MORGAN: Money Talk With Anna Brading & Daniel Brigham

TAKE THIS PERSONALLY WITH MORGAN HUELSMAN:

MONEYYYYY! 🤑 Yes, we're talking about that special M word this week. Morgan has on financial educator and author Anna Brading to talk about the 3Ms of money, how to save while still living your life, and the best of the best BIG investments to make. Then Daniel Brigham comes on to share his story and how moments of his life led to a difficult relationship with money & how he turned things around. 

Follow Anna Brading: @mentoramoney

Follow Daniel Brigham: @budgeters_anonymous

Follow Morgan: @webgirlmorgan

Follow Take This Personally: @takethispersonally

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Personally with ya feels men money, money, money, money. I
don't even know where that comes from, but I love
that saying. This week we are talking all about that
M word.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, money.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
No one likes to talk about finances because they're scary,
but we're going to dive into it. First up, I
have Anna brading On, a financial educator and author, to
talk about the three m's of money, how to save
while you're still living your life, and the best of
the best big investments to make. We're talking cars, houses,
that kind of thing. Then Daniel Brigham is coming on
to share his story and how moments in his life

(00:49):
led to a difficult relationship with money, and how he
turned things around and the steps he still takes today
to create a better life for himself.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I have Anna brading On with me. I'm really excited.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
She's a financial education instructor and an author and this
topic is so important.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
So Anna, thank you for being here. How are you.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm doing very well, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
I mean survival mode in the British winter at the moment,
but I will get through it. I'm powering on and
saying it will be spring, so that'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yes it will.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
We're powering over here in the winter too, So I
totally understand. I'm really excited to talk with you about
all things finances because this is one thing that I
don't feel like I had a lot of education on
growing up. I got really lucky that I had parents
who were really smart with their money, and they were
good at saving and they were good at investing, and
they taught that to me.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
But in schools it's not something you really learn about.
So this is why I have you on.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
You're gonna be our educational teacher today.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's my happy place. I'm tightally fine with that.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Bye way, all.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Right, So here we go.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
What are some things about money that we should have
been taught growing up? As we really started to get
into finances and we got our first paychecked and we understood, oh.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
We're getting paid for the things that we're doing.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
What are some things that you wish maybe if we
did get tied in school, they would have tout us.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
There are so many things and so many angles we
can go on in this. And one of the things
I like to talk about is the three what I
call the three ms in money. And I think if
we zoom out for a second and we just go
big picture. Okay, let's just take a step backwards and
look at the big picture of money and finance, because
there's so much we need to know that we didn't

(02:42):
get to it exactly as you're saying.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Let's break it down a little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
So I have like three MS of money, so I
have mindset, manage, and multiply, and I think so often
what we can do is we come to a crunch
point in our lives where we go, oh, it's not working.
I feel broke, i feel stressed out about my finances.
I've got nothing in my savings account. I've just dipped
into it over Christmas. Panic, panic, panic, And then we

(03:06):
can go into fix it mode and try and figure
stuff out. But I think it's really important to understand
this overarching, broad, big picture of our finances and then
when these things up, we can zoom in on one
of those MS and have a look. Is it a
mindset thing going on here? Is it a managed thing
of how you're managing your money.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Or is it a multiply thing of how you're growing.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
And building your wealth. So those are the kind of
that's the big picture. So the three m's is a
really good starting point I think.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I think the mindset is really difficult from people, especially
when it comes.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
To saving our money.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I think the idea of saving is really great and
you're like, yeah, I need to do that, but when
it comes down to it, we just don't. So when
somebody's trying to save, or you're encouraging them to start saving,
what are those first steps you're encouraging them to take.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Yeah, I think let's come back to the mindset thing
for a second, because I think as you're describing it there,
when one of the key ways to know one of
the key signs that you've got a mindset thing going
on here is when you're trying to do something and
it's just not happening, and you're like, I'm trying to
go trying to get my saving sorted, I'm trying to
move forward, but I just keep coming back to this
same point. I think that can be a really key

