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Hot Girls Love Money (and know what to do with it) · The Inspiring Real Life

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi babes and besties.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the new IRL recording studio.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do we think?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think the sound's gonna be a lot better in here.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yay, we love.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: This week, we're in a prime position, I think, to talk about this topic.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just need you to know that this is a safe space, okay?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about finances and money today.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't run away.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: If your hands are already getting a little clammy, you probably need to hear this conversation.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm the right person to hear it from because I'm also not great at money.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely not judging you.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a lot of these mistakes, but I've done a lot of research.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll do it together.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Strap in and let's get going on this topic, okay?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be painless.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just stay with me, okay?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the last several episodes, we've talked about all the horrors of social media and how it really influences our lives.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is no different.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're in a really great spot to actually have this conversation because of the things we've talked about in the last few episodes.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I want to talk about this now.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for anybody that wants to build a better life, you know, this podcast is meant for the real woman.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most of us have money troubles.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We want more money, we don't know how to invest it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: My least favorite saying ever is I'm just a girl.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But where I feel like that does pertain to me is money.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to become more financially literate.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, with my own quest to be like a hot financial gal, I thought I would bring this information to you as well.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I think we have to think about again is we use social media as a measuring stick.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ta-da! Because we scroll, and it's what we see is all of these people living these fabulous lives because no one ever posts the bad stuff, or it's very minimal.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's always a highlight reel.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I post way more after a trip.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you guys know way too much about me just going to London.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The credit card bills, the calls from collection agencies, the not even opening your bank app because you're so nervous.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't show that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the only one, okay?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The issue, like we've talked about before, is that social media just distorts our understanding of what our baseline is.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just get into the meat of this so we can rip this financial band-aid off as fast as possible.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's a theory I want to talk about.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's funny, all of this really does come back to psychology.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like almost every episode does.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I like should rebrand this as a psychology podcast because a lot of this is about human behavior.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's this theory called relative deprivation.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very early social theorists like Marx and some of his contemporaries started to see when they were looking around at people that dissatisfaction comes from inequality in comparison rather than like absolute poverty.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's interesting about the era of Marx and Associates is there started to become more of a middle class in that era.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, it used to be serfs and peasants versus lords, ladies, and kings, but this concept of I'm not wealthy, but I'm not uncomfortable started to come about in that time frame.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like in that era probably became a lot more prevalent.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was no longer just this sheer need to survive.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's well, we can start to buy things for fun.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, like it or not, I said this last episode, looking left and right at everybody else is a fact of life.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can hate it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hate it, but we all do it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the faster that we can come to terms that that is something that we are programmed to do and we will do, we're able to control that a little bit better.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is someone's always gonna have a nicer car, a bigger house, a better savings portfolio, look hotter than you, like whatever it is, someone will have it better than you do.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we just have to learn to be comfortable with that.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: All of the landmark research was done by this dude named Samuel Stoffer.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe he is of the um the food stoffers.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But this is how post-World War II.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: He found that when he started looking at soldiers, that their morale wasn't determined by the actual working conditions that they were in.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was when they compare themselves to the other soldiers around them.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1949, Mr.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Stouffer writes this book and he calls it the American soldier.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he first introduced this concept of relative um deprivation, explaining that, in quotes, a man's satisfaction depends not on the objective situation, but on the situation relative to what he sees around him.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this like laid the foundation for a lot of future research that what we know about comparing ourselves to others is now actually based off of.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So psychologists used to focus like prior to this on absolute measures like salary, benefits, title, family, all of those things when trying to explain why people with objectively good conditions are still dissatisfied.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, psychologists were able to shift the way that they understood.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: We just compare ourselves to other people.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we are always comparing our what we feel like is most deeply flawed about us, about what we are typically seeing is the best thing in someone else.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's this dude named Leon Festinger.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very festive last name, actually.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is called social comparison theory.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1954, our dude Leon theorized that we compare ourselves to others as a way to get to know ourselves.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can get to know myself better by observing you.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Huh.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it also makes sense, doesn't it?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We can measure where we fit socially, our personality, our overall success by how we fit in with our perceived peers.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a quote from Thomas Edison State University.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is from their module on social comparison theory.