October 5, 2023 • 21 mins
Imagine a life where fear no longer dictates your financial decisions. That's exactly what we're uncovering in this episode. We're confronting those fears that keep you on the sidelines of your financial growth - fear of lost money, lack of knowledge, peer pressure, and the terror of making potentially costly mistakes. Drawing from personal experiences, we'll break down these barriers and share powerful strategies to face them head-on, allowing you to take control of your financial future.
To further empower you to make financial decisions., we discuss the value of expert guidance and the importance of embracing errors as essential parts of your financial journey. You'll find surprising parallels between competitive sports and financial planning, revealing how you can push yourself to achieve more. We'll take on the phenomenon of analysis paralysis and underscore the need to focus on your unique financial conditions. This episode tops off with the crucial components of financial decision-making and learning - from goal setting to the advantage of having a financial buddy. In this empowering discussion, we take charge of our financial destiny, one decision at a time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone.
My name is Carolyn.
Welcome to the Saving for yourFirst Home podcast.
I am the CEO of the FinancialMoment.
We offer money coaching forthose who are ready and willing
to make financial changes intheir lives.
For the most of us, there comesa point in time where we think
to ourselves it would be reallynice to own property, but it
(00:22):
sometimes can feel like a pipedream and not very easily
obtainable.
So I created this podcast togive you all the information and
tools you need to take thesteps forward toward home
ownership.
Take it from me my husband andI started our lives together,
working part-time jobs with ayoung child.
Fast forward, through manyhiccups and failures, we stepped
(00:43):
our feet into our very firsthome.
For us it was a pile of dirt,but eventually our family home
was built on that dirt.
Now we are in the midst ofgrowing our investment property
portfolio.
I created the savings for yourfirst home podcast to give you
easy, actionable tools for youto do the same.
If you have that same gutfeeling that I did and want to
(01:06):
create a life for yourself andyour growing family, but don't
know where to start, you are inthe right place.
Let's do this.
Hello and welcome back to theSaving for your First Home
podcast.
I'm Carolyn, your money coach,so lately I've been doing some
outreach and giving some moneytalks to different organizations
and libraries and it's beengood because you get to meet
(01:29):
people face to face.
We are so used to those Zoommeetings and now to actually be
in person and talking to peopleface to face, you really get an
understanding of how people feel, and some of the feedback that
I've been getting is that peopleare kind of scared to make
financial decisions.
Now, we're scared for lots ofdifferent reasons and I guess if
(01:53):
people know me, they know me asbeing kind of, I guess,
fearless.
For instance, we werevacationing in Jamaica and there
is this cliff that you can jumpover.
I think it's like 40 feetProbably.
There's different levels, butthe highest peak was like 40 to
50 feet high and you know peopleare asking oh, are you going to
(02:13):
go jump?
And I'm like, yeah, I didn'treally hesitate, you know, and
you get up there.
You kind of walk up and nowyou're your heart starting to
palpitate because you're likeit's going higher and higher.
Now, I'm no expert, but what Iusually do is not look down,
because as soon as you look down, all the different things are
going to come flooding into yourmind as to what could happen to
(02:35):
you.
Basically, you could die, andso I try not to look down.
I just kind of take two stepsand boom, just jump, and you
know, I'm okay swimmer.
So I think that's probably apart of the reason too.
I have confidence in swimmingand so you know, if I hit the
water, at least I can swim.
So anyway, but there are thingsthat I am scared of, and
(02:57):
probably not so much those fearfactor type things, but more
like being embarrassed in frontof other people and I would say
probably judgment, you know,receiving judgment from others.
So those are kind of my fears.
But this kind of translates intoour financial life as well, and
there are reasons why we fearmaking financial decisions, and
(03:22):
I'm just going to go through afew of them and then I'm going
to try to talk about how we canovercome this.
Because if we really want toreach our financial goals, those
big ones, the big financialgoals then we have to work
through our fears and putourselves on the other side,
where we're making confident,great decisions.
So let's just dive into acouple of reasons why people are
(03:45):
scared of making financialdecisions.
Now, the first thing that I'venoticed is that people lack
knowledge, and when you havelittle knowledge, it is very
difficult to make an educateddecision.
Now, that is kind of anoxymoron, isn't it An educated
decision when you have lack ofknowledge?
