Ever wondered how to make financial plans so simple that even a fifth grader could understand them? Join us in this episode of Balanced Blueprints where Justin Gaines and John Prober share their insights on the art of uncomplicated financial planning. We tackle the challenges of finding reliable financial advice and the common pitfalls of relying on friends or family. Learn how to establish accountability within your circle once you've set a budget, and discover strategies to track and adjust your spending to avoid financial pitfalls.
But that's not all—we also dive into the delicate balance between financial discipline and treating yourself. Understand why it's essential to celebrate financial milestones, like taking a weekend trip after paying off a loan. We discuss the dangers of extreme approaches and advocating for a balanced and sustainable financial strategy. Finally, we emphasize the importance of accountability in relationships, especially in marriage, and how having an accountability partner can transform not just your finances, but also your health and fitness goals. Tune in for practical advice and relatable stories that will guide you on your journey to balanced financial freedom.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Balanced Blueprints podcast,
where we discuss the optimaltechniques for finances and
health and then break it down tocreate an individualized and
balanced plan.
I'm your host, justin Gaines,here with my co-host, john
Prober.
In this episode, john and Istep a little bit further away
from the numbers and talk moreabout the psychological,
emotional and relational aspectof creating the budgets,
(00:23):
maintaining your budgets andjust finding your way to that
financial freedom.
Thank you for listening.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
Yeah, it's funny.
I was at a cousin's weddingthis past weekend and he was in
the financial services industryfor a short while two, maybe
(00:47):
three years and had some mentorsin it and one of his mentors he
maintained a relationship withthe guy was at the wedding,
didn't know anybody else, and sowe just happened to bump into
each other at the water coolerand got talking and spent most
of the wedding party talking andhaving a good time.
But we got talking a lot abouthow your financial plan should
(01:11):
be very, very simple, easy tounderstand, able to explain to a
four-year-old type thing.
You know you should be able toexplain it.
you know four-year-old might bea little bit excessive, but you
should be able to explain it toa fifth grader and they should
be able to understand it and askyou know basic questions, and
you'd be able to explain theanswers to those questions.
And if it's more complex thanthat, then you know you're
(01:31):
probably doing something wrong.
And so we got talking about theaspects of how do, how do you,
make sure that you're making theright decisions?
How do you how do most peopleend up finding that financial
advisor or that financial mentorthat educates them through the
circles Doing all these things,how to jump through the hoops,
(01:54):
what things to do, what thingsnot to do, what's good advice,
what's bad advice.
And this gentleman specializeswith a lot of police departments
.
This gentleman specializes witha lot of police departments.
When the cops get out of theacademy then he helps them
figure out their comp plans, howthey should save for retirement
, what they should do workingwith—because they have pensions,
(02:15):
how to maximize that.
What should you be puttingaside outside of your pensions.
Make sure you're set up.
And he said you know, thetoughest conversations he has is
with the guys that when theywere in the academy and they
wanted advice, they turned totheir left shoulder and said,
hey, what are you doing?
turn to the right shoulder, saywhat are you doing, and then
(02:35):
everybody just agreed on whatthey would do and rest is
history, and a lot of you knowmost people don't have a
financial background becauseit's not taught in high school,
it's not taught in college.
Your financial education 90% ofthe time comes out of what your
parents taught you if theytaught you anything at all, if
they talked about money at alland that's just because it's
(02:56):
been perceived as taboo to talkabout wages.
It's been perceived as taboo totalk about income.
And so it's funny when you'rein a wedding setting and you're
talking to somebody, because atone point we actually talked
about oh, how much do you make?
What do you do?
And we were having thatconversation.
It wasn't rude, we didn't evenflinch or balk like whoa, why
are you asking that question?
(03:16):
It was because we're in thatspace.
We're talking about that.
Stuff is just normal, and wewere talking about it from.
You know, based on where eachof our respective incomes were.
Are there different taxstrategies that we're using in
order to offset and just make itso that we can get, you know,
financial gains quicker, or makeit so that we can lower a tax
bill to have more money toinvest or start a business or do
(03:39):
any of those sorts of things,and I guess you know long, long
story, short, short, and whatI'm kind of beating around on
the bush here is 90 of peopleget financial information from
their parents initially and thenafter that they start to get it
from their peers.
But we should be pausing,making sure that our peers are
(04:04):
financially educated and in aposition to actually make that
judgment, call that decision,give that advice.
But what the peers are good forso not every peer is
necessarily a good source ofinformation for financial
planning planning but what everypeer is good for you know every
(04:27):
peer that you have a solidrelationship with that you would
talk about these things withwhat they are good for is once
you've created the budget.
