Fending Off Financial FOMO #311

not good to know, but it's fine. It's fine. Um. And I was thinking through fending off financial fomo. We had three fs there. It's kind of like a tongue twister going on a little bit. Peter Piper picked up peck of I don't know. Yeah, that's it, some alliteration, and it's what we got going on here. By the way, I'm sure you know fomo is common parlance at this point in time. But if anybody doesn't know what it means, it means the fear of missing out. I can't believe

you defined it. I had to know everybody. Okay, everybody knows it. I think I just insulted everyone's intelligence. Yeah, just a little bit, but we appreciate you being thorough. But yeah, so before we launched into this, though, you want to tell us about you. You got a great curb aler, right, almost a curbler almost. I got a text notification from a neighbor just after Christmas that they had bought their daughter a new bed and they were getting rid of her old bed. And this was like,

exactly what you're looking for. She sent me a picture, um, and it was, you know, one of those I Kea you gotta put together with an Alan wrench. And sometimes when you move Ikea furniture, it doesn't last the move. But when you're only moving in a couple of doors down, um, you can be careful. And it it did great. But so do I score this awesome bed for my seven year old that she is obsessed with and that fits, um,

that works perfectly for in her room for a hundred bucks. Man, My neighborhood was just sweet to put us on alert about that. I looked it up on IKEA's website. It's uh just under five bucks to buy that bed brand news. That's a sweet deal fo the savings right there, man, Uh and I'll say it is super solid. When I came over to look at it, like I'm kind of critical of Ikea stuff as well, and I reached up, I kind of gave it a shake, and I was surprised. I was like, did you like bolt this to the

wall or something like? It did not move at all. And I'm a little jealous to you, man, I think that's the direction we might want to go as well, kind of getting the girls all their beds up in the air. And with schooling and they're you know, they're starting to amass their own possessions. It's not just kind of like kids toys, like they have their own little

things or journals, pens, things like that. At the in particular, you know, she's getting older and so I could see having a desk, you know, the area underneath the bed being like her space, Like you can't go in there. There's drawers, things like that. We don't have anything like that right now. It's just kind of like a free for all in their room and they all invade each other's space. It's a problem. I will say to you're just letting your neighbors know that you're open to you stuff.

You're open to hand me downs. Um, you know, they just they think of us now and they'll shoot us a text. And that's just kind of it's kind of nice to be thought of, because there's sometimes where I'm almost like surprised that they thought to include us, like a really really old refrigerator, but it actually makes sense because I think I have taken one of their old refrigerators before. But it's all the old things that they're getting. Ready,

I'm like, all right, that's just trash. Okay, I don't really you don't even want to know about saying, hey, buddy, we've got a crumpled up piece of paper here for you. Would you like it exactly? But for the most part it works out really well. Um, you know, it's it's about half and half when we say yes to the to the item. But yeah, just nice to get a

sweep bunk bed at a deep discount. Absolutely. And if you don't have neighbors, check out online and you know, and and a lot of cities on Facebook there are these buy nothing groups where you can exchange things for free. You gotta you need to do some contributing as well. Uh, if you're gonna you know, participate and take things for free. But that's another great way to find free items in order to to save some money, like like you guys

were able to do. But it's really nice when something comes along that you're already looking for like that, for sure. That's right, that's right. All right, let's mention the beer that we're having on the show today. This one's called Dank Daniel or Dang Dang Daniel by High Screwing Company, and Matt apparently this was based on some sort of meme from five years ago or video from five years ago. Dude,

I thought it was you. You asked. We were talking about it, and I was like, I think it's like a couple of years ago, and then I looked it up. It was in way longer ago than I actually realized. Okay, can we post the video a link to the video in our show notes? Okay, all right, it's it's actually it's pretty funny. It's so good. I'm glad. I finally, I'm always left out of stuff like that. I don't know why I'm not. I'm not like in tune with what's going on in the cultural zeitgeist all the time.

And so yeah, catching up on stuff like that is is nice. I skip out on the some of the TV shows and instead, I guess I just watch memes because I don't know all the things out there. But for whatever reason, I'm done with the memes. But yeah, I'm looking forward to sharing this beer with you, man. Uh. And we'll talk about it at the end of the episode. But this episode we're talking about financial fomo. Yeah fomo,

which again means no, I'm just kidding. I won't repeat it, but Teddy Roosevelt Matt once said, one of the great American presidents said, comparison the thief of joy. And how true is that, man? When we think about our own lives, that sometimes we can be completely happy doing going on our own merry way, and all of a sudden, something happening somewhere else in the world or in our neighborhood can immediately make us feel the opposite of happy. Uh.

