Demystifying Budgeting: Your Path to Wealth and Personal Growth

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Curious
Ulsterman podcast, the podcastdesigned to equip you with the
tools and wisdom you need tothrive as an adult.
I am your host, johnny aka theCurious Ulsterman, and in
today's episode I am joined bymy good friend and repeat guest,
dylan Bain.
In today's episode, we sit downto discuss creating a budget

(00:29):
and why that is so important intoday's world.
We also discuss why a budget ismore than just basic maths and
the basic psychology andemotions that will inform your
own budget.
We also discuss how a budgetdone correctly can lead to
financial sovereignty, alsoknown as financial freedom.
So, without further delay,folks, here is today's episode

(00:50):
on creating a budget with DylanBain.
Dylan, welcome back to the show.
Hey, good to see you, man, howare you?
I am really good, can'tcomplain at all, and I'm really
glad to have you back on theshow.
This is your fourth appearance,if I'm not mistaken.
My fourth appearance.
Yeah, you just keep deliveringthe absolute bomb content.

(01:12):
So you know we've got to haveyou back all the time.
Between your life experienceand you know, today actually you
have the most downloadedepisode on this podcast with.
I think it was our first everepisode, maybe our second.
I had to do well at a jobinterview.
I had to do well in a jobinterview.
Man that is clean, cut abovethe rest, like the easy, most
downloaded episode.

(01:32):
So yeah Well.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'll share with you.
Right before this call, I wason a coaching call with a
gentleman who's having troublewith his wife and you know he's
having some issues.
We were talking about likebeing on this podcast and
sharing knowledge, and I wassharing with him about you know
what you're doing here in yourmission and he was super
interested in these.
He started, he downloaded acouple of these, just texted me

(01:55):
right before we jumped on thiscall of like this is great
content.
How did I know this was here?
So I think what you're doing isgreat and I'll also share with
you.
I'm interviewing on Tuesday forfor another position inside of
my company.
That would be a pretty bigpaybomb and so, like I was kind
of reflecting on that very firstepisode as I'm preparing for
the interview and going to my myyou know the interview

(02:16):
questions and great crafting, mystory, getting ready to sell
myself.
You know what is the valueproposition that I'm making to
them?
That why am I worth 20 grandmore than than I'm making
currently, even though I don'thave all the minimum
qualifications that they want?
Why am I still the bestcandidate?
You know and I'll let you knowhow it goes, but it's a great

(02:38):
example where it's like, youknow, good networking, because I
got the interview because ofnetworking, which is another
conversation we had, and Inetworked my way into the
position.
I leveraged my wife's networkto get the conversation so that
I could network, and now I'mgetting preparing for the
interview and I know I'm goingto crush it.
So if I miss, I already knowthat I've won everything I

(02:59):
possibly can and if I miss, it'sjust because somebody else had
those minimum qualificationsthat I didn't have.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, man, I must admit I really admire your
confidence in this kind of thing.
You know, you're knowing you'regoing to walk into that
interview with the various lifeskills that you know you've
accrued through hard won battlesover the years and, man, I'm
inspired by your journey and youknow just the kick ass stuff

(03:24):
you keep doing.
You know, I know I check in onyour Instagram and your various
endeavors between your ownpodcast and between you know
your new life, your lifecoaching company you've recently
set up, which, man, I'm wellhappy for you.
But for you know, and for theaudience, if you're not aware,

(03:45):
we did how to do well on a jobinterview, professional
networking, and you did a thirdepisode which I was ashamed to
say I can't remember what wetalked about Dead Dead, that was
it.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
You would post it up.
About this idea of good debtversus bad debt.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and like absolutely can't let that one
slide, not even 30 seconds later, straight in my DMs.
Right, we need to have aconversation, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah Well, but I mean it.
Just, we live in such avariable world where shit
changes so fast and you know, Ifeel like on today's topic,
we're talking about budgets andit's.
But what you say about budgets,I feel like you can say about a
lot of things.
You know, there's this idea ofshame around it.
Everybody has their ownpersonal philosophy with it.

(04:28):
It's the same thing with thedebt conversation.
People will tell you like no,there's good debt and I'm, I'm
on the same train as Dave Ramsey.
No, it's not.
You know, debt is a mortgagethat you've given on your future
production and it's part.
You know, your income is whatyou know, your income that comes
in at parts of your life thatyou've traded away for these,

(04:51):
these pieces of paper we callmoney, and debt is part of your
future you've given away for thesame thing.
You know, I really believe thatwhen you start to look at these
things and in a more stoicreality, they become in the
focus.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, no, 100%.
I feel like the conversationswe have are so badly needed
because, you're right, today'stopic is about budgeting and I
don't this is not a slightagainst my parents, family or
anything but I don't everactually recall talking about a

(05:26):
budget when I started earning awage.
You know, I got the don'tobviously the real basic common
sense.
One do not spend more than youearn.
That's real common sense.
But like actually sitting downlooking at what you're, what,
what is coming into your bankaccount, and allocating it in a
logical way.
I was never taught that.

(05:48):
But before we get into into thatkind of arena, I think it's
worth getting the foundations ofa comp, of this conversation
and topic into play and built.
And the first question I wouldhave for you is like, what is a
budget?
Because people hear this termthrown about and I think that
for every financial guru onInstagram there's somewhat of a

(06:12):
similar answer, but they'll allput their own spin on it.
But in layman's terms and for,like a university student or
someone earning their first paypacket, like what is a budget?

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Okay.
So, to the audience, I'm goingto put you to sleep, then we'll
wake you up, okay, so, like,just let's you know, let's hang
on here, because here's thething when you, if you want to
put someone to sleep, there aretwo topics that will will like,
if you're going to get one, two,one or two responses are either
going to punch you in the faceor you're going to go to sleep,

(06:42):
and that's budget and taxes 100%.
You're like I can't tell you,like I get some people who would
like they get fired up aboutbudgets.
I know that they're out there,trust me, but I'm going to give
you like a technical definitionof a budget and then I'm going
to tell you why I think that's ahorseshit thing.
So if you want a technicaldefinition of budgets and

(07:02):
estimation of revenue andexpenses revenue being income
over a specified future periodof time, and it's usually
compiled and reevaluated on aperiodic basis Now, anybody but
me should be asleep at thispoint, or they should be sitting
there going well, I guess Idon't need a budget because I
don't know what the hell.
He just said yeah, and I thinkthat that's part of the problem.

(07:23):
So let me restate you what isthat saying?
What it's telling you thatyou're looking at your income
and expenses based upon aparticular timeframe, that you
need to redo all the time Okay,but let me say what a budget
really is.
A budget is a statement ofvalue.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh, at the end of the day you're going to be
elaborating that one.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Your budget is a statement of your values.
Period, end of statement.
There isn't more to say aboutit.
And here's why.
If you wanted to know what typeof man you are, johnny, give me
your checkbook and yourcalendar and I will tell you
exactly what kind of man you are.
Because your two most preciousthings in the world are your
time and your money, and yourmoney because you traded your

(08:02):
time to get it.
So how you're using your moneywill tell me how you're using
your time, your one single, mostvaluable non-renewable resource
you have.
So your budget is how you'remanaging that precious resource.
Oh, wow, that's your budget is astatement that's convecting me

(08:23):
pretty much there.
Your budget is a statement ofvalues.
That's what it is, and that'strue for governments, that's
true for companies, that's truefor individuals Like stop and
think about it.
And for those who are 18, youprobably don't know this, those
who might be older you probablyhave run into this where you
have a company and they saywe've had a great year, we've

(08:44):
had record profits, we've nevermade more money.
And then you say, cool, I wanta 10% raise and they go, we
don't have the budget for that.
Fuck you.
Yes, you do.
Your budget was a statement ofvalues and what you just told me
is whatever else I did withthat money whether I paid
dividends to my shareholders,invested in my equipment, that

(09:05):
was more important than payingmy employees.
And what do corporations tellyou?
They're our quote unquote mostimportant asset.
That's never true, becausetheir budgets never reflect that
.
Wow, no, companies paying abovemarket value for their
employees because they're theirquote unquote most important
asset.
But that budget's a statementof their values.
Now, I'm agnostic because I'mnot sitting here saying these

(09:27):
corporations are evil.
I think they kind of are, butthat's not the point of this
conversation.
The point is trying toillustrate how budgets will
outline your values you as anindividual, when you're looking
at your budget, give me yourbudget.
I get people who come into myfinancial coaching practice will
say, hey, I got, I have a taxproblem.
What's your budget?
Oh, I don't have a budget.
Well, I can tell you you don'thave a tax problem, you have a

(09:50):
spending problem because youdon't have a budget to manage
your resources.
Or I get people to say, well, Iwant to start investing.
How much do you have to invest?
Well, I don't know.
Well, that tells me they don'thave a budget.
It's not part of their valuesystem to manage their resources
, so they can even do thingslike invest.
So if we start the conversationwith something that actually

(10:11):
hits to where budgets actuallymatter, which is your heart, not
your head, your heart a budgetis a statement of values.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
That is an amazing explanation and I mean I'm
standing here and I feelconvicted because now I'm asking
well, what are my values?
And you know how is my own paypacket looking Like?
To give you total transparency,I quote unquote don't have a
budget.
What I do have is I know I'vegot a ballpark figure for I know

(10:42):
that I don't have any majorexpensive hobbies.
You know, my most expensive outgoing would probably be my gym
membership, my mortgage, myphone bill.
I don't have any huge expensivehobbies and I don't waste money
quite frugal really.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
But what it tells me but here's like let's just stick
with that for a second.
Yeah, you have no, no expensivehobbies.
How the hell are you livinglife?
Your budget is telling me like,oh, we're saving, we're doing
this, but Johnny is not spending.
He's not spending that.
Where is the rest of that moneygoing?
Is he deferred today?

(11:19):
Is today washed out so thatbecause he believes that that
better, happy, your future isjust over the horizon?
Does he have a reason tobelieve that, like there's lots
of questions, just in thatlittle bit of transparency about
budgeting that can tell me like, all that for me, I just have
more questions.
But as you're talking about,like, what are my values?
Okay, well, that's a goodquestion.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, no, but it's really good as well, because I
think that you know, when ournext time I sit down in journal,
I'll really that this would bea question I'll post to myself
like look at my bank balance andlook at my and look at my
values and see like I'm, what mygoals in life.
I have very specific goals inlife I want to achieve and I

(12:00):
feel like I'm on track toachieve them.
But it's so interesting, Inever looked at that A budget is
a reflection of my values andyou know, but that it's so.
You've caught me off guard withit, to be honest, because now
I'm sort of thinking that if I'mfeeling like this, how is
everybody else in the audiencefeeling?

(12:20):
Because you know, if you're 18and you've just got your first
pay packet and you're doingcartwheels, and you're suddenly
like, oh, I've just spent all mymoney on nights out and maybe
you've bought your first car andyou know all this kind of thing
, it's a major conviction.
I suppose at 18 or even auniversity, shouldn't this would
be a really good way to to findout what your values are here

(12:45):
and now, rather than you know orwhat somebody asked.
You pulled up into the streetand said oh, what are your
values?
And you're like, well, I don'tknow.
And, as you say, show me yourpay packet.
And if you're spending your paypacket exclusively on nights
out and not really chasing afteryour dreams or any your
ambitions, and that kind ofthing, it's very telling, isn't

(13:06):
it?

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, we're going to come back to that, because when
we start talking about pitfallsand budgeting, we're going to
talk about nights out and youknow the I imagine that we're
going to.
We're going to disrupt somehomeostasis with that
conversation.
Oh, I'm looking forward to here.
Here's the thing.
There's two ways you can putpeople to sleep or get them to

(13:29):
fight.
You talk about budgets, talkabout taxes, why, yeah, the
people who go to sleep, theyknow that they're not looking at
their values and they probablyhave no idea what they are.
The people who will fight.
You are the people who aregoing, who are insecure about
their values, and they don't.
So they stick to this thing andthey found some excuse as to
why they think that they'reright.

(13:50):
And why do they fight you abouttaxes?
It's the same thing, becauseyour taxes make up some sort of
governmental budget.
Oh, you know, how your taxesare spent is a reflection of the
values of society.
I'm an American, so my valuesapparently are aircraft carriers
and fuck off with yourhealthcare, right, and so like

(14:10):
you know, I mean laugh.
No, you totally should, becauseit's fucking comical.
You know, people aren't people.
I've never met anybody who'supset about paying taxes.
They're upset because thegovernment doesn't spend them
the way that's in line withtheir values.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Oh man, that is powerful.
You're right.
Yeah, I don't mind.
I don't mind being taxed, but Iwant my, I want my taxes to be
spent well, that benefits thebroad society that I live in.
You know, I want people, I wantpeople everywhere to have a
high standard of living and Isuppose, yeah, it's a reflection
of the government's values andwe're not going to get into the

(14:47):
discussion because we'll go on atangent.
But I suppose in a way,depending how you vote
politically is you're lookingand saying, right, well, I think
that these people will spend mytaxes better because they're
more in line with my values.
That's a whole otherconversation we can have,
potentially have Dylan.
But yeah, it's just it's.

