Beating Down the Biggest Money Obstacles You Face #557

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking about beating down the biggest money obstacles
you face, dude, a beat down. You're talking all all

(00:28):
violet over here. It's like folks are gonna think you're
into mixed martial arts or or something like. No. I mean,
I hear good things. It sounds like fun, but too
intense for my lessons. It sounds like fun until you
get clocked in the face, like my neighbor did. He's
really into it, and he was, you know, grappling with
a guy. I think that's the term grappling. There's no
there's no punching right, there's no strikes. But he said
he was trying to get out of a hold and
the guy he was grappling with swung his arm back

(00:49):
at the same time that he quickly moved his head
to try to evade, to try to escape or whatever,
and he caught an elbow right above his eye. He said,
its swelled up to the size of a tennis ball.
But when I saw him, the swelling went down, but
the blood had flown from his head to his eyeball.
So he looked very, very evil. He looked you look terrible. Yeah,
so that that's probably that's gonna be at least my

(01:11):
excuse why I'm avoiding jiu jitsu because I gotta keep
his face looking pretty kind of keep that money money
maker looking freshman. We're podcasters, so it's not necessarily my
money maker. But but you know, I still don't want
to get clocked in the face. That it doesn't sound
like fun nor do I mean literally, that's the reason
I work out is to avoid getting hurt, and so
to put myself in harm's way. It sounds like the
opposite of what I personally want to do. Although there

(01:33):
are others out there who I'm sure really enjoy makes
martial arts. But that's what we're gonna be doing today.
When it when it comes to your money, that there
are different obstacles that just like pop out of nowhere oftentimes,
and we want you to completely destroy these obstacles so
that you can achieve your financial goals. And and it
makes me think of ways mad how waves will be. Like, hey,
up in the future, there's this thing if you're gonna

(01:55):
encounter in road, there's a police up there and half
a mile, like moment is a little down it would
be funny. Ways actually changed his voice like that. It's
like obstacle in road. Well, there's a there's a cop
up there on the ride, you might want to slow down, Joel,
stop in an idiot and but yeah, those obstacles up
if you can have someone point them out to you,

(02:15):
these are the kind of things that are probably gonna
impact your personal finances. Negatively, look out for them, start
thinking about how you would react if you were to
encounter that. That's kind of what we're gonna do on
on today's episode. But Matt, quickly, before we get to that,
I wanted to mention I. I talked about the upgrading
to a new phone, and I had hoped on holding
out longer, which, by the way, did did you ever

(02:35):
get a case for your phone? Still? Okay, so you're
still caseless? What you think about this? Right here? Oh
that looks good. Finally, so I've had my phone for
a year. Finally got a case nice and still nice
and thin. Yeah, I got the screen protector on there.
Making better cases, thinner cases. These they used to be
like these giant hunking You have to get the autter
box and made your phone three times the size, right,
which terrible. I mentioned that Google was going to hit

(02:57):
me two and sixty two dollars before my old phone
that i've for and I was like, that's pretty good,
thanks Google. But they ended up paying me three for
that phone. I sent it in and they said, actually,
you underestimated the value. Will give you three hundred bucks.
The same with my wife phone, which also had just
this even more even worse cracks than than mine. So

(03:18):
you can thank the semiconductor shorteras for that one. Friends,
it's like supply chain problems. I think it was pain
it is my game. I think it was less that
they're paying for the actual value of the phone, and
they're more just kind of trying to build customer loyalty
because there's no way they're gonna be able to make
their money back on that phone, Like no way at all, right, um,
and so so really because everyone else was saying, we'll

(03:38):
give you eighty bucks for it or ninety bucks, and
so that's definitely above the market value. But you know,
Google got me to trade on my own one that
was busted for one that's just you know, not busted,
and that's a sweet deal, dude. Yeah, just to get
more money than you're expecting. Just feels like, I don't
know prayer emoji hands. I'm just like thankful, blest hashtag
blest due. That's enough to almost make me consider switching

(04:00):
switching over to a pixel, but not quite because I
don't want to be the green text guy. I know. Yeah,
that's your role. Literally get a crap for that last
night from a friend and he's like, I would text
you back, but I'm like, dude, come on, I was
thinking about liking it, but then I realized that I couldn't,
and instead it was gonna not give it the thumbs
up and instead would have typed that out. I'm not
gonna do it. Well, you know me, I'm a dent extrovert.

(04:22):
So if I realized that this phone is inhibiting my
ability to make friends, I might have to make a
sorry we told you that. I like that. I would
text you more. Yeah, but I get enough time with
you already. But if it's inhibiting other friendships, maybe I'll
make Yeah, we get enough of that face to face time. Well,
let's mention the beer we're having on today's episode. This
one is called Bibo. It's by Creature Comforts, one of
our favorite Georgia Brewery's it's straight up pills nurse. We'll

(04:45):
give our thoughts on this beer at the end of
the episode, but let's move on, mat Let's get to
the topic at hand. We are talking about money, obstacles,
how to beat them down, And I'm not sure if
our gen Z listeners are going to get this reference.
But when I was thinking about beat down, so thinking
about American Gladiators, which was the o G American Ninja
Warrior right, thinking about them with the giant what is it? Yeah,

(05:09):
Like that's that's the most beat down people would get
is when they're just standing there on that pedalestal, just
getting just hitting hammered, getting whacked in the head over
and over again until they just fall off. Still, just
a fantastic show if you go, if you go um
back back and watch it. What was it? It It was
late eighties, early nineties something. Yeah, And so just the style,
the look, kind of the field of the show is
just kind of fun, fun nostalgia to partake in. But

(05:32):
I could see some hipster breweries being like, all we
do just play American Gladiators on TV. Like one of
our favorite breweries always shows like these idyllic sheep, hurting scenes,
throw whatever over In Europe, it's just their thing. For
whatever reason. They like their show show like the European Countryside,
but there should be another brewery and all they do
is just show American glad Well, if we ever start one,

(05:53):
that's gonna be our amout. I would be all about
that well. And so when I was in college there,
for some reason, one of the dining halls that's all
they played was American Gladiator rerun at least when I went, like,
that's what was on TV, and so I just remember
that's that was where my affinity for American Gladiators started.
But yeah, if you don't know the show, basically a
couple fairly fit young folks. They would compete to win money.

