From Poverty to Prosperity w/ SheWolfeOfWallStreet #878

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're talking from poverty to prosperity with Amanda
from She Wolf of Wall Street. That's right.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, So, without completely giving away her story, Amanda was
born into, in her words, extreme poverty. And so what
I mean by that is like, not I had a
rough month after college, so I slepped in my car,
but more like begging for food at gas station like poverty.
Not that she's trying to like win the Poverty Olympics
or anything like that, anything that anybody should do. But

(00:48):
now she helps thousands of families create debt payoff strategies,
she helps them to budget, she helps them to invest,
and she's better known as She Wolf of Wall Street.
She has a self taught financial educator who's built a
community of over three hundred thousand folks. Amanda, She's all
over Instagram helping individuals a chief financial freedom. But how

(01:09):
did she actually do it? We introduced one extreme and
then we introduced another extreme, Like what happened between those
two polar opposites, And so we're excited for her to
share her story, her different achievements and how she was
able to cross from one end of the financial spectrum
to the other. Amanda Wolf, thank you for joining us
today on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
be here.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
We're glad to have you, Amanda. First question we ask
everybody who comes on the show is what do you
like to splour John, Because Matt and I we spend
more than some people think is reasonable on craft beer,
but hey, we like it and it's something we prioritize
in our budgets, but we're also saving investing for the future.
So what is that splurge in your life?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Ah?

Speaker 4 (01:47):
So for me, I would say it's definitely travel, but
I want to take it another layer beyond that, because
I do think that you can travel on a budget
if you're real careful. But for me, it's definitely staying
in nicer hotels, places with really good, comfortable beds, because
I've realized over the years. You know, like when you're
in your early twenties it might not matter as much,

(02:08):
but as you get a little bit older, your sleep
on a trip can make or break it.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
So just somewhere where I'm like very comfortable in.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
A cozy bed, I would say that's the thing I
splurge on specifically when I travel nice.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I went backpacking recently slept on the cold, hard ground.
It was still a great trip, but you're right, the
worst part was the sleep sleep.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yes, like go camp. If you want to do that,
you go do you boo. But for me, I want
a cozy bed and a good time.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Next time, I want a yurf with like a with
a nice queen bed or hit.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
While Joel was sleeping on the cold hard earth, actually
you did have a blow up little mattress. It was
less cold, less hard. But my wife and I want
a similar but very different trip where we got to
sleep in California, king for the first time. Not to brag, Jewel,
I slept wonderfully.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
It's okay, yeah, yeah, you know, like I could, I
could do a really long hike, like all day, but
I don't want to then go end on the ground.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yes, you know, okay a shower Kate and I, yeah,
we could go hiking with y'all. That's how we like
to roll as well. And so in the little intro
I mentioned that just kind of how you're all over
social media. You've got something like three hundred thousand plus
followers on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Do you ever take thirty thousand?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
You know, who knows teaching folks the ins and outs
about money? And I feel like social media money information
it can be kind of hit or miss. That being said,
you auditioned out the good stuff. I'm curious to know
how that got started. Well, I'm curious too if you
ever thought that you would be. I don't know if
you consider yourself an influencer or not, but essentially that's
what you are, and you are teaching folks, you know,

(03:40):
how they should be handling their money on Instagram? So
how did that happen? Did you ever think that you'd
be able to make a living, or at least part
of a living by doing this?

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah, I mean I would say I'm as much of
an influencer as you guys. Do you guys consider yourselves
influencers tattoo?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
We're not socials as much.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
I feel like podcasters are a different breed, you know,
like people don't show our faces all that off.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
Okay, okay, yeah, so I guess a finfluencer. And no,
I definitely didn't think I would ever be doing something
like that. I don't particularly love attention, so I guess
it feels a little different since you're kind of still behind,
you know, a computer or a screen a lot of
the time. But I'm naturally a little bit more of
an introvert, so having a bunch of strangers know who

(04:25):
I am it was definitely not something I probably would
have anticipated. But to answer your other question of how
I got started, essentially, money has always been a really
big part of my life, a really big part of
my story and upbringing, and I, you know, learned a
lot of this stuff just on my own over the
years and just kind of assumed that other people had

(04:45):
learned this stuff from their parents or somewhere else. And
you know, obviously I didn't get I didn't get that opportunity.
So I was talking with one of my friends, helping
her out with some of her money stuff, and she
was like, you're really good at this. You should teach
other people how to do it. And I was like,
you know, I've been thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
That would be really cool.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
I even had a little Instagram name picked out, but
I don't know, I feel like people will make fun
of me.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
And she was like, who do you think is going
to make fun of you? And I said, I don't
know my friends. She was like, she's like, well, then
you're not. They're not your friends.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
If your friends make fun of you for trying to
do something, you know, that interest you, or trying to
teach people something, then they're not your friends. Let's look
up the handle right now, see if it's available. And
she took my phone from me, looked it up on Instagram.
She's like, she will fall Street. Yes, it's available. This
is a sign you're going to start posting and just
and just put it out there. So that's kind of

(05:38):
like how I got started, just over that hump. But
it was something that was just really interesting to me
for years and years, something I'd been teaching my you know,
my friends, colleagues. At my last company, I had built
a personal finance course and a corporate finance course. Uh
within my ERG that I led, Like seven hundred people

(05:58):
took it within the first couple of weeks, I know,
and I was like, why the heck did I build
that for everybody else for that company for free? So yeah,
it was kind of like there had always just been
this little nagging thing in the back of my mind,
and then finally it was just my friend helping push
me over that hump of just insecurity to actually start
the page.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
But I never thought it would grow to what it
is today.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, best friends can be incredibly motivating, or good friends
can be Matt and I know this, you know, motivating
each other to start this podcast. I mean, I'm curious
you mentioned kind of starting that personal finance class four
hundreds of your coworkers. Are you still working like because
you've grown she Wolf of Wall Street to be something
incredibly large and impactful? Are you? Are you still doing having?
Do you have a forty hour week job in addition

(06:41):
to it?

Speaker 3 (06:42):
You know what I actually do?