(15:08):
All these like little tangentsare going off in my head,
thinking God is, it's connectedto everything.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Now, it is because your, your money is your time,
your time is your life and yougot a finite amount of it.
Yeah, like, hammering that homeis really important, but I mean
it even goes back to when youtalk about, like, oh, our
society responsible for raisingkids or individuals responsible
for raising kids.
To me it's society, right, likewe can have this debate, and I

(15:32):
know there's some people in ourmen's group, the iron council,
who will, who, like now, shankme in the shower because I just
said that.
But let me give you an example.
If you got a guy in the UnitedStates who has a kid, who's
disabled and we both knowsomebody who's in that boat
we're not going to mention namesbut when I look at my paycheck
and I look at my pay stub and Isee that there's this tax taken

(15:53):
out for for you know, social,social security insurance,
medicaid, medicare, Medicaidbeing healthcare for poor people
, medicaid being healthcare forpeople over age of 65 here in
the United States I look atthose lines and I never, ever,
ever feel bad about paying thattax, because I know my friend's
child is supported by my taxdollars and I feel an obligation
to my friend and his child topay that money.

(16:14):
Now I look at my income tax andthink do I need another fucking
aircraft carrier?
Hmm, hmm, hmm, right, you know,I want a cyber command.
I want a better infrastructure.
I don't want to hear that inPennsylvania, bridges are
collapsing.
So my issue with paying taxeshas everything to do with the
fact that the spending isn't inline with my values.
Yeah, and it's the same thingwith the budget.
At the end of the day, we allkind of know this, and I want to

(16:38):
go back a little bit tosomething you talked about with.
Like well, your parents sit andsit you down and teach you how
to budget, and I'm going to I dowant to touch on that, because
it's such a such a barrier tobudgeting.
Like now, I said it's astatement of values.
Now people are probably pissedat me, or they turned us off, or
they're.
They're like no, it's not, it'sjust money.
Like okay, man, calm down, takea breath.
But let's talk about why youdidn't learn budgeting.

(16:58):
Why the fuck would you learnbudgeting?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's very boring, to be fair, I'm just speaking from
speaking when I was like 18, 19,.
I didn't want to sit down andbudget.
I wanted to play Xbox or go outwith my friends.
Yeah, party all night, becausethat's what's important to you?

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, but like, I want to get a little bit deeper.
We live in a specializedeconomy, like we're human beings
, so like, let's just stop andthink about what the hell that
even means.
So, in terms of human beings,we've human beings, homo sapiens
, have been on the planet forthree million years.
In the last little bit of that,in the last 10,000 years, we
built the pyramids and hadcivilization, and in the last 50

(17:36):
years we've lived in atechnologically enabled world
when in our genetics or in ourmakeup or in our social
programming that's part of ourneurological hardwiring is
budgeting?
Yeah, it's not.
I don't need to teach you howto fuck somebody, because that's
it.

(17:56):
I don't need to teach you thatyou need to eat food.
I don't need to teach you tostay away from a pile of shit,
because that smell drives you.
Nuts or rotting things samedeal, right.
That's hardwired into yourbrain.
There is no God-given reasonwhy a human being should, out of
the box, somehow naturally knowhow to budget.
It's just not true.
And, more to the point, stopand think about a tribal society

(18:19):
for a second, because this isthe proto-budgeting part of this
right.
So when we talk about savagefirelight or fiscally savage,
part of the reason I use theterm savage is because I'm
talking to the primal part ofourself.
So in a tribal thing, who didthe budgeting?
Well, the tribe did thebudgeting.
The men would go out and chopfirewood and the women would
tell them when it was enough.
And the women would look at itand go well, we need more

(18:40):
firewood.
Men will go get it.
Right, that's how that shitworked.
And so where in there was themplanning for retirement?
Oh, wow, where were theirhealth care costs?
Where was the idea of debt inthose societies?
So what's going to have abigger impact on us as humans

(19:01):
out of the box?
Three million years ofevolution or 10,000 years of
society?

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Oh yeah, Well, yeah, it's not a competition.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So for people who are feeling shame about, like, I
don't know how to budget or Iwas never taught this, the first
thing I'd say is why the hellwould you know that?
There's literally no reason tofeel shame other than societal
controls that are put on usaround budgets, because we look
at it and say people who don'tdo a good job.
Budgeting in my dream must bemorally insufficient, because
budgets are statements of values.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Oh my God, drop by, drop on a bomb on us there, whoa
, yeah, I suppose, in a way, wedo judge people who we perceive
to be bad with money and who welook at them like, especially if
you're like, homeless orextremely poor.
It's like you know, we've alldone that.

(19:54):
Everyone is guilty of it atsome stage.
Going well, you must have madebad decisions, and maybe they
did.
But then again, if they werenever taught how to do, how to
look at how to do moneycorrectly in the first place, or
they just had a really bad handin life, you know, it's yeah,
man, that's.
That was a really convictingstatement, but again, it's very

(20:17):
truthful though, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Of course, we live in a society that's everyone's
dependent and having a job,while every corporation's trying
to figure out how to eliminateas many of those as possible.
You know, we also live in aworld where, you know, we have
the baby boomer generation, whocame out of the biggest period
of economic prosperity, sharedacross the greatest segment of

(20:39):
society that has ever existed onthis planet, telling
millennials who have gotten theshort end of the stick
economically well, it must bethat avocado toast and you can't
budget.
You're completely you know, andit's a judgment call on their
own kids, it's completely blindto the economic realities that
you can't budget your way out ofpoverty, and we'll talk about
that here in a bit.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
I was.
You read my mind.
I was going to at some point inthe podcast.
I would love to discuss that.
In fact, actually there's thissort of leads on to my next two
questions and they sort of tiein quite well with that
statement.
The question I would like toask is like who actually needs a

(21:21):
budget?
And then to and then I'll reaskthis question after you've
asked this, because I imagineyou're going to give a really
long but really amazing answerand like, is it for rich people
or for poor people?

Speaker 1 (21:33):
So this is great I love about it.
I asked you this question andthen you're going to ramble on.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
But I love your ramblings.
That's why you're back for afourth episode.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Well, okay, here's the deal.
Who needs a budget?
The people who need a budget isanyone who needs money to
survive in society.
So everyone, yeah.
If you are exchanging pieces,if your time for money, you need
a budget.
If you are needing money tocontinue to have a roof over

(22:04):
your head or your belly full orthe heat and lights on, you need
a budget.
Budgeting is literally requiredfor every single individual,
and you, you you avoid budgetingat your own peril.
So let's just go through thespectrum of of employment.
If you're poor, do you need abudget?
You're well you're.
You're on the edge of societybetween your one paycheck away

(22:25):
from homelessness, and you thinkyou don't need to manage your
resources.
Are you out of your goddamnmind?
Like, you need a budget morethan anybody else.
And I will tell you that, forpoor people, the, the two people
who most resistant to budgetingare poor people and rich people
for the same reason, and thatis they have to look at some
really uncomfortable realitiesabout their life and that might

(22:46):
seem counterintuitive thatthey're in that same category.
But let me explain.
A poor people, a poor, a poorperson is going to look at it
and they're going to realizethat you know they're going to
have to look at their income andthey're going to look at their
expenses, and they're going tohave to start understanding
pretty quickly that they youknow expenses they have direct
control over, but they poorpeople typically don't have a
spending problem.
Okay, poor people are not poorbecause they have a spending

(23:08):
problem.
Poor people are poor becausethey have an income problem.
Right, people who have aspending problem aren't poor,
they're bankrupt.
There's a difference, okay.
And so when a poor personstarts looking at it, they start
realizing a truth about theirlife, and that is that, no
matter how hard they work,they're never going to get ahead

(23:28):
.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
And this is the point in which a poor person throws
her hands up in the air and goesand cries in the shower, which
is a totally reasonable and Icompletely endorse that, that
reaction, because it's somegrief there, yeah, or they get
really fucking pissed off aboutit, and then this is where you
have to go back to listening to.
You know how to do well at ajob interview and how to network
, because that's your ticket out, but you have to stop the

(23:55):
bleeding.
Right, if you're going furtherand further into debt and you're
in a poverty situation Ipersonally have been in a
poverty situation Step one isstop the bleeding.
You have to stop the bleedingand that budget is your ticket
to stop in the bleeding.
Even if you're still bleedingat the end of the month, even if
you're still falling behind andgoing further and further into
debt at the end of every month,it's better to go less into debt

(24:16):
than more.
Yeah Right, 100%.
So then you get the rich personand they go I have plenty of
money, I don't have the budget.
Well, yes, but they're going tolook at that, they're going to
do that budget and they're goingto come to two conclusions.
Number one how they spend theirtime is not worth the income
they have, and no rich personlike there's I shit you not an
entire subsection of psychologythat just helps wealthy people

(24:38):
come to terms with being wealthyand not feel bad about it
because they look at theirbudgets.
The other thing that they'regoing to look at is that their
expenses do not reflect anythingthat's worth of value.
Right, they're going to look attheir expenses and realize that
they could do so much more forsociety and make a bigger name
and impact for themselves, andthey don't like that.
And again, this isn't aboutshitting on poor people or

(24:59):
shitting on rich people.
It's about facing reality inyour life.
Remember, budgets arestatements of values.
For a poor person who'srealizing that their income is
never going to be sufficient todig themselves out, there's a
self-worth component in thatRight.
For a rich person who has a lotof money and they suddenly
realize that they're really notworth it, they're not really
doing anything with it, there'sa self-worth component to that

(25:21):
Right.
But in both cases they canchange their life if they just
look at where they have theproblem.
They can be motivated, they canmake an impact, they can grow
themselves if they look at it.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Wow, that is us.
I've never actually looked atit from that perspective,
especially from the looking atit from a rich person's
perspective.
I am not rich, I'm justimagining what you've just said

(25:58):
Someone who, if pulling in sixor seven figures a year and
realizing they could be doing alot more with it, and they, in a
way maybe not quality of lifestruggle with having that much
money, but the fact that theyhave that much money and could
be doing more with it, versusthe stark reality and the

(26:18):
horrible realization that youcannot outwork your current
financial situation Right.
No amount of hard work is goingto get you out of this absolute
shit show that you're currentlyin.
As you said, you're taking outof there as mastering job
interview skills, becoming aemployable person of value and

(26:42):
the good networking.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
But let's just stick with that for a second though,
because I have had people cometo my financial practice who are
making eight figures, wow, okay, and at the end of every month
they don't got fuck all.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
They are spending every dollar that they have as
soon as they make it, thinkingthey will always be able to make
more, and so my net worthexceeds theirs.
That person and I have oneclient who makes eight figures,
and so, if he's listening, I'mvery sorry, but I'm not going to
mention your name they'reliterally one month from

(27:26):
homelessness.
Oh my God, right, because theyand so they look at their budget
and it's like, oh my God, Ihave no net worth, I have no
capacity to take a hit.
I am living on.
They are living more on theedge than the poorest of my
clients, because I've also hadpoor clients who come in and
they are so worried that they'resaving $10 a month into their

(27:47):
savings account and all theyreally want to do is be able to
save $15.
Right, so that poor client ofmine has a greater net worth
than my eight figure client.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
That's insane.
So you wouldn't think I wasphysically possible.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Well, but it goes into this idea that if all my
problems would be solved if Ijust have more money, Right oh?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
yeah, that's.
That is definitely an idea Iwould like to maybe talk a
little bit more about, but afterwhatever you were going to say
before, yeah, so I mean, like,like you get this two into the
spectrum is, both poor peopleand rich people need budgets.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
But what about the middle income people?
100%, yeah, and and so like,that's where I fall right.
Like I make I make six figuresin a year, you know, and I have
a budget.
But I also, like, I have abudget and I have to look at it
and I have a salary, so it'svery consistent as to what I
bring in every single month.
And people go well, that'sperfect for budgeting.
I have a variable income.
Well then, you really need abudget because you don't know,

(28:43):
you know, like some months arefeast and some months are famine
, and I don't know about you,but I like to eat.
So a budget can help you smooththat out.
Right, yeah, you know, it justcomes down to whether you have a
fixed income or a variableincome, whether you have a large
income or a small income.
Everybody needs to have abudget because everybody should
have values in their life andeveryone should be honest and

