Time Is Not Money with $Pro Grant Sabatier #058

I haven't either. I've actually I started gathering my all of my information together because well, actually it took me several weeks before I got all my forms in from my banks and all that kind of stuff. I think some of them waited until the last minute. And so yeah,

I'm getting my stuff together now. Yeah. Usually I don't really start to think about sending all my stuff over to my tax repair until like the end of February, just so I'm not like anticipating these forms coming in that haven't come in yet, and I just I just know that takes a little bit of time, so I kind of wait for for a minute, and then sending all that stuff over and in one fell swoop. Yeah, I hear you, man, that's something I'm looking forward to

crossing off that to do list. But on the subject of taxes, it is important for us to mention real quick that I just heard an ad the other day on the radio, and I heard a tax preparation service announced that they were offering advance loans for tax refunds. And that's not good news for people. Yeah, those kind of have started bad news, man, that's really bad news. And that those products have started to kind of become

popular over the last few years in particular. And there might be some tax preparation services that are offering these sorts of advanced payment loans with no fees attached. But I just want people to be aware that if they are trying to get their money day of you know, when they go in to see a tax prepair, they might be paying really high fees to get their refund

in advance. And on top of that, the I R S is pretty good if you sign up for direct depose of your refund, but getting you that money within a matter of weeks direct deposit E filing just kind of doing the things that are smart and efficient and quick. But really, man, I see those advanced loans on your tax refund almost like a paid a loan because you're

going in early. You're you know, getting your refunds sooner, and the fees they can be a lot a lot of times it's a flat rate, and so you think, Okay, this is just how much this product is going to cost me. But if you actually do the math and see what the percentages, what the fee is compared to what your actual refund is, Dude, it's hundreds. It's you know, the percentages can be in the hundreds that you're actually paying,

which is insane. You know, like we get mad hearing for credit cards, but dude, if you're over at two that you're paying on these loans, that's ridiculous. Yeah, And depending on the amount of the refund that you're getting back from the federal government, it could be an interest

rate in that stratosphere and that's just scary. And so I just want people to know if you think getting your money sooner is the way to go, we'll just know that there are major potential fees attached to that, and it's much more worth it to hold off and wait for that direct deposit to come into you from the government, because I remember last year it took less than two weeks from most people that I talked to,

and that should be the same this year hopefully. But just do everything you can to avoid those advanced loans for your tax refund because it could cost you dearly.

On that note as well, a listener wrote in and informed us both of this guy named Glenn Reeves who has been recreating tax forms and Excel for years, for decades, And I had never heard of this, but basically he yeah, he recreates the actual government tax form in Excel, even with the colors and everything, and it's a duplicate essentially of the tax form that you would go and pick

up and mail off. But if you've always wanted just to sit there on your computer because you're an Excel nerd like I am, to be able to just punch those numbers directly into Excel and then print that out from your computer and mail it off, that sounds freaking awesome. I've never heard of it. This guy just does this out of generosity, kind of an outflowing from his heart. He does accept donations, though, so if you wanted to

tip them. You can do that, but I thought that was super cool, and I wanted to thank listener Matt Kay for writing in and giving us a scoop, and we'll post a link to that in the show notes for this episode on our website how to Money dot com. Matt, I'm not really into excel the way you are. I love, but I'm glad. I'm glad that it's excited. You did be so excited. Did you see my response? Uh? Yeah, lots lots of exclamation points. I was gonna say lots

of exclamation points. Maybe a couple of emoji's, I don't know. By the way, So we're about to tell everyone the beer that we're drinking on the show. But in the spirit of beer, I wanted to mention a story that I saw recently about a beer company trying to do something about the student loan debt crisis in the United States. And it turns out the beer company Natty Light Natty Light is too also known as Natural Lights. Yes, I guess do people call it that? Anybody call it that?

