose, you know, in interest, then it's worth it.
• 23:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's like you can just do a calculation.
• 23:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: People also say just like use your credit card and pay it off by the end of the month, but it sounds like for you like that doesn't feel possible, or maybe like you just don't feel certain that that's going to be possible.
• 23:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You don't trust yourself necessarily to do that, and so if it's just causing anxiety for you, like I don't know how much the points are worth it at that point, right, I don't want to cause a rift.
• 23:54
  Carmen Lezeth: But one is listening, yeah, I don't want to cause a rift.
• 23:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Bringing up in the conversation like this is what I see in the personal finance space is always this like credit card hacking, like how can you have the most optimized financial life?
• 24:09
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I think we really need to move away from that, because it's just not how humans operate.
• 24:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like there's so much more involved.
• 24:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like you're not really optimized if you have a perfect bank account but you're filled with anxiety constantly because you're trying to pay the bills by the end of the month or you're racking up credit card debt or something.
• 24:28
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So all of those things also have value that are just harder to put numbers to.
• 24:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So you have to be just a little bit more mindful, kind of, about it.
• 24:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's definitely what he's saying.
• 24:41
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: To use a certain credit card because of the points you get especially, a lot of them give you higher points if you eat at restaurants or something.
• 24:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There are rewards you can get for that, that and it can be very worth it.
• 24:54
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: He might also be saying that because maybe you're paying like an annual fee to have that credit card and you want to make it worth it.
• 24:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's a lot of reasons that that makes sense, but all of those things have to be taken into consideration for sure, and that's where then we take like a step up and look at the greater system too and understand that credit card companies offer those rewards because they want you to be spending money, because if you can carry that balance then they can make money on interest and they make money on just every time you swipe the card on the fees.
• 25:25
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it's in their interest to encourage you to spend money.
• 25:28
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So just always kind of think about how that all fits together, and that's a lot to think about when you're just like trying to go out to dinner.
• 25:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Juan is wrong.
• 25:38
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what I heard.
• 25:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not talking to Juan I'll be on this team.
• 25:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, we can replay it a little.
• 25:47
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I'm going to put it on repeat for him.
• 25:50
  Carmen Lezeth: She said it nicely, but I'm going to just cut that shit down.
• 25:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Juan is wrong.
• 25:55
  Carmen Lezeth: Brian just said I have one credit card for gas, one credit card for date, date night, one credit card for emergencies and one credit card for Amazon.
• 26:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, listen, I I think that what you you're, I mean, I I'll get, I'm gonna read the book book, but just my gut and how I know you, you know it really is about what works for you.
• 26:17
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, it's kind of this, um, not being crazy about it, but what works for you is going to be what's in your best interest, and if you're a couple, you guys got to figure that out, um, but I do believe that we live in a capitalist society, and that's part of what you talk about as well.
• 26:34
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's all of these rules and all of these things are also set up to make us feel bad, to make us feel like we have to do something in order to be rich or to use the points.
• 26:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I have a credit card to get points too, but I never use the points except to pay back the credit card.
• 26:53
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 26:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I don't use it for travel, because whenever I'm traveling for my clients, they pay for it.
• 26:57
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's like a weird.
• 26:59
  Carmen Lezeth: But if I don't pay that credit card all in full, I'm screwed.
• 27:03
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
• 27:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I'm the one who just paid, you know, $200 on the interest payment or whatever, you know.
• 27:09
  Rick Costa: I think they're banking on that too.
• 27:10
  Rick Costa: It's just like with subscription services.
• 27:12
  Rick Costa: They're like, yeah, and if you want to cancel, you cancel.
• 27:15
  Rick Costa: But they know people are going to forget.
• 27:17
  Rick Costa: That's why they have a whole thing now.
• 27:18
  Rick Costa: What is it?
• 27:19
  Rick Costa: Rocket Money or something?
• 27:20
  Rick Costa: We're like we'll go in and we'll cancel everything for you.
• 27:22
  Rick Costa: To me, I'm like I look at my bank account every day.
• 27:25
  Rick Costa: I know what's going in and out.
• 27:29
  Rick Costa: I ain't surprised by nothing.
• 27:31
  Rick Costa: How do you not know?
• 27:31
  Rick Costa: You've got subscriptions from years ago.
• 27:33
  Rick Costa: To me that's like wow really.
• 27:34
  Rick Costa: But yeah, that's how they get you.
• 27:39
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, it's nice, those services exist, but the business model still exists, because you know that people just have that inertia.
• 27:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I think it's funny because their bank I mean I that, that rocket company, whatever it's called.
• 27:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't want to give them any promotion here, but what they're doing is making money off of people who are spending money because they forgot to do a subscription.
• 28:04
  Carmen Lezeth: It's kind of a little slimy, but people need the service or whatever where you can just put it on account.
• 28:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Look at, I just had Hulu on for one month.
• 28:13
  Carmen Lezeth: I paid the $17.99 without ads, because I wanted to watch Parenthood.
• 28:18
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I guess I watched Parenthood and I deleted.
• 28:23
  Carmen Lezeth: I just ended it Like.
• 28:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I have it on the calendar.
• 28:25
  Carmen Lezeth: It's 31 days, you know.
• 28:27
  Carmen Lezeth: So, but I think you have to be a little bit organized to do that.
• 28:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, that's something I do too.
• 28:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I do a lot of reminders.
• 28:37
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: All the time, every month, just writing everything down.
• 28:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Can I ask you a question?
• 28:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Let's say somebody has a phone from like 2005.
• 28:49
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Is that someone in this room?
