April 28, 2021 • 41 mins
With every passing day, it seems like we’re getting closer to being able to resume our pre-pandemic lives. On a personal note, we’re really looking forward to cramming into the Benz here in Atlanta to watch some soccer. And while we’re looking for a degree of normalcy, we need to make sure that we don’t spend our way into oblivion as the economy is reopening! There’s a good chance many of us ended last year without having spent nearly as much money as we typically would have, and now we’re chomping at the bit- shopping might feel like one of the few things we can do right now. Since there is so much pent-up demand, it’ll really be easy for us to fall prey to poor spending. It’s important for us to keep that behavior in check and there are a host of alternatives for us to consider instead of making that purchase. But if we’ve decided that we have to click ‘buy’, then we have a ton of options to make sure that we’re getting the best deal possible.
During this episode we enjoyed a Citrus Wheat by Rightside Brewing- thanks to our friends over at Rightside for donating this ‘near beer’ to the show! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and Matt.
Today we're talking about how the temptation to spend is
getting realm. That's Rachel. As our lives resumed some sort
(00:28):
of normalcy, the sirens are calling calling out there. They're
calling us over to the rocks of retail consumption. Give
me your credit card information, whether online or in person.
It's true. No, this is what this episode is gonna
be all about. We're talking about spending our money and
specifically to make sure that we're doing it wisely. That way, yeah,
we don't end up crashing against the rocks of personal finance.
(00:50):
And I guess those those rocks of this cliffs would
be like bunted budget bankruptcy. Uh that that would be
the hardest rock that you could, Yeah, you go against.
But even just like credit card debt, that that's unintended,
the consequences that are there if you do ever spend.
And I think Matt like, there's this particular temptation right
now as the economy is reopening and people are getting
(01:10):
vaccinated and they want to start spending in a way
that's maybe what they were used to ahead of coronavirus.
But but even more so, like an even more ramped
up version of spending for a lot of people is
kind of what they're being beckoned to do. And so
you know, we want to push back against that and
and help all of us to think through, Okay, how
do we start to spend money as the economy reopens.
(01:30):
We're gonna talk about that today, but before we get
to that, man, I wanted to let you know, speaking
of spending, Uh, we're we're about to do a little
bit of work at our house, and it is going
to cost money. Um, but I'm looking for as many
ways as possible to make that work cost less money.
And so one of the things I found out about
from a friend. There's this place called life Cycle in Atlanta,
(01:53):
and it's basically this huge warehouse of old doors, tile lighting,
life fixtures, um anything really you could matter place. Mantel
pieces like it looked like they came out of like
old castles, basically bath tubs, vanities. I mean really, as
far as the eye can see, you're looking at pieces
of older homes, like and or poor things that just
(02:15):
were never used in the first place. Similar stuff is
brand new at that place, but it's just deeply discounted,
and so we went this weekend as a family to
kind of check it out, and man, there was a
lot of good stuff that that we're totally considering in
in particular, like with like a door, you can save
so much money buying the door gently used instead of
buying it brand new. Um, it's just one of those
(02:36):
things that you know, a lot of towns have a
habitat restore and that's a place worth going to. We've
got one right around the corner from from where we
live here. But life Cycle was like ten times a size. Man.
It's like it's like the Walmart of of like reused
stuff in in our town at least, But it doesn't
feel like a Walmart. It feels more like an antique store,
right Like. I feel like that's the biggest difference between
like a life Cycle and a Habitat restore is like
(02:58):
stuff at a habitat restore it kind of us feel
like a Walmart. You know, it's like kind of subpar products.
They'll have a bunch of things that are brand new
that just are kind of i don't know, like lower
quality basically, whereas like the life cycle of grade materials. Yeah, yeah,
not that builder grade means bad necessarily, but I don't know.
We do feel that way. The language we use points
to that. But but yeah, like the life cycle, I
(03:19):
feel like it's it's more like an antique store and
you can find really cool old stuff. And I remember,
like now, we went there specifically to look for a
wood burning stove. This is a few years ago back
when we were first thinking about adding a wood burning
stove to our house, and we couldn't find one. But
the reason we knew that they would have them occasionally
is because we've seen them there before. So yeah, I'm
not sure if where you live you have one of
(03:39):
these types of places, but if you do, yeah, it's
definitely a great spot to find some high quality used
or you know, kind of antique pieces of old homes.
And you mentioned doors. I mean that's exactly what like
the next time Kate and I get like, we're thinking
about maybe swapping out our front door because dude, like
our front door kind of sucks. Like it's very clearly
from the nineties. It kind of has like cut glass
(04:00):
design and it's a solid door. It's perfectly fine, but
it would be really cool if we were able to
find one that was made of wood that was maybe
kind of a little more I don't know, something more
original to to our house instead of this, uh, this
store that was put in, you know, over twenty years ago.
But yeah, you want something like a hundred years old
like like that actually fits the style exactly. Yeah, Like
the whole rest of our house looks very old except
(04:21):
for this weird store exactly got a modern door, so well,
that is the place to look. And then I saw
some light fixtures there that were just incredible, some of
which look like they belong in a ballroom or something
like that. I mean, just some really cool stuff. So yeah,
just hang that up in your bathroom. Yeah, I guess
I could. People would hit their heads on it would
be way too big. But it's uh, it's one of
those things where I think there are a lot of
(04:44):
people who could benefit from shopping in a place like
that as opposed to just instinctively going to the big
box store that sells the big box hardware store. Right,
you're gonna save some money, there's gonna be less waste involved,
and you might find something that you like better too.
Oh yeah, you way more likely to find something unique there,
for sure. Let's introduce the beer for this episode. This
(05:05):
is actually another non alcoholic near beer from Right Side
Brewing and this is their Citrus Wheet. Looking forward to
enjoying this one and talking about it at the end
of the episode. But let's move on to the subject
at hand, Matt. Today unless year, we're talking about the
temptation to spend. It's getting real and Uh. When we
were talking about what this episode would look like, Matt,
(05:25):
it made me think about I know there's a lot
of people out there that beat themselves up over a
purchase that they made that they can't take back, and
it's probably not the healthiest thing to do. But it's
something I've done before when I've made a purchase and
I'm like, I go past the return window and now
I'm stuck with it, right, uh, and I kind of
will break myself over the coals. I feel like I
(05:45):
just gotta get a couple of jabs in so that
I remember not to do that in the future. And
that's probably not like jabs on your own self. Yeah,
that's probably not healthy, not the best way to approach it,
but sometimes that happens, right and Um, over the years,
I have become I would say a better spender. I
think I was a more thoughtless spender when I was younger,
and I think we all need a dose of like
(06:07):
thoughtfulness when it comes to how we spend, and right
now is a crucial time to discuss spending in more detail.
There have been stories already talking about how American spending
is ramping up, and it's specifically on clothing. That's one
of the items people are spending more on their wardrobes
these days. And apparently comes after a year he's basically like, Wow, Okay,
(06:29):
maybe I shouldn't go out in public with the sweatpants
on it, right, Yeah, because they're going out in public more,
whereas we hold up in our homes there for a
long time. And it kind of seemed to think that
that that this could be an early hint of a
spending spree unlike anything we've ever seen before, that the
floodgates of spending are opening in this country. Um, And
I think part of it's because of the influx of
(06:50):
stimulus money, the economic recovery really being in full swing,
and then folks being just a little bit tired of
being at home as much as they have been spending
money might feel like the only sane thing for a
lot of folks to do. And I think we're okay
with people spending more money, but there are some important
things to take into consideration before we just go out
(07:10):
there and start spending ad nausea. Yeah, you know, since
there is so much of this pent up demand, it's
it's gonna be easy to, I think, to fall prey
to some poor spending choices. It kind of makes me
think of, like maybe what it must be for for
someone living abroad for a year or two, right, Like
you probably over indulge on cheeseburgers, like maybe for a
month or two, like like once you come back to
the States. For many of us, it doesn't feel like
(07:31):
we've spent much over the past year. We've essentially been
forced into spending less because of COVID lockdowns and the
inability to to eat out at our favorite spots at all,
you know, for a while, or as maybe as frequently
as we might have before. But again, yeah, we just
want to make sure that we're not getting carried away
as more of us get vaccinated and get back to
at least a bit more normalcy than we've been used to.
(07:51):
So that's what we're discussing today how to spend our
money more wisely. Yeah, and a lot of Americans are
in a decent spot when it comes to the amount
of death that they've been raking up on their credit cards.
According to one of the major credit bureaus, Experience, there
was a seventy three billion dollar decrease in overall credit
card debt last year, and a lot of that was
due to the pandemic. People were taking extra money they had,
(08:14):
they were paying off their credit card debt instead of
racking up more, and that means that it was about
an average decrease of eight hundred and seventy nine dollars
on the average credit card balance. That's great news for
a whole lot of folks. But the trick now is
to make sure that we don't immediately return to our
old ways. It's okay to spend money, but the temptation
to spend more than you can afford to or should
(08:37):
be spending right is going to be real in the
coming months. That allure to spend and let that credit
card debt hang around just a little bit longer than
you planned to let it hang around is going to
be real to you. You can probably justify it as
your spending desires increase, so it's important to do what
you can to combat those urges. And we've got some
ideas on how to do that for you today. Yeah.
(08:59):
In that same report by Experience, they talked about the
different states who that that normally carry the highest credit
card balances and how they saw the highest percentage of
decreased amount of debt on their credit cards, meaning that
though those states were carrying large balances, those folks showed
an incredible amount of control over their finances when it
came to it, you know. And so that just highlights
the fact that we do have way more control than
(09:20):
I think we give ourselves credit for. And an important
part of this is to question sort of the the
deeper reasons why it is that we're tempted to spend money,
you know, like ask yourself, do you actually need the
thing that you've been pining after or maybe you're just bored.
Pinpointing the root cause can help you to react, you know,
differently in the future. U It can remind you maybe
that you know, the browsing that you're doing or the
stuff that you're buying. It's really just an attempt to
(09:43):
maybe even just paper over something else that's going on,
or you know, often being bored or maybe even being sad.