That's what it says on the can. So they're doing a social media campaign and from now until May eighteen, you can post about your inspiration for going to college with a couple of hashtags, and you include a green dollar sign tab found on the limited edition cans of Natty Light right now in your video that you post, and you have a chance to to win a bunch of money to go towards your student loan debt. I love this. It reminds me of like collecting the coke

tabs or Pepsi tabs as a kid. You feel the gallon jug of milk full of coke tabs from from the cans and take them in it. I don't not supposed to be worth like twenty bucks or something. I don't know, but total throwback is what that is. This could be worth a whole lot more than that, but what you'll have to do, sadly is drink really crummy gear in order to get you. So I don't think Matt and I'll be participating in this, But way to go Natty Light for giving away a million dollars to

help people pay down their college loans. That's super cool. I can't believe you just said way to go Datty Light. I know quote right there, last time you'll ever hear

that on this podcast. So Matt on our show. We don't typically drink light beers, but but so today on the show, we're drinking something from one of our favorite local breweries, Creature Comforts Brewing Company, And this is a new beer that they just came out with that I picked up at my local bottle shop and I'm excited to give a shot the Tritonia Goza with pineapple, lemon and corienter. So yeah, I'm so excited. I'm glad you

picked one of these up. I'm a huge fan of pineapple myself, so I think this beer is gonna be right up my alley. Man, and you already took a sip. What are your thoughts? So if I had to give one word to describe that beer fresh, dang, dude, this is so good. Okay, my one word will be flavor ice. You busted out the hyphen nation last week or a couple of weeks ago, and it's my turn hyphenated word flavor ice. Man. When you think it can't get any weirder,

it does. So Matt and I will explain our word choice and give you kind of some more notes on what we thought about this beer at the end of the show. First off, one last thing I gotta say about this beer. Matt Creature Comforts, in my mind, has some of the best can designs out there period. And so if you don't follow us on Instagram, we post pictures of all the beers that we drink and you can see like the sweet can design for this one, and also just kind of some of the random behind

the scenes stuff that you and I get into. But now, Matt, without any further ado, let's get into the subject at hand. Time is not money with our money pro for today, Grant Sabatier. I am so stoked to have Grant on. He is a total stud. Right after college, he was unemployed, living at home with his parents. His story right involves him only having two dollars and twenty six cents in his bank account, which I love. He couldn't afford to

go to get a Chipotle burrito. Like That's why that stands out my mind because I love Chipotle to make awesome burritos. To the depths he had sunk. But it's just such a compelling story. But from that moment he decided that he's going to turn his life around. And then in five years he became a millionaire and he was financially independent at the age of thirty, and he

now owns a couple of businesses. He runs the site Millennial money dot com and is now releasing a book on financial independence and it is called Financial Freedom And you know what, This actually releases tomorrow, February five, which is super timely, so I'm pumped to have him on. And he actually sent us some advanced copies of the book that we got to read. And one of the one of the things I loved that I connected with

it was the fact that he's such to hustler. He's from the Midwest, so he's got that Midwestern work ethic, and he did everything at the beginning when he was first during his life around from building websites up to like buying and selling mopeds like the little the little small engine mopeds you know I'm talking about. Yeah, totally super hip. I love him. I had one similar like not it was actually more of a scooter. But I love the old school mopeds, but they have more issues

with them, right, the old ones. Yeah, Yeah, it kind of takes a special knowledge to kind of know what you're looking at. And they got little pedals built into them, so they're super cool. Though, Yeah, so I appreciate the grants first off, written a book, because I've never written one. It seems too hard. I don't know if I'll ever attempted. But really, what I love about what Grant's gonna share with us is, I mean, how many times have you

heard the phrase time is money? And I have heard that, right, That's a common phrase, and when you've heard it so many times, it becomes kind of ingrained into your way of thinking. Oh well, yes, of course time and money are equivalent. And I love how what Grant is sharing with us today is kind of battling that common misconception. It's ultimately, really it's it's b s and it's a philosophy that's led many people to working for all the

wrong reasons. And Matt, you and I in episode fifty talked about how to cultivate a healthy view of work, and so having a holistic view of work is crucial in our minds, and equating your time and your money as being the same, I mean, that's a that's a slippery slope. And so ultimately, I think this episode is kind of going to help us figure out how we break out of that linear line of thinking to have a better overall concept of our time and our money

and where that line kind of gets divided. And this is the third one. This is the third money Pro that we've been able to release. So a lot of you might be familiar with this format now, but you know what, if this is your first one, let me

explain how it works real quick. The way it works is that our money Pro has sent us their five minutes of expertise, their knowledge and their passion on this topic sort of distilled down into this concentrated segment, and we're gonna play that once we come back from the break, and right after that, Joel and I are going to unpack that and share our thoughts. All right, Matt, So without further Ado, I want to hear what Grant has to say about white time doesn't equal money. Take it away, Grant.