• 28:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not going to say who it is.
• 28:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, this way Should we buy a new phone.
• 28:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, we should not buy a new phone because I don't know.
• 29:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm kind of worried.
• 29:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just messing with you, dana Rick, do you have another question?
• 29:12
  Rick Costa: No, I was just thinking how funny that is, because I think dating would be like listen, cynthia.
• 29:16
  Rick Costa: If it's causing anxiety, just keep your phone, don't worry about it, don't listen to karma, no anxiety perfectly fine.
• 29:26
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I feel like, if it is that old, it might be keeping you from additional anxiety because you can't get on social media and everything that is ruining all of our days.
• 29:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 29:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you want me to interpret that for you, Cynthia, Because I'm going to say it in the ghetto language you're used to?
• 29:46
  Carmen Lezeth: You are wrong.
• 29:46
  Carmen Lezeth: She just said buy a damn new motherfucking phone.
• 29:48
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what.
• 29:51
  Rick Costa: I'm saying Can.
• 29:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I ask you a question that isn't actually about finance, but actually about what it's like to publish your first book.
• 30:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I know it's coming out in December, but what was that?
• 30:04
  Carmen Lezeth: So I knew you before you started the process of writing the book and then you went through the process of writing the book and now it's done.
• 30:11
  Carmen Lezeth: It's coming out in December.
• 30:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Give us some how you thought about doing it, yeah.
• 30:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's I.
• 30:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I, yeah, I knew you before I even had had done the book proposal or it was even an idea.
• 30:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So, um, I was just doing the blog and trying to kind of figure out, like what is my contribution going to be?
• 30:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: What is my contribution going to be?
• 30:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But I wrote a guest post for the Culture Study podcast, which is a pod or, sorry, the Substack, not podcast which has a pretty big following on Substack and that was pretty popular.
• 30:46
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And an agent and a publisher saw that post and reached out to see if I would want to write a book.
• 30:52
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So then I had to think about what I might actually put in a book and so I worked with that, with the agent, on that, and it was a really interesting process to go through creating the proposal and then spending the year that I spent writing the book.
• 31:07
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Because through that entire process I was still like figuring out what is my contribution going to be, what is my perspective going to be?
• 31:15
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like what?
• 31:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: What exactly is this message?
• 31:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was doing research to see like what do we actually know about budgeting?
• 31:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And kind of working out my thoughts as I was writing them, which is kind of how I process things.
• 31:29
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But also.
• 31:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It was like you know, do I know what I'm talking about?
• 31:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like they, they said I could write a book, and and so yeah, as it was like you know, do I know what I'm talking about?
• 31:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like they, they said I could write a book?
• 31:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And and so yeah, as it comes out like I'm an expert in this.
• 31:39
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But really it was like this process of me figuring these things out, and there's still a lot of questions in the book, too, that you know, because a lot of what I say is like this is something you have to figure out what works for you.
• 31:50
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So a lot of it is is questions that I that I ran into as I was writing the book.
• 31:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, but the but, but, the but, the questions.
• 31:58
  Carmen Lezeth: See, I think that's the fresh perspective, and I haven't read the book yet.
• 32:02
  Carmen Lezeth: I've read the chapter that she has available.
• 32:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just going off of everything else she's done.
• 32:08
  Carmen Lezeth: But it's kind of this thing where that's the fresh perspective, it's like it feels good to me to stay in a $500 a night hotel or an $800 a night hotel when I travel and I only fly first class.
• 32:21
  Carmen Lezeth: And can I actually afford that?
• 32:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, I can, but it's not something I just do like, oh, I'm going to leave tomorrow, I will, you know what I mean.
• 32:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Like that's what works for me, that's where I spend my money, but then other people think that's crazy because they would never spend that kind of money.
• 32:37
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
• 32:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, the way in which I like that you do things, is you empower us to feel okay about the things we need to feel okay about Now.
• 32:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Will I not pay my rent so that I could fly first class and stay at a bougie hotel?
• 32:52
  Carmen Lezeth: No, no, that's not.
• 32:55
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Well, that wouldn't feel good, Right?
• 32:57
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So that you know that's something that that a lot of people wouldn't do.
• 33:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I think that's the fear that comes up for people and and the feeling you know what people are saying like you shouldn't be doing that, carmen, like that's you can't afford that.
• 33:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That it's probably coming from just their personal kind of fear, of like if I were in that situation it would make me anxious, but I think that's the feeling is thinking like, well, if you're making those decisions, what if you make that decision and then you're not able to pay your rent?
• 33:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I just think people can trust themselves more.
• 33:27
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We can trust people to know that having a roof over their head is very important to them, or maybe it's not.
• 33:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I spent like almost a year with my partner where we didn't have a place to come home to, we were traveling and we weren't paying rent at any, like we didn't have any home base.
• 33:46
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I guess we were homeless, but I don't.
• 33:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's not really the right, because it was my choice and we had, like a roof over our head, so I don't like to.
• 33:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But it's just so funny.
• 33:55
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I'm like kind of yeah, I was like we didn't have a home base, we we let ourselves be homeless because we wanted to travel and we couldn't pay to do both at the same time.
• 34:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So we made that decision, you know.
• 34:05
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So maybe some people would make that decision, but you can trust yourself that you're going to make the decision that's right for you and you're going to figure it out, and I think money just doesn't have to be that scary.
• 34:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I ate avocado toast when I was broke.
• 34:19
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I traveled when I was broke.
• 34:21
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You just kind of decide what is important to you.
• 34:25
  Rick Costa: I was going to say you were residentially ambiguous for a little while.