And you know, if you are able to recognize those things,
those are feelings that you don't need to just shove
deeper inside that you don't address. This is something you
need to talk to your friend or talk to your
partner about. We're not fans of retail therapy at all,
and we feel that if you were to try to
spend your way out of that dull drum, that's, yeah,
(10:04):
you're probably gonna find yourself in an even worse position
down the road. Yeah. Instead of retail therapy, you can
actually spend money to get actual therapy, like talk to
somebody and get some real thing. Yeah, and that that's
gonna be a whole lot better for you and a
whole lot, whole lot better for your budget. Yeah. Sometimes
you'll hear folks say that it's yeah, more affordable to
go shopping than it is to go see a counselor
It's like, in reality, I actually think that would be
(10:25):
a wiser decision. You can go and see ac counselor
go and talk to somebody, and yeah, the shopping habit
can get more expensive than seeking professional help us for sure.
It's also important to remember that there are meaningful trade
offs and other sacrifices that you're making when you do
spend haphazardly. It's really tough to see them in the
moment when you're blinded by the cool new item and
(10:46):
all you can think is how much better would things
be in my life if I own that? If I
like got on my credit card and made sure that
was in my life right now, that's what you're feeling.
But the truth is that purchase, if it's done on
a whim, is likely not something that will bring much
joy or satisfaction in your life over the long run,
and it will actually detract from the bigger and more
(11:07):
significant things that not spending that money does for you.
That's why it's important to have those bigger money goals
identified so that you can look to those as your
guiding light when that spending appetite begins to gnaw at you. Right,
having a bigger goal helps you see exactly the trade
off that you're making when you make piddally smaller purchases,
because those are eating away at the bigger goal, and
(11:29):
it's important to see that in real time. Yeah, so
that's one of the reasons why it's you know, important
to make wise purchases. And aside from the financial applications,
curry being the massive amount of trash, dude, in the
in the waste you know, that we create every single day,
that's a great reason to avoid falling prey to that
spending temptation that we're that we're being faced with. Dude.
According to the e p A, we create around five
(11:50):
pounds of waste every single day, which is kind of
mind blowing, Like five pounds is a lot. And to
the largest amount of waste that's filling up our landfills
is food, which is at around of all that goes
to landfills, and plastics, which is like that second and
that's at eight. And these are two areas that I feel,
you know, again, we have tremendous amount of control over
UH and spending wisely could have a pretty huge impact
(12:12):
on the amount of waste in our lives, on the
amount of waste that we're you know, that's getting hauled
off to the landfills. Have. The less we consume, the
less waste we're producing. Literally, the less we consume or
think we're gonna consume, and then to just throw in
the trash, like we think we're gonna eat that food,
but instead it just goes to waste. And same I mean,
and just plastics as well. I mean, so much in
our lives is just made from plastic, whether it's packaging,
if for other stuff that we buy, or just you know,
(12:33):
throw away goods that are meant to be obsolete after
a year. Yeah, it's a financial and an environmental problem
at the same time that we're basically working to remedy
with our actions, um and by avoiding some of the
spending temptations that that pop up. And not only is
mindless spending bad for the environment, it's likely just it's
not a very good thing for us as individuals as well.
(12:54):
Right Over, spending at restaurants isn't great for our health.
If we opt for a dessert and two drinks on
top of our on top of our main course, we're
going to not only gain weight, but we're gonna spend
more money. Or like the fried foods. For me, it's
always the fried foods because like we don't fry food
at home, and so like when I look at a menu,
I'm always like, okay, what is your Yeah, I'm like,
what what's on the men you here that we never
(13:15):
cook at home? Because to me, that's you know, that's
where the value lies. But it's also not you know,
it's not good for my arteries. I'm always going for
the French fries. Truth. Yeah, And I think to buying
on a whim reduces our own self discipline and it
turns our focus inward as opposed to looking around to others.
There's an entire host of reasons why it's bad to
impulse spend. So we're gonna give some concrete ways to
(13:37):
help you curb unwide spending, to avoid some of those
spending temptations. They're gonna be cropping up more and more.
We'll get to those right after this break. Al Right,
we are back. We're talking about how the temptation to
(13:57):
spend money, how it's just getting a credib the real
these days. Angel, Let's just talk about some of the
things that we can do instead of actually spending our money.
You know, if you're maybe thinking about making a purchase,
we're gonna offer up a few different mental tricks, some
different tactics here that can help you to avoid those
on wise decisions. First of all, one of the things
we suggest, and you're kind of touching on this before
the break, but uh, substitute that temptation to spend with
(14:20):
a financial goal. If you pause long enough, can you
identify something that you would maybe rather do with your
money instead of spend it. We challenge you to to
think through like what, really, you know, big and crazy
goal could you reach if you opted out of this
short term purchase. So for you, it might help to
run some basic math to see what those unspent funds
can turn into if you keep it in your bank account,
(14:41):
or maybe even if you invest it instead of spending it,
say maybe on that new watch. And as we say this,
if you think that doesn't get me very excited at all,
like saving money or investing that money and sticking it
in the bank, Uh, that doesn't get me pumped to
do anything, right. I think what we would say then
is that you need to think two bigger goals. Like
if you don't get sided about like some sort of
far off goal that's going to take you multiple years
(15:03):
to achieve. I think that means you're not dreaming big enough.
Maybe that means you're signed up and you're pursuing somebody
else's goal, you know, Like you've heard that is good
to save for a retirement, But in your mind, anytime
you say retirement, you just kind of die a little
bit inside, Like for you, maybe that means, yeah, it
feels very far away. And obviously we've talked about how
retirement it just brings a different connotation to it than
financial independence. And so maybe it's just semantics, you know,
(15:26):
like maybe for you, what that means is instead of
saying retirement, I'm saving to become financially independent, I'm saving
up to be able to start my own business, to
owning your own time at an earlier age. Yes, yeah,
And so just whatever it is, figure out what that is. Like,
maybe it's travel. It's not retirement, it's the ability to
travel around the world and just see lots of amazing
things that you've never been able to see up until
this point. But dream bigger, like like identify whatever goals
(15:48):
it is that get you excited to avoid some of
these smaller, dumber, you know, purchases in the near term. Certainly,
there's some things that we have to buy in order
to get by, but there's a lot of stuff in
our lives that we per just you know, like we
talked about earlier, because we're kind of feeling bummed out
and we're thinking, Okay, maybe maybe if I just get
a little hit of that dopamine. Uh, look, left my
spirits a little bit when I know that package is
(16:09):
going to show up in the next two days, you know, Yeah,
And I think another I think another way, Matt, to
kind of help curb some of that temptations. Some of
that desire to just spend right now is to do
some sprint cleaning of the stuff that you already have.
And I feel like nothing actually helps curb spending like
getting rid of a bunch of stuff and realizing that
a clean, organized house is a treasure in and of itself.
(16:32):
And we've we have been doing a lot of sprin
cleaning at our house. Some of the stuff we're able
to donate some of us just trash that we've been
holding onto, like literally just needs to go in the trash.
And this is the literal garbage. Yes, broken toys that
are just completely worthless, Like why are we hanging onto this.
It's it's broken, and it's it's not reparable. Uh, it
(16:52):
makes you not want to fill that house back up
with new stuff. When you go through that exercise. So
just the act of like tossing some of the stuff
out of your home can really curb that desire to
spend money, because you're like, I just spend all this
time getting rid of stuff, making my house kind of
feel a little more zen, a little more minimalist, and
now more peaceful. A little more peaceful. Yeah, I guess
(17:13):
some candles litting out and it smells oils. Yeah yeah,
and it just kind of makes you not want to
bring a bunch of a bunch of junk to clutter
back up. Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about being inspired basically
by like a clean and orderly house, but like even
to just thinking about the items that you're getting rid of,
Like at some point you spend money on those things,
you know, like you you decided that, Okay, if I
trade my hard earned money for these items, it's gonna
(17:35):
solve a problem, it's gonna make me happier, it's gonna
make somebody happier. And then by kind of purging and
just removing all these things from your life, like you
can identify these things and you and I think that
can be a reminder to keep us from future purchases.
As well, right, Like, you see these things and you're like,
at some point I thought this was gonna bring me happiness,
and now I'm selling it for pennies on opennies on
the dollar, or I'm just giving it away or just
(17:55):
throwing it away. I think that can be a good
reminder as well too. You know, as we look forward
and look ahead more purchases in our lives that they
may not fulfill us in the way that we thought
they would. And you could, I guess while you're doing this,
maybe if you remember the price of the your throwing away,
write that down. But just too much weeding, I don't know. Yeah,
it's so you know. One trick to like you're talking
(18:16):
about kind of cleaning out your house. Uh, you know,
I think a tactic that we can employ to show
us how little we need and you know how little
you actually use, is that just basically turn all your
clothes backwards on the rack in your closet and only
turn them around once you wear them. This is a
way that a lot of folks recommend, you know, when
it comes to kind of downsizing your closet, because then
at the end of the year, you can give away
(18:36):
all the clothes that you don't end up wearing over
the past twelve months, and so this can be helpful
to declutter and remind yourself of just how many things
you own that you don't consistently use. It's a you know,
it's a good reminder that most of us don't need
new stuff. We just want it. We wanted to kind
of fill these different voids that you know truly can't
be filled by purchasing more stuff. And it's not actually
a physical void in your wardrobe. It's like a void
(18:58):
somewhere inside of us. Typically, oh yeah, you know it.
Typically our closets don't have the void. Like that's the problem, right,
It's like, it's not that I need the extra sweater.
It's a sweaters. I'm trying to do something inside with
my internal of my internal happiness, gauge to like ramp
that up by buying the sweater. It's not that I
need another one. I feel like in order to start
saying that a sweater is gonna make you feel good
(19:18):
about yourself, you have to be like grandfather age. If
you're like or actually socks that like that's gonna be
the thing for us once we get older, Like I
just want a good pair of socks. I do like
a good pair of socks, and I'm not that old
you and Jacob Goldstein's when it's right, I think. I
think another way that you can tackle the temptation to
(19:39):
spend more money right now is to go the opposite
direction and attempt to make some quick money. Selling some
of the stuff that you just cleaned out can be
kind of like the agin to your spending yang. Earning
money from the stuff that you aren't using anymore provides
a similar reward in your brain, yet it doesn't have
nearly the same harmful side effects. You're you're making progress end,
(20:00):
you're making cash, and so it feels awesome. So yeah,
we would suggest listing some of that stuff on Facebook,
Marketplace or eBay and turn your weakness into a new strength.
