Beating Down the Biggest Money Obstacles You Face #557

a guy. I think that's the term grappling. There's no there's no punching right, there's no strikes. But he said he was trying to get out of a hold and the guy he was grappling with swung his arm back at the same time that he quickly moved his head to try to evade, to try to escape or whatever, and he caught an elbow right above his eye. He said, its swelled up to the size of a tennis ball. But when I saw him, the swelling went down, but the blood had flown from his head to his eyeball.

So he looked very, very evil. He looked you look terrible. Yeah, so that that's probably that's gonna be at least my excuse why I'm avoiding jiu jitsu because I gotta keep his face looking pretty kind of keep that money money maker looking freshman. We're podcasters, so it's not necessarily my money maker. But but you know, I still don't want to get clocked in the face. That it doesn't sound like fun nor do I mean literally, that's the reason I work out is to avoid getting hurt, and so

to put myself in harm's way. It sounds like the opposite of what I personally want to do. Although there are others out there who I'm sure really enjoy makes martial arts. But that's what we're gonna be doing today. When it when it comes to your money, that there are different obstacles that just like pop out of nowhere oftentimes, and we want you to completely destroy these obstacles so that you can achieve your financial goals. And and it

makes me think of ways mad how waves will be. Like, hey, up in the future, there's this thing if you're gonna encounter in road, there's a police up there and half a mile, like moment is a little down it would be funny. Ways actually changed his voice like that. It's

like obstacle in road. Well, there's a there's a cop up there on the ride, you might want to slow down, Joel, stop in an idiot and but yeah, those obstacles up if you can have someone point them out to you, these are the kind of things that are probably gonna impact your personal finances. Negatively, look out for them, start thinking about how you would react if you were to encounter that. That's kind of what we're gonna do on

on today's episode. But Matt, quickly, before we get to that, I wanted to mention I. I talked about the upgrading to a new phone, and I had hoped on holding out longer, which, by the way, did did you ever get a case for your phone? Still? Okay, so you're still caseless? What you think about this? Right here? Oh that looks good. Finally, so I've had my phone for a year. Finally got a case nice and still nice and thin. Yeah, I got the screen protector on there.

Making better cases, thinner cases. These they used to be like these giant hunking You have to get the autter box and made your phone three times the size, right, which terrible. I mentioned that Google was going to hit me two and sixty two dollars before my old phone that i've for and I was like, that's pretty good, thanks Google. But they ended up paying me three for that phone. I sent it in and they said, actually, you underestimated the value. Will give you three hundred bucks.

The same with my wife phone, which also had just this even more even worse cracks than than mine. So you can thank the semiconductor shorteras for that one. Friends, it's like supply chain problems. I think it was pain

it is my game. I think it was less that they're paying for the actual value of the phone, and they're more just kind of trying to build customer loyalty because there's no way they're gonna be able to make their money back on that phone, Like no way at all, right, um, and so so really because everyone else was saying, we'll give you eighty bucks for it or ninety bucks, and

so that's definitely above the market value. But you know, Google got me to trade on my own one that was busted for one that's just you know, not busted, and that's a sweet deal, dude. Yeah, just to get more money than you're expecting. Just feels like, I don't know prayer emoji hands. I'm just like thankful, blest hashtag blest due. That's enough to almost make me consider switching switching over to a pixel, but not quite because I don't want to be the green text guy. I know. Yeah,

that's your role. Literally get a crap for that last night from a friend and he's like, I would text you back, but I'm like, dude, come on, I was thinking about liking it, but then I realized that I couldn't, and instead it was gonna not give it the thumbs up and instead would have typed that out. I'm not gonna do it. Well, you know me, I'm a dent extrovert. So if I realized that this phone is inhibiting my ability to make friends, I might have to make a

sorry we told you that. I like that. I would text you more. Yeah, but I get enough time with you already. But if it's inhibiting other friendships, maybe I'll make Yeah, we get enough of that face to face time. Well, let's mention the beer we're having on today's episode. This one is called Bibo. It's by Creature Comforts, one of our favorite Georgia Brewery's it's straight up pills nurse. We'll give our thoughts on this beer at the end of the episode, but let's move on, mat Let's get to

the topic at hand. We are talking about money, obstacles, how to beat them down, And I'm not sure if our gen Z listeners are going to get this reference. But when I was thinking about beat down, so thinking about American Gladiators, which was the o G American Ninja

Warrior right, thinking about them with the giant what is it? Yeah, Like that's that's the most beat down people would get is when they're just standing there on that pedalestal, just getting just hitting hammered, getting whacked in the head over and over again until they just fall off. Still, just a fantastic show if you go, if you go um back back and watch it. What was it? It It was

late eighties, early nineties something. Yeah, And so just the style, the look, kind of the field of the show is just kind of fun, fun nostalgia to partake in. But I could see some hipster breweries being like, all we do just play American Gladiators on TV. Like one of our favorite breweries always shows like these idyllic sheep, hurting scenes, throw whatever over In Europe, it's just their thing. For

whatever reason. They like their show show like the European Countryside, but there should be another brewery and all they do is just show American glad Well, if we ever start one, that's gonna be our amout. I would be all about

that well. And so when I was in college there, for some reason, one of the dining halls that's all they played was American Gladiator rerun at least when I went, like, that's what was on TV, and so I just remember that's that was where my affinity for American Gladiators started. But yeah, if you don't know the show, basically a couple fairly fit young folks. They would compete to win money.

