Episode four thirty seven, Kick burnout to the current to make better spending decisions with Jess Massey.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are so excited to cover this topic that is a little peripheral to finances, but directly affects how we make financial decisions, and that's burnout. And even if you don't feel burnt out or don't think you're burnt out, you're going to want to have this episode in your back pocket because it's inevitable. In the way we function as humans in a Western everything seems to lead to burnout. Before we change things.
I think we will automatically start to hear some very apparent overlap and congruence between the way that we talk about finances to the way that Jess talks about burnout and fatigue. And we know we love to talk about how we are whole people, so we hope that this just helps to deeper embed some of the principles that we think will be helpful for longevity in making just better decisions and of course spending decisions.
But first, this episode is brought to you by the go HQ Summit, the Get Organized Headquarters Virtual Summit. If you feel like maybe you're on the edge of burnout, this is probably the best thing that could come up for you right now. It is a free virtual summit September ninth through fourteenth, so it's coming up and it is literally like Netflix for organizing for one week. There are over one hundred speakers, including us. We are one
of the speakers. But it's really anything that you could think about organizing, so obviously organizing your finances, your home, clutter planning, meal planning, your wardrobe, paper piles, cleaning, which that's actually the track that I am going to be doing because I feel like I'm in a rut with my cleaning and I think we might need another cleaning episode.
Digital life, self care, like there are it's everything where you feel like I if I am in a place where I feel like I'm I guess maybe not getting enough or not focusing on this one area, there's that area is going to be in this summit. So this September ninth through fourteenth can kind of feel like reset,
and again it's completely free. If you can't make it on the ninth through the fourteenth, or you miss a session that you really wanted, you can get an all access pass that's on sale right now, but go to Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash g o HQ get your free ticket. There is going to be so much good stuff. There's a Facebook group where you can interact with speakers and some of our favorite favorite people are gonna be there. Don Madson, who we just I don't
know if that episode's aired yet. My yes, it has Don Madsen, cass Arson from Clutterbog like just some of our favorite favorite people. So Frugal friendspodcast dot com, slash go HQ and we will see you there. Hey yay, all right, so Burnout, we wanted to bring on our friend Jess Massey. She's the host of the Hustle Saneley podcast and as people who don't love hustle culture, we really love how Chess's definition of hustle and like hustlingsanely.
She's she's a productivity coach that doesn't translate productivity to getting more done, but really focusing on what matters most and getting those things done, and so we just love how she coaches women to prioritize mental health and relationships to live peacefully productive lives. And if you've listened to Frugal Friends, you know that that's kind of like our whole thing. We prioritize mental health and relationships so that our financial lives can feel full.
Sounds like the radical middle, I mean.
Does gosh. I loved this interview so much, and I know you will too, so let's get into it. Jess, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We're so excited to have you you to talk about burnout, which is such an important topic. It seems random or maybe peripheral at best to have on a personal finance show, but really excited for how you're going to tie it in. And I think everyone's going to find it very useful and refreshing.
I am so excited to be here. I thank you guys for having me on. And I do think that people are going to find it refreshing because I think that my take on burnout it's a little bit different than.
What you'll see if you like google like what is burnout? Or you know what I mean. So I'm excited to dig into it.
Yay, thanks for coming on. We know that we are whole people.
We talk about this a lot on the podcast, and so how we are feeling emotionally, relationally, physically is going to impact the financial decisions we make. So I think it's very relevant that you're here talking about this. But to kick us off, let's lay the foundation. Can you talk to us about how you would define burnout and how we might recognize this and ourselves. Where are the sign symptoms? What do we need to know about it?
Yeah? Absolutely so.
To me, when I think of burnout, I think a lot of people. When you hear burnout, your mind goes to your to do list, right you think like, oh my gosh, I have too much to do. When I
think of burnout, I think more along the lines. It's an overarching feeling of being spread too thin, or like you're running on fumes, right, Like, no matter what you do, you just feel behind every day, Like you start the day you open your eyes, when your alarm goes off, or when your kid is screaming in your ear, or however you wake up in the morning and you're just like, I'm already overwhelmed. Like, I'm already like running on e
and I just woke up from sleeping. To me, burnout, it's at its core, it's essentially a disconnect between your values and your priorities and how you're spending your time and energy, in other words, what's important to you. It's getting the crumbs of you, And I feel like that is just such a monumental mindset shift when it comes to burnout, more so focusing on the things that matter to you, not getting your best attention, rather than kind of being overwhelmed by your to do list and thinking
that that is the cause of burnout. So that's kind of how I view burnout. And I feel like when you have a mindset shift and you kind of view it in that way, it helps you tackle burnout in a way that actually gets to the root of the burnout and not just band aid fixes.
