January 27, 2026 • 21 mins
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In today's episode, Brad Nelson, the founder of Debt Free Dad, discusses how to cultivate real financial discipline without the feelings of restriction or deprivation often associated with it. He highlights the misconceptions around discipline and willpower, emphasizing the importance of removing challenges and creating systems that make good financial choices easier. Brad offers practical advice for creating clear spending plans, allowing for enjoyment in your budget, automating finances, and focusing on consistency rather than perfection. Additionally, he discusses the emotional side of spending and provides strategies for managing it. If you're looking to break free from paycheck to paycheck living and want to build a strong financial foundation, this episode is packed with valuable insights and resources.
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Episode Transcript
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Brad Nelson (00:00):
You know, when most people hear the word financial
discipline, they don't thinkfreedom.
They think restriction.
They think sacrifice.
They think saying no toeverything in life, that's fun.
And that mindset alone is whyso many people struggle to stick
with a plan that helps them getout of debt.
Because no one wants to livethe rest of their life feeling
(00:21):
trapped by their money.
Now, today I want to show youand talk about how to build a
real financial disciplinewithout feeling restricted,
deprived, or absolutelymiserable.
And more importantly, howdiscipline can actually create
more freedom and not less.
Announcer (00:54):
They are now on a mission to empower regular
people to pay off their debt forgood and enjoy happier, less
stressful lives.
Keep listening forinspirational interviews, tips,
tricks, and practical advice togain financial freedom.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
My name is Brad Nelson.
I'm the founder of Debt FreeDad.
I paid off about $45,000 ofdebt.
I've been debt-free now formore than 12 years.
I've also been fortunate tohelp thousands of other people
save and pay off tens ofmillions of dollars over the
years with the work that we dohere at debt free dad.
Now, guys, after listening tothis episode, if you're ready to
take things to the next level,you're sick of living paycheck
(01:34):
to paycheck, you want to reducefinancial stress in your own
life, you want to build asavings that is there for all of
life's emergencies, and youfinally want to pay off that
annoying debt for good.
But maybe you're like mostpeople, including me at one
time, you're not sure where toget started.
Well, we've created someincredible free resources for
you here at Defree Dad, and I'llbe sharing some details on how
you get some of those later onin today's episode.
(01:56):
Before we get to today'sepisode, I just want to say I
hope you're staying warm outthere.
I'm recording today on January26th, and man, it is cold in the
Midwest.
And uh man, it's I I mean,we're used to the cold, but this
is some cold, cold weather.
So I hope you guys are stayingwarm out there and uh sticking
to your financial plan here inlate January and early February.
(02:17):
But today I want to talk aboutdiscipline because this is a big
part of getting out of debt.
And discipline is a commontopic that comes up and it's a
thing that a lot of us willstruggle with.
A lot of us misunderstand whatit is.
And here's the biggestmisunderstanding: most people
think that discipline means justwillpower.
It's willpower, right?
(02:38):
That you just need to tryharder, right?
You just need to be stricterwith yourself, you need to say
no more often.
But the reality is, and if youknow anything like I do, and
you've tried some of this stuffbefore, willpower gets pretty
exhausting.
And when your financial planrelies solely just on that
(02:59):
willpower, oh man, it breaks.
And I failed at this too.
And a lot of the reasons wereis because I I just felt
willpower.
And it's not because we'reweak, it's really because we're
human, right?
Real discipline is not aboutforcing yourself to behave, it's
(03:20):
about trying to remove thosechallenges, trying to remove
that friction from gooddecisions and adding friction to
the bad decisions, right?
It's about building, and we'vetalked about this over the last
several episodes here in the newyear.
It's about building more, youknow, systems that make the
right choice, the easier choice,right?
(03:40):
And once you understand that,uh everything gets easier,
everything begins to change, notright away overnight, but over
time things begin to change anddiscipline becomes kind of like
your best friend.
So let's talk about why moneyplans feel so restrictive in the
first place.
It's kind of like that new dietyou go on, right?
You got to lose some weight.
And what do we do?
We restrict everything that'sbad, right?
(04:02):
And that's exactly what we dowith our money.
Most budgets fail becausethey're built around
deprivation, not reality, right?
They assume, man, we're nevergonna go out to eat again,
right?
We're never gonna spendemotionally or have a weak
moment during the upcomingmonth.
You're never gonna have a badday, you're never gonna want to
(04:25):
do anything fun again.
No, we gotta pay off this debt.
It's like this scorched earthmentality.
You wipe out everything in yourlife, and life becomes to suck
really, really quickly.
Guys, that's not discipline.
That's that's like fantasy,right?
And when real life shows up,the whole financial plan
collapses.
(04:45):
Again, like I said, I've madethis mistake in my own journey
and getting out of debt.
That's why it took me four orfive years to do this.
I did it on my own, and man, Ifailed so many times because of
this very topic.
So here's the first, I guess,mindset shift you need to make.
Discipline does not meancutting out everything you
(05:06):
enjoy.
I want to say it again.