(06:14):
They would uh. The only thing standing in their way though,
was some incredibly ripped dudes and females who wanted to
punish them physically. And so the Gladiators basically is what
they were known as. They were always throwing obstacles in
your way, slamming you down or to knock you up
a pedestal, shooting stuff at you, literally tackling you. I mean,
whatever it took to prevent you from scoring points. And

(06:37):
so yeah, real life, it's not really like American Gladiators, sadly,
I guess in a lot of ways because it would
be pretty cool. But but obstacles are reality in basically
every arena of life. And that's just that's incredibly true
when we're talking about the area of personal finance. And
today we're gonna talk about, you know, those gladiators, like
obstacles standing in your way that are trying to prevent

(06:57):
you from reaching your goals. We're gonna like put those
on the horizon, tell you which ones might be coming,
and and also talk about how to beat down those
obstacles you can succeed with your money. Yeah, because chances
are it hasn't been only smooth sailing, you know, on
your route to paying off debts or investing for your
for your future. Getting stuck and not being able to
make progress as a problem that I think all of

(07:18):
us has have faced at times. Uh. And so yeah,
we're gonna spend this episode running through some of the
different obstacles that are attempting to derail you on your
path to financial freedom, uh, and then specifically what to
do about them. But Joel, you know, like going back
to the American Gladiators, I think one of the best
parts of the show were the gladiator's names, like like

(07:38):
Elektra or like Laser. Those are a couple that that
stand out in my mind. But similarly, it is important
to name and identify these financial obstacles as well, because
you know, if they're lurking in the shadows without you
even realizing that they're there, you're gonna get completely blindsided.
And that is what we're trying to avoid today. Yeah,
and I'm gonna guess Malibu was your favorite of the
Gladiator which I don't. I don't, which had like the

(08:00):
really long hair California guy, but still like super Bike,
you I do remember that they're all super they're all
totally ripped. YEA. Well, it turns out that we all
have varying degrees of control over the financial obstacles that
we face. So maybe let's let's start Matt with some
of the obstacles that are going to feel the most unexpected,
the most out of our hands. And so one of

(08:21):
those things that we're feeling acutely right now is rising prices. Right,
and no matter how much we complain, none of us
are gonna be able to have an impact on something
like the cost of eggs. So part of that is
just general grocery inflationship and then part of its the
Avian flu going around, and so now eggs are a
lot more expensive than they were just twelve months ago,
and so but it's still a very affordable way to

(08:44):
get high mus a protein. To get that protein. Agree, Man,
we're talking a lot about physical films. It was tough
to get. Like the other day, getting a dozen eggs
for three bucks, I was like, man, this used to
be a dollar fifty nine. And so it's it's tough
to stomach that, but you're right when you think about
it logically, it's like it's yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, but
the reality of rapidly increasing costs basically everywhere return is

(09:04):
something that none of us could have expected just a
couple of years ago. It's it's been forty years where
we've had pretty stable inflation along the lines of two
percent a year. It's kind of been like clockwork, and
so we've we've we know that inflation is occurring, but
most of us don't feel it in any meaningful way,
and so we don't think about it. But you know,
that this experience can actually be helpful, I would say,

(09:25):
in making us realize that there are more possible unknowns
than we had previously considered. I mean, the pandemic is
is just a perfect example of that, Matt. When we
talk about obstacles that we have to overcome, some obstacles
we can predict. Other obstacles we can't. They're unknown, and
we still have to be prepared for unknown potential obstacles too.
That's right. And the lesson from these obstacles, these things

(09:46):
that are completely out of our control, is that being prepared,
even for things that we can't fully imagine like that,
that is still an important thing to do. And specifically
this means saving and spending our money so that we
have some financial margin. This is going to be incredibly important.
And so if you're spending every single dollar that you
make and you're living paycheck to paycheck, then the financial

(10:07):
impacts of something like inflation right of rising prices, it's
going to have a much more severe impact on your
life than someone who's only you know, spending like half
of their paycheck. If you're you're spending less than you make,
then it shouldn't take long for you to have a
degree of margin within your life, because man, if you
are living on the edge, if you do not have
any of that margin. Uh, as expenses continue to get

(10:29):
more expensive, well, where does that put you? Right? Like
that put you on the on this precipice of falling
into this abyss where you might even be reliant on
credit cards, right on debt in order for you to
just maintain the standard of living. It was maybe feasible
for you to do that yesterday, but today, with prices
being where they are, it's a lot more difficult. Yeah, man,
I agree. I think margin is one of those important

(10:51):
words in personal finance. You want to have more of it,
even though you don't necessarily know the scenario that you're
preparing for. Having more margin allows you to pivot in
the moment, even when something unexpected, because it's the best practice. Yes,
I would say, yes, it is. And shifting from like
the macro to the micro because inflation is this macro
thing that affects all of us. Well, let's kind of

(11:11):
talk a little more personal finances because you know, unexpected
expenses that we experience in day to day life are
obstacles that can mess us up in a big way.
So this is not something that's affecting every single one
of us in a very similar way. This is what
if the you you suddenly find that some of the
pipes are leaking in your house, or that your crawl
space is taking on water. You know, those are tough
obstacles that cost real money to remedy. Man I was

(11:33):
actually doing some research for an upcoming interview, and she
was talking about some some housing issues she had had
on whatever YouTube videos and how she it cost her
some real money to to prevent some of those water
issues from from messing up her her investment property. And
so basically like, if you turn a blind eye to
these issues, you're gonna find yourself in a worse situation. Right,

(11:55):
if you don't put in the French train, uh and
you flood the basements, you find yourself in a worse
situation tsking you even more money, or even something like
car issues, right, even though you're you're probably not assuming
that your transportation is gonna bite the dust tomorrow, being
prepared is still important. I had a Subaru back in
the day. Suber is a great cars, but for some reason,
my engine just crapped out on the freeway and it

(12:17):
was one of those things where it was a really
really expensive fix. I wasn't planning on that, Like, it
wasn't something where I was like, cool, I think this
could happen sometime in the next six months, but it
was still something I was financially prepared for, even though
it hurts, like the dickens to pay for that fix. Yeah.
Medical debt is another example of one of these you know,
some of these stumbling blocks that people don't plan for.

