June 16, 2021 • 36 mins
During today’s episode we’re going to explain how you need more financial stress in your life!.. Well, not quite, but we do think that the proper amount of stress in our lives can be helpful in achieving the money goals we’re pursuing. All things in moderation though- just like you want to avoid having too much of a good thing, we obviously want to avoid overwhelming stress in our lives. But the thing is, it’s oftentimes not even the stress itself that is bringing us down, but the negative coping mechanisms and habits that we turn to that can be the most destructive, and that can cost us the most. We believe that by reframing how you view stress and by putting it in the proper light, you can use financial stress to your advantage. Listen and we’ll explain how!
During this episode we enjoyed a Coconut Stout by Easy Chair Brewing Garage- thanks to Jess for donating this one to the podcast! 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!
Best friends out!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
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 am Matt,
and today we're discussing using financial stress to your advantage. Yeah,
(00:26):
I mean financial stress, or honestly stress in general. I
think that that's something that most people are going to think,
just right off the bat, that is something that they
want to avoid. Right. It's it's almost like if you
get sick, it's like it is getting sick ever a
good thing. It's something that you pretty much want to
always make sure that doesn't happen to you. But during
this episode, man, we're gonna talk about stress in a way,
uh and specifically stress when it comes to our money.
(00:49):
And you know, obviously there's the obvious kind of downsize
to it, but we're gonna talk about the upsides, the
upshots to financial stress and how we can use it
to further us along down our path of personal using
something that's commonly perceived to be negative as an advantage.
I like that we're gonna talk about that today. But
before we get to that, man, I want to mention
that my wife just bought a smart watch. Oh your wife,
(01:11):
did you had like this cheapo watch on here in
the notes? And I thought maybe you got a new
one now, so I think I've we we've talked before,
how I am kind of against the smart watch, at
least for myself in my own life on my wrist.
I don't really want another screen to be checking, although
some people have actually said that having a smart watch
actually means you check your phone less often because you
can like quickly glance at your watch and then you're
done with it. But it's still a screen, Yeah, and
(01:34):
you're still being distracted from whatever you're doing. Yeah, I'm
with you. So I'm gonna avoid it for the time being.
But my wife, she said, well, she she she started
doing some research and she was just interested in potentially
getting a smart watch. You know, the name brand ones.
They're kind of expensive and right, yeah, something like that
Apple watch whatever. I think so, and you know, she's
gotten Android, so I don't even think those play nicely together.
(01:56):
Something that was even a possibility. She's got to get
that Samsung on her wrist. I think she would have. Yeah,
she'd have to get one of the andwer watches, like
Google makes one, Samsung makes one. But it turns out
that there are a lot of like non name brand
smart watches out there now. Too, and the technology has
gotten a whole lot better at the cheap end of
the spectro and so yeah, so she got a one
(02:17):
off Amazon. I'll link to the one that she purchased
in the show notes. But she's loving it because some
of the I think additional benefits of having one of
the really nice name brand ones she doesn't care about.
She really wants this to track steps, heart rate, monitor
her sleep and it has a lot of those those functions.
She can retext on it too. Um. And so yeah,
there's another watch. I forget what the name brand of
(02:38):
hers is. Again, I said, well, we'll link to in
the show notes. But Wise is another brand we've talked about. Wise.
They've got some cool stuff, like some cool cheap headphones,
so um, you know, they do home security incredibly cheap.
Instead of getting the Nest came or some of the
different camera setups in your home that typically costs like
like a hundred two hundred bucks for these cameras. Wise, Man,
those cameras are bucks. You actually and me onto them
(03:00):
last year. Yeah, so so those are great. By the way,
it's spelled w y z E and you Well, we'll
link to wis is in the show notes as well.
But yeah, the cool thing is that she didn't have
to spend very much and it's got the functionality she's
looking for. And I think sometimes we just assume that
we need the top of the line or the brand
new thing that cost three dollars in order to be happy,
in order to get the things we need. And Emily
was like, well, what am I looking for? Let me
(03:21):
read the reviews, let me, you know, sort through a
bunch of different watches and find one that is relatively
inexpensive that's gonna have the functionality that I actually need,
not all the stuff that I don't. Um. So, yeah,
we'll see how long at last, you know, smart watch
might last for a year, may not last very long,
maybe not even that long. We'll put it on the calendar.
Maybe a year from now, we'll check back in and
(03:41):
maybe Emily can come on give us her little smart
watch update. But but dude, I'm with you. So the
only thing that I feel like I've ever considered getting
a smart watch for is I've heard that you can like,
they buzz, like, they can vibrate, and I would love
a solution where I could have an alarm set specifically
in the morning so that when I wake up, it
doesn't wake up eat because in order for it to
be loud enough for me to hear, it's oftentimes, you know,
(04:03):
loud enough for her to hear as well, and she
kind of hates that. I try to get up super quietly.
But if I just had a little smart watch on
my wrist and it buzz and that, you know, that's
how I was able to wake up, I think that
could be. That could be pretty cool. Can I tell
you the number one feature of this watch that she
got though? What So she's constantly misplacing her phone and
she's always asking me to call her phone so she
(04:23):
can find it. This smart watch has like a locate
my phone feature. So dude, my life has already gotten
way better because she watch. Well, I mean even iPhones
are I feel like most phones have that feature. But
you just said, I mean, you have to sit down
at a computer log in that wet whereas I guess
with that watch is just already on her. She just
pushes a button exactly kind of like beeps off in
the distance. It's made us both much happier night. But yeah,
(04:45):
all right, Matt, let's mentioned the beer that we're having
on today's show. This one is from Bolero Snort Brewery.
It's called a mouhito. It's a logger with lime juice
and mint. We'll give our thoughts on this one at
the end of the episode. This was a brewer out
of New Jersey. I had never heard of before. It
just kind of picked it up on a whim. I
just noticed that it's a Mouhito, not Mohito. They've got
a little cow cattle theme going on, I guess with
their brewery. But yeah, man, looking forward to enjoying this
(05:06):
one and sharing our thoughts at the end of the episode.
For now, let's get onto the topic of hand. We
are talking about how you can use financial stress to
your advantage. And Matt, I know you've never done this.
Have you ever said anything really dumb? Yes? But I
am doing it less and less as good as I age.
I'm getting wiser. Well. I think like I've definitely said
(05:27):
a lot of dumb things. One because I just have
this propensity to talk, and I think when you talk more,
you say more dumb things. If I shot my mouth
a little more, I probably would say fewer, But then
I sometimes make it worse because I try to explain,
you know, where I was coming from, and then people
are like, that doesn't make it any better, and they're
just give me a little little confused. I think we've
all been there, right, we all had that kind of
(05:49):
like foot in the mouth moment, like, oh, man, if
I just shut up five minutes ago, I'd be in
a much better spot with this person, in this situation. Whatever.
Maybe maybe it was like to a teacher after you
got a bad grade on a test and you somehow
talk to yourself into a d from us, you know,
like because that's how bad it went. Um. But yeah,
I think if we had just stopped at the first
idiotic thing, it would have turned out better for us
(06:10):
and humans, Matt, We're anxious creatures and money is one
of the most stressful topics we face. That's why we
wanted to talk about this today. It's not always a
poor money decision that leads to uh significantly higher stress levels.
Often it's the reaction that we have when we mess
up that creates these compounding effects that creates more stress
(06:30):
in our lives. And so, yeah, we want to talk about,
like how do we eliminate stress or mitigate stress in
our lives? And then also maybe in some ways use
that stress to our advantage in the future. Yeah, and
and of course, you know, it's important to note that
stress does have some positive benefit in our lives. You know,
it doesn't exist for no reason. But it's crucial for
us to make some changes though, so that you know,
(06:52):
our anxiety over money, that it doesn't cause us to
curl up into a ball unable to take any positive
steps that can help us to move in the right direction.
This is idle in order to you know, keep it
from becoming a full blown personal crisis. And of course,
you know, in the last fifteen months they have been
especially stressful. But even before the pandemic, we saw that
Northwestern Mutual they actually did a study back in sixteen
(07:13):
and they found that a five percent of Americans feel
anxious about their finances. And the American Institute of Stress,
which is I gotta imagine that's an interesting place to work.
It's either the chilliest or the most stressful place to work.
I'm not sure it's on how they tackler the stress,
but they say that the number two cause of stress
in America is you guessed it, money At it's it
was actually just one percent point behind something, uh, you know,
(07:36):
really minor. The future of our nation work comes in
at number three after that. But it's worth pointing out
that a lot of folks are dealing with some amount
of financial stress. We want you to know that you're
not alone. Yeah, obviously it plagues a huge amount of people,
and Matt, I think we already know this. So we're
gonna talking about some of the positive benefits of financial
stress in your life. I know, actually there are there
(07:58):
are some. It sounds counterintuitive, but also talk about how
stress can be bad, right, and people probably already know
some of this stuff, but there's but this, this here
is a little reminder, right that overwhelming amounts of stress
can have a massive negative impact on our health and
on our relationships. That stress can lead to things like
cardiovascular disease, ulcers, and worse and unmanageable. Stress takes a
(08:19):
toll on the physical body as well. Not I even
saw a recent study that found that overworked individuals are
more stressed and it leads to a lot of premature
deaths in our country. So, yeah, the negative realities of
stress are real. It takes a toll on us, but
it also takes a toll on our relationships. When we're
overly stressed about anything we're we're more likely to take
(08:40):
it out on the people that we love the most,
and that leads to like messed up relationships and in
many cases, consistent money stress can rek havoc on a marriage.