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So they say, imagine an American exchange student arrives in India for the very first time, a country where the culture is drastically different than our own.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: He notices quickly, though, through observing others, so social comparison, that when greeting a person, it is normal to place his own palms together rather than shaking another person's hand.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: This comparison informs him of how he should behave in the surrounding social context.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: He simply is able to fill in the gaps because of this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas when we look at people's abilities, performance, that is a lot more ambiguous and a lot more perceived.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's very different.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we look around at those around us as our benchmark all the time.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with the introduction of social media, our benchmark and our ability to compare people has dramatically increased.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we talked about last week.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can now compare our morning skincare routine to that of literally millions of other people.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not using the road milky toner, you're failing.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the internet tells us.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't know who is using what primer unless my friend is like, oh, this is so good.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should try it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have like one person to like take their consideration into account versus like things going viral.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is historically unprecedented.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But with that, every single aspect of our life, we feel like we're behind if we don't have the latest and the greatest.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So give yourself a little grace and delete social media.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, but maybe.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the rest of this Thomas Edison University module says we compare ourselves to people who seem relevant and similar.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why social media influences influencers are dangerous.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I brought up the example of Emily Kaiser last time because Emily is this girl next door that seems really nice and that you could be friends with.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that is who seems relevant and seems similar.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Emily makes millions of dollars.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's not relevant to you, and she is not similar, but we see her living her life, and we biologically, because she comes off as relevant and similar, think we should be able to have the same things as her and use her as our measuring stick.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: A really good resource for you that I actually is there are a lot of creators that are talking about dealing with this and giving strategies for money.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: My absolute favorite, I've followed her for several years, is Tori Dunlap.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: She's also known by her first 100K.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: She goes against, in some ways, very traditional money thoughts.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's tailored towards women, helping you become more financially literate, but also enjoying your life at the same time.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'll come back to that later.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But she is a fabulous resource.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely scroll her page.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about a lot about investing, budgeting, but she's just very realistic on what you can expect living in today's world and how to budget.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the next point of how we're gonna be financially literate girls or financially literate boss babes, I should say, is we need to understand where our money is going.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is like my least favorite part of this whole thing.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I like to do what is called the ostrich effect.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I like to stick my head and bury it in the sand.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I don't want to know what's happening.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I like this?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I am.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I had a mortgage, a car payment, and I just went and looked at my bank.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just like let whatever happened, happen.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you need to know how much credit card debt you're in.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You need to know how your school loans are looking, you need to make sure your mortgage looks good, your car payment.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know that the right amounts being put into your 401k.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was so avoidant of this that I worked at two different hospitals where my coworkers frequently talked about their paychecks getting messed up, and I didn't want to look because I didn't want to know.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I probably lost several thousand dollars because I was so avoidant.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be me.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I told you this is a safe space.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: What we do though with this ostrich effect, it's actually a real term.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's used in finance.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is a behavioral economics term, so it's real, describing how people avoid financial information so that we can escape psychological discomfort.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, the not knowing makes the anxiety worse.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you ever lay in bed like thinking about your finances?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's because you don't know, and when you don't know, you can't create an actionable plan to dig yourself out of the hole you're in.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I did it too.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if there's a term for it, we're not the only two people in the world.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're part of a large group of people that have this same problem.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So your first thing you need to do to understand where your money is even going is differentiate between fixed costs.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So your living, your car things you can't change easily.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to have transportation.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if you live in New York City, you have to have a subway card or pay for transportation from Brooklyn to Soho.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You like if it's an Uber, if it's your car and gas, your housing, um, groceries, there's certain things that are just fixed costs.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're going to spend a certain amount for them.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Variable spending.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do you have to shop at Erwan in Sprouts?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or could you shop at a cheaper grocery?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's variable spending.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, shopping at Erwan does not have to be a fixed part of your budget.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clothing, accessories, nights out on the town, they all can work into your budget, but it is variable, and you have to figure out after you assess what your fixed spending is, what you have left over.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Another part of fixed costs is some savings.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we will get more into this later.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to no longer be financially anxious, you need a good little nest egg.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am not saying you need three years in the bank.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think six months is it personally.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I like six months.