(04:17):
indicator that there's something going on and you're inner wiring
that's stopping it actually happening.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
I always like to think of mindset stuff as like
either a handbrake or an accelerator pedal. So if you
want to start saving and you really want to get
it going. It is your mindset wired in such a
way that actually, when you get going, you're just powering
that direction.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Or is it just the break goes on and you
just can't get going.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
But I think your right to flag savings because I
think that can be one of the toughest things. And
let's be honest, saving money is.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Not glamorous and it's not sexy.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
It's not the thing that makes you go, oh, I
just can't wait to get savings is really exciting.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Some stuff we.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Talk about with money is really exciting. It's fun, it's interesting.
Maybe you started a little business and it's starting to
get going, you've made your first sale.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
So fun. But when we talk.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
About the quiet discipline of putting a bit of money
into a savings account, it's just not as glamorous. So
I think it's good to acknowledge that and identify that.
So what I like to do is I like to
really zone in and focus on what is this saving
going to achieve for me? What's the outcome, what's the
why behind it?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Because I think when we.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Dial into the why, when we get that really clear
in our focusing, in our mind, we can align our motions.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
We can align our mindset and it can then just
help keep us on track when it does get a
bit boring and it gets to be a little bit difficult.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
Those moments where you're standing in I don't know equivalent
closed shop is in America in the UK, we've got
your Zara and you've got your h.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
And m oh yeah we have those two those Definitely.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
You're looking at that amazing outfit and you're thinking, I
really want that, but I've got savings.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
I've committed to saving.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
But I can look, I can just open that app
on my phone, I can see the money is there.
I can just dip into it. And it's in those
moments that you better have a good reason to save,
because that's going to bail you out.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
In that moment.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
So what is it, What is it that's motivating you
to do it? Is it just because someone's told you
to or in my case, it was a case of
I needed I knew I needed to build an emergency fund,
which we could talk about maybe if you want, later on,
but it was this sort of idea of building up
a lump sum and I knew that if I did
that and I completed that, that would then open.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
The door to allow me to start confidently.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
Investing, and I knew that investing was the thing I
really wanted to get to because then I could start
to grow my wealth and I could start to move
from a place of being paycheck to paycheck the whole
time and actually start planning for my future and get
excited about that. So it was like this, It was
almost like this tool really to get me to where
I wanted to actually be.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
So I think when you know why you're saving what
it's for.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
I've got clarity on that that can really help motivate
you and keep you going.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
You mentioned here and talking about being an azara or
an age and now, yeah, why do we have these
tendencies to want to overspend? What's happening there that's in
our brain that may help us understand a little bit
more why we might be overspending for whatever your vice is.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, obviously there's so many ways to overspend, isn't there?
And particularly now, we're in a point in time that
we've never been in in history before, where you can
click a button and get the very thing you want
tomorrow or even today. Potentially that's never been the case
in the whole of the.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
History of time, that's never been the case.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
So we are facing challenges of immedia gratification now that
we've never had to face before in this way, and
so I think it doesn't you don't have to look
very far to see something that you want. And also
with the rise of marketing and sales and adverts, social media, yeah,
it's absolutely bombarding us. We are constantly surrounded by the

(08:06):
next cool thing, the next idea, the next cool gadget
that we want to get, making you feel like the
thing you've got right now isn't good enough anymore. And
it's moving at such a pace that I think overspending
is so common and so easy to fall into. And
I think, to be honest, unless you're very strict, most
of us do it. I think I do it from

(08:27):
time to time. I'm not perfect. I see the flights
and I think, oh, I could go and see my friend.
Don't have a plan to pay for that. But I'm
just going to do it. I'm just going to do it.
And I think we've got to be real though, And
I think one of the problems with overspending is because
it's like a it's a little bit of escapism, because
a lot of us, especially at the moment, with the

(08:49):
way things have been in recent years post COVID, with
cost of living crisis and really the rising cost of
living going mad many of us potentially wording or before that,
and now we're feeling in a position where we feel
a little bit trapped, and we feel a bit stuck
in that maybe in that paycheck to paycheck what I
call the doom loop, because I just think it is
a complete doom loop, and you feel, if I just

(09:11):
get that thing, it's going to relieve that pressure a
little bit, just for a moment. It's going to make
me feel like I'm not trapped. It's going to make
these circumstances feel a little bit better. And I think
we've got to be real about that. But also we
mustn't ignore those feelings of what you actually want. You
want to have a fun, exciting, adventurous life cool we
all do, I think, And I think one of the