I want you to hear me.
It does not mean cutting outeverything you enjoy.
And the reason I want you tohear that is because in the
financial industry, where youhave people helping you or
wanting to try to help you getout of debt, there is a few of
those personalities out therethat say you have to just cut
out everything.
You can't do anything fun.
(05:27):
And that's just not how this isgonna work.
Discipline is really aboutdeciding on purpose what matters
most.
And you guys, at the end of theday, that's what a budget is.
A budget isn't about, you know,again, deprivation and cutting
everything out.
A budget is you saying, we'regoing to spend this money on
purpose on what matters most tous.
(05:49):
Because when you decideintentionally, spending stops
feeling rebellious.
You're not going to have thatguilt of, oh, we shouldn't have
spent that money.
No, because you already decidedto do that.
And those goals also includedyou getting out of debt, maybe
you're building your emergencyfund, you're still getting
things done in your financiallife, and you're also still able
(06:11):
to go out and enjoy life.
And that means you're notbreaking the rules, right?
You're following the rules youput in place when you put that
budget together.
And this is where rules matter.
I guess I would say morespecific goals.
Rules kind of use those samerather than vague goals.
Like a lot of people'sfinancial goals are vague.
(06:31):
Rules or specific goals arevery specific, they're clear.
Like a vague goal would belike, I want to spend less
money.
That's very, very vague, right?
But a more specific goal, orsay a rule you create for
yourself, I check the budgetbefore spending over a certain
amount of money, or I check mybudget and review it daily, like
(06:53):
we recommend, just so you knowwhere you're at and where you're
going throughout the month.
Another rule might be is I wantto stop using credit cards, or
I want to stop using debtaltogether, right?
But a more specific goal wouldbe like, hey, let's just commit
to the next month of not usingany debt.
Because saying I'm gonna cutout credit cards when you've
(07:15):
used them all the time andsaying I'm never gonna use one
again, that might be just tooharsh for you right now.
You might want to focus just oncan we get through the next
month and then can we getthrough the next month, right?
The rules or more specificgoal, it removes that decision
fatigue, so to speak, right?
The fewer decisions that youhave to make uh leads to less
(07:35):
stress overall in your life,right?
But it also leads to betterfollow through, right?
You're actually gonna do itbecause you don't have so much
fatigue in making all thesedecisions because you've already
made them, right?
Now let's talk a little bitabout the restriction side.
Restriction feels heavy becausemoney feels like it's being
taken away from us or the funthings are being taken away from
us.
And guess I gotta admit, I feltthat way too.
(07:56):
I mean, when I got out of debt,I cut out my cable back then,
and I'm aging myself a littlebit, but back then we didn't
have the streaming services thatare so popular now and and
somewhat inexpensive if you'rejust keeping it minimal.
But we didn't have the Netflixand the Hulu and all that stuff.
We we had cable, right?
That's all we had, and I cutthat out, that was $150 roughly
a month, I want to say, maybe$175.
(08:17):
And then, as you guys know, Ialso got rid of a car, and it
was a brand new car when webought it.
Really nice car.
I couldn't afford it though.
I ended up buying myself an old1996 Toyota Corolla that had a
good amount of little rust onit, but it was a reliable car.
But when I gotta admit, guys,when I first started and I got
rid of those things, it feltheavy, right?
(08:39):
Because I was taking thingsaway from my life.
But here's what I didn'tunderstand: discipline feels a
lot lighter when you start torealize that you are deciding
your money is being assignedtowards something you care
about.
That's a big part of gettingout of debt, is that you got to
decide in your own life, not mefor you, but you for yourself
(08:59):
about what you care about,what's important in your
financial life.
And that makes such a hugedifference because once you
start to realize, hey, I got ridof these things, but they
weren't as important as thisthing that I want.
That makes a huge difference innot only your overall mindset,
but your overall attitude movingtowards a debt-free life.
It's just huge, right?
You're not saying to yourselfanymore that I can't spend,
(09:21):
right?
I can't have anything fun.
You're saying instead, Ialready told my money where I
want it to go.
And this is why we talked abouthaving those clear goals, that
clarity, that creates a lot ofstress-free living.
It creates almost a calmingeffect in your financial life.
For most of us, our financiallives are absolute chaos most of
(09:42):
the time, right?
Because when your money hasjobs, like we talk about having
in your budget, give each dollara job.
You stop second-guessingyourself because you've already
decided the jobs every singledollar that's coming in is going
to have.
You stop negotiating withyourself.
You stop feeling guilty whenyou actually spend money on fun
things.
You already told yourself youcould do that.
You wanted to go out to eat,you wanted to go out to a
(10:04):
concert, you want to go do allthose fun things that you want
to do.
All you gotta do is put in yourbudget.
That guilt, like when you don'tdo that and you're just winging
it, that guilt makes peoplequit.
Now, here's another point Iwant to make.
Discipline fails when it's allor nothing as well.
People think that disciplinemeans you have to be perfect.