They would uh. The only thing standing in their way though, was some incredibly ripped dudes and females who wanted to punish them physically. And so the Gladiators basically is what they were known as. They were always throwing obstacles in your way, slamming you down or to knock you up a pedestal, shooting stuff at you, literally tackling you. I mean,

whatever it took to prevent you from scoring points. And so yeah, real life, it's not really like American Gladiators, sadly, I guess in a lot of ways because it would be pretty cool. But but obstacles are reality in basically every arena of life. And that's just that's incredibly true when we're talking about the area of personal finance. And today we're gonna talk about, you know, those gladiators, like obstacles standing in your way that are trying to prevent

you from reaching your goals. We're gonna like put those on the horizon, tell you which ones might be coming, and and also talk about how to beat down those obstacles you can succeed with your money. Yeah, because chances are it hasn't been only smooth sailing, you know, on your route to paying off debts or investing for your for your future. Getting stuck and not being able to make progress as a problem that I think all of

us has have faced at times. Uh. And so yeah, we're gonna spend this episode running through some of the different obstacles that are attempting to derail you on your path to financial freedom, uh, and then specifically what to do about them. But Joel, you know, like going back to the American Gladiators, I think one of the best parts of the show were the gladiator's names, like like Elektra or like Laser. Those are a couple that that

stand out in my mind. But similarly, it is important to name and identify these financial obstacles as well, because you know, if they're lurking in the shadows without you even realizing that they're there, you're gonna get completely blindsided. And that is what we're trying to avoid today. Yeah, and I'm gonna guess Malibu was your favorite of the

Gladiator which I don't. I don't, which had like the really long hair California guy, but still like super Bike, you I do remember that they're all super they're all totally ripped. YEA. Well, it turns out that we all have varying degrees of control over the financial obstacles that we face. So maybe let's let's start Matt with some of the obstacles that are going to feel the most unexpected, the most out of our hands. And so one of

those things that we're feeling acutely right now is rising prices. Right, and no matter how much we complain, none of us are gonna be able to have an impact on something like the cost of eggs. So part of that is just general grocery inflationship and then part of its the Avian flu going around, and so now eggs are a lot more expensive than they were just twelve months ago, and so but it's still a very affordable way to get high mus a protein. To get that protein. Agree, Man,

we're talking a lot about physical films. It was tough to get. Like the other day, getting a dozen eggs for three bucks, I was like, man, this used to be a dollar fifty nine. And so it's it's tough to stomach that, but you're right when you think about it logically, it's like it's yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, but the reality of rapidly increasing costs basically everywhere return is something that none of us could have expected just a

couple of years ago. It's it's been forty years where we've had pretty stable inflation along the lines of two percent a year. It's kind of been like clockwork, and so we've we've we know that inflation is occurring, but most of us don't feel it in any meaningful way, and so we don't think about it. But you know, that this experience can actually be helpful, I would say, in making us realize that there are more possible unknowns than we had previously considered. I mean, the pandemic is

is just a perfect example of that, Matt. When we talk about obstacles that we have to overcome, some obstacles we can predict. Other obstacles we can't. They're unknown, and we still have to be prepared for unknown potential obstacles too. That's right. And the lesson from these obstacles, these things that are completely out of our control, is that being prepared, even for things that we can't fully imagine like that,

that is still an important thing to do. And specifically this means saving and spending our money so that we have some financial margin. This is going to be incredibly important. And so if you're spending every single dollar that you make and you're living paycheck to paycheck, then the financial impacts of something like inflation right of rising prices, it's going to have a much more severe impact on your life than someone who's only you know, spending like half

of their paycheck. If you're you're spending less than you make, then it shouldn't take long for you to have a degree of margin within your life, because man, if you are living on the edge, if you do not have any of that margin. Uh, as expenses continue to get more expensive, well, where does that put you? Right? Like that put you on the on this precipice of falling into this abyss where you might even be reliant on credit cards, right on debt in order for you to

just maintain the standard of living. It was maybe feasible for you to do that yesterday, but today, with prices being where they are, it's a lot more difficult. Yeah, man, I agree. I think margin is one of those important words in personal finance. You want to have more of it, even though you don't necessarily know the scenario that you're preparing for. Having more margin allows you to pivot in the moment, even when something unexpected, because it's the best practice. Yes,

I would say, yes, it is. And shifting from like the macro to the micro because inflation is this macro thing that affects all of us. Well, let's kind of talk a little more personal finances because you know, unexpected expenses that we experience in day to day life are obstacles that can mess us up in a big way. So this is not something that's affecting every single one

of us in a very similar way. This is what if the you you suddenly find that some of the pipes are leaking in your house, or that your crawl space is taking on water. You know, those are tough obstacles that cost real money to remedy. Man I was actually doing some research for an upcoming interview, and she was talking about some some housing issues she had had on whatever YouTube videos and how she it cost her some real money to to prevent some of those water

issues from from messing up her her investment property. And so basically like, if you turn a blind eye to these issues, you're gonna find yourself in a worse situation. Right, if you don't put in the French train, uh and you flood the basements, you find yourself in a worse situation tsking you even more money, or even something like car issues, right, even though you're you're probably not assuming that your transportation is gonna bite the dust tomorrow, being

prepared is still important. I had a Subaru back in the day. Suber is a great cars, but for some reason, my engine just crapped out on the freeway and it was one of those things where it was a really really expensive fix. I wasn't planning on that, Like, it wasn't something where I was like, cool, I think this could happen sometime in the next six months, but it was still something I was financially prepared for, even though it hurts, like the dickens to pay for that fix. Yeah.

