Overcoming Our Idiot Brains (Bestie Ep) #1014

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
and today we're talking about how to overcome your idiot brain.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, we've all done some dumb things. Joel, Actually, so
what's the is there something that you do on a
recurring basis that is kind of an idiot thing or
a dumb thing? Or ask my wife? You have two options.
What's the one of the dumbest things you've ever done,
or what's something that you do more regularly that you're like,
why do I do that?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
That's not gonna minute, that's probably Matt.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, we'll make sure to hit those topics when we
have our Wives episodes later this summer. If I said,
I thought about this because I was gonna ask you
this question. But I think one of the dumbest things
I ever did was I a jeep when I was
in high school, and I thought that meant oh that
means I can drive through mud of any depth and.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Pipe worked like that.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Well, I I was such an idiot, Like I drove,
we went not we It was just me that there's
one mistake I wasn't. I didn't have a buddy there,
you know, who had my back. But I went to
this field that I had never been to before, and
it brained a whole lot, and there's a bunch of
big puddles, or so I thought. And so I'm like,
why driving around mud splashing everywhere. I'm just like living
the life until the nose of the jeep just like

(01:30):
dives down and it was this massive hole and I
couldn't get out, and we had a call like a
tow truck to winch me out of there. There is Yeah,
it was a mess. That was most likely the dumbest
thing I've ever done in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I mean, that's not the worst thing about A lot
of people have done a lot of dumber things.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
It ruined the transmission, okay, like like mud and liquid
water got into the transmission and the transmission had to
be That was a costly misfan.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's no fun. Well, we're gonna talk about all sorts
of things today on this episode. Ways, especially specifically that
our brain works largely because of the thousands and millions
of years of evolution, right, and and how it doesn't
really work to our advantage in the modern modern day society.
That's true, ways that we're conspiring against ourselves. And then
how to overcome them.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, and there's certain things and more in our more
recent history and in our own personal lives that has
an impact on how it is that we handle our money,
and you didn't reciprocate. I was hoping you would have
a good dumb story, but you keep thinking about it.
Folks can hang on for at the end of the episode. Uh,
maybe you'll not tell you So my girls they love
to hear this one. You tell us one story. When
I was in college in South Carolina, it didn't really

(02:37):
snow very often, but one time it snowed, and what
idiot college dudes think to do when that happens. Well,
we wanted to go skiing, but there's no place to
ski in Greenville, South Carolina, naturally, So what we did
was we put on the skis, we threw an electrical cable,
slammed it in the trunck on Mytota camera, and we
went skiing on the icy roads.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
And nobody got terribly injured. But there's a minor injury
at least. That's just like one dumb thing that I
remember doing.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
See that just sounds like fun because it was, like
you said, nothing bad happened, So that was just a
good time.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
It's not been like a dislocated shoulder or something like that.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
But that's about it. Stuff like that all the time,
Like okay, maybe we'll say this one for yeah, I
don't want to go down this path of dumb stuff
that we did that was actually fun, not considered dumb
because it didn't come with it come at a high cost.
But actually, speaking of college, a quick little story to
share with folks, Amazon is actually no longer in the
college textbook rental business.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
My wife found this out the hard way. So we've
talked about this before, how that's a massive way to
save when it comes to the tech instead of buying
brand new or even buying used and then returning into
the school bookstore renting it instead. And if you're.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Talking about I mean hundreds and even thousands of dollars
when it comes to the amount that these college textbooks
cost for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And so my wife, she's in grad school and she's
been using Amazon Textbooks, checking it against the prices other
places too, But Amazon Textbooks, I guess they found out
we're pricing these things too low and we're not making
any money, so they shut her down. And so now
if you want to rent a textbook to save money,
which I think is still a good way to go,
still good route to choose, get a tactic. Yeah, book Scouter,

(04:11):
e Campus, and cheg are the three websites you should
be checking out. We'll link to those in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
But those are I think book scouter in particular, it's
like a marketplace, like it aggregates a bunch of different
additional websites and you can compare prices easily on there,
which is huge, huge.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
And I hate to see one less competitor, especially one
as big as Amazon in the space. But yeah, if
you were like my wife and you were bummed and
you're like, I don't know where to go now, we'll
check out one of these sites, because yep, yeah, you
still it's better to rent than to buy.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
And so I bet there's probably still a lot of
folks out there who have Amazon books that they had rented,
and you actually have I think it's until sometime this fall,
like August or September, in order to return those those books.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
We just returned hers for the last sulster. You don't
get to keep them. We were shopping for the next
semester and we were like, oh, bummer, but we found
we went to cheg for some of hers and save
some money. But if he had just word otherwise, if
you're in school or you know someone who's in school
and they're like, these books are expensive, this is definitely
one way to save money. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
All right, man, are you ready for this beer?

Speaker 1 (05:12):
I'm ready, We're born ready.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's time to tap some of the beers that I
grabbed recently from Asheville, North Carolina. But this is End
of Plagues and this is a beer by Burial Brewing Company.
We will enjoy this one during this episode and share
our thoughts at the end of the episode.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Burial always so chill in their naming conventions. Not all right,
let's move on, Matt. Let's say, let's get to the
topic we want to discuss on this episode, which is
overcoming your idiot brain, and specifically, how are brains process
information that make us bad with money? And we've all
seen the meme of the guy on the bike who
puts a stick in his own wheel and he falls off.

(05:48):
That's kind of becoming ubiquitous at this point. There are
literally hundreds of different memes based on this goofy poorly
drawn comic and for instance, Matt I saw one. The
first line says, fifteen holes a good go, and then
it says, my brain realizing I'm playing well as he
puts the stick in the front wheel, and then what happens.
He's lying on the ground writhing in pain. It's amazing.