If that makes sense. Does that make sense you guys tracking with me with that?
Yeah, oh yeah, I'm already seeing the parallels with money.
I'm already tired when I wake up, I am tired.
Yeah.
Yeah, You're like, I'm there, I'm that person. And then you ask for some signs and symptoms. Obviously there are men, it's going to look different in every single person, And honestly, I think it's going to look different in every single
person's different seasons of life. So like the way that I've been burnt out as an entrepreneur looks very different than the way that I was burnt out when I was a new mom, Right, So I think it's important to keep in mind that you're not going to check all these boxes.
Hopefully not.
I don't know, maybe somebody is super burnout and they're just like, yeah, that's me, all of them. But just keep in mind that as your seasons change, like it's going to ebb and flow. But I when I think of the signs and symptoms for burnout, I kind of break it up into three categories emotional, physical, and behavioral. And so emotionally, you're going to feel probably overwhelmed, unmotivated, drained, kind of cynical, like negative toward most, if not all things.
You're going to feel incapable, and you're a big, big, big one that I hear from a lot of people that I work with is feeling detached from your sense of purpose, so kind of like you're just going through the motions. You feel like you're not really like feet on the ground living your life, if that makes sense. And I feel like when you are kind of in that place of burnout, most of your thoughts are based
in self doubt, defeat, and failure. So kind of paying attention to that internal dialogue seeing what it sounds like. And then, at least for me, things that I've experienced that I've burnt out, mood swings and irritability also tend to tie into that emotional piece. And then for physical like I said, this is going to look different for literally everyone, but some common ones just feeling exhausted and tired most of the time, no matter how much sleep
or how much rest you're getting. And then another big one is insomnia, so like waking up in the middle of the night or even just having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep in general, just like your sleep patterns, I feel like are very tied back to burnout. And then as far as behavioral signs, this one hits home for me, and I feel like it might hit home
for a lot of other people listening too. You want to withdraw from things that you normally enjoy doing, so things that normally you're looking forward to you're just kind of like, hmm, I'm good. So you're wanting to isolate yourself, you might find yourself procrastinating or taking a lot longer to do things than they normally take you, like you kind of have to hype yourself up to do the day to day things that normally are just like oh, like, this isn't a big deal.
They's just what I do.
So I feel like those are kind of the main red flags that I'm looking for when I'm trying to figure out if I'm in a state of burnout or if someone that I'm working with is in a state of burnout.
This is a super helpful summary and already feels like vulnerability round. This is just vulnerability episode. I have definitely experienced burnout myself. I've also counseled people through burnout, and I particularly appreciate your unique perspective. I think you are right that you've got some individualized perspectives on burnout apart from what we might read on the internet. The one thing that stands out specifically to me is kind of
what you said in the beginning of this detachedness. That's a word of our values really and where our energy is going, and I think that even that perspective helps us to understand how we find ourselves in a place of burnout. But I'm curious how you came to that very profound, foundational understanding of burnout, that it's this disconnection between where we're putting the best of ourselves and what our highest values are.
Yeah, I think the true answer is personal experience. As someone who I call myself jokingly but not really jokingly, a recovering workaholic and a recovering overachiever. I'm thirty four and I would say that I was kind of in that air quotes hustle culture grind until I was like twenty eight. So I'm still fairly new getting out of
it because I was in it for so long. And I feel like even when I was kind of on the other side of living that kind of hustle culture lifestyle of just go, go go all the time, do do do, and I wasn't really focused on being I would find myself even if all of the stars were aligned. If you will, like my to do list, I was getting everything done. I felt super great about, you know, how my calendar was organized. I didn't feel like I
was spreading myself too thin. I would still sometimes wake up and just have that kind of you know, feel like that almost like a weight on my chest, like it felt like a physical weight, and I was just like, man, even though I'm getting all of my stuff done, I don't feel like I have too much to do necessarily, I still am just feeling that sense of detachment and I just don't feel like I'm giving my best time and energy to the things that matter most to me.
And so, after that cycle happening in my own life multiple times, with the help of my therapist, we kind of talked about it, and I was just like, Hey, these are the things that I'm feeling what is going on, because it didn't even cross my mind that it was burnout.
And she was like, oh, well, I can't tell you if you're burnt out, but I can tell you that the things that you're kind of listing off to me, like not being able to sleep at night, kind of feeling like I am just detached and going through the motions of everything. She's like, it kind of sounds like you could be experiencing burnout.