You know, say you've listenedto our podcast and you've done
the budget, you've done zerodollar budgeting and, like we
talked about a few weeks ago,where you have to not only
create the budget but actuallystay on top of, actually track,
look at your bank statements,make sure that you're actually
doing that.
What your peers are great foris that piece of it Making sure
(04:51):
that there's the accountabilitythat you actually went through,
tracked the numbers, made surethat you were on budget.
And if you weren't on budgetand you were over.
What are you doing in order tomake sure that that doesn't
happen again in the future?
What are you doing in order tomake sure that that doesn't
happen again in the future?
Because if you're fortunateenough to be in a position where
, okay, you were $200 overbudget, we'll just take that
(05:13):
money out of long-term savings,our emergency fund, move that
into the account so that wedon't overdraw anything, or you
may have had a buffer in youraccount, so it's not actually
that big of a deal.
You don't have to move anythingNow.
How do you make sure next monthyou replenish that?
Because most people end up infinancial trouble not because
they spent $5,000 one time over,that's because they overspent
$100 here, $200 there, and thenthey continue to do that every
(05:35):
single month for three yearsbefore it started to actually
get painful and they realizedthat, wow, I have a credit card
bill.
Now that's five thousanddollars and you know possibly
even more than that once youtake into account interest, and
you know if you're only payingminimums and how that's going to
grow and build over time.
And so it's those moves thatslowly move you into that
(06:01):
position of financial stress.
But just like when you'reworking out, going to the gym
and having an accountabilitypartner is what's going to allow
you to continue going to thegym, continue to make those
gains.
The same thing is true in yourfinancial position.
If you don't have somebody thatyou can be honest with, that
can look at your budget and lookat you actually writing in your
transactions, and look at yourbank statements and verify that
(06:23):
you're actually doing whatyou're saying you're doing and
you're not lying to yourself.
You're actually doing whatyou're saying you're doing and
you're not lying to yourself.
If you don't have somebody likethat in your financial journey,
it's going to take a lot morepersonal resilience and
dedication and discipline toactually execute on that
financial plan than it would ifyou had somebody right by your
side saying hey, you know yourbudget, you're pretty tight on
(06:47):
your budget this week.
Why are you going out to eatthis week?
Why don't we go to the grocerystore and said spend 15 to be
able to cook that meal that wewere going to eat out for, and
20, 30 and so having anaccountability partner on the
financial side, I think, issomething that is very rarely
discussed and talked about, butplays a crucial role in you
(07:10):
being able to be successful init.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Definitely.
I think it also plays into thefact that emotional regulation
and being that open, feelingsafe with people isn't talked
about at a young age or throughyour parents.
Maybe your parents didn't talkabout it, you don't learn about
it in school.
Because that's definitely atleast I think seen in today's
world of like being that openabout your financials, like you
(07:37):
said, even when you're at thewedding.
The setting made it a loteasier to talk about with
someone.
But normally I feel like peopleare a lot more closed, even
with close friends.
So it's like first you needthat ability to be able to be
seen and not embarrassed or feellike you're judged or you don't
or not get upset when yourfriend says that exact thing of
like why are you eating out?
(07:57):
Let's, you know, let's cookinstead, because I feel like a
lot of people just get triggeredinstead.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So it's definitely start even with like well, right
, and I think a lot of peopleget triggered because you know
there was I think it was five toseven years ago there was that
big push of you know yourStarbucks coffee is what's
making it so that you can't buya house, and you know it's,
you're overspending on that, andit was.
It was just such a hyperbolethat made it so that people just
(08:25):
didn't listen to it and justcompletely ignored it, because
they're like how is my tendollar cup of coffee making it
so I can't buy a house?
And I think if you, if you runthrough the financial picture,
the habit of spending tendollars on coffee once is not
impacting your ability to buy ahouse.
it's, it's not, however, if yourhabit is to buy that ten dollar
(08:45):
cup of coffee every single daybefore work that is impacting
your ability to buy a house, andthe reason being is that that
$10 cup of coffee every singleday go to work.
So even say it's only four outof the five days Say Friday
you're feeling good and youdon't need that cup of coffee.
That's $40 a week.
Most people will work 45 to 48weeks in the year.
(09:10):
The other ones they takevacation.
So we'll say when they're onvacation they don't spend that
money, which it's probably anexaggeration because more likely
than not, you're spending thatmoney spending more you're
spending it in different areas.
But we'll, just for sake ofargument, we'll take the 48
weeks and you know, ten dollarsa coffee and you're doing that
(09:33):
four days each week.