(10:26):
It's like I talked aboutearlier when we started this
episode.
It's like that diet, right?
People go on their New Year'sdiets or they get on a new
health kick and they're eatinghealthy, and they think if they
just had one bad day or one badmeal or they messed up and gave
into a treat that they shouldn'thave had, they think they've
blown it, right?
And the same thing comes withgetting out of debt.
I think there is a lot ofparallels between getting out of
(10:48):
debt and a health journey ofwanting to lose weight and
become more healthy.
There's so many similaritiesthere in those journeys.
And when we have that all ornothing mindset, that mindset
kills a lot of your progresswhen you do have those moments.
So I want you to think aboutdiscipline.
Discipline isn't about beingperfect, it's really about the
(11:09):
direction that you want to goin.
And that direction isn't alwaysgoing to be a linear path.
It's not gonna be perfectlystraight.
You're gonna have ups and downsthroughout that journey.
It's about being able to getback on track faster when things
do go wrong.
And that's the cool part isabout this, guys, is that when
you do have a moment, we all do,I still do to this day, you're
(11:29):
not off track forever anymore.
You realize, oh, I messed up,I'll do better next time.
I'm gonna try.
How can I do that better?
And you get right back to whatyou were doing before.
Now, another big killer todiscipline is emotional
spending.
And this is like a whole, Imean, we could do a lot of
different episodes on emotionalspending, right?
In fact, we have sharedstatistics on this podcast from
(11:54):
Shopify that they say upwards ofanywhere, and this is a very
big range, but 40 to 80 percentof all purchases are made out of
impulse or emotion.
The reality is you don't spendmoney emotionally because you're
bad with money, you spendemotionally because money is and
buying things is a really fastway to get relief from whatever
(12:16):
it is that you're feeling.
And if you haven't noticedlately, guys, it's really easy
to buy things nowadays.
You can write on your phone andbuy things instantly.
And if you're familiar withAmazon, which I know a lot of us
are, that stuff can be at yourdoorstep within hours, depending
on how close you are to thewarehouse.
It's amazing how quickly youcan just spend money nowadays,
(12:37):
right?
Discipline, it doesn't meanpretending emotions don't exist.
It means knowing that theyexist, it means planning for
them.
And that might look like inyour budget, you have a small
fun money category.
Maybe you're someone who'sspontaneous.
Maybe the thought of a budgetand having a plan for your
entire month freaks you outbecause you're somewhat of a
(13:00):
spontaneous person, whichthere's nothing wrong with that.
So maybe in your budget, youhave a line item for spontaneous
fun money.
And you just set a certainamount each month.
And if something comes up andyou want to go out and do
whatever it is that is, you usethe money out of that.
So you don't feel thatdeprivation.
It could be like a weeklyspending limit that you don't
(13:20):
have to justify.
So let's call it like spendingmoney or pocket money, right?
And you just give yourself acertain amount of money.
You don't have to track thatmoney, so to speak.
You want to stop at a gasstation, get a soda, or get a
coffee, or go out for launch andyou know, you can use that
money.
Again, it's more of that fun,that spontaneous kind of
category.
Another one is just taking apause before on-planned
(13:44):
purchases.
I've talked about this plentyof times on the podcast, but we
call it the 24-hour rule.
If you're tempted to buysomething, and you're you get
yourself in that emotional modeof I just have to have this.
The advertising is so good.
Like you see it online oryou're in the store, or you hear
a friend talking about it,you're like, oh, I've got to
have that.
Pause.
Just wait 24 hours.
Don't tell yourself no.
(14:05):
Instead, just wait 24 hours.
And I can tell you guys, if youpractice this, and it's hard at
first, but when you practicethis over and over again, it's
amazing how much stuff you don'tbuy.
Because after that 24 hours hasgone by, nine times out of 10,
you're not even thinking aboutthat purchase anymore because
you've removed the emotion bygiving a pause, right?
(14:26):
But those emotions areacknowledged when you realize
that they're happening.
Those emotions begin to losepower.
And this is why when we talkabout things we've talked about
over these last several podcastsin the new year, we talk about
automation.
Automation, like having anautomatic savings, right?
That builds discipline fasterbecause it takes the motivation
away.
It's being automatically donefor you.
(14:47):
You don't have to decide.
You've decided, but then youset the automation up and the
savings just moves over to whereyou want it.
And for instance, like when youput your bills on auto pay, if
you have a good budget, I likeauto pay.
Makes things easier.
It's one less thing I have toworry about in my busy life.
You don't have to forget,right?
It's already done.
Automation is all aboutautomatic discipline, so to
(15:10):
speak.
So when your debt payments arescheduled, progress happens
whether you felt motivated ornot.
Right.
So again, discipline, itimproves when you have less to
decide every day because you'vealready decided it by having a
financial plan, having a budgetfor every month.
Now, the other thing I want tosay is if your financial plan
(15:31):
makes you feel punished, again,you're not gonna stick with it.
You will fail over and overagain and you won't make much
progress.