And I was shocked.
Because I was like, wait a second, Like I've worked so hard to get like my calendar organized, to get my to do list manageable.
What do you mean I'm burnt out? Like that's not possible.
And so that conversation with her kind of caused me to like do she would always give me like therapy homework, and so I went home and I just kind of journaled about, you know, what I consider burnout to be, and it kind of like opened that part of my mind to that I was like, wait a second, what if I've been viewing burnout kind of surface level all this time, like thinking it's a problem with my calendar, when really it's a problem with how I'm spending my time,
how I'm not showing up for what matters most to me. So it was just a repeated unhealthy cycle in my own life over and over and over, is essentially what kind of brought that to life for me.
Wow.
Yeah, And those those three categories of signs and symptoms that you listed off, like immediately I was connecting each with how they impact our financial decisions and what we are spending financially. Can you just go through those three categories again and maybe give some examples of how they connect to some financial decisions that could not be in our best interest.
Yeah, definitely.
I feel like emotional is the easiest one for me, maybe because it's the one that I relate to the most. We've all heard of emotional spending, right, I feel like, in my experience, burnout can lead to emotional spending because again, when you feel burned out, it can lead to like you losing interest in things that once made you happy
or that you felt connected to. So if you're in that place, you might find yourself impulse buying things to try and feel that sense of happiness that you're missing or kind of like fill in that gap if you will. So I feel like that's a big one.
And then I.
Feel like, honestly, I almost think that emotional spending can go into like the behavioral category as well, kind of bleeds over into both and behavioral behavioral. I feel like too, when it comes to spending, it might look something like you're the way that you're showing up for your life. So like, for example, when I was living in a state of burnout, I feel like I was doing a lot, way too many coffee runs. And I feel like, as y'all know, I'm sure you've heard, like it really adds
up especially. I will never forget sitting down with my husband before I had quote my big girl job, and we were kind of looking over our budget, just saying like where our money was going, and when we tallied up, you guys, I'm like getting flashbacks how much money we spent at a coffee shop in one month, I was like on the floor. And to me, that kind of goes back like I felt like, Okay, well I'm tired, I'm burnt out, so I guess I need more coffee.
And so I was kind of using that as a quick fix, and that obviously impacted our budget and how I was spending my money again, just trying to do like band aid fixes to overcome the burnout instead of getting to the root of where the burnout was coming from.
And as far as physical.
I don't know if this would be considered impulse buying or not, but I feel like if I'm having an issue, so for me, when I was kind of in that really really hardcore state of burnout, I was waking up every single night between like two to four am, and I just remember the next day being so tired, going to spend my money on my coffee at the coffee shop okay, And then I would come home and I would google, like, Okay, I'm waking up in the middle of the night, and I was looking for things that
I could purchase, whether it was supplements or you know, whatever that I could take to make my evening routine better, to make me get better sleep again, a band aid fix, so that physical piece, like having the issue with my sleep, I feel like I was looking for some kind of quick fix that would make it go away. And obviously that supplements are not They are an investment, right.
Like, They're not something that are super cheap.
So I feel like that also kind of affected our budget and how I was spending as well.
I'm seeing so many parallels here between what you're describing of how we can find ourselves in a place of burnout. I don't want to attach shame to this. I think we all will find ourselves in seasons of burnout, sometimes not because of all of our full decisions, but whatever is within our control. That there are times where we will spend our emotional, relational, behavioral energies on things that
don't actually meet the need meet our values. And it's so similar to what we describe and how there are many times we will spend our money as a resource on the things that we don't actually truly value as a means of trying to meet a need, and it falls short and we end up experiencing non beneficial consequences financially. And as you're describing, when we spend other resources not aimed correctly, it ends up and ends us up in non beneficial places. So there's so much here that we
can glean from really understanding ourselves. I also want to ask you, though, Jess, about how we can then right ourselves, Like if we're seeing, yeah, nearly everything that she listed off, I'm experiencing and I don't like what it's doing for my finances, and I want to aim at what's going to be most beneficial and my needs and values. What are some of the daily habits or practices that you've seen help people, whether they're in a state of burnout
or to prevent burnout. What do you recommend I.
Think before you can get into daily practices, I think you kind of have to zoom out a little bit. We've been talking about how a lot of these things that were kind of leaning into our band aid fixes, we're not really getting to the root of why we're burnt out.
Or how we got there.
