Mind Altering Effects of Simple Money Tricks #320

thinks about money. Yeah, exactly. We started thinking about this episode and we realized we were specifically we're talking about some of these techniques or tricks that we can implement in our lives. But what we realized we're so important about these specific ones that we're gonna talk about today is the impact that that it can have on our psyche. Right, it can completely shift the way that we think about money.

And when you have sort of this shift in the like the undercurrent and you know, and how you've used something, it can dramatically affect how it is that you go about handling something like your money. And so that's exactly

what we're gonna talk about today, buddy, no doubt. All right, But before we get to that, Matt, you just recently told me about kind of this revolutionary way to to dry out your phone if you dropped in the toilet, which almost all of our listeners I'm sure you've done at some point or another, or not dropping in the toilet. I thought about you specifically because you're talking about your old phone. How easy, how he would just keep sticking the end of it in his mouth. I was like,

even for that, uh, this technique would work. Okay. So yeah, this is a great, great thing that came across because most people what they do if something like that happens, if he gets a little wet or whatever people saying that they do or tyler sticks in their mouth, they put it in a bag of rice and a bowl of rice or a bag of rice. That's what I

do exactly. So the problem they work, okay, is if it's well, if it's really wet, it can actually cause more problems, right like if you've got water coming out of like the port where it plugs in and can get gooey, cause even more problems. But I came across the step and they talked about how you know those so when you get like a pair of shoes in the mail or like try necks. Oftentimes it will come with those those little packs a little silica gel also

known as desiccant packs. You know what I'm talking about, right, yeah? Yeah, yeah yeah, So the kind that you're not supposed to give to your infants, right, do not eat? Yeah, this is not food, That's what it says on there. But somebody was saying, how every time you get one of those, take it, throw it in a ziploc bag or another

airtight container like a mason jar something like that. Right, and then if you ever find yourself in a position where you need to dry out your phone, a bunch of those in a sealed container is going to be much much more effective at drawing out the moisture from your phone, uh than a bowl or a bag full of rice. You can actually buy these on Amazon, right, I saw you can spend like eight bucks and you

can buy like three hundred of those tiny things. Or the fact is that we get them for free, and so why not just instead of throwing them, you know in the trash where it goes to a landfill, just take those and save them. Uh. And you're asking what happens when they get full of moisture, right, because it

seems like they would be ineffective. And what you do is you take them, you put them on a baking sheet, you stick them in your oven at a hundred and fifty degrees for fifteen minutes and it dries them out, so they get dry, let them cool, but then take them and put them back in an air tight container and then it'll definitely be good to go the next time that as he sticks your new phone in his mouth and completely use it up, Yeah, well, I'm keeping

it away from as much as I can. But now that's a good tip man, and I think, yeah, it prevents some waste. It allows us to use something that we're already getting into our home in a way that's more effective than the current way we're trying to do things, or at least the current way I'm trying to do things. By sticking it in a bag of rice. We've had to do that. People do that, yeah, and especially with young kids, we've had to do that a few times.

A remote even to like that's another thing that gets wet or gets stuck in the mouth, and so there's all sorts of things like why is this so wet? There's a problem here. Yeah, why is this not working? Probably? Oh, he ate it, that's why. So all right, it's good to know I'm gonna hold on to some of these things, and it's next to know that they're reusable too. I like to think of it as sort of like a first aid kit for your phone. Yeah, exactly, little emergency pack,

no doubt. All right, let's mention the beer we're having on the show today. This one's called Bound by Time. It's by Edmund's past Visi Brewery out of Charleston, and will give our thoughts on the speer at the end of the episode, but for now, let's get onto the

subject at hand. We're talking about the mind altering effects of simple money tricks and Matt You know, we talked recently about bigger money moves and how those can have more of an impact on us financially than a bunch of small ones, right, like maybe two or three big money moves. If you make those, it's probably gonna mean more than a hundred smaller money moves at least when it comes to the bottom line, right, or even one big move, Yeah, if you pick the right big move,

like housing or something like that. Yeah, most definitely, it could seriously have a dramatic, outsized impact compared to a bunch of smaller ones. Yeah, little tricks aren't always gonna get us all the way to our money goals. There are, however, some small techniques and tricks that we can implement to handle money better that I think are going to make a big difference over the years. They can change, I think, our relationship to money in general. It's not just that

you'll say five bucks when shopping online today. It's that these techniques are actually gonna allow us to read think our overall approach to how we save and spend. And that's the powerful thing. It's not the money that you save in the here and now this week. Is the change in the way that you treat and think about money that's going to have an impact for you know, a lot of years to come, Yeah, potentially your lifetime. Right.