• 34:29
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's actually a really perfect ambiguous is a really perfect way of explaining that.
• 34:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Rick, where did you come up with that?
• 34:37
  Rick Costa: I just thought of it.
• 34:38
  Rick Costa: Sometimes I have a good idea, believe it or not.
• 34:43
  Carmen Lezeth: So Anthony just said Cynthia, if your phone ain't broke, don't fix it, anthony, he's on your side.
• 34:48
  Carmen Lezeth: No, bonnie said audio box, I had that phone from 1999.
• 34:50
  Carmen Lezeth: No, when I said audio box, I had that phone from 1999 to 2000.
• 34:57
  Carmen Lezeth: See, I think you don't want to get a new phone because you don't want to deal with all I mean.
• 35:00
  Carmen Lezeth: It is going to be a big change for you.
• 35:02
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a huge.
• 35:03
  Carmen Lezeth: It's actually 2008.
• 35:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Did we figure out it was 2008?
• 35:06
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I don't even know what year it is.
• 35:09
  Carmen Lezeth: It's something like that.
• 35:10
  Carmen Lezeth: It's going to be a big change for you.
• 35:11
  Carmen Lezeth: It's pre-COVID, let's just put it that way.
• 35:16
  Carmen Lezeth: It's older than pre-COVID.
• 35:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, it sounds like it?
• 35:19
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: yeah, 2008, I think.
• 35:20
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: But anyways, whatever I think.
• 35:22
  Rick Costa: something, too, that's important is everybody has their own ways of doing things, but it doesn't mean one is wrong or one is right.
• 35:28
  Rick Costa: It's whatever works for you for you.
• 35:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Am I right?
• 35:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Absolutely, that's my professional opinion.
• 35:43
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Don't stand on that.
• 35:44
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, and that's the part that is tough writing in personal finance.
• 35:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: As a freelancer, I found myself a lot of time being given assignments that were like, answer this question for people what is the right way to do a certain thing?
• 35:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right?
• 35:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I just constantly found myself being like, well, it depends on what your situation is and what you want and what your goals are.
• 36:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I just started coming back often to like, if you just understand how certain financial products work, if you understand the consequences of certain financial decisions, then you can make those decisions for yourself.
• 36:15
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: When it gets to be stressful and when it kind of feels like it gets out of control is when you don't really know how your credit card works, at what point you start accruing interest, how much that interest is going to be, how much the fees are going to be, that kind of thing.
• 36:32
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you don't know what the consequences are, then it can be really stressful.
• 36:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But if you know exactly what those are, then you can just decide how to deal with them.
• 36:41
  Carmen Lezeth: So Tony just asked a question what's the best way to describe living within your means from a financial perspective?
• 36:49
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I love that question.
• 36:50
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I've been talking about that a lot with people lately because people talk about like, not spending money that you don't have or overspending.
• 36:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know, like, if you don't have a budget, how do you make sure you're living within your means?
• 37:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And again, that's probably something that you can sort of define personally.
• 37:08
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But really in a broad way, I think of it as just like, if you are able to buy something, then you can afford it.
• 37:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you have the credit card as a resource, I think of debt as a resource, even though it does eventually become a liability.
• 37:26
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I think of it as a way of expanding your resources so you don't only have to rely on money you can earn from working, because that's not always available to everybody.
• 37:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So if you have the cash or you have the credit or you can afford the debt to buy something, then you can afford it, and that's living within your means, living within the means that are available to you.
• 37:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's kind of how I consider it.
• 37:49
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Kind of how I consider it.
• 37:51
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you can't buy it like if you swipe the card and it's not accepted, if the or if the vendor for some reason doesn't accept whatever you're trying to offer, you don't have the money to give them, then you can't afford it because you don't have the.
• 38:04
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know, you don't have the means.
• 38:06
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you, if you can walk out the store with something in your hands or you can sign, sign the papers, then then it's within your means.
• 38:18
  Carmen Lezeth: But there's, you know, there's a lot of gray area there, because you can get yourself into an uncomfortable situation um, so you really have to think about what that means for you.
• 38:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Debt is not necessarily bad.
• 38:23
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, and that, and you know that from you know they don't know that, I don't know.
• 38:26
  Carmen Lezeth: People realize that we've been told that debt is bad, but debt can be something you can use to expand your financial.
• 38:38
  Carmen Lezeth: I was going to say fortune, that's not the right word, whatever.
• 38:41
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Resources, resources.
• 38:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, yeah, sorry, yeah, I don't like the living within your means thing.
• 38:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I've never liked that and I could never pinpoint why I didn't like it, but it was like okay, so I'm poor so I can't have anything.
• 38:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's how I interpreted that.
• 38:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah Well, we only talk about it if you're poor.
• 39:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You don't tell rich people to live within their means.
• 39:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You can't take out debt.
• 39:04
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You have to live within your means, right?
• 39:05
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're only told that if you're poor.
• 39:07
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I think that's why it always rubs people the wrong way, because it's just a way of kind of keeping people in their place.
• 39:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Carmen Lezeth: So, Tony, you'll stop calling me bougie now.
• 39:20
  Carmen Lezeth: He's always calling me bougie.
• 39:23
  Carmen Lezeth: You see, Melanie, I've heard that you should be able to pay off the credit, oh, the card within a month or two.
• 39:29
  Carmen Lezeth: If not, you shouldn't get it.
• 39:31
  Carmen Lezeth: What's your thoughts on that, Dana?
• 39:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Well, if you pay it off within the month, then you're not going to be accruing interest, because credit cards don't start accruing interest on your balance until the next month.
