How to Improve Your Money Mindset

too woo woo for me. Which, if that's you, you probably didn't even listen to the episode you Maybe you accidentally pressed play and you just haven't turned it off yet, You're just on a binge cycle. This is super tangible and relevant and has aged well. So we're we are things that age well, like cheese and wine and not all cheese me yes. But we're going to dive into mindsets that that are holding you back and like limiting beliefs from your childhood that are holding you back with money.

We are getting we are into it. If you need vulnerable, here you go. But first, this episode is brought to you by to Changes. Turn the beat around. You know you can sing it, pause it right there and sing it. Get it out of you today. We're here for the changes, mostly the good, beneficial changes. But even when the changes we experience aren't that great, this is your dose of motivational pep talk. We can make shifts in our mindset and behaviors that do benefit us, whether we are making

the change or the change is happening to us. Changes turning the beat around to make new, possibly even better music. Maybe not music at all, maybe a podcast where we wish we were making music, and so we constantly sing blessings baby, but we get it in there. We get it in there. It's so one way or another, it's off tune, but it's there. Forced Yeah, we're gonna have to. We'll make an album one day of all the music

we made that you didn't realize we were making. Alright, So if you want to cue up a few other archive episodes to listen to after this one episode two hundred How to Get Stacked with Money with Joe Saucihi and Emily guy Burkin. We talked about mindset in there and it's a very fun episode. And then also episode one oh one Tips for being more Intentional with your finances um with Alyssa from Mixed at Money. Another another good one. She has a new book that I think

Jess came out, so she's really great. But those are a few to queue up for after this. But first listen to this episode. Let's jump back in. We're gonna keep going with our first article from Business Insider, and it is twelve negative thoughts about money that are holding you back? Yes, uh so good. So we're just going to go through some of the top ones that stood out to us. I will say I kind of picked the ones that I used to tell myself why they stood out to me. So you're getting a little bit

of bolleth well inside into me. And then, just like some of the highlights, the first one that can be a barrier to us getting out our financial goals is I don't make enough to save h If you've ever told yourself as before, this article is trying to prove us all wrong by saying there is not a minimum threshold here to be able to say, you know what

I can get at some saving schools. I may not make enough to put massive amounts aside, but doing the small thing and the little step ultimately to build the muscle. The goal is not to stay in a place of low income, low wage, but we still do need to practice saving and just clinging to this idea of I don't make enough to save. That's not going to go away if we don't actively work to make that thought go away, because regardless of whether or not we increase

our money, we might still stay married to this thought. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean this was my thought too for most of my time after I graduated college, and I guess it just came from not ever having quote unquote enough but yet I always had enough money to buy Starbucks and like other little things, but I just felt like saving and paying off debt was a big thing, and it was I had never done anything big in my life, and so I thought I can't do anything big. So yeah,

that was kind of where I was at on it. Yeah, and all or nothing mentality, which we can have in a variety of aspects of our personhood. Well, I need a three week vacation in Indonesia, and if I can't get that, then I just won't have a vacation, right like, and we can apply these types of things to any aspect of our lives, like, well, I need to be saving, I need to be maxing out my four oh one K and if I can't do that, then why even

have one. That's just like, we can get ourselves into this trap when the reality is anything you can put away helps to secure your financial future. Absolutely, And we are big proponents of small steps, so they're not as sexy as big steps obviously, like we all want to be the story that paid off six figures in nine months, and that story does not exist like in the real world.

You hear about these things on the internet and on social media because they are exceptions, because they are extraordinary, but they're not ordinary, and it's okay to be ordinary. It's very okay to be ordinary. Absolutely. The fourth one on this list is you think I'll never pay off my school loans. So this was me all the way. Mainly the reason why is is because I didn't think