And it's purely because of comparison. And this episode is going to focus on how to deal with fomo so that we don't make moves that mess up our ultimate money goals. Due to short term experiences with the world around us, those feelings that it can foster can can lead us to make some really poor money decisions, and that's what we're hoping to avoid in our own lives and hoping to help our listeners avoid, you know, as

we talked through it today. Yeah, a lot of folks might feel some significant FOMO if they're seeing individual stocks like Tesla sore this past year while you are investing in plain old index funds right, or even target date retirement funds, or maybe even mortgage rates you know, they've been at all time lows, and that might make you feel like you are the only person in your peer group who's not buying a house right now. Uh, and

you don't want to miss out. But living life according to that FOMO could cause you to speculate and maybe buy bitcoin because others have seen success, or rushing the purchase maybe of a home just to secure that low andgest rate when you aren't actually ready to own a home, you know, either financially or for a number of other reasons. We don't want to let fomo dictate our personal finances. Fomo can cause us to put the cart before the horse, can cause us to do something in the wrong order,

or just do something ill advised altogether. Right, And let's talk to fomo is often based on false assumptions of what is actually happening around us. Everyone else isn't actually buy a home while you're the only person sitting on the sidelines. That's just what's going through your brain. It might feel like you are, or anecdotally that might be true, like you might know somebody or a couple of folks who are doing that, but statistically that's not true. Everybody

isn't doing that, right. It's just like when you flip through your Instagram feed and you see like three your friends in their bathing suit, you know, at the beach, You're like, everybody's there and I'm not. It's like, not everybody. And maybe some of those pictures from We're from weeks ago, who knows. But yeah, the amount of store reads that were written about like Tesla millionaires, right, there were certainly a few people that made a lot of money investing

in Tesla. But do you actually know any of them? Probably not? And if you if you do know one, um, can you name two? Like do you know? I know? Maybe too? That's it. I don't. I don't even know too. I know one friend who made like grand and I'm super happy for him, But also, no, that's not the norm, right, Uh. And so even more key, have those friends who have done well and something like that ever talked to you about money that they've lost investing in other stocks, investing

in other arenas. It's kind of like the gambler detailing his or her most amazing day at the table playing craps, but yet they've lost a fortune over the years. They had that one glorious night, but when it comes down to it, most of the time they're actually losing money. And I feel like fomo matt is often fueled by cherry pick sample size. It's people choosing which things they want to relay the biggest successes they've had, and they're

leaving out all the other failures. And it prevents a shiny look to something that under the surface is much more sinister. That's right, But so why does fomo seem more prevalent today? You know, the whole notion that you're missing out on something important has become more pronounced, I think in recent years. Uh. And it's it's worth talking about how pomo has grown in scale and scope so that we can begin to combat it. So the first reason that we want to point to is just the

twenty four our news cycle. You know that certainly plays a major role in the rise of FOMO in our collective anxiety. Uh. The amount of information that gets presented to us every single day has shot through the roof. We took in five times the amount of information that people encountered in and I would venture to say that it would be even more to day with the advent of you know how prevalent our smartphones are in our

day to day lives. But bottom line, our generation has just been exposed to way more information, way more news uh than previous generations. And you know, the thing is, we're not all that great at processing these massive amounts of information on a daily basis. Yes, it's information overload, and we don't know how to determine what's important, what's meaningful,

from what's not. And that lack of being able to filter things well when that much is coming out us, when we're essentially drinking from a fire hose, can make it hard to make the right decisions, especially when it comes to our money. Another reason why FOLMO seems more prevalent today is of course the culprit that everyone points to social media, and that that's another part of the reason we're encountering way too much information. We're encountering so

much information than prior generations Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. Now, man, it's not just pictures anymore. People got along soliloquy to write underneath that picture, and so we're confronted with and we're forced to dissect everyone's opinion. And just to be honest, there are a lot of lamb opinions out there. And let's not forget to YouTube. We're apparently users are uploading five minutes of content every single minute. I mean, that's

a lot of content out there. Yeah, more content being uploaded than any human being could watch in their entire lifetime. Um. And that's a lot of content that can distract and overload your faculties. Um. And I think that can actually just heighten the sense of fomo that we feel in our everyday lives. Yeah, and you just mentioned Instagram too, as far as like the long essays written underneath the actual images. But like, let's not discount the images themselves.