(06:09):
That just reveals a deeper truth whenever you attach something
to this meme.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, one of my favorite. It makes me think of,
Like the first one's like, I'm tired at work, falling
asleep at my desk, drinks a big old cup of
afternoon coffee as he sticks the stick in the spokes
and can't sleep that night. Is the end result, which
I feel like is something we've all done.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, for sure. And the truth is it's not really
all that hard for any of us to become our
own worst enemy on the money front, right, and that, yeah,
good intentions just aren't going to get the job done.
So today we want to talk about some of the
common ways we're inspiring against ourselves, and we want to
offer an antidote or multiple antidotes to help us make
the progress we're looking to achieve more possible, more of

(06:50):
a reality.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, Like that's what makes these memes so hilarious and
poignant at the exact same time. Right is that because
like we know the truth, like we know what it
is that we should be doing, but then we go
we basically do the exact opposite. Right, We have all
been there and it's impacted all areas of our lives
as well. I think like anyone ever sabotage relationship? Have

(07:11):
you ever sabotaged a job interview? Almost like subconsciously though, right, Yeah,
Like even without realizing. I think sometimes we only become
aware of it, like what we have done after the
fact in hindsight, like.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Oh wait, that's how I That's how I ruined that thing.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, Like, I mean honestly, like that's what it's what
it means to be human. Like we get to just
revel in the complexity and the incomprehensibility of being human beings.
But as Carl Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
And yeah, yeah, when we leave these underground, subterranean thoughts

(07:46):
and beliefs unexamined, untapped, we're going to be prone to
make the same mistakes just on repeat throughout our lives.
It's honestly, it's truly amazing that humanity has even come
this far, given our tendencies to self sabotage. Luckily, great
philosophers and thinkers like Carl Jung who have paused, and
they cause us to think a little bit and so

(08:06):
maybe spend some time digging below the service a little bit.
And and honestly, even today, I think just the emotional
or like mental health has risen in prominence. And I
think that's a good thing because I think that has
allowed a lot of folks to maybe think a little
bit more about why it is that they're doing the
things that they're doing.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
So they can hopefully avoid sticking the stick in the
wheel again exactly basically styming their own progress and hurting
their inability to do the things that they really do
want to achieve in favor of often kind of some
sort of short term reward. And I do think that
thinking and feeling affect the way we handle our money
so much more than we give it credit for, and

(08:43):
even more so than the immutable characteristics that we possess,
like our personal history and our personality. Tendencies are likely
to play a bigger role in how we react to
spending and investing than even our age or our education level.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yees about their skills and how good you are, right, yeah,
it's it's really about your history and kind of different
things probably that formed early in life.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I mean, we're going to sound like a psychotherapist here,
like you're laying down on a couch and we're you know,
picking your brain or something like that. But that's it
really is true that a lot of kind of how
we have come to view and think about money has
been tainted, has been informed by those early years. And
so it doesn't matter how good you are at math,
that's not a prerequisite for handling money well. Either. It's

(09:28):
really difficult to remove ourselves from our day to day
way of living in order to understand and come to
grips with the groundwork that we've laid already that's been
laid over, you know, especially those first formative years, which
informs how we're making decisions in the present that impact
our lives on an ongoing basis. I mean, it doesn't
help that everyone out there is basically trying to sell

(09:49):
you something, you know, like attention. It's the most important
commodity that we have in this day and age. And
every company out there is they're doing their absolutely best
to hijack our attention for their profit.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
We think about we recently talked about the TV and like,
you're having your attention, you're having your literally your eyeball
is hijacked in order to get something for free, free TV.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
And you say, and then you know it comes at
a high cost.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
That well, initially it seems like it's a low cost
in that case, right, like the free TV, but.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
They ultimately except for no money.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, ultimately what this means are more dollars flowing out
of your life because of it. In social media is
a great example as well, but a plethora of streaming
options like that's an entirely additional front.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I feel like that we have to fight.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Right Like there are still like more good TV shows
out there than any sane human being could possibly watch.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
There's a lot of bad ones out there too.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
But a lot even just goofy little games like candy
Crush on our phones, Like these are all distractions that
are pulling at us. And the more that we give
into these distractions, the less productive and the more unhappy
that we're going to become. And we say it like,
no judgment here right by the way, we fall prey
to these same distractions, these same things that are constantly
viol for our attention. And so maybe a part of

(11:02):
why we're covering this topic, like we're doing this for
ourselves sure, as well.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
As for you. Yeah no, I mean I think ye
that the goal of this is where you and I
are always trying to be lifelong learners too. We don't
want to just point fingers at anybody who uses candy
crush and call them crazy or anything like that. I
try to avoid games, video games, any sort of games
on my phone, but I realized that they bring some
people a lot of joy, and in fact, they help

(11:25):
your voter skills and coordination to some degree too. So
I'm not saying there's no visit at all. Yeah, yeah,
but we're talking just.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
A double edged sword though, you know, like like that's
the thing with tech in particular, Like like when we
were talking about counseling earlier. It also makes me think
of like the rise in like headspace, Like there are
some different apps out there that cause people to slow
down and to pause and reflect. But it's a double
edged sword because like five hundred years ago, like back
in the day. I'm guessing there was probably less issues

(11:53):
when it came to mental health. I don't know if
that's proven. That's just this is that's just my assumption.
They probably didn't need some of these apps because today
environment like the way things are today, our again, our
attention is just hijacked constantly, instead of having downtime where
we might naturally reflect on things, where we might naturally
have a conversation with the loved one and do some
of the things that matter more. Instead, yeah, we're just

(12:15):
scrolling social media, and so we have to be more purchases,
more proactive.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Basically because of the nature of the society society we
live in, and because of the things that are the
flaming arrows that are aimed our way, we need some
sort of like shield to fin them off so that
we can protect ourselves and seth godin he writes about
defeating the lizard brain, and that's kind of like what
we're talking about here in this episode. You know, the
basic part of our psyche that only cares about the

(12:38):
most fundamental aspects of life, like surviving, eating, and procreating,
which are all good, necessary things. I like all the above,
you know, but that lizard brain can also cause us
to function with the survivalist short term mentality. And Matt,
I remember hearing Tim Urban say this. He said, the
world we were programmed to be in and didn't have

(13:01):
long term projects that often. So so basically the reality
that our ancestors grew up in long term wasn't really
a thing, Like nobody was investing for retirement. Like our
brains haven't kept up with the new reality of much
longer life spans and four one k's and all the
stuff that come along with those things. Three baby, right,
And so it's just no surprise that our brains have