Right, it doesn't go.
(04:05):
The two things don't gotogether.
A lot of people just assumethat you understand or you know
what you're talking about.
When it comes to finances, forexample, if you go to the bank
and they start recommendingdifferent saving accounts using
technical jargon, and they'rejust assuming that you
understand what they're talkingabout, and some of the time,
(04:26):
people really don't know andthey put their trust in the bank
representatives to guide themthrough that process.
There are some great ones andthere are some not so great ones
, and so you can get some goodadvice and you can get advice
that maybe is not right for you.
And another reason that peopleare scared is that they have a
(04:46):
fear of losing their money.
Now, this can have a lot to dowith their past and how they
were brought up.
Perhaps they didn't come frommoney and so having it means
that they need to hold on to itand doing anything.
Any type of investing or anytype of financial movement can
cause a lot of fear, becausethere is a risk of losing that
(05:09):
hard earned money, and this canlead into a fear of making
mistakes.
It prevents an individual fromactually taking the necessary
actions that will get themtowards their goals, perhaps
investing some of that moneyinstead of just saving it away
in a savings account.
Some of these things are basedon our own personal
(05:32):
personalities, our personalexperience, and there's a direct
connection with the way thatthey treat money.
Now, another interesting one ispeer pressure.
Now, if you head back to highschool and everybody's doing one
thing and you want to dosomething different, there's a
fear there of having to followalong with the crowd.
(05:53):
An example of this would be,maybe, cryptocurrency.
A lot of people were talkingabout it.
A lot of people were talkingabout Bitcoin.
You'd hear the whispers hereand there of how they're putting
in their money.
Now, for someone who doesn'thave as much knowledge about
cryptocurrency, it is a verycomplex financial product, so
jumping into something like thatwith really not understanding
(06:15):
100% what it is, it could be alittle bit of peer pressure and
the fear of making that wrongchoice.
Do I invest, do I not?
And then they're worried aboutjudgment and criticism if they
decide not to Now.
Another fear that holds peopleback is overwhelm, and this can
happen in so many differentfacets of our lives.
(06:36):
And this is obviously includingfinances, because right now
there are so many choices,there's so many banks you can
choose, there's so manydifferent ways you can put your
money, there's topics that youhave to think about, like
retirement planning or debtmanagement, and it can just
really be overwhelming.
(06:56):
And when you're overwhelmed,what happens?
Nothing.
Inaction and avoidance thoseare the two things that happen
when people are overwhelmed.
So in avoidance, you're justlike you know what, I'll think
about that later, I'm not doingthat right now and time just
passes you by.
Inaction is the same thing youfeel like you're frozen and you
(07:20):
can't make a decision and youcan't move forward or backwards
and you're just stuck in thisplace.
And another personality traitthat actually kind of has an
impact on our decision making isperfectionism.
So if you're that type ofpersonality that really wants
things to be just so, that canactually deter you from making
(07:42):
the proper decisions, becauseyou know what Life isn't about
being perfect.
I have learned the hard waythat the more you analyze and
overanalyze, you can alwayspredict exactly what's going to
happen.
Sometimes we have to make thewrong choice to make the right
choice.
So has any of these reasons forfear of making financial
(08:04):
decisions resonated with you?
Now, I don't want you to feellike you're alone in all of this
, because all of these reasonseither your past has an
influence.
The way you make decisions havean influence.
The people around you have aninfluence.
The fact that you weren'ttaught about money has made an
(08:25):
influence as well.
So you're not to blame for anyof these reasons.
If you find yourself in aposition where you're unsure and
you're kind of scared of makingthose financial decisions, it's
OK, I got you.
Now, this is not something thatis going to happen overnight.
It takes work, it takes effort,it takes energy to make changes
(08:47):
in our financial situation.
So I'm just going to give you abrief outline of how you can
overcome having fear when you'remaking your financial decisions
.
Now, for a minute, I'm justgoing to go back to my
experience of jumping over thecliff in Jamaica when I hit the
water.
First of all, the hit of thewater was so hard I didn't even
(09:11):
think about that when Icontemplated jumping and you
sink down quite significantlyand then you swim back up to the
surface, which was fine, butthen I turned and I looked
towards the cliff that I hadjust jumped off and I was like
whoa, you know, like that wassuper high and what was I
(09:32):
thinking right?