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (06:44):
I know, I know is probably the.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Trauma that's making me hold on to it. But I
like the idea of a consistent paycheck because, as you know,
the freelancer.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Life can be really to ultuous.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
So having income be like so up and down month
to month makes me a little angsty. And you know,
originally I told myself, Okay, you know, most businesses fail
within the first you know, the first couple of years,
So if I can get through that, then you know,
I'll quit the nine to five. But honestly, I've reached

(07:22):
I've reached past that point.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Now.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
But honestly, at this point, I've found that it's not
it's not impossible to.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Manage.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
It hasn't gotten to a point where I feel super
burned out or anything. I'm just I try to be.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Really smart with my time. But yeah, I am. I
am still holding on to the nine to five.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's impressive, very impressive. Okay, So you mentioned the trauma
and you joke about it now, but I mean, we
would love for you to actually share about that because
before you became one of the biggest influencers out there
in existence, you had a pretty hard upbringing. And I've
heard you say that money was your first memory, and
not necessarily in a good way. Can you share your

(08:01):
story with us?

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Sure? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
So for me, I grew up in poverty, and it's
not to your point in the beginning. You know, it's
not like I just didn't get to go to Disneyland.
It's my parents were both addicted to really hard drugs
growing up, so I went without a lot of my
basic necessities, you know, begging for food from grocery stores
and gas stations for my brother and me, wearing the

(08:24):
same clothes to school every day, and was just really
bullied growing up, and whenever I would ask my mom,
you know, like why can't I get new clothes or
why can't I have a bed to sleep in things
like that, she would always just say, because it costs money.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
We don't have money for those things.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
And so like for me, that those are some of
my like just first memories ever in my life is
just not having money for things.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
So when I was.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
Really little, I was just like, Okay, I have to
figure out a way to get money. It seems like
that seems to be the answer to all of my problems.
So I thought, Okay, I just need to be really
smart because smart people have money. So I need to
do really good in school. If I do really good
in school, I'll get a good job, and I have
a good job, then I'll have money for all of
those things when I'm older. And so you know, that
was my like five year old, six year old, seven

(09:06):
year old brain was just reading like every book I
could get my hands on, trying to be the best
in school, just doing everything I could to become smarter
so that I would have a way to get money
when I'm older. Was always like the goal when I
was younger, So that those are some of my very
first memories as it relates to money.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
And then in what you're describing, we're not just talking
about a lack of money, right, We're also talking a
lot And this is like crucial in so many ways, Like, Hey,
you can have a lack of money, but man, if
you've got this amazing home life where your parents are
encouraging you, helping with your homework, not struggling with addiction,
it's a lot easier to make progress on some of
those things. So how do you feel, like those the

(09:43):
other spots in your home life that were difficult, how
were they impacting your ability to get to the places
you wanted to go?

Speaker 4 (09:51):
Oh gosh, I mean I would say it impacted it
a lot because we moved around a lot, didn't have
like a stable home, So I switched schools a lot too.
I went to three schools just for sixth grade alone.
I think I went to like twelve schools within just
a few years. So moving around all the time and
like picking up in the middle of whereever you are

(10:13):
in a different lesson plan, especially when you're really really young,
is tough. But I think because I didn't have a
lot of attention at home. I was pretty disciplined myself.
So I just got to the point where I'm like, Okay,
well I can catch up. I'll get whatever you know book.
I'll like if I'm changing schools again, I'll go to
the teacher. I want to learn everything that they learned

(10:34):
this year already. I'm going to take it home and
study it as much as I can. So I think
that that was that was a lot of It was
a lot of just discipline on my side because I
knew that the life I was in, I knew that
I didn't want to be like that when.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
I was older.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
That's incredibly impressive, especially you said sixth grade, and Joel
and I we both have both of our oldest daughters
are in sixth grade. So I can only imagine how
difficult that would be. And I remember my my self
as a sixth grader and with incredibly hard.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
I was an idiot, like truly, and so yeah, to
see how you responded to some of that ever admirable
at that young in age, I don't. Yeah, so its hard.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Like academically, it sounds like maybe that's how you're able
to pull it off, But what about like financially, because
you went to college. So how did that all come together?
Given that maybe you were driven from an academic standpoint,
you connected the dots, but then, yeah, tell us the
rest of your education story.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
So I was the first person in my family to
go to college, but I knew that I had to
get there because I knew that I had to get
out of my situation. So I was good friends with
a couple of people in high school who were going
on college visits, and I'd be like, can you ask
your mom or dad like if I can come with you?
So I would go on college visits and just tag
along on their family trips. Wow, with lots of my

(11:47):
different friends. Most of their parents kind of knew, like
something's not great with amanda situation, so sure she can
come along.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
So I kind of just tagged along.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
And I would look at my friends who had who
seemed like they had a good home life, like maybe
they had a big house or their parents did you
know whatever when you're young, whatever you think that like
having money means. And I would just be like, okay,
well you know, what are what is.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Girl A doing? I don't want to save their names,
like like what is she doing? Oh? Okay?

Speaker 4 (12:20):
So it seems like she's taking ACT prep classes. Well,
I can't do that, so let me go to the
library because they're expensive, So let me go to the
library and see when I need to learn.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Oh, she's going to go visit college.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
Well, okay, I don't have a ride there, so maybe
I can tag along.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
So it was me just trying to emulate.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
What other people who had successful families in my mind
were doing and just kind of trying to follow that route.
And then you know, taking the ACT, applying to colleges, Like.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
What colleges are you applying to? How do you even
do that?

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Okay, I'm just gonna literally do whatever they're doing. Got
accepted to the University of Illinois, and then that's when
I went off to college, and I would say that
my entire world opened up because I got to see
not just leave the baggage behind from where I came,
but I just got exposed to a complaint completely different
network of people. I got to see how other people

(13:09):
were living, and to just not have the same type
of stress that I did in my younger years was huge.
So I would say it was a pretty even though
I you know, I took out college loans, and I
had a lot of grants for college. You know, it
was still to me it was worth the loans. I
got to really become the person who I am today.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
So one of the things that strikes me about kind
of how you seem to react to things is that
your boldness and your persistence and how if there's something
you're not quite sure like, you find a way to
figure it out. Which and that's it seems to be
the case with how you learned about personal finance too,
which I want to talk about, but I think that's
like so important. What made you start to ask those questions?

