Financial Habits that Determine Your Future #123

So hopefully in this episode we can talk about forming some positive habits. Yeah, before we kick it off, man, let's talk about this Google Chrome extension called Time Well Spent. This was tweeted at us by David Clark, and he actually sent us some coffee and some beer way back in the day. He's been he's been listening for a while,

a long time listener, first time tweeter. Which no, that's not even true, because he actually tweeted us when he made that spreadsheet for the cost of his vehicle that the total cost of ownership versus biking and finding other forms of transportation. And this is something else very cool that he found but yeah, it's called time well spent.

And what this thing does is when you turn this extension on when you're shopping online, it turns all the dollar amounts into time, and so it turns it into the time that it would take you to work in order to actually earn that product. So do you just have to input your hourly wage and then it computes it for you. Yeah, you either enter in your hourly rates or your annual salary after tax, and yeah, that's it.

It automatically computes it for you. Super fascinating and I will say I was shocked at the effect that it had on me because I was messing around with it some and my reaction though to it wasn't oh man, this is gonna take so long to earn this. Unfortunately, my reaction was thirty minutes for for this. I'm sort of a living paradox to to what I'm talking about here, but it's difficult for me to to manage my time.

And I think this is an example of where I would see my time laid out in front of me, you know, next to our product, and think cool, I can work an hour for that, or I can work a full day for that. Yeah, I think for me and for most folks that would install this on their browser, I would think we would have the effect of curbing spending. And hopefully that is the case for most folks, right yeah, Because for for most of us, as we we see the dollar sign, we we are put we're putting it

on plastic. We don't have to pay for it for thirty days, and hopefully folks that are listening to the show are paying their credit card balances in full at the end of every month. But still there's this kind of frictionless effect to making a purchase. And I think,

for me, I'm gonna try this out. I'm gonna install it, so big thanks to David for sending us extension our way, but I'm gonna install it, and I'm gonna see how it affects my spending, because I have a feeling that's seeing not just a dollar sign on the screen, but seeing the hours of my life that it's going to take to buy this product as opposed to just a straight dollar amount. I have a feeling that that's gonna

actually make a difference in in curbing my spending. So it's a great idea and I think it's so clever, and I really do think it could help a lot of folks too. Yeah, super smart. I I really don't know what that says about me, Like maybe I think I'm just gonna live forever and I've got all the

time in the world, but I don't. And I will say one of the what I would recommend you to do, though, is going to Amazon and look at your previous orders, because it will change all of those numbers as well, and then you can be like, was that worth It was that word exactly, But again in my case, I ordered some cables and some other stuff that I needed to do, and it was literally it was twelve minutes worth of time that it would have taken me to

have earned that. And so my thoughts to myself, oh yeah, ten minutes, that's just a few emails to think that, Okay, while I'm sending their emailing, then I win this price. It's like, oh sweet. Something about attaching that time does something tangible for me makes it almost seem more worth it.

But again, hopefully most folks are not like me, and I think for the vast majority of folks who install this, and again it was called time well spent that hopefully would allow them to curb their spending or at least give them pause. I hope this time well Spent extension would work for like cracking my mortgage or let's say, tracking someone's car payment too. It could really I think that would be actually really painful, right if I actually log into the bank or the credit union, and yeah,

I think that would be a bit more painful to think. Okay, wow, is it even worth me to to work that long just to have a place to live? Right right? Or it's this fancy new car, but it's taking up seven days of my month essentially that I have to dedicate to work in order to pay for it. That's a big shift in mindset. That just the three fifty dollar payment. So I'm not sure if it does that, I'm gonna

look into this time well Spent extension. All right, let's get onto the beer that we're having on the show today. Listener Cameron super Cool Dude donated a couple of beers from his recent trip to Vermont, Vermont. Yeah, that's good news. Well, Vermont is happy. It's like beer Mecca. Really Vermont kind of started at all. I think there's actually more micro breweries per capita in Vermont than in any other Yeah. Yeah, they're They're super into their craft beer in Vermont. So

this one is the best of the best. It is Vermont's finest, and Vermont has so many good beers, so this is a big champagne of beers something like that. Yeah, somebody else took that slogan. Not quite. This beer is called Hetty Topper and it's by the Alchemist Brewery in Waterbury, Vermont. And this beer just has a cult following. It basically changed the way that people started to think about drinking.