And again, all those thoughtskind of flooded my brain about
why did I even consider doingthat?
Because I really had no ideawhat the consequences would have
been had things gone south.
So instead, what you should dowhen you're making financial
decisions is to get someeducation and knowledge right.
(09:55):
Knowledge is power.
You need to take the time toeducate yourself about financial
concepts, about investing,about budgeting, about personal
finance, and nowadays it's soeasy to do this, you know.
First of all, let's just goback to the library.
Okay, the library has so manyresources, and it's not just
both books and reading.
(10:16):
They have seminars, they haveaccess to audio books, like.
There are lots of differentways to get information actually
at the library other than justreading books.
Although books are fantastic,you can also take an online
course.
Having a step by stepinstruction that you can do at
(10:38):
your own pace is fantastic for alot of people.
I feel like going into thisdigital age.
We've made our life so mucheasier by kind of learning on
your own terms, and I think it'sfantastic if you can do that
and have a resource that you canask questions about or attend a
workshop or a webinar, and allof this will improve your
(11:01):
financial literacy.
When you have more knowledge,you can make better decisions.
And then, of course, I talkabout this in my podcast a lot,
but it's about setting clearfinancial goals.
So if there's something thatyou want to reach now again on
this podcast, I talk aboutsaving for your home or other
(11:22):
big financial goals like travelor retirement or education
savings all these things arekind of big goals.
Right, you need to break downthose goals into small little
pieces and so that you cantackle them and they don't
become overwhelming to you.
Now, in my early days of thispodcast, I recorded an episode
(11:44):
about doing just this, andthat's episode number four.
So if you haven't listened tothat, I suggest you go back and
listen to it, because it reallytalks about creating some doable
goals, things that are actuallyattainable, because once you
have a clear objective, itreally gives you a sense of
purpose, it gives you directionand it makes those decisions so
(12:06):
much easier and straightforward.
And then there's planning.
In order to create a kind of acomprehensive financial plan,
you have to understand yourincome, your expenses, what you
want to save, what you want toinvest, how you do your debt.
All of these things, and havinga well thought out plan, can
(12:26):
really provide you with aroadmap.
And what is a roadmap?
Back in the day, we used topull out an actual physical map
when we go on trips and we'dhave our markers of where we're
going to stop.
And you know, we didn't haveGPS and all the fancy tools that
we have right now trafficindicators and all that.
We just had to go by the basicmap.
(12:48):
And having that map and showingthe outline of what you want to
accomplish and just checking itoff one at a time as you reach
each milestone, gives you such asense of peace because you know
that you're on the path to theoutcome that you're looking for.
And then why not seek out somehelp?
(13:08):
Because why do these thingsalone right?
It's so much easier to havesomeone in your corner that is
rooting for you, that is perhaps, you know, five steps ahead of
you, that can give you adviceand say, hey, you know what.
That decision may not be great,but why don't you try something
like this?
Any expert guidance is criticalwhen you're trying to make
(13:31):
financial decisions that aregoing to determine your path.
This can come in the form of anaccountant, a financial advisor
, a money coach, a confidant, amentor, a friend.
It really can come in any form.
You just need someone that youcan feel comfortable enough to
ask advice and maybe just bounceideas off of.
(13:54):
In my family we are really biginto competitive sports.
A lot of the children that havegrown up in my family are
involved in some sort ofcompetitive sport.
You know they have a talent.
Each one of them have talents,whether that was in basketball,
soccer, tennis, dance, swimming,the list goes on.
(14:17):
And they all have talent.
But talent can only get them sofar.
It's the coaching, it's theteam environment, it's that
little bit of a push that youneed to push yourself harder to
reach the next level.
And that's what competitivesports is all about.
It's going to that next level,reaching that next milestone,
(14:41):
and without the coaching it'svery difficult.
It's not saying it's impossible, but it's very difficult to get
those next levels.
And that's the same thing withour finances.
Right, you need that expertadvice and coaching to help you
get you to the next level.
And remember that this path isnot a straight one.
There's no right or wrong.
(15:02):
Each decision is going to playits part in your journey, and so
you really have to embracemistakes.
Right, it's going to happen,you know.