• 39:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That was a terrible way of describing it.
• 39:50
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, the spending that you do like within April, you'll start accruing interest on that in May.
• 40:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So that's why that's kind of a rule for people, because if you are paying interest on your credit card debt, then you're paying more than what the price of the thing was that you bought in the first place.
• 40:07
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So that's kind of what people are talking about, and credit cards accrue interest really fast because they have a really high interest rate.
• 40:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it starts to really kind of stack up.
• 40:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So if you're doing that month after month, then it can start to get really hard to keep up with the payments, even the minimum payments, and then it becomes really tough to pay down the debt at all if that's your goal.
• 40:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But again, that's kind of, I think, understanding the consequences.
• 40:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you know, like right now, I'm in a period where, like I'm transitioning between jobs or I'm trying to do something, I'm trying to leave a relationship, like something that's going to reduce the amount of money that you have in income, and you know you're going to use credit cards for a while and six months from now you're going to just deal with the fallout of that, then that might be a resource that you need to use.
• 41:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It could be really valuable, so I try to be careful about just following rules like that.
• 41:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me just read.
• 41:09
  Carmen Lezeth: So Brian said living within your means helps you become more financially disciplined.
• 41:13
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean sure, but we're kind of saying that that line living within your means is something that also keeps us suppressed from trying to live a life that is OK and feel good about, like you know, like you can actually have avocado, toast and Starbucks and not feel guilty about it.
• 41:33
  Carmen Lezeth: I was going to ask you a question.
• 41:35
  Carmen Lezeth: I forgot because I got distracted by them they're being funny because they're always talking about booze.
• 41:40
  Carmen Lezeth: They were going to come to California.
• 41:43
  Carmen Lezeth: They live out in East Oshkosh, wherever and wherever, Texas somewhere, and they were going to come visit California and they asked where they could stay and of course I told them I live in Santa Monica, on the beach.
• 41:53
  Carmen Lezeth: So I was like here are the hotels and they're like six, 50 at night, whatever, and I don't think anything of it because that's where you would stay if you came to visit me and that became the beginning of the end of our relationship.
• 42:06
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: See, my thing, my thing is, you know you guys crack on me about the phone.
• 42:11
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I get it, but to me it's like my phone.
• 42:16
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Yes, you know, to get on social media, I can still get on it, do certain things, whatever, but I like to travel towards going somewhere that I absolutely enjoy bring joy to my life.
• 42:37
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Then paying a thousand dollars for a piece of technology that will change in the next couple of years, you know what I mean.
• 42:41
  Carmen Lezeth: So, again, it's a good try with the guest.
• 42:44
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a good try, Cynthia, but we've had this conversation 19 times on 19 different shows.
• 42:49
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: She's appealing to me, but, yeah, maybe I haven't heard the conversation before it's working on me.
• 42:55
  Carmen Lezeth: No, it's you know what, and I've said this before that was a good choice.
• 42:59
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: A for effort that was good.
• 43:00
  Carmen Lezeth: That was good, but at some point I told you the problem is all the security things with technology, and that's where I have a problem.
• 43:08
  Carmen Lezeth: And also sometimes you can't see guests on the show because your phone is so old.
• 43:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Can you see dana?
• 43:13
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, I can.
• 43:15
  Carmen Lezeth: How was my acting?
• 43:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I couldn't see him, you couldn't true story, true story yeah, I'm not even lying.
• 43:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm concerned with the hacking, like I'm being serious.
• 43:28
  Carmen Lezeth: The reason why it's good for you to have an investment is not just because you're on the show.
• 43:32
  Carmen Lezeth: We need you to have it.
• 43:33
  Carmen Lezeth: But you know, anyways, the consequences.
• 43:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Consequences when I fire your ass because you can't do your job on the show.
• 43:43
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It is a good example, though, of like how money just weaves into other things.
• 43:49
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know, like it sounds like that's not necessarily just a financial decision.
• 43:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's so many other things that weigh into that, and I don't know if this is the case for you, but I've heard from other people don't upgrade phones because it's such a pain to get to know the new operating system every time and the new set of rules and the work that you have to go through.
• 44:07
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's another big barrier that people are dealing with.
• 44:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That gets woven in then to also whatever your relationship with money is and it's kind of you know it's all part of it.
• 44:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So just talking about like well, if you upgrade, then it could be a beneficial to your job and you could make more money and then we're just getting into like how does it fit into these spreadsheets or whatever?
• 44:28
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Financially, there's just so much more.
• 44:31
  Carmen Lezeth: But I love that you tried, I love it.
• 44:37
  Carmen Lezeth: To back your shit up.
• 44:43
  Carmen Lezeth: It was just so cute.
• 44:43
  Carmen Lezeth: It was so cute, Adorable, adorable.
• 44:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, here's my question for you, Dana.
• 44:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Though what if you're someone who's drowning in debt, you're very stressed about it, you're pained, or whatever?
• 44:51
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you think might be beneficial for someone who's really just in that space and needs to get out of it and doesn't have a job they're not making enough money, whatever?
• 45:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right, yeah, the first thing I think is like get a lay of the land.
• 45:08
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I think a really big part, like when I had a lot of student loan debt, I wasn't touching on top of credit card debt, I wasn't touching.
• 45:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're just not looking at it and a lot of times it's because you don't realize, even like you don't know how, you don't know how to get your credit report, you don't know how to see who you owe money to and who which debt collector has, like you know, bought your debt where, where you could even start.
• 45:32
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So start by kind of getting a lay of the land.