Medical debt is another example of one of these you know, some of these stumbling blocks that people don't plan for. But it can be debilitating on multiple fronts, right Like, not only can medical expenses cost you a ton of money, but there's a chance that something has happened that might keep you from being able to work, which would keep you potentially from earning an income, right Like, it hits you on the way in and on the way out.

This is one of those problems that exists across our society that we need to find and a better way of addressing. But there are some ways of preventing possible medical issues. Specifically, there are personal physical steps that we can take, like not smoking, eating well, actually exercising from time to time. Maybe not the jiu jitsure though, yeah, which causes uh increased medical medical bils, but there are other ways to push back against medical debts that is

egregious as well. We talked about that in episode for nine with Marshall Allen. But aside from some of the I guess financial steps that you can take to keep medical debt from becoming this obstacle that's going to take you out, there are some of these smaller additional ones as well. And the reason we highlight medical debt because with it being the number one reason for personal bankruptcy,

it is something that you should be thinking about. Yeah, and we often don't think about those little steps that we can take ahead of time, but those are crucial, right, So if you want to avoid health problems, like just going for a walk around your neighborhood four or five days a week for twenty minutes is gonna be like this preventative health step that's going to have a positive tacon on your body and on your ability to withstand future hurdles that life throws at you from a physical stance.

But but so often we discount those things and we don't think of them as important even though they are. And you know, it makes me think about this, uh, this Mike Tyson quote Matt that I think I think this was something he said. He basically said, everybody has

a plan until they get punched in the mouth. So he's talking about his opponents typically who got rocked pretty hard because they're like, oh, this is all I'm gonna beat Mike, and then they get punched in the face one time and they're planning shifts dramatically, um typically into

survival mode. But so even though you don't know which setback you're gonna face, whether you're gonna face we're gonna face something on a macro level, or you're gonna face some sort of micro economic catastrophe in your life, planning head is so important, and building up that emergency fund is really what we're talking about here. It's gonna give you the ability to endure those setbacks without completely derailing your progress and crumbling your goals in the process, because

you've got cash to back you up. When those problems do arise, like and they're gonna happen for all of us, right, you can't prevent them from happening, but you can minimize their impact on your psyche and on your finances, and that is so important. So partly what we're talking about here is is having that base emergency fund set up. Matt, we you and I we've always given the number two thousand, four hundred and sixties seven dollars as being the base

amount to shoot for. If you don't have an emergency fund in place yet, or you have less than that, that's the number you want to hit because that's going to allow you to to overcome a lot of those financial obstacles that your mind the counter without going broke or without taking on debt, and then you know the next goal is to have somewhere between three and six

months of expenses saved up. Once you get to a place like that, those obstacles they feel a lot smaller, They don't feel like as big of a deal because in your bank account, you've got enough money to be able to handle that, and then you can work to replenish that you're not just immediately screwed when something unexpected occurs.

That's right, And I think it's good too that we started with margin, right, How how we talked about how that's the solution oftentimes, uh, and then we moved on to an emergency fund, because in order to create an emergency fund, you need to have margin within your life when you have some small amounts of margin like that will allow you to overcome something like inflation, that that

allows you to overcome small price increases. But what we're talking about with an emergency fund is the ability to overcome some of these larger hurdles, some of these bigger expenses that are going to crop up in our lives that do have the potential to to derail us. And so it's important, uh, not only to have margin, but then to beyond that, be working towards having, like you said, ultimately three to six months worth of living expenses in

the bank. But you we actually are going to get to several other obstacles that get in our way when it comes to handling our money. Well ways for us to beat down those obstacles, and in particular, we're gonna get to a couple that are within the realm of our social lives. And so we will get to those plus others right after this. Alright, let's keep let's keep going. Let's keep talking about money obstacles and and how our listeners can beat them down in order to continue making

financial progress. And some of these goes again with this violent rhetoric, punch it in the face. You know, like, uh, yeah, you have thinking of those of the pants, those of the clown things that I had when I was a kid, and you you could punch it and it would pop back up, and oh yeah, I love those things. I think about your money obstacles kind of like that. Well, And and some of our listeners, you know, they're gonna face We're

gonna face mac or we're gonna face micro challenges. We're gonna face like the our own particular set of obstacles. So it's not gonna be one size fits all necessarily, and we're gonna talk about internal and external obstacles which all have just kind of different impacts and they need different reactions from us. But but some of our listeners might be saying, you know what my obstacle is, I don't make enough money. And that's a real obstacle to that.

Some people face a lack of income, which is reality for a decent chunk of folks. And the reality is we're just talking about rising prices that you know, it's gotten harder to put it on the table and to pay rent, especially as both of those items in particular have become more expensive. Inflation is eating into the real wages of lots of people too, making it feel like

they're they're earning less than they used to. Even if their paycheck's got up a little, it's like, yeah, but it doesn't go as far on the things that I'm buying. And and even if that person are that listener recently got a raise. And it is true that making more money isn't going to solve all of your financial problems. But and there there are way too many folks living paycheck to paycheck who makes six figures, but finding ways

to make more would help a lot of people. And and that's that's an important solution to this personal finance opticle on this right. But that being said, it is easier said than done. Some folks who are employed and in a high demand field, like it could just entail negotiating effectively, you know, with your current employer, or maybe applying for jobs with other businesses in the industry that that are going to pay you a little bit more.