You know, it's not just social media where we're kind of writing, like sharing our thoughts on a personal blog or things like that. But dude, images are really really powerful you know the example you gave earlier talking about folks hanging out at the beach. You know, when we see these images of people's you know, possessions or what they're doing, it can have a pretty big impact on our psyche. Uh and hopefully it doesn't have an impact

on our money, but it can. You know, like you feel a certain way if you see a friend, um, you know, post a picture of their new tesla, or you see somebody on a vacation, because experiences are something that we value these days as well. Obviously we're not traveling as much, but hopefully we will be soon. But let's not discount the ability of just images to to

influence our decisions as well. Can I say to In recent years, I've just kind of stopped posting um really anywhere is in particular on Facebook, I haven't posted in probably years. And Instagram I post maybe twice a year, and it's just a couple of pictures that I want

to remember in like a extremely curated feed. But part of that was seeing how other people react to the images that that are posted, seeing how I felt sometimes seeing some of the images around as I scrolled through my feed, and I was like, what do I want to put out there in the world. Um, And I think ultimately I decided and I wanted to put out just less stuffy. Yeah, it's certainly weird. I mean the relationship we have with Instagram, social media things that project

something when we know that it's not true. But at the same time, like, I don't want to be one of those people that that states like, oh, by the way, this is just the highlight reel. It's like, well, like, yeah, I I get that, like that's how we treat it. But at the same time, it's weird to continue to do that when we know it does have an impact on folks. Folks want to put that disclaimer out there. But at the same time, I think we are I don't know, maybe wising up a little bit with how

we perceive and how we use social media ourselves. Um. But you know, another thing to kind of think through is who are the ones that are participating in this, you know, different types of social media. Who is susceptible to FOMO basically, and statistics certainly point towards younger folks who have grown up being constantly connected as having more anxiety in general and an increase of uh you know in that fear of missing out. But it isn't just

the youngest folks in our society. People who consider themselves news junkies obviously, and even social extroverts are at higher risk for feeling FOMO as well. So a lot of it kind of does come down to your individual personality that in addition to your generation. Man, I'm extrovert, as you know, Matt. And when I was younger, and I would hear like some people got together on on Thursday

and I wasn't there. I was like, I would, I would get that pomo, but it didn't feel the same because you didn't necessarily see the pictures um on social media and so you just kind of heard about it and then it left your mind really quickly after that. But now it's got this like stickability that makes the pomo I think worse for a lot of people. So I don't know, I guess I just gotta say I'm thankful that I grew up in an era where we didn't have internet at least for a portion of our youth,

and then we're dial up. Internet was kind of the thing, you know, you remember the sound to try to get on and then when you when your family members would pick up the phone and you got kicked off and you're like, up the phone, what do you do? Like? Um? And I think just even growing up in an era where my first cell phone wasn't connected to the internet, we're the only thing you could actually do on it

that was fun was play snake. Um. Like, there's something that like sets you up for a better life than that. I feel bad for the kids these days that are essentially you know, on Instagram or Twitter or on social media. Their whole lives kind of revolve around virtual interactions and

that has some difficulties associated with it. But here on the show, you know, we we specifically like to talk about money, of course, and uh, fomo impacts our psyche as we've talked about a little bit in this segment, but it also affects our money too, and we want to get into some of the specifics of how that works and the impact that fomo has in that arena.

Right after this break and so we're back from the break and I was just actually during the break, I was thinking about how like when when do a lot of people kind of catch up on social media at night, you know, like right before they go to bed. Uh, you know he's like, Okay, I haven't been on all day, or it's been several hours and or have been on eighty two times today, but I'm gonna do it again. Yeah.

But like the ability for us to scroll through and look at what other people are doing, what they're buying, what they're purchasing. Could you imagine like, Okay, you're getting ready to go to bed, but then you're gonna jump in the car real quick and make a round of all of your friends. Obviously it's not possible because we've got friends obviously in other cities as well, But like,

what would that do to you mentally? Like, no wonder people have anxiety, No wonder we have difficulties sleeping, you know for folks who are on their phones on social media, um, you know, right before bed. It's just kind of mind blowing to think through what that would actually look like. If we didn't have that technology, it wouldn't be possible, but be it would be ridiculous. You know. Um, just a little thought I had. But like you said, let's

talk about it from like the standpoint of money, right. Uh, we're also seeing a major dose of fomo when it comes to our personal finances, and so let's let's talk about how the you know, fomo phenomenon has translate to the temptation to handle our money with the same reactionary behavior. You know, that Teddy Roosevelt quote you quoted earlier about comparison being the thief of joy is totally true. But in the world of personal finance, comparison can be the

enemy of attaining our investing in savings goals. You know, it's the keeping up of the joneses and the treat yourself mentality that caused us to put too much emphasis on the here now, and it harms our ability to delay gratification that would lead to our own future. Good. Yeah, and comparing things like we talked about with the cherry picking aspect, it's it's not always an accurate picture you're getting.