Thanks for having me. Guys. One of the biggest things that holds people back is that they think that time is money. We grow up and we're told that time is money and money is time, and we're meant to believe that they're equals. But in reality, money is inherently infinite. You can always go out and make more money, you can never get back this moment. This moment is really all there is. You can never get back this time.

I mean, what would you do if some ninety year old rich dude offered you a hundred million dollars to trade place with him. You wouldn't do it. Why? Because time is more valuable than money. And as long as we believe that time is money, we're going to make sacrifices and trade much more of our time than we need to in order to make money. And yes, both money and time are human inventions. They do share a

number of similarities. But in reality, if you think that money is time, it's going to hold you back in some way. And in fact, the traditional linear relationship between money and time that you think you have to trade hours of your life in order to make money only holds true up to a certain point in your life. And the entire goal of financial independence, the strategy that's going to get you there the fastest is disrupting that

traditional money time linear relationship. And so you know, for example, investing more money gives you the opportunity for your money to grow, and when you invest your money in something you know it requires little, if any of your time.

Then to make money, you know, Warren Buffett famously makes about one point five million dollars per hour even when he's sleeping, and I actually make about forty five dollars per hour even when I'm sleeping, and I don't have to trade any of my time to make that money. So really, the central idea that you have to trade your time for money is what holds most people back.

And the simple idea is that you should get your money making money so you don't have to trade any or very little of your time in order to make it. And of course investing is just one example. Another simple example is, you know, whenever you launch a business, instead of just trading your own time for money, for example, driving for Lift or driving for Uber, there's only so

many hours in the day that you can drive. But if you launch your own side hustle, for example a dog walking company, uh, and you're no longer limited by the hours that you have in the day by hiring other people to do the dog walks for you. Because if you're always limited by your own time, you know,

you can't walk dogs for thirty hours a day. But if you hire two people to walk dogs for you, all of a sudden, you've multiplied the number of hours that you can sell, and instead of selling your own time, you're brokering other people's time, and you've disrupted that traditional money time linear relationship where now you don't have to trade your time or more of your time in order to make more money. Another piece of the puzzle here is that we often think about time very differently in

the West than they do in the East. We view our lives as having a past, present in future, whereas in the East it's often viewed time is often viewed as more cyclical, and so life comes around and so really the important takeaway here is that in the West, we always believe that we're not going to have another opportunity, and so we spend our lives filling every ten minutes, every five minutes with another meeting. We try to stay

as busy as possible. But the paradoxes and trying to stay as busy as possible and squeeze everything out of every minute of the day, inherently we're actually sing out on life because life often happens in the margins. It often happens when you know you don't have anything to do, when you simply have time and space with which to exist. But we spend so much of our lives in the West, in the United States, specifically, trying to fill every minute of the day, uh, in order to get the most

of our lives. But it actually takes away from our lives and doesn't allow us to truly live where in the East. Uh. Time being cyclical. If you miss an opportunity, you believe that it will always come back around. You know, there's always another season, there's always another day. And that's an important distinction I think to make. And so as long as you believe that time is money, it's going to hold you back. Time is not money. It's so much richer. Uh, it's so much more ethereal. You know.

Time is like the wind passing, whereas money it's something you can fold up and put in your pocket. And so don't make the mistake of spending your entire life working for a paycheck, trading your time for money, when in reality, money is infinite. You can always go out and make more money, but you can never get back your time. This moment, your time is all there is such good truth right there. I'm so glad we've got

granted on. Let's live into a dude so what he just said, right, we're told that money and time are equals, but in reality, you can always go out and you can always earn more money. You can never get back time. However, we're saying this, but it is way easier said than done, which is why I'm glad that he gave that example about the nine year old dude. You know, if you gave you a hundred million dollars, would you trade places

with them? This is why I love that, right, because you hear that and you think, well, of course not, like I would never do that. And what that does is it drives home the principle that time truly is more valuable than money. In our youth, we think that I've got more time, and because this is a resource that we have, time, we think, oh, well, there's always gonna be more time. Oh, I can always do that tomorrow.