(13:22):
had trouble keeping up with this new reality, albeit a
very fortunate reality, right. I mean, I personally like electricity,
indoor plumbing. I'm not mad about any of the progress
that we've made, but it comes with, like I said,
double edged short, it comes with the downside and somethings
with something we need to pay attention to if we
want to live a fulfilling life and one that also
comes along with financial security at the same time.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, yeah, there's no part of me that wants to
go back five hundred years ago. There are a lot
of things that we don't have to worry about There
are a lot of diseases that would not so much progress. Yeah, exactly,
Like I'm very, very happy to be living in the
air that works.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, even even if you're in the bottom twentieth
percentile of Americans, you're living better than French kings did
three hundred years ago, which is I mean, just pretty
amazing to think about.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Like had some perks they.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So one of the problems I think we face that
stems from what Seth Goudin calls the lizard brain, is
that we all have a tendency to overvalue the present.
This is called present bias. There's a study from twenty
nineteen and they found that present biased consumers are more
likely to spend in the present and less likely to.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Save for the future.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
And obviously this makes sense given where we've come from ancestrally,
like our brains they just haven't adapted to this long
term thinking that's required as lifespans have increased and just
our need to build up assets for you know, like
potentially multiple decades. That's the reality now that we live
in Like this is the.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Exact opposite of what used to happen when our ancestors
would come across food like they didn't. Now we have
as much food as we want at our fingertips to
a certain area. Right, you can walk into a gross
story get whatever you want. Before it was like you
come upon food, you almost have to hoard it. Yeah,
you almost have to eat.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
You can arrise that honey, like that's some good stuff.
But now everything is sweet, and we still crave sugar.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's right. But unlike our ancestors, we can get them
whenever we want it, and so we don't have to
and they're quite refined, but we still like to eat
them the way ancestors did. And so when we have
it like we want to consume it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, because this present bias is something that we're continually
rubbing up against. We just have a hard time mustering
this self control, even though we know that we don't need,
for instance, those additional calories via that sugar. We lack
this self control that's needed when it comes to your finances,
curb spending and to set more aside for your future.
But the good news is that there are some tools
at our disposal in order to help us, you know,

(15:37):
within this quest on our as we're on our path
to financial independence. So we'll discuss some other psychological hurdles
that we face and how to overcome them right after this.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
All right, Matt, let's keep going. We're getting psychological with
this one. It's true our brains conspire against us and
they cause us to do things that aren't in our
best interest.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
And overcoming the ancestral lizard brain.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think back to middle school and
uh it just or even even high school. I was
babb with the ladies and I remember trying, like I
wanted to ask somebody out on a date or something
like that. I was so nervous that that person was
going to say no. And it took me a while
to come to grips with the fact that what if
they do say, Now, what's the worst thing that happens,
Like you feel bad for a second. What if they

(16:28):
say yes, you have this awesome chance to hang out
with this person that you would really like to spend
some time with.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
So, coming back to Joel's base desire, exactly.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Well, these are the kind of things that, like we
we have a hard time rationalize. It took me a
long time to come to that conclusion, to realize that
the stakes were actually a lot lower than I thought.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
That you weren't in literal life harm because like, that's
what it feels like. It's exactly when it's when faced
with either confrontation, at least when you're sixteen, Yeah, something
like that. It feels that like, literally, I'm going to die, like,
which is why that's a phrase that you hear teenagers say,
because I think a lot of time, like haven't oftentimes
like identified that, No, you're not literally gonna die, even
though I totally get that that's what it feels like. Yeah,

(17:07):
that's what we're oftentimes trying to overcome. But like we
were just talking about present bias, you know, just before
the break, and how we fail to think ahead, how
we fail to prepare for the future by investing our money.
And I think that one of the reasons that so
many folks don't have enough in retirement is simply because
it's so difficult for us to understand the concept of compounding, right,
Like it is tough to wrap your mind around. I

(17:28):
would say that most things in our lives actually occur linearly.
It's nice and orderly. One thing happens after the other,
as opposed to things happening exponentially, which, at least personally,
it feels a bit more chaotic. It's certainly more complex,
but it's also more difficult to comprehend.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
It's too complex for us to really wrap our minds arend.
It's kind of like those big, big numbers, like, oh,
we a trillion dollars worth of this.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Or that spending. It's like, what exactly does that mean?

Speaker 1 (17:54):
And we see a bill like that and we just
chalk it up to how future generations just ahead paying
off these desks. But a trillion dollars is substantial, and
we just I'll admit I have a hard time explaining
how much a trillion dollars is. It's pretty it blows
my mind. Yes, okay, So, for instance, so we're talking
about numbers. Take a simple math problem of addition five
plus five plus five plus five plus five and so

(18:17):
you know the answer.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Pick me if you're keeping up. You heard me say
five five times, So we're talking about a sum of
twenty five.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
There you go, so smart.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I'm hoping there's a lot of folks that answered out loud.
But now take those same fives and then multiply them, right,
So five times five times five times five times five.
We might have some rare math geniuses out there, but
the answer here is three twenty five. And this is
I wouldn't have gotten the one I wouldn't have either. Basically,

(18:46):
what I'm getting at it's this is a much more
complex problem, and it's just simply more difficult to comprehend
and then to actually apply it to our money, specifically
to our investments.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
But this is so important to understand because this is
the basis for turns that we're going to get in
the stock market. It's a different set of skills, and
most folks are not able to simply figure this out
on the fly. So let's give another example on the
compounding front, Matt, Like, imagine taking a big sheet of
paper and folding it in half, but then you fold
it in half again and again until you've done this
fifty times, which fifty sounds reasonable, right, right, because you're like, oh,

(19:19):
you can do something and a half fifty times, but no,
you've actually yeah, that's actually physically impossible. Right, But if
you were to do this, if it were possible, how
tall would that stack of paper be? It turns out
would be sixty four million miles tall, around two thirds
of the distance of the Sun, which is crazy, doesn't
seem right when you put it in terms like that,
But that's what would happen if you had the ability

(19:41):
to make it happen. And so it's no wonder that
Einstein called compounding interest the eighth wonder of the world.
It's it's a wonder in the fact that we, like
our brains can't wrap around it. But it's also a
wonder in the fact that it can be a wealth generator.
Even though our rudimentary brains have a hard time understanding
exactly how it works. The reality is that it does work,
and it works hard advantage.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
It just doesn't work the way we think it should work, like,
it just doesn't make sense, even though you can like
sit down and crunch the numbers, do the math. I
like the I think the rest of the Einstein quote
is that, like, those who understand compound interest will actually
earn it, and those who don't are going to end
up paying it. But again, just because our dumb brains
don't actually, like naturally conclude that this is possible, this

