March 25, 2025 • 22 mins
Mastering Debt: Understanding Your Financial Intensity Levels
Join Dr. Bryan Foltice in this episode of the Bryan Foltice Behavioral Finance Podcast as he dives deep into the concept of financial intensity levels, particularly in the context of paying off loans and debt. Bryan shares his unique approach from his Money Strong program, offering four distinct intensity levels: minimal effort, moderate effort, high effort, and extreme intense effort. Drawing from personal anecdotes and professional insights, he emphasizes that not everyone should approach debt repayment the same way. Listeners will learn how to identify the level that best fits their personality and situation, and how to design their financial goals accordingly. Don't miss valuable tips on creating a balanced financial plan that promotes both debt repayment and wealth building.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
01:15 Understanding Intensity Levels in Finance
02:59 Personal Stories and Lessons Learned
09:05 Four Levels of Debt Repayment
20:57 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Bryan Foltice Behavioral Finance Website - www.bryanfoltice.com
Money Strong Program - www.moneystrong.net
Instagram - www.instagram.com/bryanfoltice
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-foltice-2578a116/
Disclaimer: www.bryanfoltice.com/cv
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Brian Foltisbehavioral finance podcast,
where we unravel the mysteriesof behavioral finance and unlock
the secrets to making smarter,more informed decisions with
your money.
Now here's your host, Dr.
Brian Foltis.
Welcome everybody to the BrianFoltis behavioral finance
podcast.
(00:25):
It's me, Brian Foltis.
And today we are going to betalking about the different
types of intensity levels thatwould not only we have in our
life, but in our finances,particularly when it comes to
paying off our loans.
So thank you very much fortuning in today.
And if you like what you hearand want to help me spread the
(00:48):
word of behavioral and personalfinance, please make sure you
like and subscribe.
If you have anything nice tosay, we'd love to see that.
That does help the algorithm.
Get this out to more people,spread the word and really try
to help people make betterfinancial decisions.
After all, that's what I'm heretalking to my computer in order
(01:12):
to do.
So again, thank you very much.
Today we're going to jump rightin to these intensity levels of
paying off.
Our loans or our debt.
And this comes around thesection that I have in the money
strong program.
That's called overcoming studentloans and other debts.
(01:32):
And this is where my approachdiffers from other people who
are trying to help people dosimilar things, which
essentially our objective istrying to get people out of debt
in order to not go back intodebt.
And then we can build wealth,but what I've observed is not
(01:56):
everybody is wired the same way.
And so when we're trying to comeup with our intensity levels in
order to come out of debt, noteverybody should be coached or
encouraged to do the same thingor to work this.
through their debt the exactsame way.
And so instead of doing this runfor your life, get your out of
(02:22):
debt as quickly as possible.
I don't care if you starveyourself or whatever ramen
noodles all day.
I'm going to take a step backand lay out four different
levels of intensity.
Talk about the pros and consbehind them and then see.
with an eye, which one fits youbest, or the, maybe the
(02:46):
individual that you're trying tohelp or know that's in debt,
which one fits them the best.
This is not a one size fits allobjective here.
And I always think about thistoo.
Where when I was growing upplaying basketball.
(03:07):
I had this do or die mindsetthat win at all cost, and if you
lose, it was literally the endof the world.
And you might say that's tonguein cheek, but when I was in high
school, I remember losing agame.
(03:30):
playing poorly and I would sneakthrough.
I left my car.
I snuck through the back doorbecause I knew all the college
coaches were waiting out front,right outside of the locker
room.
And so to avoid them, I went inthe back door and walked three
miles home in the cold.
(03:51):
And I actually stopped at BurgerKing and I sat there with a Coke
at Burger King by myself.
Until Burger King closed, andthen I walked the rest of the
way home, and I look back andgo, I took that so hard.
Similarly had a game in collegewhere I played terrible and we
(04:17):
lost and decided that I did notdeserve to sleep in a bed that
night.
I drove out in the middle ofnowhere and slept in my car that
night and was really just Tookthese things really hard.