I p a. S. So really excited to drink this one with you today, buddy, and we'll let you know our thoughts on this beer at the end of the episode. Yes we will, all right, Matt, onto the subject at hand. We're talking about habits, the habits that you are able to develop now become ingrained, and the small things that we do day after day they shape who we are.

Simple routines can be life changing for us because they help us to be able to do the actual things that we want to do without having to think about it. It really is amazing how just a small habit can change your morning, can get you into a routine can change your finances, can change your workout, life can change so many different things. Just developing a couple of important habits can make massive differences in the way things look

for you down the road. And so we want to talk today about money habits, the ones that are important, and how you can go about developing them so they you can be better off financially without having to constantly think about it, just sending these things in motion, so they are a part of the way you live. Yeah, Joelan, what's so key, I think is is that you said setting it an emotion. It's not that we're trying to avoid thinking about these things altogether. We do want to

think about them. We want to be intentional, but we want to think about them once and make a decision and kind of move on with life. These aren't decisions that we want to revisit daily or even monthly, right, Like I don't want to have to make the decision of should I invest my money this month? Well, no, we've decided that we are going to do this, and there's not a judgment call. It's just a matter of

executing the decision that you have already decided. So this year, both of our girls are in school, and so we had to kind of change our morning routine. Would it looked like? And if I had to decide every night what time I was going to wake up the next morning, I would waffle back and forth so much. I would have the hardest time. Some days I would do it well, other days I would do it really poorly. And I just decided on the time I was gonna wake up

six o'clock every single morning. I'm basically ready for the day when the girls get up. And it's made such a big different it's for me. It wasn't easy. It didn't come naturally, but it was this habit that I kind of had to get into and develop in order to make my morning flow well. So, yeah, these habits have this ability to take that decision making out of

the process. You make the decision kind of once you implement it, and then it's not something that has to be on your radar all the time, playing whack a mole, deciding whether or not you're gonna do it. It's something that you prioritize, it gets done, and then it gets off of your mental plate because that habit kicks in and it becomes more or less effortless. So question for you,

do you get up still at six on the weekends? Nope, No, I do not, although I probably I think it would probably help if I submitted it on the weekends to make Mondays a little bit easier. We still tried to get up earlier than we normally would. Natural mats just wants to sleep in because I'm a night owl, and I would sleep in every single day and stay up late every single day. That's just how I am. But yeah, again, with the kids in school, let's we're the same way,

trying to maintain some of that consistency. So what we want to introduce now are some main money habits. These are some financial habits that you will want to prioritize. Some of them you might already be kicking but at and others just may not yet be on your radar. While others still you might even think, yeah, like I should be doing that, but I haven't gotten around even starting those. And so here are some of the big sort of overarching financial habits to implement. Joel, you want

to kick this off, Yeah, sure, man, Yeah. We We've got a lot of thoughts, by the way, on how to actually get a habit started. We're gonna get into that a little bit later in the episode, but first we wanted to talk about some of those big financial habits. They you need to make front and center if you're just getting started. So the first one is really to

pay yourself first. And most people end up saving with what's left over every month, and typically there's not a whole lot left over, so saving not only just doesn't get prioritized, it gets left out of the equation altogether. Paying yourself first is really this ultimate financial habit that

everything else hangs on. And if you can prioritize paying yourself first, well you can start that emergency fund, you can prioritize actually contributing to your four O one K or I ra A, and you can also get rid of pesky debt that's lingering. But that's an intentional decision, that's a habit that needs to be formed, paying yourself first, making that kind of a hallmark of how you handle

your finances. If you can reorder your priorities and develop the habit of paying yourself first, that's one of those major achievements that's going to serve you well for years