We devalue our time now because we are younger and we have what we think at least is the whole life in front of us. And by that one example right there, it makes me think, no, time really is that much more valuable than money. Therefore, the things I do now they should reflect that understanding. Yeah, Matt, and I feel like another main point that I took away from from what Grant had to say was to appreciate

the journey. And I feel like that example that you just referenced actually drives at home too, because if we are, you know, in our twenties or thirties or forties, and let's say we're only focused on getting to the point where we feel like we have enough money, then we're gonna be missing all these amazing times along the way,

the journey that actually makes the destination worthwhile. I don't know, I just imagined like a ninety year old Scrooge McDuck kind of like sitting there counting his money and he's like, I did it. I did it, and then it's like,

but I lost everything in the process, right, Joel. I love that visual, but real quick, I wanted to mention that trading our time for money, that is still how we live right now, right Like, that's how you and I survived, that's how we pay the bills, that's how we support our family, and the thing is that we just don't want to be doing that for the rest

of our lives. When you're stuck in that mindset, that's when you're constantly on that treadmill, Grant mentioned that there's a certain point in life where that's no longer the case, and what he's talking about is financial independence, and that's what you just alluded to. That's what we're sort of saving our money for. That's the point that we're looking ahead towards to know that at this point in time we will hopefully no longer have to trade our time

for money like we still might. And we've talked about this before in previous episodes. You know, it doesn't mean we're gonna retire and kick back and not do any work, but to know that we have the option to no longer trade our time, our life, energy right like the remaining years that we have for money, that's financial independence, man.

I feel like this topic too, can help people visualize their current day job and work a little bit differently, and just seeing that time and money are not equivalent can help you realize that the hours that you spend in the day are more meaningful than you thought. I don't know about you, but for me, it just reframed things just a little bit. To see my time in a in a way that that's a little more meaningful

than I typically think of it every day. Sometimes it's like, oh, we gotta go to work, gotta do this, and oftentimes it feels like I'm thinking about my time in accordance to what society places on me or what they say about my time and why it's valuable. Beginning to hear what Grant said, it actually kind of made me take my time back into my own hands and say, well, what does my time mean to me? Where do I

like to spend it? And it's just made my time, honestly at the dinner table and after dinner and before I take my girls to school, like those kind of times with them, with my family even just a little bit richer, just knowing that my time isn't money. My time is mine to enjoy with the people that I love and care about, and you know, we talk about that on the show, Matt, but this just helped cement

that for me a little bit more. And it's kind of one of those gentle reminders that I need to remember that my time is not just equivalent to money, and that's just honestly an awful thing that if we do think about it that way, and it might be subtly in the back of your mind, we have to reframe that because that's not an okay way to think about your time. It's not equivalent to money. Yeah, and so if you do have that mindset, right, if you do have the mindset that I have to trade my

time for money. You know what Grant did mention though, is that we can disrupt that mindset. And like you said, we can do it by reframing the way we think about the time that we do have that we're not working, but then also by investing and creating business. And I want to just to encourage our listeners to that if you've invested anything at all, you have started down the path towards financial independence, because that is the goal of

saving for retirement. You're saving for retirement so that years and maybe even decades from now, when it comes time for you to retire, that that money is there, and that money is going to be there, and you're gonna be, you know, earning from that without having to lift a finger.

And so yeah, I just want that to be an encouragement because I think it's easy to hear that, oh, yeah, you need to find ways to have passive streams of income right now so that you can do the things that you need to do without working for your money anymore. And it sounds a little defeating, It sounds almost impossible. However, even the small steps that you're taking right now, right contributing to your four own k, these are all steps

in the direction of financial independence and just stay the course. Yeah, man, And I thought what Grant said about kind of the way we view time here in the West versus the way they view time in the East was just kind of fascinating. And we do really make an attempt to fill every minute of the day, and we we stay busy, even if that business doesn't necessarily equal productivity or or meaning.