So then.
(04:38):
I realized this actually helpedme because I remember being in
close games going, you knowwhat, let's find a way to win
this thing because I don't wantto sleep in my car.
I don't want to put that onmyself anymore.
And so we would win these closegames.
We've find this within ourselvestoo.
hit buckets or make plays inorder to win these games and
(05:02):
found there's like this realsatisfaction around those kind
of things as well.
We're going to talk this summer.
I've got it all teed up becausethere's a bigger purpose here
around living a rich life andmental health and intensity
levels, how it all playstogether.
And I'll just give you a littleprelude here that, this mindset
of super high intensity, superdo or die.
(05:26):
It can help you in some ways,but it also if you keep talking
to yourself in this way and it'sa negative loop, like a negative
coach then this can reallybackfire and set you back.
And so we'll talk about thatlater.
But yeah, my intensity levelaround that was super, super
high.
(05:46):
So when I had my loans in my20s, And we said, Hey, I'm going
to make the decision to get outof debt.
How do you think I went aboutit, lackadaisically or, Oh,
let's just see what happens.
We'll let it play out.
No, it was just unbelievable.
(06:07):
discipline and merciless to thepenny.
And so that was my approach.
That was my effort level all inevery cent counts.
We're going to get out of thisas soon as possible.
And it's just do or die, justlike I would do play a
basketball game.
And then when I would go.
(06:31):
I had that same approach of justreal discipline and it's all
about winning.
Let's just get the win andrealizing that my players
weren't acting the same way andI get really frustrated.
Why are you not acting as ifthis is do or die?
And I finally said, Oh man, I,this is not.
(06:57):
You can't force your intensitylevel or your will on other
people.
You can help coach them, but youhave to be, you have to realize
that not everybody is wired likeyou.
And so I went and I saw my buddywho, this is When you play
college basketball, you gothrough this even all these
(07:18):
years later, I know I've,they've got my back.
I've got my teammates back.
And even if it's been a numberof years since we've talked,
we'll pick up right where weleft off.
There's this real camaraderieand brotherhood around this.
And one of my former teammatesis a Division II.
(07:38):
Men's basketball coach inMichigan and they won the
national title a couple yearsago now I want to say have a
great program and One thing Icould identify with him is our
do or die attitude We were verysimilarly wired around that he
won a ton in high school So didI we won a ton together in
(08:01):
college and I saw him havingsuccess With his division two
players and you're winningnational championships there.
That is some real good qualitybasketball.
And I asked him, I said, do youcoach your players the same way
you played?
And he said, no.
(08:22):
He said, if I did, I wouldn'thave anybody to coach because
not everybody.
There's only a select fewplayers that had the same
mindset as us and.
Everybody else we have to dealwith different.
And if you didn't, I wouldn't beable to do it.
So he recognized this andadapted very quickly.
And that's what helped him besuccessful.
(08:44):
And so this is where all that tosay when we are talking about.
Getting out of debt.
I'm trying to evolve here I'mtrying to be a better coach in
order to help people and go andwe don't have to all do rice and
beans and Mercilessly eek outevery penny here, but I want to
lay out the four.
So we're finally getting therefriends.
(09:05):
Sorry for the tangent We'refinally gonna get to the four
intensity levels here and we'llbreak them down figure out which
one is the best for you Numberone, minimal effort.
This is a minimum payments andminimum payments.
So if your monthly budget istight, you don't have a lot of
(09:27):
certainty around your financialsituation.
This is less than ideal in myopinion, but at least it's
something at least you're makingyour minimum payments.
You're not defaulting on yourdebt and you have.
an acknowledgement of paying offyour loans.
You're not just going to go intodelinquency or default on these
(09:52):
debts.
And that's why I say it's betterthan level zero, which I'm
making up, which is completelyignoring or completely avoiding
the situation.
Minimum effort, making minimumpayments.
It's going to slow yourprogress.
It's going to take forever andyou're going to pay way higher.
Minimum effort.
Interest costs.