Maybe you spent a little bittoo much on your credit card,
maybe you made that investmentthat wasn't the right one.
All of these things may happen,but if you embrace the mistake,
then you learn from it and youcan move on.
(15:25):
Remember when we were talkingabout overwhelm?
Well, I'm not a psychologist,so I can't in no way give you
any advice on how to kind ofbeat anxiety and those types of
things.
However, I do think that it'simportant to not have too much
information overload.
Right, because if you have somuch information that's coming
(15:46):
at you, you kind of what theycall it of analysis paralysis,
right, you feel like it's justtoo much information and you
can't even make a decisionbecause there's just so many
choices.
And perhaps you know we need tokind of pare that down.
Focus on essentials, the thingsthat are directly impacting your
(16:07):
current financial goals, yourcurrent, your personal situation
.
So somebody else's situation isnot the same as yours, right?
Everybody has a differentincome level.
Everybody has a differentamount of debt.
Some people have a home, somepeople don't, like everybody's
situation is so different.
So, you know, make sure to notoverwhelm yourself about how
(16:30):
other people are doing things,because your situation may be
completely different.
But on the flip side of that isto get a support system right.
Talk to your family and friends.
I made this analogy once, Ithink, in one of my talks, where
we talk about, you know,getting in shape and losing
weight, and we'll even ask ourfamily, our friends, to come
(16:52):
join us at the gym.
You know, maybe do a marathonor whatever.
It is right, we wanna do ittogether because we know that
it's easier to actually getourselves there and get
ourselves in shape if we havesome buddy that's doing it with
us.
Right, why not?
The same about your financesDoesn't mean you have to default
everything about your finances,but you know what you could ask
(17:15):
someone.
You know how do you set up yourbanking.
Do you pay your credit card offevery month and, if so, how do
you do it?
How do you keep track ofeverything Right.
It's okay to share these littletidbits with each other.
Why not push each other to dobetter?
And once you've kind of doneall of this and you've put this
into place, you've educatedyourself, you've built a support
(17:36):
system, you're embracing yourmistakes, then all you have to
do now is just take a look atyour situation and adjust as
needed.
Right, sometimes you may haveto change that strategy just
slightly based on the changesthat are happening in your life
or financial decision or marketconditions.
Right, it's okay.
(17:57):
It's okay to make an adjustmentand to pivot into a different
direction.
I remember when I was justgetting married and I drove a
Honda Civic, one of thosehatchbacks, and I had that car
for a long time.
It was like my little baby,right, and I think it was even a
stick shift, so it was fun todrive.
And probably two weeks prior tous getting married, the car
(18:24):
just died, like literally.
I was driving down a hill andthe engine actually fell out
from underneath it.
I don't know if there wasprobably rust or something I you
know who knows, but engine fellout, the car was done, the tow
truck came and they said youknow what?
This is pretty much a write-off.
Now just picture this Two weeksprior to getting married, all
(18:46):
the errands that you have to do,all the running around, and I
was just left without a vehicleand it was crazy.
And you know, luckily,obviously, I had family and
friends to rely on and supportto lean on to get through those
couple of weeks.
But then, you know, after thewedding's done and we were
married, we had no car.
(19:06):
And you know, expensive awedding was a lot and so we
couldn't just run out andpurchase another car and we had
to pivot.
Like you know, all the thingsthat we had planned, location
where we were gonna live, allthese things, you know, are
reliant on a vehicle and we hadto figure it out.
You know, take transportation,public transit, and just do what
(19:30):
we had to do to save up enoughmoney and to buy another vehicle
.
So I share this.
Just to say that it's not gonnaalways be easy.
Pivoting is not always easy andthe mistakes you make aren't
always easy.
It's the process that'sbeneficial, right.
It's going through them,realizing what's happened and
(19:52):
making educated decisions forthe next time.
So when you're beginning tofeel that fear, come on when you
have to make a financialdecision, and it could be a
simple one like oh, maybe I'llput this on a credit card
instead of paying cash, becauseI wanna hold on to my cash, just
in case.
Take a deep breath, think aboutwhat it is that you need to do
(20:14):
for the next week or two andthen make a decision with as
much information as you have,and then later go back and think
about that decision and assesswhether or not that was the
right one, because that is howyou learn, when you go back and
you review and you don't repeatmistakes over and over again.
