Freelancing Like a Pro & Sifting Through Financial Baggage with Paco de Leon #481

financial planning, and wealth management as well. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and NPR in her new book, Finance for the People, was published earlier this month. Not only did Paco author her book, but she is also the illustrator and seriously, I gotta say her countless illustrations do a fantastic job driving home the different points that she's making throughout her book. Uh So yeah, if you are a visual learner, we highly

recommend her book. But here on the podcast, pictures don't really cut it. So that's why we're having her join us today to talk about what it takes to be a creative freelancer. Paco, thank you for joining us today on the podcast. Thank you so much, for having me. It's my pleasure. Oh parto, We're We're glad to have you. I've been following your work for years, since the first time you wrote on a blog that my wife follows, and I was like, okay, who is this fellow personal

finance nerd? And yeah, you've been turning out great, great work for a lot of years. But let's be honest, you're reading Cup of Joe years ago as well, draw well, you know, just for lifestyle influence, Matt, That's that's what

I'm into. But part of the first question, and we ask anybody who comes on the show, we drink a craft beer just because it signifies that we're willing to spend a good bit of money on something that we love in here and now, while we're also being smart doing the adult thing and saving and investing for our future. What is that in your life? Do you have a craft beer equivalent to a splurge akin to what Matt and I do. I guess I would say I enjoy

whiskey myself. I like Scotch and I and you know that sometimes it's not cheap, and uh, I'm not I'm not afraid to throw down for for something nice. Like that. I'm also I'm really into travel. My wife loves traveling, and so you know, I find myself traveling the world and sometimes, you know, we'll pay for a tour guide for the first couple of days when we land in a new city. And for some people, you know that they might not think it's worth it, but for us,

it's a way to get our bearings. It's a way to you know, learn some phrases and to get kind of a local look at, you know, at the lay of the land. Um. And you know, the last few times we did upgraded business class, and I'm sorry, I'm not sorry about it. I mean it was it was definitely a splurge. But I'll tell you, like I sat down,

you know, sat down in my chair. They like took my code, they took my hat, and then the attendant came right up to me and uttered words I thought would never be uttered, a question to me that would never be uttered on a flight, and he asked me, are you comfortable, ma'am? Like what they never care if you're comfortable on the plane. So that really was jarring,

among other things. That's quite the juxtaposition to flying spirits, right exactly, frontier, but hopefully, hopefully y'all can do some Have you ever traveled to Scotland, because I'm thinking you could just combine your two loves right there. Yeah, Scotland is is someplace I definitely want to go. As a huge fan of Scotches, specifically the eye lay Scotches, I'm all about that smoky smoky. Actually, do you have a favorite favorite Scotch? I mean, okay, so yes, I've been

to Scotland. My one of my best friends was doing an art program, a graduate art program at the University of Scotland or Glasgow, and so we went out there and it was so miserably cold, but thankfully we had nice whiskey to to warm our bodies. Um, I mean at the moment, what am I drinking at the moment? You know, I've been taking it back to my American roots at the moment and just kind of sipping on bourbon and appreciating bourbon classics, you know, Buffalo trace and

oddly enough, Irish whiskey. Have you guys ever had red Breast now have I? I've seen the bottle before. That whiskey is candy. It's amazing, It's so smooth, it's not as smokey, but I think you know, there's not very many Irish whiskey is on the market. There's, like, you know, Jamison is the most popular one, but Red Breast. If you ever get an opportunity to see it on a on a shelf at a bar, try it, and I'd love to know what you'll think about it. Give it a give it a taste. I mean, if if it

drinks like candy, You've got me there. Uh Faco. Let's talk about money, because you've had an interesting career, you know, within the personal finance space. I'm very curious though about your first job as a debt collector as well. How was that And I would like to know if there are any lessons that you learned from doing that job. So many lessons, Uh, I don't think. You know, when you recall your memories, every time you recall them, they're a little bit more corrupted. Let me just preface it

with that. But when I think about when I applied for this job when I was like twenty years old, I think that it said credit manager and it didn't say the words debt collector on it because I don't Yeah, I don't think I would have been like, let me jump at the opportunity to call people and collect money on behalf of a giant, evil bank. Like that doesn't seem like something that I would do. But I think once I got into the job, actually before I even

got the job, it was like a cattle call. It was like a casting call, like there was a line at the door. Um, we all just sat down at a table with somebody that worked there, and they did this faux interview with us where they were like or this faux collection call with us, like role playing. I was horrible. I was terrible. The the woman on the other side at the table just kept saying I can't pay, and then I would just be like, well, okay, um,

sorry about that. Right. So I I don't know how I even got past that initial interview phase, but I did. And when I got into the job, I was like, okay, cool. So for four hours a day, five days a week, I come into this call center, put on a headset, sit in front of a computer and ask people for money. This is going to be at least interesting. So um. I did that for two years and actually the summer

that I quit was right before the housing crash. It was and Bank of America had just acquired countrywide, and there was a certain night on the on the floor at work where there was these accounts called J accounts, and we were not allowed to collect on those accounts because everybody on my team and myself included, we were just like kind of a baby collector, you know. We only collected on auto loans that were less than thirty days past two, and it was mostly people traveling or

people who had just forgotten. It wasn't like hard core collections. And they said, never ever, ever, ever, uh collect on a J account because it might be in foreclosure and if you collect on it, you know, those people might not get their money back. And one night on the dialer, the thing that's you know, dialing on our behalf, all these J accounts kept popping up, and I kept saying, oops,

I'm sorry, we missdialed, and I would hang up. And after about five of those calls, I looked around and all my other coworkers were like, yeah, this J account stuff keeps popping up. So we went to our our our lead, and then the lead went to the VP who was on call that evening, and they came out

and said, do the best you can. And so I think that signifies, or that one little vignette shows you that when that housing crisis happened, literally the bank did not have the infrastructure, and a lot of times the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing because it was just crumbling. You know, it was like trying to hold water. It was not We were not equipped. And thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, um, I didn't have to deal with it in terms of being a collector during that time.