(13:52):
Were you just like, there's no way I can live
the life, continue to live the life I've been living.
I've got to do something different, and the only way
to get there is through kind of humility and starting
to ask some of those questions for the things that
nobody really taught me.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Absolutely so I was not particularly shy and U to
you to your point, I knew that the way I
was living, I did not want to continue to live
like that.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
I was like, I can't, I cannot do this.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
I was just around like a lot of really bad people,
and they would always tell me, uh, you know, you're
you know, kids who grow up with addicts end up
becoming addicts. Like, I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy.
You know, you got to stay away from this stuff.
And for me, I was like, I don't want to
touch any of that stuff anyway, But how do I
get out of this situation? So it was just like education, education,

(14:41):
How am I going to get educated?

Speaker 3 (14:42):
How am I going to learn? What can I do?
So it was just like the driving force behind behind everything.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah. One of the things you learned about, obviously was
handling your money well, because after college you got your
your first job, your first real job, and then you
went on a mission to learn everything possible about personal finances, yes,
specifically or filing your taxes in touch.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Which is an education in and of itself.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
It's always eye opening for everyone out there. But talk
to us about your early twenties and you know what
sort of changes did you make as you kind of
entered into adulthood and were in charge of your own finances? Uh?

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, realized the system is a lie.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
You don't just graduate college, get a great job, and
then have money for everything you want in life.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
That is how that works. Yeah, So anybody else about
to graduate college.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
If you're listening to this, get ready, because that is
unfortunately not the way the cookie crumbles. So when I
graduated college, at this point, I'm like, great, got a job.
This is super exciting. Fast forward like a few months
later and I'm like, wait a minute, why do I
still not have any money? What is going on? Like,
I have these college loans and I'm gonna to start

(15:48):
paying really soon. I have some credit card debt. I'm
paying one of these amounts, but there's like several different
amounts listed on the bill, and I don't really get
what I'm looking at. You know, why am I still
living paycheck to paycheck? And to your point, it was, Yeah,
after my first full year of working, I would say
that it was a really big reality check because I

(16:08):
realized that I had made you know, about seventy seven
thousand dollars, and because I was in a sales role,
so I got bonuses throughout. So it's one of those
things where you kind of don't realize how much you're
making because it's more than just your you know, a
regular paycheck every two weeks. So I got that plus bonuses,
and I made seventy seven thousand dollars after my first year,
and I didn't know until I got my text turn

(16:29):
and I was like, what the heck is going on?
This is the most money I've ever been exposed to
in my entire life. And this was like twenty ten money.
So yeah, let's go ahead and figure out what that
number is. But yeah, just for inflation is way more.
But I'm like, this is the most money I've ever
been exposed to. Why do I still not have any
of it? Like my credit card amount still hasn't lowered.

(16:49):
I still owe tons of money on uh my student loans.
And that's when I decided, Okay, I've got to learn
how money works. I apparently don't understand how this stuff works.
And so I literally I called Chase Bank my credit card.
I was like, can you explain what is current balance?
What is statement balance?

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Like?

Speaker 3 (17:07):
What does minimum ount do? What are all these things?

Speaker 4 (17:09):
She explained it to me, and I'm like, Okay, that's
why I'm paying fees every month because I am not
paying the statement balance.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Then I was like, what is this four oh one k?
I'm like putting money into this guy John in my
training class. When I first got hired was like, make
sure you put you know, at least five percent into
your four oh one k or whatever it was. And
I was like, okay, didn't know.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
What it was.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
So then I literally called Fidelity and I was like,
can you explain what a four to one k is?

Speaker 3 (17:35):
What is this money I'm putting in? What is this match?

Speaker 4 (17:37):
And I literally just started going down the line. It
was like I need to figure out this money stuff.
And it was a matter of me literally just calling
some of these institutions, googling stuff, watching YouTube videos, reading books,
all of that, like I just I'm like I need
to understand this.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, well, I love to you. Ever, overcame one hurdle, right,
which was the education piece. Then you overcame another hurdle,
which was the income piece. When you realize there's another
hurdle like lingering there and it trips up so many people, right,
which is the personal finance education hurdle. Fortunately, we're seeing
more and more personal finance classes being mandated in high
schools around the country and more than half of seniors

(18:13):
are going to get some sort of personal finance class,
which is incredible. But even that might not be enough,
and there's a lot of self education that's going to
be necessary to really thrive as an adult. Why do
you think so many people think that income alone is
the solution and that they can out earn their spending.
And what do you see when it comes to the
she Wolf of Wall Street followers, like, what are their

(18:35):
biggest hang ups when it comes to personal finance? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:38):
I think that the biggest misconception of just make more
money and you'll have money for everything you want is
that we don't know how much we spend.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
We are terrible guessers.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
And I would say that this extends to yeah, the community, friends,
like anybody you meet, if you are not actually taking
a look at how much you're spending. If I say like, hey, Matt,
how much do you spend on groceries every month?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Now?