But for others, it's gonna mean maybe doing something that's gonna rec are a little more work, like starting a business, like a business on the side, or acquiring some some new skills in order to increase their earnings. And by the way, going to college paying lots and lots of money in order to acquire those skills is not necessary. Yeah, I mean it might be the best route for some folks, but it's it's not some sort of slam dunk. Oh if I go do this, it's gonna quickly mean I'm

gonna earn a lot more money. It's just not that simple exactly. Yeah, And so you know, we we say all this because like, not earning enough, it can be a significant hurdle, but there is definitely a way to lower maybe the height of that hurdle through some savvy personal action where you are focusing on maybe one of the largest obstacles within your personal financeance, which might be

uh an income that could be a bit bigger. Yeah, and mat another another obstacle that people face is spending too much money, and that just a lot of people just can't control their spending. They find it massively difficult, and the biggest culprits are often your largest recurring expenses. Maybe you bought a house and the monthly payment is

just outside to your comfort zone. Well, that means you're gonna be constantly stressed about where your other dollars are going because you've got this fixed payment and it's too much. And so now you're fretting about every single other purchase because you don't have enough discretion your income to pay for all the things that you that you want or need.

And lord, let's say you bought a nicer car than you really should have bought, but you spread those payments out over extra years, taking out that seven or eight year car loan that we hate. That is also going to impact your ability to reach other financial goals in your life. And so, yeah, one of our suggestions would be if you spend far less on the items that are most impactful to your budget, on the biggest line items, well, the great thing is you won't need to sweat the

small stuff and nearly as much. You're gonna be less stressed. You might not live in as awesome of an apartment or a house, or your car might be, you have a few more things and dents, but the reality is it's going to make you far less stressed out about all those other purchases you make in a month. And uh, there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah, well, even if your housing costs are lesson say five percent

of your monthly income. Like, folks can find themselves spending in more frivolous ways, right, which might mean maybe you've gotten too cozy with credit cards or you know with that, maybe you're using the buy now, pay later services because they make it easier to get more of the stuff you want quickly, where you don't even realize how that's impacting your long term personal finances. The Internet, online retailers, social media even have made it so easy for us

to become consumption machines. I swear every other post now on Instagram, like when you're flipping through your stories, that's where I feel like I've noticed it the most. Is an ad and they are showing me something that I could buy, something that is perfectly curated for something that I would like. The mat they know me well, they don't want They just want you to buy stuff. It's

gonna make you happy. And I'm like, well, let me just go and click through and see what they see what they've got going on, like what kind of sale do they have going on? And obviously that just feeds feeds the beast, feeds the beast. Yeah, it gives them even more information. They're like, oh, he liked that, may not have made a purchase. But now we've got our we've got our hooks even deeper. They will, they will jud it to you into sumission. I'm gonna yeah, hopefully

not have to tap out. But so okay. How do you deal with this obstacle though? And one way is by budgeting or if you don't like to be word, at the very least, it means tracking where your money is going. We would suggest using software like wine app. You need a budget is what that stands for. And you might hear us say that and think, wait a minute, doesn't wine app cost money? Yes, it does. It does

cost money. But if if it takes you spending like a small amount of money every single month in order to save a ton of money, well guess what the net result is going to be. It's gonna be you coming out ahead. Or maybe that's you might need to join a gym in order to get fit. Yes you might not. You don't need to, that's for sure, But if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. If that's what is going to cause you to actually work out.

By going with a friend to a gym, the cost bucks a month it's like cool, Yeah, it's it's worth the money if you're gonna be a whole lot healthier because of it, exactly. Or maybe you just need some guidance and something as simple as just searching for a budget within Google sheets or something that you can download a personal budget within Excel. Uh, that might be the

path for you to take. But bottom line, if you don't know where your money is going, then you know you're not going to be able to make progress with your money. Uh. And we're talking about kind of some of these steps that you can take to alleviate some of those frivolous spending, some of those small purchases every single month, but like you're talking about some of these big ticket items, right, like these recurring large expenses every single month. And it's worth pointing out that we're not

afraid to consider making some drastic cuts in our lives. Right. And so if you are in a house that's no longer bringing you value, maybe like maybe you've got this fancy place and it's not bringing you joy, it's not fulfilling you in the way that you thought. I mean, there's a lot of things to consider here, but I am not beyond you sailing that home. It's it would be a lot easier if you're renting and saying, okay, maybe the next place we rent will just be a

lot more affordable. Obviously much easier to to sell a vehicle than a home because there's so many costs associated with with selling a home. But I mentioned that because I think pretty much all expenses should be on the table when it comes to us achieving our financial goals. And if that home is no longer kind of helping you get in the direction you want to go, it might be time to scrap it and go and pivot

right into a different direction. Well, and that you mentioned budgeting, and you mentioned wine app and Google sheets, and you actually have maybe your budget public for how the money listeners, not not all of your details, but you you've you've basically your template. They can download it and we'll link to that in the show notes for this episode, and we will do that because I know a lot of people like it's helpful to have a place to get started, and I feel like your budget template is is you

can help a lot of people. Fair warning, I overthink everything and so it might be more detailed than a lot of folks out there might be needing you might want to take. For all the nerds out there, modify and simplify. Yeah, for all the nerds out there, you might be thinking, oh, this is exactly what I need. Yeah. Well, and let's talk about another obstacle to making good financial decisions,

and that can be your friends. That's right. Cut them all out of your life because they're ruining your ability to make financial progress. Friends are just too expensive, that's right. So Matt, this is uh where we break up the zory part ways my friends, Um, just kidding and and and that's certainly not true, right that that you need to lose most of your friends. But the reality is that people you spend the most time with, they're going to have an inordinate influence on who you're becoming, both

for good and for bad. And uh, what are the author Jim Rone? He says that you become the average of the five folks you spend the most time with. This right, or if you want to go even more old school, Matt, the Bible. The Bible puts in another way, bad company corrupts good character. And so you know, as best friends, you and I, we can attest to the reality that we we've both had significant impacts on each other.