The interesting thing about comparing our financial lives with with those of others is that you know, what shape our personal finances are actually in is pretty dang hidden from everybody else, Right, you don't actually know. You can't actually see what my personal finances look like. You can only

see what I'm projecting to the world. So what we see, at least in some degree is is the spending that takes place in the lives of those around us, not the saving and investing habits of them, the new car, the expensive vacation, or the private school education for the kids, or what you're seeing your friends spending their money on.

But you don't see is what's happening behind that spending or your friends or coworkers or loved ones paying in cash or are they taking on a boatload of debt in order to finance those purchases, and is it keeping them up at night and causing them a bunch of stress, Because that's the case. Comparison in this case can cause you to make faulty assumptions that then mess up your own money situation. Well, if that person can afford it, you know, they're at a job that you know, I

bet they make about as much as I do. I guess I can afford that too. Well, those things don't necessarily correlate, and you're not getting the full picture because you're only seeing a small portion of kind of their personal finance decisions. Yeah, man, you know, when what's taking place in the market becomes sort of like this national obsession, we should all be worried that FOMO is setting in. I know, any one of your favorite money writers, Christine

Ben's over there at morning Star. She tweeted recently about some of the warning signs that are taking place with how investors are acting. People are treating individual stocks um like bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and just the market in general as a high interest savings account that never goes down. But history shows us that the market will experience turbulence, you know. Uh so don't let POMO change your investing plan and cause you to to make risky your bets. Yeah, man,

I think that's an extreme. Part of what's currently happening in the financial FOMO atmosphere is that people are seeing just an extreme rising stock prices. They're seeing certain individual stocks just leaping off the charts um. They're seeing crazy things like bitcoin just shooting up to to record highs, and they're like, what am I doing with my life? And why is my money not invested in that way? It makes them rethink their plan. Am I doing things wrong?

Because this all this is happening around me and I'm not involved. But let's talk about those riskier bets and what FOMO can lead you to do when it majorly sets in. Well, it can lead you to a rational decision making, like let's say, jumping into individual stock investing because you want to ride the wave that others are on.

That has led to financial ruin in some cases, Like I don't know if on the show we've ever talked about the young Robin investor who killed himself after seeing a massive negative balance that was in the summer of last year. I think, but investing in ways that you don't know much about can take a massive toll on your finances and your personal health to those rational decisions can lead to severe consequences, and in that case, the

most severe of consequences. But I feel like the turbo charged feelings of FOMO that people are are feeling right now can definitely lead to that sort of decision making that doesn't really have any basis in facts or reality or your own personalized money plan. Yeah, it's in a sense like FOMO leads to the sort of echo chamber of people all like participating in this sort of hive

mind where they're all thinking the same thing. Nobody is really questioning reality, and they're gonna continue doing what has been working, even though there may not be a basis for that continuing in that direction and on the contrary, right, I'm like, I'm thinking through to how someone might actually take a contrarian view as justification, you know, like leading

to actions that can maybe similarly be harmful. I'm thinking about the Tesla short sellers, like they were so sure that Tesla's rise couldn't continue that they then lost tens of billions of dollars taking that contrarian position. Uh, but you know yet Tesla's dot continues to rise to the tune of se last year. FOMO can cause you to to make ill advised bets in an attempt to prove something to yourself or others, and that could also cause

financial damage. Yeah, I think to another thing that FOMO can lead you to do when it comes to your money is make not just the wrong decision, but make the wrong decision for you, because like, depending on where you are at in your personal finance journey, you might end up making a move with your money that makes perfect sense for someone else, but it could be catastrophic for your own personal financial situation. Context is so key

when we're talking about money. Like let's say Warren Buffett, it makes makes a decision to go all in on a company. That doesn't mean that you've got the green light to follow suit though, right, Remember that the game that you're playing and the game that Warren Buffett is playing are completely different ball games. The game you're playing is to be to retire someday with enough money to

be able to fund your lifestyle. You're not in the business of making billion dollar deals, So don't compare yourself to the people that are in that business. I think that's another thing that FOMO can produce in us is we want to invest like the big timers. We might want to get rich quick or do something that isn't in our wheelhouse. Um, and we have to remember, like who we are in the game that we're playing with our money. Yeah no, nor are we in the business