So just doing some quick mathhere 16, 19.
That's 1920 dollars now.
If you do that Now, if you dothat for 10 years, that's 20
grand and that's just the puredollars.
That's not interest, that's not, you know, putting into a high
(10:00):
yield savings and making 5% onthat.
And I can tell you that thehouses that I bought with FHA or
conventional first time homebuyer loans even just a
conventional owner-occupied homeyou're going to be at a 5% down
payment and so you can get intoa starter home for less than 20
grand.
You can do it.
I've done it myself Even withthe crazy high prices.
(10:23):
I've acquired property duringthe crazy high price markets
with owner-occup occupied downpayments and you can move into a
property for less than that$20,000 number.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Especially these days .
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, it is $10 a day.
Yes, it is four days a weekmost of the year.
And yes, it took me 10 years toget to that number.
Yes, it took me 10 years to getto that number.
But the point I'm trying tomake here is that it's the habit
that impacts the financialposition.
It's not necessarily the $10cup of coffee.
(11:00):
It's the habit of spending $10on a cup of coffee every single
day before work for 10 years andnot putting that money in
elsewhere.
I'm not saying that you can'thave Starbucks.
I'm not saying that youshouldn't indulge in these
things because that's anotherpart of the psychological
element of maintaining yourfinances and being in that
position is if you have a goalof deleveraging, clearing out
(11:27):
debts, and you say, okay, I wantto clear out debts, that's what
I want to do this year, that'smy goal, that's my New Year's
resolution is I'm going to clearout debts.
If you do that throughout theentire year and the next New
Year's resolution you makeanother financial goal that
requires you to be financiallyconservative and not go on
vacations, not spend money onextra things, not buy a cup of
(11:48):
coffee every single morning, notdo all of these things, and you
do that every single year.
Eventually, you're just goingto drown yourself out and just
drain yourself completely of theability to maintain your
financial freedom and yourfinancial trajectories, because
you're going to get to a pointwhere you're like what am I this
(12:09):
for?
Why am I giving up all thesethings?
And so you know there's theemotional balance there of
making sure that you have enoughlife satisfaction and you're
having enough life's pleasures.
That do cost money.
Not everything is free.
Hardly anything is free.
There are things you can do,but most things require you to
spend a little bit of money.
It's not about not spendingthat money.
(12:31):
It's about not spending thatmoney every single week, every
single day.
It's about building thosehabits so that you then use them
as a reward system, so that, asyou, if you're trying to pay
down debts, once you pay off oneof those cards, take the
payment that you're payingtowards that every single month
to pay it down and use thatpayment next month to go do
(12:52):
something fun to reward yourself.
It's not going to impact yourfinancial position one bit,
because you were rolling allthat money towards that payment
even if it was $100.
Say you were taking and you werejust paying an extra $100
towards your car loan and yougot your car loan paid off.
So now your car loan, and we'llgo super low numbers here.
Say you've had the car and youwere in a crazy long thing and
(13:14):
you had low rates, you werepaying $350 a month and you were
paying an extra $100 on that.
So you're paying $450 to get itpaid off Next month.
Go take a long weekend or justgo take a two-day trip and go
spend the night somewhere with afriend and reward yourself for
having that accomplishment.
Because if you do that, it'sgoing to, in your brain, connect
(13:38):
paying down debts with thesehighly enjoyable things that
you're doing.
If you do that, you're going toengage the reward system to
make it so that your brainstarts to think in a way where
it's like, okay, I'm going toachieve this goal financially
and then I'm going to havefreedom after it.
But if you constantly jump fromone goal to another and it's
(14:01):
always a matter of you know astarvation tactic of you know,
minimize my expenses.
Put all my money in this onebasket.
Don't spend any money anywhere,don't do anything, don't
overspend, don't go on vacation,don't take a weekend trip,
don't even buy a cup of coffee.
You're going to be so upsetwith the amount of money that
(14:22):
you're making, even if it's goodmoney, that you're just going
to say to heck with it.
I'm going to do whatever I wantand I'm not going to focus on
my budget anymore, and I'm notgoing to do any of these things
because you're going to be burntout.
So you have to find the balancethere.
No-transcript.
Stick with it for the long run.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, you see, today it's so focused on rough it
rough it being tough.
Delayed gratification that it'sthat that reward system has
really been lost yeah, and I'mnot saying that that's a bad
mindset, I'm just no it's giveand take.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think you should rough it.
I think you should, you know,delay gratification, because I
think there's way too muchinstant gratification but you
have to.
Part of delayed gratificationis that the gratification is
delayed yeah, it's noteliminated, it's delayed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah well, everything's always tipped to
one side or the other.