and years to come. Yeah, certainly, man like that's one of the ones that's kind of at the top of the food chain, right, and I don't want to gloss over some of these other points that you mentioned right in and of itself, Starting that emergency fund is a great habit to have, right, because that allows you to have that financial margin to where it feels like you're

not actually living paycheck to paycheck. And then when you have that extra money that you can contribute towards retirement, You've got to contribute to retirement because Social Security, guess what, it's not going to cut it by the time you get older. And then of course you're going to be able to achieve both of those things more efficiently if

you don't have debt weighing you down. I think another way to think of sort of those things too, is like spending less than you actually make, because when you have money in the bank, that gives you options to do what it is that you want to do with your money, like whatever that happens to be, it gives you the ability to do that. And so, yeah, that's another sort of broad way to think about it. Spend

less than you make. Yeah, another habit that's good to form when it comes to how you handle your money. One of the big ones is tracking your incoming and your outgoing money. If you don't know where your money is going, it's hard to course correct. By tracking and eventually getting into having a budget, you can spend your money more mindfully. You become in charge of your money as opposed to your money ruling the decisions you make. We've talked about some of the best methods for tracking

and budgeting. We love mint, it's great for tracking. Whine App is this amazing budgeting app, and dollar Bird is another cool app that you can download to track your spending. If you've had trouble developing the habit of tracking, well, use one of those tools to help you out. But tracking where your money goes is one of those essential

habits that you have to form. Yeah, so when you have these specific numbers that allows you to set specific goals, right, Like, you could still, for instance, save money without tracking your income and your expenses. But it's sort of this amorphous blob and that you're trying to kind of tackle the wall. It's gonna be difficult versus if you're using software, if you're even if you're writing out your expenses on a

legal pad. Right, you still have hard numbers and you can literally take that legal pad and pin that to the wall and say, cool, we are this close to achieving our goal. Like we're this close to hitting that number. You're gonna really be able to whip your finances into shape if you are tracking and budgeting in. Another big overarching money habit that we think is important is to

work on being content with what you have. We are a money podcast, and I think this isn't going to be something that you hear often, right, contentment, gratitude, these are things that you typically here. But taking the time to be thankful for the things you have, right, maybe your car or say you have a tiny apartment, but that can make you happy with what you have. Wanting less is really key and important to saving more. So we would really suggest making gratitude a habit that you

try to cultivate daily. Yeah. I think there are so many ways that you can incorporate gratitude into your life, whether it's taking a few minutes in the morning to just realize to look around you and to be truly thankful for friends, family, health, health, yeah, space where you live, a car that gets you to and fro even if it's not ideal, even if it's a little beat up.

There are all these things that we have and we forget to be thankful, and that thankfulness can severely curb our desire to spend and be a major influence on what we're able to save. And the next step that I think even enhances this ability to be content with what you have is is to give away a portion

of what you make. It sounds like the opposite of saving money, Joel, but it is this and we've talked about this before, Matt quite a while back on the show, but there is this thing that happens as you begin to not only give of your time and get but also to give of your money that gives you kind of a healthy detachment from your money. It makes it

easier to be content with less. It makes it easier not to focus on the things that you want or the things that you don't have, but to actually truly be content with the things that you have as you see your money go to work in beautiful ways in the community around you, in on profits that are serving others. In my mind, that is one of the biggest habits that we can cultivate to basically just help us to

have a healthier view of money overall. Man. You know, anytime we talk about this, I can't help but to think of Gollum right from the Probbit Lord of the Rings, Yes, yeah, or Schniegel right, like, we don't want to be the person who is so obsessed and infatuated with our treasure. Are precious our our money to where it dictates our life and it controls who we are, and it doesn't allow us to be generous, and so where that becomes

the focus of our life. On the surface, that seems like a podcast that Gollum would love, right, But I think it's important for us to step back and reframe every now and then and to remind ourselves to hold onto our possessions loosely with with open hands, because there's no guarantee that will continue, that we will be able to maintain that wealth or that money. Yeah. I don't

know if Gollum's a listener. I hope he is, But yeah, I think the cool thing about working on being content with what you have, developing that as a habit in your life. It's something that anyone can do. It doesn't matter if you are living paycheck to paycheck, and we