(29:04):
open and transparent about whatthose values are, with
themselves first and maybe withother second.
So you get these objections tobudgeting where people will tell
you like, oh well, I, you knowI make enough money.
I don't have to worry about it.
Well, if you're, you reallyshould think about it, because
making money is one thing,making wealth is another, and

(29:25):
your budget is the link betweenthose two things.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh, I like that quote .
Yeah, that's man.
There's so many avenues I wantto pursue right now.
But for the, for the averageJoe, say you're 18, you've just
got your first paycheck, or youruniversity student and you are

(29:51):
living dollar to dollar, or apint to pint in our case.
You know, if you're workingminimum wage job and you're sort
of you know you haven't got alot spare at the end of the
month, where would, where wouldyou recommend people start?
Like how do you even startmaking a budget?
Like to me it seems like a lifeof a monster.
It's like where do you evenbegin?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
So that's a great question.
I mean, we've spent a time kindof expounding on the probably
the more important part ofbudgeting, which is the the
emotional part of it 100%.
But let's just get to thetechnical nuts, guts and
feathers, right.
So you have to start out, youknow, budgeting.
Budgeting is, is, is verysimply this the equation is
income minus expenses, equal,residual done, and so let's

(30:34):
break that down.
Your income, your income, hasto be a reasonable projection of
what you're going to make monthto month, and budgets are, are
living documents that you haveto manage from month to month.
Your values might stay the sameand the budgets could look
completely different.
Okay, and what I mean by that isyou know we're, we're at the

(30:58):
bottom of January as of thisrecording, and after I get off
this call, like, like, quiteliterally on my calendar, is my
budget meeting with my wife,which we have at the end of
every month and we're going todo a projection.
Here's what I think I'm bringingin next month.
So that's going to include mysalary, her salary and the
appointments that I have on thecalendar for fiscal savage and
savage firelight, right, that inthose, those last two fiscal

(31:22):
savage and savage firelight,there are some months so I make
thousands.
There's some months I make zero.
There's some months I makenegative, and that that's just a
reality of that type of work,right?
So I have to look at it and saythis is my income, right?
If you're a minimum wageemployee, as you mentioned, what
are your hours that's on thecalendar?
And do you work in a job wherethe calendar actually means

(31:44):
something?
Because we've all worked thatshitty minimum wage job where,
like, they put us on thecalendar for 20 hours, but I
know I never work more than 10in a week, right?
So you, you have to have adispassionate viewpoint of your
income and, as long as I'mtalking about that type of
variable income, understand thatwhen you first go to make a

(32:04):
budget, you're going to screw itup.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
I like that.
That's very free, you know.
That gives me permission.
That gives me permission tofail on my first budget.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, I mean, like with everything, you've got to
fail fast, fail frequently, failforward.
I will promise you I have neverhad or heard of a client who
came anywhere close to a realbudget within the first three
months of trying.
I will tell you, it was ninemonths before I got within $100
of sticking to my budget when Ifirst started.

(32:34):
So you're going to screw thisup.
Just come to terms with thatand you're going to learn and
you're going to get better andit's going to be an iterative
process with calculating yourincome, expenses, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, and you'regoing to learn a lot about
yourself along the way.
But, like, like, realistically,I tell well, if somebody comes
to work with me and fiscalsavage, it's a minimum of a
three month commitment.
For this reason, you know, andif we're going to do a three

(32:57):
month commitment, we're.
You know I don't take it asseriously, it'll be entirely
fair as I do as somebody whosigns up for six months over a
year, and you have to commit tothat for that time, because
that's how long it's going totake for you to get the
budgeting thing down.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
So it's a skill that has to be honed.
It's not something that you canjust do some simple math and
it's done, dusted.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
This has so little to do with actual simple math and
a lot more with facing reality.
So you start off with yourincome.
Whatever your income is, yougot to come up with a dispatch.
And if you know Clint, who's myteam leading the iron council,
he does tattoos.
His income varies If he just,you know, he wants to work, you
know, 12 hour days for a weekhe's going to bring down Bukku

(33:43):
bucks, but he also hascancellations and he has, you
know, different expenses andstuff like that and that has to
figure into the budgetingcalculation.
And so you can start off withyour income, but your income is
your first line.
Okay.
So once you have your incomeand you add up all your income
for projected income for thenext month and I always think

(34:04):
budgets should be done month tomonth then you start with your
expenses, okay, your expenses.
And for somebody who's 18,who's listening to this for the
first time, I need you tounderstand that expenses come
into two flavors Okay, fixedexpenses and variable expenses.
This is important because fixedexpenses are ones you don't

(34:26):
have a whole lot of control over.
Okay, and let me give you anexample of a fixed expense Rent.
Rent is a fixed expense.
Your rent check.
You know, unless you're in aterrible situation, your rent
check is going to be the samemonth to month to month over the
term of lease.
If you're, you have a house anda mortgage payment, that
mortgage payment is going to bethe same month to month to month

(34:47):
.
It's a fixed expense, itdoesn't change and it's not.
There's nothing you can do tochange it, right?
You can't just like I'm justgoing to spend less time in my
apartment and therefore my rentis going to go down.
That's not at all how thatworks.
So other types of fixedexpenses that you have Okay, you
have.
You know your rent, your phonebill is typically fixed.
Car insurance is typicallyfixed.

(35:09):
Car payments, student loanpayments these are all fixed
expenses.
So as you list out all yourexpenses that you pay, you need
to start putting them intobuckets.
Fixed expenses and variableexpenses Okay, now some some
expenses that are variable, butyou should treat as fixed.
Which is the tricky spot powerbills, electric bill, electric

(35:32):
bills, gas bills, water billsthey're going to.
You know you can, you canaffect them based upon usage,
but you should, you should makea fixed amount and then stick
with it.
So like, for example, I knowthat, during peak season for
water usage, I will use about$220 a month in water because of

(35:55):
where I live and how priceswork, and then, during like this
month, my water bill was $60.
Okay, that's a huge variation.
The way that I handle that,though, is I just say my water
bill is $120.
Right, it's in my budget Eventhough I'm not going to pay it.
I'm going to end up with alittle bit less, but I've

(36:16):
budgeted as if it's fixed, andit gives me the ability then
smooth that, because thedifference between what I pay
and what I budget then goes on asavings count to cover over
just later.
So you know where you can takevariable expenses and turn them
into fixed expenses, becausethey're easier to manage that
way.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, that's.
That's a really good start.
I've I've got quite a few fixedexpenses.
I've got a couple of sorry,what's the other?
Variable expenses, variableexpenses.
And it's interesting, I'venever actually bothered to
separate them, I've just putthem as expenses, just generic.
Yeah, and obviously that's notvery helpful because it

(36:56):
fluctuates.
Then if you combine them,they're they're going to be.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
You can't predict month to month, obviously, but
what that's going to be it'sgoing to make budgeting a lot
harder than it needs to be,right, and the like the the key
to reaching a place where, ifyou want to have a high savings
rate, so let's say that yourvalue is you think of yourself
as a saver and you, you want toretire early or you just want to
be able to tell your boss to gofuck themselves if they tell
you to do something wrong andyou want to get some of that

(37:20):
fuck you money.
Like you're going to have tohave savings, right?
So, looking at your expensesand going these ones are fixed,
there's nothing I can do aboutit unless I start planning
better, right?
So, like, let me give you anexample of that.
When you start looking at yourfixed expenses and go, man, I'm
spending two grand a month on anapartment.
Okay, so I'm spending $1,000 amonth on a studio apartment here
in Denver, colorado in theUnited States, where I live, is

(37:41):
$1,400 a month.
That's outrageous, right?
You start looking at it andgoing, man, like I have this
value that I, I, you, clearly, Ivalue my ability to live by
myself, but I want to valuesaving more money.
Well then, maybe it's actuallygoing to be cheaper if you go

(38:01):
get a two bedroom apartment,because the average two bedroom
apartment in Colorado rents outfor $1,800 a month and if you so
.
So stop and think about that.
The total cost of the apartment, if I have a studio, is 1,400,
a two bedroom is 1,800.
It's a $400 increase, but I geta roommate and I split it.
My fixed expense just dropped.
Oh right, yeah, cause I'm notpaying.

(38:25):
You know I'm I'm, you know I'mnot paying the $1,800 for the
two bedroom apartment.
I'm paying half that cause I'msplitting with a roommate.
So you might sit there and go,you know, but now.
Now, this is where it comesdown to that statement of values
, right?
What is more valuable to me,Maybe next year?
Money at the end of every monthor living by myself?
Yeah, you see how that works.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, every financial decision has to ultimately come
back to the bedrock of thisconversation and your own values
.
Essentially, every financialdecision is essentially saying
this is I value this more than Ivalue something else.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Right, I'm saying yes to one thing and no to another
by maintaining a studioapartment at $1,400 a month
rather than getting an $1,800apartment with a roommate means
that you're willing to pay anextra $500 a month for that
solitude.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, that's pricey for being on your own.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
That's just rent.
We haven't even talked aboutwhat all the rest of the costs
utilities, water, parking, thewhole nine yards.
Same thing with car payments.
Car payments are fixed expense.
So your average in here inAmerica we love our pickup
trucks, right?
You have any idea how manypeople have seen who are driving

(39:48):
their house.
They can't afford a mortgagepayment but their credit was
good, so they went and got a newpickup truck and now they're
paying $700 a month for that newpickup truck.
That's insane.
It's absolutely insanity.
When instead they could havejust driven that used car they
had right into the ground thatwas paid off, then if they could
afford that $700 a month, theycould have been putting that for

(40:09):
a down payment on the house.
Right, when you start lookingat it that way, what's their
value?
Their values are they don'treally actually care about the
house.
They actually care about havingof spending every single dollar
they have on trying to lookgood instead of be good.
Yeah, that's a powerfulconversation.
This is where theseconversations start going

(40:30):
sideways on people, because nowI'm talking about some heavy
shit, because now I'm tellingyou your values aren't actually
having a house for your wife andkids, your values being looking
like you have bigger balls thanyou do with that Ford F-150.
And, by the way, bro, you'renot fooling anybody, right?
So this is where it comes downto.
By looking at those fixedexpenses, you start asking

(40:52):
questions how can I actuallyreduce this?
How can I actually maybe makethis a little bit better?
But fixed expenses take time tobreak down.
So, like I'm almost 40 yearsold and I'm still on my parents'
cell phone plan, why?
Because if my bill for being onmy parents' plan is $50 and I

(41:15):
pay that to my mom when we getoff the skull and I do my budget
, I'll be paying my mom $50 amonth for my phone.
If I went and got a family planwith myself and my wife and my
two kids, my $50 would go to 120a lot, I agree.
Why would I do that?
So is my values saving money sothat I can spend it in the way

(41:36):
I want to, or is my valueshaving my own independent phone
plan?
Yeah, yeah, exactly, it makesperfect sense so harder
discussion to have, and this isthe boring part, like I can see
you starting to glaze over as wetalk about expenses.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
No, no.
So unfortunately for theaudience you're not aware I am a
little bit ill Probably notCOVID, but I'm not in top form.
But I am thoroughly enjoyingthis conversation and I've no
doubt the audience are as well.
I'm learning quite a lot fromthis.
It's challenging me in so manyways, that's like from an
emotional and from a technicalperspective as well.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Well, I mean, that's just it, though.
We started off by talking whatis a budget?
I gave you a technical thing.
We're talking about thetechnical side of it, but going
back to that values thing, youhave to start questioning your
expenses.
This is why when a rich personlooks at their expenses, they
start having to have thatquestion.
It's not comfortable to sitthere and say do I really need a

(42:33):
house with eight bedrooms formyself and my Chihuahua?
Right, like why?
How much is it costing me intaxes and heat and all this
other stuff?
It's challenging, it's hard, itis emotional and it should be
frightening, like, like I said,going back to fiscal standards,

(42:56):
I've never had somebody where Isat down and be like we
scheduled two hours because it'sgoing to take two hours to make
a budget.
A budget takes 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Fun story man, that's great.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Do you lie to your mom with that mouth?
No, we sit down and we have tohave these conversations and
then we have to have the, youknow.
Look at the implications ofeach one of these.
So we've talked about fixedexpenses.
Now let's talk about variableexpenses.
Okay, variable expenses areexpenses that will fluctuate,
you know, from month to monthbased upon your behavior.

(43:27):
Okay, let's talk about somevariable expenses.
Food is a variable expense andfor everyone in the audience, I
need you all to fully understandthis one thing about food it
classifies into two categories,always Food and dining out.
Oh yeah, they are not the samething.