I made enough and so I would save. If I made a little extra, I would say that it because I had the scarcity mindset that I need this money, like something's going to happen to me and I need to have this money. And obviously it's smart to have an emergency fund, but I was making enough to start repaying my debt. Again, it was so big I didn't think I could do it, so I wouldn't even make small steps. And we talked about this a lot last episode,

but it wasn't until we were paying it off. It wasn't until we were like five months in that I thought, oh my god, I can't pay this off. Like I didn't think we could do it when we started, and we just kept going. I just kept myself distracted. I didn't let myself think about the magnitude of it. I just kept myself distracted with making money. And that was

really my method. That was honestly what I did. And by the time I looked up after I got over my shingles, we were on this path to significantly decreasing the amount of time it was going to take to pay off our debt. Yeah. The other one that stands out to me on this list is the number seven where we might think I can only make so much

money in my chosen field. Bomp bom bom. This has been me and I can find myself in that trap occasionally as well, and ultimately what this does is limits us to Okay, so if I'm not going to make much money in this field, then I'm just going to resign myself to not even hardly setting any goals, and the reality is a lot of times we'll base this off of maybe what we perceive to be the top earners in our field and think, well that's the cap.

If anything, I'll make what they make, and it's still not a ton of money, and so okay, this is just my life, and we resign ourselves to this certain kind of lifestyle, versus if we were able to shift our mindset and our expectations to be able to discover new opportunities. This article even prompts us to consider what's the biggest problem facing the industry or the field that you're in, and if you are able to be a part of that solution, my goodness, yes you will be

rewarded nicely. Maybe not all of us are going to be that level of entrepreneur, but it is worth breaking out of these types of mindsets to say I don't have to limit myself there of well, maybe I'll only make as much as whoever I perceive to be making the most in this field. It it can be a fallacy. I can only make so much in my chosen field. I definitely, as a social worker working in my field, make far more. Right now, then I thought I could, and I'm doing things I thought I wouldn't be able

to do. I get to travel internationally as a social worker. I never thought that that was a possibility working in the field. Maybe if you exited the field and you did something and goal, you could travel internationally for But I get to do that, and it has taken a degree of creativity to make that possible. But I'm so glad that I didn't limit myself to what it means to work within the field of social work and help others. That there is not only life experiences that I'm gaining.

But yes, I'm making more money than what I thought possible and not compromising what I have worked for. Regarding education, I get to apply my education to my work and it's way different than what I thought it could have been in my early twenties. And I'm grateful for that. And I share that just to say we don't have to limit ourselves just based off of like a small understanding of what we think our roles are or could be. Yes,

let's all take a breath together, a collective breath. You're listening to this in your car, and sit and repeat after me. Money is easy to come by. Money is easy to make. That feels really hard for me to like fill of that, right. Yeah, but here's the thing, you know, it's difficult to make time. Time is difficult to make. Time is impossible to make. And when you compare it to time, money is easy to make. It is easy. And it took me a really long time. And I say that, and I'm still on the journey

to actually believing that. And one of the big things that has helped me kind of believe that money is easy to make is listening to the stories of other people in my industry that are actually uber successful, so like outrageously extraordinarily successful. I don't ever want to be there, nor do I believe I can be there, so I'm like still limiting my belief. But I listened to them, and I'm like, oh my god, they are there, so I can at least be here, which is a far

cry from where I thought I could be. And every year when I get better, I get further and I get closer to those people who I think are extraordinary. So I highly recommend listening to podcasts and trying to find people in your field or in the field you want to be that are doing extraordinary things, and that's going to help you believe that you can do it too. Yeah. Mmmm, that feels like a hard word. It's one to think about. Yeah,

I believe that there are limitations, for sure. I'm not discounting the fact of some people are limited and their disadvantaged. But if you say that, you can take yourself just a step further, Like you don't have to even believe that you can make as much as Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, all the marks. You don't have to believe you're going to be Mark, but you can believe that you can be better than what you believed you could be. Yeah. I think ultimately as which where do you want to

land in what you're saying to yourself? Do we want to land in these places that are holding us back to say I'm never going to make more money, this is always going to be my life. I can't ever do anything better. Like do we want to choose to stay there with what we tell ourselves as our narrative to ourselves? Or is it more advantageous to say, Hey, I have a skill set, I have something to offer.