(12:38):
But it can be debilitating on multiple fronts, right Like,
not only can medical expenses cost you a ton of money,
but there's a chance that something has happened that might
keep you from being able to work, which would keep
you potentially from earning an income, right Like, it hits
you on the way in and on the way out.
This is one of those problems that exists across our
society that we need to find and a better way

(13:01):
of addressing. But there are some ways of preventing possible
medical issues. Specifically, there are personal physical steps that we
can take, like not smoking, eating well, actually exercising from
time to time. Maybe not the jiu jitsure though, yeah,
which causes uh increased medical medical bils, but there are
other ways to push back against medical debts that is

(13:21):
egregious as well. We talked about that in episode for
nine with Marshall Allen. But aside from some of the
I guess financial steps that you can take to keep
medical debt from becoming this obstacle that's going to take
you out, there are some of these smaller additional ones
as well. And the reason we highlight medical debt because
with it being the number one reason for personal bankruptcy,

(13:42):
it is something that you should be thinking about. Yeah,
and we often don't think about those little steps that
we can take ahead of time, but those are crucial, right,
So if you want to avoid health problems, like just
going for a walk around your neighborhood four or five
days a week for twenty minutes is gonna be like
this preventative health step that's going to have a positive
tacon on your body and on your ability to withstand

(14:04):
future hurdles that life throws at you from a physical stance.
But but so often we discount those things and we
don't think of them as important even though they are.
And you know, it makes me think about this, uh,
this Mike Tyson quote Matt that I think I think
this was something he said. He basically said, everybody has
a plan until they get punched in the mouth. So
he's talking about his opponents typically who got rocked pretty

(14:25):
hard because they're like, oh, this is all I'm gonna
beat Mike, and then they get punched in the face
one time and they're planning shifts dramatically, um typically into
survival mode. But so even though you don't know which
setback you're gonna face, whether you're gonna face we're gonna
face something on a macro level, or you're gonna face
some sort of micro economic catastrophe in your life, planning
head is so important, and building up that emergency fund

(14:48):
is really what we're talking about here. It's gonna give
you the ability to endure those setbacks without completely derailing
your progress and crumbling your goals in the process, because
you've got cash to back you up. When those problems
do arise, like and they're gonna happen for all of us, right,
you can't prevent them from happening, but you can minimize

(15:09):
their impact on your psyche and on your finances, and
that is so important. So partly what we're talking about
here is is having that base emergency fund set up. Matt,
we you and I we've always given the number two thousand,
four hundred and sixties seven dollars as being the base
amount to shoot for. If you don't have an emergency
fund in place yet, or you have less than that,
that's the number you want to hit because that's going
to allow you to to overcome a lot of those

(15:30):
financial obstacles that your mind the counter without going broke
or without taking on debt, and then you know the
next goal is to have somewhere between three and six
months of expenses saved up. Once you get to a
place like that, those obstacles they feel a lot smaller,
They don't feel like as big of a deal because
in your bank account, you've got enough money to be
able to handle that, and then you can work to

(15:52):
replenish that you're not just immediately screwed when something unexpected occurs.
That's right, And I think it's good too that we
started with margin, right, How how we talked about how
that's the solution oftentimes, uh, and then we moved on
to an emergency fund, because in order to create an
emergency fund, you need to have margin within your life
when you have some small amounts of margin like that
will allow you to overcome something like inflation, that that

(16:13):
allows you to overcome small price increases. But what we're
talking about with an emergency fund is the ability to
overcome some of these larger hurdles, some of these bigger
expenses that are going to crop up in our lives
that do have the potential to to derail us. And
so it's important, uh, not only to have margin, but
then to beyond that, be working towards having, like you said,
ultimately three to six months worth of living expenses in

(16:35):
the bank. But you we actually are going to get
to several other obstacles that get in our way when
it comes to handling our money. Well ways for us
to beat down those obstacles, and in particular, we're gonna
get to a couple that are within the realm of
our social lives. And so we will get to those
plus others right after this. Alright, let's keep let's keep going.

(17:02):
Let's keep talking about money obstacles and and how our
listeners can beat them down in order to continue making
financial progress. And some of these goes again with this
violent rhetoric, punch it in the face. You know, like, uh, yeah,
you have thinking of those of the pants, those of
the clown things that I had when I was a kid,
and you you could punch it and it would pop back up,
and oh yeah, I love those things. I think about

(17:23):
your money obstacles kind of like that. Well, And and
some of our listeners, you know, they're gonna face We're
gonna face mac or we're gonna face micro challenges. We're
gonna face like the our own particular set of obstacles.
So it's not gonna be one size fits all necessarily,
and we're gonna talk about internal and external obstacles which
all have just kind of different impacts and they need
different reactions from us. But but some of our listeners

(17:45):
might be saying, you know what my obstacle is, I
don't make enough money. And that's a real obstacle to that.
Some people face a lack of income, which is reality
for a decent chunk of folks. And the reality is
we're just talking about rising prices that you know, it's
gotten harder to put it on the table and to
pay rent, especially as both of those items in particular
have become more expensive. Inflation is eating into the real

(18:07):
wages of lots of people too, making it feel like
they're they're earning less than they used to. Even if
their paycheck's got up a little, it's like, yeah, but
it doesn't go as far on the things that I'm buying.
And and even if that person are that listener recently
got a raise. And it is true that making more
money isn't going to solve all of your financial problems.
But and there there are way too many folks living