Money fights are the second leading cause of divorce, and
almost half of couples that have fifty dollars or more
in consumer debt say that money is the leading cause
of arguments in their homes. That's a big deal. Stress
(09:00):
is obviously causing a lot of strife for a lot
of people. Yeah, that's right, And you know, the reactions
that we have to the stressors in our lives can
just make things worse. According to the American Psychological Association,
the top stress relieving activities are watching TV for over
two hours, uh, serving the Internet, napping, eating, drinking, and smoking.
(09:20):
Uh So, you know, basically, it's just a laundry list
of things that might be okay and and you know,
in extreme moderation, maybe maybe not the smoking because that's
never actually a good thing, But the rest of them
are okay in moderation. But we're over indulging in all
of them because Americans are just so stressed out, and
so money troubles are a big part of what gets
(09:41):
us to that point where we feel like we need
these different coping mechanisms. Yeah, it's like, um, so stressed out,
the only thing I can think of doing is popping
in the couch and watching two and a half hours
of Netflix, right, which is essentially ignoring the stress, right,
Like you're you're basically running from it. You're you're not
facing the problems and instead you're just pretending that it
doesn't exist, which, um only makes the problem worse in
(10:02):
almost every case. And we've talked about this as well before.
But sometimes we spend too much money because we're stressed out,
and spending spreeze, you know, or retail therapy is what
it's sometimes called, can be an attempt to basically wallpaper
over the emotions that we're feeling. But that also makes
things worse. Right. Some folks actually at Duke University, they
found what they do, they do a lot of great
(10:22):
like behavioral money work there. They found that instead of
stress spending, people should instead try stress saving. And that
feels that, Yeah, I can get behind that too, but
I'm sure a lot of a lot of people listening
are like that, yeah, that what does that do for?
Yeah it sounds great, but that doesn't actually relieve stress.
And you know, I can understand why you might respond
that way. But but but the interesting thing is what they
(10:44):
got to the root of is that spending it actually
puts you in a worse hole. Right, But the behavioral
final folks are Dukes said that the main benefit we
get from the act of spending is the act of
actually making a decision, picking something out, buying it. Boom,
it's on our the way to our house. Basically like
the autonomy you have over your life. Yeah. Yeah, that's
the part of spending that feels good. It's not necessarily
(11:05):
even getting the item right. And so their solution was
to say that instead of purchasing that item, transfer that
exact amount of money to your savings. It gives you
the same satisfaction but benefits you obviously in a more
positive way, and your money going to Amazon or some
other you know, online retailer. That money is going into
your savings account, but you're actually physically doing something, You're
(11:25):
taking an action. And so yeah, if if Duke and
how the money can combine efforts and make stress saving
a thing. I think that'd be awesome. Yeah, so that's
a nice little action step. A little takeaway early in
the episode, which doesn't always happen, how the money. But
you know, all of these things are all the traditionally
negative views towards stress, right, Like, we we don't want
(11:45):
you to be overwhelmed and stressed out, and definitely not
because of money issues. But we think that there's actually
a much better way to view the stress in our lives.
You know, we think that you can actually put stress
in a positive light. Uh, maybe it's less about conquering
and combating stress, right, it's not something that we're just
trying to overcome. What if you're able to discover how
stress will allow you to get ahead with your money
(12:07):
and so we'll talk more about that right after this break.
All right, now, let's get to kind of some of
the heart of what we wanted to cover on this episode.
Le taking into the meat. Yeah, let's talk about stress
and how it can actually be good and benefit you potentially.
(12:28):
Um So, yeah, before we talked about how you respond
when financial stress hits. We're gonna kind of get some
practical steps on that later. It's important to point out
that stress isn't an inherently terrible thing. Like when we're stressed,
the purpose of the physiological response of our body is
to overcome whatever obstacles might be in our way. Ourselves
are releasing dopamine and adrenaline so that we actually have
(12:51):
a boost of energy and alertness. And this is like
the fight or flight response we all learned about an
elementary school, right, And it's like when when someone challenges
you to a fight, either like you get so pumped
up you punch them in the nose, or you run away.
I usually ran away. You gets bumps and said, all
the hair on your arm stands on end. Yep, it
makes you look bigger. I still ran away. That's always
(13:12):
how I handled I fight's growing up and still to
this day. But they happened, Um, they never really happened
growing up either, Let's be honest. But yeah, this is
like how our bodies naturally respond to conflict, and really
what we want to talk about in this episodes. How
do we use that response, that physiological response when it
comes to how stress impacts our lives. How do we
use that not to our detriment, not to curl up
(13:33):
in a ball, but actually to use it to our advantage. Yes,
and so maybe it's not overcoming financial stress, but maybe
it's more utilizing stress to overcome financial obstacles. Right. It's
sort of like Judo, you know, like the martial arts, right.
I heard about it. Never did it karate though, for
like I don't know, maybe three months and it still
didn't serve you. Well, I guess in those little on
this playground scuffles, didn't know I broke one board though,
(13:55):
that's my claim to fame. I still wanted to do
that as a kid, you know, like you'd see kids
on TV swear they get special boards for weak kids,
like they do. But okay, so it's like Judo, right,
and so if we can use the momentum and weight
of stress that we encounter against the negative and the
more unhealthy behaviors that were that were tempted to adopt,
(14:16):
then we will be able to see incredible growth in
our lives. Uh. And so kind of like extending that
metaphor as we think of our bodies. You know what
happens when you lift weights or you work out that resistance,
say of a kettle bell like that right there? That
is stress, but the same stress is actually what causes
our muscles to grow, and so we wanted to mention
this because the proper amount of stress in our lives
(14:36):
makes us stronger in the same thing is also true
of our finances. Yeah, man, especially like when when we
think back to the periods in our life when we
were performing at the highest levels, like we can probably
bet that there was some amount of stress in our lives. Um,
And I think I think back to school, right, I
remember doing a couple of overnighters, and like I didn't
realize how many books I could read and maybe how
(14:58):
much and how much information I can remember eyes until
getting that great and graduating, maybe what was dependent on it.
Like I almost needed that challenge like that, I'm a
I'm a procrastinator to the core, and so I needed
to be kind of like pushed up against the wall
in order to like you know, give my stress levels
raised so that I could react accordingly. Yeah, I felt
that way when it came to a scholarship. I mean
I was getting ready to lose a big scholarship, and man,
(15:19):
talk about me buckling down and actually getting the grades
I needed to when money was on the line. Yeah,
I studied. Yeah, and like I think to other people,
maybe they never knew just how creative they could be
until a project at work, let's say, for instance, required
a completely different way of viewing the problem. And then
when it comes to our finances, a lot of people
probably never realized how little money they could live on
(15:41):
until they lost a job they were out of work,
or maybe they never realized how much they could earn
until they had set a goal to save up a
down payment on a house and they're like, I really
want to do that in the next two years. I've
got to earn more money to get there, all right,
How am I gonna make this happen? Um? And So
I think sometimes you have those stressful situations, they create
the ability in us that otherwise, if we're just kind
(16:02):
of hanging out at a more relaxed pace, we're not
forced to get creative. We're not forced to work harder,
you know, we're not forced to think about things differently.