(09:34):
things I love to help people do is before they
jump into the how and the what and the why
of money and managing money and bank accounts and saving
pots and a lot of stuff, I really love to
inspire people to stop for a second and just say
what is it you really want? What is it deep
down that your circumstances don't even allow you to think
about right now because you just think, oh, I'll never
have that. If you put it down on paper and

(09:55):
you get it all out, is it really that far off?
If it is, maybe that will help you make some
disc decisions to start moving in that direction. So I
think overspending can often be a little bit of a
signal to what it is going on under the bonnet
and actually what you really want to be doing and
having in your life.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Oh, hearing you say that, just talking about the deep
down what you really want and writing it out, because
I think the biggest thing with finances in general is
we do feel like we want to have everything and
we want to have this life. You have this juxtaposition
of I want to do and live my life, but
also I understand and I need to save and protect
myself for the future or for emergency circumstances. We have

(10:34):
that constantly going on, this internal conflict. When we talk
about two mistakes, what are some mistakes that you're seeing
people often make, especially in the beginning stages of financial
decisions or learning to save or invest.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah, I think if we go really practical for a second.
This is such a quick fix, but it really works.
Is especially with saving. I think we tend to think
I used to do this, like literally all through my twenties.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
It is bad.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
You basically get your income come in and then you go, Okay,
I'm going to spend what I need to spend, and
I'm going to be really good this month.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Honestly, I'm going to be so good, and then I'm
going to save what's left at the end.

Speaker 4 (11:14):
And I think, right there is one of the biggest
savings mistakes because there's this thing Parkinson's law.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
You may have heard of Parkinson's law, where it was
about the.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Time it takes to do a task it will expand
to the time you give it.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
There's a derivative of that.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
For finance, which kind of goes along the lines of
whatever money is available to you to spend, your spending
will increase until it's all gone.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
That's just how it goes.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
So if you think to yourself, I'm going to be
really good with my money this month, and I'm just
going to spend really carefully, and then by the end
of the month, I'm just going to save that bit
what's actually going to happen is you're just going to
spend more and then you're going to get to the
end of the month and there's not going to be
anything left, and that is me. If I don't plan
for that, that is me, and I'm sure many people
can relate.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
So one of the best hacks.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
It sounds so it's simple and so it's almost silly,
but it's just put your money aside first as soon
as you get paid. If you've planned to save, what
is that amount, automate it to go out of sight
into another account before you start spending for the month.
Just that act alone of putting it out of sight,
out of the way before you're spending starts. It's just

(12:20):
night and day. It's just such a different approach, but
it works. And then when you look at the number
in your account, you're living off that amount, you're not
living off the total amount, and that'll just help you
as you go for your months. Just paste it out
a bit more and work within your means having already saved.
And also just a side note, spending is way more
fun when you've already saved because you're not standing in

(12:43):
the shop going, oh, I'm not I should be saving
by it. I don't, just I really want that thing.
You're like, I've saved, We're good, Let's spend happy days.
This is my spending money, so I think it is
a nicer way to go through the month.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
They're saying things that my dad has hounded into me
since I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
He was like, pay.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yourself first on yes, and this is what I saw
on your social media too. I was like, yeah, she
gets it, like you you do this first and you
can take care of the rest later.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
And something too that he really honed into me very
early on, which he wishes he did.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
We were a circumstance of their mistakes and the things
they wish they did, and for him, he wishes he.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Invested in his four oh one K sooner.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
And so he said, really early on, as soon as
you feel comfortable and you feel like you're not surviving
paycheck to paycheck, I want you to take a little
bit out at a time and put it into your
four A one K.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Don't even think about it, just have it automatically go.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
In there and it'll be put away for a later
use one day and you'll be really glad you did it,
and so I've been doing that since maybe I was
twenty five, and it was just a little at first,
I think maybe ten dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
It was not anything, but it was.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Something enough to make me feel okay. I'm contributing. Why
is that oral one key so important? Because it's really
easy to think like future times, don't worry about it.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
It is so easy to think like that. I still
do that now, and I'm getting closer to that bit.
I'm much older than are you starting at that age.
I wish i'd started that young and I had to
play catch up, and I'm still playing catch up because
I didn't start young, and it's frustrating.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
So I wish the same as your dad.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
I wish people got this early and just did it
as like you say, exactly like that. A small amount
to start with, doesn't have to be a lot, but
it just gets the habit going. And then as you
hopefully as things increase, your income increases, as you get older,
you can increase the percentage perhaps that you're saving each
month and putting into investments. The important thing, the thing