And then if you really do need to buy some
new things to replace some of the stuff that you're
getting rid of, limiting the amount you spend to what
you're able to make from selling off some of those
old possessions is a great way to restrain consumption and
(20:21):
keep your budget intact, Because if you're not actually spending
money that you don't have, putting it on the credit card,
racking up debt, or even just hurting your budget and
and hurting those long term goals even if you have
the money on hand. Such an awesome way to buy
some of those things that you really are prioritizing is
to do it with money that you just made from
(20:42):
getting rid of other stuff you already had. That's right.
It's another way that you can avoid the temptation to
spend money is instead of actually purchasing an item, look
to borrow that item from someone else. Right. I think
we have an obsession with ownership here in our culture,
in our country. Uh, you know, it can be good
when it comes to some things like investments, but for
the most part, when it comes to I think consumer
goods tends to be a little overrated and at least
(21:03):
one shirt and one pair of pants, ownership is not overrated.
You should have you should have that definitely should have
them at a minimum. That's that's why it's foundational in
the hierarchy of needs. But beyond that, it's not necessary. Um,
you know, I think we even feel the need to
own things that we will only maybe even just use
once or twice in our lifetime. Like folks who have
go out there and like by us at of skis,
like snow skis, and it's like, oh yeah, like that's
(21:24):
not something we ever do, but like why do I
own these? Actually when you live in Georgia and you're like,
my gosh, I often actually get out to ski, right, Yeah,
And so it's good because it saves us money, right,
but it also deepens the relational bond that we have
with our neighbors or you know, between us and our friends.
People love helping each other out. Yeah, I think we
underestimate that, Matt, and I think because our culture it
prizes self sufficiency so high, so highly, we we feel
(21:48):
like we're imposing when we ask a friend if we
can borrow something. But I feel like the opposite is
actually true. And usually they're glad to lend a hand,
and they're glad that the thing that they own is
going to get some use because maybe it's been sitting
in their shed or you know, in a storage spot
in their house for a long time and it hasn't
gotten any use. I recently borrowed a shovel from a
(22:08):
friend because mine broke, and dude, he was so happy
to let me borrow it. You're shoveling too hard. When
ship I was man, that's like I didn't know my
own strength, you know. And uh, and then I feel
like now it's opened. It's open this line where hey,
if he needs to borrow anything in the future, he'll
call me. There's this reciprocal relationship right where we can
borrow stuff from each other. And that's just a nice
(22:30):
thing to have. And and it it goes beyond just
me not having to drop the twenty bucks on a shovel,
right and eventually I'm gonna need my own shovel because
the shovel is one of those things that you use
quite a bit, right, Um, But it's borrowing someone's microwave
sort of. It's like, maybe, can't borrow your pants. You
don't want to do that unless I don't know, maybe
(22:50):
it's a if it's like a tuxedo and you never
wear a tuxedo, and it's yeah, that's the kind of
thing you can borrow from somebody, I think. But it's
just nice to have friends like that, um, that will
lend you something. And it's actually be a friend like
that that's that's willing to lend people the things that
you have. And and I think that the more that
we live in a society where we can share with
each other, like, the better the world is, you know,
(23:10):
the better we feel about our relationships. That's so true. Man.
Also to a way they can avoid some of these
unwise purchases is just by factoring in secondary costs before
you actually complete that purchase. Right, everything costs more than
you think. We've talked about this on the show before.
The actual cost of the item that you're buying is
almost always going to be more than the price tag
that you see on it or you know, or that
(23:31):
sale price if it's on sale. Shipping is often free,
but you might get charged for some shipping costs. There
are often sales taxes and you know, maintenance costs. Uh,
there may be monthly fees for you know, the item,
depending on what you're bringing into your life and also too,
you know, just generally speaking, here, don't forget about the
Didero effect, right, and this is the idea that getting
something new, it's gonna lead to you wanting even more,
(23:51):
something even newer to match that new thing. All of
your old stuff he's gonna start looking kind of shabby.
Once you get that one upgrade, it kind of leads
to this this sort of downward spiral of consumption. It's
a slippery slope and that's something that we want you
to avoid. Yeah, and I think like one of the
best examples of something costing more than you think is
(24:12):
let's say you're getting a new set of golf clubs
and you know what, now, you're probably gonna want some
of the fancier golf balls to go along with it,
right because like the the off brand whatever set of
golf balls just isn't gonna do it with those sweet
new titlist clubs, or the or the range balls that
you stole from the driving range. Like you know who,
you are not gonna cut it. We know what you did.
(24:33):
And like then you might get the itch to get
like fantier golf clothes or to to start playing at
nicer courses. Um. I call this the if you give
a mouse a cookie syndrome, Right, It's like he's gonna
want something else, and then he's gonna want something else
and it's gonna trigger more and more. And there's truly
nothing wrong with doing something like upgrading golf clubs. If
this is a purchase that you spent some real time
(24:55):
thinking through and it's a hobby that you're committed to,
right that you do on the regular, but taking those
secondary costs in the consideration, it might make you think twice.
Like even if you are an avid golfer, you might
be like, actually, I am going to forego the golf
clubs because I do realize it's gonna it's gonna force me,
or it's at least gonna encourage me to spend money
more money in other areas of that hobby, and I'm
(25:17):
not I'm just not ready to do that, So I'm
gonna continue to put that purchase off. But thinking about
those secondary costs ahead of time before we make the
plunge into a purchase can really help us see how
much that one purchase is actually going to cost us
as opposed to the price tag, the initial price tag
and that we think it's gonna cost us. Yes, it's
going to go into those decisions with your eyes open,
because even something that's basic as like a bike, like
(25:38):
we're you know, we're huge fans of bicycling. We're big
advocates of everything that you know bicyling is able to
bring into your life. Dude, just yesterday I was I
replaced the tube in one of the girls bikes because
you know, she had a hole in it. And so
they're going to be basic maintenance costs associated with almost anything.
You know, Like there's very few things that we can
bring in our lives where it's just like, okay, that's it,
one and done. It's not gonna cause me to spend
(25:59):
more money. It's not gonna, you know, require more spending,
it's not gonna require any maintenance. There's a certain amount
of you know, we're all about maintenance and maintaining the
things that we own, properly taking care of things. But
it's just yeah, like you said, it's good to be
aware of the fact that there are going to be
oftentimes other expenses associated with those things. Yeah. Also, we
would recommend for folks to to turn to exercise instead
(26:19):
of shopping as well. You know, we often browse our
favorite store online or in person in order to you know,
get that quick and easy dopamine release. Um dude, a
lot of us sit at our computer all day for work,
you know, and it's incredibly convenient to open a new
tab to start typing things in Amazon, and before you
know it, you know, you just drop thirty bucks on
something that you don't really need but it definitely feels good. Instead,
(26:41):
we recommend for folks to look to the harder but
healthier option of exercise. And you don't have to run
a marathon either, but even just dropping down and you know,
giving ten twenty push ups, that kind of thing. When
you maybe start mindlessly shopping online, maybe be your own trills,
hard hit in that way, grab your grab a little kettlebell,
do your own swings, uh, like I do. Sometimes it
can just be the mental release that your brain is
(27:01):
looking for, not necessarily that you need something new, but
just you're kind of looking for a distraction. Go for
the healthier distraction. Yeah, it can divert your brain from
the thing that you want to do right now, which
is by something and that's the thing you shouldn't be
doing in all likelihood. And then it can get your
blood pumping and it could get you energized to do
something else right, to tackle the next you know, work
assignment or whatever it may be. Also to there are
(27:23):
times when it does make sense to spend some money
when we do want to spend, and that's okay to write.
We're not anti spending. We wanted to give some ideas
and some thoughts for how you can avoid spending money,
avoid some of that temptation as the temptation is going
to increase. But we've also got some tips for when
you're going to spend, how to spend mindfully, and we'll
(27:44):
get to those right after this break. All right, we're back,
and so, you know, like we said before the break,
we're talking about ways to avoid spending money altogether, but
at a certain point, you gotta buy something, Like there
are some things that require spending money, and so if
(28:06):
you're going to do that, you know there's you know,
like we said earlier too, there's no amount of exercise
that's going to be able to distract you from buying
something that you need. And that's okay, but like, let's
talk about how to spend wisely, in particular, as the
economy is reopening, it seems like it's starting to fire
on all cylinders, and so we want to make sure
that we're not being quickly parted with all of our
money without even realizing it. And so the first thing
(28:26):
we'd recommend for folks to do is look to make
your purchases second hand sites like eBay, that's a great
place to shop. Instead of always looking to buy something new,
consider buying something slightly used. You know that someone else
is selling for way less money than buying it brand
stinking new. It's like buying a car, man, and it's like,
take somebody's gently used car because cars run for forever,
(28:47):
and you're gonna save a ton of money and the
car still gonna be really nice if you buy it
four or five years old, as opposed to get in
the brand new one. Right Like, thrift stores also are
another great place to get secondhand goods, and Matt we
talked about shop good Will dot com is a cool
site to go to to find awesome throwt store stuff
and it's great. Yeah, And but making a real attempt
to find what you're looking for that someone else is
(29:09):
gently used, it's gonna save you money and it works
as a natural hindrance to spending frivolously. Sometimes there's there's
just like a little more friction to finding that used
item that makes sense in your life. And and that's
actually good. I think in the spending process, you want
a little bit of friction. Sometimes the easy click to
buy is is the thing that's gonna get us in
the most Trouble and matt even life cycle. Like we
(29:31):
mentioned at the beginning of the episode, buying home goods
used is a good way. You gotta kind of search
for the thing that you want. You're gonna save money
though it's gonna take a little bit longer, but ultimately
it's gonna work out in your favor. That's right, dude.
And yeah, before you make that purchase on you know,
whatever default site you tend to you tend to favor,
we'd recommend for you to check the deal sites out
there as well. Like when there's something that you know
(29:52):
that you want, make sure that you check out some
of these other sites like deal news dot com. Also
slick Deals is a good one as well. You can
install Honey that is actually a great browser extension which
which can help you define the things that you're looking
for cheaper on other sites or even make you aware
of coupon codes that you wouldn't have otherwise known about
and that'll slash the price of that item. But for
the most part, this approach only works when you know
(30:14):
that there's something that you need. You know, because otherwise
not shopping sales might be your best bet because you
know when you see those off tags and you know
it's all it's written in bold red letters, it can
draw your eye and it can be a major temptation,
uh for folks to spend when maybe, like otherwise you shouldn't. Yeah, man,
I kind of have a love hate relationship with some
of the deal sites. I I used to be more
(30:35):
into them than I am, but I still check them out.