And it's not that stress is always good, but that
kind of stress can be a huge motivator. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's a good thing because it shows us
that we care, right, It's something that we're connected to
because if we didn't feel stressed towards something that, you
(16:23):
know that was kind of pushing up in our lives. Well,
that just means we're kind of apathetic to whatever that
thing is. And so I think I see it as
a healthy amount of concern, right, Like that's kind of
how we're trying to view stress here. We're trying to
view it through that lens. But of course, you know,
it's important to point out that, like we're making an
argument here that a proper amount of stress in our lives,
in healthy doses like that is beneficial. You know, Like
(16:44):
it kind of makes me think of just kind of
like filling up your cup at the sink, getting some water,
just a little bit of you know, some of that water,
a little bit of stress in our lives. It can
I think it can go a long way. Uh. That's
a lot different than trying to like drink from a
fire hydrant. Right. It's hard to grow and to make
progress with our money when we're constantly facing just an
overwhelming barrage of financial stressors in our life. But please
(17:05):
please tell me you've never tried to drink from a
fire now, but you've heard people talking about, Yeah, I
just wonder if someone's actually trying just too much um
like it's so for instance, like we don't want someone
in a vicious cycle of only paying the minimums on
their credit cards because you've got too many financial obligations
like this would be an instance of bad stress that
leads to poor decisions and outcomes. Earlier, Joe, before the break,
(17:27):
you talked about couples who when faced with constant stress
in their lives, how that can lead to the relationship
uh suffering. We think that with the right amount of
stress that you would be amazed at the amount of
work that you'd be able to get done, like specifically
with like with a couple right where you know you
got your partner when you feel a little bit of
stress and you both are on board, and it forces
you to talk about say your your money that I
(17:47):
don't think you can help but to be more efficient,
to spend wisely with your dollars, or to you know,
to start earning more money. But if the stress is
too much and it's constant, that's when it can be
negative in our lives. And that's when when I think
it can often lead us to take some of those
unhealthy behaviors and where we resort to some of those
vices as we're trying to escape that stress. Yeah, letting
that stress overwhelm you is the worst place you can
(18:09):
find yourself, really and and so so, Matt, I think
you know, we've we've kind of tried to reframe how
we view financial stress in our lives, at least to
a certain degree, that it's not all negative. Some of
it can be good. It can actually cause us to
rise to new heights. And it's important to recognize how
that stress is going to allow us to achieve financial
goals that we've set for ourselves. Right, And it's really
(18:29):
helpful to focus on the positive goals instead of only
focusing on the negative, stressful steps that might take to
get there. Right. For for example, it might be difficult
to constantly be saying to yourself, don't spend too much
money on the credit cards this month, um, when instead
maybe we should be focusing on why we're wanting to
slim down the budget in the first place. Maybe it's
(18:50):
two for the first time, have a decent working emergency fund,
that financial margin, that breathing room that's so important, right,
Or it's this goal to finally be able to take
a vacation. Maybe it's been a few years. Um, it's
probably been at least a year for for all of us.
But yeah, like that, that's a great goal for a
lot of people who who may be saying, I need
to save up two thousand dollars to take a vacation
(19:11):
this year, but it's been so hard in years past,
and our family we really really need it. Been focusing
on that goal first, the end goal, instead of all
the little things it's going to take to get there
at the beginning at least reframes some of the actions
that you're gonna have to think about later. It makes them,
I think, less daunting, right man. And here's the thing too.
I know that we're talking about stress in a sort
(19:31):
of very clinical, kind of unemotional way, but it's worth
mentioning that financial stress it's not always rational, right. It's
it's difficult to kind of be out in the real
world experiencing the you know, the day to day things
that we're faced with in our lives and to be
this kind of straightforward and clinical about it. Um. And
you know, we're actually gonna talk with Michelle Singletary next week,
and she's been writing about money for decades. She's incredibly frugal,
(19:53):
and I think probably because of that, she admits to
having anxiety when it comes to spending on things that
she's been diligently saving. Four it's something that there's a
there's almost like a disconnect between the head knowledge of
you know, understanding something like the way we're talking about
it right now, versus putting that knowledge into action. And
so for for Michelle, the difficulty lies and being able
to enjoy some of what she's actually worked hard in
(20:14):
order to achieve. Yeah, I feel like financial stress isn't
always because someone's living paycheck to paycheck, um, And for
somebody like Michelle and kind of like for myself, I
feel like that's that's super evident because even when you
are frugal and you've handled money well for a long
period of time, like all the numbers point to the
fact that you really shouldn't be that stressed out, Like
you're saving a good portion of what you make, your
(20:35):
investments are looking good, um. But still, I think if
you have that hyper frugal gene like you, you also
have to work to overcome some of the stresses that
money can bring in your life. And maybe you're stressing
about things that you really don't need to be And
I know that's yeah, that's can be the case in
my life as well, where I need to work to
combat some of those stressors. But in real life, like
in the moment when I'm feeling those things, like, it's
(20:59):
it's not easy, right, It's not easy to to do
that self talk and say, you know what, it's okay,
let's look at the numbers. Uh, the emotion. It can
be really difficult to combat the emotion that you're feeling
with the numbers on the page. Yeah, it takes work
to control how we feel about the financial situations that
we have gotten ourselves. And you know that we find
ourselves in into a certain extent, like we have to
(21:19):
be willing to kind of rein in our emotions and
and I think viewing stress is something that we can
harness like that will allow us to take control of
not only our lives, but our money too. And so,
now that we've reframed you know what we think is
a better way to view financial stress, right after the break,
we're going to dive into some practical ways that will
allow you to transform that stress into for progress with
(21:42):
your money. Alright, we're back from break. We're talking about
financial stress and how you can actually use it to
your advantage. And Matt, So, we've talked about how stress
is traditionally viewed as a negative thing that should be
(22:02):
avoided at all costs. But I think sometimes when we
think about stress that way, Um, if we just want
everything in life to be super easy, we never have
to rise to the challenge. Stress, in many ways, in
some forms, can be a helpful motivator. And like also too,
we've talked about how rewiring the way that we think
about stress can help us get ahead. Now let's zero
(22:22):
in on some of the specific ways that we can
use stress for good in our lives and to be
helpful for our finances. Yeah, so first you want to
identify you know what we're gonna call the trouble spots. Right,
it's hard to manage stress that you might be experiencing
when you're not even sure what's causing it. And so
in order to do this, we would we think that
tracking your spending that is really important in the step
(22:43):
if you aren't already doing that, right, because how can
you figure out the trouble spots if you aren't doing
the basic financial necessity. Finding some clarity around the biggest
money culprits in your life that need your attention is
really important. And then after that, once you have tracked
your money, that's when you can create a plan to
tell cool those different culprits one by one. Yeah, man,
I feel like looking at the numbers. Actually it's like
(23:04):
the exact opposite of what I said before the break,
But sometimes it actually can be distressing. We've almost like
built up this problem in our heads, but we don't
know how big the problem is or what it is
if we don't know the numbers. And so I think
you're right identifying some of those trouble spots, you know. Yeah,
getting specific with what the problem is is like huge
in the attempt to remedy it, because otherwise it's sort
(23:27):
of like this vague malaise hanging over your financial situation,
right because you don't exactly know what's wrong, but you
know something's wrong, but you gotta put in the work
to actually figure out what it is. Yeah, it's like
I know my money sucks, but I don't know how bad,
like how bad the situation is, and so or and
maybe it's not as bad as you think, and that
might be distressing in and of itself, So I agree, Yeah,
(23:48):
identifying the trouble spots is key. It should be the
first thing that you're doing in order to try to
distress your financial situation. And you mentioned Matt having a plan,
which is, you know, in financial terms, the plan is
the budget. Yeah, planned for your money. That's a budget,
that's right, Yeah, And so yeah, one of our favorite
budgeting apps called You Need a Budget or wine app
for short. They conducted a survey and they found that
(24:09):
a huge majority of their users, three out of four,
who had a zero based budget, which means all their
dollars are spoken for. Every single month, they go to
specific areas of their financial life, whether it's saving, spending, investing,
paying off debt, and then if they checked that budget
on a weekly basis, they had little to know financial stress. So, like,
even when you're in a good spot financially, it's still
(24:31):
possible to feel overwhelmed, like I talked about, Like I
get there, and I know a lot of fellow money
nerds who feel the same way. They feel stressed about
their finances even though they're doing good with their money.
But it's so much easier, I think to avoid burnout
when your budget is working well, when you have a
game plan, and when you're consistently checking in on it.
So yeah, tracking your spending, identifying those trouble spots. But
(24:53):
then also you know, having that budget and checking in
on it regularly, that's a way to be more in
tune with what's actually happening in you're finding too and
it's gonna like, yeah, lower the stress level in almost
every case, that's right, man. And after that, we would
recommend for folks just to tackle one thing at a time.
Once you've created a plan for your money, we want
you to be realistic about the time that's actually gonna
take to work on that list of the different trouble
(25:15):
spots that you're working on. Uh makes me think of Rome, right.
Rome wasn't built in a day. In your financial ship,
it's not going to be righted in one single day either.
We want everyone out there to be kind to yourselves.
It's you know, likely took you years to get into
the financial hole that you might have found yourself in. Uh,
and it's probably gonna take some time for you to
climb out. But trying to remedy say a dozen different
(25:36):
financial trouble spots in a week or two will likely
lead to unmanageable stress. And so again, a small amount
of stress is good like that informs you, but an
unmanageable and overwhelming amount of stress can lead to some
some tough spots. So focus on the most important trouble
spot and kick that one's butt, and then after that
move on to number two. It's also helpful to be
organized and making sure that you're sitting aside the proper
(25:58):
amount of time to work on your finances as well,
and so commit and include a weekly counter slot so
that you're working on your finances regularly, not trying to
accomplish everything and just one fell swoop, but do it
methodically and with some regularity. Yeah. Man, it's good to
have high standards. It's good to have big goals that
you're shooting for. But I think, yeah, if you if
you set the bar too high, Uh, let's say you're like,
(26:18):
it's your first time pole vaulting and you said they
literally set the bar really high, Um, You're you're probably
gonna like crash into it with your head or something
like that, and that might completely eliminate your desire to
do pole jumping anymore. And I think it's that way
with with a whole lot of things. If you're like,
I want to run uh six minute mile, and that
that's a that's a great goal, just realize that if
you haven't ran in like eight years, you're probably not
(26:42):
going to hit that anytime soon. Again, it's this great
long term goal, but but you have to be realistic
about the time frame to get there so that you
don't get completely bummed out in the process and forget
it all together, just scrap the goal together. You want
to make sure you approach your money in the same
way that you're not like, I'm gonna pay off all
this credit card debt in a month and a half
when it's actually if you look at it in what
(27:03):
fits into your budget, it's gonna take, you know, fourteen months.