talked about that in episode seventy three. But but basically, the idea of being content with what you have and giving away at least a tiny portion of what you have, well, that can even just mean your time, and that can put you on a trajectory to doing more and more over time as you get your finances in a healthier place. So it's not that you have to have a massed a certain amount in order for this to be a

reality in your life. You can prioritize these things as a habit, paying yourself first, tracking your spending, and working on being content with what you have now, no matter where you are on the financial spectrum. So I find that to be encouraging. Yeah, that's so great. We're gonna talk more. We're gonna talk how to specifically create lasting, life changing habits. But first let's take a quick break.

All right, Matt, we're back, and we just talked about some of those major overarching financial habits that need to be implemented to kind of get the ball rolling. And now let's talk about kind of connecting some of the knowledge that we already have and how we implement and some of those things in our lives. Yeah, and not just implementing it into our lives, but doing that regularly, right, Like, that's what makes that habit is when we're able to

do that just day after day after day. Yeah, totally. And so one of the first things that you might be thinking, well, you might have some bad habits that you need to get rid of, and I think sitting down taking the time to recognize some of the bad habits the way some of your major money issues flare up in your life because of some of the habits you've formed along the way. Maybe if you've had a bad day, you soothe that over by going on a

shopping spree. I'm not sure what that looks like in your life, but seeing and identifying is that first step to changing. And so one of the things that we mentioned earlier was to track your spending. That is one of the easiest ways to recognize some of those bad habits that you've incurred in your life. And once you're able to see those like in black and white on paper, then it makes it so much easier to actually start

to change those bad habits that have become ingrained. Yeah, like you said earlier, man, you can't course correct unless you can actually see where you currently are. And that's why I love budgets and tracking you're spending so much, is that you can so clearly see, like it really is black and white. You can see the difference between a good month and a bad month, or when you've gone over budget and entertainment. That's why I love tracking

so much. But there are also things that we have in our lives that are a little more difficult to identify. And these are things that you're not going to see

on your monthly budget or in your spending. What I'm thinking of here are maybe just attitudes that folks might have towards let's just say investing, Like if you have sort of a mistrust or a fear towards investing, and that's kind of in the back of your mind, right, Like that's how you view money in general, and that's how you view the stock market because maybe you had a bad experience at some point, or you know somebody

that did well. A bad habit that might form out of that is you're afraid to invest in the stock market, and that's probably a really bad habit for you to have. We need to be invested in the stock market, we need to be exposing ourselves to the ups and downs of the market now while we're building our wealth for

the long term. Yeah. Man, it makes me think about our interview that we did with her Meat Sadie and he talked about these money scripts that have been ingrained in our heads, sometimes from from youth, sometimes experiences with with parents, things that were said at the dinner table.

Maybe it's the experience of a friend who lost it all in some sort of crazy venture starting a business, and and then you assume entrepreneurship equals bad, or someone that you know who invested in a single stock lost at all, investing therefore equals bad. And those experiences that we've had in the past haven't direct influence on how we handle our money now, Yeah, they shape us. Yeah,

and so we have to develop habits. And part of that course correction involves a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of understanding the right way to go about some of those things. Right, investing in a single stock is typically bad, and investing in something like uh total stock market index fund is a much better way to go. But yes, recognizing those bad habits, those money scripts, will have massive effects on your ability to actually develop

meaningful habits that will help you in your money life. Yeah, and again to do that, it just takes time. Right, tracking your spending like, that's easy, you can do that quickly and you see the numbers on paper. But some of these more maybe deeper seated beliefs and those instances,

it might just take some time, some self reflection. And I know it's hard for us these days to afford ourselves some time to sit and be seemingly unproductive, but that's just so important and that really might be what it takes. Yes, So another way to create lasting, life changing habits is to start easy. Biting off more than you can chew is definitely a recipe for failure or sliding back into old, unhelpful habits that you've had. For instance,

let's say you have a problem with impulse purchases. So start easy with a twenty four hour rule and say, you know what, if I put this in my card, I have to wait twenty four hours before I can actually follow through and make the purchase. That's kind of an easy method, a twenty four hour method, but work towards instituting a seventy two hour rule before you make your purchase. That is an even bigger hurdle to climb,

it's a little bit harder to do. So anyway that you can start easy in developing a habit, go small in the beginning. It's going to make it much more likely that that habit is going to stick, and you can kind of intensify that habit further on down the line. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, yeah, Jule. Another example I'm thinking of is we talk all the time of how important it is to save for retirement.