I think mostly for good, I hope. Okay, I'm sure there's some negative parts of it, but again, what's the net results? Net results, mostly possible, way way way positive. Yeah, but the the other people that we choose to spend time with and do life with are majorly impactful to who we're becoming as well. The more thoughtful, intentional, and google our friends are, the more likely we're going to

take on those characteristics ourselves. So yeah, but the people that you spend the most time with, are they do they have the most characters? Are they? Are they the kind of people you want to become? I think those are good questions to ask, because I don't want to make it it sounds like it's all your friends fault and and they're ruining your finances. I don't think that's the case. But again, who you're surrounding yourself with is indicative of who you're going to become, and so that

is an important thing to be thinking about. That's right. Yeah, it actually makes me think of the fact that we mean, with us having moved recently, what that means is that we're getting to meet a lot of new folks were meeting new neighbors, making new friends, which is like positive, right, Um, However, it also means that we are meeting folks who may not necessarily share the same goals as us, right, and so in our old neighborhood, in our old life, and

certainly we interacted with folks who we don't necessarily see eye to eye with on everything. But it is really interesting meeting new folks and realizing based on what they're talking about, based on how does they spend their time, based on what they're spending their money on that Oh, I don't think we necessarily share the share the same

share the same goals. And again that doesn't mean that we can't be friends and we can't say hey, be friendly and all those types of things, but it does mean I think that there is a level of intentionality that comes with making these relationships. It's important to be aware of the influence that other people can can have on you. Uh, and you know, I think this is why my community, specifically, why that's such an important part

of the how the money philosophy. They always say that it takes a friend to make a friend, right, and so the impetus is going to be on us to find these folks and to get the ball rolling. And we've found specifically that that churches and schools there are

places that are ripe for cross cultural friendships. Um. Actually backing us up, there's a new study recently that was published in uh Nature that found that the key for folks who grew up with very little money that they were able to move up the income scale because of the friendships that they developed future incomes I think shut up by something for lower income kids who spent significant amounts of time with wealthier kids. And so, you know, like we're not saying that you should only hang out

with like elite wealthy folks. I'm not slinding into elon musty m right now. I'm not keen on like schmoozing and hanging out with like the private jet crowd. But your friends can be an obstacle to who you want to become. So this is a reminder that you can be intentional about who you are letting influence you without cutting friends you know who don't share the same goals

completely out of your life. Yeah, we definitely don't want to sound like a heartless jerk who's like eradicate those fools who you've been friends with since high school because they're they're holding you back from reaching your financial goals. Sounds like you share different goals now, yeah, and it's easy you could potentially use what we just said and make your friends into a scapegoat and say like sorry Billy or sorry Jenny, um, it's your fault while I'm

not making more progress of my money. And the reality is there's more onus on you than on your friends. But there's also a truth to the fact that that the people you you spend the most time around are going to influence you, oftentimes even in subtle ways. And so it's important to think about that not too completely get rid of important friendships that you've had for a long time just because they don't think about money the same way, but to be more intentional about the positive

side of that. The friendships you can develop, they're gonna push you in the right direction. And it also doesn't mean that you have to be completely pragmatic about all of your relationship right like like in particular, like the stage of life that we're in when we're meeting a lot of folks sometimes like we're gonna hang out with them just because we like them. And I think that's core to a friendship, right, Like there's something that you see and that other person, there's like a spark there,

there's other shared common interests. But if you were to go into every single relationship thinking is this person wealthier than me? Like, that's just a cold hearted, like hard nosed way to approach relationships that we are not recommending. And it's not just bigger house, more more income, more successful career like those are those are That's not what we're talking about. You know, we're talking about some more of those intangible things and and are your friends supporting

you in those ways? Are they influencing you in those ways to help you become the kind of person you want to be? Uh and Matt on that on that vein. I know social media takes a b but it's another obstacle, right, this stands always. You talked about how big tech and UH and big business is trying to get you to spend money on Instagram through all the ads that you're seeing. Well, it's true, right that there's there's a reality of that.

Uh TikTok is ratching up the comparison game just with as influencers are kind of taking over, and we're getting more and more of our content that way as opposed to traditional media. And uh. A new survey found by bank rate found that social media makes half of gen z ears feel bad about their finances. So people in their twenties, almost half of them walk around feeling like

crap because of social media. And it turns out it makes people feel bad more more than just about their finances, makes them feel bad about their appearance or the hobbies that they that they participate in, like disc golf not so cool on TikTok, I don't think you know. And so now there's there's there's definitely discolf influences golfers on Instagram because I get fed them like crushing these like massive drives, and I'm like, I don't even play discolf

that much, but maybe Instagram saying that I should. Well, I think in that way, Instagram would be right. But uh, but a lot of us are spending meaningful amounts of time on these sites, and what they're doing is they're dragging us down. They're making us feel bad. And it's not like this drill sergeant kind of feel bad where we end up taking immediate action right where we're like, dang it, you're right, I will drop down and give you fifty push ups. It usually induces more in action.