You want to be realistic so that you can actually
achieve those goals. It's important to Matt as we're you know,
attempting to achieve those goals, to track our progress along
the way, because it feels really really good when you
do make progress, like when you do pay off that
first credit card of three or four right that you
have a lot of a balance on. But really it's
(27:25):
it's easy, I think, to allow stress to maybe show
up and like Steven Seagal style or Chuck Norris style,
kicked down your mental door rather than like politely knocking
and kind of being that accelerator. It just does us
in right, it messes us up mentally. Uh So, Yeah,
keep a list on hand and cross out the items
in a red pen and keep a physical list when
they've been completed, so you can throw a mini celebration
(27:48):
and then and then remember how far you've come and
if you need a quick win, which quick wins always helpful.
So for instance, let's say you want to to make
that six mile run happen, get out and run today,
even if it's just a tenth of a mile. Um.
But yeah, check out episode two sixty. We we did
an episode called seven Ways to Save More this week,
and we really wanted to give people a way to
(28:08):
do one thing a day for seven days to be
able to save more and spend less. And that's a
good resource for you as you want to accelerate that
progress because there's just something really important about getting that
first win under your belt. I feel like Matt, one
win is indicative of another one. Sometimes you get on
a roll momentum is underrated. It can be a game changer. Yeah,
there's nothing like breaking that losing streak, right, and dude,
(28:30):
don't forget about the fund as well, the emergency fund.
Having cash in the bank is Yeah. We we feel
it's one of the biggest differences between stress just completely
dominating every thought versus your ability to learn from what
your stress might be teaching you. Right, So maybe you're
thinking like that, you know that credit card debt and
stressing you out. I get it, and I know you
want to pay it off as soon as possible. But
having money on hand, starting with the two thousand, four
(28:53):
hundred and sixty seven dollars that we like to see
that takes precedent even over high interest rate credit card debt,
and so make sure to keep that around. Uh. Really,
it's like a soothing bomb to know that you've got
liquid funds available should you need them. Yeah, that's a
super practical way to avoid some of the stressful situations
that that money mistakes can get you into. Just having
(29:16):
that cash in the bank account can eliminate a huge
percentage of the financial stressors, or at least minimize them
right and make them not seem like as big of
a deal as we make them out to be. Also,
to Matt, I think it's it's important for people to
ask for support from the people in their lives. That
can also help with the level of financial stress in
your life. And I'm not talking about hiring a financial planner.
(29:39):
I think that is one of the things maybe that
people go to instinctively, is they go pay someone big
bucks and they say, help me out. I'm stressed out.
But that doesn't always work the way you want it to.
So yeah, talking with maybe a partner or a trusted
friend can really help put things in perspective. Matt, we
just met with a couple recently over beers. They're about
to have a baby, and so they're getting more nervous
(30:00):
about their financial situation. They're like, are we doing this right?
And so yeah, I feel like you and I we
were able to offer some help, but we were also
able to reassure them that they are doing well with
their finances, that they're crushing it. Yeah, they're in a
great position, and like, sometimes you just need a dose
of confidence building kindness to lower the negative emotions that
you're feeling. You're stressed out with that perspective from someone
(30:21):
else can help you realize that you're doing a better
job than you thought you were. That outside input can
be invaluable and kind of yeah, lowering the level of
money stress in your life. Yeah, man, that outside input
can be helpful. I think journaling and going to counseling
could also be you know, some other ways to manage
your stress. Uh. And you know why we want to
encourage everyone to slow down and to be introspective. If
(30:43):
things are bad enough, it's true that you might need
the help of of of a nonprofit budget counselor. We
would recommend for folks to check out Money Management International
or NAPFA dot org. Uh. If you feel that you're
in over your head when it comes to debt. You know,
here on the show, our focus is on the money aspect,
but you know, sometimes the stress goes beyond just finances. Uh.
Mental health extends beyond those money conversations that that we
(31:06):
often have here on the show. And so the National
Alliance on Mental Illness they actually have resources on their
site to help if you need more than just a
budget counselor or a couple of friendly dudes to kind
of talk through your finances. With and we'll make sure
to link to all of those sites on our website. Yeah,
sometimes a budget counselor is you know, the right thing,
that's the person you need. Sometimes it's just a friend,
and sometimes it is you know, an actual license therapist
(31:28):
or a counselor. Um and Matt, I think you know
one other way in which we can lower the level
of stressing our lives that's often overlooked, and it's probably
because we are turning to things like self care a
little bit too much. We're turning on Netflix, or we're
scrolling through our phones in order to kind of not
focus on the things that are stressing us out. But
(31:49):
sometimes we're just way too focused on ourselves, Like we
see all the little things that might not be as
big of a deal as we're making them out to be.
And so I think one of the perfect antidotes is
taking time to serve someone else. That might mean having
a friend over for dinner who's been having a tough time.
Let's say they lived alone during the pandemic and they
are just massively in need of some social interaction. Um,
(32:11):
you know, making dinner for them and having a glass
of wine together and talking and just caring for them
in that way I think can be a huge d
stressor or volunteering in your community to tutor kids after school.
There really is like something almost magical about serving others
and how it affects our stress levels in a positive way.
I think it just puts everything in perspective, helping us
(32:32):
realize that there's a whole lot more going on in
this world than just our problem, whether it's money based
or or something else. Yeah, but I think volunteering and
service projects, um and and just caring for someone else,
whether it's a neighbor or a friend really well is
definitely a way to help mitigate some of the stresses
that we're feeling. Yeah. I think when we're able to
remove ourselves from our own situations sometimes and kind of
(32:52):
look at the world and ah, you know, with a
wider lens, it definitely provides some of that that missing
perspective in our lives. And so, man, you know that
kind of as we wrap things up here, we we
feel that it's impossible to kick stress to the curb
completely right, and when it comes down to it, we
think that the right amount of stress can actually be
a motivating tool for good in our lives. Um. You know,
like we feel that life is always throwing us curveballs,
(33:14):
but being in a tough financial spot that can actually
make life even more stressful. And we want money to
be a source of less stress in your life. So
instead of taking you know, the stress relief routes that
most Americans take, which, like we said, you know, it
only leads to worse outcomes and and even more stress.
We would rather see folks set more realistic expectations h
and to start working towards solutions that will will impact
(33:36):
your mental health and your finances in a positive way.
We don't want you to completely ignore stress in your life,
but we want you instead to listen to it. We
wanted to inform the decisions you make so that you're
working towards your goals. No doubt, Matt, stress can have
a good side, it turns out, and hopefully we can
use that stress as a motivator and not as yeah,
something that defeats us. Um. But let's move back to
the beer that we had on this episode. This one
(33:58):
was called Mouhito by Bolero Snort Brewery. He told Logger
with lime, juice and mint, what was your take on it? Uh? Beach. Like.
That's what I thought of as I was rinking this beer.
And I think the reason it reminds me of the
beach not just because of the mohito, but because it
tastes a lot like bud Light lime. And the only
time I think I've ever had that beer is actually
(34:18):
on the beach. Uh. I know, back in the day,
you're the only place it's okay to Yeah, so, uh,
you know, this was a different beer, a different take
on this style of lager. And here's the thing, I'm
not gonna hate on any specific type of style of beer,
because I think there's virtually a time and place for
any type of beer out there. It was fun to
enjoy this one today. You know, temperatures are definitely warmer
(34:39):
around uh here in Atlanta. I thought this one was good,
but I think I would have enjoyed it even more
if I was sitting there with my toes in the sand. Yeah,
everything tastes better with your toes in the sand. I
think that's what Corona at least is banking on with
their and the way they do their commercials. But yeah,
I thought this this beer was had a refreshing factor
for sure, right because like mint and lime, those those
two ingredients just to me, they dream refreshing. But it
(35:02):
was light and it did taste a little bit like
a beer moheat um. Like I think they got what
they were going for. But yeah, for me, this wasn't
my jam um in a big way. I would say
I probably wouldn't pick this up again at the bottle shop,
but uh, it was. I agree. If if I was
on the beach, I'd feel differently about it. I'd probably
be down with this. It's just not a beer that
I want to drink within the four walls of my
(35:22):
home or our podcasting studio totally. Well, that's the thing.