The problem is, though, is that it's a little more complicated to save towards retirement, to open that i ra A, to enroll in your work sponsored four ohn k. It's a little more complicated to do those things than it is to just put a little bit of money aside in a savings account. So again, start small. Just start chipping away a little bit of money off of your paycheck every single pay period, and before you know it, you're gonna have a couple thousand dollars that you are

going to want to invest. Because you have seen the aggregation of these small games. You've seen all these small winds pile up into something big, and that's the kind of encouragement. I know that I need that really hammers home and solidify as a habit. And yeah, man, and there are so many great apps out there. We've talked about Acorns before on the show. That's a perfect example, right, Yeah, I think Bank of America has something similar called Keep

the Change. There are all sorts of different apps out there that can help you with this. If you need a little help and you find it hard to get the motivation, just signing up for Acorns and making something like that happen is a fantastic way to start small and make it easy for yourself, So Joel, another way that we can still to defy these habits and make them lifelong habits is to try to adapt a behavior

to your own way of seeing the world. Maybe you can identify a goal and there can be a number of different ways to achieve that goal. Right, we want you to be creative. It could be that you've never seen it done in a thoughtful way. Just because it looks one way for others, right, that doesn't mean it

has to look that way for you. I'm thinking of the interview we had with Andy Hill and how the way he was able to get his wife on board was that instead of having these budget meetings, what they would have and what they continue to have now our budget parties, And I'm pretty sure he said they would crack open a bottle of wine. They sit down there. You know, it's fun. It's not like this. It's not drudgery, it's not monotonous. It's a lot of fun for them.

And so because of that, that allowed for those meetings to become fun, and also it changed how they viewed budgets. Basically, what you're doing is reframing, and you're essentially spinning it

a little bit too, to make it more fun. Yeah, if you can get rid of the negative connotations associated with how you view money, how you view budgeting, in the ingrained habits that you have that are correlated to my me, then you have such a better chance of adapting your behavior to make a change that's gonna last and it's gonna make a real impact on your financial future.

But yeah, so many of us have this idea that budgets have to be terrible, and a conversation about money with our spouse has to be a fight or has to be hard, And I think something like the way Andy handles it with his wife. The way they approach it together, it's a game changer. It's just gonna be easier to get together, to actually have that conversation, and you're bound to make more progress because you're having fun

while you're doing it. Do you think that's also why we have beer when we have re quod Our episodes? Dull oh? Most definitely. It's more fun to talk about money when you're having a beer, right, Yeah, Well, I mean except for with us. I mean beer and money are both fun. So for us, it's like this upward spiral of goodness. Yeah, man. And for me, just another example of the way I've been able to adapt a

behavior to to fit my lifestyle is biking to work. Right, I don't have the desire to go to the gym and workout like it's just honestly, it's not gonna happen. And so if I don't bike to work, I'm essentially not going to get any exercise that week. So biking to work. And another thing that I'm trying to implement now into my rides is stopping at this point in the park where there's a pull up bar, doing a few pull ups, hopping back on my bike and keeping

on riding into work. Look at you, right, I know. So it's these kind of things that my boy Joe is getting swollen. Yeah, it's gonna be a while, but it is just habit, right that I'm trying to develop. And it's just one of those things that is so much easier if I adapted in the way that's actually going to work for me, as opposed to trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and doing

what everyone else says works for them. I have to kind of figure out the way that it works for me because that's the only way it's actually gonna get done. I love that, man. I think that's great, And I know that's true for you because I know that you've mentioned seeing those dudes before doing pull ups on the way to work, and so obviously it's something that resonated

with you. Right, Like you're riding your bike, you see them working out, and it's not that they're doing it in public to show off, but like they're utilizing the equipment that's there in the park. It's it's equipment that the city has installed. It's a part of our landscape.