(20:34):
All right, guys, I hope thisepisode was helpful to you and,
if you're enjoying the podcast,I would love it if you could
give us a review and perhapsstart by sharing this episode
with someone a close friend or amentor or someone that you are
going to use as your financialbuddy.
All right, we will see you nextweek, thursday, same time, same
(20:57):
place.
Thank you for listening.
We are committed to helping youplace your very first steps
into your new home.
See you next time.
Hello everyone.
My name is Carolyn.
Welcome to the Saving for yourFirst Home podcast.
I am the CEO of the FinancialMoment.
We offer money coaching forthose who are ready and willing
to make financial changes intheir lives.
For the most of us, there comesa point in time where we think
to ourselves it would be reallynice to own property, but it
(00:22):
sometimes can feel like a pipedream and not very easily
obtainable.
So I created this podcast togive you all the information and
tools you need to take thesteps forward toward home
ownership.
Take it from me my husband andI started our lives together,
working part-time jobs with ayoung child.
Fast forward, through manyhiccups and failures, we stepped
(00:43):
our feet into our very firsthome.
For us it was a pile of dirt,but eventually our family home
was built on that dirt.
Now we are in the midst ofgrowing our investment property
portfolio.
I created the savings for yourfirst home podcast to give you
easy, actionable tools for youto do the same.
If you have that same gutfeeling that I did and want to
(01:06):
create a life for yourself andyour growing family, but don't
know where to start, you are inthe right place.
Let's do this.
Hello and welcome back to theSaving for your First Home
podcast.
I'm Carolyn, your money coach,so lately I've been doing some
outreach and giving some moneytalks to different organizations
and libraries and it's beengood because you get to meet
(01:29):
people face to face.
We are so used to those Zoommeetings and now to actually be
in person and talking to peopleface to face, you really get an
understanding of how people feel, and some of the feedback that
I've been getting is that peopleare kind of scared to make
financial decisions.
Now, we're scared for lots ofdifferent reasons and I guess if
(01:53):
people know me, they know me asbeing kind of, I guess,
fearless.
For instance, we werevacationing in Jamaica and there
is this cliff that you can jumpover.
I think it's like 40 feetProbably.
There's different levels, butthe highest peak was like 40 to
50 feet high and you know peopleare asking oh, are you going to
(02:13):
go jump?
And I'm like, yeah, I didn'treally hesitate, you know, and
you get up there.
You kind of walk up and nowyou're your heart starting to
palpitate because you're likeit's going higher and higher.
Now, I'm no expert, but what Iusually do is not look down,
because as soon as you look down, all the different things are
going to come flooding into yourmind as to what could happen to
(02:35):
you.
Basically, you could die, andso I try not to look down.
I just kind of take two stepsand boom, just jump, and you
know, I'm okay swimmer.
So I think that's probably apart of the reason too.
I have confidence in swimmingand so you know, if I hit the
water, at least I can swim.
So anyway, but there are thingsthat I am scared of, and
(02:57):
probably not so much those fearfactor type things, but more
like being embarrassed in frontof other people and I would say
probably judgment, you know,receiving judgment from others.
So those are kind of my fears.
But this kind of translates intoour financial life as well, and
there are reasons why we fearmaking financial decisions, and
(03:22):
I'm just going to go through afew of them and then I'm going
to try to talk about how we canovercome this.
Because if we really want toreach our financial goals, those
big ones, the big financialgoals then we have to work
through our fears and putourselves on the other side,
where we're making confident,great decisions.
So let's just dive into acouple of reasons why people are
(03:45):
scared of making financialdecisions.
Now, the first thing that I'venoticed is that people lack
knowledge, and when you havelittle knowledge, it is very
difficult to make an educateddecision.
Now, that is kind of anoxymoron, isn't it An educated
decision when you have lack ofknowledge?
Right, it doesn't go.
(04:05):
The two things don't gotogether.
A lot of people just assumethat you understand or you know
what you're talking about.
When it comes to finances, forexample, if you go to the bank
and they start recommendingdifferent saving accounts using
technical jargon, and they'rejust assuming that you
understand what they're talkingabout, and some of the time,
(04:26):
people really don't know andthey put their trust in the bank
representatives to guide themthrough that process.