My time is valuable. The work that I do for others is valuable and there is potential for me to earn more, to gain more knowledge, to be better next year than I was this year, not just financially but as a person and in my character. I think that growth mindset is always going to be more helpful, more beneficial, advantageous to us than than a stagnant mindset, one that might want to keep us stuck. Yeah, we only have

the perspective in which our surroundings typically allow us. And so to have a growth mindset, you just need to step back a little bit and look at where you're at, look at where other people are at, and have that create your own outsider perspective. I mean, if you think about it, like you to get paid, you just have to show up at a place or on your computer

and like log into something or something that's not super difficult. So, like money is easy to come by theoretic, we're not saying like millions of dollars it's easy to come by. But getting a job and making a wage, yeah, yeah, it's very possible, especially with the help of a community, a supportive community. Absolutely. It's interesting because the pendulum can swing on the other side. And I want to point out number ten on this list is mindset of money.

Isn't that important in that we could either put so much weight on money and forget all these other aspects of our lives and our personhood, or we could swing the other way and just be like, well, who needs money, you know, like it's only a tool or a resource, which it is, or money can corrupt people, or money is often very bad, So I would rather just avoid

it and take on maybe a poverty mindset. And I think again, this is where that radical middle that you've heard us talk about in this podcast is so helpful that we could go to either direction either play same way, too much weight on money or not enough weight on it, and to recognize we do need it as a tool and as a resource. It is something that can help us become more healthy. It is something that can create freedom, It is something that can assist others in their journey

within life. It is something that we can be generous with. So it's not necessarily avoid money. It's corrupt, But maybe how do I want to use the tool of money as a force of good in the world. Yes, absolutely. Number six also resonated with me. I'll never make as much money as so and so so it says, comparison is the death of joy I guess Mark Twain said that another mark, all these marks, we should have a mark of the week, Oh don't ruin it for Bill.

So yeah, I in my business I have frequently said that, And so I mentioned. Something that helped me was listening to people that are making like outrageous amounts of money in my field. And so at first my mindset was I will never be like that. I don't have that business mind. I don't know how to do that. I don't even want to do that. That seems like a

lot of work, YadA, YadA. And so it has gradually over time shifted to, hey, I have spent a few years in this into street, and if they can do it, why can't I do half of that or a quarter of that or whatever? And why can't I be a little bit better than what I thought I could? Like these mindset shift things, it's all a journey. You have to get more experience to realize that you are capable of more. But yeah, that was definitely one that I

had for sure and still do at times. Or the last one on this list, number twelve is I've made too many money mistakes to ever recover. Oh, this is a devastating one and does speak to a great deal of some hardship and probably some downcasteness in the financial landscape. If this is a mindset that's being adopted. But the reality is is no, if you're still living and breathing, taking in oxygen, then you're not too far deep to

recover from your money mistakes. Yes, we can always do a little bit better the next day and the next day and the next day. I think this is a place of hopelessness, and that is devastating to feel like there is no hope, but to recognize this is a mindset that's happening that can be shifted. This is a story that we are telling ourselves that we can choose to not tell ourselves that. No, I don't think it's true that any one of us can reach a place

of too many money mistakes, I'll never recover. Yes, that perpetuates that cycle. That's what that mindset does. And I think of so many other things in life too that maybe in relationships or in jobs that you want to go for. I can think of so many other times where I've seen people think that that I've fallen too many times it's not worth getting back up. And I think if you've seen any movies, it's that loud time that you get back up. That's the time they make

a movie about it. It's like they don't make movies about somebody who fell down eighteen times and then never got back up, Like they make movies about people who fell eighteen times and got up the nineteenth and succeeded. So all that to say they may not make a movie about you. Just press on until it finally happens. Yeah, keep doing it. And so the last one on this list that I wanted to mention was number eleven, but

I wanted to change it slightly. So on here it says you think I'm not checking my credit card balance because I don't want to know, So I switched that too. I'm not checking my budget because I don't want to know I am a horrible budget or naturally, my business is called modern frugality because I prefer to just not spend money versus budgeting to spend it. I don't love

tracking everything and planning to that detail. So there are definitely times where I would make a budget and still even now make a budget, and then I'll make one purchase that I didn't plan on, and then I'm like, I'm just not going to check the budget. I'm just not going to spend anything, or I just keep spending more often now it's like I'm just not going to spend anything else because I don't want to look at

my budget. It's a weird phenomenon that, like how I don't want to look at it as if that's going to make it not true or as if that's going to help and making anything better. But we do this. I can't quite explain why, but we do. It's weird. I don't know. It's still like all of these things are ebb and flow in my head. Some days I do good, other days I fall back into it. And it's because they have been ingrained in me since childhood. So it's hard to change how I look about money.