• 45:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Make a list of the debts you have, get that copy of your credit report.
• 45:39
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's also websites where you can get that stuff for free, more often, a little easier than like freecreditreportcom or whatever, or sorry, annual credit report, I think.
• 45:50
  Carmen Lezeth: It's annual credit report.
• 45:51
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, to get the actual credit report.
• 45:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But there's apps like Credit Karma that can help you.
• 45:57
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: They just show who you owe money to and what is being reported.
• 46:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So that gives you a place to start, so you can at least figure out what actually you're dealing with and that even just that step might help you kind of breathe easy, because it becomes less overwhelming when you actually have a list of what to tackle and then figure out again the consequences of it.
• 46:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I am usually not I usually don't promote Dave Ramsey, but the one thing that I pull from his teachings is the idea of the debt snowball.
• 46:32
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So, yeah, he talks about paying off your smallest balance first.
• 46:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Usually, when you're dealing with credit card debt, pay off your smallest balance first because you get kind of a quick win and then that's one thing that you can check off your list.
• 46:48
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Essentially and it's not the most financially optimized way to tackle debt, but doing something like that so you can start to get some of that stuff off your list can be helpful.
• 47:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's other ways to do it.
• 47:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You can also like consolidate debts into a single loan.
• 47:06
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you have a credit score, that could help, that could get a loan and then you just have one payment, you can.
• 47:13
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's maybe a smaller monthly payment that you're dealing with, like there are ways, kind of within the system like that, that you can start to make that debt less overwhelming, so you don't feel that feeling like you're drowning.
• 47:27
  Rick Costa: I get constant letters from those consolidation things.
• 47:30
  Rick Costa: I always get letters from those all the time.
• 47:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, do you even have debt?
• 47:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I know, sometimes they just send them to people.
• 47:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, I do.
• 47:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, I think if you're getting, if it's being advertised to you, it's probably not like the best deal.
• 47:46
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That should be something that you kind of like seek out and talk to a bank or talk to a lender to make sure that you're getting a good deal on it, because they can be really predatory, because they can be really predatory.
• 47:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Your state, the state where you live go to their website and they actually have recommendations of places that I would call are more legit consolidation places, where you know at least they've been vetted or whatever.
• 48:10
  Carmen Lezeth: But there's that avenue too.
• 48:12
  Carmen Lezeth: But I want to go back to what you were saying about how you feel about money, because I think that's the more important thing, like once you embrace the fact that you have all this debt, that you're in trouble.
• 48:24
  Carmen Lezeth: The consequences of some of your actions are now A, b, c and D.
• 48:27
  Carmen Lezeth: It doesn't matter why it happened or whatever.
• 48:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Tackling it by getting the lay of the land, I love that.
• 48:32
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But in that process, trying to not feel bad about being a human being, and you know, yeah, but that's so much of it is just dealing with that shame and, and that is so much of what kind of keeps you from even taking steps to make it more manageable in your life.
• 48:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're just sort of you know you're out with friends and like you're getting calls from a debt collector and just trying to like hide it quickly.
• 48:59
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Or you know you're starting to get called at work or you get a you're you get your wages garnished, so now someone in HR, like at work, knows what you're dealing with, and all of that stuff can just feel, make everything feel even more overwhelming and even more serious than it is.
• 49:15
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And that, I think, is just, it's just a process to kind of work through, like and that's part of the conversation that I want to have with people is just starting to talk more about money, to understand, like, when you have debt, you're just dealing with financial decisions that you have to make.
• 49:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're not dealing with a moral failing.
• 49:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know you're not.
• 49:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're not dealing with a moral failing.
• 49:39
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You're not a bad person because of any reason that you took out debt.
• 49:43
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You did what made sense for you at the time and now you're making decisions to deal with it that make sense for you now and letting go of that idea that it's some kind of moral failing or some kind of shame is a really important part of that.
• 50:01
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And I think getting that kind of lay of the land and understanding just steps that you can take to manage it can be helpful with that and really getting that perspective that it's just financial decisions, like it's just steps that you just have to decide, kind of what is the next step you're going to take?
• 50:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's not going to determine whether or not you're a good or bad person or a worthy person, you know, or worthy of the next purchase that you want to make or anything.
• 50:28
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's just.
• 50:29
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's just decisions.
• 50:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I'll tell Cynthia, we'll know who this is.
• 50:33
  Carmen Lezeth: When I first moved out to Los Angeles I didn't know anybody and I had a college degree and I was I didn't know anyone here I had $800 in my pocket and a round trip ticket back to the East coast.
• 50:46
  Carmen Lezeth: That cause I didn't know how it was going to work out.
• 50:48
  Carmen Lezeth: And I remember I had gotten a um free room and board for light housekeeping and I was working for a man named Mr Fred Nasher May he rest in peace because he did pass away but because he was old then.
• 51:01
  Carmen Lezeth: So he let people usually UCLA students he would let them stay at his in his guest house in Westwood and you just had to clean his house a little bit and then the, the mate, the housekeeper, housekeeper would come in two or three times a week or something, but you would do the light cleaning.
• 51:17
  Carmen Lezeth: And I remember, you know, I was here for like four months.
• 51:20
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't know anybody.
• 51:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I was in debt after college.
• 51:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I had been in debt before I went into college but then I was in more debt.
• 51:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't know anybody, I didn't have a job and this was the job I had, but it was really for free room and board.
• 51:34
  Carmen Lezeth: You know and I remember talking to Teresa on the phone Cynthia knows who Teresa is and I was crying and I was so upset and I was like I have a college degree and I'm working as a housekeeper, like my mother had done, and I was devastated.