of eating at McDonald's every morning. Uh. Let's leave that to Warren. We'll leave that to our good but to Warren. Uh. And So that's a good example when it comes to investing, right. But the same is true in other areas of our financial lives as well, you know, especially when it comes to spending. You know, we mentioned housing earlier, Like who would have thought that mortgage interest rates would be as

low as they are right now? But just because this is the right time for someone else to buy a home, you know that maybe they've been saving up for a couple of years, that doesn't mean that you should be doing the same thing. Uh. It does feel like there's there's like a kind of a closing window for folks to kind of snag these all time low rates. But it doesn't matter if it's not the right time for you,

for you as an individual. And I think we even see this too when it comes to just how certain things are marketed to us, right like aside from a financial like a larger financial purchase like a home with mortgage traits, but even just like retail consumption. I think about all the different mattress companies that advertise on podcasts

like ours. There are hundreds of them. There are so many of them, uh that you know, when you hear it being talked about so often, it makes you think, oh, am I missing out on a good night's sleep, Like everbody's getting a mattress? Why aren't I everybody's sleeping? So well, this is something that I need as well, And you haven't necessarily questioned, oh, well, maybe I shouldn't be on my phone at night before I go to bed. Maybe I just need to sleep longer, Maybe need to go

to go to bed earlier, maybe turn off Netflix. Right, Like, there's so many things that we need to consider, uh and it and and our behavior doesn't need to be reactionary. We don't need to see what's out there, what's being fed to us, what's being marketed to us, uh and then making sort of a knee jerk reaction based on that. So we can have an impact on you know, not only how we invest our money, but also how we yeah,

how we spend it as well. That's true. Fomo can cause us to spend more than we otherwise should, that's for sure. And these are just some of the ways that fomo can can wreck our personal finances. We of course want to make sure that you're not doing that, and so we're going to talk about what to do the ways that you can actually fend off fomo so that you don't make those terrible money moves. And we'll get to our thoughts on that right after this break.

All right, we're back from the break, and we're discussing how you can fend off financial fomo. Uh jel, I'm thinking of it like like fencers going back and forth with you know, you also have to kind of like have that attitude towards them. There's offending, there's some defending fending fencing, and with the foil the other f right, uh, And so I mean generally speaking here there's there's a

couple of problems that we've identified. One of them is comparison and the other one is just all the news, all the noise that we allow into our lives every day. And so instead of allowing the things to dictate, how does that we behave? Instead, we want you to first of all, cut the noise as much as possible. Right, this is including the news. Ask yourself, is there actually twenty four hours worth of news in a day that is that is actually worth consuming? Oh? I can answer

that yeah, No, no, no way of course not. But because it exists, we can use the excuse that we are just trying to stay informed. You know, this is something I find myself telling myself where I'm like, I need to stay informed, especially given all that's going on these days. But can find your news and take and as attempt to find maybe even better venues in order to get informed than just having you know, whether it be talk radio or just like podcast just blaring constantly

in the background. Make sure that you are actively participating in this versus allowing it just to kind of constantly bombard your senses. Yeah, for sure, there's only one podcast I'm okay with you blaring in the background at all hours of the day. And then you know, we Matt. We recently had Rachel Cruise on the show. She admitted that she used to check her her email first thing

when she woke up. There's something I think about before your feet even touched the floor, getting inundated with information problems that might be coming at you via email or checking your Twitter feed even right, those are the kind of things that are going to start your day off on the wrong foot. So allow yourself at least a cup of coffee and a few moments of silence before

you start checking your phone stuff. That's just like a minor tweak, but it does cut down on the noise that's reaching you literally immediately as you open your eyes. And I do think there's a number of our listeners

out there who probably start their way that day. I know I used to too, Like Rachel's not alone, a lot of people do that, And so yeah, I think putting your phone aside, maybe for the first thirty minutes of every morning is a really great way to combat that information overloaded, anti combat FOMO at the same time, Yeah, and you know, this even means avoiding financial sites if if they begin to tell at your fomo feelings, you know, like,

stop watching financial news like CNBC, stop looking at your retirement account statements so frequently, like you know, stop looking at the small things that might cause you a little bit of stress. The stats have shown that the more frequently investors check their phone for one case, stay meants, uh, the more likely they are to make ill informed changes