(20:21):
doesn't mean that we can't actually do the math and.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Figure it out.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Because we just did it right like people have calculated
what the distance of that sheet of paper would be
were you to fold it fifty times and then so
the trick is to then take these principles and apply
them to investing. Basically, the earlier that you're able to
start investing, the more that you're able to keep at it,
the more that you're going to have at the end
of the day. What seems small is going to be

(20:45):
able to grow large because of this reality that can
just be so difficult to grasp. The longer you allow
your investments to double and then double again, the more
money is going to grow, giving you lots more options.
So one last example, let's say you start out with
nothing safe for retirement, like literally you've got zero in
your roth ira or your four one k.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Hopefully that's not where most of our listens find themselves.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Hopefully you've got like a little bit of seed money, right,
but let's say that's that is where you're starting from.
You you've literally got nothing set aside for retirement. Were
you to max out your roth ira every year at
sixty five hundred dollars, it's going to take you a
little less than thirty six years to reach millionaire status.
To hit those you know, those seven digits. That is
a long time, I will say, and again, but that's

(21:28):
assuming you know you're you're starting with nothing, a little
less than thirty six years. But then how long before
you have two million dollars? Well, you'll actually hit that
milestone in less than ten additional years. But then guess
what five more years in addition to that. Well, then
you're up to three million dollars. So the first million
took you a little less than thirty six years, but

(21:48):
then the subsequent millions after that then take less than
ten and then around five years.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Now we say your first crazy, the first million is
the hardest.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well, yeah, no joke. When you understand compound exactly like
you can truly understand Like again, it's hard to wrap
your mind around, but you don't have to totally understand
it where it makes sense in your mind in order
for you to put.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
It to use, in order for you to trust the
principle exactly see the reality of what it can provide. Yeah,
you're right, and I do think that is a really
interesting point, that the first million is harder, largely because
your money is not working for you on your behalf
yet you're working to funnel money into this account that's
going to eventually do the work for you. But it
takes a while for that work to start to start happening.
But then once it starts happening, it starts to happen quickly.

(22:32):
It's like a snowball rolling downhill, right, And so that's why, Yeah,
our brains again have a hard time understanding this concept.
But if we can kind of at least understand it
a little bit and then do trust the principle, trust
the other reality that this is how money works and
how investing your money is going to help grow your
money over time, we can take advantage of it. Whereas

(22:54):
our lizard brain wants to say, I don't know about this.
I can't quite understand it, and so maybe I should
avoid like going in this direction. I think that's probably
where a lot of people, a lot of people stand
the way a lot of people think about investing or
saving money for the future.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Okay, so this is a random thought, but I was
thinking a back to like five hundred years ago or
I don't know, like five thousand years ago or something.
But like, in my mind, the only way that I
feel like folks way back in time had the ability
to experience exponential growth or compounding like that is if
so the beer we're drinking it is called end of plagues.
Is if they were if there's a plague upon them,

(23:28):
like literally, like a plague of locusts or rats or
something like that. I feel like back then they would
say even then, they didn't totally understand it, even though
they experienced it. And what they would say is like,
oh man, the gods must be mad at me. We
must sacrifice whatever we need to do in order to
appease the appease the gods. But like that's an example
of exponential growth, right, Like when you've got a locust

(23:50):
that multiplies and then those locusts multiple, you know, like
that is in an instance, I think in natural I
don't know in the natural environment where you might have
experienced exponential growth or compounding. Maybe again five hundred years aga,
so if they've known a little bit more, they would
have realized what was going on beneath you would have said, Aha,
here's what's going on.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
This is just science, not some sort of apocalyptic plague
being sent after me and by some higher power. Yeah sure, yeah, right,
let's talk about how our lizard brains work against us
in regards to how we use money in the present too.
I think one way that our idiot brains keep us
from making progress is it stops us from investing as
much as we could or as much as we should,

(24:29):
because we don't fully comprehend the process or we're not
willing to funnel our money in that direction. But on
the other side of the coin is the fact that
we don't save and invest enough because we're spending every
dollar we make, and that is the American way, right.
I think when you look at the savings rate right
now in the United States of America, it's like, what
two point three cents on the dollar is what we

(24:50):
save on average, which is pretty pathetic. And specifically, let's
throw out some examples, Matt and discuss kind of what's
going on under the surface. Some situations it might trigger
our idiot brains, but tricking us really into doing something
that's not in our best interest. I feel like this
often hits us on the shopping front, and I think,

(25:10):
especially in our ever interconnected world, we're just bombarded by ways,
avenues and means to shop more than ever before too.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, like the seventy percent off sign falling prices at
Walmart or resist like sales like this is trigger us
so much like I feel like it activates something within
that lizard brain. It's sort of like this this limited
time only phenomena, which again a long time ago, we
had to take advantage of stuff like that when we
were hunter gatherers. But now the impulse is working against us,

(25:43):
and even more so given the preponderance actually a fake
deals out there that can be found online thanks to
the way that pricing works on the internet. What's the
actual real price? Who knows?

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Right?

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Like, what is the actual list price? What is the manufacturer?
Is that the where.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
The thing actually costs?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Well, of course not because there's profit built in, but
it's tough to know what, you know, how good of
a deal that you're actually that you're actually looking at.
But yeah, when you're shopping Allline and you see that
it's a negative thirty percent and it's written in all read, yeah,
we're conditioned to know, oh, it's time to pounce. We've
been conditioned to know that this is a deal. It's
a signal to buy and the original price it's great

(26:20):
out It's got like a little little line cut through
it and I saw two Amazon. They're just stacking all
the tactics against us, and now it says like deal
and is also written in like all caps red letters
in order to again to kind of evoke that emotion
that tells us that we should be making a purchase
right now.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
They want you to feel like a fool for passing
up on a deal as good as this one, which
I'm gonna be honest, like this is one that has
been difficult for me for a long time because that
I feel like I've gotten a lot better. I've grown
in this, but only as I've started to realize the
fact that this is what's happening behind the scenes, right
only as I've started to be like, wait a second,
that's my lizard brain trying to get me to do