I went and I had just graduated college in college and I had another job. But I know I've been rambling, But one other thing I want to say about the debt collecting job, I did learn a lot. I learned how to talk to any person about money, and I think that has what has been really um important for me and like kind of set the tone for me being able to do sales and be a financial planner and and even do this kind of thing now. I think, you know, we've all had a soul sucking job at

one point or another in our lives. And I think when you can take away a good skill, even from a job that you look back on potentially even with horror, I think that's a good thing, and so yeah, I love that that you have something positive to take away from what sounds like a mostly negative experience. But while we're going over your resume, Popo, I want to ask the last job you had before striking it out on

your own. You were working for a guy that started his own marijuana business, right, and it sounds like that actually got your creative juices flowing. Can you tell us maybe a little bit more about that gig? Yes, be for I move on to tell you about the marijuana consulting. I want the record to state that I actually liked the collection job. I liked everybody I worked with it, and I was good at collecting, and I was nice and kind and I helped people and I felt like

I was making a difference, you know. So, Um, it sounds crazy to think that somebody could enjoy a debt collecting job, but I it was. It was fine for me. I've had way wards jobs. Um. It is also a necessary industry, and I think it unfairly gets a bad rap. There are because there's bad players. There are bad players, and those few bad apples can really make it sound like everybody who is in the det collecting industry is a terrible person. Thanks, guys. I mean I was the

same Poco, I just had a different job. So if you can imagine, Hi, I'm Paco and like I want to help you out here with your Toyota Tacoma. Okay. So I worked for this guy who was running this online business, and what he was offering was writing and creating business plans, including creating the financials um for people who wanted to set up a marijuana business in the United States of America. And we would help people set

up grow operations, dispensaries, and delivery services. And there's one more, I guess testing testing facilities that are that that's kind of a new thing in the industry since it kind of went legit. And so what we would do is we would put the offering online. We would say we can do this for you anywhere Colorado wherever it's legal Florida, and then people would call us and we would try to sell the service to them, and then if they would buy the service, we would get the money into

the account. Then I would have to call the city and be like a high um city of Boulder, Colorado. I have a client who's looking to open up a grow operation at this location? Is this legal? Like we would take people's money before we knew whether or not we could help them, and if we could help them, we would just keep going. And if we couldn't, oftentimes we would either refund the money or say we need

to find another location. So this guy was not exactly you know, it seems shady because it I think that's a little bit shady, but you know, business is what I learned from that guy is that, uh a lot of people are kind of making it up as they go, Like we I don't need permission, Like I don't need to be expert with twenty five years experience in order

to help people. I have a good amount of experience working as a financial planner and having a finance degree and just working in all these financial services industries in general. That you know, even my advice of like you know, save every you know, save a portion of everything you learned. That's good advice, you know, And I'm not scamming people. And anyways, so we did all that sort of stuff, and uh yeah, I mean he he he was the

guy actually who he let me go. And as he was letting me go, he goes promised me one thing. And I was like, why is this guy asking me to promise him something as he's basically firing me, right, I'm like, okay, what what do you what do you want me to promise? And he goes, promised me that you won't get like some stupid off his job. You're too smart for that. And he goes, you'd be surprised

at how you rise to the occasion. And I was like, okay, dude, like that's a weird, cryptic thing to say to somebody as you're taking away their livelihood. But then you know, I went on an unemployment which is basically, right, a version of universal basic income, and I would sit quietly every day and I would just wait to kind of feel like, okay, what is my intuition going to say? Or I just had space to kind of pause and like craft a life that I didn't I didn't have

that space before. And so I thank him for firing me. I thank him for making me make that promise, and I thank the government for weeks of unemployment. And it all happens for a reason. And you know, especially obviously when you're doing that collecting, you didn't have any time to I mean literally, you're sitting there in the dialer, it automatically feeds you the next call. You literally didn't

have any time. But sometimes we do need to reflect, and I think that's something that we is oftentimes missing when it comes to us pursuing whatever our next job or what career we want to advance. And sometimes it's unemployment insurance and sometimes it's savings on hand that gives us the ability to have that time, because if you don't, you're forced to take the next job that comes along in order to pay the bills that month. And that's

not the position you want to be in. Yeah, Park Specifically, you're creative, right, and you say that folks who are in the creative fields they're often underpaid, And so like, what do you think it's a solution for folks you know who have the strong creative side, but who oftentimes have a difficult time just finding the ways to increase their income. I mean, I think they really have to do the hard work and kind of dig and understand why they're undervaluing themselves. What is it that there? Do