to their investment choices. Awareness is so important here, and if you see that you are participating in some of these knee jerk behaviors and some of these reactions, then it's gonna be time for you to make a change. Yeah, man, I think you're wise to to mention limiting the role that traditional media plays in our lives and social media same thing, right, I think we should actually be massively cutting down the time that we spend on both of

those things. And so when it comes to the issue of comparison, but we we would suggest that you begin to cut the number of influences or lifestyle accounts that you follow on social media, but unquote influencers like you right, no, exactly, I've got a lifestyle account. I can't wait to follow it. How to money life, you know exactly exactly. That might

even mean unfollowing some of your actual friends too. Since so much of our interactions are taking place in this cleaned up, moderated digital world, we're not actually seeing the messy reality that that all of us live in. We're just seeing the perfectly appointed living room that you walk into when you first arrived at the house. And so this doesn't mean that you're not still friends. I think for a lot of people, especially younger generations, it can

feel like that. But give him a call and actually catch up, grab a coffee or a beer, and talk about the stuff that actually matters instead of just the stuff that they're buying. Instead of your friendship purely living in the digital world. Bring it back into reality, Bring it back into the physical world. Yeah, So cutting back on the amount of information that we're bombarded with every single day is one way to to make sure that

we're not falling victim to fomo. Also having a plan is really important, and having one that you can you can actually stick to like that is even better. Actually pulled up my investing plan from a few years ago, uh that I had looked at in quite some time, and dude, it was so fun to see how I'm doing and how I'm actually sticking to it. It's fun to see kind of like some of the fundamentals that I identified way back then, uh, and how they still

inform me today. Uh. And you know, even though it's it's not something I have to physically look at often, it's still informs my investing decisions when I when I do have periods of doubt, you know, like when Tesla stock Shop the the roof last year. Writing that plan out is a I think a key part of having

a plan. You know, our our brains can easily play tricks on us, and it allows us to maybe bend the truth a little bit when we are in an emotionally vulnerable spot, you know, and that's exactly what is happening to us when fomo is coursing through our veins.

Were far more likely to react emotionally. Yes, I totally agree you need a plan, right, but more than just having a plan and a plan this written down is you need to have a plan that you can stick with, and like a plan that you can't stick to is going to be a plan that doesn't make sense. It's almost a worthless plan at that point. So, right, a plan that you can stick to that aligns with your values is crucial and and so yeah, it needs to

be something that's durable, Matt. We talked about this with Morgan housell Uh just a few months ago, and he told us that he paid off his home even though it wasn't the best use of his money from a numerical standpoint, especially as a younger dude. Morgan could be putting more money in the stock market, and over the decades he's going to see a far greater return on his money from a numerical standpoint if he chose investing

over paying off the house. But he told us that this choice allowed him to stay invested in stocks through thick and through thin, when things are good in the market and when things are rough, not to mention just the peace of mind that it brings him knowing that his family can live in this home no matter what.

Nobody's taking that home away from him. And so yeah, make sure your plan is similarly thought through, so that your plan can inform how you treat your money for years to come, and that you're not being reactionary with how you handle your money. Yeah. Man, Like an example for me is my approach to single stock investing. You know, I'll admit that, like I'm having some serious fomo not

being in on Tesla not the only one. Yeah, and even like some cryptocurrencies to you know, it crosses my mind to switch up my portfolio completely, But then I remind myself that I'm I'm not investing to get rich quickly. Why am I investing. I'm doing it to provide financial security and freedom and for my family to have financial stability. And you know, by being my portfolio at risk, by not diversifying and putting all that you know into single stocks,

I'm putting that financial stability at risk. And so for me, man, being patient and having stability as a goal like that informs my plan. Uh, and that plan then informs my behavior and directs my behavior. Having that written down is so important, right, and it's it's so helpful to know that that's why you're doing what you're doing. And I think when we don't have that informed why behind our plan. It can be easy to want to shake things up based on what's happening around us in the moment, and

that can lead to to bad decision making. Yeah, and I think to Matt, just one other thing that people should consider if they and particularly if they struggle from FOMO on the regular is that it can be helpful to have a release valve in your life that allows you to scratch maybe some of those smaller FOMO itches so that they don't become I don't know, something like

full blown fomo chickenpox. Uh, you know you wanted to stay small and and I think if you have just that smaller release valve, it can help you stick to your plan too. Right, due to the pandemic, a lot of us are feeling the strain of not seeing or catching up with friends well. In order to scratch that itch some the solution could be as simple as a beer with a friend outdoors on a porch around a fire.