You still like him, I still see you over there.
I still talk about more than I should, and sometimes
that can be kind of temptation for me. Is is
to like, oh cool, that thing is so cheap, maybe
I should get it. So the deal sites, I think
you're right. I think if we use them correctly, if
we use them to try to find an item that
we're looking for, that we know we want to buy,
(30:55):
uh and that we're ready to buy, we can find
a better deal. But if we're just browsing, like I
sometimes tend to use them for guilty, I'll admit it. Well,
I would say it is good to know that the
deals are out there if you know that there's something
you're going to purchase. Like you said, it's good to
be aware of the best price. Yeah, I feel like
you're really good at knowing that, like, Okay, yeah, this
should cost about this much. And the reason you know
that is because you've seen it on sale, like on
(31:17):
these different sites like this that kind of aggregate the
best deals. But yeah, you also do want to make
sure that you're aware that the temptation that that's putting
in your life. It's like, my greatest strength is also
my greatest weakness, you know. I think another thing people
can do in order to spend wisely when they are
buying something is to institute the forty eight hour rule.
We've talked about this before, but but having a period
(31:38):
of time that you institute before you purchase something new
is crucial to preventing just impulse buying. So go ahead,
put the item in your shopping cart, and if you
still want it two days later and you don't have
to go into debt in order to get it, that's
key here, then it's okay to complete that purchase. That
will help curb some of the just mindless spending, some
of the spending that we're doing just because we can
(32:01):
or because it's fun. The forty eight our rule can
be just really helpful in weeding out some of those
purchases that we make that are the most unhelpful, you know,
to our budgets. Not to mention too, if you you know,
you've added that to your cart and they've got your
email address, sometimes they'll they'll check in with you after
a couple of days, and sometimes they'll they'll send you
a coupon. They're like, hey, is this is this item
of years? Did you you know, lead your cart stranded?
(32:21):
Here's ten percent helps sweeten the deal. So that's a
nice little incentive. Also too, we would recommend for folks
to consider the cost per use when you're thinking about
making a purchase. If you you know, maybe you're naturally
a frugal tight wad like like we tend to be.
I think sometimes it can be difficult, you know, in
allowing yourself to spend any money at all, like even
(32:41):
on the things that we that we value or things
that bring us joy. And so an alternative way to
consider a purchase is to think through maybe how regularly
you might use something, right, and so if it's something
that you'd use on a regular basis, it might make sense,
you know, it's a purchase that item, and not only
to purchase it, but even consider maybe like the slightly
higher quality item, because if we're you know, if we're
always just trying to spend the least amount of money possible,
(33:04):
that's one of the ways that we can, unfortunately end
up being cheap as opposed to frugal. We're thinking, oh,
this is something I know, it's gonna bring me a
lot of joy, and just gonna get the cheapest thing possible,
and then you know, it ends up crapping out after
a few months, and then we have to buy something
again again, leading to more waste than plus, often having
to buy something twice is going to be more expensive
than having spent a little bit more on that higher
quality item to begin with. Yeah, that's I'm also a recovering,
(33:28):
spend the least amount of money on stuff as possible person,
and I'm all about now spending a little bit more
money and getting something that's gonna last for a long time. Yeah. Yeah,
sometimes you gotta like test the waters, though, you know,
like if you've never owned a grill, you're kind of like,
let's I want to figure this out, and you buy
like the cheapest you know, I don't know, fifty dollar
grill that they sell ls our own depot. I got
my grill of Aldi actually flight or or from Aldi,
(33:50):
because I'm sure that I was pretty unaffordable. But then,
you know, if you realize that, say like oh I'm
really into grilling, or like oh what else can I
cook outside? Then you start thinking, okay, like this is
bring me a lot of joy. There's a lot of utility.
That's something we use often. And that's when I think
it can be totally worth it to spend a little
bit more money. Yeah, man, I think too, when we're spending,
when the temptation to spend arises, having some sort of
(34:12):
pressure relief valve for your spending can be helpful too.
You might just have in urge to go shopping or
to just spend some money, any money, you just want
to spend some money. I know people like this. My
mom probably falls into this category. Man, and and and
more than anything, like she loves even just window shopping,
but she loves shopping. It's something that she gets a
lot of a lot of joy out of she I
(34:33):
think it's um, it's there's something creative in kind of
seeing all the items for sale that that she likes.
She likes seeing design and in particular like home interior stuff,
right uh, and to potentially avoid a larger, more disastrous purchase.
Though maybe you can scratch that itch just a little
bit with a small splurge like a nice coffee, right.
(34:54):
I feel like fancy coffee gets raked over the coals
in personal finance all the time. It's a batter rat
for sure. But that can the perfect like us pressure
relief valve for your spending. You're like, I just treated myself.
There's something really nice, but actually it didn't really cost
that much money. It's better to make a small spending
mistake than to make a big one. So finding your
small release valve can be big and really helpful when
(35:16):
it comes to smart spending, especially if you're able to
maybe go on a walk when you get that coffee. Essentially,
what you've done there is you've kind of transformed that
purchase like that you might just see as a good
into an experience. And and so that's kind of what
we'd recommend next for folks is to you know, we
would recommend for folks to consider prioritizing experiences over stuff
that you might you know, buy online or you know,
(35:37):
even at the store. And oftentimes you folks think about travel,
But it doesn't have to to be travel, you know,
as we talk about experiences here, although that is a
big experience that that many folks do prioritize. But you know,
experiences like this could be just say a dinner out
with friends, or it could be buying a membership to
the zoo or like the botanical gardens if you've got
them there where you live. Uh, And these could provide
(35:58):
recurring experiences, you know, for you you or for your family,
or for you and your friends. Research shows that an
intangible experience can often bring you joy for you know,
much longer than a physical object. So focusing your spending
on some of those experiences that can provide incredible memories
with folks you know, who you love the most, and
it's often going to provide a much better return on
(36:19):
your investment than buying just another item, say for your wardrobe,
that you're then going to have to kind of shoehorn
in your closet because you don't have any more space
at all. Yeah, and too, I think what's great about
experiences is that they they foster um an ability to
bond with other people. To write, experiences are helping us
build relationships almost always as opposed to buying stuff, which
(36:43):
often does the opposite. And so yeah, I guess I
was talking earlier Matt about borrowing stuff from other people
and then letting other people borrow your stuff, and how
that expands your relationships and make them better. Well, I
think the same thing is true when we prioritize experiences
over stuff. It's it's during those social experi aeriences that
we cultivate feelings of connection and belonging to one another.
(37:04):
And those experiences are are oftentimes unique to us as individuals,
which means that we're we're typically less likely to compare
our own experiences to the experiences of others. And comparison,
as you know, Matt, is is one of the things
that lends to our consumption. It leads us to spend
more and to spend on wisely. So if instead of experiences,
(37:24):
you're focusing on stuff like electronics, clothing, or even something
great like bikes, it can be easier to compare that
stuff to other people. And Teddy Roosevelt one of the
best quotes ever is comparison is the thief of joy.
I think that's so true for us. I think that's
one of the things that like social media has done
to us as a culture in a lot of ways,
has made it easier to compare, and it has made
it harder for us than as individuals to be content
(37:48):
with what we do have. So true, dude, Yeah, and
so you know, as many of us are looking forward
to our our lives looking more like they did before,
let's make sure that our spending doesn't automatically revert to
pre pandemic levels as well. One of the few positives
of the pandemic brought into our lives was the ability
to truly see how much control we really do have
(38:09):
over our spending. So look at how much debt you know,
you were able to eliminate from your life last year,
or how much we're able to save up for that
down payment you know on a house. Remember those goals
and continue to to work towards the things that you value,
even while there are other expenses and distractions that are
getting reintroduced into our lives right now. Yeah, the temptation
to spend is real, and we want to make sure
(38:29):
you avoid it. We want to avoid it, you know.
The the temptation is real for all of us since
we have to implement you know, some of these things
as many as we can in order to curb that
spending so that we can realize those bigger goals that
we have, so that we can build wealth for the
long haul, so that we can have the ability to
reach financial independence and make our own decisions about what
we want to do with our time. All right, Matt,
(38:50):
Let's get back to the beer that we had on
the show. This one was by Right Side Brewing. Is
a citrus wheat non alcoholic beer. What were your thoughts
on this one? Man? Yeah, you know, before I comment
on this partic kular beer from Right Side, and it
also makes me think of Mr bright Side, the song
from the from the Killers. Such a good song. But
as far as this beer goes, Man, Yeah, this is
(39:11):
a citrus whet and I feel like the citrus really
does come through. Uh. It almost like almost reminds me
of like an orange gatorade. I don't know, like a
combination of the orange and yellow gatorade. Oh yeah, more
the yellow, you know I'm talking about it? Do like
the yellow Gatory and the orange Gatorade. It's got those
flavors going on, but it doesn't you know, it doesn't
have that sweetness. It's not nearly as obviously, it's not
nearly as syrupy, but it does kind of have those flavors.
(39:31):
It almost has this herbal tea like flavor going on,
but of course it's fizzy, so yeah, it's reminiscent of beer.
It's near beer. Obviously, there's definitely something missing, but totally
still enjoyable. Yeah, what your thoughts on it, dude? Yeah,
I thought it was too and I was surprised because
I agree it was missing a little something that I'm
used to getting in beer, but I still I still
a lot of tasty, great man. And I think it's
(39:51):
awesome that people are now making, you know, non alcoholic
craft beer equivalence, because there are a lot of people
out there who just don't want to drink for a
lot of good reasons, and so to be able to
enjoy something and get some of that same flavor profile
and sensation that you get with craft beer but without
(40:12):
actually having to consume alcohol, well, this is just a
great place for people to go. I think is is
these non alcoholic craft beers and the this sitrus Sweet
from Right Side was pretty solid. Man. I agree, man,
So that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners can
find our show notes up on the website at how
to Money dot com. Yeah, and if you haven't left
the review for How the Money yet on Apple podcast
or wherever you listen to podcasts, what are you doing?