(43:51):
Okay, dining out is not food,it's an experience.
Even if you're gettingsomething and eating it in your
car, you're paying not for thefood, you're paying for the
convenience and experience ofhaving Chick-fil-A or McDonald's
or whatever.
You go to a restaurant, you'repaying for the experience and
the ambiance and the ability tosay that I went to that
restaurant, even if it's theOlive Garden.

(44:12):
Okay, it's not food, it'snurturing and sustaining in many
ways.
You totally should dine out.
Don't hear me say the otherwise.
Well, I will tell you otherwisehere in a second, but for right
now, don't hear that.
But the food you buy at thegrocery store and bring home and
pay for yourself is acompletely separate category.

(44:32):
Okay, interesting, lumping themtogether is like taking and
saying that you know, I lumpedtogether my clothes and all of
my books.
Right, they're nourishing.
You could actually cut one outand be just fine.
Right, they're not comparablecategories.
So you need to have as variableexpenses food.

(44:54):
You need to then have dining.
Dine out is what is on my budget.
Quite literally, I have foodand dine out.
There are two separate lineitems.
Another variable expenses wouldbe what I call life supplies.
Okay, life supplies that youcan think of as clothes.

(45:14):
Clothes are life supplies.
I got two young beautiful girlswho make tons and tons of art
when I buy paints for them.
That is life supplies.
Okay, shoes, I consider to belife supplies.
Okay, that's a variable expense.
Now, when you look at yourvariable expenses, it's
worthwhile to start thinkingabout how, like, what do I spend

(45:37):
on food?
If your dine out is greaterthan your food?
Okay, you might be backwards onhow you're treating yourself,
and this is where you saideverything's connected.
When your dine out is higherthan your food, you're doing two
things your values are tellingme that the convenience and the
experience is more importantthan the actual nourishment.

(45:59):
Okay, hard thing to say.
Take, I said, we get back to thenights out, so you get the 18
year old who does this and theysuddenly realize that all their
money goes to the bar.
What is the value that's being?
What are their values?
It's the experience of being atthe bar with their friends and
probably the ability to sedatethemselves from having to deal

(46:22):
with harder emotions or hardertopics, whether it's stress from
school, stress from minimumwage jobs, stress from poverty,
whatever.
So just looking at just thefood thing and this is a huge
thing is a big deal.
Here's another thing to thinkabout.
Okay, I'm going to get intosome technical shit, but I do

(46:44):
want the audience to startthinking about this.
You can go online and look upand I'm going to use Chick-fil-A
.
I don't know if you haveChick-fil-A's in the UK, to my
knowledge.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
No, okay, hopefully in the future there are.
It's a chicken sandwich place.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
It's a chicken sandwich place.
They only sell chicken.
That's all they do.
People will line up or queue upfor hours to get the sandwiches
, okay.
Now, if I'm looking at aChick-fil-A sandwich, I think
let's just say that they sell.
A Chick-fil-A sandwich is goingto be $5 or five pounds or
whatever.
You can go online and get therecipe, okay.

(47:22):
And I can go online and I canlook at the recipe and I can say
, okay, well, I know, I needpowdered sugar, I need pickle
juice, I need, you know, I needto get the buns.
I can do all this other stuff.
And I go to the grocery storeand I can buy the chicken and I
can spread it, I can bread itand I can fry it and I can do
all this other stuff.
And I'm mentioning this becauseI've quite literally sat down
and spread sheeted this out.

(47:43):
If I go buy the ingredients atthe grocery store and make the
Chick-fil-A sandwich myself,it's going to come out on a per
sandwich basis, okay, so, a persandwich basis of 75 cents per
sandwich.
Now, granted, I'm buying.
When I buy a flour, I have tobuy a big sack of flour, right,

(48:04):
yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:05):
of course.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
You know, and I have to take my time and I'm, you
know it's, you know theingredients.
The smallest I could make, ityou know, was you know I had.
I ended up having to make like20 sandwiches, yeah, but it came
out to 75 cents a sandwich,versus $5 to where they charged
me the Chick-fil-A.
For what?

Speaker 2 (48:23):
So it's 4.20.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
I am paying a premium of $4.25 for Chick-fil-A to
make me the same freakingsandwich.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
When you put it like that, it sounds like insanity to
go with.
Why wouldn't you make ityourself?

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Well, you know this.
This applies to otherrestaurants too.
Right?
And look again, I'm not sayingthat Chick-fil-A is overcharging
for the sandwich they haveoverhead.
They got to pay their employees, they got shipping costs,
insurance, blah, blah, blah,blah.
The point I'm trying to get tois that your values are that it
is worth an extra 4.25 persandwich of money that you got
by exchanging moments of yourlife to get in order for

(49:00):
Chick-fil-A to make you thatsandwich.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Man, yeah, it's one big logical trend, isn't it and
it?
But it all comes back to thatharsh reality of what are your
values and what?
Why are you?
Why are you giving over yourhard earned money?

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Well, let me let me really fuck up your homeostasis.
You're going to have to markthis thing explicit, because now
I'm fired up and I'm just goingto swear.
But you're a sailor, so it'sfine, right?
Yeah, but here, let me let melay this out for you.
Let me lay out a scenario foryou.
Okay, I'm going to go getChick-fil-A sandwiches for me
and my two daughters.
Yeah, we're going to get in thecar, we're going to drive the

(49:36):
10 minutes to the Chick-fil-A.
We're going to wait for 45minutes in line to get three
sandwiches.
I paid 4.25 for every single oneof those sandwiches, right?
So what is that?
I'm 12.75 of a premium.
I paid for Chick-fil-A.
We're going to come home, we'regoing to sit down, we're going
to spend a couple of minuteseating it.
Then we're going to take allthe shit and throw it away in
the trash.
Can?
I'm probably in what threehours of time to do this?

(50:01):
I paid an extra 12.75 of my lifefor my daughters to just go
over and have three sandwiches,okay, and then they walk away.
And what did they walk away at?
They walk away with a fullbelly and a normal everyday run
of the mill car ride with theirdad yeah, now let me flip it.
I go to the grocery store and Ibuy the ingredients and I tell

(50:24):
my girls we're going to spendtoday and we're going to make
our own damn Chick-fil-Asandwiches.
And I come home and I get outthe.
I have my oldest daughter,she's cracking eggs.
My youngest daughter, she'sbreading these sandwiches and
I'm heating the oil and thenthey get to drop the chicken
patty into the oil and see abubble and they talk about it.
We plate and we have thosesandwiches and then we clean up

(50:45):
and we put on some music whilewe clean the kitchen together as
two daughters and their father.
Each one of those is going togenerate the memory I want on my
death bed.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Oh snap yeah Bloody hell.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
So I paid 12.75 to Chick-fil-A to avoid having to
make that memory with my kids.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Oh man, oh damn, that is a, that's a shit.
Me right in the chest with bothbarrels there.
Bloody hell, that's it's true,though Is it, is it savage truth
?

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Yeah, savage realities, dude, yeah.
And and on top of it all, Ipaid 12.75 for an inferior
product.
That gave me inferior memories.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Man.
That is making me questionwhere am I paying?
And what about?
What memories of my mess and Iown, potentially for convenience
?

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Now do that with every meal.
Like seriously, now do thatwith every meal.
Yeah, when I first startedbudgeting, I was spending almost
two grand and dying out myentire food budget for a family
of four plus my roommate cause Ilive with.
I live with four women and mycats.
I have two cats.
I pay less than $800 a month.
Now I have better food, I'm abit more healthy, which of

(52:01):
course then cuts down onhealthcare costs, and my both my
girls know how to cook.
I never have to tell them whenthey get up in the morning.
My girls make their own eggsand hash browns and shit,
because they learned how to cookbecause we started cooking
everything instead of going out.
Oh, wow, now you know if I wasa single man.
Now I want you to stop and thinkabout, about the ladies, okay.
So for the young men that arelistening, let me just, you know

(52:23):
, gather around.
Anki Dillon wants to tell you astory.
What do you think in ladies?
I want, I want you to thinkabout this too.
What is more impressive to you?
The guy who goes and takes youto a nice restaurant where
you're away from everything,where it's a weird, where
everything's out of context, andhe.
All you know from that.
That is the conversation andthe fact that he picked up the

(52:43):
check.
Okay, that's, that's a date ata restaurant.
Yeah, and you fucking know thathe is putting out his best,
most socially acceptable face.
Yeah, because he's, becausehe's trying to get laid Like
ladies, I'm sorry.
But like that's what's going onhere.
Okay, how are you feeling,ladies?

(53:06):
And I know, I know the guys aresitting there and they're like
yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I'm likeI'm not going to do that.
Yeah, no, no, I, I never fuckat the first date, liar, you
know.
Given the opportunity, whowouldn't?
Right Now I want to run thescenario again, you know in
which, and for the audienceJohnny is right as a fucking
stop sign right now.

(53:27):
It is beautiful because he,because he's guilty of this and
I know it.
But now I want you to stop andthink about this.
Okay, instead of budgeting timeto take a girl out to dinner, I
budgeted time and I spent moneyon cooking classes, and so I
tell her.
You know what I'd love to sharea meal with you, but I want you
to come to my place and I'mgoing to.

(53:48):
You know, I'm going to cook youa meal and, ladies, when you
walk in, the whole house smellsof beautiful food.
He's sitting there, he's got anapron on, and you walk in and
you can see his entire house.
You can see how he's decoratedit, you can see how this guy
lives.
He's invited you into his spaceand then he provides you this
beautiful meal that's deliciousand thoughtful and caring.

(54:10):
He took the time and effort totake parts of his time to
provide nourishment to you.
Now, ladies, which guy makesyou feel more important and safe
and which you know?
Guys, which scenario do youthink you got a better chance of
getting late?
Okay?

(54:31):
I mean for the guys, you alreadygot her home right.
Make your bed like telling youit can be a deal breaker for
some people.
But the point is is that, guys,if you spend your money on
cooking classes and learning howto how to provide good food,
it's going to be cheaper.
On your dating life, you'regoing to be more successful and
ladies are going to love youyeah, 100%.

(54:52):
And and stop and think about ityou take her out to a nice
Italian restaurant.
You spend 40 bucks on a fuckingmeal with Italian restaurant,
with the food you know inferior.
I can make it a beautifulfennel and genie steak Alfredo
for $12 and she will beimpressed as fuck.
Yeah, so, like, when it comesdown to budgeting, what it?

(55:14):
What is the statement of valuesbetween these two scenarios?
The one statement of value isI'm just going to use my money
to for the convenience and beable to just try to put on a
show.
The other one is I've investedin myself and this experience
for this person.
I'm trying to make my partnerWow.
Yeah.
So when you're looking at yourvariable expenses, this plays
out with everything right.

(55:35):
If you're looking at your lifesupplies and you're saying, well
, I bought that those shoes andthis is this is, by the way,
shoes are a big emotional hangup for me.
Um, be just some trauma in my,my childhood that just I, I'm
still dealing with.
So I always want to buy thecheapest piece of shit shoes.
Right, because that's what mytrauma tells me to do.

(55:55):
Yeah, my statement of values isI spend money on good shoes so I
feel good, right, yeah, okay,you know so.
So I look at this and go myshoe expense.
You know, when I buy shoes,they should be expensive.
Yeah, cause that's a valuableto me to take care of myself.
You know, it's the same thingwith clothes.
It's the same thing with paints.
I buy good paints for my girls,cause them.

(56:16):
Making art is valuable to me.
Right, I spend money on theireducation.
There was a time in my lifewhere I was paying $2,700 a
month of my girl's education forgood daycares because that
value was valuable to me.
Yes, yeah, right.
So when you're looking at yourvariable expenses, you can start
asking myself is my behavior inline with what my stated values

(56:37):
are, and can I in the budget?
Is the proof, positive datathat you can't refute as to
whether or not you actually aredoing it?