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people that have three months.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, if I lost my job or got sick, most people would like not make money for three months.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want that to deplete my savings, which is why I like this whole idea of having about six months tucked away somewhere.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean under your mattress.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: It does not go under your mattress.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the last one here between your costs.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So fixed cost, variable spending, and then stealth leaks.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this one is my favorite.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So untracked micro subscriptions, daily delivery apps, your 2 a.m.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon purchase, but we talked about in the last episode.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: The the little sweet treat you buy yourself, the Coke at McDonald's, these like relatively inexpensive things that you're not tracking, they add up and it needs to be budgeted in.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, speaking of budgets, I have some tools for you.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yay! There is an app called Y N A B, short for you need a budget.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Easy to remember.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: An excellent zero skill-based budgeting app that gives every single dollar a job.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's savings or spending, basically you get a full picture of what is going where.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you need.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's another one called Empower Formerly Personal Capital, if you're familiar with them.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great free tool for high-level net worth and portfolio tracking.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: 30,000 foot view, just kind of an understanding of what is happening in more high-level finance things.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, there's a certain amount of money that my employer pays me.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's that other amount that gets deposited in my bank.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have an idea of what happens to what goes into my bank.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea where the money that the delta between what the hospital paid me and what hit my account was.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what mine were.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Her first 100K, I don't feel skilled to speak on this, has a lot of really, again, high-level stuff for how to invest, what are different investing accounts.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people on YouTube that break it down.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't this is meant to be a fun finance episode.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna get into the nitty-gritty with you.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you're actually interested in really making your money work for you, there are so many resources out there.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and the last little thing here when we talk about where your money goes is this micro leak snowball.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So this stealth leak thing I mentioned.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about give yourself$15 a day.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably for most of us more than this.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: But we go and we get our coffee, which I got a 12-ounce coffee with like a syrup, and it was nothing exciting, and it was$7.50.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you buy a let's easy math called a$7 coffee.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and then it's you know, you've been working and you need a little snack.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you're a healthy gal and you get a little protein bar.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: You get it individually, it's gonna be three to four dollars.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be generous.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's three dollars, so now we're at ten dollars for the day.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then instead of taking the train home, you decide to get an Uber.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a lot of money.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: That could be twelve dollars, so we're at twenty-two dollars, and then your app subscription that you forgot to cancel hit today, so that's four dollars for the month.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's supposed to really long day at work, so you decide to order in food, so you pay a convenience tax there that essentially is yes, uh your budget might have been to get sweet green, that's fine, but when you DoorDasher Uber eats it, it's going to cost you more because you have to pay the driver the extra tax, and the food is hiked up in price.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an extra, let's call it six dollars that you didn't even mean to spend.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're at like 28 plus dollars that you didn't even budget for, really think for for the day.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might be like my friend.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: My friend works in finance and also really doesn't have social media.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: She tracks every dollar and knows where everything goes.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And like she has coffee budgeted in for the month.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would dare say that's not most of us because it's this easy convenience thing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us are not that disciplined.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think most of us are unintentionally financially illiterate.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's, it's time to learn.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you have to budget every single scent you buy, but that's why I like this budget app where every dollar kind of has a job.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Next, to become the financial queen of your girl gang, is you need to know what you're actually comfy with.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I cannot tell you this, no one else can.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a personal how do you sleep at night kind of question.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Does absolutely zero money anxiety feel better than a splurge to you?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I have a spending budget every month.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if I have something that exceeds that, if I look at the finances at this point in my life, talk to my husband, and we look at everything, okay, yep, that that'll work.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or I wait a month or two, delay some gratification, that purchase is so much sweeter because I earned it, I knew it was good, versus blindly pulling out the American Express card and just swiping it.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because then you have this guilt, and then you maybe end up returning it, maybe you can't return it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not comfortable.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it becomes super individual because it's not just like raw math, and but that's what very logical, money numbers-driven people will tell you.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot of people that also work in finance, but I think because most of us don't like the raw math, and you can say there's no emotion to it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of emotion to money, and we can't ignore that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we end up swinging the pendulum because just raw math is uncomfortable and it doesn't leave room for exceptions, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we end up with our head in the sand and the ostrich of that.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you have to come up with what works for you.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Build a budgeting system that makes space for you and your needs and what you're making right now.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know you, and I don't know your finances, and I'm not an advisor.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not equipped to even tell you what to do, but I can tell you you need to figure out what you are comfortable with.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is more important to you, a paid-off home or a six-month cash cushion?