And I've already changed so much. I have come so far in the past five years, and I have to give myself some grace. And you should give yourself some grace to like you're already making like changes that are leaps and bounds from what you were, So when you

can't be perfect, have grace for yourself. I like what you're pointing out gen about the hand our sponsor thank you childhood, the way that some of these thinking patterns are so ingrained in us and sometimes we don't even realize it or even realize that it's a mindset that needs shifting, our mindset that is holding us back from any given goal. But this is where so much of our behaviors start, is in our minds and in our

thought processes. And if we can rain that in, we do have the potential of changing our behaviors, which can relate to actually meeting financial goals. I want to also just to bring this a bit to the mental health level, of the clinical level. While we're talking about here with these mindsets, are cognitive distortions, Like that's the clinical term for what we're describing, and we all have them. There's a lot of them. I want to just give a

brief rundown of some really common cognitive distortions. We've talked about them, Like what we've just described in this article is examples of some cognitive distortions, but the actual language for it, just so that you can be more prepared and have some tools in your tool belt to identify what it is that's happening. For you inside your mind. So one of a cognitive distortion is filtering, where we might magnify negative details and derail or completely ignore all

the positive things that are happening in our lives. We kind of filter it in the sway. That's something that we can do related to our finances. Another cognitive distortion is polarized thinking, or what we might describe as black and white. It's it's either this or it's that, it's all or it's nothing, kind of like what we were talking about before, like either I can save a bunch of money or I can at also might as well

not do it. That's a cognitive distortion. You may have seen this cognitive distortion in October at Oh gosh, yes, we all fall victim to some of these, maybe all of these, any given moment. Another one is over generalization, to reach a conclusion based on a single incident or one piece of evidence and just completely over generalize. Another is to quickly jump to conclusions based on a few facts.

Another cognitive distortion is to catastrophize any given circumstance, of imagining that this is just a massive tragedy that is happening, when really it might not be as major as we're making it out to be fallacy of fairness, blaming should or labeling so many right, and so if you're more interested in this, certainly it's something that you can look up all link an article in our show notes to just laying out a good deal of common cognitive distortions.

And this is something that a therapist, a counselor could help you to identify in your life, whether it's related to finances or not. But cognitive distortions can be found in our financial lives and we've just given a bunch of examples of them. And the goal is not to remain in these cognitive distortions, to identify them and move out of them so that your life can be aimed at well being and financial freedom and getting at the

goals that you want to get at. It oftentimes starts in our mind and if we're able to recognize where these things are happening, change some of our mindsets, change our perspectives, change the narrative that's happening, we will do much better in our actual behaviors. Good word. Well, that's it, folks. That's all for today. Hashtag childhood. Yes, but we can

go over this other article, it may be helpful. It's from Psychology Today, and it's four steps to release limiting beliefs learned from childhood or some of these cognitive distortions that you may have from childhood. So I really liked short, succinct processes, and I love that this one's four steps strategic and can help you, like leaps and bounds, become better financially. Yeah, what this is is it's laying out a therapeutic technique and intervention that can be done on

your own. If you're recognizing that you're having a lot of difficulty doing this on your own, then maybe getting a buddy to help you, or seeing a counselor or a therapist. They can absolutely help you through this process. And it's related to what we've talked about in the past of thoughts influence our feelings, influence our behaviors. It goes in that cycle, and so if we can catch it at the thought level, we can then help to influence our own feelings and our behaviors out of that.

And yes, this is absolutely a principle that we can apply to our financial lives. So step one is to write it down. What is This article chooses the term limiting belief. We could say cognitive distortion, we could say internal narrative. Pick your wording and verbiage doesn't matter her, it's all the same concept. What is it? What is the phrase that's going through your mind that is keeping you from being able to get at some of these

goals that you have for yourself, or what's holding you back? Again, we gave a lot of examples in that first article of I'll never make enough money. Money is bad? You name it. What is it that you're telling yourself about money and write it down? Yes, And step two is to acknowledge that these are beliefs, not truths. They say this is the hardest step, and even like a common quote is, people will rest on but my limitations are real.