We're just trying to get out of it and fix it, right, But we don't get burnt out overnight, right, Like, it takes weeks, months, years of repeatedly spreading yourself too thin and living out of alignment of what matters most to you to hit that burnout. So that means that you're gonna have to break out of that burnout cycle and
it's not going to happen overnight, right. So I created what it's a framework that we use in the Hustle Sanely community called the Five Keys to Hustling Sanely, and I created it with the intention of helping people kind of like get away from that feeling of feeling spread too thin and kind of step into living what we call a peacefully productive life.
So it's like this wellness based.
Approach to productivity that enables you to design your days with intention no matter what season of life you're in. So even if you're burnt out out, you're able to kind of go within and reflect on these keys and how they're playing out in your life, like where you're at now and where you want to go?
And I will be very upfront.
I tell all of my students this, I tell all of my one on one clients this, I don't know of a quick fix for burnout and so everybody, and I feel like that's kind of like what people are looking for, those band aid fixes. I just I don't think there is one of those. But this framework, it's going to help you design your life in a way that aligns with what's important to you. And like I said, a lot of these things, they're more of like a zoom out, like bigger picture type of thing, not really.
Day to day.
I do have some day to day habits that I would totally recommend, but I think it's important to first start with that zoom out and just kind of see, like, Okay, where are we and how did we get here, and where do we want to go? Because you don't want to just do habits like daily, weekly habits just for funsies, right Like. You want them to be purposeful. You want them to get you closer to the direction you want
to be heading. And so the five keys to hustling sanely, I'll list them off really quickly, just so you can kind of have an idea of what I'm talking about when I'm saying to zoom out and kind of view these things. So Key one is get your mindset right. Key two is get clear on your vision. Key three is define your priorities. Key four is create your routines and schedule. And then key five is implement hustle sanely
five every day. And Hustle sanely five we call it HS five in the Hustle Stanley community.
It's basically a.
List of five curated daily habits to help you make progress on your goals while prioritizing your well being and the important relationships in your life. And my recommendation is to revisit these keys at least once a quarter just to kind of touch base with yourself, to check in and make sure that how you're spending your time and energy lines up with what's important to you in each
season of your life. And that last part is so important in each season of your life because I think sometimes we life life is always lifing right, like things are going on, things are busy, We've all got a lot on our plates, and I feel like it's so we want things that we can set it and forget it. But that's just not the case when it comes to productivity and kind of pursuing your goals, whether those are your financial goals or you know, health goals, any of it.
Right Like, we have to make adjustments to our goals and how we're pursuing them based on what's going on in our lives. So, for example, I have a daughter who is around a year and a half, and the way that I pursue my goals now looks vastly different than how I pursue them before I was a mom, because I am sharing the bulk of my time with another human, right Like, of course that's going to change
the way that I show up for my goals. And I think a lot of us get stuck in this mindset of wanting to hold ourselves to the same standard that we've always abided by when it doesn't make sense anymore for what's going on in our lives at this time. So that's kind of my first piece is to kind of before you can get into those nitty gritty daily habits or practices, to kind of make sure that you're preventing that burnout, you have to zoom out and get the big picture. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it's so funny. We're so human that we jump first to what are the things I can add to my life and my schedule and my priorities right to fix this burnout. We have this like additive bias instead of this, Okay, maybe let's zoom out first. Let's maybe see what we can take away. Because I experienced the same thing when I had my son like five years ago. I thought I was capable and expected to go back to pursuing my goals and my career in the same
way I had been before. I thought I could take six weeks off and then I was expected to go right back, and it just never happened.
But now I can relate to that.
Yeah, five years and another child later, and we've just gotten further and further from that reality. So I would I would really like to maybe explore a little bit more that first half then, like the first three parts, like how do we maybe like what is something that you tell your students or clients, Like how do we then zoom out, like what's what's the first thing or couple things we should do?
Then?
Yeah, so I think the first thing, key one, get your mindset right to me, this is kind of sorting your thoughts.
So you don't get lost in them.
I don't know if there are any other fellow anxiety people listening. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder gosh. I think back in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two, a couple of years ago at this point, and I thought that it was so normal to just be a jumbled mess up in my brain all the time, Like I didn't know that it was possible to kind of
unjumble my thoughts. And so through therapy and you know, working with my therapist, I learned that journaling is a huge tool to help me cope with my anxious thoughts and to just kind of untangle them. I'm a very hands on person. I'm a very visual learner, visual processor everything, and I need to see stuff in front of me in order for it to make sense and to not feel big and scary. And so that's always what I tell people to start with, is whatever that looks like
for you, get your mindset right. So for me, it looks like just jotting down anything that I'm feeling about my life, including your financial situations right and pinpoint any limiting beliefs and.