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You might not be able to have both.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: They also yield less than like a high-risk brokerage account, but you also will probably sleep better having either your home paid off, money in the bank for a rainy day.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: But those are decisions you have to personally make within your own immediate family.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be different for all of us.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I will say this: if you are comfortable with your decision, you think it is wise, don't let anybody shame you because you're doing it differently than them.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Always we can take in new information and constantly re-evaluate, that's fine.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But there are people that if you don't do it the same way as them, we all know these people, that they're gonna make you feel bad.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do what you are comfortable with.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Money is very deeply personal.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking about being comfortable, are you only comfortable with Dave Ramsay beans and rice strategy?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you okay with a more balanced approach?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I love her first 100k.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: She roasts Dave Ramsay.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that her approach is so balanced.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tori talks about with the whole beans and rice strategy, you don't live your life until you're 40 or 50 years old because everything has to be paid off.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go out to eat, you don't travel.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, is we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you could get diagnosed with a terminal illness, you could become paralyzed, um, something could happen within your family, or you're just young and healthy and you want to enjoy your life.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you get one life to live.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I say that all the time.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you can still be responsible and wise with your money, um, but still live your life.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tori also talks about, and my husband really introduced me to this concept, that not all debt is bad debt.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dave Ramsey, that all debt is bad debt.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is somebody that is more financially in the weeds than me.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be able to explain better.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a certain level of interest rate for bigger purchases that's actually supposed to be very helpful a to your credit score, but also with inflation, it's like you end up spending less money.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to hear me loud and clear.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean good debt is Klarnaing all of your shopping addiction.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you should not be putting everything on a payment plan, friends.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Also, that's a really high interest normally.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't use Klarna.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did once, and it was like such a pain from once I had to pay$200 on this thing.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even want by the time the payments were over.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you do open up a budgeting app or you finally dig your head out of the sand and you're like, no, I'm in like a bad spot.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, then maybe a month, three months, you do really need to lock in and do beans and rice.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I've heard of people that do like beans and rice, they actually they call it like no spin months or like a up to a year to build up a great savings, they plan a nice trip at the end and get out of debt.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's a decision for you and your household.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think you need to go to the full beans and rice until everything ever is paid off.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're like in pretty deep credit card debt, especially that interest is really ugly and you need to do a couple months of beans and rice, that's also reality.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't know you nor your financial situation.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I was recommended this book called The Psychology of Money by Morgan Household.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters three and chapter seven seemed the most helpful.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: This book was very interesting, it was really easy to digest.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Morgan uses a lot of just real-world examples.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was enjoyable.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't read like a textbook, but these are the spark notes from chapters three and seven.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter three is called Never Enough.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: We get sucked into a trap where nothing is ever enough.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: How to make more, how to invest more, how to buy more.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this whole idea, I'm sure you've heard of it, of lifestyle creep.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's how you get a promotion, but you still don't feel like you can put any extra money in your savings account, and you're still like sort of living paycheck to paycheck, but you just got a massive promotion.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Our lifestyle likes to keep pace with where we're at financially.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we look left and right at people where we think we should be at, and so we want to match that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when we're looking at other people, we don't know who's in debt to be there.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about this example of this gentleman who grew up in essentially the slums of India, and he was able to become an extremely successful financial broker.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: He had over a hundred million dollars, so he's like in the Big Boys Financial Club, got on the board at Goldman Sachs, and felt like he was a very small fish and a really big pond and was desperate to become a billionaire.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know what he started doing?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Insider trading.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then he got caught and he spent a long time in prison.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if it it can happen to any of us, and it is something to be extremely aware of, and most of us are not gonna turn to insider trading, but you need to watch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lifestyle creeper, suddenly you're gonna find you can't afford your lifestyle.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, what Morgan talks about is a few of us are ever gonna have a hundred million dollars, but a good amount of us will at some point in their life earn a salary or have a sum of money that covers everything reasonable that we want and need.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're one of them, these are a few things to just remember.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: First, the hardest, the hardest financial skill you will ever learn is to stop the goalposts from moving.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Social comparison is the problem here.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And with social media, it's only becoming more prevalent.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: She writes this example, and I think it's amazing.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: She says, A friend of mine makes an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: One year he asked a dealer, What games do you play, and what casinos do you play in?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: The dealer, Stone Cold Serious, replied, The only way to win in a Las Vegas casino is to exit as soon as you enter.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is exactly how this game of trying to keep up with the Joneses and everyone else around us goes.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You need to exit the game.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: The next thing Morgan says is enough is not too little.