they have a mental hang up? Do they think that because the work comes easy, that they shouldn't be paid a certain amount um? That's one thing I think a lot of folks can do. The other thing is trying to understand the end value that the person that you're selling your product or service to gets and come at your pricing from a value perspective and not how much time does take me perspective or how much energy does

this require of me? And I think when you really start to understand that, you understand that there's a lot more flexibility in pricing. And two there's maybe a whole demographic and market that you might be missing, you know what I mean, Or you're not thinking about you're not thinking about the people who really really value the thing

that you're providing. I think sometimes we think about it like it's an hourly rate thing, and and if we do, we're we're we're devaluing our services because it took a lot of hours and in many cases decades to get to the point where we're at with the skills that we have, with the knowledge that we have that it goes beyond just uh, yeah, I've worked for fifty an hour or or whatever it is that you've kind of set yourself up to be compensated for, which I'll say,

I feel like oftentimes comes from a point of view that is more entrenched than in the traditional like traditional fields of work. Right, And so I'm specifically thinking of a friend of ours and he gets paid hourly. He is, you know, at the law school. He's a very smart guy, and he jokes about He's like, man, my plumber makes

more per hour than I do. And it's like, well, dude, you're you're totally looking at this from the wrong perspective because he's looking at it, you know, by the hour, whereas that plumber is keeping you from having to dig through your own crap, Like, so literally, what is that? Literally? What is that worth to you? Uh? And then you will see why does that plumbers are paid so much?

It just takes kind of shifting how you approach these different problems, Like you said, well and and partly you also you mentioned that we've got to we've got to get better at selling ourselves. And so what else do creatives need to consider when it comes to how they're pricing their services and kind of making themselves more appealing in the market. I mean, definitely, we have to be

constantly communicating to our audience. I mean, I think building an audience is a requirement for an artist and a creative person, especially somebody who's self employed, who's independent, it just seems like, really, if you don't build an audience, then you're always trying to make sales. I'm not really sure how right, Like you're relying maybe on earls UM and I think that's great, But you have to think about your sales funnel. Is how they get into their

how your potential clients get into your sales funnel. It's a number of ways. It could be from an Instagram post, it could be from doing a podcast interview. It could be from an article that you wrote. It could be from a number of things. It could be from an attorney that you work with often. And you guys have the same kind of clients, and so thinking about how you're reaching people um and thinking about all the different

ways that you can reach them I think is really important. No, I don't think that we all have to get on caup House and we all have to get on TikTok and we all have to have a podcast. I don't think we all need to do that. I think you just need to find something that feels natural for you, and it could be like a blog where it's basically like a photojournal and you post, you know, photos that are inspiring, or it could be an email newsletter, or it could be you know, something you do like a

weekly live on Instagram or something like that. I do think it's really important to be highly visible and to communicate to your audio if you are, you know, actively saying I'm going to participate in commerce in this way. But of course there are outliers. I think if you're a fine artist and you know you are selling high end art, that's not necessarily you know, commerce kind of

on the nose. I think you can get away with being mysterious and weird, and you can find ways that you can build an audience that's, you know, more authentic to you. So you don't necessarily have to dance on TikTok if you're selling those like hundred thousand dollar paintings. Would you can if you want to market some of your artwork. That's one of the things I appreciate you saying that, because that's one of the things that we've

actively kind of avoided. And we know ourselves and it's not that we probably couldn't build some sort of a TikTok audience, but it's not We're not naturally inclined to do that. Folks would show up for the train wreck like they people get hurt. Yeah, it would be like hashta TikTok fails like on the rag. And so it's one of those things where I think sometimes people feel like they have to be present in every form where

people are consuming. Uh. And and if that's the case, you're probably gonna be not very great on most of those forms. And I think, um, yeah, picking one or two where you can specialize and be really good, it's probably better than spreading yourself too thin and being on has like all of the above right that that you can join. Um, But Paco, We've got more that we

want to get to with you in this conversation. We want to talk about emotions and money, and we want to talk about unearthing some of our personal finance baggage. We'll get to some of those questions right after this break.

All right, we're back from the break and we're talking with Paco daily On about you know, we just talked about freelancing specifically and kind of basically how to set yourself apart and regardless, uh, you know, if you're talking about your personal finances regardless if you're talking more about your you know, kind of your business finances. There are a number of things that can keep us from achieving

what we're looking to achieve with our money. And you know, one of the main topics in your new books knows around emotions and feelings. Because our emotions that you know, they tell us that we're not worth more. That can play into the reality, you know, and then we end up setting our rates too low. Basically, it's sort of like we manifest something into existence. Um. And you know, you say that dealing with your feelings is an essential

piece of dealing with your finances. I totally agree, but I feel like that this is something that's easier actually said than done. It's so much easier said than done. It's so much more challenging to be the person who has to sit there and face some of those really negative feelings like shame or guilt or you know, a

lack of worth. And I want society too. I wanted to be more normal in society to sit with these negative feelings and to admit that we all have them, and to help each other with tools that have worked for us to kind of get through them. You know what I mean, instead of just trying to ignore it or what I really what really frustrates me is like the positive stuff. You know, just be positive, think positive.