Speaker 2 (56:47):
Yeah, man it's, yeah, it's hard facts and numbers
that you know.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
You say one thing, but you're living another life,
man you give me your checkbookand your calendar and I'll tell
you what kind of man you are.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Well, it's convicted me to be a better man.
I mean, I think I.
I think I do an okay job, butyou can always be better, can't
you?
So I it's definitely.
I've got some homework to do atsome point, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Well, and this is the thing, is that you know at the
end of this, right At the end ofit, when you look at all of
your fixed expenses and yourvariable expenses and you really
, the goal should be at the verybottom to have zero.
Your residual should be zero.
And if you have it, if it's anegative number, you go back and

(57:29):
you figure out what expenses doI need to cut to get it to zero
?
And if it's a positive number,well, what am I investing in?
Am I saving that?
Then you go up and you put asavings expense in your variable
expenses and then you put thatnumber up there so that the
bottom number is zero.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
So that's interesting .
If I was going to make a budget, I was always looking at it,
trying to make it a surplus,like I'd have 200, 300, pick a
number spare at the end of themonth the I-DM would put.
Personally not going to go into, obviously, the explicit
details, but personally I saveabout 30% of my paycheck At the

(58:09):
start of the month.
It just goes straight intosavings.
I never see it.
But then if I was budgeting atthe end of the month I'd go well
, I always want to be in a netpositive and then I can put that
again into savings or invest itsomehow.
But when you're saying itshould be zero, that makes more
logical sense.
It's such an interestingconcept of and I suppose this is

(58:34):
a skill that you would getbetter at the longer you do it
getting it to zero or plus orminus 50 pounds or dollars,
wherever you're living in theworld on that line.
But in your opinion, is that ahard fast rule?
It has to be zero.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
It's always a hard fast rule.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
It needs to be zero.
Let me tell you why.
Let me tell you why Because itgives you a solid target to
shoot for.
Okay, if you're just saying Ineed a surplus, okay, well, one
cent is a surplus, yeah yeah.
Oh, I won.
Did you actually need one?
Did you just need a surplus?
Or did you actually need to besaving 500 pounds a month?

(59:16):
Oh yeah, that's a foul one.
It's about making sure yourmetrics meet your values.
You want zero on that.
Like I said, when you'relooking at your expenses, let's
talk about some other andvariable expenses.
Your savings rate can be partof it.
I have a savings rate.

(59:36):
One of my line items in myexpenses is an expensive pay to
myself.
It's a retirement expense.
It's money that I put into aretirement account for just
myself and I said it and I sayI'm going to put $500 a month
into that account.
Now I have other savings thatcome, like you, directly come
out of my paycheck.
But I have this extra thing andI know that, like I live in

(59:57):
America, so America, fuck, yeah,I got guns.
I have so many guns, in fact,that I need a bigger gun safe.
So I put on one of my expensesit's a fixed expense, it's my
gun safe expense and it's $200.
And now that $200, where do Ipay it?
I pay it to my savings account,but it's on my expenses.

(01:00:19):
It's an expense because I knowI'm going to pay for that safe
down the road and I'm paying itnow, here in advance.
So now it goes back.
So when I get to the bottom ofmy budget.
I've taken to account my fixedexpenses, my variable expenses,
and now we're talking about athird class, which is future.
But I didn't want to reallywant to get into that.
But, like other examples offuture expenses that I'm paying

(01:00:42):
ahead of time, I know I have topay car insurance.
I pay it every six months, so Iput away $200 a month for car
insurance so that I have themoney to pay it.
It's a prepaid expense and Iknow my value is to.
My values include paying cashfor my insurance expense rather
than putting in my credit card.
Yeah, right, I know that myvalues are saving it for the

(01:01:04):
things that I want, like a gunsafe or a new grill or whatever.
So those are all expenses thatare in my expenses, in this case
, fixed expenses, and I have tolook at that every month and say
is it like, do I actually wantthat gun safe?
Do I actually need that gunsafe?
Yeah, I got $2,000 saved up.
What's more important to methat $2,000 for a new gun safe?

(01:01:24):
Or maybe I can pay off astudent loan with that.
Oh, yeah, right.
So when it comes right down toit and I have in fact done this
where I got to a point I hadbeen saving.
Now I can't think of what thehell I was saving for.
It was a grill.
I wanted to get a wood pelletgrill.
Yeah, because I love grillingwith my girls.

(01:01:46):
I love to cook.
It's a big part of my familyculture, a big part of my values
.
If you couldn't tell by theprevious example, right, and I
saved up, and I had $2,500 savedup to buy this grill.
And then I was looking at mybudgets and my student loan
payments and went I want to befree of my student loans more

(01:02:06):
than I want this grill.
So, instead of buying the grill, I paid off one of my student
loans.
That's more in line with myvalues of being debt free.
Right, I didn't need the grillat that point.
And you know what I did.
I just kept saving for a grilland I'm at a place now where I
can buy it.
I could buy it now again and,like I said, after this call,

(01:02:27):
I'm going to be sitting downwith my budgets and doing my
monthly finances.
I'm probably going to end uppaying off another student loan
today Because when I have toactually look at it and ask
myself, what are my values?
Yeah, I know which way I'mgoing to jump, but the bottom
line of your budget should bezero and that should force you
to have to go back and look athow do I manage my expenses to

(01:02:50):
make it zero and where am Iputting this money and where am
I being intentional with mymoney?
You have a zero at the bottombecause it gives you a solid
target.
That then forces you to have togo back and look at those
expenses.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
I like that.
I like that because it meansthen you have to get very
specific about where is everysingle pound or dollar going.
Allocate every pound or dollara job or a rule, rather than if
every pound or dollar has a job.

(01:03:24):
Then suddenly there's a lotmore clarity with where you're
going to allocate that resourceExactly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Well, and it starts asking forcing you to have asked
questions.
Right, oh, I have my foodexpense.
How much was beer?
Oh, right, like.
This is a conversation I hadwith myself.
I used to drink cocktails everynight before I went to bed.
Right, yeah, huge part of myfamily culture, huge part of the
state.
The region of the United StatesI grew up in is famous for its

(01:03:53):
drinking culture, so I had acouple old fashions every single
night before I went to bed.
And starting to look at my foodbudget and be like how do I
drive down my food budget more?
How can I be more efficient toget better food with better
memories, it gives me bettervalue.
This is literally aconversation I had with myself a
couple of years ago and Ilooked at it and I went I'm

(01:04:14):
spending I think it was like$150 a month on alcohol, which
then, of course, meant that wasjust alcohol.
I had to buy the bitters andthe mixers and all that other
stuff.
What was it getting me?
Right, like, why was I spendingthat money?
So I actually ended up cuttingit out and then I started

(01:04:36):
sleeping better.
I stopped snoring.
Right, I stopped snoring andthat made me better at my job,
made my wife sleep better, madeher more amenable to seeing me
Again.
It made me question my values.
Are my values really that I'mthe kind of guy who has to have
a cocktail every single night?
Or am I the type of guy who'sintentional with the spending in
this food, you know, and sothat then, of course, freed up

(01:05:01):
money?
And then the question was okay,intentionally, where am I going
to put that money?
You know, in that particularcase I mean, we're going back a
couple of years now, like in bycouple, I mean five I actually
ended up putting that,allocating that money to extra
credit card payments, because atthe time I had a lot of credit
cards right and I paid.

(01:05:22):
I'm sitting here.
I have no credit card debtright.
The only debt that I have is mymortgage and the last of my
student loans.
And so you having that zerotarget forces you to have to
allocate that allocation, forcesyou have to question your
values.
Everything has to have a role.
Even if it is.
This is my savings expense.
Even if it is, I'm saving for acar, so like going back to the

(01:05:44):
guy who bought that big pickuptruck right.
He was a client of mine.
I ended up forcing him to sellit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
So you have to sell this.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
And he sold it.
Man, he was awk and pissed atme, but he did sell it.
And then he was like, okay,well, now I've got an extra $600
a month.
I was like, okay, what are wegoing to do with that?
Yeah, and also for those whoare doing the math at the
audience, he was paying $700,but getting rid of it meant that
he had an extra $600.

(01:06:14):
So that can tell you that thattruck actually put him $100
upside down in his budget.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
That's sick, yeah Right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
And so now, what do we do with that?
Well, hey, man, part of thereason you couldn't own the
house is you got 50 grand incredit card debt.
The extra $600 went to creditcard debt right, and at this
point he's now saving for hiskid's college.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
There you go, right.
He's more of an inline with hisvalues because he wants the
best life for his kid.
You got it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
You got it.
So, when it comes down to it,the basic math here is income
minus expenses equal residual.
More complicated is that income, all income, minus fixed
expenses, minus variableexpenses, minus future expenses,
should equal zero.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Right, and so that is in summary, essentially from
top to bottom, how you're goingto budget.
Now, obviously everybody'sstory is different.
Everybody's values, goals,ambitions are different, and so
obviously that is, would you say, that's a hard and fast formula
for everybody.

(01:07:20):
Or like, obviously there'sgoing to be particulars that
have come into play there, butthat should work for most
university students, that shouldwork for most people just
getting their first paychecks, Iassume.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
So yes, with an asterisk right.
The asterisk says the onlyguarantee I can have is you're
going to fuck this up, right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Which is good, because it means it gives you
permission to fail.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Yes, yes, you're going to screw this up.
And the other thing about thisthat I it's a pet peeve of mine,
particularly if you ever goswing by the Iron Council
Finance Channel, like half thosepeople I want to stab with a
pen because they're reallyconvinced that they're
completely unique, beautifulsnowflakes who have the special

(01:08:02):
skelos in key of budgeting.
But when you dig right into it,everybody who tells me they have
a special method, it's thisLike.
I have been told a thousandtimes, oh well, I have a
different way.
Okay, what is it?
And then, at the end of the day, it's this Someone who's got
not a debt.
I had a special way to get outof debt.
They follow the same path theone who is successful, all the

(01:08:26):
successful people had the samepath and all the unsuccessful
people had a unique way to fail.
You know it goes back to.
It goes back to families.
You know family systems right.
All family, all happy familiesare happy in the same way.
But all dysfunctional familieshave a unique brand of fuckery.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
You know I'm paraphrasing Charles Dickens
here, but yes, this formula willwork in.
Whatever system you come upwith is basically going to come
back to relatively the same way,because there's really only one
way to do it you look at what'scoming in and you manage what's
going out.
That should equal zero.
It should equal zero.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Perfect, because at the end of the day it always
equals zero, Perfect.
So I do have three morequestions for you which I would
love to get your perspective on.
I got time man.
Perfect.
I'm loving this conversation,so more time the better.
So we've talked about you knowthe emotional foundation of

(01:09:33):
making a budget, why you'remaking a budget Because it's
your values.
Then we've talked about youknow what are the various
components of a budget andactually how that's laid out and
how you would actually applythat to your life.
But there's a phrase I've heardwhich I'd love you to expand on
, and that is like where's thelocus of control?

(01:09:55):
Like how do?
Because I've heard this withinsome financial circles.
I'm got no experience in thatarea, but to my knowledge, this
is focusing on where you cancontrol things to a degree.
Have I got that right?

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Yeah, yeah.
So where is the control?
Just means where is the control.
Locus just means location,right?
So where is the central pointof control?
And this is one of these placeswhere, like emotionally and
this is where we're getting tokind of the emotional side of
budgeting Like, if you thinkabout a university student,

(01:10:32):
because that's who we primarilytalk to here where is the locus
of control for them?
And in terms of how they study,it's 100% in them.
Right, the locus of control isan internal locus.
They have control over theirstudy habits, right?
Yes, an external locus ofcontrol would be how the

(01:10:53):
professor presents the material,right?
Blaming an external locus ofcontrol is like spitting in the
wind it's pointless and it comesback at you in bad ways or
pissing in the breeze.
I have another phrase that Ireally want to use, but we're
going to keep this non-X rated.
You have to look for yourinternal locuses of control in

(01:11:20):
budgeting.
So let's go back and talk aboutthat.
Income is where, like, if youhave, so when you get to it, if
you're having trouble gettingback to zero, if you're negative
at the bottom and you're havingtrouble getting back to zero,
you have one of two problems.
You have an income problem,you're not making enough money

(01:11:41):
or you have an expense problem.
You don't know how to manageyour expenses.
The expenses are 100% ininternal locus of control.
People don't like me saying this, but it's true.
Here's why you chose yourliving situation.
This is where, when people shiton millennials who get out of

(01:12:03):
college and go live with theirparents, it's the dumbest
conversation in the world.
These guys and gals looked atit and went I can control this
and I can cut my housing expenseby going and living with my
parents.
In some of them they just smoke, weed, jack off and live in the
basement.
They still made that choice.
Other ones looked at it andsaid I'm going to control that

(01:12:25):
expense because my values arepaying off my student loans
faster and being free quicker.
They still made that choice.
Not having a roommate is achoice.
That internal locus of controlis solely within you.
You might have signed elites.
I've signed elites.
I'm in for two years.
Dylan, I can't do that.
I can't do anything about thatBullshit.

(01:12:46):
You can break it.
You probably shouldn't, but youcan.
You could just stop paying rent.
The point being is that thelocus of control there is
uncomfortable might be isentirely with you.
You have control over how youspend your money.
You have control over whetheror not you get the avocado toast
which, by the way, is deliciousand I think everyone should

(01:13:07):
have.
You have control over ifwhether like car insurance, like
well, I have to pay carinsurance it turns out no, you
don't.
You could, in fact, break thelaw and not have it.
You've chosen to have carinsurance.
That's a good choice.
I would strongly recommend thatthat be the only choice you
make.
But the reality is still, youhave control there.