Speaker 4 (19:02):
You probably know, right because you're in the space, right,
But if you were to just ask a person on
the street, they're going to probably just come up with
a random number. But it's like, that's just one category.
Let's also talk about the dining out park exactly. Yeah,
And I've found that people are guessing.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
By like half. They'll be like, oh, probably.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Like you know, three hundred, four hundred dollars a month
and then we'll add it up and it's like, no,
it's more like seven to eight hundred, and they're like what, Like, yeah,
that's all the extra trips after work when you decide
to go get little treats on your way, and you know,
all that stuff adds up. So I would say that
the biggest misconception, you know, the driving factor is not

(19:41):
knowing how much you're spending on different stuff, because if
you don't know how much you need for things, it
doesn't matter how much money you earn, because you're just
going to keep buying more of it.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, So what you're talking about now is like, so
far your story has kind of documented your amazing rise.
Thank you post graduating, having that first year of your career,
which on a though, like paying credit card debt, like
that makes you an average American, right, like the average
American that's got like six seven thousand dollars on their
credit cards. But what we want to talk about next
is how you're able to just to completely smash some

(20:11):
of your different financial goals. We'll get all of that
and more right after this.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
We're back from the break. We're still talking with Amanda Wolf.
She goes by the moniker she Wolf of Wall Street
on Instagram, and she is been inspiring and helping hundreds
of thousands of people in their personal finance journeys after
making an incredible one of her own. And I mean,
I've heard you say that the first step to getting
better with personal finance was facing the facts. And we're

(20:46):
just talking about the fact that people don't know what
they actually spend on stuff they're guessing. And there's stats
about that too, about hey, how much the average American
what do they think they spend on subscriptions every month?
It's like, oh, probably one hundred and twenty bucks and
then no, it's north of four hundred bucks for the
average person. Do you think that people fail to make
progress because of that one simple thing of not looking

(21:07):
in and seeing, you know, what the actual data looks like?

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Totally, totally, And I think it's and I know it's
for a lot of reasons. One is, I think it
can be really scary. I know that that used to
be my feeling, especially if you have debt, especially if
you're like got some thin margins over there and you're
kind of barely scraping by, it can feel really scary.
To open your bank account and look through those things.
It can be almost traumatizing when you realize what you're

(21:30):
doing to yourself. I actually was just meeting with someone recently.
She's not on social media, but I was helping her
out with you know, and I was like, your first
job is to go and track your spending over the
last six months. She was like, I couldn't stop crying,
Like I didn't realize that's how much I was spending,
Like what a waste of my money. I had no
idea where it was going at. I'm working so hard

(21:52):
every day, day in and day out, and I am
just throwing my money away on stuff I don't even
care about. And I'm like, right now, use that passion.
Let's go ahead and move forward towards, you know, more
productive things. But I think it can be just completely
debilitating to your finances if you don't sit down and
just face the facts.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Every once in a while, as.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I hear you talk through some of this, Amanda, I'm
struck by how much action you take. Basically, like you
learn about something or you kind of catch catch you
with of something and you're like wait a minute, and
then you like go chase that thing down. So whether
that's like deductions from your paycheck, how much you're paying
to a credit card company.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Or researching something and all the tabs you have open doing.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Prior to recording. Yeah, but I guess I'm curious talk
about the maybe the like, on one hand, you've got
goal setting and you've got okay, the perfect plan where
you have to like lay everything out. But then on
the other hand, you kind of have like a more
pragmatic like I'm just going to take the first baby
step and start moving in a direction that's going to
get you closer to your goals. And so one end
is very i don't know, academic and lofty, and on

(22:52):
the other hand, it's just very gritty and how can
I slowly improve my life a little bit today? How
do you marry those two things? And I guess what
steps would you recommend for somebody to take, Like is
it to sit down and think through those goals or
is it to do something maybe a little more practical, like, hey,
look at all of your expenses from the past six months.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Yeah, I think I think starting with either one of
those things is totally fine, And it's more about knowing yourself,
like which one of those two things feels less scary
to you.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Is it just doing the you know, mind numbing, let
me add.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
Up what I've spent type of thing, or is it
doing the heart thing where you sit down and think
about what you want in your life. Those are both
two really important things, because if you don't know what
you want in life, if you don't know what you
want to spend your money on, it's going to be
really hard to.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Stop spending it on whatever you're spending it on now.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Right So it's so easy to go and just swipe
your card and do all the fun things. But if
you're like, oh, wait a minute, I really really wanted
to go to Barcelona next summer, and I know that
it's going to cost a lot of money. So once
that's now in the forefront of your brain or whatever
your thing is now, all of a sudden, it makes
it way easier to not spend on other stuff because

(24:05):
you have a goal that you're striving for. So I
think both of those things are important. Sit down and
see what you're spending on, see where you can cut back,
but also do the heart thing where you figure out
what you want. So whichever is less scary to you,
I think would be the perfect place to start.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
This may sounding a weird question, but how do you
feel about the role of joy in your kind of
making financial progress? So somebody might say, hey, but Amanda,
these things I'm spending money on, they bring me a
lot of joy in my life. And yes, I'm terrified
about the debt I'm racking up in my lack of
security when it comes to my financial future. But these
purchases that are moving the needle on my happiness. How

(24:41):
would you kind of help people figure that and kind
of sort through that reality.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, I would say that.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
I mean, especially if you have debt, I would say, well,
let's take a step back.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
Are you actually happy?

Speaker 4 (24:54):
You're telling me that this debt doesn't make you feel scared,
It doesn't make you concerned that you're not like have
somewhere to live one day, or that you're going to
have to work for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
I think I think that we tell ourselves that things
make us happy just because it's easier than facing facing
reality sometimes and being honest with ourselves.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
But I would argue that all of those.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Things are probably not actually bringing them joy and go
without them for one month, two weeks, give it whatever
you can and just see do you actually miss it
or not?

Speaker 2 (25:28):
I love it? Okay, So kind of on that note,
you shared how when you travel now you're making sure
to prioritize the room with like the nice bed, make
sure you get a good night's sleep. Like when you
were attacking some of your different financial goals, like paying
off those credit cards, maybe your student loans, were you
allowing yourself some of those splurges within that period of
time as well, or was it more like, no, I'm

(25:50):
going to feel the deprivation in order to quickly achieve totally.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Not like a rice and beans type person over here.
Ok I think that type of person. I think that
type of financial advice is like the diet pill of
money and it's not sustainable. Do I think doing like
a no spend month, or you know, cutting no eating
for like two weeks or a month or something like that.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
I think that can.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Be really helpful for people who are having trouble getting
out of their own head when it comes to spending.
I think things like that can be helpful. But if
you have if you're not going to ever be able
to like go do anything fun for two years while
you pay off your debt. I just don't think something
like that is sustainable, and I think that you'll probably
end up giving up part way through anyway. Unless you know,
unless that's that brings you joy and you know that's