(18:29):
paycheck to paycheck who makes six figures, but finding ways
to make more would help a lot of people. And
and that's that's an important solution to this personal finance
opticle on this right. But that being said, it is
easier said than done. Some folks who are employed and
in a high demand field, like it could just entail
negotiating effectively, you know, with your current employer, or maybe

(18:52):
applying for jobs with other businesses in the industry that
that are going to pay you a little bit more.
But for others, it's gonna mean maybe doing something that's
gonna rec are a little more work, like starting a business,
like a business on the side, or acquiring some some
new skills in order to increase their earnings. And by
the way, going to college paying lots and lots of
money in order to acquire those skills is not necessary. Yeah,

(19:12):
I mean it might be the best route for some folks,
but it's it's not some sort of slam dunk. Oh
if I go do this, it's gonna quickly mean I'm
gonna earn a lot more money. It's just not that
simple exactly. Yeah, And so you know, we we say
all this because like, not earning enough, it can be
a significant hurdle, but there is definitely a way to
lower maybe the height of that hurdle through some savvy
personal action where you are focusing on maybe one of

(19:35):
the largest obstacles within your personal financeance, which might be
uh an income that could be a bit bigger. Yeah,
and mat another another obstacle that people face is spending
too much money, and that just a lot of people
just can't control their spending. They find it massively difficult,
and the biggest culprits are often your largest recurring expenses.

(19:56):
Maybe you bought a house and the monthly payment is
just outside to your comfort zone. Well, that means you're
gonna be constantly stressed about where your other dollars are
going because you've got this fixed payment and it's too much.
And so now you're fretting about every single other purchase
because you don't have enough discretion your income to pay
for all the things that you that you want or need.
And lord, let's say you bought a nicer car than

(20:18):
you really should have bought, but you spread those payments
out over extra years, taking out that seven or eight
year car loan that we hate. That is also going
to impact your ability to reach other financial goals in
your life. And so, yeah, one of our suggestions would
be if you spend far less on the items that
are most impactful to your budget, on the biggest line items, well,
the great thing is you won't need to sweat the

(20:40):
small stuff and nearly as much. You're gonna be less stressed.
You might not live in as awesome of an apartment
or a house, or your car might be, you have
a few more things and dents, but the reality is
it's going to make you far less stressed out about
all those other purchases you make in a month. And uh,
there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, well,
even if your housing costs are lesson say five percent

(21:00):
of your monthly income. Like, folks can find themselves spending
in more frivolous ways, right, which might mean maybe you've
gotten too cozy with credit cards or you know with that,
maybe you're using the buy now, pay later services because
they make it easier to get more of the stuff
you want quickly, where you don't even realize how that's
impacting your long term personal finances. The Internet, online retailers,

(21:23):
social media even have made it so easy for us
to become consumption machines. I swear every other post now
on Instagram, like when you're flipping through your stories, that's
where I feel like I've noticed it the most. Is
an ad and they are showing me something that I
could buy, something that is perfectly curated for something that
I would like. The mat they know me well, they

(21:44):
don't want They just want you to buy stuff. It's
gonna make you happy. And I'm like, well, let me
just go and click through and see what they see
what they've got going on, like what kind of sale
do they have going on? And obviously that just feeds
feeds the beast, feeds the beast. Yeah, it gives them
even more information. They're like, oh, he liked that, may
not have made a purchase. But now we've got our
we've got our hooks even deeper. They will, they will
jud it to you into sumission. I'm gonna yeah, hopefully

(22:06):
not have to tap out. But so okay. How do
you deal with this obstacle though? And one way is
by budgeting or if you don't like to be word,
at the very least, it means tracking where your money
is going. We would suggest using software like wine app.
You need a budget is what that stands for. And
you might hear us say that and think, wait a minute,
doesn't wine app cost money? Yes, it does. It does

(22:26):
cost money. But if if it takes you spending like
a small amount of money every single month in order
to save a ton of money, well guess what the
net result is going to be. It's gonna be you
coming out ahead. Or maybe that's you might need to
join a gym in order to get fit. Yes you
might not. You don't need to, that's for sure, But
if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. If
that's what is going to cause you to actually work out.
By going with a friend to a gym, the cost

(22:48):
bucks a month it's like cool, Yeah, it's it's worth
the money if you're gonna be a whole lot healthier
because of it, exactly. Or maybe you just need some
guidance and something as simple as just searching for a
budget within Google sheets or something that you can download
a personal budget within Excel. Uh, that might be the
path for you to take. But bottom line, if you
don't know where your money is going, then you know

(23:08):
you're not going to be able to make progress with
your money. Uh. And we're talking about kind of some
of these steps that you can take to alleviate some
of those frivolous spending, some of those small purchases every
single month, but like you're talking about some of these
big ticket items, right, like these recurring large expenses every
single month. And it's worth pointing out that we're not
afraid to consider making some drastic cuts in our lives. Right.

(23:30):
And so if you are in a house that's no
longer bringing you value, maybe like maybe you've got this
fancy place and it's not bringing you joy, it's not
fulfilling you in the way that you thought. I mean,
there's a lot of things to consider here, but I
am not beyond you sailing that home. It's it would
be a lot easier if you're renting and saying, okay,
maybe the next place we rent will just be a
lot more affordable. Obviously much easier to to sell a

(23:54):
vehicle than a home because there's so many costs associated
with with selling a home. But I mentioned that because
I think pretty much all expenses should be on the
table when it comes to us achieving our financial goals.
And if that home is no longer kind of helping
you get in the direction you want to go, it
might be time to scrap it and go and pivot
right into a different direction. Well, and that you mentioned budgeting,

(24:14):
and you mentioned wine app and Google sheets, and you
actually have maybe your budget public for how the money listeners,
not not all of your details, but you you've you've
basically your template. They can download it and we'll link
to that in the show notes for this episode, and
we will do that because I know a lot of
people like it's helpful to have a place to get started,
and I feel like your budget template is is you

(24:35):
can help a lot of people. Fair warning, I overthink
everything and so it might be more detailed than a
lot of folks out there might be needing you might
want to take. For all the nerds out there, modify
and simplify. Yeah, for all the nerds out there, you
might be thinking, oh, this is exactly what I need. Yeah. Well,
and let's talk about another obstacle to making good financial decisions,
and that can be your friends. That's right. Cut them

(24:56):
all out of your life because they're ruining your ability
to make financial progress. Friends are just too expensive, that's right.
So Matt, this is uh where we break up the
zory part ways my friends, Um, just kidding and and
and that's certainly not true, right that that you need
to lose most of your friends. But the reality is
that people you spend the most time with, they're going
to have an inordinate influence on who you're becoming, both

(25:18):
for good and for bad. And uh, what are the
author Jim Rone? He says that you become the average
of the five folks you spend the most time with.
This right, or if you want to go even more
old school, Matt, the Bible. The Bible puts in another way,
bad company corrupts good character. And so you know, as
best friends, you and I, we can attest to the
reality that we we've both had significant impacts on each other.