Don't cave to that FOMO by hosting a massive indoor party, right, Like, that's not what you don't want to do right now, is the opposite of what you want to do. Maybe in the fall you can but not right now. Um, but that's the kind of thing is like you have to have a release foul for those things you're gonna go crazy. You gotta find some way to see the people that mean the most to you, but do it in a smart way that's not going to get you sick. Yeah.

So that's a good relational example. When it comes to your spending. There's little things that we can do as well to kind of have a pressure release valve. You can, for instance, uh, make a smaller change that doesn't cost much. Like, So for me, I'm thinking through like I like d I y home renovation projects things like that, but instead of doing a full blown renovation, you know, to a room or knocking out a wall or something like that,

maybe you could just do something more affordable like painting. Um, dude, we're getting a nice indoor plant. Honestly, that makes a big difference, it really does. Uh. So recently I haven't we don't think we've ad about this on the show, but recently, like Ca and I've been talking through how like we want to renovate the girls bathroom at some point, and I'm like toying with the idea of doing that myself.

Because like I enjoy working with my hands and seeing something I've accomplished, Uh, interacting with a space, like I get a lot of joy out of that. But having a plan in this case is really helful because we're identifying that, like you know what, like that is not necessary. I just want to do that. It's not because it's a need. Uh. And so over the holidays, I was

just like, okay, I want to scratch that. Itche a little bit, and uh, you know, we talked with I talked with the girls, and we decided that let's let's build a secret passageway. And so you know, we cut out the back of a built in cabinet that we have in our playroom and now it leads to a closet that the girls are able to play in. Uh. Dude, it was a lot of fun, first of all, to to do the project, but the girls are freaking loving it.

And I spend no money building this thing out because these were all materials we had laying around the house just so they go on to Narnia. They getting transported when that thing. We read those books last year and so that's where Kate and I kind of got the idea we're actually reading the hobbit now so now they

call it a hobbit hole. Uh. But like for for me, that was a way to kind of all right, I'm gonna work with my hands, pull out the tools, do you know, change the environment around me some which is are all things that are really enjoy But instead of doing that like on a massive scale where we're going to spend potentially thousands of dollars of you know, buying materials and obviously the amount of time as well, I was able to spend time on the weekend over the

holiday doing this, you know, cutting out a hole into a wall, like supporting the stud I did have to move an electrical box. That was exciting, but I've never done electrical work before. But you know, just watch a few YouTube videos. But the bottom line though, I was able to do that without spending any money at all. That was a way that was able to scratch that itch without it costing me a lot of money, without it affecting my my finances. There you go, I like it.

That's the release valve so that you don't go overboard and spend more money than than you should or then you actually have in order to do like some rentow work that you're wanting to do. Another thing too, like when we're talking about a release valve, you can have a release valve built into the way that you invest. And the way to do that is to dedicate a percentage, a very small sentage, like five pc or less, of your portfolio to investing in companies or sectors that intrigue you.

Do you want to own a little Tesla. We've been talking about Tesla a lot, but that's just because they've been on its hair. Yeah, it's the meteorc chries that everyone everyone knows about. But do you want to own some Tesla or do you just want or maybe Amazon or Apple or whatever, just companies that you like, or or just do you want to have the ability to run some experiments kind of like you know what we

did in grade school with the stock market experiment. I remember that, By the way, that's a terrible way to teach kids about investing, it really is. I specifically remember investing in Xerox, like I think the stocks was x ir rex back in the day that you have to look it up in the newspaper. Yeah, terrible, terrible way to teach about the stock market. It is. It is.

But but for you, you you know, if you want to be able to dabble, like, if you don't want to completely be missing out, you can not miss out completely by putting just a small percentage of your resources towards some of those things that you're interested in, and that can be just the release vout that you need in order to keep the nine or more of your money

well diversified for your future. You've got that little play money, that little fun stuff that you can do whatever you want with, but the vast majority remains in a target date retirement funds or total stock market index funds that are building wealth for your future without that massive amount

of risk involved. Yea. So it's so funny about by the fact that we've been talking about Tesla so much, is that this you know, I mentioned that I have had some FOMO regarding Tesla specifically, And what's really interesting is that the SMP five fundered inducted Tesla at the end of last year, and so I am all about the SP five. I have all of my personal retirement invested in vou v o O, which is the Vanguard's