And you know, the biggest argument too, for making some of these smaller changes in your life when it comes to your money is that these these smaller tweaks. Of course, they can be more attainable, right, it can be really difficult to implement, uh say, a new massive paradigm shifting approach to your spending. It's difficult to go cold turkey and change your ways on a dime, But by implementing some small techniques and tricks, we're able to get the

ball rolling in. Those positive changes we make now will continue to have outsize results down the road. Uh and then almost you know, more importantly, you'll begin to view your money in a completely new light. And that's what we're excited to discuss today. Yeah, all right, so let's give a quick example of what this looks like. We're One thing that we're not going to be talking about

in this episode is like the savings app Acorn. It is a perfect example of a fintech product that uses automation to trick us into saving more money, and that works well for a whole lot of folks. They've got extra money in their savings because they let Acorns round up their purchases and save some money for them on their behalf. But if you take Acorns away, what do you have left? Well, a user is likely to go back to their old ways because that app hasn't fundamentally

changed how they view their money. It certainly helped facilitate something, but it didn't change anything deep down inside of us, and uh, they've essentially received monetary benefits without the mental shift that you and I are going to be advocating

for in this episode. Not that Acorns is bad. Acorns is still good, and we think automation is still good, but we would say that there's something to take any more of an analog approach when it comes to some of these money tricks and the psychological benefits that you're going to that you're gonna see by doing so. Yeah, I think sometimes we can become overreliant on technology or these apps, which is why, Yeah, an analog or a manual approach, however you wanna want to describe it. But

there are certainly benefits we received from those. I think it's almost like using GPS versus the old school maps we got to use, right, versus knowing how to get there exactly. Yeah, Like, and there are places I should know how to get to by now, but I don't. If I don't, it's there's some place just like fifteen minutes away, and it's because you like, let me just

pull up the phone. Yeah, but if my phone is dead or something like that, I'm out of luck trying to figure out how to get there, and so I think, you know, that's that's kind of maybe what we're duplicating for here too, is to skip the GPS, figure out in the analog world how to actually get to your destination. And there's actually your reasons for doing that. Yeah, there's

deeper benefits that we receive. So for that reason, we don't want this to just be an episode that's about the simple techniques that could allow us to spend less and save more money. We're also going to focus on the mind altering effects that some of these simple modifications can have on our personal finances. But we are all

about automation again. You know, we we dedicated an entire episode on it, that was episode one, six one, But sometimes it can lead to behaviors that aren't rooted in principle. And you know, for that reason, we're gonna get a little more kind of manual versus uh, you know, and less automation in this episode because we're we're looking for that lasting mindset shift. Yeah, and when you have a shift in mindset, you'll see the effects in your saving,

your spending, in your investment plans. And these are changes that I think that anybody can benefit from, whether you're just getting started with personal finance, and maybe you're new to the podcast, or you are getting closer to financial independence or closer to retirement, whether you've been handling your money well for decades, Implementing a couple of these tricks that we're going to discuss can have a big impact on your relationship with money, whether you're good with money

already or not. Yeah, and again, you know, the reason that we're focusing on these smaller changes and how they can have a big impact on how it is that we kind of view our money overall is because it kind of goes back to the psychological payoff, right, And so, just like you said, you'll, regardless of where you are on your personal finance journey, when you're able to see

immediate results like that always feels good. You get that small dopamine release by accomplishing maybe a relatively minor task, But those small tweaks you make can really add up. And that's the reason why our seven Money Gears starts with the simplest task of getting money in the bank

for an emergency fund. Of course, you get the immediate result of a little more financial margin, but then all of a sudden, you know this deeper shift begins to happen, and all of a sudden you're a saver, which gives you the confidence then to move on to the next gear. It's all about maintaining that momentum. Yeah, And what's great about a lot of these techniques and tricks is the fact that we can implement them as kind of like

spending and saving rules. That way, during moments of financial temptation, which we all have when we're really actually put to the test, we don't have to try and decide in the moment whether this is a good decision or not because we've previously made the decision already. And I think that's really helpful to folks because when it comes to the moment whether or not you're gonna eat dessert, well

have you? Uh? I mean, you're gonna choose yes, unless you've made a decision beforehand, but it smells so good exactly that you're not gonna do it. It's helpful to have decided how you're gonna respond during moments of clarity, like when you're setting goals towards the beginning of the year, versus when you want to buy something in your judgment