(25:39):
I think mostly for good, I hope. Okay, I'm sure
there's some negative parts of it, but again, what's the
net results? Net results, mostly possible, way way way positive. Yeah,
but the the other people that we choose to spend
time with and do life with are majorly impactful to
who we're becoming as well. The more thoughtful, intentional, and

(26:00):
google our friends are, the more likely we're going to
take on those characteristics ourselves. So yeah, but the people
that you spend the most time with, are they do
they have the most characters? Are they? Are they the
kind of people you want to become? I think those
are good questions to ask, because I don't want to
make it it sounds like it's all your friends fault
and and they're ruining your finances. I don't think that's

(26:20):
the case. But again, who you're surrounding yourself with is
indicative of who you're going to become, and so that
is an important thing to be thinking about. That's right. Yeah,
it actually makes me think of the fact that we mean,
with us having moved recently, what that means is that
we're getting to meet a lot of new folks were
meeting new neighbors, making new friends, which is like positive, right, Um, However,
it also means that we are meeting folks who may

(26:41):
not necessarily share the same goals as us, right, and
so in our old neighborhood, in our old life, and
certainly we interacted with folks who we don't necessarily see
eye to eye with on everything. But it is really
interesting meeting new folks and realizing based on what they're
talking about, based on how does they spend their time,
based on what they're spending their money on that Oh,
I don't think we necessarily share the share the same

(27:02):
share the same goals. And again that doesn't mean that
we can't be friends and we can't say hey, be
friendly and all those types of things, but it does
mean I think that there is a level of intentionality
that comes with making these relationships. It's important to be
aware of the influence that other people can can have
on you. Uh, and you know, I think this is
why my community, specifically, why that's such an important part

(27:23):
of the how the money philosophy. They always say that
it takes a friend to make a friend, right, and
so the impetus is going to be on us to
find these folks and to get the ball rolling. And
we've found specifically that that churches and schools there are
places that are ripe for cross cultural friendships. Um. Actually
backing us up, there's a new study recently that was
published in uh Nature that found that the key for

(27:46):
folks who grew up with very little money that they
were able to move up the income scale because of
the friendships that they developed future incomes I think shut
up by something for lower income kids who spent significant
amounts of time with wealthier kids. And so, you know,
like we're not saying that you should only hang out
with like elite wealthy folks. I'm not slinding into elon
musty m right now. I'm not keen on like schmoozing

(28:09):
and hanging out with like the private jet crowd. But
your friends can be an obstacle to who you want
to become. So this is a reminder that you can
be intentional about who you are letting influence you without
cutting friends you know who don't share the same goals
completely out of your life. Yeah, we definitely don't want
to sound like a heartless jerk who's like eradicate those
fools who you've been friends with since high school because

(28:30):
they're they're holding you back from reaching your financial goals.
Sounds like you share different goals now, yeah, and it's
easy you could potentially use what we just said and
make your friends into a scapegoat and say like sorry
Billy or sorry Jenny, um, it's your fault while I'm
not making more progress of my money. And the reality
is there's more onus on you than on your friends.
But there's also a truth to the fact that that

(28:53):
the people you you spend the most time around are
going to influence you, oftentimes even in subtle ways. And
so it's important to think about that not too completely
get rid of important friendships that you've had for a
long time just because they don't think about money the
same way, but to be more intentional about the positive
side of that. The friendships you can develop, they're gonna
push you in the right direction. And it also doesn't
mean that you have to be completely pragmatic about all

(29:14):
of your relationship right like like in particular, like the
stage of life that we're in when we're meeting a
lot of folks sometimes like we're gonna hang out with
them just because we like them. And I think that's
core to a friendship, right, Like there's something that you
see and that other person, there's like a spark there,
there's other shared common interests. But if you were to
go into every single relationship thinking is this person wealthier
than me? Like, that's just a cold hearted, like hard

(29:37):
nosed way to approach relationships that we are not recommending.
And it's not just bigger house, more more income, more
successful career like those are those are That's not what
we're talking about. You know, we're talking about some more
of those intangible things and and are your friends supporting
you in those ways? Are they influencing you in those
ways to help you become the kind of person you
want to be? Uh and Matt on that on that vein.

(29:58):
I know social media takes a b but it's another obstacle, right,
this stands always. You talked about how big tech and
UH and big business is trying to get you to
spend money on Instagram through all the ads that you're seeing. Well,
it's true, right that there's there's a reality of that.
Uh TikTok is ratching up the comparison game just with
as influencers are kind of taking over, and we're getting

(30:20):
more and more of our content that way as opposed
to traditional media. And uh. A new survey found by
bank rate found that social media makes half of gen
z ears feel bad about their finances. So people in
their twenties, almost half of them walk around feeling like
crap because of social media. And it turns out it
makes people feel bad more more than just about their finances,

(30:41):
makes them feel bad about their appearance or the hobbies
that they that they participate in, like disc golf not
so cool on TikTok, I don't think you know. And
so now there's there's there's definitely discolf influences golfers on
Instagram because I get fed them like crushing these like
massive drives, and I'm like, I don't even play discolf
that much, but maybe Instagram saying that I should. Well,
I think in that way, Instagram would be right. But uh,