So here's the place where choice comes in. Which are you more interested in defending your limitations to the death or achieving your goals and desires. There's a quote from an author and here she says, when we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them. So you choose. Yeah.

I read another article that had a similar for step process, and on this one it said it kind of like give in to your beliefs or acknowledge your beliefs and be like, if you say you're not good enough, then say, okay, I believe I'm not good enough and speak that out, but define that it is a belief and not the truth and acknowledge that. So but I like this one a lot. When we argue for our limitations, we get

to to them. Yeah, and where do you want to spend the majority of your time, energy and attention on proving that you'll never do better or shifting the mindset and see if something else is possible for you? I like step three. I like the way that they word it. It says, try on a different belief. I love this

word picture of trying it on. I think it helps with step to the initial cringe factor of step two, where every part of us wants to be like, no, this is real, and I don't want to let go of this because in some weird way it feels protective. But to say, try it on, because you can always take it off. See what it looks like, get into the fitting room if it's open, if it's not COVID, it's hants, and you try them on, one leg at a time. Yes, exactly. I just love this idea that

that you could try it, Just try it? What's it makes it so much less scary, so much more freedom and choice in that process. And so what it's saying is, let's figure out what we might be able to replace this with. Rather than saying I'll never be able to make as much money as so and so, what if we said I might be able to make x amount

of money. What if we took away the comparison with even another person and just said I think that I'd be able to increase my salary by fifteen percent next year, Right, Like, if we just try on a different attitude or narrative for ourselves, or repeated a certain goal, try it on, see what happens in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as a result of that. You don't even have to give it a number or value if you don't want to, just being like, I will increase my income every year

and whatever that is. If you do it, you've succeeded. You know. They give an example of my financial difficulties in the past have taught me so much that I'm fully prepared to handle them now. Who that feels powerful. Yes, And it's such a different approach from I'm too far gone to ever come back from the financial decisions I've made. Yeah, my starting line is so far behind everyone else's that it doesn't even make sense, Like I'll never get to

where they are. It doesn't make sense to try. Now that I've been in an unhealthy relationship, I've learned what to look for and a happy, loving partner. M Yeah, powerful stuff. Yeah, I love it. So try on your different belief. And then step four is take different action. So this is really scary, but you have to act as if your new belief is true. In other words, you really are the kind of woman menadoor, or if

you really were, how would you act at parties? Or money really is easy to come by, so how would you act when you're looking for side hustles? Try acting out what you would do if your new belief was actually true. So you don't even have to believe it's true yet. And part of this starts to come naturally

as we train our thoughts, as we stop ourselves. Once we have named and identified what the limiting belief is or the cognitive distortion is, we are better equipped to be able to identify it when it happens, and then to train ourselves when that go us through our mind to replace it with a different narrative, the one that you're trying on. And as you continue to do that,

it will just start to shift your actions. There will come a point where you don't have to actively focus on changing your behavior if you're able to catch it at the thought level, kind of like fake it till you make it, but not as yucky as that sounds, because you're not faking anything. You're just trying something new. And you're getting bigger pants, like if you're a kid,

not if you're like a full grown woman. But you're getting bigger pants that you want to fit into, and you're wearing them with a belt at first until you're old enough to really fit into them. But you're getting the bigger pants because you're a child and not a full grown woman. I'm sorry, but on those big pantst you don't need a belt anymore. I'm not going to do it with small pants like you're trying to lose weight, because that's a negative body image that I don't want

to perpetuate. You're my favorite counselor, Jen, You're my favorite council and these are coming at you for free, like sessions by Jill coming at you for free. So I hope that gave you kind of a strategy that you can go home tonight, sit down, write down some limiting beliefs and acknowledge them, figure out what to replace them with. Because just like a habit, like if you want to build a new positive habit or break a bad habit,

you need both. They're not mutually exclusive. So in order to break one, you need to replace it with a positive one. So just like this, if you want to build a positive mindset, you need to replace a negative one. So do that and fake it till you make it. Put on your big girl pants until you grow into them, and where until you grow into I don't know why my voice changed there. I don't know who I am. Oh, you know what, you can save us from the big pants?