Work through those.
I use a method that I coined called the Pie's Method to help me like kind of combat through these kinds of thoughts, because it can be kind of hard, right if you're like jotting out all of your thoughts on paper and your talk is like negative for the most part, You're just like okay, cool, Like I have all these negative bats on paper, but like, now what
do I do with them? So I came up with pise method, and it stands for the P stands for pause, the I stands for identify, the E stands for evidence, and then the S stands for solution. So I take a second to pause, like I like take a deep breath, and I'm like, okay, what is the thought that is going through my mind?
And that's the identify.
I'm like, okay, we have to get specific, like what am I saying to myself inside my mind? And so I would write down like the exact way that I am thinking the thought down on the piece of paper, and then I ask myself, I look for the evidence the E right, like what is the proof behind this statement? Like where's this coming from? What evidence do I have for this to be true? A lot of the time it's no evidence because a limiting belief typically isn't rooted
in any real evidence, and then S is solution. And for me, I am a big fan of affirmations. So I will then take that limiting belief that I came up with and I'll kind of counteract it with an affirming truth. And then I will write the affirming truth underneath of the limiting belief and kind of start to train my brain to swap out that limiting belief for the affirmation. So that's step one, is getting your mindset right.
And I know, I know, I know that it can seem a little bit I don't know, frivolous fluffy when people talk about mindset work.
I know me.
I'm an Enneagram three. I'm a doer. I'm just kind of like, all right, that's a waste of time, Like I don't have time for that. I have things to do, Like I don't have time to sit there and like journal and get real with my thoughts and do all this, that and the other. I will tell you, speaking from experience, it is what changed the game for me. It changed how I show up for myself. It changed how I show up for my husband, It changed how I show up for my friends, my family, my daughter, just all
of it. Learning how to take thoughts that are kind of just bogging me down and release them and create new thoughts in my mind.
It took practice.
I was not good at it at first, and I felt very silly at first, but I now that I've been doing it for gosh over five years, I feel like it has changed my entire life, like just how I operate as a human being. So I just challenge anyone who's listening, if you're like m that's just not for me, Like the mindset work, I'm just gonna skip onto the next thing. I would challenge you to just give it a go, because what do you have to lose, right, Like, you could try it and it might change your life
like it did mine. So I always say that that's step one, and then step two is it goes back to key too, which is again getting clear on your vision, so reflecting on your situation where you're at right now, and then casting vision, So where are you now and where do you want to be in three months, in
six months, in a year, in three years. There's really no in my opinion, right or wrong way to cast vision, because you might feel like you're just so overwhelmed right now that the thought of thinking five years in the future, you're just like, I don't have the capacity to do that, Like I can't do that. Maybe for you it looks like casting vision for the next seven days or the next twenty four hours, right, But I think it's so
important to again take a pause. There's so much power and pause when it comes to so many of these steps, just kind of taking a second, going within and being like, Okay, this is where I'm at right now in my life, this is where I want to go. And then you have to kind of bridge the gap between the two. And that's where step three comes in, defining your priorities, because that's really what our priorities are.
Right.
Like we talked about this earlier, we don't just want to be picking habits just to have habits so that we can be like, yay, go me like I have healthy habits. Like we want our habits to point back to the vision that we have for our life, the values that are important to us.
Right.
So the way that I do that define my priorities is I ask myself what is important to me in this season? What are my non negotiables? So I kind of I'm a very categorical I don't even know if that's a word, like a very list type a person. And so I ask myself, what are things that I can do daily, weekly, and monthly that can help me show up for my non negotiables.
So that's really helpful and can appreciate this needs to be individualized. We can't give an exact blueprint. There is the work that needs to be done so that you can experience the life that you want to experience. But also for those of us who do like some examples.
Once we've done some of that work, can you give us just a few examples from your own life the types of maybe simple routines that it has led you to, recognizing that it's individualized to you, but curious where might we find ourselves then in the types of habits or routines we might then choose for ourselves.
Yeah, so I'll give one that's related to finances, and then I'll give one that is more just like lifestyle relationship based. So for me doing this, I realized that I was what I did kind of like my vision exercises. I was like, okay, I am spending this is before I had my daughter I realized I was spending so much time working. I'm in diogram three. I don't know if you guys are familiar with aniagram. I love working, Okay, work good it. Work, work makes me fulfilled. I'm like,
I enjoy what I do for a living. But I was doing so much of that that I was kind of neglecting the important relationships in my life, I e.
The one with my husband and my friends.