You know, that doesn't work if you're feeling really broken, if you're feeling really wounded because you've internalized, you know a lot of things like the wage gap, or you've internalized this lack of worthiness because of you know what, society, the messages you get from society. You can't just magically love yourself. You can't just magically think positive. You really have to just kind of sit with your feelings and

and find what works for you. So you could do talk therapy, you can do journaling, you can hire a coach, you can do all of the above. I think there's a lot of different ways to kind of get at the root of some of these negative thoughts and negative ideas and cognitive biases that are dictating how we behave with our money. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think if we don't face those emotions, if we don't deal with our feelings, if we sweep them under the rug,

that we can't grow. If you just like put on a bright and Chinese face, that doesn't fix what's going on underneath, and we can't than address like the root problems that we're facing with our money that have to do with our history, with how we feel about ourselves and those things were holistic people and and even our personal finances kind of need to be taken into into that. Like we can't just pretend that they're separate entities. Absolutely

everything is interconnected. Yeah, And you know this makes me think about earlier to you're you're talking about how like when you're talking about the guy you're working for with the marijuana you know, marketing full services company that y'all had going on, and how so much of business is when I pictured you didn't say this, but like you're

faking it till you make it right. Um. And you can do that maybe with a service like that where you're essentially you know, you're figuring it out on the fly, but it is hard to do that when it comes to how you feel about your your own personal finances, how you feel about your own money, because you can't fool yourself. There are certain things that you can put out there for clients where you can say I will do X, I don't know what's going to happen after that.

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But you can say certain things that you can deliver on because you know that you will do those things. But when it comes to yourself, it's really hard to fool yourself. I mean, because we we know our minds that you know, like you know how it is you feel about something, uh, and so like you said, it's difficult just to put on a you know, a smiley face. I want to

I want to hear Pacco's thoughts on this. I think Paco part of the problem is it's not necessarily that people don't know the right information, although I think there is a lack of personal finance knowledge in our culture, but it is a lot of times it's that emotional hang up that leads us back to behaviors that are debilitating, where we're actively harming ourselves when it comes to making progress with money, and that's what needs to be overcome.

It's not that you don't understand that basic concept that you need to be uh saving a portion of what you're bringing in, or that credit card debt is bad. Like people for the most part understand that, UM, and we are dealing with I think a lot of people who who are you know, and we're gonna talk about this in a minute, living in a consumeristic culture trying to navigate these waters, and they're dealing with a lot of stuff going on underneath the surface. That's absolutely correct.

I mean I kind of arrived at this conclusion or actually what forced me to kind of dig beneath just the topical, very practical stuff when it came to all of this was I just kept seeing really smart, capable people, often who were earning enough, who had a surplus, but they were doing just like things that were clearly not in their best interest. And my perspective was like, I don't know, I don't think shaming and guilty them is going to work. Maybe let's try to figure out what's

going on and dig deeper. And you know, oftentimes there is some other story, you know, something they picked up through their grandparents or their parents or the media, and so they have this this narrative going on, this belief that they're playing on loop, and that's influencing their behavior. And kind of the analogy that I like to use, or the metaphor rather is like the things that have

happened to you, they they are like a hand. You know, they're reaching through space and time and they're holding you back or they're pushing you forward, but they're dictating some of the things that you're doing presently today. And until you kind of pause and look at at what's going on, you'll just be you'll continue to be a victim to that,

to that hand from the past. Yeah. I think one of the other things I liked about your book was that you kind of used like wisdom literature from various various different places and times, and you even you even got like infuse some Carl Jung into your book, and you you detail the impact that our shadow selves have on us and like which you basically you're saying that we have to reckon with our subconscious beliefs. That's what

that the shadows self is that's holding us back. So so, like let's say somebody you mentioned that you could do talk therapy. There these different methods where you can go to kind of address some of those things. Um, yeah, do you have any for somebody who's like, listen, I'm not going to spend the money or I'm averse to talking to somebody, which Matt and I are not. And actually, you know a couple of weeks ago, we had on a financial therapist on the show. We think that that's

like an important role. But but if someone wants to kind of go it alone or start to think through some of these things, like how do you suggest they get star it in? Well, what worked for me, and I don't know if this is going to work for everyone, but this is what worked for me. The first thing that I needed to do before I could even address talk therapy was I started meditating. So I would just put a cushion down and PLoP down on this cushion and it was kind of a freestyle for a few years. UM.

I didn't have a teacher. I just, you know, would pull up some YouTube videos or set a timer and I my goal was to sit there for twenty minutes. And sometimes I felt like, oh my gosh, I'm killing it. I'm awesome at meditating, and other times I would think, oh my gosh, that's that was absolute trash. For twenty minutes, I just was concerned about answering an email, but that's part of the practice. UM and I think it's important too for people to just sit and allow themselves to

have a quiet space. Because we were living in a time where you have so many things competing for your attention, your focus is fractured, you know, like and because of that, you don't listen to yourself. You don't have your own inner intuition, that voice. You can't really hear it unless you sit down and and and allow yourself to have the time in the space for quiet. And I think once you start to do that, what you start to realize is you don't have to completely identify with every

thought you think. You can have a thought and it can just be a thought. And once you realize that, then when you have the thought I'm not worthy, or you have the thought like people like me just don't make up make a lot of money, or you have the thought like, oh you have to really struggle to make a lot of money, you can start to just realize that you don't have to identify with those thoughts. And I think that's the very very very first step.