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you can meet your needs and live happy, that's great.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Get off the hamster wheel.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be on it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: There was a psychologist at the University of Michigan that wanted to know what makes people happy.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And having a strong sense of controlling one's life is actually quite a dependable predictor of positive feelings of your well-being.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Having freedom to do what you want to do.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you get that from money.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So money essentially just gives you more control over your life and your time, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can leverage it.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with this example and we'll work off of it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: A small amount of wealth means that you have the ability to take a few days off work when you're sick without having to break the bank.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Gaining that ability is huge if you don't have it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you have a bit more money than that, and that means that you can wait for a good job to come around after you get laid off rather than having to take the first one you find.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: This can be life-changing, right?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then you have six months' emergency expenses, means you don't have to be terrified of your boss because if you get laid off, your life won't be ruined.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: More money means then the ability to take a job with lower pay, but more flexible hours.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your commute's shorter, maybe you just like the people better.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then the ultimate one is being able to retire when you want to and be able to enjoy that retirement.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I say it, I've said it once, I've said it a million times.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: You get one life to live.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be in the hospital, the office, the job site, the the classroom most of your life?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, we want to be with family and doing things.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Even more money means you don't have to do that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the United States is the richest nation in the world.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: However, there is a study that was done and says we are significantly less happy than we were in the 50s, but objectively, each person, I know the value of money's gone up, but we we are all richer than even if like dollars were equal than we were in the 50s.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about the Danish, look at Europe.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: They uh most people over in Europe, they rest and they play well, and they are not nearly as miserable as we are.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I love a study in 2019.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: There was a Gallup poll done of 150,000 people in 140 countries, and they found that 45% of Americans said they felt a lot of worry the previous day.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: The global average was 39%.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're 6% higher.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: 55% of Americans said they felt a lot of stress the previous day.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: For the rest of the world, it was 35% said they had a lot of stress the same day.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are 20% higher than that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny when I travel, um, people live and are very happy and much smaller apartments and homes than we are.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're just in the English countryside, and a lot of these people live in small little houses.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we actually need and what we think we need are two vastly different things.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what is happening here to us in America?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've used our greater wealth to buy bigger and better stuff, and our lifestyle is creeping with us.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we are at the same time then giving up control over our time because we have accepted the narrative that in order to buy all of the amazing things, we need to spend more time at the office.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to work a little harder.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're all on the hamster wheel together.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it makes sense why money feels so hard.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you want to go on the girl's trip where you have to make the money to do the things with your friends, or worse yet, you put it on a credit card and then you're stuck with massive interest rates trying to pay it off.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't feel like a good situation, and you can get off of it, but it's hard.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to my girl Tori, she just has a great approach to this.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Great example was I had been working out for the past several years and money was tight at a gym.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was$200 plus a month.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: This boutique gym.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did I need to be at this boutique gym?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Crunch gets the same thing done.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Crunch actually had more weightlifting equipment.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Crunch is$20.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can always work out at Crunch and a Planet Fitness.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are they luxury?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Are they cute like Equinox to post on your social media?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you again?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a performative boutique gym.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You you need to move your body and feel healthy.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can accomplish that without the boutique price tag.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the next thing to think about when it comes to being a financially hot woman is do you need professional help?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I sometimes we need money therapy.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need an accountant?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like my husband and I really need to do this.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: We need someone to professionally go over all of our assets, income, and tell us the best way to do things.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: A for tax breaks and benefits.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, make sure our money is going into, you know, the best portfolios.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's where having um a financial planner can help as well.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be careful.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Accountants help you do your taxes and it can buy us on great tax strategies.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had a financial planner, and the interesting thing about this situation was I thought it was like a free service provided by my bank to like help make sure like my money is going in the right places.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, this dude was an investment broker and was aggressively trying to get me to invest when I did not have that kind of money to invest because he makes a cut off of what you invest.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So just make sure that your financial planner doesn't have an angle.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is this new type of emerging field of therapy that's coming out, and it's called financial therapy.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: It bridges this gap between like traditional mental health therapy and financial advising.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is so interesting to me.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm a borderline shopping addict.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am not as compulsatory as other people.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I have a budget and a plan, it removes the desire to be compulsory a lot for me.