(26:36):
going to be your driving factor to get stuff done,
then you know, go do it. But I think for
most of us that's not that's not the case.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Now.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
I did still travel while I had student loans, and
I didn't really do it when I had credit card debt,
but I kind of knocked that out pretty fast when.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
I was younger.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
But I would say when I had student loans, yeah,
I still traveled, but I didn't go stay in like
a five star luxury hotel. You know, at that point,
I'm taking the annoying red eye flight that has two
layovers to go to Europe because that flight was four
hundred and eighty dollars or whatever, you know, or using
credit card points to get the hotel, or you know,

(27:16):
staying in an upscale, hostile type of situation. So I
was still traveling, but I wasn't going over the top.
I wasn't doing Michelin star restaurants and like buying a
Chanel bag and then you know, staying in a ritz. Carlton,
I wasn't doing that type of stuff, but that doesn't
mean I couldn't still go do something.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Sounds like you took the happy medium approach I loved,
was just like, yeah, let's get rid of this stat
It's it's an important thing, but it's not going to
completely upend my ability to live my life in the
meantime totally. I want to hear about your kind of
take on side hustles because when you first got your
job out of college and you were kind of dead
set after kind of fillowing your taxes for the first time,
on getting your personal finances together, how did you think

(27:55):
about making more money? Because it seems like side hustles
have been apart of your financial story from the get
go essentially, and they still are, like you still yeah,
like she Wild Wall Street is still a side hustle.
So so I don't know, how do you think about
side hustles and their ability? Obviously, the steady paycheck is nice,
but the side hustles are something that you're like, you're

(28:16):
going back to the well again and again.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
On that, I would say, like, do as I say,
not as I do, type of thing, But now I
do think that they have a time and a place
in everyone's life. But I also can see how people are,
you know, fighting against the hustle culture that we have
found ourselves to be in. Because I don't think that
you should have to hustle to be able to afford
your groceries by any means, but I do think that

(28:39):
it can be really helpful to catapult your your wealth.
So for me, like, if you are young, you don't
really have a lot of obligations.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
You know.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
I drove for Lyft for a couple of years. That
to me, like I got made so much money doing that,
and you can do it on your own schedule, so
it's not like I had to miss out on doing
fun things with friends. You know, Sunday morning, I would
like basically I was just taking people to church or
brunch and I would go do that for for a
few hours.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yes, yeah, Well, can I tell you one thing real quick, man,
I drove one ride for Lyft and I made a
thousand bucks because they had this special sign up bonus
truly no joke, and it was like for new drivers
a thousand I swear it was only on their website
for like two hours.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
But I found it was like a ghost in the
machine and grabbed that ghost by the throat.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I gave made a thousand bucks. That was my lyft
driver career.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh my gosh, Okay, well you win, you get cold
Star for you That is insane. I did not get
that bonus. I think mine was one hundred dollars bonus.
But no, I mean it was so easy. You know,
I live in Chicago, so Mondays after work, I would
sometimes go do two rides and it would be on
a Bears game like day, like a Monday, right and
I would go and make two hundred dollars sometimes on

(29:51):
just two rides. It took wow, you know, an hour
of my time. And doing things like that can be
to can just completely catapult your So wherever you live,
you know, maybe you're not living somewhere where there's Bears games,
but if you have debt, or if you're like I
just want to get ahead, I don't want to I
want to be able to go on an awesome vacation

(30:12):
and I know that my current financial situation isn't going
to allow. Or I just want to retire early, or
you know what, I don't need to be sitting on
my phone or watching TV. I'm just going to go
make a little extra money. I don't think there's a
problem with that. I do think there's a time and
a place. I don't think you should have to do
it forever, though, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
And what you said earlier too about folks really like
cutting back to the bone. That might be a small
point where we disagree, because I feel like in small doses,
like where you know that there's a finish line that
the ability for that to, like you said, not only
catapul your income, but if you are able to kind
of catapult your wealth by having cut back on some expenses.
I think for some people. I think some people out

(30:51):
there might like really thrive off of that self flagellation.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Like I'm I'm going to feel it about their own
drill instructor. Yeah, yeah, I'm with Amanda. I don't know
if I could do that a lot very long. Oh.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I don't think I could either, But if there was
like a finish line, like if I knew that, like okay,
once I eliminate the credit card debt or once you
fill in the blank. But I guess the problem there, though,
is that you have the temptation to always move the
goal posts. And so I'm curious for you, Amanda, like,
how does your upbringing impact your relationship with money now?
Because you are certainly not in the same position where

(31:23):
you were five, ten, fifteen years ago, But do you
find yourself continually moving those goal posts where you say, Wow,
if I actually like zoom out and look at who
Amanda is now, you would not have believed yourself prior
to having lived it that this is maybe the position
you would find yourself in. But we can so easily
find ourselves just kind of continuing on in that sort

(31:46):
of rat race. Yeah, can you speak to that?

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
So I think I've pinched myself probably every day because
I have been at both extremes, Like I've been at
the point where I was I like to call it
mathematical gymnastics, where I was like doing mathematical gymnastics trying
to figure out like, Okay, I know I get paid
on this day, and my cell phone bill is due,
you know, on the fifteenth, but I have until the

(32:09):
twentieth before they'll actually shut it off, and then my
rent will be due on the first. But I know
I'm until the fifth to pay it before, like I'll
get in trouble for that, you know, So like I've
lived that.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Life that sounds anxiety and yeah, and then I've also
lived a life where I'm like, oh my gosh, now.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
I have more money than I've ever had and now
I feel now this almost feels uncomfortable, Like we all
have problems. Some problems are better than others, right, good
problem to have, but it like that used to make
me really anxious too, like WHOA, what do I even
do with all of that?

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Do I?