might be clouded. When I'm smell the scent of cookies wafting from the kitchen, It's gonna be harder for me to say no to that than if I've kind of written something down previously and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not doing dessert this month, right, Yeah, so true, man, it's hard to be the scent of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. By the way, I'm not saying I'm not never gonna say no, yeah exactly, And I'm not saying

that I'm eliminating dessert. I'm just saying, like, you know, if if someone theoretically pathetically for for somebody else, Yeah, honestly, this kind of makes me just think of a budget. You know. The reason you create these categories is so that you don't really have to think about it in the moment. You're kind of reaching the end of the

month and you're thinking about maybe getting some more take out. Well, it's gonna be really easy to convince yourself to get more take out if you don't want to cook dinner. But if you can look at your restaurants or take out category and if you've only got like five bucks left, that's not gonna get you very far trying to cook some food at home, maybe pull out some leftovers, but it's all about taco bell takeout. Dude, I would totally eat taco bell if we had one around us. We're

we're kind of like in this taco bell desert. Have you ever realized that there are no taco bells near us? I hadn't really thought about that because I wasn't worried about it, But now you are, I am exactly, and so yeah, uh, in a sense, kind of these techniques and these practices are a good way to kind of remove some of that mental fatigue that sometimes accompanies making

these financial decisions. And so, you know, this is why we're dedicating an episode to these simple personal finance techniques. It can be more effective to completely dominate some of these smaller tasks than to just slog away towards an overwhelming goal like retirement that you know might be thirty to forty years away. But then along the way, they'll begin to alter how it is that we think about

our money, you know. And so we'll discuss some of these specific techniques of these tricks that you can implement in your life right after the break, all right, we're back. We're talking about simple money tricks and how they can have a mind altering effect. And Matt, let's get straight into some of the tricks that we think can be helpful.

Some of these you might have heard of before, but we're gonna kind of give a deeper explanation for why you think they're important and why you should consider trying a couple of these tricks out. And it's not just again because you might say five bucks today. It's because it might alter the way you view your money. It can change the way you save and spend. And one of the things that we think is worth considering is instituting a no spend week or even a no spend month.

And this is a technique that can help you reconsider your spending through forced absence. At the very least, setting aside a week to not purchase a dang thing can save you some real money, but that time spent not purchasing can lead to questioning the way you think about spending money in the first place. And this is good right. It raises our awareness level to spending that might have become second nature and that needs to be questioned in

our life. Instituting a period where you are forcing yourself to curb all of your spending can really shake things up in a meaningful way. Yeah, so that's the whole point of doing this, right. You know, you can change this up and enforce a note, maybe takeout challenge for a month straight, no taco bell for at least a month, Yeah, no problems taco bell because you know. Or you can make yourself drink at home coffee like say, for six

weeks straight. You know, whatever you choose, forcing yourself to change your spending habits reinforces the fact that you don't have to continue to do the things the way that you've always been doing them. So in this way, money challenges can be a great way to catalyze action and ramp up your ability to save. In addition to that, you add to a little bit of accountability, maybe some friendly competition, and you're definitely gonna be well in your

way to Yeah, spending less money and saving more. Yeah, and no spending challenge with a friend like better, I think. Yeah, if you have somebody in your life who is striving after the same goals that you are, you're both gonna benefit, right, Like it makes me think of in high school, Uh, I was in a high school government US government class, right, and me and my buddy John, we're both in there, and neither of us were that great of students, but for whatever reason, uh, we we just got into this

competition to see who could just outperform the other person. Dude, I have never done so well in a class in all of high school even college, like in my entire life than in the government class. I mean literally, we were acing every single pop quiz, every single test. We were getting one hundreds. Uh. And like our teacher, she thought we were cheating. She thought we had some sort of racket going on. But it was just because like him, like we were just really competitive. He like lived down

the street from me as well. And for us, we had this mental shift where these lackluster students all of a sudden, we're able to turn a page and we became amazing students. And it all came down to how it was that we viewed, uh, that specific class. We wanted to I'll do the other guy, and it led to us being able to do much better in that class. Yeah, the effects are real and meaningful when you have like

a little bit of friendly competition going on. So yeah, I think it's a good way for people to approach this. It makes more fun to You're like, it's not purely utility based. I think a competition adds a lot of fun and intrigue to the process. Uh, it's a little bit of spicy. Yeah, it does. Some folks to have

done like a complete no spend year. There's an author, Kate Flanders who wrote about her year of not buying new stuff in a book called The Year of Less matt Our friend Katie Wolke Stanley doesn't buy new stuff at all ever. True. I saw her fixing a pair of her old Birkenstocks the other day and I was like just mad impressed every time, Like with what you post on Instagram, scored some of that guerrilla glue in there and they go exactly and more power to these folks.