(40:33):
We would love for you to leave a kind review
over there. It really does help get the word out
about what we're doing here on How the Money to
help other people spend wisely, to save for their futures,
and to be more empowered when it comes to their
personal finances. And we would appreciate you letting other people
know what you think about the show. So all right, Matt,
until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out. M
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and Matt.
Today we're talking about how the temptation to spend is
getting realm. That's Rachel. As our lives resumed some sort
(00:28):
of normalcy, the sirens are calling calling out there. They're
calling us over to the rocks of retail consumption. Give
me your credit card information, whether online or in person.
It's true. No, this is what this episode is gonna
be all about. We're talking about spending our money and
specifically to make sure that we're doing it wisely. That way, yeah,
we don't end up crashing against the rocks of personal finance.
(00:50):
And I guess those those rocks of this cliffs would
be like bunted budget bankruptcy. Uh that that would be
the hardest rock that you could, Yeah, you go against.
But even just like credit card debt, that that's unintended,
the consequences that are there if you do ever spend.
And I think Matt like, there's this particular temptation right
now as the economy is reopening and people are getting
(01:10):
vaccinated and they want to start spending in a way
that's maybe what they were used to ahead of coronavirus.
But but even more so, like an even more ramped
up version of spending for a lot of people is
kind of what they're being beckoned to do. And so
you know, we want to push back against that and
and help all of us to think through, Okay, how
do we start to spend money as the economy reopens.
(01:30):
We're gonna talk about that today, but before we get
to that, man, I wanted to let you know, speaking
of spending, Uh, we're we're about to do a little
bit of work at our house, and it is going
to cost money. Um, but I'm looking for as many
ways as possible to make that work cost less money.
And so one of the things I found out about
from a friend. There's this place called life Cycle in Atlanta,
(01:53):
and it's basically this huge warehouse of old doors, tile lighting,
life fixtures, um anything really you could matter place. Mantel
pieces like it looked like they came out of like
old castles, basically bath tubs, vanities. I mean really, as
far as the eye can see, you're looking at pieces
of older homes, like and or poor things that just
(02:15):
were never used in the first place. Similar stuff is
brand new at that place, but it's just deeply discounted,
and so we went this weekend as a family to
kind of check it out, and man, there was a
lot of good stuff that that we're totally considering in
in particular, like with like a door, you can save
so much money buying the door gently used instead of
buying it brand new. Um, it's just one of those
(02:36):
things that you know, a lot of towns have a
habitat restore and that's a place worth going to. We've
got one right around the corner from from where we
live here. But life Cycle was like ten times a size. Man.
It's like it's like the Walmart of of like reused
stuff in in our town at least, But it doesn't
feel like a Walmart. It feels more like an antique store,
right Like. I feel like that's the biggest difference between
like a life Cycle and a Habitat restore is like
(02:58):
stuff at a habitat restore it kind of us feel
like a Walmart. You know, it's like kind of subpar products.
They'll have a bunch of things that are brand new
that just are kind of i don't know, like lower
quality basically, whereas like the life cycle of grade materials. Yeah, yeah,
not that builder grade means bad necessarily, but I don't know.
We do feel that way. The language we use points
to that. But but yeah, like the life cycle, I
(03:19):
feel like it's it's more like an antique store and
you can find really cool old stuff. And I remember,
like now, we went there specifically to look for a
wood burning stove. This is a few years ago back
when we were first thinking about adding a wood burning
stove to our house, and we couldn't find one. But
the reason we knew that they would have them occasionally
is because we've seen them there before. So yeah, I'm
not sure if where you live you have one of
(03:39):
these types of places, but if you do, yeah, it's
definitely a great spot to find some high quality used
or you know, kind of antique pieces of old homes.
And you mentioned doors. I mean that's exactly what like
the next time Kate and I get like, we're thinking
about maybe swapping out our front door because dude, like
our front door kind of sucks. Like it's very clearly
from the nineties. It kind of has like cut glass
(04:00):
design and it's a solid door. It's perfectly fine, but
it would be really cool if we were able to
find one that was made of wood that was maybe
kind of a little more I don't know, something more
original to to our house instead of this, uh, this
store that was put in, you know, over twenty years ago.
But yeah, you want something like a hundred years old
like like that actually fits the style exactly. Yeah, Like
the whole rest of our house looks very old except
(04:21):
for this weird store exactly got a modern door, so well,
that is the place to look. And then I saw
some light fixtures there that were just incredible, some of
which look like they belong in a ballroom or something
like that. I mean, just some really cool stuff. So yeah,
just hang that up in your bathroom. Yeah, I guess
I could. People would hit their heads on it would
be way too big. But it's uh, it's one of
those things where I think there are a lot of
(04:44):
people who could benefit from shopping in a place like
that as opposed to just instinctively going to the big
box store that sells the big box hardware store. Right,
you're gonna save some money, there's gonna be less waste involved,
and you might find something that you like better too.
Oh yeah, you way more likely to find something unique there,
for sure. Let's introduce the beer for this episode. This
(05:05):
is actually another non alcoholic near beer from Right Side
Brewing and this is their Citrus Wheet. Looking forward to
enjoying this one and talking about it at the end
of the episode. But let's move on to the subject
at hand, Matt. Today unless year, we're talking about the
temptation to spend. It's getting real and Uh. When we
were talking about what this episode would look like, Matt,
(05:25):
it made me think about I know there's a lot
of people out there that beat themselves up over a
purchase that they made that they can't take back, and
it's probably not the healthiest thing to do. But it's
something I've done before when I've made a purchase and
I'm like, I go past the return window and now
I'm stuck with it, right, uh, and I kind of
will break myself over the coals. I feel like I
(05:45):
just gotta get a couple of jabs in so that
I remember not to do that in the future. And
that's probably not like jabs on your own self. Yeah,
that's probably not healthy, not the best way to approach it,
but sometimes that happens, right and Um, over the years,
I have become I would say a better spender. I
think I was a more thoughtless spender when I was younger,
and I think we all need a dose of like
(06:07):
thoughtfulness when it comes to how we spend, and right
now is a crucial time to discuss spending in more detail.
There have been stories already talking about how American spending
is ramping up, and it's specifically on clothing. That's one
of the items people are spending more on their wardrobes
these days. And apparently comes after a year he's basically like, Wow, Okay,
(06:29):
maybe I shouldn't go out in public with the sweatpants
on it, right, Yeah, because they're going out in public more,
whereas we hold up in our homes there for a
long time. And it kind of seemed to think that
that that this could be an early hint of a
spending spree unlike anything we've ever seen before, that the
floodgates of spending are opening in this country. Um, And
I think part of it's because of the influx of
(06:50):
stimulus money, the economic recovery really being in full swing,
and then folks being just a little bit tired of
being at home as much as they have been spending
money might feel like the only sane thing for a
lot of folks to do. And I think we're okay
with people spending more money, but there are some important
things to take into consideration before we just go out
(07:10):
there and start spending ad nausea. Yeah, you know, since
there is so much of this pent up demand, it's
it's gonna be easy to, I think, to fall prey
to some poor spending choices. It kind of makes me
think of, like maybe what it must be for for
someone living abroad for a year or two, right, Like
you probably over indulge on cheeseburgers, like maybe for a
month or two, like like once you come back to
the States. For many of us, it doesn't feel like
(07:31):
we've spent much over the past year. We've essentially been
forced into spending less because of COVID lockdowns and the
inability to to eat out at our favorite spots at all,
you know, for a while, or as maybe as frequently
as we might have before. But again, yeah, we just
want to make sure that we're not getting carried away
as more of us get vaccinated and get back to
at least a bit more normalcy than we've been used to.
(07:51):
So that's what we're discussing today how to spend our
money more wisely. Yeah, and a lot of Americans are
in a decent spot when it comes to the amount
of death that they've been raking up on their credit cards.
According to one of the major credit bureaus, Experience, there
was a seventy three billion dollar decrease in overall credit
card debt last year, and a lot of that was
due to the pandemic. People were taking extra money they had,
(08:14):
they were paying off their credit card debt instead of
racking up more, and that means that it was about
an average decrease of eight hundred and seventy nine dollars
on the average credit card balance. That's great news for
a whole lot of folks. But the trick now is
to make sure that we don't immediately return to our
old ways. It's okay to spend money, but the temptation
to spend more than you can afford to or should
(08:37):
be spending right is going to be real in the
coming months. That allure to spend and let that credit
card debt hang around just a little bit longer than
you planned to let it hang around is going to
be real to you. You can probably justify it as
your spending desires increase, so it's important to do what
you can to combat those urges. And we've got some
ideas on how to do that for you today. Yeah.
(08:59):
In that same report by Experience, they talked about the
different states who that that normally carry the highest credit
card balances and how they saw the highest percentage of
decreased amount of debt on their credit cards, meaning that
though those states were carrying large balances, those folks showed
an incredible amount of control over their finances when it
came to it, you know. And so that just highlights
the fact that we do have way more control than
(09:20):
I think we give ourselves credit for. And an important
part of this is to question sort of the the
deeper reasons why it is that we're tempted to spend money,
you know, like ask yourself, do you actually need the
thing that you've been pining after or maybe you're just bored.
Pinpointing the root cause can help you to react, you know,
differently in the future. U It can remind you maybe
that you know, the browsing that you're doing or the
stuff that you're buying. It's really just an attempt to
(09:43):
maybe even just paper over something else that's going on,
or you know, often being bored or maybe even being sad.
And you know, if you are able to recognize those things,
those are feelings that you don't need to just shove
deeper inside that you don't address. This is something you
need to talk to your friend or talk to your
partner about. We're not fans of retail therapy at all,
and we feel that if you were to try to
spend your way out of that dull drum, that's, yeah,
(10:04):
you're probably gonna find yourself in an even worse position
down the road. Yeah. Instead of retail therapy, you can
actually spend money to get actual therapy, like talk to
somebody and get some real thing. Yeah, and that that's
gonna be a whole lot better for you and a
whole lot, whole lot better for your budget. Yeah. Sometimes
you'll hear folks say that it's yeah, more affordable to
go shopping than it is to go see a counselor
It's like, in reality, I actually think that would be
(10:25):
a wiser decision. You can go and see ac counselor
go and talk to somebody, and yeah, the shopping habit
can get more expensive than seeking professional help us for sure.