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Like, I know I should just be investing large chunks
as I have it, but like, oh my gosh, this
feels really scary. So yeah, it's weird being on both
sides because then I kind of went through a cash
hoarding phase as well, where I was holding onto like
way more cash than I needed. And it's a balance
to get away from like what you're used to you

(33:00):
because especially for me, because you know, I have the
full time job and then once she Wolf of Wall
Street started growing, and there would be you know, I
have a course that I sell, and you know there's
brand partnerships, which I don't do a lot of them,
but you know, every once in a while and it's like,
all of a sudden, you're just making more money than

(33:20):
you ever thought you could make.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
It can feel scary.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Which might sound counterintuitive if you're listening to this, like, oh, yeah,
having more money is scary. No, having more money is
definitely better, but it feels scary sometimes when it just
kind of hits you all at once.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah, I get that, ok Okay. So the question that
the perpetual question that gets asked in personal finance is
the relationship between money and happiness, And you're highlighting something
that actually, sometimes the more money you get, it's not
that it isn't a better problem, but it is some
form of a problem at least. How do you think
about the relationship between money and happiness as someone who

(33:57):
grew up having basically no more money, zero financial security.
Now you're doing quite well, You've built up a lot
of financial security. What does that look like because you've
run the gamut, you've been across both sides of that spectrum.
What does what does that relationship look like? In your mind?

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Yeah, I will say having more money is definitely happier
than not having money.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Having more money, yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
What about limiting returns? Though on happiness of more money.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Having more money allows you to.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
Pay to go do things that you wouldn't normally be
able to do right, Like maybe if you hate cooking,
you can hire like a personal chef, or you can
hire pre made meals if you're not going that big right,
or if you hate cleaning, you can hire a cleaner
to come and clean your house every month or week
or whatever. Having money allows you to outsource things that
you don't enjoy doing. It allows you to travel nicer,

(34:46):
It allows you to give money to.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Causes that are important to you.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
The only time that I don't think it's worth it
is if you have to crush other people to get there.
So I don't want to, like, you know, if I have,
you know, people who are doing work for me, I'm
not going to like pay them the absolute cheapest rate
that I possibly can. I'm going to pay them what
I think is fair. So me like trying to keep
as many pennies to my name as possible isn't like
the name of the game, but it's being able to

(35:13):
like use them and use that money in ways that
make me feel good. And I would say I've not
reached a limit like where I'm like, Oh, I'm good forever.
I don't need any more money. Ever, I do think
that money can make you immensely happier, you know, beyond
if we're ignoring the whole Like, of course, your health

(35:33):
is very important, your mental health, all of those types
of things are more important than I would say wealth.
But wealth also allows you to have better health and
better mental health. It allows you to go to the
best doctors. It allows you to have a great mattress
to sleep in, It allows you to buy new shoes
and see therapists and do different types of things.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Right, money fuels all of that.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
This is where I have to drop in this episode
brought to you by Casper.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
That is the mattress I have actually oh to.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
What's I don't know, Purple or some of those other guys.
But and like, as I hear you kind of recount
your your financial journey, like you obviously had help from
other folks, but a lot of the changes you made
were just overwhelmingly DIIY. So a little question here, like
do you think that most folks out there can just
whip their finances into shape on their own without expert help?

Speaker 3 (36:21):
You know?

Speaker 4 (36:22):
I think it depends on your own personality and just
kind of knowing yourself. If you are disciplined and are
able to like sift through all the stuff that's out
there and get through all the lingo, then yeah. But
I also I don't think it's bad to hire a

(36:42):
professional as long as you are going to have a
seat at the table as well. We've heard of stories
like Rihanna who almost went bankrupt to having a bad
financial advisor.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
You hear about it with celebrities all the time.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
They're hiring the best of the best, and I've seen
bad situations across even like students you know, in my community.
But I think it's okay to have a professional, but
you need to at least have a base level understanding
of your money, and I do think that most people
most people can get there.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, I think you're right. It's one of those things
where if you fully rely on somebody else, you are
liable to get taken. You have to have enough in
education to ask at least the right questions if you're
going to hire somebody to help you out. I think
that's important advice. But we've got a few more questions
we're going to get to with you, Amanda and including
we're going to talk about budgeting. But I love what
you do on your Instagram and for people who like

(37:32):
to kind of voyeuristically peque into other people's budgets, Amanda
does that quite well. We'll talk about that with Amanda
right after this, we are.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Back for the break talking with Amanda the she Wolf
of Wall Street and that's Wolf with an E. By
the way, that's how is that how your the handle
was available?

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Also that's just how you saw my last exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Okay, So Joel mentioned Joel mentioned budgeting, and truly some
of the favorite videos that you create are just kind
of when you kind of come through the budgets of
folks who follow you. You kind of mentioned earlier somebody
who you had had assigned. Hey, let's come back and
next time we talk, let's figure out what it is
that you're spending your money on. I'm curious in your experience, like,
what are some of the most common issues that you

(38:20):
see with the with the average budget, with the average
individual that comes to you for financial help.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
I would say that it's a few things.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
One like, just at face value, that people tend to
spend way too much of their take home income on
things like cars and houses. Like sometimes people are just
buying way too much house, more than they can afford,
and then it's eating up, you know, forty five percent
of their take home income. And then they also have

(38:51):
a car, and then they also have daycare, and then
they don't know why they have no money.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Amazing. We've made coffee out to be the culprit when
the car typically is the one.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
The car, the cars, I'm like, where are you guys
getting these cars?