Like there's beers like we we've taken really good beers
to the beach before, like when we go to the
beach with our families, and we've had really good beers
on the beach before, and I'll tell you what, I
did not enjoy them nearly as much out there in
the sun, sweating, you know, with the ocean, you know,
out before you it's like too much and so yeah, yeah, yeah,
there's there's almost too much flavor and so the time
(35:43):
in the place that you enjoy a beer that has
everything to do with the ultimate satisfaction of the beverage.
But even still, man, I'm glad that you and I
got to share this one on the show today, and
that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners will be
able to find our show notes up on our website
at how some money dot com. That's right, So until
next time, best friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're discussing using financial stress to your advantage. Yeah,
(00:26):
I mean financial stress, or honestly stress in general. I
think that that's something that most people are going to think,
just right off the bat, that is something that they
want to avoid. Right. It's it's almost like if you
get sick, it's like it is getting sick ever a
good thing. It's something that you pretty much want to
always make sure that doesn't happen to you. But during
this episode, man, we're gonna talk about stress in a way,
uh and specifically stress when it comes to our money.
(00:49):
And you know, obviously there's the obvious kind of downsize
to it, but we're gonna talk about the upsides, the
upshots to financial stress and how we can use it
to further us along down our path of personal using
something that's commonly perceived to be negative as an advantage.
I like that we're gonna talk about that today. But
before we get to that, man, I want to mention
that my wife just bought a smart watch. Oh your wife,
(01:11):
did you had like this cheapo watch on here in
the notes? And I thought maybe you got a new
one now, so I think I've we we've talked before,
how I am kind of against the smart watch, at
least for myself in my own life on my wrist.
I don't really want another screen to be checking, although
some people have actually said that having a smart watch
actually means you check your phone less often because you
can like quickly glance at your watch and then you're
done with it. But it's still a screen, Yeah, and
(01:34):
you're still being distracted from whatever you're doing. Yeah, I'm
with you. So I'm gonna avoid it for the time being.
But my wife, she said, well, she she she started
doing some research and she was just interested in potentially
getting a smart watch. You know, the name brand ones.
They're kind of expensive and right, yeah, something like that
Apple watch whatever. I think so, and you know, she's
gotten Android, so I don't even think those play nicely together.
(01:56):
Something that was even a possibility. She's got to get
that Samsung on her wrist. I think she would have. Yeah,
she'd have to get one of the andwer watches, like
Google makes one, Samsung makes one. But it turns out
that there are a lot of like non name brand
smart watches out there now. Too, and the technology has
gotten a whole lot better at the cheap end of
the spectro and so yeah, so she got a one
(02:17):
off Amazon. I'll link to the one that she purchased
in the show notes. But she's loving it because some
of the I think additional benefits of having one of
the really nice name brand ones she doesn't care about.
She really wants this to track steps, heart rate, monitor
her sleep and it has a lot of those those functions.
She can retext on it too. Um. And so yeah,
there's another watch. I forget what the name brand of
(02:38):
hers is. Again, I said, well, we'll link to in
the show notes. But Wise is another brand we've talked about. Wise.
They've got some cool stuff, like some cool cheap headphones,
so um, you know, they do home security incredibly cheap.
Instead of getting the Nest came or some of the
different camera setups in your home that typically costs like
like a hundred two hundred bucks for these cameras. Wise, Man,
those cameras are bucks. You actually and me onto them
(03:00):
last year. Yeah, so so those are great. By the way,
it's spelled w y z E and you Well, we'll
link to wis is in the show notes as well.
But yeah, the cool thing is that she didn't have
to spend very much and it's got the functionality she's
looking for. And I think sometimes we just assume that
we need the top of the line or the brand
new thing that cost three dollars in order to be happy,
in order to get the things we need. And Emily
was like, well, what am I looking for? Let me
(03:21):
read the reviews, let me, you know, sort through a
bunch of different watches and find one that is relatively
inexpensive that's gonna have the functionality that I actually need,
not all the stuff that I don't. Um. So, yeah,
we'll see how long at last, you know, smart watch
might last for a year, may not last very long,
maybe not even that long. We'll put it on the calendar.
Maybe a year from now, we'll check back in and
(03:41):
maybe Emily can come on give us her little smart
watch update. But but dude, I'm with you. So the
only thing that I feel like I've ever considered getting
a smart watch for is I've heard that you can like,
they buzz, like, they can vibrate, and I would love
a solution where I could have an alarm set specifically
in the morning so that when I wake up, it
doesn't wake up eat because in order for it to
be loud enough for me to hear, it's oftentimes, you know,
(04:03):
loud enough for her to hear as well, and she
kind of hates that. I try to get up super quietly.
But if I just had a little smart watch on
my wrist and it buzz and that, you know, that's
how I was able to wake up, I think that
could be. That could be pretty cool. Can I tell
you the number one feature of this watch that she
got though? What So she's constantly misplacing her phone and
she's always asking me to call her phone so she
(04:23):
can find it. This smart watch has like a locate
my phone feature. So dude, my life has already gotten
way better because she watch. Well, I mean even iPhones
are I feel like most phones have that feature. But
you just said, I mean, you have to sit down
at a computer log in that wet whereas I guess
with that watch is just already on her. She just
pushes a button exactly kind of like beeps off in
the distance. It's made us both much happier night. But yeah,
(04:45):
all right, Matt, let's mentioned the beer that we're having
on today's show. This one is from Bolero Snort Brewery.
It's called a mouhito. It's a logger with lime juice
and mint. We'll give our thoughts on this one at
the end of the episode. This was a brewer out
of New Jersey. I had never heard of before. It
just kind of picked it up on a whim. I
just noticed that it's a Mouhito, not Mohito. They've got
a little cow cattle theme going on, I guess with
their brewery. But yeah, man, looking forward to enjoying this
(05:06):
one and sharing our thoughts at the end of the episode.
For now, let's get onto the topic of hand. We
are talking about how you can use financial stress to
your advantage. And Matt, I know you've never done this.
Have you ever said anything really dumb? Yes? But I
am doing it less and less as good as I age.
I'm getting wiser. Well. I think like I've definitely said
(05:27):
a lot of dumb things. One because I just have
this propensity to talk, and I think when you talk more,
you say more dumb things. If I shot my mouth
a little more, I probably would say fewer, But then
I sometimes make it worse because I try to explain,
you know, where I was coming from, and then people
are like, that doesn't make it any better, and they're
just give me a little little confused. I think we've
all been there, right, we all had that kind of
(05:49):
like foot in the mouth moment, like, oh, man, if
I just shut up five minutes ago, I'd be in
a much better spot with this person, in this situation. Whatever.
Maybe maybe it was like to a teacher after you
got a bad grade on a test and you somehow
talk to yourself into a d from us, you know,
like because that's how bad it went. Um. But yeah,
I think if we had just stopped at the first
idiotic thing, it would have turned out better for us
(06:10):
and humans, Matt, We're anxious creatures and money is one
of the most stressful topics we face. That's why we
wanted to talk about this today. It's not always a
poor money decision that leads to uh significantly higher stress levels.
Often it's the reaction that we have when we mess
up that creates these compounding effects that creates more stress
(06:30):
in our lives. And so, yeah, we want to talk about,
like how do we eliminate stress or mitigate stress in
our lives? And then also maybe in some ways use
that stress to our advantage in the future. Yeah, and
and of course, you know, it's important to note that
stress does have some positive benefit in our lives. You know,
it doesn't exist for no reason. But it's crucial for
us to make some changes though, so that you know,
(06:52):
our anxiety over money, that it doesn't cause us to
curl up into a ball unable to take any positive
steps that can help us to move in the right direction.
This is idle in order to you know, keep it
from becoming a full blown personal crisis. And of course,
you know, in the last fifteen months they have been
especially stressful. But even before the pandemic, we saw that
Northwestern Mutual they actually did a study back in sixteen
(07:13):
and they found that a five percent of Americans feel
anxious about their finances. And the American Institute of Stress,
which is I gotta imagine that's an interesting place to work.
It's either the chilliest or the most stressful place to work.
I'm not sure it's on how they tackler the stress,
but they say that the number two cause of stress
in America is you guessed it, money At it's it
was actually just one percent point behind something, uh, you know,
(07:36):
really minor. The future of our nation work comes in
at number three after that. But it's worth pointing out
that a lot of folks are dealing with some amount
of financial stress. We want you to know that you're
not alone. Yeah, obviously it plagues a huge amount of people,
and Matt, I think we already know this. So we're
gonna talking about some of the positive benefits of financial
stress in your life. I know, actually there are there
(07:58):
are some. It sounds counterintuitive, but also talk about how
stress can be bad, right, and people probably already know
some of this stuff, but there's but this, this here
is a little reminder, right that overwhelming amounts of stress
can have a massive negative impact on our health and
on our relationships. That stress can lead to things like
cardiovascular disease, ulcers, and worse and unmanageable. Stress takes a
(08:19):
toll on the physical body as well. Not I even
saw a recent study that found that overworked individuals are
more stressed and it leads to a lot of premature
deaths in our country. So, yeah, the negative realities of
stress are real. It takes a toll on us, but
it also takes a toll on our relationships. When we're
overly stressed about anything we're we're more likely to take
(08:40):
it out on the people that we love the most,
and that leads to like messed up relationships and in
many cases, consistent money stress can rek havoc on a marriage.