It's also important to remember that there are meaningful trade
offs and other sacrifices that you're making when you do
spend haphazardly. It's really tough to see them in the
moment when you're blinded by the cool new item and
(10:46):
all you can think is how much better would things
be in my life if I own that? If I
like got on my credit card and made sure that
was in my life right now, that's what you're feeling.
But the truth is that purchase, if it's done on
a whim, is likely not something that will bring much
joy or satisfaction in your life over the long run,
and it will actually detract from the bigger and more
(11:07):
significant things that not spending that money does for you.
That's why it's important to have those bigger money goals
identified so that you can look to those as your
guiding light when that spending appetite begins to gnaw at you. Right,
having a bigger goal helps you see exactly the trade
off that you're making when you make piddally smaller purchases,
because those are eating away at the bigger goal, and
(11:29):
it's important to see that in real time. Yeah, so
that's one of the reasons why it's you know, important
to make wise purchases. And aside from the financial applications,
curry being the massive amount of trash, dude, in the
in the waste you know, that we create every single day,
that's a great reason to avoid falling prey to that
spending temptation that we're that we're being faced with. Dude.
According to the e p A, we create around five
(11:50):
pounds of waste every single day, which is kind of
mind blowing, Like five pounds is a lot. And to
the largest amount of waste that's filling up our landfills
is food, which is at around of all that goes
to landfills, and plastics, which is like that second and
that's at eight. And these are two areas that I feel,
you know, again, we have tremendous amount of control over
UH and spending wisely could have a pretty huge impact
(12:12):
on the amount of waste in our lives, on the
amount of waste that we're you know, that's getting hauled
off to the landfills. Have. The less we consume, the
less waste we're producing. Literally, the less we consume or
think we're gonna consume, and then to just throw in
the trash, like we think we're gonna eat that food,
but instead it just goes to waste. And same I mean,
and just plastics as well. I mean, so much in
our lives is just made from plastic, whether it's packaging,
if for other stuff that we buy, or just you know,
(12:33):
throw away goods that are meant to be obsolete after
a year. Yeah, it's a financial and an environmental problem
at the same time that we're basically working to remedy
with our actions, um and by avoiding some of the
spending temptations that that pop up. And not only is
mindless spending bad for the environment, it's likely just it's
not a very good thing for us as individuals as well.
(12:54):
Right Over, spending at restaurants isn't great for our health.
If we opt for a dessert and two drinks on
top of our on top of our main course, we're
going to not only gain weight, but we're gonna spend
more money. Or like the fried foods. For me, it's
always the fried foods because like we don't fry food
at home, and so like when I look at a menu,
I'm always like, okay, what is your Yeah, I'm like,
what what's on the men you here that we never
(13:15):
cook at home? Because to me, that's you know, that's
where the value lies. But it's also not you know,
it's not good for my arteries. I'm always going for
the French fries. Truth. Yeah, And I think to buying
on a whim reduces our own self discipline and it
turns our focus inward as opposed to looking around to others.
There's an entire host of reasons why it's bad to
impulse spend. So we're gonna give some concrete ways to
(13:37):
help you curb unwide spending, to avoid some of those
spending temptations. They're gonna be cropping up more and more.
We'll get to those right after this break. Al Right,
we are back. We're talking about how the temptation to
(13:57):
spend money, how it's just getting a credib the real
these days. Angel, Let's just talk about some of the
things that we can do instead of actually spending our money.
You know, if you're maybe thinking about making a purchase,
we're gonna offer up a few different mental tricks, some
different tactics here that can help you to avoid those
on wise decisions. First of all, one of the things
we suggest, and you're kind of touching on this before
the break, but uh, substitute that temptation to spend with
(14:20):
a financial goal. If you pause long enough, can you
identify something that you would maybe rather do with your
money instead of spend it. We challenge you to to
think through like what, really, you know, big and crazy
goal could you reach if you opted out of this
short term purchase. So for you, it might help to
run some basic math to see what those unspent funds
can turn into if you keep it in your bank account,
(14:41):
or maybe even if you invest it instead of spending it,
say maybe on that new watch. And as we say this,
if you think that doesn't get me very excited at all,
like saving money or investing that money and sticking it
in the bank, Uh, that doesn't get me pumped to
do anything, right. I think what we would say then
is that you need to think two bigger goals. Like
if you don't get sided about like some sort of
far off goal that's going to take you multiple years
(15:03):
to achieve. I think that means you're not dreaming big enough.
Maybe that means you're signed up and you're pursuing somebody
else's goal, you know, Like you've heard that is good
to save for a retirement, But in your mind, anytime
you say retirement, you just kind of die a little
bit inside, Like for you, maybe that means, yeah, it
feels very far away. And obviously we've talked about how
retirement it just brings a different connotation to it than
financial independence. And so maybe it's just semantics, you know,
(15:26):
like maybe for you, what that means is instead of
saying retirement, I'm saving to become financially independent, I'm saving
up to be able to start my own business, to
owning your own time at an earlier age. Yes, yeah,
And so just whatever it is, figure out what that is. Like,
maybe it's travel. It's not retirement, it's the ability to
travel around the world and just see lots of amazing
things that you've never been able to see up until
this point. But dream bigger, like like identify whatever goals
(15:48):
it is that get you excited to avoid some of
these smaller, dumber, you know, purchases in the near term. Certainly,
there's some things that we have to buy in order
to get by, but there's a lot of stuff in
our lives that we per just you know, like we
talked about earlier, because we're kind of feeling bummed out
and we're thinking, Okay, maybe maybe if I just get
a little hit of that dopamine. Uh, look, left my
spirits a little bit when I know that package is
(16:09):
going to show up in the next two days, you know, Yeah,
And I think another I think another way, Matt, to
kind of help curb some of that temptations. Some of
that desire to just spend right now is to do
some sprint cleaning of the stuff that you already have.
And I feel like nothing actually helps curb spending like
getting rid of a bunch of stuff and realizing that
a clean, organized house is a treasure in and of itself.
(16:32):
And we've we have been doing a lot of sprin
cleaning at our house. Some of the stuff we're able
to donate some of us just trash that we've been
holding onto, like literally just needs to go in the trash.
And this is the literal garbage. Yes, broken toys that
are just completely worthless, Like why are we hanging onto this.
It's it's broken, and it's it's not reparable. Uh, it
(16:52):
makes you not want to fill that house back up
with new stuff. When you go through that exercise. So
just the act of like tossing some of the stuff
out of your home can really curb that desire to
spend money, because you're like, I just spend all this
time getting rid of stuff, making my house kind of
feel a little more zen, a little more minimalist, and
now more peaceful. A little more peaceful. Yeah, I guess
(17:13):
some candles litting out and it smells oils. Yeah yeah,
and it just kind of makes you not want to
bring a bunch of a bunch of junk to clutter
back up. Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about being inspired basically
by like a clean and orderly house, but like even
to just thinking about the items that you're getting rid of,
Like at some point you spend money on those things,
you know, like you you decided that, Okay, if I
trade my hard earned money for these items, it's gonna
(17:35):
solve a problem, it's gonna make me happier, it's gonna
make somebody happier. And then by kind of purging and
just removing all these things from your life, like you
can identify these things and you and I think that
can be a reminder to keep us from future purchases.
As well, right, Like, you see these things and you're like,
at some point I thought this was gonna bring me happiness,
and now I'm selling it for pennies on opennies on
the dollar, or I'm just giving it away or just
(17:55):
throwing it away. I think that can be a good
reminder as well too. You know, as we look forward
and look ahead more purchases in our lives that they
may not fulfill us in the way that we thought
they would. And you could, I guess while you're doing this,
maybe if you remember the price of the your throwing away,
write that down. But just too much weeding, I don't know. Yeah,
it's so you know. One trick to like you're talking
(18:16):
about kind of cleaning out your house. Uh, you know,
I think a tactic that we can employ to show
us how little we need and you know how little
you actually use, is that just basically turn all your
clothes backwards on the rack in your closet and only
turn them around once you wear them. This is a
way that a lot of folks recommend, you know, when
it comes to kind of downsizing your closet, because then
at the end of the year, you can give away
(18:36):
all the clothes that you don't end up wearing over
the past twelve months, and so this can be helpful
to declutter and remind yourself of just how many things
you own that you don't consistently use. It's a you know,
it's a good reminder that most of us don't need
new stuff. We just want it. We wanted to kind
of fill these different voids that you know truly can't
be filled by purchasing more stuff. And it's not actually
a physical void in your wardrobe. It's like a void
(18:58):
somewhere inside of us. Typically, oh yeah, you know it.
Typically our closets don't have the void. Like that's the problem, right,
It's like, it's not that I need the extra sweater.
It's a sweaters. I'm trying to do something inside with
my internal of my internal happiness, gauge to like ramp
that up by buying the sweater. It's not that I
need another one. I feel like in order to start
saying that a sweater is gonna make you feel good
(19:18):
about yourself, you have to be like grandfather age. If
you're like or actually socks that like that's gonna be
the thing for us once we get older, Like I
just want a good pair of socks. I do like
a good pair of socks, and I'm not that old
you and Jacob Goldstein's when it's right, I think. I
think another way that you can tackle the temptation to
(19:39):
spend more money right now is to go the opposite
direction and attempt to make some quick money. Selling some
of the stuff that you just cleaned out can be
kind of like the agin to your spending yang. Earning
money from the stuff that you aren't using anymore provides
a similar reward in your brain, yet it doesn't have
nearly the same harmful side effects. You're you're making progress end,
(20:00):
you're making cash, and so it feels awesome. So yeah,
we would suggest listing some of that stuff on Facebook,
Marketplace or eBay and turn your weakness into a new strength.
And then if you really do need to buy some
new things to replace some of the stuff that you're
getting rid of, limiting the amount you spend to what
you're able to make from selling off some of those
old possessions is a great way to restrain consumption and
(20:21):
keep your budget intact, Because if you're not actually spending
money that you don't have, putting it on the credit card,
racking up debt, or even just hurting your budget and
and hurting those long term goals even if you have
the money on hand. Such an awesome way to buy
some of those things that you really are prioritizing is
to do it with money that you just made from
(20:42):
getting rid of other stuff you already had. That's right.