• 51:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I was just devastated because I was never going to be.
• 51:57
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, you do all that stuff.
• 51:58
  Carmen Lezeth: You talk to yourself and Teresa said to me something that I have never forgotten and she said you need to stop having an emotional attachment to money.
• 52:08
  Carmen Lezeth: You are not.
• 52:09
  Carmen Lezeth: How much is in your bank?
• 52:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Teresa said that almost 30 years ago, exactly 30 years ago to me, and I have to tell you it is one of the things that lifted me up because I was like you know what?
• 52:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I have just moved on my own, without knowing anybody, to California.
• 52:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I just got an apartment all on my own and I'm and it was like changing that perspective was so fascinating to like the same information.
• 52:37
  Carmen Lezeth: So fascinating to like the same information.
• 52:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And that was the day that I stopped.
• 52:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I give her credit for this.
• 52:46
  Carmen Lezeth: It was the day I stopped feeling bad about debt and about where I was at and how I was born into no money and how, you know I thinking I would never have any money, and I think that's what I love about your book and your whole aura.
• 52:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Is the your feeling?
• 53:00
  Carmen Lezeth: How do you feel about the decision you're making?
• 53:03
  Carmen Lezeth: What are the consequences?
• 53:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I never thought about the consequences part.
• 53:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I like that part, the thing you talk about a lot, which is the consequences to whatever your choices are, and can you live with that?
• 53:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right and for me that's the part that makes me feel empowered in decisions and makes me feel more secure is understanding those consequences.
• 53:24
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And sometimes people say those words and they kind of use like what might the consequences be?
• 53:29
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: As a way to like, encourage, restriction to keep you from doing something.
• 53:33
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But I think of it more like my partner helped his kid do taxes this year, who's 20.
• 53:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And so they submitted their taxes in the spring and then a few months later got a letter that there was some tax, some local tax they hadn't paid because they didn't realize they just filled out the paperwork wrong and didn't realize it was something they owed.
• 53:55
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And so it was like a couple hundred dollars owed.
• 53:58
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But they called my partner freaking out, just being like like, oh my God, this is a tax bill.
• 54:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Am I going to go to jail?
• 54:04
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like what is going to happen?
• 54:05
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Right Cause, it's just that's how it feels and that's how we talk about taxes.
• 54:09
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And so he explained like it's just a tax bill, just contact them, figure out how you know, make a payment plan or pay it off.
• 54:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: See, you know what it is.
• 54:19
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's all it is.
• 54:20
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And his kid goes oh, so it's just like a bill that I have to pay, okay, and just all of that fear went away, but it was like to the level of I'm going to go to jail, which is how we feel a lot of times about debt too is just what's?
• 54:36
  Rick Costa: are they just going to one?
• 54:37
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: likes the IRS, either yeah, are they going to take everything I own?
• 54:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's nothing.
• 54:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So just knowing those consequences created so much freedom in that moment for them to understand okay, this is just a bill I have to figure out to pay.
• 54:52
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So do I have the money or not?
• 54:53
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: And then, if I don't, how can I work with them to make this happen?
• 54:58
  Carmen Lezeth: It is weird, that feeling, that pain, that angst I can't like when collection people call you.
• 55:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Ooh, those days, ooh, when the collection people call you, and just the angst in your heart and the stressfulness.
• 55:12
  Carmen Lezeth: And even when you would try to blow them off or not, you would still think of it because you would know and you would have all this guilt to it.
• 55:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Them off or not, you would still think of it because you would know and you would have all this guilt to it.
• 55:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, there's guilt to it, but you have to be able to somehow figure out a way to not have that attachment.
• 55:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I have to say, even when you have money, like when you do start making your $100,000 or whatever it is, you know you start it's the same shit, it's just different.
• 55:34
  Carmen Lezeth: It's the same thing.
• 55:35
  Carmen Lezeth: It becomes a different concern.
• 55:38
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
• 55:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Like oh, now I have to buy a house, or now I have to invest in this, or now I have to.
• 55:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Like it never ends Right.
• 55:45
  Rick Costa: A lot of people, I think, don't.
• 55:46
  Rick Costa: I don't know if they don't realize it or not, but you can call people and work with them Like I just lost my job, blah, blah, blah.
• 55:53
  Rick Costa: Can you lower my payment?
• 55:55
  Rick Costa: And they'll do it Like people don't realize, just give somebody a call, don't just be like, oh well, I'm screwed.
• 56:00
  Rick Costa: Not necessarily.
• 56:02
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, I think it's a lot of shame that keeps people from doing that, to just say I don't have the money.
• 56:08
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So what are we going to do about this?
• 56:09
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like that's really usually all you have to do and someone is going to work with you because that's their only option.
• 56:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's either that, that, or you don't pay if you don't have the money.
• 56:18
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So to you know, to just do that, then you can avoid digging kind of a deeper hole.
• 56:24
  Carmen Lezeth: but there's, there's just so much I wish it was a different way, but we lived right.
• 56:30
  Rick Costa: Money just sucks that just sums it up that's why we like star trek so much, because there's nobody spends money in star trek.
• 56:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yes, always and they have universal translators so they can all just are you a turkey?
• 56:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Are you a turkey?
• 56:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I watched it back in the day.
• 56:47
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I wouldn't say it wouldn't be, but I sounded like a turkey perhaps I got excited I could, I could probably, I could probably go back and forth a little bit on it.
• 56:58
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's the one that always excited me.
• 57:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I was like they can just talk to any aliens.