And from there, yeah, once you're comfortable kind of sitting and feeling uncomfortable, really, because meditation isn't just about sitting there and feeling uncomfortable like sad or angry or whatever. It's also like I want to scratch my nose. I want to check my phone. It's you know what I mean, Like it's I want to look at my email, I

want to look at Instagram. So you get used to this discomfort, and then I think folks who may have been challenged or afraid aid of therapy talk therapy, I think that you know, once they get used to being uncomfortable, talk therapy is often the next thing that one can can can apply. Yeah, we have to get comfortable with our own thoughts, with our own selves, and so we're not just going to stay in the realm of the esoteric here, We're gonna get a little more I guess

nuts and bolsy with it. Generally speaking, Like a lot of folks will talk about how where the where the sum of our habits, we completely agree with that's right. It comes down to not what we actually just think. It comes down to what we actually do as well. Um. In your book, you discuss the five essential financial habits that we all need to need to develop in order to be successful with our money. Can you share with

those five different habits are with our listeners? Yeah? Absolutely. Um. The very first thing that I recommend everybody do is develop a weekly finance time habit, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's anywhere between twenty minutes to an hour that you block off as like a standing meeting with yourself, um, and you start to address your finances.

And for folks who are just starting out, which I think your listeners are probably a little bit more advanced, But for for the folks who are just starting out, that could be as simply as like get like wrangling your loggins. There are so many people who I've heard they don't want to there. You know, they can't even look at their financial data because they don't even know, you know, what their loggins are. So that could be the first thing that you do during the first week,

like literally, I can't I can't find it. I don't I can't see it exactly I mean. And then wait and then get the email and yeah, that's a whole meltdown, you know what I mean, m e I I you know, So start slow and with weekly finance time. Think about it like, you know, if you haven't been going to the gym for a long time, think about your weekly

finance time is going to the gym. Sorry to use the workout analogy, but I'm not asking you to like get on the treadmill and run twenty six point two miles or squat your own body weight, or touch your toes even just like you know, the first weekly finance time, the first few times, just go to the gym and look around. You know, it's just like who who's here? What's it like? What does it smell like? Or you know, like just get used to arriving and and being there.

And you know, just as if you dedicate and you're really consistent, you know, eventually you're gonna start learning about how to roll over your four one K. You're gonna start learning about index funds, You're gonna start learning about how to pay off your your debt um with the pain, you know, with a with a debt payoff plan um. And of course, shameless plug, what can you do during weekly finance time? You can read finance for the people. Um. The second habit is I'm a big fan of separating

your discretionary expenses. So anything that's non essential, I like to give myself a little allowance each month about you know, for what I'm gonna how much I can spend on non essentials, and I keep it in its own checking account that way I don't accidentally spend money I'm not supposed to spend um And yes, even I do this, I am not above needing bumpers like I A big part of this is protecting yourself from yourself, um and knowing your limitations right and knowing you might be a

victim to like Instagram ads, and just having your your discretionary expenses separate. It's just one way to ensure success. Um. Well. And and and one of the reasons you outline this is, I mean you coined this Paco's law, right, which is if I remember right, like you're talking about how if there's available money, we're going to spend it, like it bleeds over into all different types of spending. Uh. And so I think that's a part of how we keep

ourselves from being our own worst enemy, right absolutely. Yeah. And you know that's not a disrespect to who we are. It's like our brains are great, but you know there's a lot going on in there that you know, we we are not fully aware of, especially when it comes to being victims to advertising and you know, scrolling endlessly and things like that. So, um, yes, definitely that's separating your spending is a way to not become a victim

of Paco's law. The third habit is to you know, set aside time to think about how you think about money and also come up with processes for how you make financial decisions. And one of the things in the book that I out line is like calming your nervous system before you make a big financial decision, or calming your nervous system before you know you're going into a

negotiation or you're collecting on a debt. You know, anything that's gonna make you feel uncomfortable and nervous or you feel like you might choke, you know, when it comes to you navigating a conversation with money, do what you need to do. For some people that's like taking five deep breaths. For other people, it's like you know, listening to Lizzo very loudly, which is what I which is

what I do. UM, But just like know yourself, know what you need to do so that when you go into making financial decisions, you know, asking for a lower

interest rate, negotiating your pay, you've prepared for that. UM. The fourth one is to save and or invest a portion of you know, everything you learn, every dollar you learn, you should be putting some of that aside for freelancers, of course, you should be putting some of that aside for taxes um and then when you pay yourself, I mean, every time you earn money, invest some of it or save some of it. And even if you can't afford to do a lot right now, a lot is a

relative term. I think the important thing is to build the habit and get used to it, and then just ratchet it up as your income goes up. To the last habit is just to appreciate what you have. I know it sounds corny to have a gratitude practice, but you know, the science behind it is very clear and obvious that having a gratitude practices overall good for your

mental health and well being. And you know, I think a lot of us, especially in modern society, are suffering from this kind of idea that when I get this thing, or when I accumulate this much, or when I get to from A to B, then I will feel happy. But I think the real lesson that we all have to learn is that we only have this moment right now,

and we have to appreciate what's right in front of us. Yeah, yeah, I agree, And I think that being being thankful for what we have and and and and making that a habit. I love that too, that you kind of suggest that, because it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, you might every once in a while remark that, like