It's another way that you can avoid the temptation to
spend money is instead of actually purchasing an item, look
to borrow that item from someone else. Right. I think
we have an obsession with ownership here in our culture,
in our country. Uh, you know, it can be good
when it comes to some things like investments, but for
the most part, when it comes to I think consumer
goods tends to be a little overrated and at least
(21:03):
one shirt and one pair of pants, ownership is not overrated.
You should have you should have that definitely should have
them at a minimum. That's that's why it's foundational in
the hierarchy of needs. But beyond that, it's not necessary. Um,
you know, I think we even feel the need to
own things that we will only maybe even just use
once or twice in our lifetime. Like folks who have
go out there and like by us at of skis,
like snow skis, and it's like, oh yeah, like that's
(21:24):
not something we ever do, but like why do I
own these? Actually when you live in Georgia and you're like,
my gosh, I often actually get out to ski, right, Yeah,
And so it's good because it saves us money, right,
but it also deepens the relational bond that we have
with our neighbors or you know, between us and our friends.
People love helping each other out. Yeah, I think we
underestimate that, Matt, and I think because our culture it
prizes self sufficiency so high, so highly, we we feel
(21:48):
like we're imposing when we ask a friend if we
can borrow something. But I feel like the opposite is
actually true. And usually they're glad to lend a hand,
and they're glad that the thing that they own is
going to get some use because maybe it's been sitting
in their shed or you know, in a storage spot
in their house for a long time and it hasn't
gotten any use. I recently borrowed a shovel from a
(22:08):
friend because mine broke, and dude, he was so happy
to let me borrow it. You're shoveling too hard. When
ship I was man, that's like I didn't know my
own strength, you know. And uh, and then I feel
like now it's opened. It's open this line where hey,
if he needs to borrow anything in the future, he'll
call me. There's this reciprocal relationship right where we can
borrow stuff from each other. And that's just a nice
(22:30):
thing to have. And and it it goes beyond just
me not having to drop the twenty bucks on a shovel,
right and eventually I'm gonna need my own shovel because
the shovel is one of those things that you use
quite a bit, right, Um, But it's borrowing someone's microwave
sort of. It's like, maybe, can't borrow your pants. You
don't want to do that unless I don't know, maybe
(22:50):
it's a if it's like a tuxedo and you never
wear a tuxedo, and it's yeah, that's the kind of
thing you can borrow from somebody, I think. But it's
just nice to have friends like that, um, that will
lend you something. And it's actually be a friend like
that that's that's willing to lend people the things that
you have. And and I think that the more that
we live in a society where we can share with
each other, like, the better the world is, you know,
(23:10):
the better we feel about our relationships. That's so true. Man.
Also to a way they can avoid some of these
unwise purchases is just by factoring in secondary costs before
you actually complete that purchase. Right, everything costs more than
you think. We've talked about this on the show before.
The actual cost of the item that you're buying is
almost always going to be more than the price tag
that you see on it or you know, or that
(23:31):
sale price if it's on sale. Shipping is often free,
but you might get charged for some shipping costs. There
are often sales taxes and you know, maintenance costs. Uh,
there may be monthly fees for you know, the item,
depending on what you're bringing into your life and also too,
you know, just generally speaking, here, don't forget about the
Didero effect, right, and this is the idea that getting
something new, it's gonna lead to you wanting even more,
(23:51):
something even newer to match that new thing. All of
your old stuff he's gonna start looking kind of shabby.
Once you get that one upgrade, it kind of leads
to this this sort of downward spiral of consumption. It's
a slippery slope and that's something that we want you
to avoid. Yeah, and I think like one of the
best examples of something costing more than you think is
(24:12):
let's say you're getting a new set of golf clubs
and you know what, now, you're probably gonna want some
of the fancier golf balls to go along with it,
right because like the the off brand whatever set of
golf balls just isn't gonna do it with those sweet
new titlist clubs, or the or the range balls that
you stole from the driving range. Like you know who,
you are not gonna cut it. We know what you did.
(24:33):
And like then you might get the itch to get
like fantier golf clothes or to to start playing at
nicer courses. Um. I call this the if you give
a mouse a cookie syndrome, Right, It's like he's gonna
want something else, and then he's gonna want something else
and it's gonna trigger more and more. And there's truly
nothing wrong with doing something like upgrading golf clubs. If
this is a purchase that you spent some real time
(24:55):
thinking through and it's a hobby that you're committed to,
right that you do on the regular, but taking those
secondary costs in the consideration, it might make you think twice.
Like even if you are an avid golfer, you might
be like, actually, I am going to forego the golf
clubs because I do realize it's gonna it's gonna force me,
or it's at least gonna encourage me to spend money
more money in other areas of that hobby, and I'm
(25:17):
not I'm just not ready to do that, So I'm
gonna continue to put that purchase off. But thinking about
those secondary costs ahead of time before we make the
plunge into a purchase can really help us see how
much that one purchase is actually going to cost us
as opposed to the price tag, the initial price tag
and that we think it's gonna cost us. Yes, it's
going to go into those decisions with your eyes open,
because even something that's basic as like a bike, like
(25:38):
we're you know, we're huge fans of bicycling. We're big
advocates of everything that you know bicyling is able to
bring into your life. Dude, just yesterday I was I
replaced the tube in one of the girls bikes because
you know, she had a hole in it. And so
they're going to be basic maintenance costs associated with almost anything.
You know, Like there's very few things that we can
bring in our lives where it's just like, okay, that's it,
one and done. It's not gonna cause me to spend
(25:59):
more money. It's not gonna, you know, require more spending,
it's not gonna require any maintenance. There's a certain amount
of you know, we're all about maintenance and maintaining the
things that we own, properly taking care of things. But
it's just yeah, like you said, it's good to be
aware of the fact that there are going to be
oftentimes other expenses associated with those things. Yeah. Also, we
would recommend for folks to to turn to exercise instead
(26:19):
of shopping as well. You know, we often browse our
favorite store online or in person in order to you know,
get that quick and easy dopamine release. Um dude, a
lot of us sit at our computer all day for work,
you know, and it's incredibly convenient to open a new
tab to start typing things in Amazon, and before you
know it, you know, you just drop thirty bucks on
something that you don't really need but it definitely feels good. Instead,
(26:41):
we recommend for folks to look to the harder but
healthier option of exercise. And you don't have to run
a marathon either, but even just dropping down and you know,
giving ten twenty push ups, that kind of thing. When
you maybe start mindlessly shopping online, maybe be your own trills,
hard hit in that way, grab your grab a little kettlebell,
do your own swings, uh, like I do. Sometimes it
can just be the mental release that your brain is
(27:01):
looking for, not necessarily that you need something new, but
just you're kind of looking for a distraction. Go for
the healthier distraction. Yeah, it can divert your brain from
the thing that you want to do right now, which
is by something and that's the thing you shouldn't be
doing in all likelihood. And then it can get your
blood pumping and it could get you energized to do
something else right, to tackle the next you know, work
assignment or whatever it may be. Also to there are
(27:23):
times when it does make sense to spend some money
when we do want to spend, and that's okay to write.
We're not anti spending. We wanted to give some ideas
and some thoughts for how you can avoid spending money,
avoid some of that temptation as the temptation is going
to increase. But we've also got some tips for when
you're going to spend, how to spend mindfully, and we'll
(27:44):
get to those right after this break. All right, we're back,
and so, you know, like we said before the break,
we're talking about ways to avoid spending money altogether, but
at a certain point, you gotta buy something, Like there
are some things that require spending money, and so if
(28:06):
you're going to do that, you know there's you know,
like we said earlier too, there's no amount of exercise
that's going to be able to distract you from buying
something that you need. And that's okay, but like, let's
talk about how to spend wisely, in particular, as the
economy is reopening, it seems like it's starting to fire
on all cylinders, and so we want to make sure
that we're not being quickly parted with all of our
money without even realizing it. And so the first thing
(28:26):
we'd recommend for folks to do is look to make
your purchases second hand sites like eBay, that's a great
place to shop. Instead of always looking to buy something new,
consider buying something slightly used. You know that someone else
is selling for way less money than buying it brand
stinking new. It's like buying a car, man, and it's like,
take somebody's gently used car because cars run for forever,
(28:47):
and you're gonna save a ton of money and the
car still gonna be really nice if you buy it
four or five years old, as opposed to get in
the brand new one. Right Like, thrift stores also are
another great place to get secondhand goods, and Matt we
talked about shop good Will dot com is a cool
site to go to to find awesome throwt store stuff
and it's great. Yeah, And but making a real attempt
to find what you're looking for that someone else is
(29:09):
gently used, it's gonna save you money and it works
as a natural hindrance to spending frivolously. Sometimes there's there's
just like a little more friction to finding that used
item that makes sense in your life. And and that's
actually good. I think in the spending process, you want
a little bit of friction. Sometimes the easy click to
buy is is the thing that's gonna get us in
the most Trouble and matt even life cycle. Like we
(29:31):
mentioned at the beginning of the episode, buying home goods
used is a good way. You gotta kind of search
for the thing that you want. You're gonna save money
though it's gonna take a little bit longer, but ultimately
it's gonna work out in your favor. That's right, dude.
And yeah, before you make that purchase on you know,
whatever default site you tend to you tend to favor,
we'd recommend for you to check the deal sites out
there as well. Like when there's something that you know
(29:52):
that you want, make sure that you check out some
of these other sites like deal news dot com. Also
slick Deals is a good one as well. You can
install Honey that is actually a great browser extension which
which can help you define the things that you're looking
for cheaper on other sites or even make you aware
of coupon codes that you wouldn't have otherwise known about
and that'll slash the price of that item. But for
the most part, this approach only works when you know
(30:14):
that there's something that you need. You know, because otherwise
not shopping sales might be your best bet because you
know when you see those off tags and you know
it's all it's written in bold red letters, it can
draw your eye and it can be a major temptation,
uh for folks to spend when maybe, like otherwise you shouldn't. Yeah, man,
I kind of have a love hate relationship with some
of the deal sites. I I used to be more
(30:35):
into them than I am, but I still check them out.
You still like him, I still see you over there.