The billow. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. Hi, Jen and Jill. My name is Allison, and my Bill of the week is not a specific bill, but a group of of

bills that I call non routine expenses. These are bills that I pay once or a few times per year, such as oil changes, annual subscriptions like Amazon haircuts, ten class passes for yoga, vet appointments for my cat, etcetera. I would make what I thought were these amazing comprehensive budgets and excel and then feel like I could never stick to them because I would end up over spending

in so many categories. So a couple of years ago I made of spreadsheet outlining and categorizing these non routine expenses that occur over the year, and it totaled over four thousand dollars of my annual spending that I was not accounting for properly in my budget. I now have a few categories through my non routine expenses that I've figured out the annual total for and divided by twelve.

I saved those monthly amounts each month, so when one of the bills comes to I already have that money allocated. I have a lot more control over my budget now, and it isn't as stressful when these bills come due. Allison, so smart. Yes, that's it, that's how you do it. That is how you do it. I like the way that you've gone about this. I think sometimes people can just say, here's a target amount of money to say for emergencies quote unquote, But what you're describing isn't an emergency.

We wouldn't want to go into an emergency fund for that. It's the non routine expense, but still just an expense to plan for. And just the methodical way that you've looked at your budget, looked at what that spending has been, and then accounted for that throughout the year. I love it. What a great tip. Yes, I have a budget in course, and that's exactly what I teach in it because it does save you so much like mental anguish from thinking

that you are busting your budget every month. But really it's because you need this extra fund between a miscellaneous fund and an emergency fund for all of these. So way to go figuring that out, Allison. And if you figured out something fun it's bill related, please please send it to us for Girlfriends Podcast dot com slash bill and leave us yo bail. And now it's time for lining round the Lightning Round gotta get the last word in I do. Today we're talking about our limiting beliefs

and how we overcame slash are working on them. I like what you wrote here, Jill in the outline, very comprehensive, short and sweet. Oh man. My limiting belief is I'm poor. That's it. I just have held onto, tight fisted lee this idea that I'm poor for a long time, or to be replaced with maybe I don't have money, maybe that would be like another version of that. And part of that was based in aspects of my childhood experience, where we didn't have money at various points growing up,

and I was accustomed to that. It's part of what has fed a frugal mentality for me is I'm I'm used to not having money in my early years of marriage, I mean college. Yeah, I didn't have money in college, got married, didn't have much money, and I just kind of continued to hold on to that belief and almost allowed it to define who I was. I really did,

And this is even hard to admit and say. I think there were aspects of pride that I took in how little money I had and was still living and almost used it as this thing to like talk about and prove myself in a weird way of how little money I had and how much more money other people had than me, and how savvy and resourceful I had

to be because I was so quote unquote poor. And I don't have like a timing on the exact pivot point of this, but I do remember at some point just feeling quite convicted in myself for holding onto this idea of I'm poor, you know what. I think it was in college, in studying social work and in realizing what poverty actually meant. And while my finances showed me that I was below the poverty line, in life and

relationships and support network, I was not poor. I was actually quite wealthy, and even recognizing the privilege that I had that, Okay, even though I'm below the poverty line, and maybe there are days when I'm like, what's for dinner?

What are we gonna do? I knew that I would never find myself in a position where I am literally sleeping on the streets, because we were in positions of having family and friends who love us, who would always take us in, and to me, being poor would be not having that right like that to me is truly finding yourself in a poverty situation where you don't have

access to those resources. And I felt convicted, like I can't claim this, this is not mine to say that I am struggling with this aspect of life, Like I need to stop saying this because it's not true. Maybe I don't make a lot of money, but I'm not poor. I'm wealthy in many many ways, and and me claiming this is also leading to discontentment and in some ways some entitlement in different aspects of my life. So I just really felt as though I need to stop saying this.