we've got it better than other people. But if it is this regular practice where you have a daily time or a weekly time where you practice gratitude, where you talk to your partner or to your kids about what indeed you have to be thankful for, naming, calling out the specifics, like that changes your brain, That changes the

way you perceive the things that you have. And at one point in the book Pocket you say, we've been groomed to consume, and so yeah, we we obviously live in a consumeristic culture that is pushing us towards more, better, the next thing. And so yeah, but besides just that practice of gratitude, you have any other thoughts about what it looks like to live in this culture but not

necessarily be sold out to it. I mean, the thing that's so glaringly obvious to me is we're constantly getting these marketing messages that say you're not enough, and in order to be enough or in order to belong you have to like buy these razors or drink this drink. You know, so I think understand exactly smooth and whiskey light candy. Uh. I think just knowing that that's what we're up against, right, there's this part in our brain that the marketing messages are kind of trying to like

poke at and make you buy. That's going to be your first line of defense is just knowing. Um. I have this little thing I do called a by list, and so I use this platform called Notion, which is just kind of like a fancier Google doc, like you can put emojis and organize it in a in a

nice way. It's just a database that's I use. And I every time I get this ping to buy something that I don't need, you know, like a cool beanie or like a eighty five dollar sweatshirt that I know I'm not gonna buy, but I kind of want to buy it. Um, anytime it feels compulsive, I will open up my by list and I'll put it on the list, and then I have rules about the list the list. The rule is like I have to wait at least a week before I buy it to know that I

really want it. And what I've realized is like of the time, just putting it on the list will give me that dopamine rush, right, It'll it'll feel like shopping, because I kind of am shopping. Like I'm I'm making the list cute, and I'm organizing the list, and I like use labels like this is for hobbies, this is for clothing, this is for household And then you know, like a week later, I'll go on to put another thing on the list and I'm like, oh, yeah, I

forgot about that hoodie. No I don't want it, and I'll take it off the list, you know. So I think that's another little hack that people can do. Um And it's a way to be like on the hedonic treadmill, you know, but not to have your wallet pay pay the price. It's it's a good way for us to keep that that spending and check pocket. This is awesome. We've got more that we want to get too. Specifically, we want to we want to talk about debts UH and the different impacts that it can have on us.

We're gonna get to that right after this break. All right, we're back in the break. We're still talking with Paco de Leone when talking about her her new book, Finance for the People, and just so much good wisdom in that book, And Paco, I think one of my favorite parts of the book is and you just mentioned it before the breaks as one of the habits is you need to think about how you think about financial decisions. And I think so often, especially in the realm of

personal finance, we're often told what to do. We might even be told how to do it all. That was one of my pet peeves as a kid is you're told what to do, but you're never told why or how, and so um, yeah, I think thinking about how we go about doing that that is an important part of the journey, kind of connecting the dots together so that we fully understand, you know, the complex reality of what's going on. But yeah, can you can you talk about

why that's so important? I think it's important to realize, you know, how some of the things that we take for granted came into in existence. That way, there's like a level of context, right, And yeah, thinking about how how we think about money is important because the quality of our thinking is going to impact the quality of our decision making when it comes to finances and you know, there's a lot outside of our control. A global pandemic happens, and we all have to scramble. Uh you let go

from an employer. Uh, interest rates change and all those things we can't control. But the things we can control are thinking about how we think about money and thinking about our decision making process. And that's why, you know, I try to emphasize the importance of agency in these areas.

Like I'm noting that so much of what you're talking about here has to do with what, like what's going on in our own minds, you know, like so much of your book is dedicated to mindset, is dedicated to how we think about our money as opposed to you know, it's it's nice to, you know, for you to point out that we it's a good practice to separate out our our spending, but so much of it can take place between our own ears, as it is on the spreadsheets or or the different apps that we're using, or

how much cash we're keeping on hand. Um. I love that you're take in this approach that points out that a lot of the data or like you said, a lot of information is out there, but we're regularly seeing people not make the right decisions. Uh. And that's because

it it oftentimes does come down to us. But I wanted to ask you a quick question here about debts, Like you've got this entire chapter dedicated to the concept of reframing debt, and so how how do you encourage folks to think about the role of debt in their lives? Great question? When it comes to debt. One of the things we have to realize is that this has been

a theme that has been present in human history forever. Um. If you look back, way way back, humans were making sacrifices, both you know, ritualistic sacrifices, because they were trying to repay a debt to the gods. And some of you folks might feel you have a responsibility to society or you have a responsibility to your parents, and that you have to kind of repay a debt to what's been given to you. And so this em of debt has

been around for a long time. Um. When I was writing the book, I did some digging, and I found that there are some anthropologists that believe, actually there are some anthropologists that cannot find data to support this concept that, uh, money came before debt, Like there's a story in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations that said, you know, in some New England market people were bartering, and that's you know,

bartering was originally how people exchanged goods. Then you have this dilemma of you know, I want to barter with Joel, but Joel doesn't want to barter with me, so he has to first barter with Matt and then he can barter with me, or I first have to barter with Matt. And so the story is that because of this complication, money was created. But the further I kept digging, the more I found that even like back in times of ancient Mesopotamia, people lived on debt just to finance their

day to day lives. And then they would settle that debt when they would you know, go and harvest their wheat or harvest whatever the crop they were growing. And