Because I was always just so wrapped up in what I was doing for work, and so I kind of took for granted the important relationships in my life. And doing this exercise and having a very heart to heart conversation with my husband was a wake up call for me.
I will never forgets it's the early days of hustle. Sanely, right when I first started it, we were sitting on the couch, and this was when he was still working in nine to five, so our evenings were supposed to be when we had quality time together, and so we were I think watching a movie or show or something, and I was like, oh, we're just sitting on the couch, I might as well get my laptop and just answer a few emails.
Just a few emails.
And I remember, you know, that turns into me being on my laptop for an hour. We're just kind of sitting next to each other like little robots, not actually connected or like laughing at the show or chatting about it together. Because I'm answering a few emails, I shut my laptop and he said, hey, I am getting the crumbs of you at the end of the day, Like that's how I feel. And that was a huge wakeup
call to me. And that is actually the catalyst of what caused me to design the five Keys to Hustling sanely. So I started doing these vision exercises and I was like, Okay, I'm spending way too much time on my work and not enough time in my relationships. And so that caused
me to create habits. Like now it looks different now that we are parents, but back then, we would make sure to have an intentional date night planned once a week where we would leave the house, even if it was just to go on a walk, right, Like, I'm not saying you have to go to a five star restaurant, spend a two hundred dollars or something on a meal, but just connecting with the intention of connecting with no distractions. So that's a lifestyle one and then a financial one.
When I became an entrepreneur, money stressed me out, I think because I just felt so everything felt very elusive to me.
I was just like, how do I pay taxes? What do I like? I don't even know what's going on here.
And so instead of living in that fear because that's probably the first year of my business, that's how I just lived in fear when it came to my finances, and I kind of was like head in the sand. I'm not proud to say that, but it is the truth. Like I was kind of like, oh, it'll figure itself out eventually, Like I don't know, I don't know what to do. And so I remember again doing these vision exercises and I was just like, Okay, this is causing a lot of stress in my life, just feeling ill
equipped when it comes to my business finances. So that caused me to partner with an accountant. I hired an accountant to help me kind of get the knowledge that I needed in order to make wise decisions financially for my business and for my life right because the two were very tight together. And so ever since hiring him. I now every single week. I usually do it on Mondays.
I will sit down and I'll have a weekly money meeting, and it's just a time that is set aside for me to kind of make sure that I know, like what is going on in my business financially, so that I'm not just like throwing caution to the wind and kind of like crossing my fingers hoping for the best. It helped me to really take ownership of my business finances and my finances in general.
So so helpful. Thanks for giving those examples. And you know what else is helpful, Yeah.
We do every week.
That really does help us avoid burnout in this show.
And everyone can take part in.
The Bill of the week.
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've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Dust bills, but flow bills.
Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the.
Week, Jess too. Okay, we're going to know.
We yell at you. That's what we yell at you every week. We yell at our listeners and our guests and ask them to share with us one simple thing, their bill of the week, and we're excited to hear yours.
Yes, so mine is an actual like a like a bill that you get that you have to pay on. Okay, we when my husband and I found out that we were going to have a baby, we had to give up his office.
It became the baby's room, and so.
We built a shed in our backyard. It has air conditioning, it's part gym, part his office. It's beautiful, aesthetic, amazing, so grateful to have it.
And we paid it off last week.
Actually, we got the final bill and we were like, oh my gosh, we are done paying on this that we've been We've been paying on it for I would say it a little over a year. So that felt like a huge, huge win for us.
What.
I was happy to get that bill because it's the last one we're getting for that.
Yes, a heat shed, if you will.
If you will, that's amazing.
I love that. I love the creativity too.
Instead of maybe going out and spending a monthly amount on a coworking space or something, it's more of an investment in your own property and something that is multi use. That's a beautiful way of thinking critically and problem solving, getting creative with how you can use your property and still make it work and not also not feel like you need to just buy a new house.
That's what I was going to say, because that was my initial reaction. I was like, Oh my gosh, we're having a baby. Do we need a new house? And then I was like, Okay, let's reel it in for a second. I think a little bit deeper about this.
Ninety nine percent of the time, you don't need a bigger house. You don't need a new house of the time.
Look at us with our additive solutions to the point when you could just problem solve your own space. If you all are listening and you have a bill that you want to share about something that you paid off, something you don't mind paying or your name is Bill, we still haven't heard from you yet, Bill, Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill.
Leave us your bill, and now it's time for day Round.
All right, this is our Vulnerability Round, Jess and Ray, I'm ready. We're all going to answer this question. What's your favorite way to invest in the most important part of your life.