Or if you want to give something that big a try, go for it. It's intense, but curbing spending for a shorter period of time definitely has some advantages to It doesn't have to be taking on some new lifestyle mantra. It really can be just a weaker or a month that shows you that you actually do have the willpower to resist some of the things that were natural urges in your life. Um, you really can avoid some of

the spending that came so naturally. It's just important to prioritize implementing a period of time where you abstain altogether. And I think that does have effects that go beyond just the money you saved during that specific period of time. Yes, And similarly, creating sort of this mandatory weight period before buying anything new is another way to to curb spending

as well. Right, you know, there are items that that seem like they're totally necessary in the moment, but if we have a seventy two hour rule, it can help us to truly assess whether or not it's a good purchase. Chances are you even forget about that item also together, or it will you know, languish in your shopping cart at an online store. But you know, if three days later you still want or you still need that item,

then you can finish that purchase at that point. Uh. And you know, this kind of makes me think about our episode that we had with Joshua Becker about minimalism. This was episode one eight seven. It's not about saving a few dollars here and there. It's not about saying that, Okay, let's not spend money for a week, because then if you don't make any change, if there's no deeper change that happens in your life, well you're gonna make up

for all that spending two weeks later. It's just like the economy that you know, economists are predicting that is going to be insane. Pentup demand is there because it's there exactly. But hopefully this period of time has allowed some people to truly look at their lives and say, like, travel is the big thing, right uh, that that we haven't been able to partake in. But hopefully there will be a lot of folks who are like, wait a minute, I'm actually pretty happy not traveling, Like I don't need

to go on that fancy vacation. And so that's what we're challenging people to do, you know, with either no spend challenges or at least by just delaying their purchase for just a little bit. Yea. And in the case of our episode with Josh Becker that you mentioned, it's more about living more of a minimalistic lifestyle. He's less about the money you saved, and he's more about the lifestyle you want to live and being proactive and not bringing too much junk into your life because it clutters

things up. And so yeah, maybe that's part of the realization too. When you have a seventy two hour rule, I don't need all this stuff. It's it becomes less about the money and it becomes more about doing things intentionally, um and not bringing things into your life that are just gonna weigh you down. There's there's a host of

benefits aside from just the monetary benefits. Right, if you can change your views around consumption, then I think we've got the potential to delay consumeristic tendencies, not for just a few days, but for a lifetime to really make a lasting change. Let's bring up another one to Matt. People should consider the trick of using cash instead of plastic when possible. You're you and I are obviously fans

of responsible credit card use. But since we're talking about techniques that are gonna help us spend and save better as well as change the way we think, using actual dollar bills has a legitimate effect on your spending habits. Paying with credit cards allows you to score cash back and travel rewards, which is great, but studies show that it's us painful to swipe your card through the credit card reader, or I guess you're not swiping anymore, you're

inserting with the chip right. But sometimes that the chip reader is broken though, and they're like it, just swipe, just swipe. But it's it's easier to do that than it is to pull money out of your wallet. It feels more real in essence when you're pulling cash out and feeling that pain is exactly the trick that you want to play on your brain. If you're looking to curb your spending, you can also do something else, because

credit card rewards are meaningful and they're good. You can keep a check register um with you, But to duck the amount out of your bank account every time you make a purchase with a credit card, at least you're doing something physical to acknowledge that money is actually leaving your account. You're you're seeing your bank account balance dwindle every time you make a purchase, and I think that's another good way to to reinforce and feel kind of

the pain of spending in the moment. Yeah, I don't write it out by hand like in an old school uh checkbook register, but that's exactly what I do when