so debt actually preceded money. Uh. And so I wonder if we didn't have debt, would we have money or in some ways a slip for debt and IOU is what turned into money like a h an invoice or an IOU that says, you know, you gave me a cow and I owe you the value of a cow that could be traded around and that would end up being you know, a dollar or whatever, you know, a note. And when when I thought about it from that perspective, well,

it really blows it up. It really shows you that, you know, debt has been around for a really long time. And even though people feel shame and guilt about student loans, I think it's important to understand that it's been around for a long time and it's necessary for growth. And I know that's probably challenging for a lot of folks. But you know, think of debt like fire or red wine. And I say that because fire is awesome, because we can cook chicken to the internal temperature of a hundred

and sixty five degrees. We can use it to keep ourselves warm. But when it's out of control, fire can destroy livelihoods, right, And the same thing with with red wine. It's like there's all these studies that say a glass of red wine, I don't know, a few times a week or something like that is overall beneficial for your health. But if you're drinking like four bottles of red wine at night, that's when we veer into some unhealthy territory.

And so I like to think of debt in that way, and just understanding the history of debt I think allows us to reframe it and just gives us a totally different perspective. Yeah, I agree, and I think, Yeah, that's just one of the things that we've talked about on the show. I know we've had some guests who completely disagree with us about that, and they think there's no such thing as good debt. You can't even put those

two words in the same sentence. And then there are other people who more like you, say that it can be used effectively, and we agree, like, especially if you're using it for something like an education, even still like you've got to keep that under control, because even if you're using debt for something that is good, it can get out of whack and become you can you can always say, like, well, I'm going back to get my

master's degree. It's gonna be a hundred thousand dollars I don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet, and that can still be a bad, bad decision, even if you're using it for something that is supposedly good. Um, but one of the reasons that you you argue, you say, the reason to get out of debt is is because of the emotional toll that it takes on a person, And I think you're right talk to us about that

side of debt and how it kind of impacts us mentally. Yeah, I think a lot of people are right when they're taking personal responsibility for their debt. I think we should take personal responsibility for our debt. But oftentimes folks who have student loans and you know, they feel like they were kind of sold this bag that is not working out for them. That's when debt kind of starts to feel a lot heavier. And I think a lot of people there's just a lot of shame and guilt when

they're come when it comes to debt. And for sure, paying that off is one way to get rid of the shame and guilt. But I think people really need to examine where that comes from and allow themselves to heal and integrate that that part of themselves that they're rejecting. And that's definitely one way to start to allow yourself

to deal with a debt more effectively. I think that's a great way to think about something that is oftentimes so integrated into our lives, whether it's student loans or because you know what's funny is that, like, I don't think anybody has any guilt or shame when it comes to say, getting a mortgage for a house, right. And so it really is curious what it is about student loans in particular that seems to carry this additional burden

with it. And maybe it is because, like you you mentioned, Joel, like the job prospects, right, if you are expecting a certain job, perhaps you take on all this debt. I don't like, maybe it's just a feeling of foolishness where you're just like, well, shoot, like I was really expecting to be able to land you know, ex type of

job that's not working out. Uh. And so just because something you know isn't exactly working out, maybe like you thought it, would you beat yourself up, break yourself over the cold, because yeah, that that doesn't necessarily mean that was a poor decision. It just means like things aren't working out now, ben like, where do we go from here? Let's examine the facts, uh and maybe figure out a

new plan. But moving on from that, and I think that's certainly a healthy approach to tackling what might feel like overwhelming debt totally, and you know, there's no way to ever make a decision and know exactly what the outcome is going to be good or bad. That's part of the ride of you know, life on earth, um. And so I think when you also approach it like that, when you do the best you can with the information

that you've got, you examine the way that you think. Uh, you make sure that you're making decisions when your nervous system is calm. Those are always that we can approach our finances so that we're you know, shooting for the best possible outcome given the fact that there's a lot outside our control. You've obviously never used to magic gate ball because that was I mean, clear answers ahead of time.

So I don't know what you're talking about, but that that there, that's a fifteen million dollar trick right there. Huh exact. Uh, father, This has been a great conversation. We really really appreciate you joining us. Where can our listeners find more about you and about what you're up to and about your new book. You can buy finance for the people wherever books are sold, and we can stay in touch if you go to the hell Yeah group dot com I've got a weekly newsletter called the

Nerd Letter. It goes out every Wednesday, and if you sign up for that, I will definitely be dropping some gems in your inbox. Paca, this has been an awesome conversation. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. The pleasure was mine, all right, Matt. That was a great combo, and I love the pleasure was all mine. I'm gonna reclaim it. Yeah, that was

my pleasure, Paco, not yours. Now. It was great chatting with Paco, and she's just I really do think her book is going to do a lot of good and um, I love the way it's laid out, the way it's presented, and just I think, as listeners can tell, she's thought deeply about a lot of these topics. And so that kind of gets me to my big takeaway potentially, But let's get to yours first. What was your big take away from this combo? You kick it off like you're right there, so you can kick it off to make

sure we don't overlap you, okay, all right? So she one of the things she said, she said, the quality of your thinking impacts the quality of your decisions, and I was like, I wrote that down to Bam, that's really good stuff. And I think sometimes we think that like, as long as we get the nuts and bolts, A, B, S and C s right, that we don't even have

to necessarily know how or why we're doing it. But I think some of that deep thinking, some of that reflection and kind of like like just we say that index funds, low cost index funds are a great way to invest. But if you don't know why you think that, and you're just doing it because we said that's a good idea, well you might change on a time when someone else tells you next week, hey, you know what else is a great idea? Buying the dip on the