Discipline that lasts, it feelsmore supportive, it feels not
as restrictive, it feels likestructure, not like you're
(15:52):
suffocating yourself.
And that structure is whateventually creates the freedom
you so badly want in your lifewhen it comes to your finances.
And this is the reality.
This is the truth that mostpeople miss.
Discipline isn't about justcontrolling your money, it's
really about reducing stress,it's about knowing what's coming
(16:18):
up, right?
Discipline is looking forwardin the future.
A lot of us use debt because wejust don't have a good habit of
looking towards upcomingexpenses that are coming down
the pipeline and then having aplan to go about being prepared
for those things.
Discipline is a it's abouttrust, it's about building trust
in yourself.
Trust that you're not going tosabotage your financial plan
(16:40):
nearly as much moving forward.
And it's going to build trustin yourself that you can do
this, that your plan can workand that you can get out of
debt.
And this is why small,consistent habits beat big,
dramatic changes.
If you guys haven't read thebook by Darren Hardy called The
(17:00):
Compound Effect, I highlyrecommend you check it out.
It's my favorite book of alltime because it's all about
small, consistent changes andcreating small new habits every
day.
And eventually, over time,those big or those small habits
create big results.
You guys have heard a lot ofour roots members who have been
on this podcast over the yearsand what they've been able to
(17:21):
do.
We've got upcoming interviewswith some new people that have
made some tremendous progressover the last couple of years
that are going to be on yourcoming up in the upcoming
months.
And it all started with justmaking small changes.
And we've been talking aboutthose again in these episodes
here in the new year.
Small changes are things likedoing daily check-ins, having,
again, clear goals and clearrules for your finances, uh,
(17:43):
creating some simple systemsthat removes that motivation
factor and it creates moreautomation, right?
Just simple things that you cando.
And again, remember, none ofthis is gonna feel exciting.
But over time, as you begin tosee that savings grow, as you
begin to see those credit cardbalances go down, as you begin
to feel less financial stress,that's all gonna create a lot
(18:05):
more confidence in your life.
And confidence makes thediscipline easier every single
week because the more confidentyou get, the more disciplined
you're gonna be, and the morewilling you're gonna be to do
the work because you're seeingall the amazing progress that
you've made.
Right now, if you've tried tobe disciplined before and
failed, I want you to hear me.
(18:26):
You didn't fail because youweren't disciplined enough.
You failed because the systemexpected too much of you.
You may have put some reallyunrealistic expectations on your
budget.
Remember, we we went to thatdeprivation, scorched earth
mentality.
A better system beats astronger you every single time.
So here's how you can startbuilding some of this discipline
(18:47):
without feeling restrictedafter you've listened to this.
Number one, create a clearspending plan.
Like again, have a budget.
Create some just clear spendingrules instead of you know
having vague goals.
Number two, allow room in thatbudget for enjoyment so you
don't rebel against your ownplan, right?
Number three, automate what youcan, like we've talked about,
(19:09):
to remove some of that decisionfatigue.
So you're not having toconstantly be thinking about
your finances all the time andwhat you need to do, just
automate it, right?
And number four, like I said,focus on consistency, not
perfection.
That's it.
It's not extreme, it'scertainly not very complicated,
right?
It's just realistic.
And remember, discipline isn'tsomething that should trap you.
(19:32):
It's really something that,again, is going to create that
freedom.
It protects your finances astime goes on.
It protects that future thatyou want, it protects your
overall financial stress, yourpeace.
And when discipline is builtthe right way, it's not going to
feel like restriction.
It's going to feel relief,right?
Now, if you want help to startbuilding these systems step by
(19:56):
step and you want support andaccountability, obviously, this
is what we do with our members.
Members inside Roots.
We only open up Roots severaltimes a year.
It is a closed membership.
But if you're someone who'sinterested in joining that
program and joining thethousands of members that we've
worked with over the years, uhyou can head over to
debtfreedead.com, click on thefree resources page.
And if you scroll down, you'llsee the roots information there.
You can join and jump on thewait list.
(20:16):
All right.
And we will email you within afew weeks of when we're going to
open next so you can prepareand get all the information that
you need to join thataccountability group.
Now, if you're not quite readyfor that, but you want to start
getting some more information,some simple tools that'll help
you.
Again, maybe you want to breakfree from maybe paycheck to
paycheck.
Heck, it's probably why youlisten to this podcast.
(20:38):
We've got you covered.
Simplify My Money is sent eachand every Sunday to your email.
Uh Simplify My Money is reallyyour step-by-step roadmap to
better financial control.
Uh, you're also gonna get someeasy to follow strategies to
manage your money moreeffectively, like you've
discover and learn on thispodcast.
We're gonna help you makestress-free money decisions that
are gonna help you simplifyyour financial life with proven
(20:59):
tips that actually work fornormal, everyday people, people
just like you, people just likeme.
And you're gonna gain the toolsand confidence to tackle your
financial goals head on.
You can sign up for Simplify MyMoney by clicking the link at
the top of the show notes.