(14:44):
it all comes down to, and it's not This is
why it's so important to start young. It's all based
on compound interest. Very boring sounding, but there's this magical
force going on behind investing that makes it all work,
and it's compound interest. It's a bit of math that
without it, the whole thing falls down. The idea is
you're earning on your earning, so you're getting a return

(15:05):
on your investments, but then you're getting a return on
that return as well, So instead of having a sort
of straight line increase, it's a curve upwards. So the
longer it goes, the more the growth happens. So there's
crazy status I'm going to I'm not going to quote
them exactly because I don't want to get them wrong.
But Warren Buffett, for example, the majority of his wealth

(15:28):
he created after he was about sixty eight I think
it was, and then from that point it's just absolutely
rocketed upwards. So he became a millionaire quite young. But
then his wealth was increasing, but there was a moment
where it just hipped, and it's compound interest. It's a
classic example of compound interest. So I think the younger
you can start, even if you're starting with a little bit,

(15:49):
the longer you've got for your money to compound, and
it really does make a difference. If you've got a
spare moment and you want to geek out on this,
you can go to the calculator site. There's loads of
different calculators online, calculators like dot com or something like that.
They've got a compound interest calculator.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
And I think to.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Visualize it, I wish I could flash up a graph
right now. But to visualize, if I put in let's say,
like your example, ten pounds or ten dollars a month
for ten years, what does it do? And if so,
let's say you've got a return of let's say eight
percent or something, what does it do? Okay, well twenty Now,
let's look at thirty, let's look at forty. And when

(16:24):
you can visualize the difference, that's quite motivating. So I
always recommend people have a little looking to play around
with that whose even though it's quite geeky, it's worth doing.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
You talk about motivating.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
I had started, I don't know if you guys have
Robin Hood over there, it's an investment app.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
All the stuff.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah, So I had started playing around on that.
When I finally got to the point where I was like, okay, uncomfortable,
Maybe I'll try a little investing. I have no idea
what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
You're looking at someone who has zero experience, zero knowledge
of the stock market. But I said, I'm going to
just start buying some stocks of things that I use
and I love because I know I'm using and loving them,
which means there's probably other people that are.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
So that's what we started with. I think I bought like.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Apple and Disney and all these different kind of just
things that I use every day meta and I was
buying stocks in them, and I was having so much fun.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
I was not playing with a lot of money, but
I was having so much fun being like, oh, I
made five dollars today.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Now I know the stock market is like very volatile
and that goes up and down, but the days when
it would be up, I'd get so excited watching that
experience happen and seeing something happen with my money that
I didn't do anything. This I just put into an
app was really fun. So totally understand that motivating factor.
And I do want you to speak on the investing

(17:43):
because I, like I said, I am so not an expert,
but you have the expertise to tell us, like what
investments might be right for us, especially starting and as
we start to grow.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, even you saying that I have some expertise, I
am not a financial advisor. I'm a financial educator. So
I just to put it out there. I'm not going
to tell you exactly what to invest in with your money.
That only a financial advisor can do that. But that's
the point, really, is that you don't need to have
You don't need to dedicate your whole life to understanding
stocks and shares and the ups and downs of the

(18:17):
market to really benefit from investing. And I think my
biggest tip would be don't. It's a bit of a
vortex investing. You can get sucked in by all the
information that's there and the different theories and different ways
of investing, different asset classes you can invest in, and
everyone's got an opinion, but you really need to almost

(18:39):
learn quite quickly to drown out the noise and just
look at what is a sensible long term strategy For
someone like me who's not going to spend ten hours
a day watching the stock market going up and down.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
I'm not going to do that. I've got things i
want to do with my life, So I.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
Think just to go just to be okay with picking
sort of broad market index funds, those kinds of things
that are capturing lots and lots of different companies, rather
than even with picking your stocks. Even in that example,
I think investing in what you're interested in is a
nice idea. But I think at the same time, if