It's on the way to work. This is something that you want to do, like all these things are lining up and makes so much sense to hop off the bike do some pull ups versus signing up for a gym membership, which you wouldn't take advantage of evidence that you'd just be wasting your money. I think that's great. Yeah, totally. So another thing that we would suggest to make meaningful habits is to focus on the schedule, not the deadline.

And what I mean by that is that the end goal can sometimes be really daunting, and instead we want you to break those down into bite size steps. Speaking of bite size Matt talk, let's talk about meal planning. So if you know that you need to be eating more meals at home because dining out is crushing your budget, You're spending way too much money every month because you last minute decide there's nothing in the fridge. Oh man, I didn't think it had I didn't plan a meal.

I I can't cook tonight, and because of that, you got to eat well. Meal planning is a game changer. It basically gives you the ability to create just a couple of steps that are going to help you form a habit of being able to eat meals at home. So let's say you sit down on Saturday morning to map out what you want to eat for the rest of the week, and then you do some grocery shopping

Saturday afternoon. You could even make a few of your meals for that week on Sunday in order to have them ready for the first few days of the week. Eat leftovers on Thursday, and make Friday you're going out to eat night. Like we just mentioned, adapt this behavior to the way that best fits you. But thinking your head working on a schedule can allow you to implement a habit like this that's going to save you money. Yeah, meal planning for the week that sounds like something I

do not want to do. It's it sounds like a task that almost seems insurmountable, But breaking those up into small, doable tasks is key to success. But something else to consider is what's your plan if you end up failing? Right and so, in this example, when you inevitably forgets to plan a meal and you end up going out to eat, what are you gonna do? Like? What are you gonna do next? We think it's important that you make in a mantra to make sure to not do

it twice. You mess up once, but don't be yourself up about it. We're human. We make mistakes. I think what's important here is that we avoid the trap of perfectionism, because oftentimes when we make one mistake, we think, oh, you know, that's it, it's over the s throw in

the towel. I'm not gonna do it anymore, dude. For me, this is a serious problem that I have because I tend to be very binary, like things are either black and white, and so for me, it's hard to identify things in the middle, like that kind of gray, murky area. And so because that, it's easier for me just to say no, I'm either doing this or I'm not doing it, yes or no. But guess what, if you're actually trying to move forward towards a positive habit, you have to

get past those small little screw ups and keep moving forward. Yeah, Man, if you miss a day of working out or you screw up on your diet, it's so easy to go down this slippery slope of saying whatever, Man, Okay, I guess I'm not doing that anymore. Had a little bit ice cream. I guess I'm gonna eat the whole cart exactly. That's such an easy that's how I think. It's like, no joke, Well, that's such an easy thing for us

to do as humans. I think all of us, right, you me, any of us, even I feel like we're completely different in this. I see the whole world in shades of gray. I'm not very black and white. But still, at the same time, if I were to mess up at something that I'm trying to do, it's really easy for me to go down a path of saying, you know what, Okay, I guess I'm just giving in. And I think it's an inherently human trait. And so we have to be able to a forgive ourselves and be

get back on the horse. So we have to kind of have a plan for what we do when we fail. And if you can devise a method for getting yourself back on the horse, Let's say, if you did go out to eat let's say three times that week and he totally screwed up on meal planning, if you have a reset button that you can hit that helps you that following Saturday to actually make sure that the next

week is different. That's crucial in establishing habits and making sure that you kind of hit that sixty day length of time that we're shooting for in order to make sure that that habit sticks for the long term. All right, Joel, We're gonna talk about some more ways that you can make good financial habits that will help determine a healthy financial future, including one that involves your best buddy. Oh,

I know, best buddy right across from me. Uh, let's stick around, all right, Matt, Well back, we're talking about financial habits. And we mentioned early on that habits becoming grain the small things we do day after day, they shape who we are, They shape who we become. And so sometimes creating a good habit might mean breaking a bad one. And I can't say the words breaking in bad in the same sentence. You're gonna do this without referencing my favorite television show of all time, probably That

and Arrested Development top two. And apparently Netflix is making a new movie, a Breaking Bad movie, which I'm a little worried about. I gotta be honest, because those five seasons of Breaking Bad, we're kind of under perfection, and I know there's a chance that they might ruin it.