(26:59):
something that's not my best interest. But I was like
all about the deals, and I was like, I realized
I was just spending too much time thinking about buying
stuff and trying to get a good deal on things,
and the best thing to do was to want less
stuff and to care less about the prices of things
and just not be into shopping nearly as much as
I was. So it's I think I inherited that gene

(27:20):
from my mom to a certain dream. Not trying to
throw shade mom, but this is one of those things
where I think a lot of people, especially in today's era,
when Amazon and Instagram and email newsletters kind of pull
at us, trying to get us to spend money, hard
us from our money, and they're using all sorts of
sneaky tactics. It is. It is something like most of

(27:40):
us are susceptible to.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, well, I mean, like you said, email newsletter or whatever,
like the abandoned cart email where retailer checks in with you.
I mean, dude, like there is an entire offering you an.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Additional discount because you walked away.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Here's a coupon code. Did life get busy? Like all
of these things that triggered the like, Oh yeah, this
is something that was important to me that I should
be doing and I should be so thankful that they're
following up with it. At CRM, like customer relationship management,
that is an entire industry, and it's not that it's evil,
but I mean their sole goal is to get you
to buy more stuff, whether that's them keeping up with

(28:15):
the different purchases that you've made, but not Oftentimes it's
not even the things that you buy, it's the stuff
that you're looking at. It's the things like on Instagram,
it's the ads that you linger on or the ads
that you swipe on where there's a carousel because you're like, oh,
I really like that first item. Let me see if
they got some of the other stuff on sale, And
then you're feeding the system, going back to the whole
free TV thing, like they now know more about you.

(28:37):
That's gonna end up costing you more money down the road.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, window shopping used to be a completely innocent activity,
and now window shopping is watching you a window into
your soul for advertisers, for people that want to sell
you stuff, which is only really putting us at more
of a disadvantage when it comes to like our brain
and how we react.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, and this isn't to like demonize the folks that
are in that, like I used to be in advertising myself,
but it's important as consumers to highlight the fact that
this is what's going on, so that we're essentially we're
equipping other consumers out.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
So you can put that shield up it's a fair fight, yeah,
and be like stop, Yeah, well, and we'll give some
practical ways to in a bit to kind of help
make that a reality, to help stop your brain from
progressing this way. But part of the beginning at least
is to highlight some of the ways that it happens.
Another thing is like the impulse by right, that's a
struggle for lots of other people out there. It's not
just a sale. It's a good deal, but it's and

(29:30):
maybe sometimes you do find the perfect thing at a
thrift store or an artist market. I've done that, and
you make the purchase because it really is kind of
something that's not going to come along again. But there's
often something else that causes us to make an impulse buy.
It's when we feel like we deserve it, right, it's
time to treat ourselves. Ye. And so maybe you've had
a hard week at work.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Which in reality is just a moment of weakness.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Exactly, That's exactly what it is. It's not that you've
actually found the right thing that's never going to come
along again. It's that you're trying to soothe yourself through
some consumption. And so yet buying something can provide a
temporary relief, It can make you feel better for a second,
like you click buy and you're like, ah, I feel
I'm you know, this is just a method of sweet solace,
self soothing, right, But look back maybe to a recent

(30:12):
impulse buy, what emotions triggered it, and how did you
feel afterwards? I think those are good questions to ask yourself.
And I realized maybe I'm sounding a little bit like
a therapist right now, taking a page out of my
wife's book. But asking those questions are going to help
you get to the heart of the why behind the
impulse spending that you've done, and it can allow you
to recognize them moving forward, because it's typically matt it's

(30:32):
going to be those same impulses, those same triggers that
cause you to do it in the future, and if
you can identify them, you might be able to catch
yourself in the act next time you are tempted to
buy on the fly. That's right.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, So retailers they also use just different subtle tricks
out there as well, like free shipping. Again, like when
it comes to online shopping, that's one of the words
that's written in all caps emboldened off to the side.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Do you see free and you.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Think, oh, yeah, somehow this is free even though there
is a prices station.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
We know they're not losing money on shipping.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Come on, exactly, it's not truly free shipping. And we
also know that even if we pay for something in
for easy installments, that will end up paying the same
amount in the end.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
They're just making it easier for you by not pay later.
Adds to the frictionlessness of it all. Yeah, they're reducing
the friction just enough, but we know it logically we're
paying the same amount anyway.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, but by doing that, they're able to actually garner
a sale from us that otherwise they wouldn't get and
we find ourselves parted with our money when we might
have otherwise saved it. So again, awareness of how these
different strategies and tactics and tricks impact us is crucial
so that we can put up a good fight. I
will say, like I think for me, I don't know
for me to say the whole sale mentality, it's not

(31:41):
something that gets me. You know, my adrenaline, myes don't
dilate or whatever.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
My people don't do. It's an impervious robot to a
certain extent.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
But we know what I'm not impervious to what is
uh messaging, like when they try to sell you an
image or when they're trying to sell you basically like
a message, even if it's subconscious, right, Like like I'm
specifically thinking about it. Like I bought a really nice
coffee grinder recently. We talked about it, maybe a couple
months ago. I was thinking about getting Actually we talked

(32:09):
with Brandon on Monday. That's one of the things him
and I nerded out about because he actually recently bought
a blade. Well mine is a flat blade grinder. I
think his was kinic coal. Oh, I don't know the difference. Yeah,
he was also considering mine. But the way that that
thing is styled and the way it's designed, it's it's
like Matt Black. The design is I mean, it's beautiful.
It sits there on your counter, and so the reason

(32:31):
it's well reviewed and stuff is because it actually does
grind your coffee really really well. So practically speaking, it
does an excellent job. But you're also buying the image, right.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Like the way we're always being sold in the image, right.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, It's just branded in such a cool way and
it is like minimalist, and I think there's a part
of me that bought into that where it's just like,
by getting this thing, you're gonna be cool, like the
like all the other guys, like like this is gonna
make your house look like the counters that this coffee
grinder is featured on within the picture on our website.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, it's okay to have certain aesthetic preferences and to
say this is my style, this is this is my jam,
I'm into this. That's totally fine. But I think there's
also a lot of advertising that is subtly weaving that
into absolutely our brains and it's saying it's not even
telling us about the product, it's just by association saying
if you do or drink or buy or hang out
with this product, you are by proxy gonna be cooler.