I manually reconcile my credit cards on Excel. And so, I mean there's lots of services out there where you can link up your finances, you know, with your credit cards, and you know, have it all automated, but the actual process of me inserting it and and typing it out and seeing that, like, oh, actually that that date night was really expensive, but has an impact on the next date night we take. You know, it'll be we talk about,

but we'll have to drive across town. Though they get that being in rice Burrito, which is, by the way, the cheapest and most calorie dents item they sell good. I'm pretty sure I think it's the healthiest too. Maybe not, though I don't know. I'm honestly probably compared to It's like for the Dorino's locals taco you know, is this a taco or is am I just like a bag

of chips, but like bag of Dorito's. Man, let's talk about a way to help you make a better decision when you are making a bigger or an out of the ordinary purchase. An effective way to determine whether you can afford that item or not. A good question to ask yourself is can I also put the amount of this purchase in an I ra A And if the answer is no, then we're suggesting that you might want to forego that purchase until you can. Yeah. So let's

give an example to drive that one home. Matt. Let's say you're looking to buy uh some air pods for two hundred bucks. I think that that's what they cost Ryan, roughly two h bucks. Well, only go through with that purchase if you're willing to stalk away another two into an investment account. So that's a total of four h bucks coming out of your savings. It can provide a more realistic view of your actual financial health. If you can't do both, then you probably shouldn't be doing either.

And this is a technique I think to balance spending and investing for your future at the same time. I found this to be a really helpful trick that helps maybe inhibit my desire for the new or bigger, more expensive things, because I'm like, man, if I'm gonna do that, but then I'm gonna put some I'm gonna put the equal amount of money away for my future. Um, And maybe I'm just not ready to do either, or maybe I am ready to do both. I don't know, but it can be a helpful way to at least think

about those bigger purchases. And if you implement something like that, what's great about that is that that's an example of one of those rules. Right. It's not something that you have to think about. It's just something that you have to execute on. I'm not saying that it's easy, but if you've subscribed to that rule and you know that that's something that you want, you continue to do. There's no sort of deciding, you know, how you're gonna go about it. It's like I'm either gonna do it or

I'm not gonna do it. But then, of course, the long lasting implications of this too is not just the ability to save a little bit of money now, but it it does help you to rethink your purchases. It's like, Okay, am I only gonna put money away towards uh, you know this sort of special thing, this one off, you know, out of the ordinary expense? Or am I instead going to prioritize investing for the long haul. Just like with all these techniques, we're trying to introduce ways for you

to reframe how it is that you're thinking about your money. Uh. And you know the same is true too for recurring expenses. You know, when you cut a recurring expense, increase your retirement contributions by that same dollar amount. Uh. So, for example, we talk about luring your cell phone bill or shopping with insurance providers to get a lower rate, But don't just absorb about money into your life and start spending it.

A great technique here is to ramp up what you're saving for retirement and to push those savings directly into a retirement account. You know. And and and so, for instance, if you go from a seventy five dollar a month down to a twenty dollar cell phone plane, which is totally it, Like that's totally possible. Uh, take that fifty five and then funnel it into your wrath I ra A. Again,

we're trying to reframe some of these expenses. Right, you're not just saving fifty five dollars, you're in fact saving over one dollars. Like you need to see that my net worth is going to increase by two times that amount that I'm saving because I'm going to take that money and invest it. It's not just about saving, it's about creating a positive return as well for sure. Man, all right, let's talk about another trick I think that can help us when when it comes to how we

think about our money. And another technique that you can employ is to set up a completely separate checking or saving account for a specific goal, like saving for a down payment on a house. By essentially creating a fence around that money, by siloming it off into you know, another institution, you're also creating a mental barrier that's going to keep you from tapping that money for other reasons.

At the very least, you can use something like savings buckets within your current checking or savings account ally has just an awesome buckets feature if you have an account there, but there is something to the fact of you go in there and you're like, well, that money set aside for my vacation this year, that's gonna be really fun. I want to make sure that we can fully fund that.

And you pull money out of there to buy some sort of disposable product now or a new item of clothing because their pods exactly, you're you're taking money from that vacation that you really want to go on, and so it feels like you're robbing yourself almost in another area of life, and you actually kind of want to feel that I think, I think if you do set things up in that way, that's exactly the effect that

we're going for with this money trick. Is you want to feel like that money is named for something specific, and you don't want to ruin your ability to enjoy that future thing you're saving for in order to pay for something right now. Yeah, And so by naming your money, hopefully there's this lasting, lifelong shift that's that's taking place, right, which is that you are approaching your money with a plan.