There are some great ones andthere are some not so great ones
, and so you can get some goodadvice and you can get advice
that maybe is not right for you.
And another reason that peopleare scared is that they have a
(04:46):
fear of losing their money.
Now, this can have a lot to dowith their past and how they
were brought up.
Perhaps they didn't come frommoney and so having it means
that they need to hold on to itand doing anything.
Any type of investing or anytype of financial movement can
cause a lot of fear, becausethere is a risk of losing that
(05:09):
hard earned money, and this canlead into a fear of making
mistakes.
It prevents an individual fromactually taking the necessary
actions that will get themtowards their goals, perhaps
investing some of that moneyinstead of just saving it away
in a savings account.
Some of these things are basedon our own personal
(05:32):
personalities, our personalexperience, and there's a direct
connection with the way thatthey treat money.
Now, another interesting one ispeer pressure.
Now, if you head back to highschool and everybody's doing one
thing and you want to dosomething different, there's a
fear there of having to followalong with the crowd.
(05:53):
An example of this would be,maybe, cryptocurrency.
A lot of people were talkingabout it.
A lot of people were talkingabout Bitcoin.
You'd hear the whispers hereand there of how they're putting
in their money.
Now, for someone who doesn'thave as much knowledge about
cryptocurrency, it is a verycomplex financial product, so
jumping into something like thatwith really not understanding
(06:15):
100% what it is, it could be alittle bit of peer pressure and
the fear of making that wrongchoice.
Do I invest, do I not?
And then they're worried aboutjudgment and criticism if they
decide not to Now.
Another fear that holds peopleback is overwhelm, and this can
happen in so many differentfacets of our lives.
(06:36):
And this is obviously includingfinances, because right now
there are so many choices,there's so many banks you can
choose, there's so manydifferent ways you can put your
money, there's topics that youhave to think about, like
retirement planning or debtmanagement, and it can just
really be overwhelming.
(06:56):
And when you're overwhelmed,what happens?
Nothing.
Inaction and avoidance thoseare the two things that happen
when people are overwhelmed.
So in avoidance, you're justlike you know what, I'll think
about that later, I'm not doingthat right now and time just
passes you by.
Inaction is the same thing youfeel like you're frozen and you
(07:20):
can't make a decision and youcan't move forward or backwards
and you're just stuck in thisplace.
And another personality traitthat actually kind of has an
impact on our decision making isperfectionism.
So if you're that type ofpersonality that really wants
things to be just so, that canactually deter you from making
(07:42):
the proper decisions, becauseyou know what Life isn't about
being perfect.
I have learned the hard waythat the more you analyze and
overanalyze, you can alwayspredict exactly what's going to
happen.
Sometimes we have to make thewrong choice to make the right
choice.
So has any of these reasons forfear of making financial
(08:04):
decisions resonated with you?
Now, I don't want you to feellike you're alone in all of this
, because all of these reasonseither your past has an
influence.
The way you make decisions havean influence.
The people around you have aninfluence.
The fact that you weren'ttaught about money has made an
(08:25):
influence as well.
So you're not to blame for anyof these reasons.
If you find yourself in aposition where you're unsure and
you're kind of scared of makingthose financial decisions, it's
OK, I got you.
Now, this is not something thatis going to happen overnight.
It takes work, it takes effort,it takes energy to make changes
(08:47):
in our financial situation.
So I'm just going to give you abrief outline of how you can
overcome having fear when you'remaking your financial decisions
.
Now, for a minute, I'm justgoing to go back to my
experience of jumping over thecliff in Jamaica when I hit the
water.
First of all, the hit of thewater was so hard I didn't even
(09:11):
think about that when Icontemplated jumping and you
sink down quite significantlyand then you swim back up to the
surface, which was fine, butthen I turned and I looked
towards the cliff that I hadjust jumped off and I was like
whoa, you know, like that wassuper high and what was I
(09:32):
thinking right?
And again, all those thoughtskind of flooded my brain about
why did I even consider doingthat?
Because I really had no ideawhat the consequences would have
been had things gone south.
So instead, what you should dowhen you're making financial
decisions is to get someeducation and knowledge right.
(09:55):
Knowledge is power.
You need to take the time toeducate yourself about financial
concepts, about investing,about budgeting, about personal
finance, and nowadays it's soeasy to do this, you know.