It reminds me actually of a of an article I read a few weeks back, maybe even a month ago, and I posted it in our Facebook group, which you can find, by the way, if you go to Facebook dot com and you type in how the Money. And it was an article from The Guardian. It was like their long form of Sunday Read, and it was about

time management. In the article, the the author talked about how the there was a guy that gave a talk at Google about zero email inbox, zero inbox, and he kind of became a celebrity of sorts after that talk at Google where everyone just said I need to have zero inbox, and I gotta admitted times like I've had that desire to have zero inbox, to have this clean

feeling where I've answered all the emails. But actually, the interesting thing about zero inbox, if you're shooting for that, which is literally to have all your email emails answered at the end of the day, to be back down to zero, ultimately it's never ending. When you send more email, it begets more email. You reply to people, they reply back, and it just becomes so war exactly what I on zero inbox and year zero inbox, and it's just sort of like a battle until five pm or whenever it

does that you wanna call quits. Yeah, I know, so it it just really does kind of get insane. He gets out of hand. And it just made me think that working towards this rigorous amount of productivity, ultimately that's going to ensure that we miss out on meaningful moments in life, striving against something that really doesn't even exist.

Because what's the ultimate goal of being zero inbox or being the most productive person and and and having the busiest schedule, is that the mark of success or is the mark of success, the fact that we own more of our time and we're able to take back some of our life. And the only way that we can do that, right is by what Grant said, and is by creating some of these steady streams of income. And

I love what you said to Matt. If you've started, you're on the path, and what we want to do is help you to accelerate that path because it sounds daunting.

And grant story that we talked about at the very beginning of the show, it's impressive, right, It's amazing that he went from having not enough money for Chipotle burrito and by the way, if he comes into town, I'll buy him one, right, But he didn't even have that much money and he went to millionaire in four years, and that it's that kind of story that I don't know about you. I see that headline or I read

about that, and I'm like, whatever, nobody else can do that. Yeah, it's like a one in a million shot, right for that to be you and your story. So you're saying there's a chance, right, So it does feel like this kind of unattainable goal. And and even saying that about him,

I feel that right. Viscerally, I feel that reaction that that it's a hard thing to achieve, and it is, but Grant worked really hard and not only did he do that, but he decided to let go of a lot of potential pleasure now, a lot of potential consumeristic pleasure more than anything now, in order to achieve a goal where his money compounds on itself to to pay for his living expenses. And that's a really cool goal goal to have, you know, we talked about that in

our episode about financial independence. Is it a good idea that that it is a good goal to have, but it's at the same time, it's not worth it if you have a mindset that says that your time is equal to your money, because you don't want to miss out on the beautiful moments that are happening in the journey right now because you think that there's this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Because that's not the case either. And he also mentioned how like

in the East, time is more cyclical. I've got less experience with that, right, But what I do have experience with is going of going to different countries and seeing how they view time and how they live as a culture and how relaxed they seem, and I think that's so important. So much of how we view time in the United States is viewed through the filter of time

egals money. We're all about productivity, we're all about creating new stuff, new technologies, advancing things, and I think there's a lot to be learned from other countries and how they view time and how they relax. Honestly, it's it's inspirational and maybe that's part of why we do go on vacations is to see how these cultures take it easy.

You get to Paris in uh gosh, I think August, like Kate and I were there like several years ago, like the whole city shuts down, like the entire population leaves and goes to the coast and just relaxes. And if you ever meet in Australian while you're traveling, they always they asked, I feel like this always happens. They asked me how long I'm traveling for and it's usually like a week, like days, yeah, and and they're like, oh, we're we're doing like a three month thing. And it's

it's just like that's how the Australians travel. They're always on like a month and a half or longer holiday, so much more chill. Yeah, and we're just on these ridiculous short term, week long vacations. It sucks, Yeah, but I think it's worth challenging ourselves to look at time more through that lens of of more, a more relaxed view of time. I am half Korean, so I don't know. Maybe I expected you to assume that I knew all

about the cyclical nature of time. Joel, Hey, no assumptions over here, Buj Bopp and Kim She you want some of that some of that Korean food. Hey, if you're making it, I'll eat it. Yeah. So, I think we covered a lot of the problem and and a huge part of that is your mindset. But let's talk about some of the ways to disrupt that way of thinking, and we'll get to that right after this break. We're back. Now,

let's cover some takeaways for our listeners. Then before we even start with us, I want to mention that at its core, like what Grant's talking about here is he's making an argument for financial independence. And if you are in the mindset that you have to show up, you have to work your hours, and then you receive pay right, like, just the traditional model of working, that isn't how financial independence works. Yeah, that can be. I think an unending