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case for some people.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you might actually need financial help.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing wrong with that.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think even like if that is you, being able to admit that that you need help and like this is an issue probably will take a ton of weight off of your shoulders.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like an alcoholic cannot get sober without help.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you just have a messy, complicated, destructive relationship with money, there's no shame in the game of getting some help.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there is nothing wrong with it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: You will only set up your future self for success.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Compulsive buying activates dopamine pathways that um are really similar to behavioral addictions, and it's often triggered by stress, loneliness, emotional avoidance.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I catch myself wanting to go shopping after a really emotional day.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there is some resources because I think it's stupid to give advice without giving actionable steps personally.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Financial Therapyassociation.org is a directory to find certified financial therapists, so people that actually know what they're doing with finances and therapy.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want you spending your hard-earned money on a quack.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's not you and you just need professional help figuring out how to make your money work.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I already mentioned an accountant.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us like to use TurboTax because it's cheap.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, the if you use an accountant with TurboTax, it is super expensive, but they don't do the planning aspect that a good CPA does.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Couple situations, if you're like, hey, do I need a CPA?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is TurboTax working?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: TurboTax works for a lot of people, but you might not be getting your max refund.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing here.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are a dual income, 1099 business ownership, you need a CPA.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Real estate purchases, you need a CPA.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Major tax transitions, you need a CPA.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Debtors Anonymous is a free peer support resource for people dealing with compulsive spending and debt.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just like Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: But these groups and not feeling like you're alone can be so helpful.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you are hearing me talk about this and you're like, this might be me, there is no shame.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would say most tricky spending situations come from not being financially literate.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, most of our parents are not financially literate.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have to take responsibility for your spending actions and pick yourself up, but don't beat yourself up over it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just the fact that you can recognize that you need help to figure out your finances is better than I would say the majority of people because most of us just ostrich and put it on credit cards and we'll deal with it a different day.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Hannah you've you've told us a lot of information that we need to be managing our finances better.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I have.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like always, I'm gonna give you some really easy logical solutions to help start getting you on the right path.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you can build the world's best budget.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then do you stick to it?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: These are some spending rules that decrease decision fatigue.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was on Substack, I was on YouTube, I was thinking about things that I have employed, my friends have employed, um, I think some excerpts from this book.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I feel like is six pretty easy spinning rules.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, buy less and buy better.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is an Aritzia sweater.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was over$100.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yep, it's cotton and cashmere.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wear this sweater three plus days a week.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: It looks great, it keeps me warm, it's very comfortable.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: But because I'm wearing this sweater, I don't need to buy eight sweaters for this winter.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I like to buy things and just be very conscious of what I'm buying and how I'm going to use it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is becoming less of a hot take, but I don't shop at HM and Zara anymore.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was in HM the other day and I was like, the material just feels so cheap.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And like, I think the last time I bought something from HM was probably two years ago.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And within a month or two, it was balled up and looking really worn, but this was still a$60 sweater.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I probably wore it four or five times and I washed it once, and I wash my stuff very carefully.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So your brain makes roughly 35,000 decisions a day.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you ask, should I buy this?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're burning your willpower down.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Clear preset guardrails, eliminate midday temptation.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I buy my coffee out on Saturday, could be a rule that you have.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I want this coffee.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's Thursday.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I can enjoy it on Saturday.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's really easy.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or I don't do takeout on weeknights.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like whatever it is, set lots of like predetermined little things.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just like it's no, a lot of people employ the 72-hour rule.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's where you put non-essential items on a mandatory three-day hold before you hit purchase.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love this one.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Things you do need, you know, you do need laundry detergent.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's not, like make yourself wait 72 hours.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not something you have to have immediately to solve a problem, you see what I'm saying?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's I need it, and then I actually need this.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: One that I liked that I thought was maybe a little too bad, girl mathy, that a lot of people talk about that goes with this buy less, buy better is cost per wear.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's go back to this example of this Ritzia sweater I have on.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was$116.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've had it for almost two months.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I said I wear it on average four times a week.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't judge.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I've worn it 32 times.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm so bad at math.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's roughly$4 a wear.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas let's talk about the$60 HM sweater that I said I probably wore four to five times in total.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's somewhere around$15 a wear.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this one's looked better the whole time.