Even if I don't make a lot of money, I cannot keep claiming that I'm poor I don't have money, and so I did. I stopped saying it, just because I felt like so bad about saying it, like the realities that other people are living in. And I don't know if I can fully place it on this or not. But throughout life, I have started to make more money and now I genuinely cannot say I don't even make below the poverty line. I make well above the poverty

line now, just financially speaking. And I would say my mindset and perspective has to be a part of that, not allowing myself to say, all right, I'm a social worker. I'm just forever and always going to make below the poverty line, but to say, no, it's possible to make enough to live off of as a social worker. I don't have to become some business tycoon to make a

lot of money. I can make a livable wage. I started saying that, and I think there was some other social workers who kind of challenged me in that, like, don't keep saying like, oh, we make nothing social workers, we make nothing. No, you make something. You do make something, and you agree to what you make, and you can make it livable. So start saying that, and I did, and it is becoming more and more livable for me.

I love that, Yes, And that's so healthy to realize, like poverty is not just the amount of money that you have. There are a lot of other things that go with it. And I love that. I feel I feel similarly about when I see those memes that are like seven thousand dollars in my savings account, two dollars in my checking account. Me, um broke. You're not broke. You're making a cognizant decision to not spend elsewhere you're not broke. That's a bad mindset to have, so mine

is similar. It's a scarcity mindset, which I feel like would be in parallel even when I was in debt, like I think I had seven thousand dollars in saving and probably two d and checking, and I said that, I said, I'm broke. I can't afford specifically too broke to pay off debt, like I could still afford my Starbucks and all those little things. Because when I was growing up, we could never afford family vacations or home upgrades or cars or anything big. If it was big,

we couldn't afford it. But if it was little like candles and so been planners and all this stuff toys, we could afford it. So that has been something that has stuck with me. So now that I own my own business, I feel the same way, like I can afford small things, but I can't afford big things that would make the business run more efficiently or would grow the business. And it's untrue. It's wildly untrue, because I see the bank account and the money is there, but

I can't part with it. So it's the same mindset I had six seven years ago, it rears it's head in a different form. So all that to say, like the money mindsets that you struggle with, even if you get over one aspect of it, it can come back in different ways. And that's how it comes back for me. Yeah, and that's why this is a journey of frugality and learning ourselves and one another in this process. And it's okay,

like we're never going to fully arrive anywhere. Then, yeah, we'll hit some of these difficulties in different ways at different points than this. But I think recognizing as you're saying, this is what it is up here, it is. It took on a little bit of a different shade, but it's the same thing. And you know what, Jen, You've conquered it before and you can conquer it again. I

believe that. And then I come to this thing trying to not just spend money for the sake of it, to overcome this mindset, and then I have the okay, so what is the most efficient way that that stretches me to learn more? And that's healthy too. I can't say it in warning that this was going to be a we have vulnerable episode. Yeah, that lightning round, I will say I've stuck with it. I have continued to not say I am poor, because again it's it's like

increasingly increasingly not true anymore. So I'm glad for that. Well, you won't even say the word cheap. That word's not in your vocabulary, not even sometimes when I accidentally say it, you correct me, right exactly. Yeah, so you're really taking those limiting words out of your vocabulary. I commend you. I think once you make a step in one area, you identify a pretty big pitfall in mindset, it makes it easier to then identify others and make quick pivots

and changes. So I think, ongoing doing this podcast talking about these concepts, being aware of my own mindsets, it has helped me make little shifts along the way. Recognize lifestyle creep in the moment, make a shift, recognize some of the limiting beliefs, make a shift, Recognize where I've got freedom to make different decisions with career path or goals,

and make a shift. There's just I I increasingly increasingly experience more and more freedom and permission that I've identified even since the airing of that episode originally Yeah, same, yeah, So I've definitely grown in my growth mindset and still have to fight the demons that say my worth is tied to my income. But I have definitely taken a one eight on how much I am pursuing work like