(01:13:32):
In expenses, it's easy to seewhere your locus of control is.
Income is where people willtell me that they don't have a
locus of control.
What I'll say is you do stillhave a locus of control in your
income, albeit indirectly.
Let me give you an example.
You got that kid in universitywho gets that job and they're
making horseshit money becausewe've all done that Well, they

(01:13:56):
chose to be at university, theychose this job.
They chose to work in the firstplace.
They also have control over howmuch value they're able to milk
from that job so that they canthen turn that into a more
experienced job with a highervalue proposition to get more
money.
They have a locus of controlover their income and it's just
in very indirect ways.

(01:14:18):
If you're in a dead-end,bullshit job, how are you trying
to get all of the experiencesthat you can put on a resume so
you can do well at a jobinterview, so you can get up in
the world?
Like I said, I'm interviewingon Tuesday.
Let me give you an example ofthe locus of control.
I'm probably at about as highas I'm going to get on a salary
scale doing the type of work I'mdoing.

(01:14:38):
My options to get higher are toget into management or to
change service lines intosomething that's a higher value.
I'm doing the latter, like I'mapplying for a job.
That's a higher value positionand I don't make bad money.
But the reality still is thatI'm at top of my game.
The locus of control is do Iwant to just be content with

(01:15:00):
where I'm at I have control overthat that's a direct impact on
my income or do I want to startcareer crafting and creating
experiences that give me theopportunities to punch above my
weight class, which is what I'vedone?
You have to start looking at itand saying the locus of control
when it comes to everythingthat's on the budget.

(01:15:20):
I either have a direct internalcontrol on it or I have
indirect internal control on it.
The mistake people make is theystart saying, well, I don't
control that line item, I don'tcontrol that line item, I don't
control that line item Bullshit.

(01:15:40):
Like you are lying to yourselfand giving yourself a pass and
you are only worse for it.
Yeah, so when you start lookingat it, your budget is a
statement of values.
Here's one thing that I'll sayis that there are some things
that are like little rebellionsin this world, and being healthy

(01:16:01):
, I think, is one of them.
Being physically fit is beingone of them.
Acknowledging your sovereigntyis one of them.
When you make a budget, abudget is values, and by the
fact that you're even trying tomake a budget in the first place
, you are declaring to yourselfin the world that one of your
values is self-sovereignty.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Oh, I love that quote .

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
That's good, you know .
So right there you're alreadysaying I'm in control of this.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
I like that.
That's a powerful concept.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
So it's important to understand that right, that the
locus of control is solely inyou, in your decisions.
And sometimes you knowsometimes it's not really a
choice, like having carinsurance.
In the United States it isillegal to not have car
insurance, you know, and yet youcould do it right.
You know it's not worth it.

(01:16:55):
So, for everyone listening forthe love of God, it is not worth
it to not have car insurance.
But you have to understand thateven though it's governmentally
mandated, you still have thecontrol there.
Yeah, so I mean one of thethings that kind of goes with
this and I don't know what you'dlike.
Do you want to get to any otherquestions or do you want me to

(01:17:16):
just keep going?

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Oh no, I think we can wrap that question up.
Help me summarize it in that Ireally enjoy Joggle Willings
book and left with left be givenabout extreme ownership.
So essentially, you're takingownership of your values, your
decisions and you know what'sbig and the experiences as well,

(01:17:42):
because I feel like a lot ofthe decisions people make good
and bad with their money isbecause they want experiences
like it's.
Like you say, they want theChick-fil-A experience or they
want the you know pick anyexperience you want, and then
they spend the money to havethat experience and then
surprise, surprise, at the endof the month they're in the red

(01:18:04):
or they're nowhere near whattheir monetary goal is, would
you say.
That's a good summary.
It's about recognizing that youare in control and by taking
ownership you end up becomingsovereign over not only yourself
but over your finances.
100%.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
And your finances are merely budgeting your life
because, remember, you exchangedbits of your life to get that
piece of paper we call money.
Yeah, yeah, and you know thisalso means that when you start
looking at this and startunderstanding like, no, I'm in
control of this and my net worthis what it like.
For me personally, one of thenumbers I chase is my net worth
calculation.
I didn't cross into positivenet worth until two years ago

(01:18:46):
when COVID hit.
Oh wow, you know I was alwaysupside down in it and one of the
biggest things I did is I hadto just sheer dumb luck to buy a
house right before COVIDstarted.
So I've really grown in networth just to appreciation on
that one asset.
But I set targets for myself.
You know I want to grow my networth to be X amount of dollars.

(01:19:09):
I want to.
You know I figured out what auniversity education is in a
first semester.
You know, basis at the school Iwant my daughters to go to.
And now I'm like I want to payfor half a semester this year.
And so I got to see, I got tosee their college fund increase
by that, whatever half asemester is.
So the semester is 24,000.

(01:19:30):
I got to make sure that I got12,000 going into two different
accounts because I got two kids.
Yeah Right, so, like you know,having those, because those, the
education, is a huge valuepoint for me, but, yes it.
Ultimately it comes back tosovereignty and being self
sovereign and being independentand being able to, you know, not
be dependent on your job oryour salary so that you can be

(01:19:50):
more than your job and yoursalary 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I love that quote being more than your job and
your salary.
Yeah, so we've talked about allthe positives of a budget, but
what are the pitfalls of abudget Like?
What things catch people out?

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about pitch falls of
budgeting.
We already talked about shame,so go back and listen to my
sting on shame.
I'm not going to sit here andrepeat this.
There are two pitfalls, okay,and yeah, people are going to
this is again where everyone'sgoing to be like, no, dylan,
there's tons of them.
Okay, yeah, let's talk about.
Oh, they all categorize intothese two categories Fascinating

(01:20:30):
.
Yeah, there are system pitfallsand there are social pitfalls,
okay, okay, so we've talkedabout this on this, this podcast
, before.
It's the system problem and thesocial problem.
Almost everything is going tocome down to this finances,
fitness, fucking, you know,family feelings.

(01:20:50):
They all have a system problemand they have a social problem.
So what's the system problem?
A system problem is I don'tknow what the hell to do.
Okay, now we just talked aboutthe entire technical parts of
this.
Start with your income.
Subtract fixed expenses,subtract variable expenses,

(01:21:11):
subtract future expenses.
Everything should equal zero.
There, I just solved yoursystem problem.
If you want to, if you need morehelp with your system problem,
you can go to fiscalsavagecom.
Slash tools and all of myspreadsheets are available for
free on that website and they'reall targeted towards the system
problem.
Okay, I have never had afinancial coaching client who

(01:21:36):
actually had a system problem.
Okay, we all know what to do.
At the end of the day, we canlook it up online.
Okay, at the end of the day, Ijust gave you my website, if you
can, if you can followeverything on those spreadsheets
, you don't need me.
Which is why I've never had acoaching client who actually has

(01:21:57):
called me in with a systemproblem, because if they could
if that's what they truly hadthey would figure it out because
it's free on the internet.
Yeah, now stop and think aboutthat.
With food, you can go look uphow to feed yourself.
You can look up how to go loseweight.
You can look up how to woo awoman.
Right, you can get all sorts ofclasses on how to fuck your
lady Like they're all over theplace, right, I know.

(01:22:18):
I'm getting raunchy here, butlike I said, like I said, this
podcast.
I was having this conversationwith the guy where it was like
he was like well, what's yourgoals with your, your wife?
Well, I want to.
I want to be a great lover.
Okay, well, do you fuck yourwife or you have sex with her?

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Right yeah, having sex with her is the important
question.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
But it is.
It is because having sex withher is the system problem.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Oh nice, it's all tied together Right.
Okay, that's a system problem.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
Yeah, Are you telling me you didn't?
You don't know how to get itdone.
Cause.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
I promise you, you do yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
But fucking her is going to be a different story.
Right, that's going to requiresome ambiance and some energy
and some emotional work.
Right, it's the exact samething with budgeting.
It's the exact same thing withfood.
We know how to feed ourselves.
We do not know how to stick toa diet.
I know how to lift weights.
I do not know how to growmyself myself.
Image enough so that I feel onthe inside matches what's on the
outside.
You know, I know that to holdmy daughter's hand and walk down

(01:23:16):
the street, I, you know, but I,you know, that's a system.
The social thing is how do Imake sure that when I'm holding
her hand, I'm doing it withtenderness, so that this is a
memory she will carry safely andsecurely in her heart for the
rest of her life?
That's a social problem, okay,and when it comes to budgets,
it's the exact same shit.
Okay, like we're not.
We're not actually uniquesnowflakes, with all a thousand

(01:23:36):
and one different ways to thinkabout everything.
It's actually quite simple, noteasy.
It's simple, but it's not easy,okay.
And so, as we're talking aboutpitfalls, I want everyone to
understand that this is verysimple, it is not easy, it's
hard, it's really fucking hardbecause the system problems.

(01:23:58):
Easy to solve.
The social problems probablywhat you have.
Let's talk about nights out withuniversity students.
They come up when they makethis beautiful budget.
They followed out, they figuredout their income, they figured
out their expenses.
Everything equals zero, perfectproblem.
They put dine out as $100.
You ever gone to the pub for$100 in a night?

(01:24:19):
No comment, yeah, yeah, becauseI'll tell you this much, I'll
go for that one.
I'll go for one drink.
Yeah, you know, the last time Iwent to the bar for one drink I
had, I could not walk.
You know why?
You know why?
Because the way that I gotaround the one drink was I slid
my credit card a guy and I saidI will give you a $100 tip if

(01:24:41):
you make sure this drink neveractually empties.
So I could be technicallyhonest with what I told my
girlfriend at the time.
Right and that bartender madesure that I never saw the bottom
of that glass.
I don't know how much I drink,but holy shit, the point being
is that you know so thisuniversity student goes and puts

(01:25:01):
down.
I put $100 for my rage money.
I'm going to go out and drink$100.
Your brain, your liver, isgoing to tell you a different
story.
After drink number three.
Yeah, and if I have to drinknumber three, you know you're.
You're.
Now I don't know what, what itcosts in England, but let's just
pretend that you know.
This is a Saturday at the end ofthe month.
Drink number three puts them at$100.

(01:25:22):
It is, let's say, it's, 10o'clock at night for a
university student.
I'm an old guy, so I go to bedby that time, but you know, but
for a university student thatare just getting started, right,
they got till 2am, that's fourhours, and their mates are all
sitting there going dude, let'sstay, like, let's get some darts
.
And he thinks now, rememberhe's, he's three drinks in, like

(01:25:43):
he's not making the bestdecisions in the world and you
know that that will.
To be at the end of the bar isstarting to look good.
And he says, well, I'll figureit out on my budget later, and
he lays down the credit card.
Right, it's a social problem,because it's his friends and the

(01:26:04):
social situation he's in that'scausing the spending at this
point.
Yeah Right, it's the same thingwith the guy with the pickup
truck, where he's paying $700 amonth for his pickup truck.
Why did he want to pick uptruck?
Because all his friends hadpickup trucks, because all his
friends are living these livesthat just look completely
beautiful and amazing andwonderful and, at the end of the

(01:26:25):
day, all of that is expensiveand so none of them have net
worth.
This goes back to the guy that Iknow that makes eight figures
in a year, and he's my client.
Right, he's spending all of hismoney making sure that he
everyone knows he's living aneight figure lifestyle.
Yeah Right, with the boats andthe house and the sports cars,

(01:26:46):
you know.
And one of the things that wehad to talk with that guy was
like hey, you really need tocancel this golf membership, you
need to sell that Ferrari.
Well, what do my friends think?
They're not really your friendsif they love the Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
Yeah, from harsh trip to the Wesson up, right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
You know like and stop and think about how his
life would change.
Okay, I'm just lay out thescenario.
You're spending every singledollar.
You decide to sell the bighouse, you get yourself a Toyota
Corolla, cancel the golfmemberships, you live a simple
life and you're just sack ofmoney away.
Right Now.
Suddenly you have enough moneythat you can just retire.

(01:27:26):
Okay, then you go and youtravel and you meet people in
Columbia and you suddenly starthaving experiences with people
that you really enjoy and yourlife suddenly feels more
fulfilled because you're notchasing these things.
You're chasing experiences andpeople's and heart space stuff.
Yeah, but his life will lookcompletely different and the

(01:27:47):
people that were part of thatother, more artificial life,
they will leave his life.
It's a social trap to maintainthat lifestyle.
You've heard that phrase.
Maintain that lifestyle.
You know it's like WarrenBuffett says the secret to the
average man's formula for wealthis same house, same wife, same
car.
My house, stay in it for life,get married once you know, drive

(01:28:11):
your car till it's till it'sdust.
The social problem inside ofbudgeting this is where this
comes in.
And you say the expenses arestatement of values.
Why?
But Netflix is valuable to me,but why?
Because you spend every nightso dating yourself with the
newest Netflix trend instead ofreading a book on your

(01:28:32):
relationship.
That could save your marriage.