So it's this loan that we'retrying to get out of, it's going
(10:14):
to stay in your life for longerthan it maybe needs to.
And you are going to pay moreinterest instead of when you're
investing, actually earninterest.
So minimum effort level one.
Number two is this moderateeffort.
So this is where I get a lot ofpeople talking about trying to
(10:36):
balance their approach to payingoff debt, but then also
contributing a little bit intoretirement and into investing.
So if you have some, good incomeand there's some money to be
spread around, then I think thisis a good approach that you can
(10:56):
use where you're using.
You're going to go towardscompeting goals.
So a little bit extra is goinginto your debt repayment, but
then you're also saving forretirement.
You're also saving for maybe anew house or whatever your other
financial goals are.
You're going to make progress inboth.
(11:16):
And This is good because atleast you're moving both in the
right direction.
Your debt repayment is reducing.
Your investments are growing.
The only downside that I reallysee to this is you're slowing
your progress.
You're going to slow down yourprogress on both ends where
(11:38):
getting out of debt is going totake on a little bit.
You're going to take extra time.
You're going to pay extrainterest on that.
So based on the numbers thatcould work against you at the
same time, if you also havereally low interest.
on some of your debts.
Mathematically, that might be agood thing to slow down your
(12:02):
progress as you can get morereturns on your investment.
So this balance approach, andthis is where I've really come
around here.
I've seen it work where Mandyand I, that's what we used in
our approach to paying off ourloans where we were just we
could have been more merciless.
We could have gotten out of debtquicker, but we just balanced it
(12:23):
out where we had our ownsavings, our own investment, our
retirement, and then we werestill.
knocking our way out of herstudent loans, and I finally
have come to this more moderatelevel here as I've aged and
hopefully gotten a little morewise in my time, but good for
(12:45):
making progress on both sidescan slow down the process.
There's our takeaways for thislevel two moderate.
Next, when we move into levelthree is this high effort and
we're moving into the higheffort where you're focused on
this debt payment.
And this is where my defaultusually goes to when it's trying
(13:07):
to coach people because myintention is I want my students
to get out of debt as quickly aspossible.
I know how it feels like to bein debt and I know what it feels
like to put my head on thepillow when I'm in debt.
I also know how it feels like.
To be out of debt and I knowwhat it feels like to put my
head on the pillow and not oweanybody anything And I want
(13:29):
people to get to that other sidewhere They don't have the debt
and I want them to do it asquickly as possible.
This is what brings me to mydefault Let's make this happen
Let's high effort now.
You can see i'm already goingback reverting to my old
Basketball playing self and Ifyou have that disposable income,
(13:51):
there's a in my opinion.
There's a satisfaction of reallymaking Efficient progress.
So if I have extra money at theend of the month, I know where
it goes.
I and making fast progress.
I'm feeling my overall stressand anxiety reduce.
So you have that benefit aswell.
(14:12):
And it just feels really good.
There's that certain element ofdiscipline that feels really
good for most people.
If I'm getting up and going tothe gym every morning or For me
it's rocking the Pelotonupstairs in my workout room and
then doing both.
When I'm doing that, I'm seeingthe results.
(14:34):
I'm feeling good.
It's high effort, but man,there's that payoff that keeps
working in my favor.
And so this is where the higheffort has many pros and many
benefits for.
effort in only downside I canthink about is man putting all
(14:55):
that extra money into debtrepayment temporarily limits our
funding for our savings andinvesting goals.
So that's the downside of it.
It puts our investing goals andother savings goals on pause for
a little while until It is paidoff, but what I like to tell
(15:19):
students is once that if you,the idea of doing our monthly
financial plan is to have moneyleft over at the end of the
month, that money can go towardsdebt.
And I encourage students to dothat, knock out that debt as
soon as possible with all thatextra money.
And if you are not deprivingyourself and living a happy
(15:40):
lifestyle, that's happy withinyour own means, naturally, what
can happen with that amount ofmoney when you're done paying
off your loans is that easilyconverts into higher savings.