First of all, let's just goback to the library.
Okay, the library has so manyresources, and it's not just
both books and reading.
(10:16):
They have seminars, they haveaccess to audio books, like.
There are lots of differentways to get information actually
at the library other than justreading books.
Although books are fantastic,you can also take an online
course.
Having a step by stepinstruction that you can do at
(10:38):
your own pace is fantastic for alot of people.
I feel like going into thisdigital age.
We've made our life so mucheasier by kind of learning on
your own terms, and I think it'sfantastic if you can do that
and have a resource that you canask questions about or attend a
workshop or a webinar, and allof this will improve your
(11:01):
financial literacy.
When you have more knowledge,you can make better decisions.
And then, of course, I talkabout this in my podcast a lot,
but it's about setting clearfinancial goals.
So if there's something thatyou want to reach now again on
this podcast, I talk aboutsaving for your home or other
(11:22):
big financial goals like travelor retirement or education
savings all these things arekind of big goals.
Right, you need to break downthose goals into small little
pieces and so that you cantackle them and they don't
become overwhelming to you.
Now, in my early days of thispodcast, I recorded an episode
(11:44):
about doing just this, andthat's episode number four.
So if you haven't listened tothat, I suggest you go back and
listen to it, because it reallytalks about creating some doable
goals, things that are actuallyattainable, because once you
have a clear objective, itreally gives you a sense of
purpose, it gives you directionand it makes those decisions so
(12:06):
much easier and straightforward.
And then there's planning.
In order to create a kind of acomprehensive financial plan,
you have to understand yourincome, your expenses, what you
want to save, what you want toinvest, how you do your debt.
All of these things, and havinga well thought out plan, can
(12:26):
really provide you with aroadmap.
And what is a roadmap?
Back in the day, we used topull out an actual physical map
when we go on trips and we'dhave our markers of where we're
going to stop.
And you know, we didn't haveGPS and all the fancy tools that
we have right now trafficindicators and all that.
We just had to go by the basicmap.
(12:48):
And having that map and showingthe outline of what you want to
accomplish and just checking itoff one at a time as you reach
each milestone, gives you such asense of peace because you know
that you're on the path to theoutcome that you're looking for.
And then why not seek out somehelp?
(13:08):
Because why do these thingsalone right?
It's so much easier to havesomeone in your corner that is
rooting for you, that is perhaps, you know, five steps ahead of
you, that can give you adviceand say, hey, you know what.
That decision may not be great,but why don't you try something
like this?
Any expert guidance is criticalwhen you're trying to make
(13:31):
financial decisions that aregoing to determine your path.
This can come in the form of anaccountant, a financial advisor
, a money coach, a confidant, amentor, a friend.
It really can come in any form.
You just need someone that youcan feel comfortable enough to
ask advice and maybe just bounceideas off of.
(13:54):
In my family we are really biginto competitive sports.
A lot of the children that havegrown up in my family are
involved in some sort ofcompetitive sport.
You know they have a talent.
Each one of them have talents,whether that was in basketball,
soccer, tennis, dance, swimming,the list goes on.
(14:17):
And they all have talent.
But talent can only get them sofar.
It's the coaching, it's theteam environment, it's that
little bit of a push that youneed to push yourself harder to
reach the next level.
And that's what competitivesports is all about.
It's going to that next level,reaching that next milestone,
(14:41):
and without the coaching it'svery difficult.
It's not saying it's impossible, but it's very difficult to get
those next levels.
And that's the same thing withour finances.
Right, you need that expertadvice and coaching to help you
get you to the next level.
And remember that this path isnot a straight one.
There's no right or wrong.
(15:02):
Each decision is going to playits part in your journey, and so
you really have to embracemistakes.
Right, it's going to happen,you know.
Maybe you spent a little bittoo much on your credit card,
maybe you made that investmentthat wasn't the right one.
All of these things may happen,but if you embrace the mistake,
then you learn from it and youcan move on.
(15:25):
Remember when we were talkingabout overwhelm?
Well, I'm not a psychologist,so I can't in no way give you
any advice on how to kind ofbeat anxiety and those types of
things.
However, I do think that it'simportant to not have too much
information overload.