• 57:02
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's amazing, oh yeah.
• 57:04
  Carmen Lezeth: That is true, yeah, she's a Star Wars.
• 57:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you Star Wars?
• 57:08
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: No.
• 57:08
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: No that one not at all.
• 57:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I watched the first, the original series on the next generation of Star Trek oh, that's awesome.
• 57:16
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Probably 20 years ago, so that's as far as I've gotten, that's good, all right, you're in the club.
• 57:22
  Rick Costa: You're okay there.
• 57:22
  Rick Costa: Another thing I think is really sad and unfortunate is in school they'll teach you calculus which you'll never use, but the actual life skills, like paying your bills, understanding how credit cards work, we don't get taught.
• 57:46
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, when I went to school, anyway, I didn't get taught that and I'm like private schools.
• 57:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Why private?
• 57:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh that besides, besides the private schools no, I didn't go to.
• 57:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not talking about catholic school, I'm talking about private schools that are my clients children go to.
• 57:52
  Carmen Lezeth: They do investment things.
• 57:54
  Carmen Lezeth: They do like pretending their investment investing in wall street or properties, they, they do all that.
• 58:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Again, it's all these classes.
• 58:02
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean.
• 58:03
  Carmen Lezeth: It's all these different things.
• 58:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh, brian just said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of yes, great star trek quote yeah she knows personal finance.
• 58:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There's actually a movement to require personal finance in schools, high schools, a lot more.
• 58:22
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: About half the states have passed mandates now.
• 58:25
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: But the problem with them and that's it's good because it is giving more people access to that education A lot of times it's not great education because there's no funding to come along with it and so the teachers who are tasked with teaching it are not getting training that they need.
• 58:44
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: They're you know, they're not getting materials they need.
• 58:47
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: They're not bringing in a new teacher who actually has, you know, expertise in personal finance to teach.
• 58:54
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So it's a step we're like requiring it in public schools in a lot of places.
• 59:18
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's a step we're requiring it in public schools in a lot of places, but we need to put a lot more resources behind it to get that education like you're talking about Less of just memorizing historical facts that we could be Googling now, and calculus that you can do on a calculator and learning a little bit more about how to be a person in the world.
• 59:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I just think it's kind of hard to, because I feel like it's not just schools that need to learn about money, it's.
• 59:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I think that's why you're, I'm sorry, I'm like really promoting your book, but you don't have to apologize for that I'm totally fine with it.
• 59:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I swear to God I'm not getting commissioned or anything, but I think that's why your book is great.
• 59:38
  Carmen Lezeth: It's coming out.
• 59:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Why is it coming out on Christmas, child?
• 59:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: It's coming out December 24th because we want to promote it in January and there was a thing with bookstores having access to it early enough.
• 59:51
  Carmen Lezeth: So you're going to come back in January on the show and hang out.
• 59:54
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you'll have me, I'd love to.
• 59:56
  Carmen Lezeth: We'd love to, no, no we'd love to have you, because then we'll get to read the book.
• 1:00:00
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Like you're buying the book right, and I'm going to buy the book.
• 1:00:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Cynthia, let's buy the book and then we'll have you, and then we can come and we can talk questions on every chapter and be like what did you mean by this?
• 1:00:11
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Wow.
• 1:00:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And then we have a whole chapter on Cynthia buying a new phone.
• 1:00:16
  Carmen Lezeth: So we're excited.
• 1:00:18
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Maybe I'll have a new phone by then.
• 1:00:21
  Rick Costa: Oh, merry, christmas.
• 1:00:22
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, really Might be a Christmas gift.
• 1:00:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Maybe Is there anything else you want to say.
• 1:00:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I agree, toni.
• 1:00:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, toni just said must come back.
• 1:00:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Great episode conversation oh thank you, toni.
• 1:00:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I love talking about this stuff, and y'all have been great too.
• 1:00:37
  Carmen Lezeth: No, is there anything else you want to say before I do my little last push?
• 1:00:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I don't think so.
• 1:00:43
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: This is this conversation has been great.
• 1:00:44
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I really appreciate.
• 1:00:45
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: You know you were talking about liking my approach to how I talk about money, but I I feel like you're the same and that's why we've connected and stayed connected over these last couple of years and I'm slowly kind of gathering those people Like we are out there, we're doing it differently and I'm trying to just kind of broaden that conversation, get that conversation out to more people.
• 1:01:12
  Carmen Lezeth: So I want to encourage people to go to the website.
• 1:01:14
  Carmen Lezeth: It's scrolling at the bottom.
• 1:01:16
  Carmen Lezeth: It's youdontneedabudgetcom.
• 1:01:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Here's the thing yes, pre-order the book please, please, support someone who is doing really good stuff in the world.
• 1:01:27
  Carmen Lezeth: We always say we want to support people that are doing good things.
• 1:01:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Not only are you supporting her and what she's trying to do, but you're also doing yourself a favor, because it's a really easy read.
• 1:01:38
  Carmen Lezeth: She's a great writer and it's beneficial information for all of us.
• 1:01:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm going to read it because, even though I know a lot about money, I always can improve and get better at and understand things differently from a different point of view.
• 1:01:53
  Carmen Lezeth: And also, I'm not perfect.
• 1:01:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean I'm kind of perfect, but no, I mean I don't.
• 1:02:00
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, people think I have so much money.
• 1:02:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't.
• 1:02:02
  Carmen Lezeth: If, god forbid, I lost my job, I'd be, you know, three to six months out.
• 1:02:06
  Carmen Lezeth: I'd be done.