I would say, it's not this motivational kind of feel bad exactly. And there's a difference between those two, right, And we all know this right in our brains. We we've seen some of these studies. A lot of us watched the Social Dilemma back in the day on Netflix. But social media media, it's it's truly creating unrealistic expectations and so using it far less is going to put

some wind in your sales from an emotional and financial perspective. Yeah, so if you actually think about it, like it's literally in the name right, Like, so social media, you're being fed what your friends are doing. So that's the social side of things. Uh, And it's being force fed to you like you're watching the news. And so I think that's that has a large impact on how passive we are as we can ume this. We're just sitting there. It's being fed to us. We don't have to lift

literally without the hardly lift a finger. You just kind of like swipe it on your screen or whatever. But the reality is that much of what you see on social media is just fake, which you know this is no surprise to anybody out there, but like influences, what are you talking about, Like they literally do crap like running a seat like in a private jet just to take a selfie to to make you think that their

jet setting somewhere somewhere cool. And even if it's not fake, most of what you're ingesting is going to be unhealthy. We we you know, we talk about the hot of Money Facebook group a decent bit. We feel that it's this bashtion of goodness and the like this medium that's just fraught with peril. And so if you're gonna stay on these sites like like Facebook, we'd recommend that you take some steps to lessen their impact. The Joel you always talk about the news feed eradicator plug in, Um,

how that's a game changer. But the ability that we have to be able to skip some of the crappy aspects of social media like the news feed and go straight to specific groups where we are going to be intentional with our time, or the ability to go straight to the straight to marketplace because you're you're selling a bunch of stuff. That is what we want to encourage folks to do. Cal Newport talks about doing that in his book Digital Minimalism, where we set up these rules

and how it is that we interact with social media. Uh. He wants you to use social media like a professional, like you're going in with a purpose, You're gonna do the thing, and then you're gonna get out of there. It can be a powerful tool for our good for awesome things, for the sell yourself challenge, Like we're not luddites, we're not trying to get you to step away from all technology, but the technology is using you and that's

what we're trying. And you can also be like, but I gotta do this sell your stuff challenge and if I'm not on Facebook, then I can't help that, and then I'm not we need to do that, And then and then you could you could be like, well, yeah, so I need to stay on social media for that reason. But the reality is you're you're consuming more than you're even getting rid of, Like you're you're spending more, you're

wasting more money and time. Then you are saving it and you're using that as an excuse, and so we're okay with you being on social media. I think it's I think it's okay to be on there a little bit, but if you're letting it use you, that's the problem. And it's really really hard to use it the other way around, to use it profitably, to use it in

a way strategically. Yeah, it's really difficult to accomplish, but it's possible, and something like that a plug in like the Facebook news feed eradicator plug in can help you do that. Um. But the more ways that you can implement just time limits and what you're seeing on social media, it's going to be a positive impact and it's gonna prevent social media from being such a such a meaningful

obstacle to you gaining grounds with your money, a time suck. Yeah, Like, use this strategically, Like specifically, we've been using it more recently because we're meeting a lot of folks again, like I said, And the ability to make these connections on Facebook too then foster uh interactions in real life. Right. And that's something else that Kyle talks about in this book that's so huge, is embracing doing things for real

and you're not doing things on social media. We've talked about our how the money we don't we're not really on the social as a whole lot. We we have an Instagram feed and you're welcome to go join it, check it out, follow it, but we don't do much with it, and at times it's like, man, we could do better. We could be like massive personal finance influencers on the socials if we wanted to post in seven

just like here's me. Okay, here's the deal I got on the tooth baste, right, but it does not watch me brush my teeth. But it doesn't jive with how we want to live life and kind of with how we feel about social media and tough man, it's a it's a it's a balance that we're trying to strike there.

All right, Well, let's let's keep moving mat like we we've talked about a lot of external influences, but after the break, let's talk more about internal obstacles and how we're moving Removing some of those can have major ramifications on our ability to take positive action with our money. We'll get to that right after this. We are back from the break, and again we are talking about beating

down these biggest financial obstacles in our lives. And Joel, you alluded to this before the break, but let's talk about you that you Joel specifically, but all the listeners out there, and let's talk about me um. Let's talk about everyone out there as individual rules. Because it's easy. We think it's easy to point out, you know, all of these other reasons why it is that we're not as far along as we'd like to be with our finances.

And it's not that those things aren't true, you know, or that they haven't impacted us negatively, all the different things that pop up in our lives, but you might be tempted to continue down a path of playing the blame game when you're just pointing fingers, you know, the things that might seem out of your control, or you could like really take yourself out of the driver's seat and adopt more of a victim mentality when ultimately so much of your future is dependent on you taking responsibility

for our actions, seeing these obstacles and then doing something about them. We think that that is crucial, and that's why we're talking about this today. Yeah, you're right, Mad, I mean, it's it's it's not that some people aren't dealt a worse hand and that they don't have more to overcome, but the more you just point to the optacles in your path, the less likelyly you are to

overcome them. And it's not that it's easy, and it's not that some people don't have a more difficult path, but the onus is still on us in order to make progress. And so what are those internal obstacles we would say that we've all got to overcome at some point. Is not knowing our why, and that's going to continue

to produce negative results for you. If you if you don't know what we call the why behind your money, it's just gonna take you more time to accomplish the money goals that you've got because you're aimless achieve them at all. Yeah, exactly, And so yeah, not knowing what you want to accomplish is going to kneecap your efforts regularly, more likely to spend too much money, or you're going to just be and be aimless. Like I said in those short sighted money efforts, if you can't attach a

why behind those efforts. And yeah, because if you haven't really thought through what you want out of life and how handling your money more effectively is going to be able to get you there, you're gonna be apathetic about their your finances. You're just gonna go with the flow you're gonna do with the people around you are doing.