So that way, whatever money thatis, that's 500 a month that was
going towards your debtssuddenly moves into The next
(16:01):
phase of wealth building whereyou're prioritizing your
flexibility fund, three to sixmonths worth of expenses.
Then you're moving into highercontributions for your
retirement and you start thewealth building process with
that extra money.
Just temporary, it just flipsover there.
But it does slow that progressbecause you can't put them in
(16:22):
both every month.
That's the high effort.
This is our focused debt payoff.
And then you have level four.
Which is your extreme intenseeffort.
So think about somebody whoreally cutting back on expenses
(16:42):
in order to work your way out ofdebt.
It's high.
Effort on steroids where this iswhere you are really not doing
anything fun or I take that backyou can still do stuff fun but
you have this extreme focus onwhatever you're doing is not
(17:02):
going to cost any money all ofyour expenses are very minimal
this is more or less I wasbetween this three and four
level where you're mercilesswhere I remember I called my ex
wife when we were first married.
We were 21 years old or in our20s, right?
And I was like, I remembercalling her saying, I saw that
(17:23):
you got lunch at this, bagelplace for 8.
And I thought we really were onthis.
And I'd look back on it.
It's Oh gosh, Brian, chill out,bro.
And so anyway, I can see thisextreme effort.
I had good intentions.
We were going to change ourwhole trajectory of our
finances.
(17:44):
The intention was good.
Execution was very extreme.
And so obviously you can getdebt free as quickly as
possible.
You are going to reduce yourinterest expenses as much as
possible.
Through this really extreme wayof living, but there's a couple
(18:05):
of things here that I want us tobe aware of if we're in that
mentality, and one is obviouslyreally this deprivation thing of
not feeling maybe there's asense of we're trying to get
this.
out of debt, but then there'salso an underlying feeling of
(18:25):
not feeling worthy or notfeeling good about yourself.
And so maybe there's more to itthan just your extreme effort.
This is coming from my ownexperience of really finally
figuring out, Hey, there'ssomething more to it.
It's called mental health.
And let's work on that.
And then when that lines up, allthe other things fall into
(18:48):
place.
But anyway, this extreme focus,or this extreme effort can have
some burnout feelings.
The feeling of deprivation.
And then also, this feeling ofscarcity.
Which means there's neverenough.
Or we're just trying to eke outwith this finite amount of
income that we have.
(19:09):
And there'll never be more.
We're living just within some ofthese confines.
And I think that this providessome sort of issue.
Sometimes when we get out ofdebt and are now building
wealth, keeping that same.
(19:31):
Mindset can really hurt us.
And this is what we start seeingwhere we get out of debt.
And now we're saving a ton ofmoney and we're still living
this more or less deprived life.
Now I'm not talking about a lifewhere we're living within our
means.
I'm talking this real extremelevel and.
(19:52):
Of saving and you have the realhigh percentage in order to get
out of debt.
This sometimes becomes thismindset of I'm just not able to
spend it because one of thesedays you're actually going to
have money set aside.
And if you're living thisextreme.
cutting, no expenses, lifestyle.
(20:14):
I've noticed it's really hardfor these individuals to turn it
on.
And this is where we say, justbe careful.
If you have this extreme intenseeffort, we want you to be aware
of.
First, is there anything elsegoing on that might be a bigger
issue?
And then secondly is let's thinkabout what we're doing this
(20:36):
whole money thing for and thinkabout how we're going to be able
to switch our mindset intosomething that is abundant.
and not restricting, and if weactually have money, will we use
it in the right way, or will wecontinue to deprive ourself for
(20:56):
it?
We've got four levels of efforthere when it comes to paying off
the loans, and that's where Iwant you to think about which
one best fits you, and thendesign your financial goals
around that level.
And we can talk now.
The same.
Jargon or the same languagearound this because now we know
(21:21):
that hey, there are fourdifferent levels.
It's not all about rice andbeans and Getting out of debt as
soon as possible.
There are different ways to dothis choose the one that best
fits yourself friends if youmade it this far, I applaud you.