So I'm hoping that doesn't happen. But the problem there, though, is didn't you just recently cancel Netflix, So you're gonna have to sign up for that new customer sign up bonus where you get to not pay for six months, right, just because you're a new member. But I don't think Netflix has a six month free trial, but hey, you can give it a shot. If they did, that'd be awesome. Just put a new email addressing there. They won't know the difference. I think it's like seven I think it's

like seven days. But okay, seven days whatever, seven days, six months, it's all the same to me. I'll remember I don't understand time, all right. So the key to breaking bad habits is replacement. Let's take, for example, on line spending that that might be a bad habit for you. Often there's a queue and a craving associated with that habit,

and you get a rush by purchasing something online. Maybe you have a tendency to browse the internet for deals when you've had a bad day, and so instead of hopping on the internet and buying some things to compensate for having a tough day, we'll maybe replace it with a text to an old friend or colleague that you've meant to keep in touch with, instead of doing something negative and that also affects your finances in a bad way. What you're doing is you're replacing that with something positive,

with a conversation, with relationship building. So much of getting rid of bad habits is replacement. It's taking out the bad, replacing it with something good. And then the next time that q hits, the next time you have a bad day, you instantaneously, based on habit, decide to text or call someone that you care about instead of the negative reaction

that you previously pursued. And the added bonus of that too, is it kind of pulls you out of yourself, right, Like instead of just you being focused on your own stuff and your own things and your own money, you're doing something positive that's kind of outward facing. And I love that. I mean, in an obvious non financial example to you, man, is I'm thinking of like smoking, right, anyone that's trying to quit smoking, it's hard to actually

quit cold turkey. Isn't that why a lot of times previous smokers like they chew a lot of gum, Because like you need sort of like that oral fixation, something there to replace that habit, something there that you can kind of revert to anytime you sort of feel that urge, it's more natural and easier just to slot in that new habit. Yeah. Trying to kick that habit cold turkey and not offering any sort of replacement for yourself, well, it just makes kicking the bad habit so much harder. Man.

In one of the best ways to solidify positive financial habits is to consider joining up with a friend, right, join forces were stronger together, you mean specifically, buddy, because we we hold each other accountable. Right, I'm thinking of a non financial example is working out. You hear of the benefits of cross fit, and not just cross fit,

but any type of working out. Any time you're able to do a behavior like that with a friend, with somebody that's gonna hold you accountable, with someone you have to answer to, there's a much better chance of you succeeding. While initially that might start out as sort of this external pressure, over time, once those habits form, it becomes internalized, and that accountability just becomes icing on top. At that point,

it's just a bonus. Yeah, Man, our friendship we've been able to to spare each other on as we discuss different money topics. Right, And doing something with a friend can just make swallowing that pill so much easier. So, for instance, let's say monthly money meetings. If you have a partner, looking at the previous month's income and planning the next month's expenses together in a monthly money meeting

is so helpful. It's such a good habit to develop together, not just the monthly monotony of making it happen, but but dreaming big and beginning to talk about money with your partner is crucial to dreaming big about the goals that you have and then setting about achieving those goals. And if the two of you have the same focus, if you are set in the same direction, the chances of you achieving the goal that you've set out towards together, man,

there's just such a greater chance of it happening. That's true in like a marriage or a long term partnership. And it can also be true if you're attempting your own goal but you have someone else there to to back you up who is also shooting for the same kind of thing. And if sharing with a friend makes you maybe a little bit uncomfortable, well just know that

you're not alone. They are probably pretty nervous too, but challenging yourself to have more meaningful conversations can lead to a deeper friendship in addition to having those strong financial habits. I'm sure that we've all seen that with the various types of relationships we have. Anytime we're able to dive deeper, right, and we're we're not just staying on the surface. It just leads to a better outcome in general. All Right, Matt, I want to know what is the financial habit that