But the more you get in touch and I hope this doesn't sound too woo woo, I'm not trying to be some sort of Tony Robin style fella here, but with your own personal why when you kind of get in touch to that, when you figure that out, the more you're gonna be able to attach a larger significance to the trade offs that you're making now to It's gonna feel different to say no to something, to cut back your budget in significant ways in order to help

you achieve those bigger goals, which is gonna lead to positive results and actually following through. And we've actually got this money Mission Statement math that you and I that we've created together, and it's a free resource, just like your your budget template, like this is a free resource that we want all how the money listeners to have. And if you would just spend a half hour answering some of these questions, download this PDF and and print

it out. Think about it. Uh, it's going to have a massive impact on overcoming that obstacle from being aimless about what you want to do with your money and where you want to be years from now to kind of having a plan and knowing what you want from your life and knowing what you want from your personal finances to that's right. Yeah, we'll make sure to link to that in the show notes as well. But once you know what it is that you want, having a you know, a hy to anchor you, you still might

be missing the how. And of course that comes down to the crucial component of knowledge, because you can have the right desires while not having the proper information to accomplish them. And you know, while the basics of personal finance are simple spend less than you make, there's obviously a ton more to sustained success and being able to achieve even higher level goals. We spend our lifetimes learning, so nobody will ever reach the point where they know everything.

But we would recommend everyone out there to revisit our money gears because it should act as a helpful guide or or a roadmap regardless of how much money you make, regardless of how much money you have invested. That's episode three oh two, and we'll make sure to link to

that as well. Yeah, but if you know your why and you know your how, like you're gonna be a person on a mission, You're gonna be heading places like if you have figured out okay, cool, I I know I want to invest my money for the future, or I know I want to have more money at some point to gain financial independence. Once you're able to figure out some of the best levers to pull in order to get you there, it's going to make the journey

that much easier. And another obstacle, though, Matt, that people might face, right, another conundrum that comes up is not having enough discipline to get where they need to go. They might know there why, they might have some of that how, but then they're like, but I'm just kind of lazy, and I find it really difficult to actually follow through on on the things that I know and

on those internal desires. And so maybe you're all excited because you you do have the knowledge and you have a y, but you fizzle out because you lack some of the discipline to keep going. And I think you're not alone, right, because even the most strident among us we fall off the wagon from time to time. But the key to this, to overcoming this obstacle, is to

foster a longer term view of our finances. We've talked about grit on the show before, Matt and we we we actually called it the number one factor to winning with your money. And the reality is that grit is kind of like living life like it's a marathon and not a sprint, although so many of us actually think about it like the opposite, at least when it comes to how we're spending or using our money and displaying more.

Grit is is realizing that setbacks that they're bound to happen, um that obstacles are gonna pop up, right, But but pushing through those annoyances and inconveniences because we have our eyes fixed on a specific prize, right, the why that we have is important and so lacking discipline it's certainly, certainly an obstacle, but and it's one of those things it's not overcome quickly. It's overcome through repetition and a

little bit of mindset shift. Realizing that what you want to accomplish, that it's it's not gonna happen, it's not gonna occur overnight, right, And if there's a single factor that leads to a lack of grid, it's got to be shortsightedness, and so this this makes me think of investing. Oftentimes, folks are going to fail to invest because they haven't thought through the long term impacts that it's going to have. Right, like twenty bucks a month, it sounds like appendance, So

why even get started. But the reality is that because of the effects of compounding, even small amounts that you regularly set aside, it's gonna, you know, amount to something meaningful over time, like you said, Joel, But we can be to my opic. We can be too focused on tomorrow in order to continue the hard work of spending less than you make, of making sacrifices now because you're not you're not thinking about the future. All you're doing is thinking about now, and so you're not thinking about

what life could potentially look like oft in the future. Instead, you're pulling those dollars into the present from the future, and you're spending that money left and right. That's when we choose the different modern comforts that we convince ourselves that we need today in order to be happy. What makes me think about something that you know, we and you and I've talked about on the show before when

it comes to discipline, But also short sighting. This is implementing a rule that prevents you from buying stuff on a whim. Say, listen, I've got the seventy two hour rule and I'm gonna wait to buy that item. And I had to do this just the other day with my with my nine year old Matt, we were at Costco. She saw this like plushy, stuffy creature and she already has like so many stuffed animals it's not even funny.