Thank you very much forlistening and all of your
support.
And once again, if you needanything from me, find me on
(21:42):
YouTube or most likely onInstagram, Dr.
Brian Foltis would love to hearfrom you.
Thank you all very much.
Have a wonderful day.
And we'll see you next time.
Thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the Brian
Foltis behavioral financepodcast.
We hope you found ourexploration into the fascinating
world of human behavior andfinance, both enlightening and
(22:04):
thought provoking.
Be sure to subscribe for futureepisodes and until next time,
stay curious and financiallysavvy.
Welcome to the Brian Foltisbehavioral finance podcast,
where we unravel the mysteriesof behavioral finance and unlock
the secrets to making smarter,more informed decisions with
your money.
Now here's your host, Dr.
Brian Foltis.
Welcome everybody to the BrianFoltis behavioral finance
podcast.
(00:25):
It's me, Brian Foltis.
And today we are going to betalking about the different
types of intensity levels thatwould not only we have in our
life, but in our finances,particularly when it comes to
paying off our loans.
So thank you very much fortuning in today.
And if you like what you hearand want to help me spread the
(00:48):
word of behavioral and personalfinance, please make sure you
like and subscribe.
If you have anything nice tosay, we'd love to see that.
That does help the algorithm.
Get this out to more people,spread the word and really try
to help people make betterfinancial decisions.
After all, that's what I'm heretalking to my computer in order
(01:12):
to do.
So again, thank you very much.
Today we're going to jump rightin to these intensity levels of
paying off.
Our loans or our debt.
And this comes around thesection that I have in the money
strong program.
That's called overcoming studentloans and other debts.
(01:32):
And this is where my approachdiffers from other people who
are trying to help people dosimilar things, which
essentially our objective istrying to get people out of debt
in order to not go back intodebt.
And then we can build wealth,but what I've observed is not
(01:56):
everybody is wired the same way.
And so when we're trying to comeup with our intensity levels in
order to come out of debt, noteverybody should be coached or
encouraged to do the same thingor to work this.
through their debt the exactsame way.
And so instead of doing this runfor your life, get your out of
(02:22):
debt as quickly as possible.
I don't care if you starveyourself or whatever ramen
noodles all day.
I'm going to take a step backand lay out four different
levels of intensity.
Talk about the pros and consbehind them and then see.
with an eye, which one fits youbest, or the, maybe the
(02:46):
individual that you're trying tohelp or know that's in debt,
which one fits them the best.
This is not a one size fits allobjective here.
And I always think about thistoo.
Where when I was growing upplaying basketball.
(03:07):
I had this do or die mindsetthat win at all cost, and if you
lose, it was literally the endof the world.
And you might say that's tonguein cheek, but when I was in high
school, I remember losing agame.
(03:30):
playing poorly and I would sneakthrough.
I left my car.
I snuck through the back doorbecause I knew all the college
coaches were waiting out front,right outside of the locker
room.
And so to avoid them, I went inthe back door and walked three
miles home in the cold.
(03:51):
And I actually stopped at BurgerKing and I sat there with a Coke
at Burger King by myself.
Until Burger King closed, andthen I walked the rest of the
way home, and I look back andgo, I took that so hard.
Similarly had a game in collegewhere I played terrible and we
(04:17):
lost and decided that I did notdeserve to sleep in a bed that
night.
I drove out in the middle ofnowhere and slept in my car that
night and was really just Tookthese things really hard.
So then.
(04:38):
I realized this actually helpedme because I remember being in
close games going, you knowwhat, let's find a way to win
this thing because I don't wantto sleep in my car.
I don't want to put that onmyself anymore.
And so we would win these closegames.
We've find this within ourselvestoo.
hit buckets or make plays inorder to win these games and
(05:02):
found there's like this realsatisfaction around those kind
of things as well.
We're going to talk this summer.
I've got it all teed up becausethere's a bigger purpose here
around living a rich life andmental health and intensity
levels, how it all playstogether.