By giving it a name, it means you have a plan for it, right, And so if you were to, like you said, if you were to take from that, you're basically going against your plan and so hopefully you would feel some cognitive dissonance at the very least. Right, I'm robbing myself like, like, wait a minute, I had a plan, but what happened to it? And so we think that by just doing this simple thing, it would it's going to allow you to to be more effective

at reaching your financial goals. Yeah, by naming your money, it makes it much more likely that you're actually going to reach those more important, further off goals that you have set for yourself, and oftentimes those are the more meaningful goals, those are the those are the goals that actually resonate with us. That's why we called them out, that's why we dedicated a bucket to it in the

first place. And we are in most cases not going to rob ourselves of that future goal and destination just for something small and trifling, uh, in the meantime, right, and and so, yeah, I think naming the money helps us realize that's what we're doing, whereas that is what we're doing when we haven't named our money. But it's harder to visualize that, it's harder to realize that. So siloing your money can actually have a really big impact on your ability to keep going after those bigger goals

that you have. Yeah, so you said siloing and we're talking about naming our money. It actually makes me think of like a farm. Yeah, it kind of does. It's like on a farm, like you hear stories about when there's kids and they like name the chickens or they name like, I don't know, the pigs or the cows

or something like that. It makes it a little bit harder to actually butcher them and use them for what they're being produced for, because there's more of an attachment to it, and so aside from your dietary preferences, when you have money that has a name on it, it's a little bit more precious, right, It's a little bit more sacred. You want to make sure that you are being very intentional, like when the time does come to tap that resource for whatever it's being you know, set

aside for you want to make sure that it counts. Yeah, bacon is great, but it's different if it's Wilbur. You know, like you just don't want to do that. This is coming from somebody who knows nothing about farms, but you know, like I feel like when you name something, it has more meaning. And so that's what we're talking about you. I mean, I'm just thinking about Chlott's web like legit, Yeah, Wilbur had a name. He and Fern loved him. That's

a great story. But yeah, Matt, we've got a few more mental tricks to get to that are gonna help people implement solid money habits for decades to come. Let's get to a couple more of those right after this break al right, we are back in. Let's go ahead. Now, let's talk about some actions to take that will lead to, you know, some more mental shifts that will help you to spend and save better and just to have a

better relationship towards money in general. Uh. And one of these that we want to recommend for folks to do is to when it comes to financial meetings or talks that you might have with a significant other, make sure that you're having those meetings with your favorite beverage in hand. This is something that we've taken to heart. And every time you and I sit down and talk about money, we're gonna crack open a craft beer. It's what we do.

And it's not that I wouldn't want to talk about money anyway with you, buddy, but having a beer at the same time, it just makes me all that more uh jazzed about doing it. It It makes us look forward to it exactly. Yeah. You so you know, of course, you want to do all the boring and necessary stuff

like you know, having it on the counter. So you stick with having these meetings regularly jointly if you have a significant other, but make a plan to share an excellent beer or a bottle of wine while having your regular budget meeting, or just not a coke with coffee. I had one of those recently. Not very good. Really. It's like a brand new thing, that coke. But if you don't like like alcohol or drink alcohol, you should, you know, find another beverage that you like, but just coffee. Yeah,

so is it called coke with coffee? Because way back in the day in college it was called coke black. Yeah, now it's called coke with coffee, I think, and black with a K. It wasn't great. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, I know you love your coke, so but do get whatever beverage it is that's going to make you excited about that meeting, right, and you know you could even like play a board game or watch an episode of

your favorite show afterwards. Sticking to a budget like that can be painful enough as it is, so at the very least, you can make your money conversations and planning meetings a lot more fun. Just this one act creates a real change in perspective to how most people view money conversations. Man, I think we've talked about this before, but we're trying to get our kids to clean up if you make the game, then it changes the whole dynamic of cleanup. But if you make it a race,

we're gonna try to beat each other out, exactly. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to make boring, routine things a lot more fun. And I think it's the same thing with a budget meeting. And yeah, the right beverage can set the right tone for it. Maybe even lad of candle who knows, yeah, exactly, make it romantic. That's fine. Uh. And then, like, paying most of your bills automatically is a great idea right where we're all about automation, but putting all of your bills on auto pay might not

be the best idea. And I'll tell you why. That's because we often don't pay attention to the bills that change based on our usage. I'm specifically talking about monthly utility bills. One bill that Matt I personally don't put on autopilot is my power bill. I refuse to do budget billing, even though they always prompt me for it, and I don't put it on auto pay either. I want to feel the pain. I want to see how large my bill is, and then I want to take

forty five seconds to actually pay it. Just this physical act has a real effect on like my interactions with the thermostat, my choice to put on a jacket instead of turn up the heat, all that kind of stuff. Man, So I got my long John's on right now, man, right, Yeah, exactly.