cycle and a rut that you get in. And if you truly buy into the time equals money mindset, you've signed up for a lifetime essentially forty plus years of time for money. And I think there's a lot of ways, Matt, in which we can cut down on that amount of time where we're trading time for money in the here and now, but also in the future. And that only happens through doing a couple of things, right, Yeah, man, that's right. And so the first way is investing, and

we talk often about investing, investing for your retirements. This is something that pretty much anyone can do. You can start now, It doesn't take any special skill. And if you have already started investing, like we said earlier, you are already on your path towards financial independence. But just

keep it up. Yeah, man, I think if someone is listening out there and they are kind of inspired to think, wow, yeah, my time it does an equal money, and I don't want to be signed up for that life of forty plus years, you know, working forty plus hours a week. Oftentimes many people working more than that. I know oftentimes people working fifty or sixty hours a week, and that is in my mind unsustainable, right, that's unsustainable. And one of the only ways around that, like you said, is

is to invest your money. And so, yeah, you can go back and listen to multiple episodes that we've recorded. One that I can think about the top of my head is retirement investing is simpler than you think, and I think it's a good goal for someone to maybe

think about incrementally stepping up how much they're investing. And whether you have a four oh one k through work and you can go in there today and you can bump up your percentage that you're allocating to your four ohne k from your paycheck by one percent and then maybe do that again a few months from now. Or whether you have an I RA that you contribute to automatically every month and it gets deducted out of your bank account. Let's say it's at fifty bucks right now.

A month, see if you can up that to seventy five. Hopefully, this idea, this realization that your time is not equivalent to your money, your time is actually much more valuable, helps you to prioritize investing so that you can break that cycle and you don't have to keep trading your time for money like you might be doing now. And the second way that you can disrupt that linear model where time equals money, you've got investing, and the second

is creating a business. You know, it's funny that he he gave the example of dog walking, because that is an example that we gave on our episode Creating a Dope side Hustle. You must listen to the podcast versus certain sort of side hustles and jobs right where you're say driving for uber or lift. Those are things that you can you certainly on the side to create some more money, but they're sort of dead end side hustles.

They're sort of dead end jobs. You want something as even unglamorous, maybe as dog walking, because you know what, like that's something that you can scale. You can have employees and before you know it, you're not walking any dogs. You're the one managing the people who are walking the dogs. And that is another way that you're able to not trade your hours for money. Maybe you are working some, but you've decreased the number of hours that you're actually working.

Think of it as sort of a more efficient use of your time, Like you are now the manager and as you sort of climbed that mountain, you're spending fewer and fewer hours working. So, Matt, I know you're kind of doing this at your day job, which is a photography business that you started years ago with your wife. But to tell us, like, how how have you been trying to implement this in your life and how has that been working for you? Yeah, I have been doing that.

It's taken a couple of years to kind of get it rolling. And it's hard, I'll be honest, it's hard to get out of the mindset of doing the job that you've done for almost more than seen years now because you're taking on new responsibilities and it's a little bit scary. It's less of doing the actual craft, the thing that you sort of fell in love with doing initially. Right for me, it was that was taking pictures and

making stuff look pretty. And it's a shift in rolls and so on that note, I will say that it's it may not be for everybody, because some folks may not have the capacity to take on managing people. It's a little trickier. It's it's not just doing the job. It's working on the job. That's working on the business versus working within it. But for me, honestly, wanting to spend more time with my family and wanting to do this podcast more has spurred me on to spend less

time shooting. And it's not because I don't enjoy photography as much anymore. I still freaking love it. It's what makes this so hard. But I'm trying to I've got another photographer that shoots a lot with me, and she shoots for me as well, and I'm looking to increase that. I'm still doing a lot of the business end of things, but too in the end produced a number of hours

that I'm dedicating towards the photography business. That's my goal, and honestly, after reading Grant's book, it's kind of gotten me fired up to go down that path even harder. And again, it's not because I don't enjoy it, but it's because there's other awesome things that I'm excited about. You need doing this podcast And sorry, my family they kind of beat you out. I mean, I don't understand that. To be honest, I'm pretty fun to hang out with,