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah? The cars are.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Just some of the most mind blowing ones for me.
You know, people will spend eight hundred dollars a month
on a car, and I'm like, you need to get
a camera and my friends and then we can talk,
you know. And if cars are your thing, that's fine,
but you can't. It's just like not everything can be
your thing.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yes, and that's a very expensive what we would call
craft beer equivalent. But like, hey, if you if you
at are a certain point in your life, if you've
got enough socked away in investments, if you make enough
every single month and you're just your cash flow is
just through the roof, so be it totally. You go
ahead and get you that you new Rivan Joel or
if I'll throw me under the bus. But man, no,

(39:41):
we're totally with you. Yes, some of those bigger budget
line items can completely demolish those budgets.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
You mentioned cars in houses. What else do you see
when you're looking over those budgets.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Well, I think I think it's because sometimes I'll end
up going back and forth the email or chatting with
people before I actually post it to try to understand
how they got to that point, whether it's they have
debt where they just literally have no money left over.
And I think one of the other most common reasons
why people get to a point where things are not
going as well as they want is just due to
lifestyle inflation and just being you know, getting caught up

(40:13):
in what their you know, what their neighbors are doing
and buying. And I think that as we earn more money,
it's okay to spend more money, but don't spend all
of the more money. Right, So, if you get a
ten percent raise this year, don't increase your expenses by
ten percent. We let's you know, increase them by three

(40:36):
percent or even five percent. But the more we spend
over the years, the more we're going to need in
retirement later, and the more we're going to need in
our savings to cover for some of those things, and
so all of that adds up. So I'm totally like,
if you get a raise, great, what is a nice
little treat you've been wanting for yourself. But let's go
ahead and try to rein it in and keep it

(40:56):
realistic so that it doesn't just turn into a big,
you know, spiral where we can't afford.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Our life anymore.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yes, no, aman to bring the bringing the balance to
the conversation which we're we're.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Your your sister, I say, Okay, I'm curious, we talked
about budgeting. You're listeners, you're you're the people who follow you.
Are they know about budgeting because you talk about it
consistently and you go through other people's budgets, which is
a really helpful thing. So how are other people spend Oh,
they make one hundred thousand dollars and they spend this
and such, and this is how much they have left over.
That's a really helpful thing to see because I think

(41:28):
so much of the time we don't know what other
people are doing with their money, and so we don't
know what to do with ours. But for people who
are saying, listen, budgets, budgeting is a four letter word.
Don't want to do it, not going to spend the
time it's going. We talked about the fear factor. How
important is budgeting and how would you maybe coke somebody
into doing it and help the encourage them to get
over kind of that aversion.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah, so I would say you have to get over
the aversion if you want to feel financially secure. Ever,
because we tend to build up unknown stuff to be
really big and bad, and a lot of times, you know,
somebody will be super anxious about their situation and we'll
look at it and then they realize, oh, it's not

(42:10):
actually that bad, Like, yeah, I have debt, but actually
I have more in savings than I needed, but I
was afraid to get rid of my cash so I
can pay it off. Or you know what, with just
a little bit of discipline, I could be done with
this debt in six months, or I could be debt
free by Christmas, or you know whatever. I think we
tend to make it like a bigger deal in our
head when we don't know what's going on.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
So sitting down facing the music is.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Going to be really important, but also being like the
to sit down and see what you're spending. That initial
activity is the biggest one. You don't really need to
dig in deep every single month forever, in my opinion,
unless things start falling off you know, the rails again.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
So for me, I like to call it like the
no budget budget, where I basically have I have two accounts.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
All of my bills that I already know how much
they cost because they're pretty much the same every month
come out of one account.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
The other one.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
I call it like my swipeable account. So as long
as that swipeable account doesn't meet my floor, you know,
because you don't want to have zero dollars in it,
you don't want to overdraw it. But like let's say
you have a floor of two hundred dollars. If you
know that, if it dips below two hundred dollars, you
overspend that month on your swipeable stuff. If it's above it,
then that means you have a little extra and you
can put it towards something else. So you know, I

(43:25):
use that account for a gas, for shopping for groceries,
for all the all the stuff I'm just swiping throughout
the month. So that way, like, if I want to
go out to more dinners this month, then I just
need to cut somewhere else, whether that's spending less on
groceries and I need to get a little more creative.
Maybe I go to two grocery stores this month, I

(43:45):
got a Trader Joe's for my veggies, and I go
to you know, aldi form met or whatever. You can
kind of manipulate it that way. I don't think you
have to neurotically track every dollar forever, So I would
say just know that the if you're feeling really scared
or overwhelmed, starting like that first step is the hardest.
You're not going to have to go and track the
last three months every single month. You're going to just
it's that first activity that's the hardest.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah. How do you think about some of the new
fangled fintech products and how they're impacting people's finance. It's like,
I'm thinking of the apps that allow you access to
your paycheck early or buy now pay later, which, hey,
that guess what, people have eighteen of those going on,
and so they don't actually see the money come out
of their account instantly. How's that impacting people's budgets and
ability to get ahead with money.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
Yeah, so I would say the getting your paycheck early,
I mean that's dangerous because we never want to count
money we don't have yet, So it's almost like you're
taking a loan from yourself from the future. I feel
like when with those types of apps and then the
buy now, pay later, I just I really feel like,
if you have to finance a pair of genes, you

(44:49):
should go to the Salvation Army because you can't afford them.
My friend, if you have to break a payment up
for a piece of clothing that isn't so critical, then
I think, you know, that's a that's a bigger problem
because it's not it's not a winter coat or like
you're not gonna, you know, freeze to death, like if
it's a pair of designer jeans or a leather jacket

(45:10):
or just something that's I yeah, I just I think
that it's doing a disservice to a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, we really like your approach, Amanda, makes a whole
lot of sense, and it's certainly how we try to
approach personal finances as well. But where can folks learn
more about you? Where can they follow you?

Speaker 4 (45:25):
Especially as well, yeah, so Instagram, I would say, is
my main social media platform, so she Wolf of Wall
Street and that's Wolf with an E, or my website,
She Wolfelwallstreet dot com. I have lots of free like resources, trackers,
things like that, so go.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Check it out.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Awesome. Yeah, we'll link to all that stuff as well
in the show notes up on our website. Amanda. We
so appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I've had a lot of fun, Joel.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
That was a fun conversation to speak with Amanda aka
She Wolf of Wall Street. You know, she was talking
about breaking up payments on a pera gan. She actually
a somewhat recent post she kind of broke down the
difference between spending a ton of money on nicer items
for ye, like the affordable option and kind of where
you would land financially based on the number of wares

(46:13):
that you get out of, like a cheap pair of
jeans versus the primo jeans that you might wear for years.
I would actually maybe maybe we'll link to that in
the show notes. That was a really great social media
graphic that she threw up there on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Something we talk about too buying it once as opposed
to buying it five times. Because you bought the cheap thing,
it didn't last, so we didn't even get to that.
We're not all about the least expensive thing possible that
would be cheap.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
But yeah, did you have a big takeaway from our
conversation today?