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just now, that's not even the whole season.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most girl math is bad.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think this actually what I think the cost per wear thing does more than anything is it forces you to ask yourself if you see yourself wearing it a lot.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted a Cezanne trench coat when we were in Paris on our honeymoon.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, it doesn't rain a lot here, and in the Midwest, it's either really warm or really cold.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I need a light jacket or a puffer.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, at$400 in this first year, I'm not gonna wear enough price per wear.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it caused me to put it down and I thought about it differently.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the denim jacketess is on at it, it was also cheaper by a lot.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, no, I actually like price per wear on this like feasibly makes sense.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great little tool that you can like very quickly in a store think about.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I love cost per wear, but beware of girl math.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Christina My Chess, I think that's how you say her last name.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Christina, she's on YouTube, just a great channel covering minimalism, capsule wardrobes, talking about the quality of clothes.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: She even talks about how like 10 years, this is the luxury, and she talked about like 10 years ago, if you saved up and bought luxury, you were pretty much guaranteed to have super high quality clothes, it'll just last you for forever.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really the case anymore.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: She talks a lot about like little things that you might not think about that you can maybe do at home or cut out for spending.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last one, I think that there is a role for this one, and I'll explain.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I also don't think it fits in a lot of situations.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one-in, one-out rule where if you buy something, you have to donate, throw away, recycle, essentially move another item out of your house.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you are entering a new phase of life, say you're expecting a baby, you're gonna be bringing a lot of things in your home and you can't just like start finding things to get rid of.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I are here right now.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we we don't need anything.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like the things we have.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: If we bring something into this house, we probably should get rid of something.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it and if you have to like think about, well, if I buy this, what am I gonna get rid of?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just one more thing to stop and make you think about your purchase.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: You just gotta think.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're almost done.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you have made it through the hardest part of our financial episode.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: My last question for you to ponder, and again, this is deeply personal.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need to upgrade your lifestyle?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been a good girl and are you driving a 10-year-old car that's on its last leg and you get a promotion?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Girl, pat yourself on the back.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've worked real hard and you've been financially wise.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Go get yourself a new car.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to earlier in the episode, you gotta stop the lifestyle creep.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you simply upgrading because you can and because you want to?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would argue with more money comes more freedom.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe what you most desire is the freedom to travel.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, don't upgrade your house then.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stay in a smaller house, keep driving economy cars so that you can have amazing vacations.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lean into being comfortable, but figure out what your family priorities are.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is the beauty of making more money.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can save more and enjoy what you want, but you really gotta meter your lifestyle creep.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have mad respect for these influencers that within the last year or two have started making half a million plus a year and they've not moved.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you know what?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Good on you.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Have the money, have some savings, and then upgrade your life.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, make sure you've got a really nice cushion.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: You need to find a way that if you never make any more money than you're making right now, so if you stayed stagnant, how to just be comfortable there.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Last but not least, and this is a happy thing to end on.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Money touches every aspect of your life.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we can't escape it.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I joke and say social media touches every aspect of your life.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Money does significantly more.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: So just make sure you understand it.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you understand where yours is going, have a plan, have the hard conversations.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Savings and money is a tool for you to buy your freedom and treat it as such.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Money is a tool, it can be utilized in so many ways.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why guidance and talking to other people and understanding really deep ins and outs is an amazing thing.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: What I wanted this episode to be really is just a reminder that money is important, it's not a big, bad, ugly thing.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your bank account and start a bigger, more personal conversation because you know what the next steps are.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, the whole point of the Inspiring Real Life podcast is to inspire you to live a very real life.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see online is so fake, and it is so much internet money that is just not realistic for the majority of people.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding what you can and cannot afford and what your life financially looks like will just make you so much happier with your life and where you're at, and you will know what your capabilities are, and it will free you up to make better financial decisions, and that way you can take that trip, buy that bag, do whatever that thing is in full financial confidence that it's a great decision.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: With that, a quick housekeeping thing about the podcast.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Since I write, produce, research, and I want these to be well researched, I do it all by myself.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to move to an every other week episode release schedule.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I every other Thursday, um, maybe with like a quickie bonus episode every now and again.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Someday, if I get a team of like even just one person, I would like to go back to every week.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to keep creating really high quality, well researched, not sloppy podcasts, I'm gonna move to an every other week structure.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Babies and besties, go out, have an amazing two weeks, look at your bank accounts, go absolutely love your life and have a great amazing Halloween and first week of November.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.