That's what I mean it's.
It's either instant or it'snever.
It's like right, just pick inthe middle.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
So yeah, and the hard part is is that because
everything's so polarized andyou know people operate in the
extremes, it's like it's equallythe problem for both sides.
If you're somebody who justconstantly delays gratification
and just never constantly pushesit off and never takes that
gratification, or you'resomebody who just instantly
(15:46):
takes it, those people arehaving opposite but equal
struggles.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I feel like I've seen people actually experience both
, because you fall into a cycleof, let's just say, being
motivated.
For example, you're doing lotsof instant gratification things,
you're not achieving your goalsscrolling on social media, so
then they'll flip to the.
I have to make up for all that.
I'm now going to do only workand not have any, you know,
(16:17):
because I need to counteract howmuch instant gratification I've
been taking in, how lazy I'vebeen being, so I feel like they
even experience they find?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
the balance that way.
If I'm on this side of theteeter-totter, let me just jump
on the other side of theteeter-totter which doesn't work
, yeah, and just keep going backand forth.
yeah, you're never creating abalance that way.
You're just, you know, buthopefully because I definitely
fell into that category of youknow I was on one side and then
I jumped to the other.
I, I think what you, you know,hopefully, what you're doing,
(16:46):
though, is you're jumping alittle less into the other side
each time, so that, eventually,you end up finding that happy
medium in the middle, whereyou're not jumping to the
complete polar extreme.
You're jumping, yeah, you'regoing a little bit that way and
pulling it back in and goingback and forth, but I think, if
(17:07):
you outline what your goal isand then attach the reward to it
and show yourself the timeline,your ability to stay in that
happy middle zone is a loteasier, because you can tell
yourself okay, once I pay thisoff, I'm going to get this.
The problem that I havepersonally is once I do off, I'm
going to get this.
The problem that I havepersonally is once I do this,
(17:30):
I'm going to get this or getthat, and I never get that.
I never give it to myself.
You know, I, I, I'm guilty ofit right now.
I said I was going to pay offone of these loans and then you
know I wasn't.
I was going to stop gettingmassages until I did this, pay
off these loans.
And now I've paid off the loansand I'm still like, eh, I could
use that same thing for this.
(17:51):
And it's like no, you need togo get a massage.
That's the thing you need to do.
You need to step into thatspace and actually give yourself
the reward.
Otherwise, the next time thatyou use that as the carrot, your
body is going to say that's nota real carrot, that's just.
It's just what you're tellingyourself.
You're just going to keeppushing it off.
So, you know, maybe after weget off this call, that's what
(18:12):
I'll have to do is schedulemyself a massage and, you know,
eat some of my own medicine heredefinitely and this is another
great way, I think, to pull inthe peers and you using other
people of like.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
like you said, you need to write down the goal and
the reward and maybe a timelinefor it, and your friends can
help you stay on track with thatand make sure you check up,
make sure you're staying ontrack with your timeline,
obviously adjust if needed, butthen also making sure you're get
your carrot.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right?
No for sure.
Having the accountabilitypartner on this is huge.
It's absolutely.
I mean, there's a reason whymarried couples grow their net
worth at a much faster pace thannon-married couples, and I
think the reason being is it'snot a dual income piece, because
even as non-married couples,you still have a dual income.
(19:03):
I think the difference is isthe attitude around it.
The attitude is that it's ourmoney, versus the split money
concept.
Now I'll back up a minute,because I am a huge proponent of
, even when you're married,having three accounts a joint
account and then two personalaccounts but it's the attitude
of what are we doing together toachieve this goal, and so the
(19:25):
minute somebody starts to veeroff target, the other party
steps in and says no, no, no,this is what we agreed to, this
is what we're doing and this isgoing to be our reward at the
end.
So let's make sure we stay ontrack so that we can get to this
reward and you have that checksand balance system.
I think you can do it withfriends if you have the right
relationship, if you share theright amount of information and,
(19:47):
most importantly, if you'rewilling to take the feedback.
Accountability partnersAccountability partners only
worth it if, when they actuallysay, hey, I'm recognizing this
and you said that you did notwant to be doing this, but you
are, if you react withaggression or being upset
towards them or you knowanything other than thank you, I
(20:09):
appreciate you pointing thatout to me and then taking the
habit to actually correct itit's not going to have that
benefit.
But when you're married, as longas you don't have a mindset of
divorce, when you're married,you know you're in it and so you
know, know you can be upsetthat they pointed that out, but
at the end of the day you haveto turn around and say I did say
(20:32):
that I do want that.