• 1:02:06
  Carmen Lezeth: I'd be at Cynthia's house.
• 1:02:08
  Carmen Lezeth: One would be out, I'd be at Cynthia's house.
• 1:02:10
  Carmen Lezeth: It's not even a question, right, cynthia?
• 1:02:13
  Carmen Lezeth: That's right I.
• 1:02:17
  Carmen Lezeth: But I mean, you know, because I'm not a wealthy person.
• 1:02:20
  Carmen Lezeth: But I live my life in a lot of joy and happiness and I actually I'm not in major debt.
• 1:02:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I was in a lot of debt.
• 1:02:29
  Carmen Lezeth: I had collection calls too.
• 1:02:30
  Carmen Lezeth: I was by myself.
• 1:02:32
  Carmen Lezeth: I was making, I think, $12 an hour at one point and working as a little housekeeper for like the first year when I was in LA.
• 1:02:40
  Carmen Lezeth: So I've been there and now I'm here and it is possible for everyone to get to that place.
• 1:02:46
  Carmen Lezeth: So, please, please, please, support, but also do yourself a favor and buy yourself the book.
• 1:02:52
  Carmen Lezeth: You don't need a budgetcom.
• 1:02:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Also, you have the chapters.
• 1:02:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I thought that was really great.
• 1:02:58
  Carmen Lezeth: You have every chapter of the book you can click on and there are resources there, right, is that for?
• 1:03:03
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, yeah, there's it's, I think, ydnab online on the website.
• 1:03:10
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: There are resources that I reference in the book reference in the book.
• 1:03:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, so you can go and even get an idea of what every chapter might be about, because you can see she links references on there and there's so many resources, so I really want you to do that Also.
• 1:03:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Go check out now.
• 1:03:29
  Carmen Lezeth: I always mess up this website.
• 1:03:31
  Carmen Lezeth: It's healthyrichco, right.
• 1:03:34
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: That's right.
• 1:03:35
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, that's my sub.
• 1:03:36
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you, if you're on sub, stack too right for healthy rich and hey, do the newsletter.
• 1:03:42
  Carmen Lezeth: The newsletter is in there.
• 1:03:43
  Carmen Lezeth: You can just put in your email and you'll get.
• 1:03:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Is it monthly or weekly?
• 1:03:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh, weekly, yeah.
• 1:03:50
  Carmen Lezeth: So I, I did a bad thing.
• 1:03:51
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm gonna change it.
• 1:03:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I did, I did a bad thing.
• 1:03:53
  Carmen Lezeth: I had your, I had like 17, okay, so I have a.
• 1:03:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I have a different email address where I get newsletters and I don't read them Because it's like 17 of them or something, and so I deleted them all.
• 1:04:04
  Carmen Lezeth: But I'm going to add yours back because you know I got to be supportive, so I apologize, take no offense, I'm in and out of newsletters too.
• 1:04:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And then I'm just like delete, delete, delete.
• 1:04:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm deleting them Can.
• 1:04:18
  Rick Costa: I say too that I think the type the you don't need a budget is kind of genius, because automatically people would be like clutching your pearls, what do you mean?
• 1:04:26
  Rick Costa: I don't need a budget.
• 1:04:27
  Rick Costa: I got to see what this is about and boom, you just hooked them in because they're like it's an outrageous statement in our minds because we've been taught you better have a budget.
• 1:04:38
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: We constantly have that pumped in our minds.
• 1:04:40
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: So I think that's a great title Credit to my agent for that.
• 1:04:42
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: I had a bunch of terrible title ideas and he suggested that one and I was like that's going to be it, that has to be it.
• 1:04:47
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: It is a great one.
• 1:04:49
  Carmen Lezeth: So thank you for coming on the show.
• 1:04:50
  Carmen Lezeth: We appreciate it so much.
• 1:04:51
  Carmen Lezeth: It was fun, it was easy, I was worried.
• 1:04:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, rick and Cynthia, it was great to meet you and everyone in the audience, and a list of questions I didn't even look at.
• 1:05:02
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: That's good, that's good.
• 1:05:03
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: I had a couple things I asked.
• 1:05:06
  Cynthia Ruiz Lopez: Did you?
• 1:05:08
  Carmen Lezeth: ask your question.
• 1:05:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Cynthia, I did, I have one.
• 1:05:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just saying, it was just easy flow.
• 1:05:14
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Yeah, You've got my email too.
• 1:05:17
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: If you need to talk money, it sounds like everybody's got things they need to work through, so we can.
• 1:05:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, people can contact you through your website as well, but don't inundate her by the book.
• 1:05:28
  Carmen Lezeth: That's all I'm saying by the book.
• 1:05:30
  Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget: Start there, yep, see if it answers your questions.
• 1:05:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:05:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Everyone, I appreciate you hanging out.
• 1:05:43
  Carmen Lezeth: We hope we'll see you next week as well.
• 1:05:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Please go to allaboutthejoycom and buy some motherfucking swag bitches.
• 1:05:46
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm so mean Buy swag if you want to.
• 1:05:49
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I don't have any Christmas things available.
• 1:05:51
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm so sorry, I just haven't gotten to it.
• 1:05:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Next year I'll be hooking that stuff up for real.
• 1:05:56
  Carmen Lezeth: So everyone remember, it really is all about the joy.
• 1:05:59
  Carmen Lezeth: We appreciate you all and we'll see you soon.
• 1:06:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye everybody, Bye, Thanks for stopping by.
• 1:06:08
  Carmen Lezeth: All about the joy.
• 1:06:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Be better and stay beautiful folks, have a sweet day.