Thanks for joining us ontoday's show, and we will see
you guys on the next episode.
Announcer (21:21):
Thanks for listening to the Debt Free Dad podcast.
Connect with us on Facebook,TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
Just search Debt Free Dad.
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For resources, show notes, andlinks mentioned in today's show,
visit debtfreedad.com.
(21:42):
Catch you next week.
You know, when most people hear the word financial
discipline, they don't thinkfreedom.
They think restriction.
They think sacrifice.
They think saying no toeverything in life, that's fun.
And that mindset alone is whyso many people struggle to stick
with a plan that helps them getout of debt.
Because no one wants to livethe rest of their life feeling
(00:21):
trapped by their money.
Now, today I want to show youand talk about how to build a
real financial disciplinewithout feeling restricted,
deprived, or absolutelymiserable.
And more importantly, howdiscipline can actually create
more freedom and not less.
Announcer (00:54):
They are now on a mission to empower regular
people to pay off their debt forgood and enjoy happier, less
stressful lives.
Keep listening forinspirational interviews, tips,
tricks, and practical advice togain financial freedom.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
My name is Brad Nelson.
I'm the founder of Debt FreeDad.
I paid off about $45,000 ofdebt.
I've been debt-free now formore than 12 years.
I've also been fortunate tohelp thousands of other people
save and pay off tens ofmillions of dollars over the
years with the work that we dohere at debt free dad.
Now, guys, after listening tothis episode, if you're ready to
take things to the next level,you're sick of living paycheck
(01:34):
to paycheck, you want to reducefinancial stress in your own
life, you want to build asavings that is there for all of
life's emergencies, and youfinally want to pay off that
annoying debt for good.
But maybe you're like mostpeople, including me at one
time, you're not sure where toget started.
Well, we've created someincredible free resources for
you here at Defree Dad, and I'llbe sharing some details on how
you get some of those later onin today's episode.
(01:56):
Before we get to today'sepisode, I just want to say I
hope you're staying warm outthere.
I'm recording today on January26th, and man, it is cold in the
Midwest.
And uh man, it's I I mean,we're used to the cold, but this
is some cold, cold weather.
So I hope you guys are stayingwarm out there and uh sticking
to your financial plan here inlate January and early February.
(02:17):
But today I want to talk aboutdiscipline because this is a big
part of getting out of debt.
And discipline is a commontopic that comes up and it's a
thing that a lot of us willstruggle with.
A lot of us misunderstand whatit is.
And here's the biggestmisunderstanding: most people
think that discipline means justwillpower.
It's willpower, right?
(02:38):
That you just need to tryharder, right?
You just need to be stricterwith yourself, you need to say
no more often.
But the reality is, and if youknow anything like I do, and
you've tried some of this stuffbefore, willpower gets pretty
exhausting.
And when your financial planrelies solely just on that
(02:59):
willpower, oh man, it breaks.
And I failed at this too.
And a lot of the reasons wereis because I I just felt
willpower.
And it's not because we'reweak, it's really because we're
human, right?
Real discipline is not aboutforcing yourself to behave, it's
(03:20):
about trying to remove thosechallenges, trying to remove
that friction from gooddecisions and adding friction to
the bad decisions, right?
It's about building, and we'vetalked about this over the last
several episodes here in the newyear.
It's about building more, youknow, systems that make the
right choice, the easier choice,right?
(03:40):
And once you understand that,uh everything gets easier,
everything begins to change, notright away overnight, but over
time things begin to change anddiscipline becomes kind of like
your best friend.
So let's talk about why moneyplans feel so restrictive in the
first place.
It's kind of like that new dietyou go on, right?
You got to lose some weight.
And what do we do?
We restrict everything that'sbad, right?
(04:02):
And that's exactly what we dowith our money.
Most budgets fail becausethey're built around
deprivation, not reality, right?
They assume, man, we're nevergonna go out to eat again,
right?
We're never gonna spendemotionally or have a weak
moment during the upcomingmonth.
You're never gonna have a badday, you're never gonna want to
(04:25):
do anything fun again.
No, we gotta pay off this debt.
It's like this scorched earthmentality.
You wipe out everything in yourlife, and life becomes to suck
really, really quickly.
Guys, that's not discipline.
That's that's like fantasy,right?
And when real life shows up,the whole financial plan
collapses.
(04:45):
Again, like I said, I've madethis mistake in my own journey
and getting out of debt.
That's why it took me four orfive years to do this.
I did it on my own, and man, Ifailed so many times because of
this very topic.
So here's the first, I guess,mindset shift you need to make.
Discipline does not meancutting out everything you
(05:06):
enjoy.
I want to say it again.
I want you to hear me.
It does not mean cutting outeverything you enjoy.
And the reason I want you tohear that is because in the
financial industry, where youhave people helping you or
wanting to try to help you getout of debt, there is a few of
those personalities out therethat say you have to just cut
out everything.
You can't do anything fun.
(05:27):
And that's just not how this isgonna work.