Let's, let's move forward,let's do something else now,
let's get right, let's get thisbandwagon moving.
And so you know thataccountability part is huge for
financials, health, health,fitness.
You know it really doesn'tmatter what category you go into
If you're trying to achievesomething.
Having an accountabilitypartner is a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
We hope this helps you on your balance freedom
journey.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Please share your thoughts in the comments section
below.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Until next time, stay balanced.
Welcome to the Balanced Blueprints podcast,
where we discuss the optimaltechniques for finances and
health and then break it down tocreate an individualized and
balanced plan.
I'm your host, justin Gaines,here with my co-host, john
Prober.
In this episode, john and Istep a little bit further away
from the numbers and talk moreabout the psychological,
emotional and relational aspectof creating the budgets,
(00:23):
maintaining your budgets andjust finding your way to that
financial freedom.
Thank you for listening.
We hope you enjoy the episode.
Yeah, it's funny.
I was at a cousin's weddingthis past weekend and he was in
the financial services industryfor a short while two, maybe
(00:47):
three years and had some mentorsin it and one of his mentors he
maintained a relationship withthe guy was at the wedding,
didn't know anybody else, and sowe just happened to bump into
each other at the water coolerand got talking and spent most
of the wedding party talking andhaving a good time.
But we got talking a lot abouthow your financial plan should
(01:11):
be very, very simple, easy tounderstand, able to explain to a
four-year-old type thing.
You know you should be able toexplain it.
you know four-year-old might bea little bit excessive, but you
should be able to explain it toa fifth grader and they should
be able to understand it and askyou know basic questions, and
you'd be able to explain theanswers to those questions.
And if it's more complex thanthat, then you know you're
(01:31):
probably doing something wrong.
And so we got talking about theaspects of how do, how do you,
make sure that you're making theright decisions?
How do you how do most peopleend up finding that financial
advisor or that financial mentorthat educates them through the
circles Doing all these things,how to jump through the hoops,
(01:54):
what things to do, what thingsnot to do, what's good advice,
what's bad advice.
And this gentleman specializeswith a lot of police departments
.
This gentleman specializes witha lot of police departments.
When the cops get out of theacademy then he helps them
figure out their comp plans, howthey should save for retirement
, what they should do workingwith—because they have pensions,
(02:15):
how to maximize that.
What should you be puttingaside outside of your pensions.
Make sure you're set up.
And he said you know, thetoughest conversations he has is
with the guys that when theywere in the academy and they
wanted advice, they turned totheir left shoulder and said,
hey, what are you doing?
turn to the right shoulder, saywhat are you doing, and then
(02:35):
everybody just agreed on whatthey would do and rest is
history, and a lot of you knowmost people don't have a
financial background becauseit's not taught in high school,
it's not taught in college.
Your financial education 90% ofthe time comes out of what your
parents taught you if theytaught you anything at all, if
they talked about money at alland that's just because it's
(02:56):
been perceived as taboo to talkabout wages.
It's been perceived as taboo totalk about income.
And so it's funny when you'rein a wedding setting and you're
talking to somebody, because atone point we actually talked
about oh, how much do you make?
What do you do?
And we were having thatconversation.
It wasn't rude, we didn't evenflinch or balk like whoa, why
are you asking that question?
(03:16):
It was because we're in thatspace.
We're talking about that.
Stuff is just normal, and wewere talking about it from.
You know, based on where eachof our respective incomes were.
Are there different taxstrategies that we're using in
order to offset and just make itso that we can get, you know,
financial gains quicker, or makeit so that we can lower a tax
bill to have more money toinvest or start a business or do
(03:39):
any of those sorts of things,and I guess you know long, long
story, short, short, and whatI'm kind of beating around on
the bush here is 90 of peopleget financial information from
their parents initially and thenafter that they start to get it
from their peers.
But we should be pausing,making sure that our peers are
(04:04):
financially educated and in aposition to actually make that
judgment, call that decision,give that advice.
But what the peers are good forso not every peer is
necessarily a good source ofinformation for financial
planning planning but what everypeer is good for you know every
(04:27):
peer that you have a solidrelationship with that you would
talk about these things withwhat they are good for is once
you've created the budget.
You know, say you've listenedto our podcast and you've done
the budget, you've done zerodollar budgeting and, like we
talked about a few weeks ago,where you have to not only
create the budget but actuallystay on top of, actually track,
look at your bank statements,make sure that you're actually
doing that.
What your peers are great foris that piece of it Making sure
(04:51):
that there's the accountabilitythat you actually went through,
tracked the numbers, made surethat you were on budget.