but yeah, man, I think too. I want to encourage people that if this kind of makes sense, if it kind of clicks, it can also feel like a daunting task to say, Hey, start a business where you can eventually see yourself out of it and other people make you money or start investing heavily right now, and you know you'll be there at some point, yeah something you'll be able to kick back and you'll just have all this cash flowing in and you won't have to work. Yeah, daunting,

and uh it sounds a touch unrealistic. But that doesn't sound very attainable, doesn't, right. So I want to encourage people that I feel like the only way to really to really get there, and we talked about this a lot on the show through a bunch of individual episodes is frugality. Man, Like, I feel like you have to start there. There's no way around it. You can grow your income, right, but you also have to cut back

in the areas that don't matter. And I feel like that's such an important thing that we have to mention even in this episode, is that if you want to get to the point where you're not trading time for money, if you see that as a path with no real endgame. You're right, it doesn't have one. And the only way around that is to cut your expenses and then grow that gap, that savings gap where you can invest it so you can prioritize that that future of not trading

time for money. So I just want to encourage people it's possible. It sounds a little daunting, and and it sounds maybe a little high, a little high and lofty and and potentially unattainable, but it is attainable, and it takes small steps then compounding those steps on top of each other, and it all begins with with living a more frugal life and cutting back in those areas where

you can. I love that man, super encouraging, and like I wanted to encourage our listeners as well, because yes, financial independence, thinking that there's this point in time where you'll no longer have to work, I want to challenge even that notion right and say that there are varying degrees of financial independence. And what I mean by that is to consider what financial independence would look like for you, like years and years down the road, and find ways

to start incorporating that into your lifestyle. Now, this is something Joel, you and I have talked about before that if you are so focused on that end goal that you're neglecting your life now, that you're not pursuing your hobbies, that you're not fostering and growing relationships with your friends and with your family, and you think that at some point you're gonna hit this financial independence miracle number and that's when you're gonna flip the switch and you're gonna

rejuvenate those relationships and go on vacation and pick up those hobbies just you know, all the fun stuff. Well, you know what, life doesn't necessarily work that way and people don't work that way, and so finding ways to incorporate what it is that you're striving after into your life now, I think is crazy important. And for me personally, man, I'm almost a little wary of sort of sharing this because I feel like you might and maybe our listeners

might kind of hold me accountable. But after creating the personal Mission Statement that we did a couple few weeks ago with Scott, what I realized that was key to so much of what I was seeking after when it comes to financial independence is time with my family, time with my kids. And when I'm realizing is that that's something I can do now, and that's not something I can put off until later. And that's that's one of

the beasts I had. I guess with the view of time is more cyclical, is that that's not something that comes back around again. There isn't gonna be that season again where my kids are this age, where they're this young, and where they are this impressionable. And so for me, man I I'm trying to challenge myself this year to kick off work like a little bit early every day

where after we're being the girls home from school. Maybe I don't necessarily get back on the computer and go back to emails or go back to editing, or go back to working on the podcast, but I spend that time growing our relationship and doing fun stuff and doing the things that they're going to remember, because those are the things that I want to do when I retire, when I am financially independent, those are the things that

are going to be important to me. But if I don't do any of that now, how am I even going to know how to do that later? I feel like that can be so countercultural to our sort of societal work ethic, where, oh, how dare you find ways to be less productive for your company. But at the same time, when you've realized what it is that matters to you most, right, relationships with friends and family, those

are things that you've got to do now. Yeah, I think we can talk ourselves into putting those kind of things off and those decisions to to work less and to prioritize other things more, whether it's people, hobbies, community. It's really easy just to say I'm gonna get to that. I promise that's really important and and at some point