Money fights are the second leading cause of divorce, and
almost half of couples that have fifty dollars or more
in consumer debt say that money is the leading cause
of arguments in their homes. That's a big deal. Stress
(09:00):
is obviously causing a lot of strife for a lot
of people. Yeah, that's right, And you know, the reactions
that we have to the stressors in our lives can
just make things worse. According to the American Psychological Association,
the top stress relieving activities are watching TV for over
two hours, uh, serving the Internet, napping, eating, drinking, and smoking.
(09:20):
Uh So, you know, basically, it's just a laundry list
of things that might be okay and and you know,
in extreme moderation, maybe maybe not the smoking because that's
never actually a good thing, But the rest of them
are okay in moderation. But we're over indulging in all
of them because Americans are just so stressed out, and
so money troubles are a big part of what gets
(09:41):
us to that point where we feel like we need
these different coping mechanisms. Yeah, it's like, um, so stressed out,
the only thing I can think of doing is popping
in the couch and watching two and a half hours
of Netflix, right, which is essentially ignoring the stress, right,
Like you're you're basically running from it. You're you're not
facing the problems and instead you're just pretending that it
doesn't exist, which, um only makes the problem worse in
(10:02):
almost every case. And we've talked about this as well before.
But sometimes we spend too much money because we're stressed out,
and spending spreeze, you know, or retail therapy is what
it's sometimes called, can be an attempt to basically wallpaper
over the emotions that we're feeling. But that also makes
things worse. Right. Some folks actually at Duke University, they
found what they do, they do a lot of great
(10:22):
like behavioral money work there. They found that instead of
stress spending, people should instead try stress saving. And that
feels that, Yeah, I can get behind that too, but
I'm sure a lot of a lot of people listening
are like that, yeah, that what does that do for?
Yeah it sounds great, but that doesn't actually relieve stress.
And you know, I can understand why you might respond
that way. But but but the interesting thing is what they
(10:44):
got to the root of is that spending it actually
puts you in a worse hole. Right, But the behavioral
final folks are Dukes said that the main benefit we
get from the act of spending is the act of
actually making a decision, picking something out, buying it. Boom,
it's on our the way to our house. Basically like
the autonomy you have over your life. Yeah. Yeah, that's
the part of spending that feels good. It's not necessarily
(11:05):
even getting the item right. And so their solution was
to say that instead of purchasing that item, transfer that
exact amount of money to your savings. It gives you
the same satisfaction but benefits you obviously in a more
positive way, and your money going to Amazon or some
other you know, online retailer. That money is going into
your savings account, but you're actually physically doing something, You're
(11:25):
taking an action. And so yeah, if if Duke and
how the money can combine efforts and make stress saving
a thing. I think that'd be awesome. Yeah, so that's
a nice little action step. A little takeaway early in
the episode, which doesn't always happen, how the money. But
you know, all of these things are all the traditionally
negative views towards stress, right, Like, we we don't want
(11:45):
you to be overwhelmed and stressed out, and definitely not
because of money issues. But we think that there's actually
a much better way to view the stress in our lives.
You know, we think that you can actually put stress
in a positive light. Uh, maybe it's less about conquering
and combating stress, right, it's not something that we're just
trying to overcome. What if you're able to discover how
stress will allow you to get ahead with your money
(12:07):
and so we'll talk more about that right after this break.
All right, now, let's get to kind of some of
the heart of what we wanted to cover on this episode.
Le taking into the meat. Yeah, let's talk about stress
and how it can actually be good and benefit you potentially.
(12:28):
Um So, yeah, before we talked about how you respond
when financial stress hits. We're gonna kind of get some
practical steps on that later. It's important to point out
that stress isn't an inherently terrible thing. Like when we're stressed,
the purpose of the physiological response of our body is
to overcome whatever obstacles might be in our way. Ourselves
are releasing dopamine and adrenaline so that we actually have
(12:51):
a boost of energy and alertness. And this is like
the fight or flight response we all learned about an
elementary school, right, And it's like when when someone challenges
you to a fight, either like you get so pumped
up you punch them in the nose, or you run away.
I usually ran away. You gets bumps and said, all
the hair on your arm stands on end. Yep, it
makes you look bigger. I still ran away. That's always
(13:12):
how I handled I fight's growing up and still to
this day. But they happened, Um, they never really happened
growing up either, Let's be honest. But yeah, this is
like how our bodies naturally respond to conflict, and really
what we want to talk about in this episodes. How
do we use that response, that physiological response when it
comes to how stress impacts our lives. How do we
use that not to our detriment, not to curl up
(13:33):
in a ball, but actually to use it to our advantage. Yes,
and so maybe it's not overcoming financial stress, but maybe
it's more utilizing stress to overcome financial obstacles. Right. It's
sort of like Judo, you know, like the martial arts, right.
I heard about it. Never did it karate though, for
like I don't know, maybe three months and it still
didn't serve you. Well, I guess in those little on
this playground scuffles, didn't know I broke one board though,
(13:55):
that's my claim to fame. I still wanted to do
that as a kid, you know, like you'd see kids
on TV swear they get special boards for weak kids,
like they do. But okay, so it's like Judo, right,
and so if we can use the momentum and weight
of stress that we encounter against the negative and the
more unhealthy behaviors that were that were tempted to adopt,
(14:16):
then we will be able to see incredible growth in
our lives. Uh. And so kind of like extending that
metaphor as we think of our bodies. You know what
happens when you lift weights or you work out that resistance,
say of a kettle bell like that right there? That
is stress, but the same stress is actually what causes
our muscles to grow, and so we wanted to mention
this because the proper amount of stress in our lives
(14:36):
makes us stronger in the same thing is also true
of our finances. Yeah, man, especially like when when we
think back to the periods in our life when we
were performing at the highest levels, like we can probably
bet that there was some amount of stress in our lives. Um,
And I think I think back to school, right, I
remember doing a couple of overnighters, and like I didn't
realize how many books I could read and maybe how
(14:58):
much and how much information I can remember eyes until
getting that great and graduating, maybe what was dependent on it.
Like I almost needed that challenge like that, I'm a
I'm a procrastinator to the core, and so I needed
to be kind of like pushed up against the wall
in order to like you know, give my stress levels
raised so that I could react accordingly. Yeah, I felt
that way when it came to a scholarship. I mean
I was getting ready to lose a big scholarship, and man,
(15:19):
talk about me buckling down and actually getting the grades
I needed to when money was on the line. Yeah,
I studied. Yeah, and like I think to other people,
maybe they never knew just how creative they could be
until a project at work, let's say, for instance, required
a completely different way of viewing the problem. And then
when it comes to our finances, a lot of people
probably never realized how little money they could live on
(15:41):
until they lost a job they were out of work,
or maybe they never realized how much they could earn
until they had set a goal to save up a
down payment on a house and they're like, I really
want to do that in the next two years. I've
got to earn more money to get there, all right,
How am I gonna make this happen? Um? And So
I think sometimes you have those stressful situations, they create
the ability in us that otherwise, if we're just kind
(16:02):
of hanging out at a more relaxed pace, we're not
forced to get creative. We're not forced to work harder,
you know, we're not forced to think about things differently.
And it's not that stress is always good, but that
kind of stress can be a huge motivator. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's a good thing because it shows us
that we care, right, It's something that we're connected to
because if we didn't feel stressed towards something that, you
(16:23):
know that was kind of pushing up in our lives. Well,
that just means we're kind of apathetic to whatever that
thing is. And so I think I see it as
a healthy amount of concern, right, Like that's kind of
how we're trying to view stress here. We're trying to
view it through that lens. But of course, you know,
it's important to point out that, like we're making an
argument here that a proper amount of stress in our lives,
in healthy doses like that is beneficial. You know, Like
(16:44):
it kind of makes me think of just kind of
like filling up your cup at the sink, getting some water,
just a little bit of you know, some of that water,
a little bit of stress in our lives. It can
I think it can go a long way. Uh. That's
a lot different than trying to like drink from a
fire hydrant. Right. It's hard to grow and to make
progress with our money when we're constantly facing just an
overwhelming barrage of financial stressors in our life. But please
(17:05):
please tell me you've never tried to drink from a
fire now, but you've heard people talking about, Yeah, I
just wonder if someone's actually trying just too much um
like it's so for instance, like we don't want someone
in a vicious cycle of only paying the minimums on
their credit cards because you've got too many financial obligations
like this would be an instance of bad stress that
leads to poor decisions and outcomes. Earlier, Joe, before the break,
(17:27):
you talked about couples who when faced with constant stress
in their lives, how that can lead to the relationship
uh suffering. We think that with the right amount of
stress that you would be amazed at the amount of
work that you'd be able to get done, like specifically
with like with a couple right where you know you
got your partner when you feel a little bit of
stress and you both are on board, and it forces
you to talk about say your your money that I
(17:47):
don't think you can help but to be more efficient,
to spend wisely with your dollars, or to you know,
to start earning more money. But if the stress is
too much and it's constant, that's when it can be
negative in our lives. And that's when when I think
it can often lead us to take some of those
unhealthy behaviors and where we resort to some of those
vices as we're trying to escape that stress. Yeah, letting
that stress overwhelm you is the worst place you can
(18:09):
find yourself, really and and so so, Matt, I think
you know, we've we've kind of tried to reframe how
we view financial stress in our lives, at least to
a certain degree, that it's not all negative. Some of
it can be good. It can actually cause us to
rise to new heights. And it's important to recognize how
that stress is going to allow us to achieve financial
goals that we've set for ourselves. Right, And it's really
(18:29):
helpful to focus on the positive goals instead of only
focusing on the negative, stressful steps that might take to
get there. Right. For for example, it might be difficult
to constantly be saying to yourself, don't spend too much
money on the credit cards this month, um, when instead
maybe we should be focusing on why we're wanting to
slim down the budget in the first place. Maybe it's
(18:50):
two for the first time, have a decent working emergency fund,
that financial margin, that breathing room that's so important, right,
Or it's this goal to finally be able to take
a vacation. Maybe it's been a few years. Um, it's
probably been at least a year for for all of us.