And I'll just give you a littleprelude here that, this mindset
of super high intensity, superdo or die.
(05:26):
It can help you in some ways,but it also if you keep talking
to yourself in this way and it'sa negative loop, like a negative
coach then this can reallybackfire and set you back.
And so we'll talk about thatlater.
But yeah, my intensity levelaround that was super, super
high.
(05:46):
So when I had my loans in my20s, And we said, Hey, I'm going
to make the decision to get outof debt.
How do you think I went aboutit, lackadaisically or, Oh,
let's just see what happens.
We'll let it play out.
No, it was just unbelievable.
(06:07):
discipline and merciless to thepenny.
And so that was my approach.
That was my effort level all inevery cent counts.
We're going to get out of thisas soon as possible.
And it's just do or die, justlike I would do play a
basketball game.
And then when I would go.
(06:31):
I had that same approach of justreal discipline and it's all
about winning.
Let's just get the win andrealizing that my players
weren't acting the same way andI get really frustrated.
Why are you not acting as ifthis is do or die?
And I finally said, Oh man, I,this is not.
(06:57):
You can't force your intensitylevel or your will on other
people.
You can help coach them, but youhave to be, you have to realize
that not everybody is wired likeyou.
And so I went and I saw my buddywho, this is When you play
college basketball, you gothrough this even all these
(07:18):
years later, I know I've,they've got my back.
I've got my teammates back.
And even if it's been a numberof years since we've talked,
we'll pick up right where weleft off.
There's this real camaraderieand brotherhood around this.
And one of my former teammatesis a Division II.
(07:38):
Men's basketball coach inMichigan and they won the
national title a couple yearsago now I want to say have a
great program and One thing Icould identify with him is our
do or die attitude We were verysimilarly wired around that he
won a ton in high school So didI we won a ton together in
(08:01):
college and I saw him havingsuccess With his division two
players and you're winningnational championships there.
That is some real good qualitybasketball.
And I asked him, I said, do youcoach your players the same way
you played?
And he said, no.
(08:22):
He said, if I did, I wouldn'thave anybody to coach because
not everybody.
There's only a select fewplayers that had the same
mindset as us and.
Everybody else we have to dealwith different.
And if you didn't, I wouldn't beable to do it.
So he recognized this andadapted very quickly.
And that's what helped him besuccessful.
(08:44):
And so this is where all that tosay when we are talking about.
Getting out of debt.
I'm trying to evolve here I'mtrying to be a better coach in
order to help people and go andwe don't have to all do rice and
beans and Mercilessly eek outevery penny here, but I want to
lay out the four.
So we're finally getting therefriends.
(09:05):
Sorry for the tangent We'refinally gonna get to the four
intensity levels here and we'llbreak them down figure out which
one is the best for you Numberone, minimal effort.
This is a minimum payments andminimum payments.
So if your monthly budget istight, you don't have a lot of
(09:27):
certainty around your financialsituation.
This is less than ideal in myopinion, but at least it's
something at least you're makingyour minimum payments.
You're not defaulting on yourdebt and you have.
an acknowledgement of paying offyour loans.
You're not just going to go intodelinquency or default on these
(09:52):
debts.
And that's why I say it's betterthan level zero, which I'm
making up, which is completelyignoring or completely avoiding
the situation.
Minimum effort, making minimumpayments.
It's going to slow yourprogress.
It's going to take forever andyou're going to pay way higher.
Minimum effort.
Interest costs.
So it's this loan that we'retrying to get out of, it's going
(10:14):
to stay in your life for longerthan it maybe needs to.
And you are going to pay moreinterest instead of when you're
investing, actually earninterest.
So minimum effort level one.
Number two is this moderateeffort.
So this is where I get a lot ofpeople talking about trying to
(10:36):
balance their approach to payingoff debt, but then also
contributing a little bit intoretirement and into investing.
So if you have some, good incomeand there's some money to be
spread around, then I think thisis a good approach that you can
(10:56):
use where you're using.
You're going to go towardscompeting goals.