But there's something about like the smooth out nature of budget billing and and having it on automatic pilot, having those payments um just come out of your account automatically, where if you're one step removed from the actual money it's costing you. And so this is one instance where I say no way to automation, and I'm going to pay that one every single month because I want to see what I'm using and I want to feel it viscerally, and and there is a direct impact in my behavior

because of it. Yeah. Of sometimes things like budget billing or relying over relying on an app or something like that can desensitize us either to what we're spending or it can completely remove some of those benefits that we would receive by looking at the price. Right And one of the benefits in this case too, is just using

less energy overall. Another trick that we want to recommend for folks to consider is to think of the sticker price in terms of hours of work to buy something that you're interested in buying, right, and so this one requires you to know your hourly rate. We did an entire episode on this, This is episode nine. Uh. Knowing your hourly rate is crucial to be able to do the quick math. But thinking of a purchase, say as maybe half of your work day, that might put things

in starker terms. You know, you're gonna ask yourself, do I really want that gadget or you know, or that new clothing item if it takes that much effort for me to actually receive it. You know, we talked about the dining scream, paying and cash and paying with the credit card. Paying with the credit card is easy, easier, Right, it feels you don't feel that you're being parted with

your money in the same way. Well, you feel even more like you're being parted with your money when you think about it in terms of how many hours of

work it took you to be able to buy that item. Right, And so maybe you're gonna think twice about that sweet backpack because you're like, dang it, that's three and a half hours of work and it's not worth that's it sounds like it's worth eighty bucks, but it's not worth three and a half hours of your life, And so I think, yeah, thinking about it in those terms can be helpful. On that note to Matt, the stranger test

is another technique to help curb consumption. We talked recently with Lisa Rowan and she had a book on money hacks that was episode three or seven. Imagine a stranger handing you cash instead of the item or attempting to purchase. That can provide health framing that can be instrumental in curbing impulse purchases. So like, do you want the eighty

dollar backpack or do you want eighty bucks? And usually almost always I'm gonna take the cash, and so that means that I shouldn't buy the item, And that is just one more helpful trick in helping us curb spending

and rethink our relationship towards money in general. Yeah, of course you're gonna save that eighty bucks right there on the spot, like in that one instance, right, but by you know, by doing that over and over, I think the lasting benefit that you receive is the ability to see money for what it's actually worth versus something that we just exchange for stuff that we then exchange for our time. Uh and then that's the rest of your life. Yeah right. You know, we generally just become a little

more skeptical about using our money. We're more judicious, you know, before we just like tossing out there on any random thing that crosses our instagramn Yeah. What other way that we want to shift how it does that people think about their money is we want to encourage folks to uh stop saving for retirement instead save for your future self. You know, semantics are at play here a little bit.

But one of the biggest hurdles that that I think keeps people from investing enough for retirement is that they do a poor job at connecting what feels like sacrifice now to the benefits that they would receive from that money down the road, right, And so saving for retirement it almost feels like a tax or even this expense with very little upside because we don't receive anything right now. Part of me is like, am I actually ever really

going to get that old? I mean, I know that I am, but but it's hard to imagine, hard to make that connection. I completely know I I agree. You know, I'm gonna have massive brinkles one of these days, but like, I'm just not quite there yet. I mean I got a few the backs on the eyes for sure, but with time of uh and so instead, you know, we want individuals to imagine like that they are saving for their future selves. You know, it's it's not like this

separate person. It's not somebody else that you're saving money for. It's who you are right now, just a little bit older, and it's gonna happen sooner than you think. You know, we've talked about the face app you're able to I don't know if it's still out there, uh, put out there by the Russians, right, but the ability to use these different apps to take a selfie and to make yourself look you know, fifty years older is amazing. That alone, right there can can be the visual shock that you

need to get yourself to do the right thing. Yeah. I think there was like a Fidelity study or something that where they did that with people who are saving for their their retirement who were younger, and it really did have an impact on how much they decided to put away for the future because they're like, oh, that's what I'm gona look like in thirty forty years, And I need to start saving for that dude because or

that gal like whoever. It is, like, I need to start thinking about my future self and postponing it is only hurting that person who is going to be me someday. Yeah, and that's probably why too. The older we get, the more likely we artistated, because we're closer to being those people were like, oh, actually I am getting kind of old.

Then it's just less effective. Right, So the earlier we started so much more effective, So we have to kind of get that visual representation of what we're gonna look like. You and I did that, and uh, you know, decent looking old, but I look like I mean, there's more like eighty five year old, like those guys were old. But if I look that good when I'm eight five, I'm gonna be happy, Yeah, for sure. And it's amazing.