Facebook Facebook stock drop. That's some meta Or they're watching like Mad Money and they're like, oh, but this guy says to buy this instead of all the index fake exactly. And so you have to have thought deeply enough about whether you know the way we view things resonates with you because you can take some and leave some. But if you haven't done that deep or of thinking through why you feel that way and why that's leading to certain actions in your life. When it comes to your

personal finances. I think you're doing yourself a disservice and so so Yeah, I think what I'm kind of saying is like, don't just do what we say based on the fact that we set it, because we're certainly not infallible. And yeah, do some of your own research and think deeply about how you're gonna do things and why you want to do them. I think that's gonna have a massively beneficial impact on your finances over the long term and will probably even you know, propel you towards doing

more uh and getting better with your finances more quickly. Totally, Yeah, because the fact is, if you don't know why it is that you're doing something, like you might arrive at the right answer. But it's like doing proofs, like when you're in school, like right when you're when you're doing whatever math that requires proofs, you have to show your work. Uh. It's it's not about getting the right answer, because that's

like that's essentially the easy, easy play. Yeah, Like you have to show how it is that you got to your answer, and once you know that, like that's what's replicable, right, because you might stumble up on the right answer ocasionally

here and there. But that's not scalable. You can't take that and then apply it to other areas, not only in your finances, but even in your life, because the variables are always shifting, even just slightly in our personal financial lives, and so we have to take those into account exactly. Uh, and one of the ways and so essentially, so my big takeaways kind of like a precursor to years. Uh.

You know. So you talked about the quality of our thinking impacting our decisions, and I think so much of what increases the quality of our thinking is taking the day time to do. So what I noted here is that two of the five financial habits that she mentioned aren't, like, aren't super nuts and bolty like like we're kind of talking about on the show. One of them was basically calming your nerves as a way to center ourselves before we make a large, you know, financial decision. And then

the last one she talked about was gratitude. When she spends two out of five of her financial habits focused on the things that we need to do in our own minds, I think that's a red flag from Paco, where she's pointing out that it's not about the latest tip that's some financial advisor is is putting out there or you know, whatever rules are changing when it comes

to roth iras or different things like that. Those things are important, and we do need to take some time and focus on those things, but of our time should also be focused on how it is that we are governing ourselves. Uh. And so my big takeaway is is just that we need to spend more time than we think.

And she was talking about meditation, so whether it's meditation, whether it's taking the discipline or the weekly time dedicated towards So really maybe it's like two and a half of her five initial habits because that weekly time that you spend on your finances, not only is it going to refine your actual skills and your knowledge, but that's just again that's almost more of a mental thing, where it's just your willingness and the discipline to actually put

in the work and too to work on improving yourself. So I just think that's huge, especially because I think that's something that we so often neglect in our lives. And I can be guilty of that sometimes of thinking the right thing or like listening to somebody talk about it and agreeing with them and then not doing the

hard work of implementing it in my life. And so I think that habit is one of those that is core to getting good with your money, is especially in those early years, spending time every single week with your money and and developing that habit is going to pay huge dividends down the road. All right, Matt, let's get back to the beer that we had on the show.

This one is called rugen Brow. It's a logger group. Yeah, and this one is is actually listener Julie sent this one in our way that she said this is her husband's favorite beer. So yeah, what we thoughts on this? But well, first I just realized that Paco founded the Hell Yeah group and this is Hell's logger and I swear we don't play these things, but sometimes it works out serendipitous. Yeah, So this is a Swiss brewery. I don't think I've ever had this beer or any beer

by this brewery. And actually I've never had a Swiss beer, I don't think. Yeah, I guess we definitely haven't on the show. I don't know if I have in real life, but so the can the show is not real life? Now are we in the metaverse is that what's up, Matt, you know, in my civilian life, like my non personal

finance life. So the first thing I want to own a point out is that like this can like the artwork it makes it look like it's like Keystone or like just like a super classic maybe even basic like style of beer, but the way it tastes is the complete opposite of the macro produced you know, U s loggers. This is such a good I mean the way I would describe it. First of all, we poured it. It had like the most beautiful like creamy foamy cloud topper of the head on top of the beer. But it

just drank super clean, super crisp. When I googled the brewery, like they had a picture of it like on the side of this mountain road, and so I picture them just filling up their beer making vats with like from a stream that's like dropping off of the side of the rock or something like that. I feel like I'm drinking Swiss water right now. That's That's exactly what I thought. Actually, I was like, it tastes like Swiss mountain beer, and

that's like, yeah, it is, I think so um. It had that kind of clean, crisp sort of vibe to it. And this is the kind of beer that is. It's interesting that it comes from a place it's colder, because I think of this beer is like a perfect summer beer here in Atlanta, but still great this time of year as well. And so yeah, big next to Julia for sending in our way. That's right, Julia, thank you

so much for donating this beer to the show. And by the way, this is the same Julia who we mentioned recently when we were talking about domestic medical tourism. So again, thank you for the you know, those wise words sharing your experience there as well as this delicious beer. No doubt, but that's gonna do it for this episode, Matt. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,