Right, because if you have somuch information that's coming
(15:46):
at you, you kind of what theycall it of analysis paralysis,
right, you feel like it's justtoo much information and you
can't even make a decisionbecause there's just so many
choices.
And perhaps you know we need tokind of pare that down.
Focus on essentials, the thingsthat are directly impacting your
(16:07):
current financial goals, yourcurrent, your personal situation
.
So somebody else's situation isnot the same as yours, right?
Everybody has a differentincome level.
Everybody has a differentamount of debt.
Some people have a home, somepeople don't, like everybody's
situation is so different.
So, you know, make sure to notoverwhelm yourself about how
(16:30):
other people are doing things,because your situation may be
completely different.
But on the flip side of that isto get a support system right.
Talk to your family and friends.
I made this analogy once, Ithink, in one of my talks, where
we talk about, you know,getting in shape and losing
weight, and we'll even ask ourfamily, our friends, to come
(16:52):
join us at the gym.
You know, maybe do a marathonor whatever.
It is right, we wanna do ittogether because we know that
it's easier to actually getourselves there and get
ourselves in shape if we havesome buddy that's doing it with
us.
Right, why not?
The same about your financesDoesn't mean you have to default
everything about your finances,but you know what you could ask
(17:15):
someone.
You know how do you set up yourbanking.
Do you pay your credit card offevery month and, if so, how do
you do it?
How do you keep track ofeverything Right.
It's okay to share these littletidbits with each other.
Why not push each other to dobetter?
And once you've kind of doneall of this and you've put this
into place, you've educatedyourself, you've built a support
(17:36):
system, you're embracing yourmistakes, then all you have to
do now is just take a look atyour situation and adjust as
needed.
Right, sometimes you may haveto change that strategy just
slightly based on the changesthat are happening in your life
or financial decision or marketconditions.
Right, it's okay.
(17:57):
It's okay to make an adjustmentand to pivot into a different
direction.
I remember when I was justgetting married and I drove a
Honda Civic, one of thosehatchbacks, and I had that car
for a long time.
It was like my little baby,right, and I think it was even a
stick shift, so it was fun todrive.
And probably two weeks prior tous getting married, the car
(18:24):
just died, like literally.
I was driving down a hill andthe engine actually fell out
from underneath it.
I don't know if there wasprobably rust or something I you
know who knows, but engine fellout, the car was done, the tow
truck came and they said youknow what?
This is pretty much a write-off.
Now just picture this Two weeksprior to getting married, all
(18:46):
the errands that you have to do,all the running around, and I
was just left without a vehicleand it was crazy.
And you know, luckily,obviously, I had family and
friends to rely on and supportto lean on to get through those
couple of weeks.
But then, you know, after thewedding's done and we were
married, we had no car.
(19:06):
And you know, expensive awedding was a lot and so we
couldn't just run out andpurchase another car and we had
to pivot.
Like you know, all the thingsthat we had planned, location
where we were gonna live, allthese things, you know, are
reliant on a vehicle and we hadto figure it out.
You know, take transportation,public transit, and just do what
(19:30):
we had to do to save up enoughmoney and to buy another vehicle
.
So I share this.
Just to say that it's not gonnaalways be easy.
Pivoting is not always easy andthe mistakes you make aren't
always easy.
It's the process that'sbeneficial, right.
It's going through them,realizing what's happened and
(19:52):
making educated decisions forthe next time.
So when you're beginning tofeel that fear, come on when you
have to make a financialdecision, and it could be a
simple one like oh, maybe I'llput this on a credit card
instead of paying cash, becauseI wanna hold on to my cash, just
in case.
Take a deep breath, think aboutwhat it is that you need to do
(20:14):
for the next week or two andthen make a decision with as
much information as you have,and then later go back and think
about that decision and assesswhether or not that was the
right one, because that is howyou learn, when you go back and
you review and you don't repeatmistakes over and over again.
(20:34):
All right, guys, I hope thisepisode was helpful to you and,
if you're enjoying the podcast,I would love it if you could
give us a review and perhapsstart by sharing this episode
with someone a close friend or amentor or someone that you are
going to use as your financialbuddy.
All right, we will see you nextweek, thursday, same time, same
(20:57):
place.
Thank you for listening.
We are committed to helping youplace your very first steps
into your new home.
See you next time.
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