SMP index fund. Uh and now that that is included and reflected in that e t F, I technically now own like two percent of that e t F is made up of Tesla, So like problem solved. Like I literally feel differently about Tesla than I did, you know, towards the end of last you know, before the end of last year, because now I'm like, oh, well, at least two percent of my portfolio is actually made up of Tesla, so that it's has been scratched, right, uh. And so that's just another word too. I mean we're

talking about diversification here. That's a way to avoid FOMO because when you are widely diversified, when you are invested in a little bit of everything, there's no missing out because you're you're you're invited to the party. You're invited a little bit to all the parties out there. And so that's definitely something to keep in mind as well. If you are experiencing FOMO, don't worry about that. Instead

rely on index funds. Yeah, and and Matt Ultimately, at its heart, FOMO is reactionary, and it's something that we're tempted to more and more of these days by the various inputs that come into our lives. We're tempted to buy something new or to make changes to our lives when just a few minutes ago we were completely content with the way that things were. And I think that knowing the subtle ways that FOMO works its way into

our personal finances it can be helpful. But it's also important to cut out the unnecessary noise and also to combat it with a plan that you can stick to and remind yourself that the things that you're seeing don't always resemble the the exact truth. Often there some cherry picking involved. We're always being sold a version of the truth we're not We're not getting the full honest truth from everyone out there from all these inputs that were

constantly seen. Yeah, and and honestly, man that the truth is that living life on your own terms is is way better than buying into much of the stuff that FOMO is pushing you towards. You know, being content with your work, you your life and finances is a great goal to have amidst the sea of everyone wanting it all. And so I think this is a good word for us. You know, offending off and curving fomo is going to have much better emotional and financial outcomes for all of us.

That's true. I I think that maybe this feels kind of like an odd topic for a money podcast to take on, but it just it totally feels like something that this psychological trick that is played on us pretty much every day just by living life, like just by walking through this world, fomo happens um to all of us at one time or another. And I think pulling back the curtain seeing how it happens um can allow

us to make better choices moving forward. But all right, let's get back to the beer that we had on this show. This one's called Dank Daniel and this one was the Hazy Palele from Heist Brewing at. What were your thoughts on this beer, man, Yeah, it's worth mentioning to you. On the label, they got a pair of the white Vans saying there underneath, uh, dank Daniel on

the label. But I enjoyed this beer. Man. This was a hazy, but as hazies go, I will say, it wasn't overly hazy like sometimes you know, I we're drinking hazy. I p a s and they really they put an astric only partially hazy, like if this was orange juice, it would say no pulp. Because some of the ones we drink, I swear it's like there's pulp in there. There's like the hop thickness going on. This one wasn't like that. It was certainly opaque, you know, you couldn't

see through it. It had that tingly hot flavor going on, but it wasn't overly cloudy. I think this would be a good introduction to hazy I p A s if you've never had one. But yeah, I liked it. That's all I'm gonna say. It's a good I p A. And actually you're wrong, it's a pale ale. Yeah, but hazy pale. I keep calling hazy I p A that. Sorry, Oh that explains it. Then, yeah, okay, it's it's a little warm reserved, which you know. That's honestly. That's why

I think paleos right now are my sweet spot, dude. Yeah, and I actually kind of like it more now that I know it's a hazy pale. It's not an underwhelming IP anymore. It's a high performing pale. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, I think it's like it's just low key method of solid hop distribution. In my mind, I feel like palels can be a little bit cleaner a little more accessible

and not overwhelm your palette nearly as much. So, I mean, I still like a good I PA, love a good I PA, but this was a really solid pail that brought the hops without being too much. Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like sometimes pales can be kind of written off as like like j V I P A S. You know, like like they're not like pales don't stand up on their own. They're just you know, they're they're waiting for their chance to get on the varsity team that like

they want to someday be in India pale ale. But yeah, you and I would disagree. We totally feel that pale ales are totally where it's at. And I love that more breweries are incorporating some of the hot flavors within the pale als and so they're lighter in body, easier to drink, but still have a ton of flavor. Can't go wrong, man, no doubt. Yeah. All right, Well that's gonna be it for this episod. Listeners can find our show notes up at our website at how to money

dot com. Definitely head over there if you have a visit our website before. We've got lots of different resources on there to help you with your money. Yeah, and if you're relatively new to the podcast, um, and you're enjoying it, but you haven't been able to leave a review yet, well, Matt and I, we'd appreciate if you would leave just a quick rating and review over on

Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It just helps other people find out about the show, find out what we're up to here at how to Money, and of course it helps us to continue making the show. Yeah, that's true, and thanks in advance for doing that for us. We appreciate it. All right, Matt, that's gonna be it for this episode. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,