Discipline is really aboutdeciding on purpose what matters
most.
And you guys, at the end of theday, that's what a budget is.
A budget isn't about, you know,again, deprivation and cutting
everything out.
A budget is you saying, we'regoing to spend this money on
purpose on what matters most tous.
(05:49):
Because when you decideintentionally, spending stops
feeling rebellious.
You're not going to have thatguilt of, oh, we shouldn't have
spent that money.
No, because you already decidedto do that.
And those goals also includedyou getting out of debt, maybe
you're building your emergencyfund, you're still getting
things done in your financiallife, and you're also still able
(06:11):
to go out and enjoy life.
And that means you're notbreaking the rules, right?
You're following the rules youput in place when you put that
budget together.
And this is where rules matter.
I guess I would say morespecific goals.
Rules kind of use those samerather than vague goals.
Like a lot of people'sfinancial goals are vague.
(06:31):
Rules or specific goals arevery specific, they're clear.
Like a vague goal would belike, I want to spend less
money.
That's very, very vague, right?
But a more specific goal, orsay a rule you create for
yourself, I check the budgetbefore spending over a certain
amount of money, or I check mybudget and review it daily, like
(06:53):
we recommend, just so you knowwhere you're at and where you're
going throughout the month.
Another rule might be is I wantto stop using credit cards, or
I want to stop using debtaltogether, right?
But a more specific goal wouldbe like, hey, let's just commit
to the next month of not usingany debt.
Because saying I'm gonna cutout credit cards when you've
(07:15):
used them all the time andsaying I'm never gonna use one
again, that might be just tooharsh for you right now.
You might want to focus just oncan we get through the next
month and then can we getthrough the next month, right?
The rules or more specificgoal, it removes that decision
fatigue, so to speak, right?
The fewer decisions that youhave to make uh leads to less
(07:35):
stress overall in your life,right?
But it also leads to betterfollow through, right?
You're actually gonna do itbecause you don't have so much
fatigue in making all thesedecisions because you've already
made them, right?
Now let's talk a little bitabout the restriction side.
Restriction feels heavy becausemoney feels like it's being
taken away from us or the funthings are being taken away from
us.
And guess I gotta admit, I feltthat way too.
(07:56):
I mean, when I got out of debt,I cut out my cable back then,
and I'm aging myself a littlebit, but back then we didn't
have the streaming services thatare so popular now and and
somewhat inexpensive if you'rejust keeping it minimal.
But we didn't have the Netflixand the Hulu and all that stuff.
We we had cable, right?
That's all we had, and I cutthat out, that was $150 roughly
a month, I want to say, maybe$175.
(08:17):
And then, as you guys know, Ialso got rid of a car, and it
was a brand new car when webought it.
Really nice car.
I couldn't afford it though.
I ended up buying myself an old1996 Toyota Corolla that had a
good amount of little rust onit, but it was a reliable car.
But when I gotta admit, guys,when I first started and I got
rid of those things, it feltheavy, right?
(08:39):
Because I was taking thingsaway from my life.
But here's what I didn'tunderstand: discipline feels a
lot lighter when you start torealize that you are deciding
your money is being assignedtowards something you care
about.
That's a big part of gettingout of debt, is that you got to
decide in your own life, not mefor you, but you for yourself
(08:59):
about what you care about,what's important in your
financial life.
And that makes such a hugedifference because once you
start to realize, hey, I got ridof these things, but they
weren't as important as thisthing that I want.
That makes a huge difference innot only your overall mindset,
but your overall attitude movingtowards a debt-free life.
It's just huge, right?
You're not saying to yourselfanymore that I can't spend,
(09:21):
right?
I can't have anything fun.
You're saying instead, Ialready told my money where I
want it to go.
And this is why we talked abouthaving those clear goals, that
clarity, that creates a lot ofstress-free living.
It creates almost a calmingeffect in your financial life.
For most of us, our financiallives are absolute chaos most of
(09:42):
the time, right?
Because when your money hasjobs, like we talk about having
in your budget, give each dollara job.
You stop second-guessingyourself because you've already
decided the jobs every singledollar that's coming in is going
to have.
You stop negotiating withyourself.
You stop feeling guilty whenyou actually spend money on fun
things.
You already told yourself youcould do that.
You wanted to go out to eat,you wanted to go out to a
(10:04):
concert, you want to go do allthose fun things that you want
to do.
All you gotta do is put in yourbudget.
That guilt, like when you don'tdo that and you're just winging
it, that guilt makes peoplequit.
Now, here's another point Iwant to make.
Discipline fails when it's allor nothing as well.
People think that disciplinemeans you have to be perfect.
(10:26):
It's like I talked aboutearlier when we started this
episode.
It's like that diet, right?
People go on their New Year'sdiets or they get on a new
health kick and they're eatinghealthy, and they think if they
just had one bad day or one badmeal or they messed up and gave
into a treat that they shouldn'thave had, they think they've
blown it, right?
And the same thing comes withgetting out of debt.