(33:21):
Then you're gonna be You're currently a cool hit dude,
right Yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Even if it practically accomplishes what it is that you
want to accomplish because you are checking off the boxes
and whatnot, I think we are still susceptible to that
that kind of branding. And the fact is nobody cares.
It's not like anybody thinks that I'm cooler because I
got Like nobody sees the stupid thing like I don't
invite people over for coffee. Maybe I should, I guess,
is what I'm now learning just to show off, just

(33:46):
to show off my fancy grinder. Anyway, I just wanted
to mention that too, because I think there are some
of these more subtle, subconscious brandy kind of not like
you know, not the liquor, but like where there's a
brand and you're kind of buying into the brand, and
that's actually how they're able to make this sale. Right,
it's not that they dropped a sale on me. Is
it's not that I did it impulsively where no, I've

(34:07):
been researching this for months, but there's another part of
it where I paid a premium for it.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Well, I think that's where they say about billboards and commercials.
It's not that they're trying to make the sale instantly.
They're trying to slowly mold your mind into thinking something
about that product or brand so that eventually you come
around when you're like, oh wait, now I need a car.
Ah remember that toilet rab four commercial. Maybe that's the
one for me. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
It's that kind of stuff that really family looked like
my family. I would see us driving that kind of car.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, exactly, that's kind of tricks are being played on us,
slowly but surely. But there are a lot of things
that we can do. There are a lot of things
in our power to react and to combat these subtle
and not so subtle hints. Sure ways that we're parted
with our money, whether it's on the spending or just
on the not investing side. We'll get to a bunch
of our thoughts on how to make progress, how to

(34:51):
overcome the lizard brain financially speaking, we'll get to that
right after this. All right, folks, we are back.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
And we are talking about overcoming your idiot brain. And
this is just a fun conversation because we're just really
diving into the psychology.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Right. I just say, this is not about IQ either.
This is oh yeah. I think there's a lot of
people who are like, I'm in mensa, Okay, I don't
have an idiot brain. My IQ is one forty eight.
And I think these are the things that again, we
all have this lizard brain part in the back, and
we're all tempted to or subconsciously reacting in these ways.
We're talking about the subconscious no matter how freakan smart

(35:34):
you are. No matter whether you're an engineer or you
stock the shelter your local grocery store, it doesn't it
doesn't matter. We're all susceptible police.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Well, that's what makes this so interesting, right, Like, we
are fascinated by just this behavioral psychology element and how
it is that it's going to impact how we handle
our money, both collectively as a society but also as individuals.
And so another factor that plays into how we personally
interact with our finances has to do with our history
with money. Our beliefs about money often stem from how

(36:04):
it impacted us in our childhood. This makes me think
back to our Freudian Yeah, so we had a conversation
we had Christy Sheen on the podcast as an interview
back in episode one to eighteen. We'll link to that
one in the show in the show notes. But she
grew up on forty four cents a day in China,
and when you do that, that is going to make
you appreciate the wealth and the opportunities available to you

(36:26):
when you finally arrive in North America or for her,
Canada specifically Canada's in North America. But if you grew
up in like an affluent suburb, like, you might have
seen the downsides of money, right, Like you may have
been confronted with the signaling and the unhappiness that it
can produce. Some people, like Christy and much of the

(36:46):
Fire community, like they are able to see money as
a tool in order to earn their freedom, And we
tend to agree that freedom is one of the best
things that money can buy. But it's important to identify
your history and what it is is that informs how
it is that you view money, some of the different
attributes that you associate with your money.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, I think if you grew up in China and
you come to North America, Canada, Canada, Canada, you see
I think as mostly a good thing, right, Yeah. But
if you let's say you hung out with Jordan Belfort,
Wolf of Wall Street sort of thing which I never
saw in the movie. I just know very little, But
if you hung out it's good in those environments, you
would you might think money is all bad and only

(37:27):
terrible people have money, right, And so you might just
there's associations that we make that really when you think
about it and when you do a little bit of introspection,
you might be able to find some ties that you
can untangle a little bit in terms of how you
view money, and maybe the way you think about it
stems from some experiences from elementary, middle or high school,

(37:50):
and some of those things might have informed you well.
In others maybe not so well. And Sarah Newcomb, who
writes about money psychology for Morning Star, I like that
she shared this article you wrote some She had some
great prompts, some questions really to help reveal what's going
on under the surface in terms of our money beliefs.
We'll link to that article in the show notes because
I think it's helpful to look at. But let's go

(38:10):
over them real quick, because I think they're just really
insightful or they can help you find some insight. But
first she tells people to fill in the blank money
is what, and then you tell your answer and you
talk about why. It'll tell you a lot about your
current underlying beliefs. Money is blank, like fill in the
blank what is money for you? I think that is

(38:31):
going to give you a lot of insight as to
how you think about money, how you feel about money,
and what's going on below the surface. Second, she says
if money was a character in your life, would be
a friend or foe, a villain or hero. I think
that's a helpful question as well, because some people have
an inherently antagonistic view and approach towards money. They kind
of view it as inherently bad. We've talked about how

(38:53):
it's not. It's really just this kind of neutral thing,
but we make attachments to it, and I think seeing
how you view it from that perspective can be helpful. Third,
she says, growing up, what was your financial situation? How
did the people raising you handle their money? Do you
see any ways that this affects the way you think
about or handle money today? For me, yes, You've talked

(39:14):
about it with Brandon on Monday's episode. I mean, this
is one of those things where I was particularly especially
influenced by the way money was handled in my house
growing up. I'm sure other listeners have a similar sort
of story, right background. So, but thinking through those things
and not just letting them subconsciously inform how you handle money,

(39:34):
but bringing them to the forefront, to the surface, consciously
thinking about them will allow you then maybe to combat
some of those ark realities that you grew up with.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, and I would say that, Well, the argument we're
making is that regardless if it was good or bad,
your history is going to have an impact no matter what,
and it oftentimes comes down to how you then react
to that history, because like in your case, you reactive,
reacted like you were polarized, like you did the opposite
essentially right. But like I think back to my history,