But she also has her own money and it's okay for her to buy the stuff that she wants, as we talk about, right, But what we what we're able to convince of in our last visit to Costco, was that she's going to have this seventy two hour rule too. It's okay if you actually want this item, but do you want it three days from now? Right? And so she was like, oh, okay, all right, then I will wait for right now, although unhappily, and we'll see if

I still want this thing three days from now. And you know what, I have not heard a peepe from her. There are other things though, back to Costco since then, No we haven't, but there but if she brought it up we're like, we will take you back there and we'll take you to buy it. And there are other things that she has continued to talk about, like she's wanted to watch four weeks and weeks and weeks, and so we're like, you've wanted this for a while to

each other. Well, actually, happily for me, this was not one of those where they can message their friends. But it does do it like a little tracking and stuff like that, steps and all that, which I still can message you like while they're at with like the pre can responses. I don't think it's even got that. Okay, yeah, but um well at least tracking is good. Yeah, but

I I personally hate those kind of watches. But she really wanted one, and it was one of those things where it was like, cool, we waited more than seventy two hours. You really wanted it, and they want it, and it's your money, so you can buy it. But

even still, like, let's have the long view. Is this something that we're gonna want that we don't just want right now, but we were actually gonna want it days or weeks from now, and that will help us make better decisions that are more in our best long term interest as opposed to just buying the thing because it's in front of us, right, And of course that's harder to do with kids, but as adults it's hard to do as well, and we have to remind ourselves of

those long term, long long term goals. And you know, one of our favorite quotes comes from Frederick Nietzsche. He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. And you know, a lot of these internal and personal obstacles are really symptoms of an ultimate obstacle that that we already mentioned, knowing your why you know, or knowing your final end, as Thomas Aquanas calls it. But this is just so foundational for us to make any substantive and you know, like durable progress in our lives.

We can make some changes now, but if we don't have that why, we're not going to stick with it. You know, it's difficult to have a desire to learn more about personal finances when you don't even know why you're reading a book right, Like it's it's incredibly challenging to continue to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you're wondering why it that you should even get up. It's tempting uh to be shortsighted and choose ease and comfort when you don't have that long term vision of

what you went your life to look like. And so while figuring out your why, it's simultaneously the most amorphous and unclear task at the same time, I think it's likely the most important stuff that too many folks skip out on because it's so difficult to wrap our heads around it, because it requires us to sit in silence and think about like it causes us to ask some of these bigger questions in our lives. And it's just

not something that we've been trained to do. It's not something that we allow ourselves the space, uh nor the environment to allow ourselves to do that. Yeah, And and one one little thing you can do, I think to help you visualize maybe it's it's hard to sympathize with your older self. And and if you can take to get on the face app and literally take a picture and make yourself look thirty years older, there's something visceral

that you feel about that. Like Fidelity actually did a study and they found that people who did this and saw themselves uh thirty or forty years older near retirement age, sympathized with that older version of themselves and begin to

invest more of their money for the future. And so I think maybe that's a litteral, a little step that you can take that might have an impact on your ability to say, you know what, if you're more of a visual I'm not gonna forever and at some point one of these days I'm gonna be sixty five, seventy, and I I want to make sure that I'm thinking

about older me too. I'm being kind and generous to future Joel uh to future whatever your name is and uh so, Yeah, I think the face app is one of those like it's it's just like a little tangible thing you can do that might make a small difference. But really, Matt, Yeah, you're right. Knowing your why and going through the money mission statement that we have I think can be helpful and things. It's so important. Yeah,

it's heelpful too. When you do the face app picture, choose a picture where you're wearing like a cardigan, because it'll really like match up with the with the old look. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you want to make yourself look really well, maybe some spectacles, Yeah, don't wear the punk rock t shirt that you have on. It's gonna look weird. Uh yeah, all right, Well, we'll make sure the links to all of those resources in

our show notes. But let's get back to the beer that you and I enjoy During this episode, we both had a Bibo, which is a pilsner by Creature Comforts, and I'm gonna go ahead and read the They've got a few words here on the side of the can, and it says crisp and dry, classic noble. Do you agree with those? Those were all for the adjectives I was gonna use. You should work with the branding on Creature Company. I should know it. Really it really was crisp,

and it just really tasted in light. Yes, for sure, it tastes like your uncle's beer, but better like what what he was drinking, Like the High Life, but a much improved version of it that just has like a taste touch more spice, yeah, less metallic. Um, you know, like some of those beers have like a I don't just a metallic macro produced beers. Yeah, just not uh smo. But I like I love the taste of just kind of like beer, right, um. But it's just not often

that you have a good beer. Uh that that's just kind of in the classic style. Um, but a lot more breweries now are are making good pilsners, good loggers that taste kind of like that old school beer taste, but just like elevated, and this is definitely one of those, that's right. And if you just heard Joel say pilseners and loggers, if you're wondering what a pilsener is, a pilsner is a type of lagger. And so oftentimes pilseners have more hops added to the beer, and so oftentimes

that's what gives it that lift. Well, oftentimes it's the Noble hop, right. I think that's actually the name of the hop, which I was just because of like nobility, like you think of like this old school pilsener. I mean, there's so many hot varieties now, but that's one of the most classic ones that they in a bunch of those originally and stuff like that. Originally pilsener like it was, it was a logger that was made in a city like maybe Pilsen or something, is that right, Germany, Germany

or Belgium or something like that. Maybe it was in Chechoslakia, I don't know, but somewhere over there in Europe. What's where this beer was originally? This the style of beer was originally made, but it was a delicious, easy to drink beer, and I'm glad you and I got to enjoy one today on the show. And listeners can find our show notes up on the website at how to money dot com and awesome times, we don't have a ton of stuff in the show notes, but today it

feels like there's a little more, so you should. Definitely there are some resources there for you. Definitely, so yeah, go go check it out. But buddy, that's gonna be it for today. Until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.