So a little bit extra is goinginto your debt repayment, but
then you're also saving forretirement.
You're also saving for maybe anew house or whatever your other
financial goals are.
You're going to make progress inboth.
(11:16):
And This is good because atleast you're moving both in the
right direction.
Your debt repayment is reducing.
Your investments are growing.
The only downside that I reallysee to this is you're slowing
your progress.
You're going to slow down yourprogress on both ends where
(11:38):
getting out of debt is going totake on a little bit.
You're going to take extra time.
You're going to pay extrainterest on that.
So based on the numbers thatcould work against you at the
same time, if you also havereally low interest.
on some of your debts.
Mathematically, that might be agood thing to slow down your
(12:02):
progress as you can get morereturns on your investment.
So this balance approach, andthis is where I've really come
around here.
I've seen it work where Mandyand I, that's what we used in
our approach to paying off ourloans where we were just we
could have been more merciless.
We could have gotten out of debtquicker, but we just balanced it
(12:23):
out where we had our ownsavings, our own investment, our
retirement, and then we werestill.
knocking our way out of herstudent loans, and I finally
have come to this more moderatelevel here as I've aged and
hopefully gotten a little morewise in my time, but good for
(12:45):
making progress on both sidescan slow down the process.
There's our takeaways for thislevel two moderate.
Next, when we move into levelthree is this high effort and
we're moving into the higheffort where you're focused on
this debt payment.
And this is where my defaultusually goes to when it's trying
(13:07):
to coach people because myintention is I want my students
to get out of debt as quickly aspossible.
I know how it feels like to bein debt and I know what it feels
like to put my head on thepillow when I'm in debt.
I also know how it feels like.
To be out of debt and I knowwhat it feels like to put my
head on the pillow and not oweanybody anything And I want
(13:29):
people to get to that other sidewhere They don't have the debt
and I want them to do it asquickly as possible.
This is what brings me to mydefault Let's make this happen
Let's high effort now.
You can see i'm already goingback reverting to my old
Basketball playing self and Ifyou have that disposable income,
(13:51):
there's a in my opinion.
There's a satisfaction of reallymaking Efficient progress.
So if I have extra money at theend of the month, I know where
it goes.
I and making fast progress.
I'm feeling my overall stressand anxiety reduce.
So you have that benefit aswell.
(14:12):
And it just feels really good.
There's that certain element ofdiscipline that feels really
good for most people.
If I'm getting up and going tothe gym every morning or For me
it's rocking the Pelotonupstairs in my workout room and
then doing both.
When I'm doing that, I'm seeingthe results.
(14:34):
I'm feeling good.
It's high effort, but man,there's that payoff that keeps
working in my favor.
And so this is where the higheffort has many pros and many
benefits for.
effort in only downside I canthink about is man putting all
(14:55):
that extra money into debtrepayment temporarily limits our
funding for our savings andinvesting goals.
So that's the downside of it.
It puts our investing goals andother savings goals on pause for
a little while until It is paidoff, but what I like to tell
(15:19):
students is once that if you,the idea of doing our monthly
financial plan is to have moneyleft over at the end of the
month, that money can go towardsdebt.
And I encourage students to dothat, knock out that debt as
soon as possible with all thatextra money.
And if you are not deprivingyourself and living a happy
(15:40):
lifestyle, that's happy withinyour own means, naturally, what
can happen with that amount ofmoney when you're done paying
off your loans is that easilyconverts into higher savings.
So that way, whatever money thatis, that's 500 a month that was
going towards your debtssuddenly moves into The next
(16:01):
phase of wealth building whereyou're prioritizing your
flexibility fund, three to sixmonths worth of expenses.
Then you're moving into highercontributions for your
retirement and you start thewealth building process with
that extra money.
Just temporary, it just flipsover there.
But it does slow that progressbecause you can't put them in
(16:22):
both every month.
That's the high effort.
This is our focused debt payoff.
And then you have level four.
Which is your extreme intenseeffort.