Speaker 2 (01:28:35):
Oh, oh, drop on the triff bombs there.
I'm not married, but I was just.
It was very, it's very truethough, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
But it is.
I have an income problem, butyou're spending money on Netflix
.
Well, I use that on wine youspend.
How much time do you spend onNetflix?
Two hours a night?
Why are you not taking onlineclasses?
Why are you not reading bookson how to network with people?
Well, I don't have the moneyfor an online class.
The library is free.
Yeah, go get Dale Carnegie'show to Win Friends and Influence

(01:29:06):
People.
Right, Go get Dave Ransy's theComplete Money Makeover.
They're in the library.
Even in England, I promise you,those books are in your library
.
Yeah, you know.
Are you investing yourself?
Are you meditating?
Fuck, are you just going for awalk and thinking about your
life?
The point being is that thatsocial entrapment is part of
this problem.
It's a pitfall, because thenhere's another thing that, with

(01:29:28):
Netflix specifically, or likeGame of Thrones, is probably the
best way to put this right.
In Game of Thrones, like peoplewatch Game of Thrones, because
everyone talked about Game ofThrones, yeah, right, and I have
to have that HBO subscription.
So, because it's reallyimportant to me to be able to
talk about all this, all thisGame of Thrones stuff with my
friends at work, right, it'simportant to me.

(01:29:49):
The social, like.
I'm trying to mock socialanxiety here, which I know I
shouldn't do, but I'm going toanyway.
Here's the deal, let me.
Let me lay out another scenariofor you.
Do you watch sports, johnny?
Yeah, I'm a big rugby fan, okay, well, I like rugby too, but I
also don't have three hoursevery Saturday to watch a rugby
match.
Yeah, okay, I.

(01:30:12):
Just I spend the time with mykids.
That's my values.
I spend time with my kids, yeah, but if I'm going into the
office and this is true herebecause we're this weekend is
the playoff for the Super Bowlfor American football Okay, we
got the San Francisco 49ersgoing against Kansas City Chiefs
on the AFC, we got the.
No, it's 49ers versus Rams forthe NSC and it is Cincinnati

(01:30:39):
versus Kansas City and the AFCyeah, now, I stumbled over that.
Why?
Because I actually don't give ashit.
But on Monday I'm going to spendthe first five minutes of my
working day by looking up onESPN and getting all the
highlights for the game and allthe social commentary from all
the people who were talkingabout it, so I can speak
intelligently to the people inthe office and have the

(01:31:00):
conversations and the socialcommunity connection about
football.
Yeah, but I won't watch thegame.
Same thing with Game of Thronesthere's always going to be an
episode recap.
Yeah, right, yeah, you canalways look that shit up, and so
, like you can.
If what you're truly aresocially worried about is losing
connection about this popcultural reference, there's
another way on mine that's freeand will take less time.

(01:31:23):
Other social traps that arehuge.
Shame over money.
The number of people I knowthat get to a place where
they're budgeting and they'restarting to save and they're
starting to see their networkcome up and then they undermine
themselves.
Why?
Because they were told thatmoney's evil.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
Yeah, I've definitely heard that.
In fact I was.
I actually listened to Order ofman Ryan's podcast with Dave
Ramsey on the, as you previouslymentioned told Money Makeover,
and you know there was that fiveminute discussion of all rich
people are evil, which I thinkis a ridiculous notion.

(01:32:03):
But yeah, you're right.
I elaborate more on why, onwhat you meant by that statement
, like the money's bad or whatwas it you said exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
So the money's evil.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
Money's evil yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:15):
So there's a couple of things to hear.
First off, let's just say thisabout Dave Ramsey.
Okay, dave Ramsey's advice ismostly really solid.
Dave Ramsey's is a trash humanbeing.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
Oh, I wasn't, I wasn't aware.

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
There are some people who are going to listen, who'll
be like I can't take DaveRamsey's advice because he's a
trash human being.
And so I'm just going to admitthis he's a trash human being,
he's a terrible employer and hedoes things that are not good,
but his advice is really solid.
And so, like separating thatout right off the bat, like you
know someone's, you know thevalue of someone's advice and

(01:32:51):
the content of their characterare not always aligned.
And Dave Ramsey says it has hada lot of controversy lately,
but this plays into it, right,because you get people who are,
who are quite wealthy and doreally great things, like Dave,
dave Ramsey, who then also thenhurts his employees, and then
the next thing, people say again, this goes back to that social
problem.
And they say, well, I can'tlisten to Dave Ramsey because

(01:33:13):
he's he's too judgy andChristian, okay, okay.
So think of him, the mostreprehensible person you know.
If they told you, hey, don'ttake heroin, does that mean that
you're going to start lightingup the black tower heroin
because you got to do theopposite of what they said, like
the like a heroin addict whotells you not to do heroin is
still right.
Yeah, you know.

(01:33:35):
So there's that.
And I also would say that thereis a certain level of wealth
not income, but a certain levelof wealth that I don't think we
can attain without doing somethings that are very morally
reprehensible or damaging tosociety.
Okay, so let's this level setthat.
So you know a Jeff Bezos.
I don't think Jeff Bezos or theWalton family have had a

(01:33:57):
positive, a very positive impacton communities and families and
people's health.
Have they been economicallyhugely successful?
Yes, have they changed the faceof commerce?
Also, true.
Have they put out out ofbusiness the hopes and dreams of
countless small business owners?
Yeah, that's true too.
And if I had to say, would Irather have two day delivery in

(01:34:19):
Amazon or flourishing smallbusiness community, I'll take
the flourishing small businesscommunity.
Yeah, because again, this goesback to my values.
Yeah, and so.
So there's that.
But let's talk about the ideathat money is evil.
You get to this idea from aquote in the Bible, and everyone
misquotes that.
They say money's the root ofall evil.
And that's not what.
That's not what the Bible says.

(01:34:40):
The Bible says the love ofmoney is the root of all evil,
and those are fundamentallydifferent positions you also
start running into on a sociallevel.
A lot of anti racist sentimentsays that you know, for white
people, divestiture is a musclewhere you need to be on.
Be divesting yourself of wealthand stuff like that and giving
it to minorities, that's athat's true thing.

(01:35:01):
That's out there.
I'm not going to comment onanti racism and just commenting
on sources where the idea thatmoney is evil.
What I'll say on it here,though, is is it better to be a
useless person with a good heartor a useful person with a

(01:35:22):
flawed heart?
Oh, so, let me say, let me say,if you were completely broke,
is it better to be completelybroke but completely feeling
morally superior to everyoneelse?
Or is it better to actuallyaccumulate some wealth and maybe
you don't feel as good aboutthat, but you're able to do more

(01:35:43):
for your community?
That's a lot.
Yeah, that's what I would take,right.
But I also think that's still afalse dichotomy.
Right, because you can.
You can grow yourself and be,live an expansive life, and then
the difference in the moralityis how you, what your value
statement on your budget isgoing to be right.
If I grow my income by helpingpeople like my side business, is

(01:36:06):
coaching right.
If I charge a lot of money forcoaching, my coaching time is
more valuable than my financetime to be in time.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Yeah, right, you know, becauseI charge $250 an hour for
financial coaching, I charge$750, you know, $500 to $750 an
hour for personal coaching,because if I had to listen to
your sex problems, you're goingto pay me more.

(01:36:27):
You know, with that section,that's true.
I just think that the valueproposition for life coaching is
higher, right?
Yeah, now, if I start doingthat in an extractive and
exploitable way, where I'mextracting from these people,
then I'm morally reprehensible.
Yeah, but I've never had acoaching client come back and
say this wasn't worth the money,because I asked that question

(01:36:51):
for feedback.
Is this worth your time, isthis worth your money?
And everyone who said no hasalways followed up with.
It was worth so much more.
Oh, wow.
So I'm getting paid for aservice that's increasing
people's lives.
It's making them better.
Wives, husbands, fathers,community leaders how is that
bad?
Yeah, and I am paying for mygirl's college with it.

(01:37:14):
Yeah, so everybody benefits andthat's how it should go right.
I'm not shutting anyone'sbusiness down.
I'm not writing laws that arehurting other people.
I'm not arguing to cut fundingthat's going to make people's
lives worse.
I'm focusing on adding value toeveryone's lives in a holistic
way that benefits all parties.
And if you are in that boat,then you by all means be

(01:37:39):
expansive.
Stop and think about this for asecond.
With somebody like AndyFirsilla, I fold disclosure.
I don't like Andy Firsilla, buthere's one thing that I look at
and I go damn what an impactthis man made.
Local high school needed a new,wanted to have a facility to
help invest in sports and youngman's lives, and Andy dead ass

(01:38:01):
cut a check out of his personalbank account for it.
It was $25 million, oh my God.
So if you can live an expansivelife that now you can cut a
check for a new facility thatwill impact positively the lives
of young men for generations,how is that money bad?

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):
Yeah, yeah, because I do think it's interesting that
a lot of people do feel guiltyif they do Suddenly a crew, a
lot of wealth, and then think,well, other people have it
harder.
But then it's as you say, ifexcuse me that if you suddenly
have that ability to write a $25million check and like the, you

(01:38:43):
know you're never going to knowthe full scale of the good you
did, like it's unreal Even inyour local community.
If you are the richest man,woman in your community and it's
like, well, you can help somany people, don't look at I
even just think about this on asmaller level.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
I asked one of my college professors like what
should I do?
They're like the world's fuckedup.
What should I do?
And he looked at me and he saidbe a good father.
It's like we need people to begood fathers.

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
And so, like I couldn't continue to be a
teacher and make shit pay andnot have health insurance and
have to work a second and thirdjob to make men's meat and be a
good father, I needed the money.
The money is what has enabledme to be a better father for my
girls by giving this.
How is that evil?

(01:39:38):
You know, it's one of thesethings that's really hard.
And when you talk aboutpitfalls and social pitfalls,
there is a small wounded spot inpeople's hearts and I have this
wound too that starts thinkingthat if I do good, if I advance
my life, if I start accumulating, I'm somehow bad or unworthy.

(01:39:59):
And when you talk aboutpitfalls, of budgets this is why
people hire me as a coach it'snot because they don't know how
to do it, it's because and it'snot even that they can't say
goodbye to their friends.
It's because, by doing betterin their lives, they somehow
feel they're unworthy or thatthey're doing wrong.

(01:40:20):
And for, like everyone that'slistening, I want you to know
that you're worth it.
You are worth it, you are worthinvesting in yourself, you're
worth living an expansive life.
And as you live that expansivelife, as you conquer these
things and you gain a bettersense of self-worth.
That then you can translateinto self-wealth.
You can start doing thingsamazing, even if it is something

(01:40:43):
as small as being able to taketime to just sit with an old
lady and have a conversation andimpact her life.
Even if it is something assmall as being reading a book to
your kid because you're able tobe home instead of work that
second job, even if it issomething as small as being able
to woo a woman and write abeautiful love story with her

(01:41:06):
and like your budget and yourability to manage your resources
will unlock all of that.
And deep down inside, everybodyfucking knows that 100%.
Your pitfalls are.
That is, when you go throughthis process, it's all going to
feel like it's far away.
It's all going to feel likeit's really difficult, and it is

(01:41:26):
.
It's not easy, it's simple, butit's not easy.
It's just worth it.
And so, as you live moreexpansively, you have the
abilities and the capacity to beable to be a lighthouse in a
brighter fashion and influencemore people.
Divestiture is not a good plan.
Investiture in yourself and thepeople around you grows

(01:41:49):
communities, grows happiness andgrows real wealth.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Oh man, I think that's possibly some of the best
two minutes of content I'vepossibly heard in the podcast.
Yet that's like that hit deepman.
It hits the heart, doesn't it?
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Yeah, you know, for those people who are sitting
there and they're uncomfortablewith the idea of gaining wealth
and budgeting and expanding yourincome and being ambitious,
you're not alone Like.
I know how you feel because Ifelt that way before and I've
found that it's improved everyaspect of my life and the aspect

(01:42:32):
of the lives of people aroundme.
If I was still a teacher, Imight be making impact on young
men's and women's lives.
As a teacher, I'm making agreater impact as a coach, 100%.
You know I got clients who aregetting out of relationships
that should have died years agoand men who are finding
themselves as the husbands theyalways wanted to be.