And if you weren't on budgetand you were over.
What are you doing in order tomake sure that that doesn't
happen again in the future?
What are you doing in order tomake sure that that doesn't
happen again in the future?
Because if you're fortunateenough to be in a position where
, okay, you were $200 overbudget, we'll just take that
(05:13):
money out of long-term savings,our emergency fund, move that
into the account so that wedon't overdraw anything, or you
may have had a buffer in youraccount, so it's not actually
that big of a deal.
You don't have to move anythingNow.
How do you make sure next monthyou replenish that?
Because most people end up infinancial trouble not because
they spent $5,000 one time over,that's because they overspent
$100 here, $200 there, and thenthey continue to do that every
(05:35):
single month for three yearsbefore it started to actually
get painful and they realizedthat, wow, I have a credit card
bill.
Now that's five thousanddollars and you know possibly
even more than that once youtake into account interest, and
you know if you're only payingminimums and how that's going to
grow and build over time.
And so it's those moves thatslowly move you into that
(06:01):
position of financial stress.
But just like when you'reworking out, going to the gym
and having an accountabilitypartner is what's going to allow
you to continue going to thegym, continue to make those
gains.
The same thing is true in yourfinancial position.
If you don't have somebody thatyou can be honest with, that
can look at your budget and lookat you actually writing in your
transactions, and look at yourbank statements and verify that
(06:23):
you're actually doing whatyou're saying you're doing and
you're not lying to yourself.
You're actually doing whatyou're saying you're doing and
you're not lying to yourself.
If you don't have somebody likethat in your financial journey,
it's going to take a lot morepersonal resilience and
dedication and discipline toactually execute on that
financial plan than it would ifyou had somebody right by your
side saying hey, you know yourbudget, you're pretty tight on
(06:47):
your budget this week.
Why are you going out to eatthis week?
Why don't we go to the grocerystore and said spend 15 to be
able to cook that meal that wewere going to eat out for, and
20, 30 and so having anaccountability partner on the
financial side, I think, issomething that is very rarely
discussed and talked about, butplays a crucial role in you
(07:10):
being able to be successful init.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Definitely.
I think it also plays into thefact that emotional regulation
and being that open, feelingsafe with people isn't talked
about at a young age or throughyour parents.
Maybe your parents didn't talkabout it, you don't learn about
it in school.
Because that's definitely atleast I think seen in today's
world of like being that openabout your financials, like you
(07:37):
said, even when you're at thewedding.
The setting made it a loteasier to talk about with
someone.
But normally I feel like peopleare a lot more closed, even
with close friends.
So it's like first you needthat ability to be able to be
seen and not embarrassed or feellike you're judged or you don't
or not get upset when yourfriend says that exact thing of
like why are you eating out?
(07:57):
Let's, you know, let's cookinstead, because I feel like a
lot of people just get triggeredinstead.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
So it's definitely start even with like well, right
, and I think a lot of peopleget triggered because you know
there was I think it was five toseven years ago there was that
big push of you know yourStarbucks coffee is what's
making it so that you can't buya house, and you know it's,
you're overspending on that, andit was.
It was just such a hyperbolethat made it so that people just
(08:25):
didn't listen to it and justcompletely ignored it, because
they're like how is my tendollar cup of coffee making it
so I can't buy a house?
And I think if you, if you runthrough the financial picture,
the habit of spending tendollars on coffee once is not
impacting your ability to buy ahouse.
it's, it's not, however, if yourhabit is to buy that ten dollar
(08:45):
cup of coffee every single daybefore work that is impacting
your ability to buy a house, andthe reason being is that that
$10 cup of coffee every singleday go to work.
So even say it's only four outof the five days Say Friday
you're feeling good and youdon't need that cup of coffee.
That's $40 a week.
Most people will work 45 to 48weeks in the year.
(09:10):
The other ones they takevacation.
So we'll say when they're onvacation they don't spend that
money, which it's probably anexaggeration because more likely
than not, you're spending thatmoney spending more you're
spending it in different areas.
But we'll, just for sake ofargument, we'll take the 48
weeks and you know, ten dollarsa coffee and you're doing that
(09:33):
four days each week.
So just doing some quick mathhere 16, 19.
That's 1920 dollars now.
If you do that Now, if you dothat for 10 years, that's 20
grand and that's just the puredollars.
That's not interest, that's not, you know, putting into a high
(10:00):
yield savings and making 5% onthat.
And I can tell you that thehouses that I bought with FHA or
conventional first time homebuyer loans even just a
conventional owner-occupied homeyou're going to be at a 5% down
payment and so you can get intoa starter home for less than 20
grand.