But yeah, like that, that's a great goal for a
lot of people who who may be saying, I need
to save up two thousand dollars to take a vacation
(19:11):
this year, but it's been so hard in years past,
and our family we really really need it. Been focusing
on that goal first, the end goal, instead of all
the little things it's going to take to get there
at the beginning at least reframes some of the actions
that you're gonna have to think about later. It makes them,
I think, less daunting, right man. And here's the thing too.
I know that we're talking about stress in a sort
(19:31):
of very clinical, kind of unemotional way, but it's worth
mentioning that financial stress it's not always rational, right. It's
it's difficult to kind of be out in the real
world experiencing the you know, the day to day things
that we're faced with in our lives and to be
this kind of straightforward and clinical about it. Um. And
you know, we're actually gonna talk with Michelle Singletary next week,
and she's been writing about money for decades. She's incredibly frugal,
(19:53):
and I think probably because of that, she admits to
having anxiety when it comes to spending on things that
she's been diligently saving. Four it's something that there's a
there's almost like a disconnect between the head knowledge of
you know, understanding something like the way we're talking about
it right now, versus putting that knowledge into action. And
so for for Michelle, the difficulty lies and being able
to enjoy some of what she's actually worked hard in
(20:14):
order to achieve. Yeah, I feel like financial stress isn't
always because someone's living paycheck to paycheck, um, And for
somebody like Michelle and kind of like for myself, I
feel like that's that's super evident because even when you
are frugal and you've handled money well for a long
period of time, like all the numbers point to the
fact that you really shouldn't be that stressed out, Like
you're saving a good portion of what you make, your
(20:35):
investments are looking good, um. But still, I think if
you have that hyper frugal gene like you, you also
have to work to overcome some of the stresses that
money can bring in your life. And maybe you're stressing
about things that you really don't need to be And
I know that's yeah, that's can be the case in
my life as well, where I need to work to
combat some of those stressors. But in real life, like
in the moment when I'm feeling those things, like, it's
(20:59):
it's not easy, right, It's not easy to to do
that self talk and say, you know what, it's okay,
let's look at the numbers. Uh, the emotion. It can
be really difficult to combat the emotion that you're feeling
with the numbers on the page. Yeah, it takes work
to control how we feel about the financial situations that
we have gotten ourselves. And you know that we find
ourselves in into a certain extent, like we have to
(21:19):
be willing to kind of rein in our emotions and
and I think viewing stress is something that we can
harness like that will allow us to take control of
not only our lives, but our money too. And so,
now that we've reframed you know what we think is
a better way to view financial stress, right after the break,
we're going to dive into some practical ways that will
allow you to transform that stress into for progress with
(21:42):
your money. Alright, we're back from break. We're talking about
financial stress and how you can actually use it to
your advantage. And Matt, So, we've talked about how stress
is traditionally viewed as a negative thing that should be
(22:02):
avoided at all costs. But I think sometimes when we
think about stress that way, Um, if we just want
everything in life to be super easy, we never have
to rise to the challenge. Stress, in many ways, in
some forms, can be a helpful motivator. And like also too,
we've talked about how rewiring the way that we think
about stress can help us get ahead. Now let's zero
(22:22):
in on some of the specific ways that we can
use stress for good in our lives and to be
helpful for our finances. Yeah, so first you want to
identify you know what we're gonna call the trouble spots. Right,
it's hard to manage stress that you might be experiencing
when you're not even sure what's causing it. And so
in order to do this, we would we think that
tracking your spending that is really important in the step
(22:43):
if you aren't already doing that, right, because how can
you figure out the trouble spots if you aren't doing
the basic financial necessity. Finding some clarity around the biggest
money culprits in your life that need your attention is
really important. And then after that, once you have tracked
your money, that's when you can create a plan to
tell cool those different culprits one by one. Yeah, man,
I feel like looking at the numbers. Actually it's like
(23:04):
the exact opposite of what I said before the break,
But sometimes it actually can be distressing. We've almost like
built up this problem in our heads, but we don't
know how big the problem is or what it is
if we don't know the numbers. And so I think
you're right identifying some of those trouble spots, you know. Yeah,
getting specific with what the problem is is like huge
in the attempt to remedy it, because otherwise it's sort
(23:27):
of like this vague malaise hanging over your financial situation,
right because you don't exactly know what's wrong, but you
know something's wrong, but you gotta put in the work
to actually figure out what it is. Yeah, it's like
I know my money sucks, but I don't know how bad,
like how bad the situation is, and so or and
maybe it's not as bad as you think, and that
might be distressing in and of itself, So I agree, Yeah,
(23:48):
identifying the trouble spots is key. It should be the
first thing that you're doing in order to try to
distress your financial situation. And you mentioned Matt having a plan,
which is, you know, in financial terms, the plan is
the budget. Yeah, planned for your money. That's a budget,
that's right, Yeah, And so yeah, one of our favorite
budgeting apps called You Need a Budget or wine app
for short. They conducted a survey and they found that
(24:09):
a huge majority of their users, three out of four,
who had a zero based budget, which means all their
dollars are spoken for. Every single month, they go to
specific areas of their financial life, whether it's saving, spending, investing,
paying off debt, and then if they checked that budget
on a weekly basis, they had little to know financial stress. So, like,
even when you're in a good spot financially, it's still
(24:31):
possible to feel overwhelmed, like I talked about, Like I
get there, and I know a lot of fellow money
nerds who feel the same way. They feel stressed about
their finances even though they're doing good with their money.
But it's so much easier, I think to avoid burnout
when your budget is working well, when you have a
game plan, and when you're consistently checking in on it.
So yeah, tracking your spending, identifying those trouble spots. But
(24:53):
then also you know, having that budget and checking in
on it regularly, that's a way to be more in
tune with what's actually happening in you're finding too and
it's gonna like, yeah, lower the stress level in almost
every case, that's right, man. And after that, we would
recommend for folks just to tackle one thing at a time.
Once you've created a plan for your money, we want
you to be realistic about the time that's actually gonna
take to work on that list of the different trouble
(25:15):
spots that you're working on. Uh makes me think of Rome, right.
Rome wasn't built in a day. In your financial ship,
it's not going to be righted in one single day either.
We want everyone out there to be kind to yourselves.
It's you know, likely took you years to get into
the financial hole that you might have found yourself in. Uh,
and it's probably gonna take some time for you to
climb out. But trying to remedy say a dozen different
(25:36):
financial trouble spots in a week or two will likely
lead to unmanageable stress. And so again, a small amount
of stress is good like that informs you, but an
unmanageable and overwhelming amount of stress can lead to some
some tough spots. So focus on the most important trouble
spot and kick that one's butt, and then after that
move on to number two. It's also helpful to be
organized and making sure that you're sitting aside the proper
(25:58):
amount of time to work on your finances as well,
and so commit and include a weekly counter slot so
that you're working on your finances regularly, not trying to
accomplish everything and just one fell swoop, but do it
methodically and with some regularity. Yeah. Man, it's good to
have high standards. It's good to have big goals that
you're shooting for. But I think, yeah, if you if
you set the bar too high, Uh, let's say you're like,
(26:18):
it's your first time pole vaulting and you said they
literally set the bar really high, Um, You're you're probably
gonna like crash into it with your head or something
like that, and that might completely eliminate your desire to
do pole jumping anymore. And I think it's that way
with with a whole lot of things. If you're like,
I want to run uh six minute mile, and that
that's a that's a great goal, just realize that if
you haven't ran in like eight years, you're probably not
(26:42):
going to hit that anytime soon. Again, it's this great
long term goal, but but you have to be realistic
about the time frame to get there so that you
don't get completely bummed out in the process and forget
it all together, just scrap the goal together. You want
to make sure you approach your money in the same
way that you're not like, I'm gonna pay off all
this credit card debt in a month and a half
when it's actually if you look at it in what
(27:03):
fits into your budget, it's gonna take, you know, fourteen months.