I would. My goal is just to have is to do enough work to only do what I love in the capacity, like in the capacity that it makes me money. Like I'm not doing things I love for free, but I'm not doing things I don't love for money. So that is the shift that I've made instead of doing everything for money and just to say I have a six figure income, I I do not do that anymore. Do not have a six figure income, and it's totally okay, totally okay for me. So that's been a real big

shift that I've that I have made. I love that and I do and I see freedom for you in that that it's not just this arbitrary thing just to say I have it. And as a result, I think there is greater relaxation and contentment, freedom to do the things that you want to do. Beautiful. Yeah, So thank so much for listening or relistening. This is definitely one that deserves a re listen. Um, many of you know that we have a private Challenge community where we do

monthly money challenges. One of the recent ones we did was on growth mindset and it was a really really good one, had a lot of deep like winds and transformations on that one. Another recent one we did was a declutter challenge, and we want to congratulate one of

our members for a big one. Katie. The title of says sixty eight pounds gone, and then it's just a big picture, a few big pictures of just piles of clothing in the bag, and then she says sixty eight point eight pounds of clothes going to the donation bin. Uh so, way to go, Katie. Katie. I love this. I love that you weighed waited it and I kind of want to know what that process was, like how do you weigh all of these clothes? But I also

love you just put it on a gale. It's a fun twist because you hear that title and it's like, oh, what sixty lost sixty eight pounds, sixty eight pounds out of my house and that feels amazing too, So well done, congratulations. I know, I think I commented. I was like, that's wait, that'll stay off. So are you funny? Though? Thank you and thank you for listening. If you want to check out our monthly challenge community. I had to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club to see what challenge we

have coming up next. See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian. Do you have a scale in your house? Yeah? Mhm? Is that it? I don't want to. I'm just thinking about like weighing clothing and okay, yeah, so you can put it on a scale, but even still, like you had to have that thought, like I wonder how much all of this ways, and then you've got to get some sort of bin that you can put onto the scale in a way that you can still

read what the scale says. I don't know, it's just I think it's a little bit more complicated than you could also just put stacks of stuff on the scale and then add the different leads together, or you hold it all in a pile, step on the scale and subtract your weight from it. I don't I'm just saying there's a few held. Yeah, I don't know. Probably that's the size of child. A large child. A large child like not a toddler, no, a child, a full grown,

full child. A full childhood like that's a husband, but like a shy, like a like a you're going to get I know that was a that was a off color joke. I'm married a grown man. I don't. I don't own a scale. I don't think I ever have. Well, I think it's like a normal, a normal household item. But yeah, I don't know, I don't. I don't know. I don't know how much I weigh. Well, it comes back to that like diet culture thing is when you are when it's just something we've always had, both Travis

and I and yeah, is it healthy? Probably not, you know, but now we have it. Get rid of the scale, Jen, There you go, there's your decluttering. But what if I need to wear your clothes? What if I need to weigh my clothes? This? I don't know. I do have one of those luggage wire things because that that's actually been useful to me knowing how much I weighed. I don't think I've ever needed to know that for for

any real reasons. But the thing that has a hook and you pull your luggage up with it and you can see how much the luggage way, so that it can be under fifty pounds, for traveling. I have one of those. I don't think I think it only goes to seventy pounds though, So it's not like Eric, lift me up on this so I can find out how much I want clip this to my belt loop. Some girls are listening to this, and they're going to be mad at you for saying for not having a scale.

I don't have a scale. I don't even know how much I weigh that that's empowering though? Is that that is empowering? Isn't that like what like hopefully you feel empowered to not have a scale. Yeah, until you go to the the doctor and they're like, but because it is so arbitrary, like someone could be me and be healthier than me, Like I just like a number on a scale. I don't know that I've ever like connected

with that. I would rather it has been a I I don't really use it, but I did um at the gym they had like this total body Like it's not just a scale you stand on, but you also like hold onto these things so it gives you a full body breakdown of where you're like where you have more muscle, where you have more fat. I have like an adequate amount of muscle. So I was like really pleased to be Yes, I got a good, good muscle definition. I found out that one of my arms has more

muscle than the other and it's dominant. No, you would think it usually is, but it's my left one because I carry Kai right for you know, three years, have carried him on and off with my left because I do things with my right hand. So I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm not going to text your right I can text, I can open a car door, I can open a house, or I can do all of these things. I can, you know, open something. I'm not going to carry him with my right side. And so

I found that and that was quite interesting. I really very much preferred that scan to like this scale, because what is it going to tell you. It's not going to tell you anything about what you actually need for your body, no or how heavy my left arm is. Well I got that figured out