I think how just like a little sleight of hand can make us feel like someone has powers that are in this world. I'm talking about like magicians, right, like David Blaine. I mean, that guy does some incredible stuff and it's not like he actually has magical powers that are from another universe. Man, I still don't know how he floats. Yeah, I don't either, but it's incredible, right, invitation trick is pretty good. I think the same kind of thing can be true of our personal finances though,

Like you can go David Blaine on your finances. These tricks and techniques aren't mind blowing when you look at them on the surface. It's like having no spend month. Okay, cool, great tip, Matt and Joel. I mean, it's it's not something that that we're not the first people to have ever thought of that, right, But if you implement just a couple of these, it can make a major difference over time and how you think about money in general

and your perspective on this stuff. It's not about the money that you don't spend on that one purchase or the one no spend month that you implement. It's about completely changing the way you view money altogether with a few simple tricks and techniques that are gonna have a positive impact on you for years and years to come.

And so, yeah, I don't know how David Blaine floats, but I do know how you can change the way you think about money, And it really is through using some of these techniques, trying some of these things out, implementing them into your life and seeing how they work out, seeing if it does gradually start to change the way you think about saving, spending, and investing. Yeah, you could

not agree more. And here's the thing too, there are tons of tricks out there that we didn't mention, right, and so if there are things that you are implementing

in your life, ask yourself. You know, obviously there's probably going to be a monetary benefit that you're receiving right now, but then go another level deeper, like either ask yourself why it is that you're doing this, or ask yourself what is the other additional mental benefit that you are receiving by doing that, and hopefully you will find that there's something else that could lead to lasting change for the rest of your life, not just within that one

purchase or that one ability to to save a little bit more money, no doubt. Matt, Like, as we were kind of coming to this episode thinking about how we were gonna talk about this topic, you and I decided that it was important to get a little more meta, go a little deeper when it comes to some of these money tricks like that they are on the surface simple, but but at their route they have a long lasting, deep impact. And I know they have. They've had that

on us. Man. Like my my thinking about money, although it might be weird, it might be like crazy to some people, it is in large part because I've tried some of these tricks. I've implemented them in my life, and it's like, Man, I think about the stuff differently,

like it has every time I spend. It feels different. Yeah, that's because, right, you know, these simple financial moves and these things that we can do, these tricks, they're anchored to like these deeper financial truths, and those are the truths that we want to point people to for sure. Man. All right, well, let's come back to the beer that we had on the show, because obviously having a beverage in hand while you're talking about money makes it much better.

Today on the show, we had a beer called Bound by Time. It's by Edmund's past. Matt, what were your thoughts on this? I p a it was so very good. My first sip all I could think of was canned pineapple juice. I don't know why. I think it quickly faded after that, but I was really thirsty, and sometimes when you sit down and you have a beer and you're pretty thirsty, it tastes different to you. I feel like it tastes even better when you're a little dehydrated.

Maybe not the best thing from a health perspective, but uh, you know, right around on the bike a little bit. I did some of that today. I didn't replace those fluids with my hot water that's over there in my thermos. Did with a beer instead, did it with a beer instead. But it was really good, man. Yeah, I'm glad this was one you and I got to enjoy edmunds Os.

They they were just making some really good stuff. Yeah, I'm looking forward to having more by them, Like we just started getting their stuff in Atlanta, and this one was really good, man. It was really smooth. I didn't necessarily get massive pineapple flavors out of it. It tasted like a really good I p A that just had just an incredible smoothness to it. I don't know how else to describe it. Almost like it had lactose in it,

but I don't think it does, right. Yeah, Yeah, I think it's It's honestly probably an I p A that almost anybody could get behind because it's not super bitter, it's not super juicy, it's not super piney, it doesn't have any of just like a great smooth drinking I p A. Yeah, for sure, very flavorful, but still just incredibly smoothness delivery too. So yeah, clad we got to have this one together. But that's gonna do it for

this episode. For folks who want show notes for this episode, just go to our website at how to money dot com. That's right, And if you've listened to the show for a while, we would love it if you were to head over to Apple Podcast leave us a solid rating and review over there. And if you've already done that, make sure to let a friend or a family member know or someone who might want to join you on a money challenge, maybe a no spend week or month

something like that. And as always, thanks in advance. All right, man, So until next time, best friends, best friends Out.