you've implemented in your life that has made the most difference. Man, You know, I feel that I should say that teaming up with a buddy, right, I feel like you're setting me up here. You don't have to say that. You don't have to say that pressure because like it's true though, like you and me being able to have these money conversations,

that's why we started this podcast. Every time we got together, we're talking about our finances, We're talking talking about personal finance, we're talking about ways that we can hopefully be frugal and not cheat. Those have all been ways that have made this way more fun. But for me, man, the thing that has had the largest impact is not only

tracking my spending, but budgeting every single month. Having started that over a decade ago, I can't imagine this sort of compounding benefits that I've realized over the years by being able to whip my finances into shape by giving every single dollar a name. For me and Kate, that truly has been life changing for us. But yeah, what

about you? Yeah, I mean, I think, honestly, and I don't want to sound altruistic or anything like that, but for me, giving away a portion of what we have every single month and creating the habit of doing that has really helped my attachment to money, because I think I mentioned this on the show before, I had like

an unhealthy attachment towards money. I think for a while I was overly frugal and tried to hang on to everything I got, and so developing a habit of giving away a portion of what I had helped me to see money in a better light as the tool that it is and as something that can be used in a positive way in the lives of people around me. And so for me, I think that's honestly been the most important money habit that I've developed over the years.

But I know it's gonna be different for everyone, and so I think there are a lot of good things for people to to strive towards based on what we've talked about in this episode, and I hope this is helpful as people try to implement money habits into their lives to create a more robust financial future for themselves. You know, this has been a fun episode, but the fund is not over. I'm gonna kick it back to the beer because we're gonna talk about the Heaty Topper

that you and I were able to share. This is by the Alchemists and donated to the show by Cameron here in Atlanta. He lives over on the West Side. He said, Man, he's over there by the money Like Garage. There's a lot of great breweries that are popping up over there. So so Cameron, I'm a little jealous of you, but thank you so much for donating this beer to the show. Joel, what were your thoughts on hetty Topper? Well, first, I have to say we deliberately disobeyed the Alchemist's orders.

On the top of the can, it says drink from the can, and you know what, we poured it in a glass. So we gotta share these though we're we're rebels without a cost. Dude, I feel bad, but I'm not gonna be passing this can back and forth. So we definitely we definitely poured the beer. But it was really good. Man. This was a somewhat floral I p a fruit forward in my opinion, but with no fruit in it. It's just the hops giving it those fruit and notes. And it had this really nice slightly bitter

finished not overly bitter. It was just a super well rounded I p A that had just a tremendous amount of flavor, a beer that you can tell that was just brewed with a lot of passion. It truly is an epic beer, no wonder it's got a cult following. And this was super tasty. Yeah, this is a legendary beer. The hot presence that it had, it really was wave

after a wave of different hot flavors. When I first took the sip, I think I made three different uh Like, there's just these multiple waves of flavor that kind of cascaded onto my tongue and I love that. With it being a double, I felt like it was pretty bitter, but it was super balanced at the same time. There was just that a lot of that hot flavor going on. I'm with you. It did almost have sort of a fruit eatness to it, but it was like a fruity

dankness that I was picking up from the hops. Yeah, Joel, this was a great one. I'm really happy that we were able to share this one together on the podcast. So do you have some final thoughts for us? Yeah, Matt, financial habits such an important conversation, and just really quickly, just want to remind folks that it's important to figure out which financial habits you want to prioritize and then

take meaningful steps to implementing those habits. Don't forget to start easy, don't bite off more than you can chew, so that those habits actually stick and they don't fall by the wayside. Yeah, and then don't forget to join up with a buddy. When you have that accountability there for you, you're going to be much more likely to achieve your financial goals. So, Joel Man, that's gonna be it. I think for this episode, this has been a fun one. You can find our show notes up on our website

at how to money dot com. Yeah, and if you've been listening to the show for a while and you found it helpful. We would love it if you would consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. All right, Matt, Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,