(40:05):
me growing up with money, and like we certainly had enough,
but it wasn't like the amount of money my folks had.
But honestly, it was just the great way that they
talked about it. Like I specifically like I might be
one of the like, okay, we were talking about compounding earlier,
and this was a lesson that that I learned, literally,
I think at age eleven. I specifically remember my dad

(40:26):
sitting at the desk in our kitchen and him explaining
compounding interest and when your money starts working harder for
you than you are able to like, and that puts
me in incredibly like rarefied waters, Like I was incredibly
lucky to have had that taught to me at a
young age. I didn't fully understand it then, but I
do think that that certainly planted the seeds of my

(40:46):
you know, the basis I guess of my my financial education.
But again I'm highlighting this because a I was most
definitely lucky. But a lot of folks like you said there,
you tend to go to one extreme or the other right,
like you either vilify money or you worship it. It
kind of depends on what happened in your past and
then how you are reacting to it. But Sarah she Man,

(41:09):
she had such a great article there, and one of
the other things she mentioned was to ask yourself if
money affects your social life, specifically in a good way
or a bad way. And then finally, this is a quote,
if money were not a consideration, how would you be
living your life? Would it be very different from how
you currently live? And how do you feel about that?

(41:29):
And that's just I think that's such an incredible and
incredibly insightful question to ask yourself because I think it
can help you to be awares to the fact that
are you doing this truly because of money or maybe
because of some other deeper maybe calling or mission that's
driving you. We actually included some other similar questions in
our how to Money Money Mission Statement worksheet. We'll make

(41:51):
sure to link to that in our show notes. But
the truth is, if you want to make more progress
with your money, the problem likely isn't that you don't
know enough.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
About roth IRA's right, Like for most of us, the.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Problem is the man in the mirror, the woman in
the mirror. Like, it goes much deeper. Don't make me
throw that song right now? And asking ourselves some of
these hard questions, you know, doing some of this deep work,
we think it can transform how it is that everyone
out there relates to their finances. Just some of the
realization can be freeing, and it can impact how it
is that we spend and save our money. It is
not just the spendaholics, right that need to perform this

(42:23):
exercise and to look inward. It's possible to be too
miserly and too frugal as well.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah that's true. Yeah, no, when you said that if
money were not in consideration, how would you be living
your life? Would it be very different from how you
currently live? I think it's a really really important question
for us to ask ourselves. For a lot of people
they might find wait a second, I'm putting too much
emphasis on money. I have all that I need. If
only I could incorporate and think about money a little
bit less and just have more free time. Like those

(42:51):
are the kind of questions you and I are asking
ourselves now at this stage in our lives where it's we're.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
A little more coast fire and yeah, we have the
ability to kind of choose our own path.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
And like we could say, no, we want to continue
to enhance our lifestyle in a massive way, and so
it's going to require a lot more money to fund
this juggernaut for years to come. But no, that's not
what we care about. But the only asked by asking
yourself these kinds of questions, can you get to that
deeper understanding. But you know, regardless of which of those
camps you might find yourself in at the end of
the day, both of those tendencies can be taken to

(43:23):
the extreme, which is really just a manifestation of selfishness.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
And this so basically, if you spend so much, it's
because you're being selfish and you're spending a lot of
money on yourself. But if you're being cheap and like
you know, like I was saying earlier, like meserly, that's
also a very selfish ash where you're just yeah, it
makes you think of storing it all away for yourself,
freaking bad where Walter White always says he's doing it
for his family, but the reality is his family is
falling apart while he's like making meth and making bank.

(43:50):
And the truth is at the end he admits he's
doing it all for himself the whole time, when it
was clear to the viewer for all the seasons that
sounds like he did some good internal work exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
It was all that therapy he was doing that really
got him to that point. Yeah, glad he reached that point.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
As someone who's never watched the show, right, I'm sure
that's exactly what it was like, right, something like that
while counseling or kind of like the Sopranos, Well he
actually goes to counseling. This doesn't really Yeah, yeah, although
I never saw that show, but I hear it's great.
But this is this is natural tendency, right, Like we're
born as selfish, selfish beings. Our brains are wired toward
what we can get. Now, this is the lizard brain
in action, and to keep it all for ourselves or

(44:29):
for our small tribe, our family. But just because a
behavior is natural doesn't mean that it's the best path
to take, and especially in again modern society. And so
one of the more ultimate ways that were able to
overcome our dumb brains is to spend our money in
ways that are sacrificial, to spend or give it away
in a way that doesn't bring us any benefit at all.

(44:51):
This is one hundred percent a way that we can
overcome our idiot brains. And it's a reason that we
like to encourage folks to be charitable, yes, to give
their money away, because pretty much all stages of your
financial journey, if you can be giving away a small
portion and hopefully a growing portion of what you have
what you make, it can help reframe money, put it
in the proper light. And that is so powerful. It's powerful,

(45:12):
largely for psychological reasons, and to get to see that
money do good in the world around you. That's beautiful too. Yeah,
And of course there are, like you said, in ways
that where we receive no benefit, but we're also even
incentivized to give money away, like that's just how the
tax goes to the tax go yeah, yeah, like yeah,
So it's important to realize that from a principal standpoint,

(45:32):
we want you to be doing it because it's not
necessarily going to give you any benefit. But there's also
the tax benefits, and there's there's kind of like the
emotional feel good benefits as well, but we're not going
to get into all of that because something else that
we can do to actually overcome our idiot brain is
to automate and to impose limitations on ourselves. We're talking
about rules and automation because they can help us to

(45:54):
do the right thing consistently without even having to think
about it. Because once you opt to put let's say
six percent into your four h one k, well, that
joker is on autopilot. You don't have to think about
it ever. Again, your your paycheck is smaller, but you
forget about that pretty quickly. Automation helps us to overcome
our own lack of discipline. And it's not to say

(46:15):
that it's some sort of crutch. It's an effective tool
and it's out there and so we want folks to
use it. But you can also impose artificial limits on
yourself where you're able to create some friction where it
didn't exist before, specifically on the shopping front. You know,
that's something like instituting a twenty four or a forty
eight hour waiting period. That way, you're not giving into

(46:35):
those base desires of impulse buying, right or if that
means that you're on Facebook too much, which can oftentimes
lead to purchases that maybe you shouldn't have made. A
loved one of mine recently made approachase on Facebook that
I'm not sure if that would have happened had that
ad not been seen. But if that's the case, use