(31:04):
but a lot of us are spending meaningful amounts of
time on these sites, and what they're doing is they're
dragging us down. They're making us feel bad. And it's
not like this drill sergeant kind of feel bad where
we end up taking immediate action right where we're like,
dang it, you're right, I will drop down and give
you fifty push ups. It usually induces more in action.
I would say, it's not this motivational kind of feel
bad exactly. And there's a difference between those two, right,

(31:26):
And we all know this right in our brains. We
we've seen some of these studies. A lot of us
watched the Social Dilemma back in the day on Netflix.
But social media media, it's it's truly creating unrealistic expectations
and so using it far less is going to put
some wind in your sales from an emotional and financial perspective. Yeah,
so if you actually think about it, like it's literally

(31:47):
in the name right, Like, so social media, you're being
fed what your friends are doing. So that's the social
side of things. Uh, And it's being force fed to
you like you're watching the news. And so I think
that's that has a large impact on how passive we
are as we can ume this. We're just sitting there.
It's being fed to us. We don't have to lift
literally without the hardly lift a finger. You just kind
of like swipe it on your screen or whatever. But

(32:08):
the reality is that much of what you see on
social media is just fake, which you know this is
no surprise to anybody out there, but like influences, what
are you talking about, Like they literally do crap like
running a seat like in a private jet just to
take a selfie to to make you think that their
jet setting somewhere somewhere cool. And even if it's not fake,
most of what you're ingesting is going to be unhealthy.

(32:28):
We we you know, we talk about the hot of
Money Facebook group a decent bit. We feel that it's
this bashtion of goodness and the like this medium that's
just fraught with peril. And so if you're gonna stay
on these sites like like Facebook, we'd recommend that you
take some steps to lessen their impact. The Joel you
always talk about the news feed eradicator plug in, Um,

(32:49):
how that's a game changer. But the ability that we
have to be able to skip some of the crappy
aspects of social media like the news feed and go
straight to specific groups where we are going to be
intentional with our time, or the ability to go straight
to the straight to marketplace because you're you're selling a
bunch of stuff. That is what we want to encourage
folks to do. Cal Newport talks about doing that in
his book Digital Minimalism, where we set up these rules

(33:11):
and how it is that we interact with social media. Uh.
He wants you to use social media like a professional,
like you're going in with a purpose, You're gonna do
the thing, and then you're gonna get out of there.
It can be a powerful tool for our good for
awesome things, for the sell yourself challenge, Like we're not luddites,
we're not trying to get you to step away from
all technology, but the technology is using you and that's

(33:33):
what we're trying. And you can also be like, but
I gotta do this sell your stuff challenge and if
I'm not on Facebook, then I can't help that, and
then I'm not we need to do that, And then
and then you could you could be like, well, yeah,
so I need to stay on social media for that reason.
But the reality is you're you're consuming more than you're
even getting rid of, Like you're you're spending more, you're
wasting more money and time. Then you are saving it

(33:54):
and you're using that as an excuse, and so we're
okay with you being on social media. I think it's
I think it's okay to be on there a little bit,
but if you're letting it use you, that's the problem.
And it's really really hard to use it the other
way around, to use it profitably, to use it in
a way strategically. Yeah, it's really difficult to accomplish, but
it's possible, and something like that a plug in like
the Facebook news feed eradicator plug in can help you

(34:16):
do that. Um. But the more ways that you can
implement just time limits and what you're seeing on social media,
it's going to be a positive impact and it's gonna
prevent social media from being such a such a meaningful
obstacle to you gaining grounds with your money, a time suck. Yeah, Like,
use this strategically, Like specifically, we've been using it more
recently because we're meeting a lot of folks again, like
I said, And the ability to make these connections on

(34:39):
Facebook too then foster uh interactions in real life. Right.
And that's something else that Kyle talks about in this
book that's so huge, is embracing doing things for real
and you're not doing things on social media. We've talked
about our how the money we don't we're not really
on the social as a whole lot. We we have
an Instagram feed and you're welcome to go join it,
check it out, follow it, but we don't do much
with it, and at times it's like, man, we could

(35:01):
do better. We could be like massive personal finance influencers
on the socials if we wanted to post in seven
just like here's me. Okay, here's the deal I got
on the tooth baste, right, but it does not watch
me brush my teeth. But it doesn't jive with how
we want to live life and kind of with how
we feel about social media and tough man, it's a
it's a it's a balance that we're trying to strike there.
All right, Well, let's let's keep moving mat like we

(35:22):
we've talked about a lot of external influences, but after
the break, let's talk more about internal obstacles and how
we're moving Removing some of those can have major ramifications
on our ability to take positive action with our money.
We'll get to that right after this. We are back

(35:44):
from the break, and again we are talking about beating
down these biggest financial obstacles in our lives. And Joel,
you alluded to this before the break, but let's talk
about you that you Joel specifically, but all the listeners
out there, and let's talk about me um. Let's talk
about everyone out there as individual rules. Because it's easy.
We think it's easy to point out, you know, all
of these other reasons why it is that we're not

(36:05):
as far along as we'd like to be with our finances.
And it's not that those things aren't true, you know,
or that they haven't impacted us negatively, all the different
things that pop up in our lives, but you might
be tempted to continue down a path of playing the
blame game when you're just pointing fingers, you know, the
things that might seem out of your control, or you
could like really take yourself out of the driver's seat

(36:27):
and adopt more of a victim mentality when ultimately so
much of your future is dependent on you taking responsibility
for our actions, seeing these obstacles and then doing something
about them. We think that that is crucial, and that's
why we're talking about this today. Yeah, you're right, Mad,
I mean, it's it's it's not that some people aren't
dealt a worse hand and that they don't have more
to overcome, but the more you just point to the

(36:50):
optacles in your path, the less likelyly you are to
overcome them. And it's not that it's easy, and it's
not that some people don't have a more difficult path,
but the onus is still on us in order to
make progress. And so what are those internal obstacles we
would say that we've all got to overcome at some point.
Is not knowing our why, and that's going to continue
to produce negative results for you. If you if you