You want to be realistic so that you can actually
achieve those goals. It's important to Matt as we're you know,
attempting to achieve those goals, to track our progress along
the way, because it feels really really good when you
do make progress, like when you do pay off that
first credit card of three or four right that you
have a lot of a balance on. But really it's
(27:25):
it's easy, I think, to allow stress to maybe show
up and like Steven Seagal style or Chuck Norris style,
kicked down your mental door rather than like politely knocking
and kind of being that accelerator. It just does us
in right, it messes us up mentally. Uh So, Yeah,
keep a list on hand and cross out the items
in a red pen and keep a physical list when
they've been completed, so you can throw a mini celebration
(27:48):
and then and then remember how far you've come and
if you need a quick win, which quick wins always helpful.
So for instance, let's say you want to to make
that six mile run happen, get out and run today,
even if it's just a tenth of a mile. Um.
But yeah, check out episode two sixty. We we did
an episode called seven Ways to Save More this week,
and we really wanted to give people a way to
(28:08):
do one thing a day for seven days to be
able to save more and spend less. And that's a
good resource for you as you want to accelerate that
progress because there's just something really important about getting that
first win under your belt. I feel like Matt, one
win is indicative of another one. Sometimes you get on
a roll momentum is underrated. It can be a game changer. Yeah,
there's nothing like breaking that losing streak, right, and dude,
(28:30):
don't forget about the fund as well, the emergency fund.
Having cash in the bank is Yeah. We we feel
it's one of the biggest differences between stress just completely
dominating every thought versus your ability to learn from what
your stress might be teaching you. Right, So maybe you're
thinking like that, you know that credit card debt and
stressing you out. I get it, and I know you
want to pay it off as soon as possible. But
having money on hand, starting with the two thousand, four
(28:53):
hundred and sixty seven dollars that we like to see
that takes precedent even over high interest rate credit card debt,
and so make sure to keep that around. Uh. Really,
it's like a soothing bomb to know that you've got
liquid funds available should you need them. Yeah, that's a
super practical way to avoid some of the stressful situations
that that money mistakes can get you into. Just having
(29:16):
that cash in the bank account can eliminate a huge
percentage of the financial stressors, or at least minimize them
right and make them not seem like as big of
a deal as we make them out to be. Also,
to Matt, I think it's it's important for people to
ask for support from the people in their lives. That
can also help with the level of financial stress in
your life. And I'm not talking about hiring a financial planner.
(29:39):
I think that is one of the things maybe that
people go to instinctively, is they go pay someone big
bucks and they say, help me out. I'm stressed out.
But that doesn't always work the way you want it to.
So yeah, talking with maybe a partner or a trusted
friend can really help put things in perspective. Matt, we
just met with a couple recently over beers. They're about
to have a baby, and so they're getting more nervous
(30:00):
about their financial situation. They're like, are we doing this right?
And so yeah, I feel like you and I we
were able to offer some help, but we were also
able to reassure them that they are doing well with
their finances, that they're crushing it. Yeah, they're in a
great position, and like, sometimes you just need a dose
of confidence building kindness to lower the negative emotions that
you're feeling. You're stressed out with that perspective from someone
(30:21):
else can help you realize that you're doing a better
job than you thought you were. That outside input can
be invaluable and kind of yeah, lowering the level of
money stress in your life. Yeah, man, that outside input
can be helpful. I think journaling and going to counseling
could also be you know, some other ways to manage
your stress. Uh. And you know why we want to
encourage everyone to slow down and to be introspective. If
(30:43):
things are bad enough, it's true that you might need
the help of of of a nonprofit budget counselor. We
would recommend for folks to check out Money Management International
or NAPFA dot org. Uh. If you feel that you're
in over your head when it comes to debt. You know,
here on the show, our focus is on the money aspect,
but you know, sometimes the stress goes beyond just finances. Uh.
Mental health extends beyond those money conversations that that we
(31:06):
often have here on the show. And so the National
Alliance on Mental Illness they actually have resources on their
site to help if you need more than just a
budget counselor or a couple of friendly dudes to kind
of talk through your finances. With and we'll make sure
to link to all of those sites on our website. Yeah,
sometimes a budget counselor is you know, the right thing,
that's the person you need. Sometimes it's just a friend,
and sometimes it is you know, an actual license therapist
(31:28):
or a counselor. Um and Matt, I think you know
one other way in which we can lower the level
of stressing our lives that's often overlooked, and it's probably
because we are turning to things like self care a
little bit too much. We're turning on Netflix, or we're
scrolling through our phones in order to kind of not
focus on the things that are stressing us out. But
(31:49):
sometimes we're just way too focused on ourselves, Like we
see all the little things that might not be as
big of a deal as we're making them out to be.
And so I think one of the perfect antidotes is
taking time to serve someone else. That might mean having
a friend over for dinner who's been having a tough time.
Let's say they lived alone during the pandemic and they
are just massively in need of some social interaction. Um,
(32:11):
you know, making dinner for them and having a glass
of wine together and talking and just caring for them
in that way I think can be a huge d
stressor or volunteering in your community to tutor kids after school.
There really is like something almost magical about serving others
and how it affects our stress levels in a positive way.
I think it just puts everything in perspective, helping us
(32:32):
realize that there's a whole lot more going on in
this world than just our problem, whether it's money based
or or something else. Yeah, but I think volunteering and
service projects, um and and just caring for someone else,
whether it's a neighbor or a friend really well is
definitely a way to help mitigate some of the stresses
that we're feeling. Yeah. I think when we're able to
remove ourselves from our own situations sometimes and kind of
(32:52):
look at the world and ah, you know, with a
wider lens, it definitely provides some of that that missing
perspective in our lives. And so, man, you know that
kind of as we wrap things up here, we we
feel that it's impossible to kick stress to the curb
completely right, and when it comes down to it, we
think that the right amount of stress can actually be
a motivating tool for good in our lives. Um. You know,
like we feel that life is always throwing us curveballs,
(33:14):
but being in a tough financial spot that can actually
make life even more stressful. And we want money to
be a source of less stress in your life. So
instead of taking you know, the stress relief routes that
most Americans take, which, like we said, you know, it
only leads to worse outcomes and and even more stress.
We would rather see folks set more realistic expectations h
and to start working towards solutions that will will impact
(33:36):
your mental health and your finances in a positive way.
We don't want you to completely ignore stress in your life,
but we want you instead to listen to it. We
wanted to inform the decisions you make so that you're
working towards your goals. No doubt, Matt, stress can have
a good side, it turns out, and hopefully we can
use that stress as a motivator and not as yeah,
something that defeats us. Um. But let's move back to
the beer that we had on this episode. This one
(33:58):
was called Mouhito by Bolero Snort Brewery. He told Logger
with lime, juice and mint, what was your take on it? Uh? Beach. Like.
That's what I thought of as I was rinking this beer.
And I think the reason it reminds me of the
beach not just because of the mohito, but because it
tastes a lot like bud Light lime. And the only
time I think I've ever had that beer is actually
(34:18):
on the beach. Uh. I know, back in the day,
you're the only place it's okay to Yeah, so, uh,
you know, this was a different beer, a different take
on this style of lager. And here's the thing, I'm
not gonna hate on any specific type of style of beer,
because I think there's virtually a time and place for
any type of beer out there. It was fun to
enjoy this one today. You know, temperatures are definitely warmer
(34:39):
around uh here in Atlanta. I thought this one was good,
but I think I would have enjoyed it even more
if I was sitting there with my toes in the sand. Yeah,
everything tastes better with your toes in the sand. I
think that's what Corona at least is banking on with
their and the way they do their commercials. But yeah,
I thought this this beer was had a refreshing factor
for sure, right because like mint and lime, those those
two ingredients just to me, they dream refreshing. But it
(35:02):
was light and it did taste a little bit like
a beer moheat um. Like I think they got what
they were going for. But yeah, for me, this wasn't
my jam um in a big way. I would say
I probably wouldn't pick this up again at the bottle shop,
but uh, it was. I agree. If if I was
on the beach, I'd feel differently about it. I'd probably
be down with this. It's just not a beer that
I want to drink within the four walls of my
(35:22):
home or our podcasting studio totally. Well, that's the thing.
Like there's beers like we we've taken really good beers
to the beach before, like when we go to the
beach with our families, and we've had really good beers
on the beach before, and I'll tell you what, I
did not enjoy them nearly as much out there in
the sun, sweating, you know, with the ocean, you know,
out before you it's like too much and so yeah, yeah, yeah,
there's there's almost too much flavor and so the time
(35:43):
in the place that you enjoy a beer that has
everything to do with the ultimate satisfaction of the beverage.
But even still, man, I'm glad that you and I
got to share this one on the show today, and
that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners will be
able to find our show notes up on our website
at how some money dot com. That's right, So until
next time, best friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.