Speaker 1 (46:38):
So many? I mean, Amanda's story is so inspiring, is good,
but she's also just loaded with such great information because
she's done the hard work over a bunch of years
to learn this stuff, to master it, to the fact
that she can teach hundreds of thousands of people. So
have so much respect for her and Matt thanks to
Amanda for coming on the show. I think my big
takeaway was when she said, we tell ourselves that things

(46:59):
make us happy, go without it for a minute, give
it a shot and see if it actually does. And
I think that's great advice because there are things that
I've said will not make me happy just without trying it.
And then I realized after giving it a shot, wait
a second, that was actually it was good for me.
I actually kind of liked it or vice versa.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Is this an argument for spending more money, Joel, It's
just to be like, I need more things in.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
My life that provide No, I'm talking about give me joy,
specifically about like some physical activity where I was like,
I'd rather sit there watch watch my favorite show because
that's more enjoyable, And yes, it is more enjoyable in
the moment, but it's not more enjoyable in the long term.
There you go, and so, uh, there's just a good idea.
Test it out, see whether or not it is actually
a craft beer equivalent, and if it's not, if it's
not moving the needle in the way you think, maybe

(47:40):
the daily coffee habit. I don't want to go back
to coffee, but I'm just going to for a second,
because coffee is not the problem for most people. But
if you're doing that knee jerk robotically and you're like
that that's the best part of my day, maybe it is,
but maybe it's not. Try try cutting it out for
a week and making it home and see if it is.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
So great is that you can just give it a
shot and you know what, if you find that you
really miss it, you can go back to doing that. Yeah,
but I trial and error, baby, But Okay, that's not
my big takeaway though, mine will be when we're kind
of when we were talking about goal setting, and she said,
depending on who you are, maybe you are the kind
of person that wants to She said the word mind numbing,
which is what kind of got me thinking down this,
and she talked about how like you can do the

(48:18):
mind numbing number crunching, or you can maybe focus on
the thing that lights you up. I think maybe she
referenced like a trip to Barcelona or something like that,
which maybe think there are two ways that you can
approach it. You can go with the head or you
can go with the heart. And I feel like the
head approach is like thinking analytical and how it is
how can I make some of these small tweaks to

(48:38):
my money now in order to achieve whatever end goal
might be out there. Because I think that's great for
a lot of folks who don't necessarily have some big
life goals yet. But if you have some massive goals
that you're trying to achieve, if you have something that
really lights you up from the inside, that like from
the soul, from the heart, don't ignore those things, right, Like,
I don't want people to hear this and think, well,
I need to sit down and start tracking all of

(48:59):
my expenses, like we're we were just talking about. I
think instead what they can do is print out a
picture of the affle tier or whatever it is, like
if you were planning to go to the Olympics over
the summer, right like, but put that goal or you
missed it front and center, like, make sure it's forefront
in your mind, because that can then inspire all sorts
of changes downstream. It doesn't have to look like one
size fits all. And I like that sheet in a
way highlighted that you can take the discipline sort of systematic,

(49:23):
dogmatic approach, or you can be a little more loosey
goosey with it and kind of just throw yourself after
whatever this goal might be that you're trying to achieve.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah so yeah, no, I like that too. You can
go one of two ways, and really it's up to you,
and it just a quick plug for the how to
Money Money Mission statement. Will put a link to it
in the show notes where you can go through a
few questions that Matt and I have kind of laid
out some prompts to kind of figure out, well, what
is it that where can I funnel my money that's
potentially going to produce the best ROI in my life.

(49:51):
I think that's a really good question to ask, and
often it's hard. That's a really hard question to ask
on its face. But if you ask some of the
smaller questions underneath that question, you can get to the
root of it, and then it can it can be enlightening,
and it can help you make other changes to then
make more progress towards the things you actually care about,
and not just spending money on some of the junk
that we, you know, knee jerk spend money on.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
I totally agree. Man. All right, let's get back to
our beer. This one was called Enduring Belief. This is
a Rye lagger by Treehouse Brewing Company, sent to us
by Michael. Michael, thank you so much for sending this
plus others our way, Joel, what your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Yeah, we really appreciate, Yes we do, Michael. Good beer
and Treehouse is great beer. So thank you Michael. This
this beer, Matt really good. It was in Rye Laggers
typically sound kind of boring to me. This one was
not boring at all. So good, so good, So I
really enjoying this. We had those rye spices, those notes, right.
It was a little multy and bready. It was also
incredibly balanced, like you have some some nice little hops

(50:47):
coming through too, like this was this was a really
good beer.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Yeah, there's just a lot more flavor in a Rye
lagger versus kind of like your standard lagger. And it
just made this a I don't know the combination of
our conversation with Amanda plus this beer and here at
our desk doing what we get to do, like I'm
in my happy zone right here. This is awesome. Also,
like the name of the beer, and during belief sounds
like something from like a constitution, like we have this,

(51:10):
we hold fast to this enduring belief of I don't know,
you feel in.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
The blank you sound like Alexander Hamilton.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
But uh, glad, you know. I got to enjoy this
one today.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
But I have an enduring belief. But everyone out there
listening can make changes to their money. And I think
if if Amanda, well.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I'm glad this wasn't an immediate plug for reviewing how
to Buddy podcast.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
You know, I think, Amanda, this is where I thought
you were going. Incredible example of people who can come
from hardship still and overcome it and crush it so
glad we were able to talk to her today. And
if you want the show notes links to some of
the stuff we mentioned, we'll have those up on our
website at howtomoney dot com. And yes, of course, like
Bat mentioned, leave a review for the podcast if you
have it already.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Why not?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, I don't believe they allowed twenty six stars yet,
but five stars will suffice. So thank you Advanced for
doing that. Matt. That's going to do it for this one.
Until next time, Best friends Out and best Friends Out.

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Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Poverty to Prosperity w/ SheWolfeOfWallStreet #878