(37:12):
don't know what we call the why behind your money,
it's just gonna take you more time to accomplish the
money goals that you've got because you're aimless achieve them
at all. Yeah, exactly, And so yeah, not knowing what
you want to accomplish is going to kneecap your efforts regularly,
more likely to spend too much money, or you're going
to just be and be aimless. Like I said in

(37:32):
those short sighted money efforts, if you can't attach a
why behind those efforts. And yeah, because if you haven't
really thought through what you want out of life and
how handling your money more effectively is going to be
able to get you there, you're gonna be apathetic about
their your finances. You're just gonna go with the flow
you're gonna do with the people around you are doing.
But the more you get in touch and I hope

(37:53):
this doesn't sound too woo woo, I'm not trying to
be some sort of Tony Robin style fella here, but
with your own personal why when you kind of get
in touch to that, when you figure that out, the
more you're gonna be able to attach a larger significance
to the trade offs that you're making now to It's
gonna feel different to say no to something, to cut
back your budget in significant ways in order to help
you achieve those bigger goals, which is gonna lead to

(38:14):
positive results and actually following through. And we've actually got
this money Mission Statement math that you and I that
we've created together, and it's a free resource, just like
your your budget template, like this is a free resource
that we want all how the money listeners to have.
And if you would just spend a half hour answering
some of these questions, download this PDF and and print
it out. Think about it. Uh, it's going to have
a massive impact on overcoming that obstacle from being aimless

(38:37):
about what you want to do with your money and
where you want to be years from now to kind
of having a plan and knowing what you want from
your life and knowing what you want from your personal
finances to that's right. Yeah, we'll make sure to link
to that in the show notes as well. But once
you know what it is that you want, having a
you know, a hy to anchor you, you still might
be missing the how. And of course that comes down
to the crucial component of knowledge, because you can have

(38:58):
the right desires while not having the proper information to
accomplish them. And you know, while the basics of personal
finance are simple spend less than you make, there's obviously
a ton more to sustained success and being able to
achieve even higher level goals. We spend our lifetimes learning,
so nobody will ever reach the point where they know everything.
But we would recommend everyone out there to revisit our

(39:20):
money gears because it should act as a helpful guide
or or a roadmap regardless of how much money you make,
regardless of how much money you have invested. That's episode
three oh two, and we'll make sure to link to
that as well. Yeah, but if you know your why
and you know your how, like you're gonna be a
person on a mission, You're gonna be heading places like
if you have figured out okay, cool, I I know

(39:40):
I want to invest my money for the future, or
I know I want to have more money at some
point to gain financial independence. Once you're able to figure
out some of the best levers to pull in order
to get you there, it's going to make the journey
that much easier. And another obstacle, though, Matt, that people
might face, right, another conundrum that comes up is not
having enough discipline to get where they need to go.

(40:00):
They might know there why, they might have some of
that how, but then they're like, but I'm just kind
of lazy, and I find it really difficult to actually
follow through on on the things that I know and
on those internal desires. And so maybe you're all excited
because you you do have the knowledge and you have
a y, but you fizzle out because you lack some

(40:21):
of the discipline to keep going. And I think you're
not alone, right, because even the most strident among us
we fall off the wagon from time to time. But
the key to this, to overcoming this obstacle, is to
foster a longer term view of our finances. We've talked
about grit on the show before, Matt and we we
we actually called it the number one factor to winning

(40:41):
with your money. And the reality is that grit is
kind of like living life like it's a marathon and
not a sprint, although so many of us actually think
about it like the opposite, at least when it comes
to how we're spending or using our money and displaying more.
Grit is is realizing that setbacks that they're bound to happen,
um that obstacles are gonna pop up, right, But but
pushing through those annoyances and inconveniences because we have our

(41:04):
eyes fixed on a specific prize, right, the why that
we have is important and so lacking discipline it's certainly,
certainly an obstacle, but and it's one of those things
it's not overcome quickly. It's overcome through repetition and a
little bit of mindset shift. Realizing that what you want
to accomplish, that it's it's not gonna happen, it's not
gonna occur overnight, right, And if there's a single factor

(41:26):
that leads to a lack of grid, it's got to
be shortsightedness, and so this this makes me think of investing. Oftentimes,
folks are going to fail to invest because they haven't
thought through the long term impacts that it's going to have. Right,
like twenty bucks a month, it sounds like appendance, So
why even get started. But the reality is that because
of the effects of compounding, even small amounts that you
regularly set aside, it's gonna, you know, amount to something

(41:49):
meaningful over time, like you said, Joel, But we can
be to my opic. We can be too focused on
tomorrow in order to continue the hard work of spending
less than you make, of making sacrifices now because you're
not you're not thinking about the future. All you're doing
is thinking about now, and so you're not thinking about
what life could potentially look like oft in the future. Instead,
you're pulling those dollars into the present from the future,

(42:10):
and you're spending that money left and right. That's when
we choose the different modern comforts that we convince ourselves
that we need today in order to be happy. What
makes me think about something that you know, we and
you and I've talked about on the show before when
it comes to discipline, But also short sighting. This is
implementing a rule that prevents you from buying stuff on
a whim. Say, listen, I've got the seventy two hour

(42:30):
rule and I'm gonna wait to buy that item. And
I had to do this just the other day with
my with my nine year old Matt, we were at Costco.
She saw this like plushy, stuffy creature and she already
has like so many stuffed animals it's not even funny.
But she also has her own money and it's okay
for her to buy the stuff that she wants, as
we talk about, right, But what we what we're able
to convince of in our last visit to Costco, was

(42:52):
that she's going to have this seventy two hour rule too.
It's okay if you actually want this item, but do
you want it three days from now? Right? And so
she was like, oh, okay, all right, then I will
wait for right now, although unhappily, and we'll see if
I still want this thing three days from now. And
you know what, I have not heard a peepe from her.
There are other things though, back to Costco since then,