Oh, that's a good question. That is a good question.
Okay, it was a curve ball based on this conversation. I'm like, ooh, this, we've already heard kind of your daily habit. That's what you're doing. It's like, all right, if we want to aim at the giving our energy to the best parts, how do we do that?
Yeah, Jill changed this question while during the interview, and so I have to erase the answer.
I had to quick fish.
And since you're our honored guests, Jess, go ahead and go first.
Okay, great, amazing. I would love to start us off.
Okay, So one of the biggest values for me in my life right now is showing up and being a present mom. Like I said, my daughter's a year and a half. So I still consider myself a new mom. I don't know when that title technically goes away, but I'm clinging to it, okay, because I still feel like this is new to me. And when I decided to become a mom and we did the thing, how the baby, all the things, I decided that I wanted to do three day work weeks, and before that I was doing
five day work weeks. And let me tell you, it has been such a challenge to tailor my work into three days, and there are three six hour workdays, so not even like full eight hour workdays. So running my entire company in less than twenty hours a week, it's been really really hard, but it's been so incredibly worth it, so that I'm able to be more present with my daughter before she's school age and you know, goes off
to school. So one thing that we do, I don't work on Mondays, and we I'm a big fan of having themes for each of the days of the week, and so Mondays is kind of like our family day. My husband does not work on Mondays either, and so we love being able to just do a family activity on Mondays and not even think twice about that we're spending money on it, so whether it is going. This past Monday, we went to I don't know if you guys have these where you live, bar Taco, just like yeah, y,
so good, so good. So on Monday, we packed up, we all got ready and we drove to Bartaco. We sat down, we had dinner, we had tacos, Margarita's chips and salsa, and then we walked every over to get some ice cream and we just we don't feel guilty or bad or any of that for spending money on a family activity every single Monday, because it is such a value to us. There's just something about like connecting intentionally once a week as a family, like having a
planned activity that you do. And sometimes it's us getting in our little blow up pool in the backyard. Okay, like we're not going out to tacos and margaritas every Monday, but that's just something that we look forward to every single week, is connecting and spending quality time as a family, and we love investing in that financially.
It's a beautiful example. I mean, you've got a lot of examples wrapped up into the one, but yeah, just the effort towards a three day work week. It is one of the things that we talk about in our book as well and on this podcast, just about sometimes it's not getting the better job, the next higher paying bracket, but sometimes it's about decreasing and what can we shift in our lifestyles to afford more of what we love, and sometimes that's time with the people that we most value.
So it's a beautiful thing that you've been able to identify how to do that and what it's affording you and how you're benefiting from it. That's lovely, I would say for myself, I'm gonna go with relationships. Of course, we all value relationships with friends and family. I think sharing a meal with people is one of the best ways that I feel I connect and people can get
the best of me. I'm going to show up for that food, and if it's tasty, even better, you're gonna You're gonna see me come alive and be my most joyful best self. So whenever I can share a meal with friends, sometimes that means going out. Usually that means having them over to my house or going over to
a friend's house doing a pot luck. It doesn't always mean spending the most amount of money, but that's I think where I experience kind of the best of time, energy and attention is over a shared meal.
Okay, I'm gonna throw a curveball into this one because our listeners will not be surprised. Like we say all the time that most people's highest values are a some combination of family, friends, faith, and fulfilling work. And so family and friends have already been listed. So I'm gonna go with fulfilling work and say that I love paying for daycare and putting my child in kindergarten last week for the first time was torture but also great torture and that he just kicked and screamed every day.
For eight days.
Yeah eight yeah, first eight days of school. So but I truly love what we talk about on this show, and I think writing the book has just given me like writing was my first love, and so being able to finally put together the topic I'm so passionate about and the medium that I am not most passionate about but first passionate about, has given what we do like an extra like depth for me. And I feel every day that the work, like if when I'm gone, the work we've done will live on and it has already
positively impacted the world for many people. Yeah, for me, that is a legal level of self actualization and self esteem that like, I cannot buy that.
So that's lovely. I love that. Jess.
Thank you so much for being here with us and sharing your amazing insight on this topic. If people want more from you, where can they find that?
Thank you guys again so much for having me on. This was such a life given conversation for me, and I hope it was for y'all and your listeners too. Everything that I do on the internet lives at Jessicamassey dot com. Like every single thing that you could imagine that I do online is there. And then I would say on a day to day basis, I spend most of my time on Instagram, and my handle there is at Jess Mnassy's.
Excellent thank giver a follow Thanks Jess.