I still talk about more than I should, and sometimes
that can be kind of temptation for me. Is is
to like, oh cool, that thing is so cheap, maybe
I should get it. So the deal sites, I think
you're right. I think if we use them correctly, if
we use them to try to find an item that
we're looking for, that we know we want to buy,
(30:55):
uh and that we're ready to buy, we can find
a better deal. But if we're just browsing, like I
sometimes tend to use them for guilty, I'll admit it. Well,
I would say it is good to know that the
deals are out there if you know that there's something
you're going to purchase. Like you said, it's good to
be aware of the best price. Yeah, I feel like
you're really good at knowing that, like, Okay, yeah, this
should cost about this much. And the reason you know
that is because you've seen it on sale, like on
(31:17):
these different sites like this that kind of aggregate the
best deals. But yeah, you also do want to make
sure that you're aware that the temptation that that's putting
in your life. It's like, my greatest strength is also
my greatest weakness, you know. I think another thing people
can do in order to spend wisely when they are
buying something is to institute the forty eight hour rule.
We've talked about this before, but but having a period
(31:38):
of time that you institute before you purchase something new
is crucial to preventing just impulse buying. So go ahead,
put the item in your shopping cart, and if you
still want it two days later and you don't have
to go into debt in order to get it, that's
key here, then it's okay to complete that purchase. That
will help curb some of the just mindless spending, some
of the spending that we're doing just because we can
(32:01):
or because it's fun. The forty eight our rule can
be just really helpful in weeding out some of those
purchases that we make that are the most unhelpful, you know,
to our budgets. Not to mention too, if you you know,
you've added that to your cart and they've got your
email address, sometimes they'll they'll check in with you after
a couple of days, and sometimes they'll they'll send you
a coupon. They're like, hey, is this is this item
of years? Did you you know, lead your cart stranded?
(32:21):
Here's ten percent helps sweeten the deal. So that's a
nice little incentive. Also too, we would recommend for folks
to consider the cost per use when you're thinking about
making a purchase. If you you know, maybe you're naturally
a frugal tight wad like like we tend to be.
I think sometimes it can be difficult, you know, in
allowing yourself to spend any money at all, like even
(32:41):
on the things that we that we value or things
that bring us joy. And so an alternative way to
consider a purchase is to think through maybe how regularly
you might use something, right, and so if it's something
that you'd use on a regular basis, it might make sense,
you know, it's a purchase that item, and not only
to purchase it, but even consider maybe like the slightly
higher quality item, because if we're you know, if we're
always just trying to spend the least amount of money possible,
(33:04):
that's one of the ways that we can, unfortunately end
up being cheap as opposed to frugal. We're thinking, oh,
this is something I know, it's gonna bring me a
lot of joy, and just gonna get the cheapest thing possible,
and then you know, it ends up crapping out after
a few months, and then we have to buy something
again again, leading to more waste than plus, often having
to buy something twice is going to be more expensive
than having spent a little bit more on that higher
quality item to begin with. Yeah, that's I'm also a recovering,
(33:28):
spend the least amount of money on stuff as possible person,
and I'm all about now spending a little bit more
money and getting something that's gonna last for a long time. Yeah. Yeah,
sometimes you gotta like test the waters, though, you know,
like if you've never owned a grill, you're kind of like,
let's I want to figure this out, and you buy
like the cheapest you know, I don't know, fifty dollar
grill that they sell ls our own depot. I got
my grill of Aldi actually flight or or from Aldi,
(33:50):
because I'm sure that I was pretty unaffordable. But then,
you know, if you realize that, say like oh I'm
really into grilling, or like oh what else can I
cook outside? Then you start thinking, okay, like this is
bring me a lot of joy. There's a lot of utility.
That's something we use often. And that's when I think
it can be totally worth it to spend a little
bit more money. Yeah, man, I think too, when we're spending,
when the temptation to spend arises, having some sort of
(34:12):
pressure relief valve for your spending can be helpful too.
You might just have in urge to go shopping or
to just spend some money, any money, you just want
to spend some money. I know people like this. My
mom probably falls into this category. Man, and and and
more than anything, like she loves even just window shopping,
but she loves shopping. It's something that she gets a
lot of a lot of joy out of she I
(34:33):
think it's um, it's there's something creative in kind of
seeing all the items for sale that that she likes.
She likes seeing design and in particular like home interior stuff,
right uh, and to potentially avoid a larger, more disastrous purchase.
Though maybe you can scratch that itch just a little
bit with a small splurge like a nice coffee, right.
(34:54):
I feel like fancy coffee gets raked over the coals
in personal finance all the time. It's a batter rat
for sure. But that can the perfect like us pressure
relief valve for your spending. You're like, I just treated myself.
There's something really nice, but actually it didn't really cost
that much money. It's better to make a small spending
mistake than to make a big one. So finding your
small release valve can be big and really helpful when
(35:16):
it comes to smart spending, especially if you're able to
maybe go on a walk when you get that coffee. Essentially,
what you've done there is you've kind of transformed that
purchase like that you might just see as a good
into an experience. And and so that's kind of what
we'd recommend next for folks is to you know, we
would recommend for folks to consider prioritizing experiences over stuff
that you might you know, buy online or you know,
(35:37):
even at the store. And oftentimes you folks think about travel,
But it doesn't have to to be travel, you know,
as we talk about experiences here, although that is a
big experience that that many folks do prioritize. But you know,
experiences like this could be just say a dinner out
with friends, or it could be buying a membership to
the zoo or like the botanical gardens if you've got
them there where you live. Uh, And these could provide
(35:58):
recurring experiences, you know, for you you or for your family,
or for you and your friends. Research shows that an
intangible experience can often bring you joy for you know,
much longer than a physical object. So focusing your spending
on some of those experiences that can provide incredible memories
with folks you know, who you love the most, and
it's often going to provide a much better return on
(36:19):
your investment than buying just another item, say for your wardrobe,
that you're then going to have to kind of shoehorn
in your closet because you don't have any more space
at all. Yeah, and too, I think what's great about
experiences is that they they foster um an ability to
bond with other people. To write, experiences are helping us
build relationships almost always as opposed to buying stuff, which
(36:43):
often does the opposite. And so yeah, I guess I
was talking earlier Matt about borrowing stuff from other people
and then letting other people borrow your stuff, and how
that expands your relationships and make them better. Well, I
think the same thing is true when we prioritize experiences
over stuff. It's it's during those social experi aeriences that
we cultivate feelings of connection and belonging to one another.
(37:04):
And those experiences are are oftentimes unique to us as individuals,
which means that we're we're typically less likely to compare
our own experiences to the experiences of others. And comparison,
as you know, Matt, is is one of the things
that lends to our consumption. It leads us to spend
more and to spend on wisely. So if instead of experiences,
(37:24):
you're focusing on stuff like electronics, clothing, or even something
great like bikes, it can be easier to compare that
stuff to other people. And Teddy Roosevelt one of the
best quotes ever is comparison is the thief of joy.
I think that's so true for us. I think that's
one of the things that like social media has done
to us as a culture in a lot of ways,
has made it easier to compare, and it has made
it harder for us than as individuals to be content
(37:48):
with what we do have. So true, dude, Yeah, and
so you know, as many of us are looking forward
to our our lives looking more like they did before,
let's make sure that our spending doesn't automatically revert to
pre pandemic levels as well. One of the few positives
of the pandemic brought into our lives was the ability
to truly see how much control we really do have
(38:09):
over our spending. So look at how much debt you know,
you were able to eliminate from your life last year,
or how much we're able to save up for that
down payment you know on a house. Remember those goals
and continue to to work towards the things that you value,
even while there are other expenses and distractions that are
getting reintroduced into our lives right now. Yeah, the temptation
to spend is real, and we want to make sure
(38:29):
you avoid it. We want to avoid it, you know.
The the temptation is real for all of us since
we have to implement you know, some of these things
as many as we can in order to curb that
spending so that we can realize those bigger goals that
we have, so that we can build wealth for the
long haul, so that we can have the ability to
reach financial independence and make our own decisions about what
we want to do with our time. All right, Matt,
(38:50):
Let's get back to the beer that we had on
the show. This one was by Right Side Brewing. Is
a citrus wheat non alcoholic beer. What were your thoughts
on this one? Man? Yeah, you know, before I comment
on this partic kular beer from Right Side, and it
also makes me think of Mr bright Side, the song
from the from the Killers. Such a good song. But
as far as this beer goes, Man, Yeah, this is
(39:11):
a citrus whet and I feel like the citrus really
does come through. Uh. It almost like almost reminds me
of like an orange gatorade. I don't know, like a
combination of the orange and yellow gatorade. Oh yeah, more
the yellow, you know I'm talking about it? Do like
the yellow Gatory and the orange Gatorade. It's got those
flavors going on, but it doesn't you know, it doesn't
have that sweetness. It's not nearly as obviously, it's not
nearly as syrupy, but it does kind of have those flavors.
(39:31):
It almost has this herbal tea like flavor going on,
but of course it's fizzy, so yeah, it's reminiscent of beer.
It's near beer. Obviously, there's definitely something missing, but totally
still enjoyable. Yeah, what your thoughts on it, dude? Yeah,
I thought it was too and I was surprised because
I agree it was missing a little something that I'm
used to getting in beer, but I still I still
a lot of tasty, great man. And I think it's
(39:51):
awesome that people are now making, you know, non alcoholic
craft beer equivalence, because there are a lot of people
out there who just don't want to drink for a
lot of good reasons, and so to be able to
enjoy something and get some of that same flavor profile
and sensation that you get with craft beer but without
(40:12):
actually having to consume alcohol, well, this is just a
great place for people to go. I think is is
these non alcoholic craft beers and the this sitrus Sweet
from Right Side was pretty solid. Man. I agree, man,
So that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners can
find our show notes up on the website at how
to Money dot com. Yeah, and if you haven't left
the review for How the Money yet on Apple podcast
or wherever you listen to podcasts, what are you doing?
(40:33):
We would love for you to leave a kind review
over there. It really does help get the word out
about what we're doing here on How the Money to
help other people spend wisely, to save for their futures,
and to be more empowered when it comes to their
personal finances. And we would appreciate you letting other people
know what you think about the show. So all right, Matt,
until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out. M
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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