So think about somebody whoreally cutting back on expenses
(16:42):
in order to work your way out ofdebt.
It's high.
Effort on steroids where this iswhere you are really not doing
anything fun or I take that backyou can still do stuff fun but
you have this extreme focus onwhatever you're doing is not
(17:02):
going to cost any money all ofyour expenses are very minimal
this is more or less I wasbetween this three and four
level where you're mercilesswhere I remember I called my ex
wife when we were first married.
We were 21 years old or in our20s, right?
And I was like, I remembercalling her saying, I saw that
(17:23):
you got lunch at this, bagelplace for 8.
And I thought we really were onthis.
And I'd look back on it.
It's Oh gosh, Brian, chill out,bro.
And so anyway, I can see thisextreme effort.
I had good intentions.
We were going to change ourwhole trajectory of our
finances.
(17:44):
The intention was good.
Execution was very extreme.
And so obviously you can getdebt free as quickly as
possible.
You are going to reduce yourinterest expenses as much as
possible.
Through this really extreme wayof living, but there's a couple
(18:05):
of things here that I want us tobe aware of if we're in that
mentality, and one is obviouslyreally this deprivation thing of
not feeling maybe there's asense of we're trying to get
this.
out of debt, but then there'salso an underlying feeling of
(18:25):
not feeling worthy or notfeeling good about yourself.
And so maybe there's more to itthan just your extreme effort.
This is coming from my ownexperience of really finally
figuring out, Hey, there'ssomething more to it.
It's called mental health.
And let's work on that.
And then when that lines up, allthe other things fall into
(18:48):
place.
But anyway, this extreme focus,or this extreme effort can have
some burnout feelings.
The feeling of deprivation.
And then also, this feeling ofscarcity.
Which means there's neverenough.
Or we're just trying to eke outwith this finite amount of
income that we have.
(19:09):
And there'll never be more.
We're living just within some ofthese confines.
And I think that this providessome sort of issue.
Sometimes when we get out ofdebt and are now building
wealth, keeping that same.
(19:31):
Mindset can really hurt us.
And this is what we start seeingwhere we get out of debt.
And now we're saving a ton ofmoney and we're still living
this more or less deprived life.
Now I'm not talking about a lifewhere we're living within our
means.
I'm talking this real extremelevel and.
(19:52):
Of saving and you have the realhigh percentage in order to get
out of debt.
This sometimes becomes thismindset of I'm just not able to
spend it because one of thesedays you're actually going to
have money set aside.
And if you're living thisextreme.
cutting, no expenses, lifestyle.
(20:14):
I've noticed it's really hardfor these individuals to turn it
on.
And this is where we say, justbe careful.
If you have this extreme intenseeffort, we want you to be aware
of.
First, is there anything elsegoing on that might be a bigger
issue?
And then secondly is let's thinkabout what we're doing this
(20:36):
whole money thing for and thinkabout how we're going to be able
to switch our mindset intosomething that is abundant.
and not restricting, and if weactually have money, will we use
it in the right way, or will wecontinue to deprive ourself for
(20:56):
it?
We've got four levels of efforthere when it comes to paying off
the loans, and that's where Iwant you to think about which
one best fits you, and thendesign your financial goals
around that level.
And we can talk now.
The same.
Jargon or the same languagearound this because now we know
(21:21):
that hey, there are fourdifferent levels.
It's not all about rice andbeans and Getting out of debt as
soon as possible.
There are different ways to dothis choose the one that best
fits yourself friends if youmade it this far, I applaud you.
Thank you very much forlistening and all of your
support.
And once again, if you needanything from me, find me on
(21:42):
YouTube or most likely onInstagram, Dr.
Brian Foltis would love to hearfrom you.
Thank you all very much.
Have a wonderful day.
And we'll see you next time.
Thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the Brian
Foltis behavioral financepodcast.
We hope you found ourexploration into the fascinating
world of human behavior andfinance, both enlightening and
(22:04):
thought provoking.
Be sure to subscribe for futureepisodes and until next time,
stay curious and financiallysavvy.
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