I think there is a lot ofparallels between getting out of
(10:48):
debt and a health journey ofwanting to lose weight and
become more healthy.
There's so many similaritiesthere in those journeys.
And when we have that all ornothing mindset, that mindset
kills a lot of your progresswhen you do have those moments.
So I want you to think aboutdiscipline.
Discipline isn't about beingperfect, it's really about the
(11:09):
direction that you want to goin.
And that direction isn't alwaysgoing to be a linear path.
It's not gonna be perfectlystraight.
You're gonna have ups and downsthroughout that journey.
It's about being able to getback on track faster when things
do go wrong.
And that's the cool part isabout this, guys, is that when
you do have a moment, we all do,I still do to this day, you're
(11:29):
not off track forever anymore.
You realize, oh, I messed up,I'll do better next time.
I'm gonna try.
How can I do that better?
And you get right back to whatyou were doing before.
Now, another big killer todiscipline is emotional
spending.
And this is like a whole, Imean, we could do a lot of
different episodes on emotionalspending, right?
In fact, we have sharedstatistics on this podcast from
(11:54):
Shopify that they say upwards ofanywhere, and this is a very
big range, but 40 to 80 percentof all purchases are made out of
impulse or emotion.
The reality is you don't spendmoney emotionally because you're
bad with money, you spendemotionally because money is and
buying things is a really fastway to get relief from whatever
(12:16):
it is that you're feeling.
And if you haven't noticedlately, guys, it's really easy
to buy things nowadays.
You can write on your phone andbuy things instantly.
And if you're familiar withAmazon, which I know a lot of us
are, that stuff can be at yourdoorstep within hours, depending
on how close you are to thewarehouse.
It's amazing how quickly youcan just spend money nowadays,
(12:37):
right?
Discipline, it doesn't meanpretending emotions don't exist.
It means knowing that theyexist, it means planning for
them.
And that might look like inyour budget, you have a small
fun money category.
Maybe you're someone who'sspontaneous.
Maybe the thought of a budgetand having a plan for your
entire month freaks you outbecause you're somewhat of a
(13:00):
spontaneous person, whichthere's nothing wrong with that.
So maybe in your budget, youhave a line item for spontaneous
fun money.
And you just set a certainamount each month.
And if something comes up andyou want to go out and do
whatever it is that is, you usethe money out of that.
So you don't feel thatdeprivation.
It could be like a weeklyspending limit that you don't
(13:20):
have to justify.
So let's call it like spendingmoney or pocket money, right?
And you just give yourself acertain amount of money.
You don't have to track thatmoney, so to speak.
You want to stop at a gasstation, get a soda, or get a
coffee, or go out for launch andyou know, you can use that
money.
Again, it's more of that fun,that spontaneous kind of
category.
Another one is just taking apause before on-planned
(13:44):
purchases.
I've talked about this plentyof times on the podcast, but we
call it the 24-hour rule.
If you're tempted to buysomething, and you're you get
yourself in that emotional modeof I just have to have this.
The advertising is so good.
Like you see it online oryou're in the store, or you hear
a friend talking about it,you're like, oh, I've got to
have that.
Pause.
Just wait 24 hours.
Don't tell yourself no.
(14:05):
Instead, just wait 24 hours.
And I can tell you guys, if youpractice this, and it's hard at
first, but when you practicethis over and over again, it's
amazing how much stuff you don'tbuy.
Because after that 24 hours hasgone by, nine times out of 10,
you're not even thinking aboutthat purchase anymore because
you've removed the emotion bygiving a pause, right?
(14:26):
But those emotions areacknowledged when you realize
that they're happening.
Those emotions begin to losepower.
And this is why when we talkabout things we've talked about
over these last several podcastsin the new year, we talk about
automation.
Automation, like having anautomatic savings, right?
That builds discipline fasterbecause it takes the motivation
away.
It's being automatically donefor you.
(14:47):
You don't have to decide.
You've decided, but then youset the automation up and the
savings just moves over to whereyou want it.
And for instance, like when youput your bills on auto pay, if
you have a good budget, I likeauto pay.
Makes things easier.
It's one less thing I have toworry about in my busy life.
You don't have to forget,right?
It's already done.
Automation is all aboutautomatic discipline, so to
(15:10):
speak.
So when your debt payments arescheduled, progress happens
whether you felt motivated ornot.
Right.
So again, discipline, itimproves when you have less to
decide every day because you'vealready decided it by having a
financial plan, having a budgetfor every month.
Now, the other thing I want tosay is if your financial plan
(15:31):
makes you feel punished, again,you're not gonna stick with it.
You will fail over and overagain and you won't make much
progress.
Discipline that lasts, it feelsmore supportive, it feels not
as restrictive, it feels likestructure, not like you're
(15:52):
suffocating yourself.
And that structure is whateventually creates the freedom
you so badly want in your lifewhen it comes to your finances.
And this is the reality.
This is the truth that mostpeople miss.
Discipline isn't about justcontrolling your money, it's
really about reducing stress,it's about knowing what's coming
(16:18):
up, right?