You can do it.
I've done it myself Even withthe crazy high prices.
(10:23):
I've acquired property duringthe crazy high price markets
with owner-occup occupied downpayments and you can move into a
property for less than that$20,000 number.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Especially these days .
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, it is $10 a day.
Yes, it is four days a weekmost of the year.
And yes, it took me 10 years toget to that number.
Yes, it took me 10 years to getto that number.
But the point I'm trying tomake here is that it's the habit
that impacts the financialposition.
It's not necessarily the $10cup of coffee.
(11:00):
It's the habit of spending $10on a cup of coffee every single
day before work for 10 years andnot putting that money in
elsewhere.
I'm not saying that you can'thave Starbucks.
I'm not saying that youshouldn't indulge in these
things because that's anotherpart of the psychological
element of maintaining yourfinances and being in that
position is if you have a goalof deleveraging, clearing out
(11:27):
debts, and you say, okay, I wantto clear out debts, that's what
I want to do this year, that'smy goal, that's my New Year's
resolution is I'm going to clearout debts.
If you do that throughout theentire year and the next New
Year's resolution you makeanother financial goal that
requires you to be financiallyconservative and not go on
vacations, not spend money onextra things, not buy a cup of
(11:48):
coffee every single morning, notdo all of these things, and you
do that every single year.
Eventually, you're just goingto drown yourself out and just
drain yourself completely of theability to maintain your
financial freedom and yourfinancial trajectories, because
you're going to get to a pointwhere you're like what am I this
(12:09):
for?
Why am I giving up all thesethings?
And so you know there's theemotional balance there of
making sure that you have enoughlife satisfaction and you're
having enough life's pleasures.
That do cost money.
Not everything is free.
Hardly anything is free.
There are things you can do,but most things require you to
spend a little bit of money.
It's not about not spendingthat money.
(12:31):
It's about not spending thatmoney every single week, every
single day.
It's about building thosehabits so that you then use them
as a reward system, so that, asyou, if you're trying to pay
down debts, once you pay off oneof those cards, take the
payment that you're payingtowards that every single month
to pay it down and use thatpayment next month to go do
(12:52):
something fun to reward yourself.
It's not going to impact yourfinancial position one bit,
because you were rolling allthat money towards that payment
even if it was $100.
Say you were taking and you werejust paying an extra $100
towards your car loan and yougot your car loan paid off.
So now your car loan, and we'llgo super low numbers here.
Say you've had the car and youwere in a crazy long thing and
(13:14):
you had low rates, you werepaying $350 a month and you were
paying an extra $100 on that.
So you're paying $450 to get itpaid off Next month.
Go take a long weekend or justgo take a two-day trip and go
spend the night somewhere with afriend and reward yourself for
having that accomplishment.
Because if you do that, it'sgoing to, in your brain, connect
(13:38):
paying down debts with thesehighly enjoyable things that
you're doing.
If you do that, you're going toengage the reward system to
make it so that your brainstarts to think in a way where
it's like, okay, I'm going toachieve this goal financially
and then I'm going to havefreedom after it.
But if you constantly jump fromone goal to another and it's
(14:01):
always a matter of you know astarvation tactic of you know,
minimize my expenses.
Put all my money in this onebasket.
Don't spend any money anywhere,don't do anything, don't
overspend, don't go on vacation,don't take a weekend trip,
don't even buy a cup of coffee.
You're going to be so upsetwith the amount of money that
(14:22):
you're making, even if it's goodmoney, that you're just going
to say to heck with it.
I'm going to do whatever I wantand I'm not going to focus on
my budget anymore, and I'm notgoing to do any of these things
because you're going to be burntout.
So you have to find the balancethere.
No-transcript.
Stick with it for the long run.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, you see, today it's so focused on rough it
rough it being tough.
Delayed gratification that it'sthat that reward system has
really been lost yeah, and I'mnot saying that that's a bad
mindset, I'm just no it's giveand take.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think you should rough it.
I think you should, you know,delay gratification, because I
think there's way too muchinstant gratification but you
have to.
Part of delayed gratificationis that the gratification is
delayed yeah, it's noteliminated, it's delayed.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah well, everything's always tipped to
one side or the other.
That's what I mean it's.
It's either instant or it'snever.
It's like right, just pick inthe middle.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
So yeah, and the hard part is is that because
everything's so polarized andyou know people operate in the
extremes, it's like it's equallythe problem for both sides.