(43:14):
No we haven't, but there but if she brought it
up we're like, we will take you back there and
we'll take you to buy it. And there are other
things that she has continued to talk about, like she's
wanted to watch four weeks and weeks and weeks, and
so we're like, you've wanted this for a while to
each other. Well, actually, happily for me, this was not
one of those where they can message their friends. But
it does do it like a little tracking and stuff

(43:34):
like that, steps and all that, which I still can
message you like while they're at with like the pre
can responses. I don't think it's even got that. Okay, yeah,
but um well at least tracking is good. Yeah, but
I I personally hate those kind of watches. But she
really wanted one, and it was one of those things
where it was like, cool, we waited more than seventy
two hours. You really wanted it, and they want it,
and it's your money, so you can buy it. But

(43:55):
even still, like, let's have the long view. Is this
something that we're gonna want that we don't just want
right now, but we were actually gonna want it days
or weeks from now, and that will help us make
better decisions that are more in our best long term
interest as opposed to just buying the thing because it's
in front of us, right, And of course that's harder
to do with kids, but as adults it's hard to
do as well, and we have to remind ourselves of

(44:16):
those long term, long long term goals. And you know,
one of our favorite quotes comes from Frederick Nietzsche. He
who has a why to live for can bear almost
any how. And you know, a lot of these internal
and personal obstacles are really symptoms of an ultimate obstacle
that that we already mentioned, knowing your why you know,
or knowing your final end, as Thomas Aquanas calls it.

(44:38):
But this is just so foundational for us to make
any substantive and you know, like durable progress in our lives.
We can make some changes now, but if we don't
have that why, we're not going to stick with it.
You know, it's difficult to have a desire to learn
more about personal finances when you don't even know why
you're reading a book right, Like it's it's incredibly challenging
to continue to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when

(44:58):
you're wondering why it that you should even get up.
It's tempting uh to be shortsighted and choose ease and
comfort when you don't have that long term vision of
what you went your life to look like. And so
while figuring out your why, it's simultaneously the most amorphous
and unclear task at the same time, I think it's
likely the most important stuff that too many folks skip

(45:18):
out on because it's so difficult to wrap our heads
around it, because it requires us to sit in silence
and think about like it causes us to ask some
of these bigger questions in our lives. And it's just
not something that we've been trained to do. It's not
something that we allow ourselves the space, uh nor the
environment to allow ourselves to do that. Yeah, And and
one one little thing you can do, I think to

(45:39):
help you visualize maybe it's it's hard to sympathize with
your older self. And and if you can take to
get on the face app and literally take a picture
and make yourself look thirty years older, there's something visceral
that you feel about that. Like Fidelity actually did a
study and they found that people who did this and
saw themselves uh thirty or forty years older near retirement age,
sympathized with that older version of themselves and begin to

(46:01):
invest more of their money for the future. And so
I think maybe that's a litteral, a little step that
you can take that might have an impact on your
ability to say, you know what, if you're more of
a visual I'm not gonna forever and at some point
one of these days I'm gonna be sixty five, seventy,
and I I want to make sure that I'm thinking
about older me too. I'm being kind and generous to
future Joel uh to future whatever your name is and

(46:24):
uh so, Yeah, I think the face app is one
of those like it's it's just like a little tangible
thing you can do that might make a small difference.
But really, Matt, Yeah, you're right. Knowing your why and
going through the money mission statement that we have I
think can be helpful and things. It's so important. Yeah,
it's heelpful too. When you do the face app picture,
choose a picture where you're wearing like a cardigan, because
it'll really like match up with the with the old look. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
you want to make yourself look really well, maybe some spectacles, Yeah,

(46:47):
don't wear the punk rock t shirt that you have on.
It's gonna look weird. Uh yeah, all right, Well, we'll
make sure the links to all of those resources in
our show notes. But let's get back to the beer
that you and I enjoy During this episode, we both
had a Bibo, which is a pilsner by Creature Comforts,
and I'm gonna go ahead and read the They've got
a few words here on the side of the can,
and it says crisp and dry, classic noble. Do you

(47:10):
agree with those? Those were all for the adjectives I
was gonna use. You should work with the branding on
Creature Company. I should know it. Really it really was crisp,
and it just really tasted in light. Yes, for sure,
it tastes like your uncle's beer, but better like what
what he was drinking, Like the High Life, but a
much improved version of it that just has like a

(47:33):
taste touch more spice, yeah, less metallic. Um, you know,
like some of those beers have like a I don't
just a metallic macro produced beers. Yeah, just not uh smo.
But I like I love the taste of just kind
of like beer, right, um. But it's just not often
that you have a good beer. Uh that that's just
kind of in the classic style. Um, but a lot

(47:55):
more breweries now are are making good pilsners, good loggers
that taste kind of like that old school beer taste,
but just like elevated, and this is definitely one of those,
that's right. And if you just heard Joel say pilseners
and loggers, if you're wondering what a pilsener is, a
pilsner is a type of lagger. And so oftentimes pilseners
have more hops added to the beer, and so oftentimes

(48:15):
that's what gives it that lift. Well, oftentimes it's the
Noble hop, right. I think that's actually the name of
the hop, which I was just because of like nobility,
like you think of like this old school pilsener. I mean,
there's so many hot varieties now, but that's one of
the most classic ones that they in a bunch of
those originally and stuff like that. Originally pilsener like it was,
it was a logger that was made in a city

(48:37):
like maybe Pilsen or something, is that right, Germany, Germany
or Belgium or something like that. Maybe it was in Chechoslakia,
I don't know, but somewhere over there in Europe. What's
where this beer was originally? This the style of beer
was originally made, but it was a delicious, easy to
drink beer, and I'm glad you and I got to
enjoy one today on the show. And listeners can find
our show notes up on the website at how to

(48:57):
money dot com and awesome times, we don't have a
ton of stuff in the show notes, but today it
feels like there's a little more, so you should. Definitely
there are some resources there for you. Definitely, so yeah,
go go check it out. But buddy, that's gonna be
it for today. Until next time. Best Friends Out, Best
Friends Out.

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Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

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