Discipline is looking forwardin the future.
A lot of us use debt because wejust don't have a good habit of
looking towards upcomingexpenses that are coming down
the pipeline and then having aplan to go about being prepared
for those things.
Discipline is a it's abouttrust, it's about building trust
in yourself.
Trust that you're not going tosabotage your financial plan
(16:40):
nearly as much moving forward.
And it's going to build trustin yourself that you can do
this, that your plan can workand that you can get out of
debt.
And this is why small,consistent habits beat big,
dramatic changes.
If you guys haven't read thebook by Darren Hardy called The
(17:00):
Compound Effect, I highlyrecommend you check it out.
It's my favorite book of alltime because it's all about
small, consistent changes andcreating small new habits every
day.
And eventually, over time,those big or those small habits
create big results.
You guys have heard a lot ofour roots members who have been
on this podcast over the yearsand what they've been able to
(17:21):
do.
We've got upcoming interviewswith some new people that have
made some tremendous progressover the last couple of years
that are going to be on yourcoming up in the upcoming
months.
And it all started with justmaking small changes.
And we've been talking aboutthose again in these episodes
here in the new year.
Small changes are things likedoing daily check-ins, having,
again, clear goals and clearrules for your finances, uh,
(17:43):
creating some simple systemsthat removes that motivation
factor and it creates moreautomation, right?
Just simple things that you cando.
And again, remember, none ofthis is gonna feel exciting.
But over time, as you begin tosee that savings grow, as you
begin to see those credit cardbalances go down, as you begin
to feel less financial stress,that's all gonna create a lot
(18:05):
more confidence in your life.
And confidence makes thediscipline easier every single
week because the more confidentyou get, the more disciplined
you're gonna be, and the morewilling you're gonna be to do
the work because you're seeingall the amazing progress that
you've made.
Right now, if you've tried tobe disciplined before and
failed, I want you to hear me.
(18:26):
You didn't fail because youweren't disciplined enough.
You failed because the systemexpected too much of you.
You may have put some reallyunrealistic expectations on your
budget.
Remember, we we went to thatdeprivation, scorched earth
mentality.
A better system beats astronger you every single time.
So here's how you can startbuilding some of this discipline
(18:47):
without feeling restrictedafter you've listened to this.
Number one, create a clearspending plan.
Like again, have a budget.
Create some just clear spendingrules instead of you know
having vague goals.
Number two, allow room in thatbudget for enjoyment so you
don't rebel against your ownplan, right?
Number three, automate what youcan, like we've talked about,
(19:09):
to remove some of that decisionfatigue.
So you're not having toconstantly be thinking about
your finances all the time andwhat you need to do, just
automate it, right?
And number four, like I said,focus on consistency, not
perfection.
That's it.
It's not extreme, it'scertainly not very complicated,
right?
It's just realistic.
And remember, discipline isn'tsomething that should trap you.
(19:32):
It's really something that,again, is going to create that
freedom.
It protects your finances astime goes on.
It protects that future thatyou want, it protects your
overall financial stress, yourpeace.
And when discipline is builtthe right way, it's not going to
feel like restriction.
It's going to feel relief,right?
Now, if you want help to startbuilding these systems step by
(19:56):
step and you want support andaccountability, obviously, this
is what we do with our members.
Members inside Roots.
We only open up Roots severaltimes a year.
It is a closed membership.
But if you're someone who'sinterested in joining that
program and joining thethousands of members that we've
worked with over the years, uhyou can head over to
debtfreedead.com, click on thefree resources page.
And if you scroll down, you'llsee the roots information there.
You can join and jump on thewait list.
(20:16):
All right.
And we will email you within afew weeks of when we're going to
open next so you can prepareand get all the information that
you need to join thataccountability group.
Now, if you're not quite readyfor that, but you want to start
getting some more information,some simple tools that'll help
you.
Again, maybe you want to breakfree from maybe paycheck to
paycheck.
Heck, it's probably why youlisten to this podcast.
(20:38):
We've got you covered.
Simplify My Money is sent eachand every Sunday to your email.
Uh Simplify My Money is reallyyour step-by-step roadmap to
better financial control.
Uh, you're also gonna get someeasy to follow strategies to
manage your money moreeffectively, like you've
discover and learn on thispodcast.
We're gonna help you makestress-free money decisions that
are gonna help you simplifyyour financial life with proven
(20:59):
tips that actually work fornormal, everyday people, people
just like you, people just likeme.
And you're gonna gain the toolsand confidence to tackle your
financial goals head on.
You can sign up for Simplify MyMoney by clicking the link at
the top of the show notes.
Thanks for joining us ontoday's show, and we will see
you guys on the next episode.
Announcer (21:21):
Thanks for listening to the Debt Free Dad podcast.
Connect with us on Facebook,TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
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rating and review.
We so appreciate it.
For resources, show notes, andlinks mentioned in today's show,
visit debtfreedad.com.
(21:42):
Catch you next week.
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