(01:42:53):
You know I'm going to.
You know there's one guy wherehe reconciled with his wife and
it's like holy shit, those kidsaren't going to have to have to
horse parents now, man, thatmust be such a satisfying
feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
Yeah, I didn't do the work.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
I just shine the path .
But I can shine the pathbecause I have the money and
time to do so.
I can be on this podcastbecause I have the money to
invest in the iron council, andthat's how we met.
We're able to jump on Zoombecause I have the money to have
this microphone right.
Like all of these things aretrue.
You know, I can be relaxed withmy kids because I know I have
an emergency fund that's sittingthere that if I lose my job

(01:43:31):
tomorrow, I'm going to be okay.
You know I don't have thestresses I had when I was before
and it has enabled me to be abetter person and to make better
decisions and take principledstance.
So is money the root of all evil?
No, the love of money is theroot of all evil.
When money becomes the do alland all, when you only look at

(01:43:52):
your bottom line dollar figuresand you, as a value, undercut
other people to continue toincrease your wealth, now you
are loving money more than yourloving people, man preach.
So it's in.
Like I said, there's a certainlevel of income and wealth that
people attain where there's justno way they could have ever
gotten Like there's no way tohave ever generated that much

(01:44:15):
value in the world, to have thatlevel of income without
extracting it from other people,and the extraction is the key
right.
The McDonald's franchise ownerwho cuts your hours and fucks
with your schedule and demandsthat you work whenever they want
to.
They're extracting from you.
They are extractive and beingextractive.

(01:44:36):
They are morally incorrect.
The guy who owned a tax office,who created the job for me so
that I could get experiencedoing taxes, so I could use that
as a springboard to jump in toget my CPA.
He didn't extract for me, but Imade him a lot of money.
Yeah, exactly, and he too thisday makes more money than I do.

(01:44:59):
Is he evil?
No, he was my savior and he wasable to do that because he had
grown his business enough thathe could take on a charity case
like me.
So these are all social pitfallsand things that you will face
as you get your financial housein order.
It's in the social problemeverything from your friends to

(01:45:22):
your family history, to your owninternal makeup, in your own
emotional states.
Those things are the harderparts about budgeting, and when
we say that it's going to taketime, you're going part of the
reason that nobody just makes abudget and sticks to it the
first time is because they stickto it.
And then they budgeted $100 fordrinking and then they suddenly

(01:45:42):
realized that staying at thebar late with their friends is
more important to them.
And then they have to face them.
Either type of person whoalcohol is important too.
Yeah Right, it's a socialproblem.
People get to the point andthey have that bottom and they
have a surplus at the bottom.
They have an extra $500 andthey think they have to give it
a charity rather than put it ina savings account.

(01:46:03):
Yeah, yeah Right, that happenstoo.
So one of these things when wetalk about pitfalls.
At the end of the day, the mostvaluable part of this
conversation, where people aregoing to be successful or fail,
is dealing with that socialproblem we've just been talking
about 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):
I wish I had this conversation when I was 18.

Speaker 1 (01:46:25):
Well, and when you're 18, surround yourself with
people who take it seriously too.
They're out there, they areRight, you're not alone, and
your life will be better.
It's like Jonathan on theChooseFI podcast.
He talks about this all thetime.
What would be a better night?
Going out to a restaurant,where you sit with your friends

(01:46:48):
at a booth in a noisy restaurantfor an hour and you get food
that's subpar, that you couldhave made better at home, or a
three-hour cocktail night atyour friend's place?
Yeah, right, you know, but yougot to have friends who want to
do that.
Right, you got to have friendswho have their shit together
enough that they have a cleanhouse that you can show up at.

Speaker 2 (01:47:09):
It's a social problem .

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
You have to have had or have dealt with your family
trauma it had a family that didthat or have dealt with your
family trauma so that you can bea person who does that in order
to be part of a group like that.
So those are the pitfalls, andI could talk for another hour on
the social problem.
But, like I said, the socialproblem connects to everything.

(01:47:32):
The system problem connects toeverything.
Are you having sex with yourwife or are you fucking her?
Are you feeding yourself or areyou nourishing yourself?
Yeah, are you working out orare you building fitness?
I like that.
Yeah, right, like I.
Literally, there is not a topicthat touches people's lives
that I can't talk about thosetwo issues in a real holistic

(01:47:54):
way.

Speaker 2 (01:47:55):
No, you're 100% correct, and it helps give some
clarity to the complicatedsubject that is finances and
budgeting and trying to balanceyour goals.
Is this a system problem?
Is this a social problem?
And, as we referenced earlierin the conversation, it's about
taking ownership and giving youthat permission to fail, which I

(01:48:20):
think will give people thegreen light to get stuck in
finally into making a budget.
So one, in fact, the couple oflast things to wrap up the
episode is what resources canyou recommend for people in the
version of either apps or I knowyou mentioned one of your own

(01:48:43):
resources in your website, thefor tools, which I'll be posting
all your websites and podcastsdown in the show notes but what
resources are available topeople that can help them either
start a budget or maintain abudget and just make the most of
it?

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
So from a technical standpoint, we already mentioned
fiscalsavagecom slash tools.
I have all my spreadsheets andstuff are available there, so
you can feel free to go downloadthem all.
If you go to fiscalsavagecomslash books, most of my books
that I think are useful areposted there they're going to
give you great technical stuff.
I'm going to mention DaveRamsey's Total Money Makeover

(01:49:24):
because I truly do believe thatthat in Financial Peace
University, which is DaveRamsey's other book, dave Ramsey
Trash Human great fuckingadvice.
Budgets are a statement ofvalues.
If you're not having abudgeting meeting with your wife
or your significant other,you're not sharing values with
them, and guess where yourrelationship is going.
He talks about that.

(01:49:46):
I think Dave Ramsey is awonderful, wonderful resource
because he'll get you started.
I do want to mention one thingthat I would say absolutely do
not bother to read are any ofthe Rich Dad Poor Dad series.

Speaker 2 (01:50:01):
Oh, interesting, I see that advertised all the time
.

Speaker 1 (01:50:04):
Well, he is brilliant , but he's also so.
Here's what I'll say about RichDad, poor Dad.
His mental advice is supersolid buy assets, sell
liabilities.
Don't ask can I afford that,ask how do I afford that?
These are very good advice.
Some of his very specificthings that he talks about, like

(01:50:31):
buying tax liens as a savingsmethod, is straight up tax fraud
.
You probably shouldn't do that.
So nothing I say should beconstrued as tax advice or
financial advice.
Just putting that out there,you're all brisk borne by the
individual.
But Dave Ramsey is a good thingon an emotional level.

(01:50:52):
One of the things a great bookand I know this is not a typical
financial book, but as a manthink is by James Allen.
We'll talk to you about howyour thoughts generate into
realities.
And when you talk about budgetsbeing values, that's another
place.
It's to really look becauseit's going to force you to
reexamine your values.
Sovereignty by Ryan Mickler Nota budgeting book per se, but

(01:51:20):
focusing on what is your vision.
Why am I doing this?
How am I doing any of it?
And he talks about a 12-weekbattle plan at the end of it.
You can make all four of them,all four quadrants on his
12-week battle plan, financiallyfocused, budget focused.
So it's a great framework.
And how am I going to gothrough and fuck this up for six
months and still feel okayabout myself?

(01:51:41):
Sovereignty by Ryan Mickler.

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
Yeah, I finished reading that book for the fourth
time last week.

Speaker 1 (01:51:47):
Yeah, it's a yearly devotional for me?

Speaker 2 (01:51:51):
Yeah, 100%.
What about apps?
Is there any decent appbudgeting apps you can recommend
, or anything of that nature,just obviously, with this being
the tech generation.

Speaker 1 (01:52:02):
Yeah, so on an app basis, everydollar by Dave
Ramsey is a wonderful app whichfocuses on zero budgeting, which
is what we were talking about.
Ynab you need a budget is theacronym YNAB.
They are excellent, too.
The one thing I will say,though, and here is my pitch on
budgeting apps I know we're thetech generation.

(01:52:24):
Technology is a barrier toconnection, which is weird
because we're on a podcasttrying to create connection
through technology, right?
Yeah, I would highly recommendnot doing any apps or
technological anything until youhave 18 months of successful
budgeting under your belt, andhere's why Budgeting, like we've

(01:52:47):
talked about it's more of asocial issue, personal finance,
more personal than it is finance.
Having to actually sit down andactually write out a fucking
budget connects you to yourmoney in a very real and
holistic way, whereas a lot ofthese budgeting apps just
automatically pull it out ofyour bank account, so it's just
dead numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
Yeah, yeah, I can see where you're coming from on
that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:07):
And remember you're dealing with more of a social
problem than a system problem,that pulling out numbers and
being able to just present youthe dead numbers is all system,
it's not social and you probablyhave a social problem.

Speaker 2 (01:53:20):
Well said.
Yeah, that's class.
So now that we've gone throughall the resources and how to
make a budget, the socialproblem, the system problem
we're going to wrap up theepisode.
But for people who've reallyenjoyed listening to what you've
had to say and would love toconnect with you and more of
your content, where can theyfind you?

(01:53:40):
So?

Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
primarily, you can go to my website, which is just
goosephizavidscom.
That's going to stay up there,although I'm shifting more into
the life coaching side because,as we've talked about a lot, the
system, social problem dynamicexists in lots of different
areas, and as I talk aboutbudgets with people, I almost
always end up talking aboutsomething else, typically sex,
for some reason, especially formy married couples that I

(01:54:04):
financially coach, so you canfind me there at fiscousavidscom
.
You also can find me onInstagram at savagefirelight,
which is what I'm posting onthere.
I am going to be bringing morecontent onto that and be
offering some free classes hererelatively soon, and you can
find all about that on theInstagram at savagefirelight.

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
Fantastic, and I'll post all of them links in the
show notes as well, just for aconvenient click away.
This has been an absolutelyoutstanding conversation, dylan,
and I think at the minute thisis probably the longest episode
of the Curious Ulsterman podcastto date.
But to be fair, my thinking is,for the sake, this is probably

(01:54:47):
about a two hour episode for twohours, to really sit down and
go through the real meat of thisdiscussion and then have that
inform the rest of your life,which will hopefully be a long
and fruitful one.
I mean two hours now inexchange for, if you're 18 now,
hopefully another 80, 70 yearsof good financial decision

(01:55:08):
making, setting up a solidfoundation.
I think we can't get any betterreally, man, has it been two
hours?
Holy crap?
I think it has been.
I think it has been, but theconversation has just been.
So the conversation is so badlyneeded.
I mean, I, you know audience,I'm positive you'll get value
from this.
But, speaking for me, man, I'mconvicted, like I don't know if

(01:55:32):
I have the time or the currenthealth touch would, but I'll be
tomorrow, when I'm feelingbetter, I'll sit down and make a
budget.
Well, you know what?
I'm not sorry, I'm paper not anapp.

Speaker 1 (01:55:44):
I'm not sorry, and I'm not sorry because you're
right.
It is a needed conversation.
Being a good steward of yourresources, you know, is huge and
will set you apart in so manydifferent ways.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Oh, 100% yeah, and you'll be ultimately sovereign
over your life, won't you?

Speaker 1 (01:56:01):
Yeah 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
Dylan thanks a million for coming on the show
again and no doubt we'll haveyou back on the show again
sometime soon 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:56:10):
It's been a pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:56:13):
There you go, folks.
That concludes today's episode.
I hope you got a lot of valueout of the content provided.
If you did, then please doconsider subscribing to the
Curious Ulsterman podcast onyour preferred streaming service
and leaving us a five starreading and review.
That really helps the podcastgrow.
Thank you very much.
If you would like to follow theCurious Ulsterman on the various

(01:56:34):
social media channels to viewupcoming content, the Curious
Ulsterman is on Facebook,Instagram, Twitter, TikTok,
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If you know someone who wouldbenefit from this content, then
please do share it with yourfriends and family on the
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You can also check out ourwebsite at

(01:56:55):
wwwthecuriousulstermancom, whereyou can view our full catalogue
of episodes across all theseasons.
If you would like to get intouch with the Curious Ulsterman
, then please do get in contacton the various social media
channels mentioned, or there isa voice note option on our
website.
As always, folks, I'm open tosuggestions to make this podcast

(01:57:16):
a better experience for you,the listener, If you tuned in
today for the first time, thankyou very much and I hope you got
value from the content Iprovide If you're one of our
seasoned listeners.
Thank you so much for thecontinuous support.
I am eternally grateful.
I hope you'll join us for nextweek's episode, folks, but until
next time I wish you all thebest.

(01:57:36):
Bye for now.

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