I'll dedicate the time to it. But really, if your time spent doesn't match the values that you say you have, I think hopefully this concept of time not equaling money can be kind of that spur for you to think a little bit more right about how am I prioritizing my time now, and how am I prioritizing my investing so I can get even closer to achieving that ability for my money to work for me, so that I'm not necessarily trading my time every day for money, because

that's a necessity. Right. Yeah, he said that, he said, get your money making money, And that's such a freaking good quote that I love it. Like you said, if you're not spending your time making money. You have to decide what are you going to spend your I'm doing and to me, like that's the driving force, right if you know at some point you might be financially independent, You've got to decide what it is that you're going to spend your time doing. And those are the things

you need to start incorporating into your life now. And that's what fuels you. It feels me and it answers one of the big wise behind why I work. Are Matt speaking of what fuels you? You know, it feels me beer beer, that's right. So the beer we drank while we're doing the show today was Creature Comforts Tritonia Goza. It's a nice little German style tart wheat beer that

features pineapple and lemon. It was so good. Many in general, goes as are typically referred to as sort of briany, right like that they always sort of had this like salty nature to them. Yeah, completely, and this one was a fantastic representation. We love pretty much everything that Creature Comforts does there Athens, Georgia, where I was recently, so Matt though a word I used to describe this beer was fresh, and I gotta be honest, fresh this this

beer tasted super fresh, like I just popped it. All the flavors came out on poll and really everything combined almost tasted like a lemon meringue pie in a beer can. It was so delicious. I'm a huge fan of this one, and this is a beer I definitely want to be drinking when the summer rolls around. Well, speaking of summer, man, I said flavor ice. And I don't know if you know, but when do you eat flavor ice in the summer?

And so I said, flavor it's not because it's syrupy and too sweet, right, because it's got the lemon going on and it cuts that, which is why it keeps it fresh. But it just reminds me of summer. It's this light, bright beer. But if I had like a pineapple flavor ice that wasn't too sweet with a little bit of lemon to cut it, that's man, That's that's what I'm enjoying. On the front porch. You're sitting next to me drinking that beer. Our kids are out playing

in the yard. I'm painting the picture for you. You're seeing it. I'm just saying it's I just want to say, it's a good thing you're not getting paid to professionally review beers because I love hearing them. But they're also just a little weird too at the same time, which I don't know, kind of makes it fun. I guess I better make it fun. Well. I mentioned all that to say that I freaking love this beer. I agree, man, it's delicious, and I'm totally gonna be drinking this this summer,

assuming that they roll it out this summer. Figures crossed on that one, that's for sure, all right, Matt, Let's get to our final thoughts on this episode with money pro Grants Aboutier. I love the topic Time is not money. That's such a great way to think about things. And I feel like my favorite takeaway from this is that in trying to stay busy, I feel like we're actually

inherently missing out on life. Life happens in the margins, and the more that we cram our schedules full and think that our time actually is better spent or most equal to making a dollar, that is going to ensure that we miss out on the really true, meaningful moments in our lives. That's right, man, Time does not equal money. So often we are you just used to punching the clock, working and getting paid. But there are ways to disrupt that linear model, that exchange of you showing up and

then you getting paid. And you can do that by investing and with business entrepreneurship finding ways to make your money make money. Ultimately, that is the way for you to disrupt that model and to actually be able to achieve financial independence. Yeah, Matt, So that begs the question. Then if you do get to that point, what what are you gonna spend your time doing? Joel good question.

Man Grant's got this awesome line in his book, and I'm gonna read it for us real quick, and he says, quote, when you spend almost your entire life working for a paycheck, what happens when you break that routine? What happens when your identity is so wrapped up in your title and job responsibilities? What happens when you're now too tired to pursue your dreams or maybe it's been so long that

you lost your dreams along the way. Those are some awesome questions, and those are questions that you have to answer yourself as a listener. I'd point you back to the episode we did a few weeks ago on creating your personal Mission statement with Scott Rickens. That for us, man, that was incredibly impactful and helped us to sort of see that what we're striving towards isn't the work itself and isn't money itself, but there's something beyond that. What

is the why behind your money? What is the why behind your work? And that's the question that grants asking here, and that's the question for all of us. Yeah, Matt, that's good food for thought. And I feel like any time that you hear the phrase from now on that time equals money, you will instinctively recognize that that's just not true, that your time is just way the heck more valuable. All Right, Joel, that's gonna be it for today. Everyone.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We'll have our show notes up on the website, including the link to that Natty Light student loan repayment contest. You can find our slite at how some money dot com. Yeah, and if you found this show helpful, we love it. If you would consider telling a friend about it. We've heard from many of our listeners that have started money conversations based on this show. That's super exciting for us to hear and we would love to see that trend continue.

So it's always thanks for listening. We're so glad you're a part of this show, so Joel. Until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,