I loved how synergistic this interview felt like. It just felt like kindred souls. One who talks about productivity, two who talk about how to spend money, but just complete synergy and realizing that burnout doesn't necessarily look like rock bottom, like you don't have to get to rock bottom to treat your burnout and you can actually avoid it by focusing on the right things is so refreshing, and I hope it helps a lot of people make better spending decisions because of what they heard today.
I've heard so much on burnout.
I've read books on burnout, I've counseled people about burnout, and it's always really nice to hear a little bit of a fresh perspective on it. New ways of describing things, new ways of identifying how we find ourselves in a place of burnout. Like you said before we started our interview, you, Jen, it's inevitable that we'll find ourselves here, but that doesn't mean that we have to stay in that place or resign ourselves to Well, this is just going to be life.
I'm just going to burn myself out, I'm going to try and pick myself back up. I'm going to get burned out again. Like, there are things that we can do to care for ourselves better to create more longevity, and the ways in which we can improve mentally, emotionally, relationally, socially will only help us more and more with the
financial decisions that we make. And so it's always so encouraging to me to realize if I make a good decision for one part of my personhood, it's a good decision for the whole of me, and really cool to kind of track the ways in which those things blend together and create such synergy and congruent. So it's fun to find like minded people even in completely separate spaces.
And Yeah, I'm just so so thrilled that Jess was here with us today, and I'm so thrilled that all of you were here with us today listening in and for those of you who have left us really kind reviews like this one from Cynthia.
Who happens to be the winner of our one thousand review giveaway.
Woo woo.
Yes, thanks to you guys, we did reach one thousand reviews. You guys did that like you went above and beyond, you came through, you pulled in, you pulled up, and we did it and it was like a joyous day in our lives, mostly mine, but it was a joyous day.
It's fun to set a goal and for you all to be on board with helping us achieve that goal.
So thank you.
Cynthia's review said real life advice and easy to use tips. It happened to be five stars and says I've been a listener for a while and have enjoyed the information and easy to a life tips such as making a decision one time. So this podcast helped me to set up a low interest student loan repayment plan and so far help me pay off more than thirty six thousand dollars in a year with one that's amazing.
Yes, well, thank you and Cynthia and my girl Cynthia. Remember we said you could pick any one hundred dollars gift card, and my girl, Cynthia, chose Starbucks, and I said, thank you, yes, love, that is your And I hope you enjoy every latte that you get from us. Just I hope you think of us every time you sip your pumpkin spice latte. I hope it doesn't have to be pumpkin spice. It doesn't have to be for me in the season.
It is.
It is right now officially pumpkin Spice season.
Amazing. I'm just over here sipping out my water these days. But congratulations, Cynthia.
Yeah, thank you for listening. And please, please don't be afraid just because we've hit a thousand, don't be afraid to review. We would love to hear what you have to say. It helps potential new listeners know what our show is all about, what they're getting into, because if they're trying to, you know, buy cheap fast fashion, use coupons, and spend as little as possible, you know that, we know that. You know that's not what the show is about.
And so we want people to know what the show is about so they don't leave one star reviews because they're sad. But it's not about what they wanted it to be about, even though it's not their show.
So thanks everyone, See you next time.
Google Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni Jill.
I'm thinking, so we are due to unforeseen circumstances, we are recording this intro outro three or four days before this episode comes out. Oh yeah, this is possibly the closest we got besides the time we recorded an episode during a hurricane.
Do you remember that turnaround? I do think we've done a one day turnaround in the past, though it was it hurricane because of the hurricane, as we got.
Very close and we had to record a podcast episode during an active hurricane.
Yeah, yeah, we won't love that. We love to be a month and I loved but sometimes.
Normally we're a month in advance. Yeah, we stay at least four and a half weeks typically, But that's why because sometimes unforeseen circumstances lead us to recording an intro and an outro three days before publish. So yeah, we could if we could give current event information right now and it would still be current. Normally it's never current. We can't we can't talk about anything current.
We are like fresh produce right now.
Yeah, the thing is, I don't know what's going on right now.
Well, I can say that, as far as I see, there are no hurricanes headed our way right now.
The IMA said last night that there were two possible, but I think he's.
Too in Hawaii about to like hit in Hawaii at the moment. Okay, but like I can't want to marry me three so but maybe that could develop into something more. Who knows.
It can also, Pridget, I'm no Dennis Phillips, but I say, don't worry. Oh and get your tickets to the Go HQ Summit. Virgal Friends podcast dot com slash go HQ. We'll see you on September ninth.
Righte