(46:58):
the newsfeed erratic or plug in. That way, you can
go straight to the how to Money Facebook group, because
surely that's the only reason that you need to be
taking advantage.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I got to say, I've been using that plug in
for years. I have no idea what's going on on
Facebook outside of the how to Money Facebook group, and
I live in Bliss. I love it.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Or maybe it even means on your phone just deleting
Instagram if like me, you have sometimes find yourself, you know,
flipping through the carousel of the different sales or a
minimum backcountry put it on page two of your apps. Yes, yeah, yeah,
push it back a little bit. But there are different
app limiting services out there. There is this one called
one sec like one second and opal, but they can

(47:37):
impose a delay between opening an app and actually seeing
the content. This is I think can be really helpful
for both social and investing apps where you're trying to
give yourself a minute to actually pause and to think
is this something I need to do? Honestly, I like
to just stepping backwards, Like, don't necessarily include more technology
to solve the problems of more technology, but even consider

(47:59):
taking a step backwards. I mean, I think this is
why we're seeing the number of flip phones like dumb phones.
Sales of those have been skyrocketing, whereas sales of smartphones
have actually declined. Thank Q four of last year, smartphone
sales decline.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Oh, I seeing that, whereas.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Flip phones and like old school Nokia's sales are are
actually on the rise. But Yeah, that's to me that
that's an encouraging note. And I think that's something like
I feel like we're seeing more of that with with
gen Z because there's a younger, younger generation and they're
tired of being highjacked having their screen time just completely
dominate all their free time.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yeah, I've been very intrigued by the light phone. I
haven't made the jump. I haven't even played around with one,
but I've contemplated, you know, jumping to something like that.
I don't want to lose. I like podcasts on my phone.
There's certain things that I like having at my fingertips.
But then I also realized that that it's that there
are other things at my fingertips that I wish were
not there, that are constantly buying for my attention. And

(48:55):
I wish I didn't even have to think about them.
I wish they didn't exist. But Mett to wrap this up,
I mean, going back to that that Carl Jung quote
at the beginning of the episode that you mentioned about
making the unconscious conscious our lives, I feel like they
often feel guided by an invisible hand, which really is
our subconscious right as well as the market, as like
Adam Smith said, I know that's really a nod to
Adam Smith using that terminology, But that invisible hand that guys, I.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Mean, it's more than you think, because it is the market.
It is actual companies truing a profit and that are
trying to sell to you. But it's yeah, it's also
the subcost.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
It's also the things about today we've experienced at an
early age, or the things that we've heard our friends say,
or some sort of experience we had back in eighth grade.
That informs how we think about money and how we
handle it now more true than we realize. Yeah, And
so I think when we unearth some of these thoughts
and beliefs, we ask some of the deeper why questions,
it's going to inevitably provide us with new information about ourselves,

(49:45):
which is going to cause us to change some of
our preconceived notions and beliefs about money. And then those
altered beliefs are going to invariably impact how we act,
how we move forward in this world, how we spend,
how we say, how we invest. And the truth is,
money is not good or evil, right. It's a tool
that can be used well or it can be used poorly.
And we can either put too much stock in the
value of a dollar or not enough. But it's hard,

(50:08):
if not impossible, to change our habits and our approach
to money when we're not sure where the source belief
material is coming from, what's subconsciously guiding us where that originates.
And so I think it's important to do to do
some of that deep work, not just to go, like
you said, to some sort of technological halting mechanism to
prevent us from taking the worst action possible.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
And apps to help you to become your lizard brain.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Right. Yeah, it's not that some of those apps can't
be helpful, but I think it's there's deeper work required
really when it comes to fighting and overcoming our idiot brains.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Absolutely, man, Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself.
Let's get back to the beer that you and I enjoyed.
This was an end of plagues and IPA by Burial.
What I'll say, I'll describe the label art. It's a
the artist that they have that makes all their labels.
I forget his name. I'll actually make sure to link
to his Instagram accounts after we've bashed in to Graham

(51:00):
and how you should believe it in your phone, But
all of his artwork is super metal.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
This is just the best way to describe it.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
But it's got a rat sitting there who's just like
eating the earth that a rat or possum possume, I
don't know either. Plagues are like rats, you know, like
the bubony, filthy animal. Yeah, it's got the tail, but
it's just Yeah, there's like filth all.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Around the earth. Yeah, the conventions gel up really well
with the pictures, with the artwork, and they're both just
a little over the top. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, expect many more ridiculous names of the different burial
beers that will have in the coming weeks. Yeah, but yeah,
what were your thoughts though on this beer? I say,
this was juicy and sharp, and it was almost like
I pa concentrate, like, yeah, that's how I think of this,
and but that's how I think of most of the
burial beers and burial IPAs in particular, because they just
make some of the thickest, juiciest, beastly, most beastly iPAH. Yeah,

(51:54):
I would say, so this is a single like a
regular and in my mind the boty it was relatively
light and body considering it's burial, and so it felt
like a like a foundational IPA because there's some other
ones that we're gonna have that are more.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Over the top, like maybe this is a nine and
then the other one's taking up to twelve.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
This is like their equivalent of a session idea. But
it was really good, solid, and again when you poured it,
it's kind of got that pale, milky golden color where
you can't see through it at all. It's sort of
like the new cars today where like your paint jobs,
they've got zero metallic speck or fleck or whatever that's
in them, you know, because like the old school and
it's super traditional paint jobs. You see them and it's
kind of it's got a sparkle to it. Yeah, but

(52:34):
like the new ones, they don't have any sparkle. It's
just like a flat color. It's shiny, but there's just
no additional metallic in it.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
That's what this is.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, Like it's just solid one note color, but the
flavor was anything but one note.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
I'm glad you and I got to enjoy this one
todays definitely all right, that's gonna do it for this one.
You can as always find show notes for this and
links to everything we mentioned, as well as a bunch
of other money resources up on our site at how
tomoney dot com. Don't forget the how to Money credit
card tool. You can find that in the upper right
hand corner of the homepage at howtomoney dot com. It's
super easy to find the best credit card for you.

(53:08):
But Matt that's going to do it for this episode
until next time. Best Friends out and best Friends Out

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Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

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