If you're somebody who justconstantly delays gratification
and just never constantly pushesit off and never takes that
gratification, or you'resomebody who just instantly
(15:46):
takes it, those people arehaving opposite but equal
struggles.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
I feel like I've seen people actually experience both
, because you fall into a cycleof, let's just say, being
motivated.
For example, you're doing lotsof instant gratification things,
you're not achieving your goalsscrolling on social media, so
then they'll flip to the.
I have to make up for all that.
I'm now going to do only workand not have any, you know,
(16:17):
because I need to counteract howmuch instant gratification I've
been taking in, how lazy I'vebeen being, so I feel like they
even experience they find?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
the balance that way.
If I'm on this side of theteeter-totter, let me just jump
on the other side of theteeter-totter which doesn't work
, yeah, and just keep going backand forth.
yeah, you're never creating abalance that way.
You're just, you know, buthopefully because I definitely
fell into that category of youknow I was on one side and then
I jumped to the other.
I, I think what you, you know,hopefully, what you're doing,
(16:46):
though, is you're jumping alittle less into the other side
each time, so that, eventually,you end up finding that happy
medium in the middle, whereyou're not jumping to the
complete polar extreme.
You're jumping, yeah, you'regoing a little bit that way and
pulling it back in and goingback and forth, but I think, if
(17:07):
you outline what your goal isand then attach the reward to it
and show yourself the timeline,your ability to stay in that
happy middle zone is a loteasier, because you can tell
yourself okay, once I pay thisoff, I'm going to get this.
The problem that I havepersonally is once I do off, I'm
going to get this.
The problem that I havepersonally is once I do this,
(17:30):
I'm going to get this or getthat, and I never get that.
I never give it to myself.
You know, I, I, I'm guilty ofit right now.
I said I was going to pay offone of these loans and then you
know I wasn't.
I was going to stop gettingmassages until I did this, pay
off these loans.
And now I've paid off the loansand I'm still like, eh, I could
use that same thing for this.
(17:51):
And it's like no, you need togo get a massage.
That's the thing you need to do.
You need to step into thatspace and actually give yourself
the reward.
Otherwise, the next time thatyou use that as the carrot, your
body is going to say that's nota real carrot, that's just.
It's just what you're tellingyourself.
You're just going to keeppushing it off.
So, you know, maybe after weget off this call, that's what
(18:12):
I'll have to do is schedulemyself a massage and, you know,
eat some of my own medicine heredefinitely and this is another
great way, I think, to pull inthe peers and you using other
people of like.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
like you said, you need to write down the goal and
the reward and maybe a timelinefor it, and your friends can
help you stay on track with thatand make sure you check up,
make sure you're staying ontrack with your timeline,
obviously adjust if needed, butthen also making sure you're get
your carrot.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right?
No for sure.
Having the accountabilitypartner on this is huge.
It's absolutely.
I mean, there's a reason whymarried couples grow their net
worth at a much faster pace thannon-married couples, and I
think the reason being is it'snot a dual income piece, because
even as non-married couples,you still have a dual income.
(19:03):
I think the difference is isthe attitude around it.
The attitude is that it's ourmoney, versus the split money
concept.
Now I'll back up a minute,because I am a huge proponent of
, even when you're married,having three accounts a joint
account and then two personalaccounts but it's the attitude
of what are we doing together toachieve this goal, and so the
(19:25):
minute somebody starts to veeroff target, the other party
steps in and says no, no, no,this is what we agreed to, this
is what we're doing and this isgoing to be our reward at the
end.
So let's make sure we stay ontrack so that we can get to this
reward and you have that checksand balance system.
I think you can do it withfriends if you have the right
relationship, if you share theright amount of information and,
(19:47):
most importantly, if you'rewilling to take the feedback.
Accountability partnersAccountability partners only
worth it if, when they actuallysay, hey, I'm recognizing this
and you said that you did notwant to be doing this, but you
are, if you react withaggression or being upset
towards them or you knowanything other than thank you, I
(20:09):
appreciate you pointing thatout to me and then taking the
habit to actually correct itit's not going to have that
benefit.
But when you're married, as longas you don't have a mindset of
divorce, when you're married,you know you're in it and so you
know, know you can be upsetthat they pointed that out, but
at the end of the day you haveto turn around and say I did say
(20:32):
that I do want that.
Let's, let's move forward,let's do something else now,
let's get right, let's get thisbandwagon moving.
And so you know thataccountability part is huge for
financials, health, health,fitness.
You know it really doesn'tmatter what category you go into
If you're trying to achievesomething.
Having an accountabilitypartner is a huge part of it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
We hope this helps you on your balance freedom
journey.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Please share your thoughts in the comments section
below.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Until next time, stay balanced.
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