(19:18):
something happened to Apple and you've got only Apple stock
and maybe two others, it's quite a risky play because
we don't know the inner workings of Apple, right We
don't know what conversations are happening right now behind closed doors.
There might be some big scandal about to come out tomorrow.
Let's hope not, but that can happen, and it has
happened in the past. And you have to remember that

(19:39):
if all your eggs in one are in one basket,
that is quite a risky play. So you want to
look at what are less risky strategies but will still
get me some potentially good returns on my money, because
you still want your money to grow, right, So I
think taking that approach where you're not just putting all
your eggs in one basket is a really good move.
There's very simple boring that you can put your money

(20:02):
into that are not like all singing, all dancing, very exciting.
They just follow different markets that are doing well and
the best companies in those markets. And that's a less
riskier approach than sort of trying to work it all
out for yourself.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yes, the funds are super important to you when you
look at different funds.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Can you give us a few examples, just because.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I know, like for me, when I started learning so
much about this, I had I had no knowledge of anything.
So some maybe some basic ideas of what those funds
may look like.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Sure, I think you can look at different geographies so
you can go so say, for example, you would you
were like, I want to invest in US. Okay, there's
some great companies in the US. Let's be honest, let's
see if we can capture some of those. So you've
got the one that everyone talks about is S and
P five hundred, which is just tracking five hundred amazing

(20:53):
companies in the US that are doing very well. That's
all it's doing. It's just following those five hundred companies.
So that's a really interesting one. That's one that everyone
normally quotes when they talk about index funds. But there's
other ones like that around the world. There's an equivalent
in the UK, and then you can get worldwide funds
as well. But the thing to do, I think, would

(21:14):
be to find an investing platform that has got a
very high emphasis on education and handholding you through the process.
I don't want to speak to specific platforms because it
won't apply in different geographies. But in the UK we've
got some great platforms now that aren't just dishing you
up funds. There's going Okay, here's a few video tutorials

(21:37):
on what this is and what you might be investing
in if you invest in this, and hey, are you
interested in potentially impact funds that are doing good in
the world. Okay, let's talk to you about that. And
I think I would just really encourage people to do
just do a bit of rabbit hole. Just go down
a rabbit hole and learn, but do it with repuatable source,

(21:57):
like a decent investing platform, where they are educating you,
the handholding you, they're telling you about the risk levels
with each different fund. And yeah, I think that's a
good route to go.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Oh that's super helpful. I wish again it's living.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
You learn, like you start to understand things a little
bit more, and I wish that's something even I had
as I was starting to dip my toes in this
very shark eating world where I had zero experience when
I was doing on this kind of flip side of investing.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
We also have debt.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
There are so many people out there that carry debt unfortunately,
and it's something that I feel like holds this storm
cloud for people over their head. What are some tips
or resources maybe that help for you when you're working
with people and they have debt but they want to
get out of debt and they want to be on

(22:52):
their way to savings or investing.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, really good question.

Speaker 6 (22:57):
It is.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
It's very down cloud is a very good metaphor for
what it feels like with debt, and I think and
the way that it can grow and accumulate as well
is pretty scary. And I think, let's mind ourselves again
that we are in a really strange point in time
where again you can just put anything on buy now,
pay later, Just click that button, don't worry about paying

(23:19):
for it today, just pay for it tomorrow. It's fine,
so easy to take on debt now. So just to
get in that position is very easy. And not to
mention all the big things that have happened in the
last few years that have just thrown curveballs at us
one after.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
The other in life globally. So there's a lot of that.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
But I think somebody who is wanting to get out
of debt, I think the first thing to say would
just be like, huge, well done, excellent move. Having that
shift from I'm going to just have it there sitting
there growing to I'm going to do something about this
now and I'm going to get out of this situation
is incredibly brave. Takes effort, and it takes courage, and

(24:02):
I think you need to know that's.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
A great decision.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
That is a great decision to tackle it, to face it,
to battle with it, to get out of it is
a great thing to do. I think another thing that
I often say to people, which I think still is
relatively unknown, is there's so many free resources and people
that will give you their time for free to help

(24:25):
you know what steps to take. So if we're talking
significant amounts of debt and you're in a position where
it's difficult to pay your bills, you're in a tight spot.
There are so many amazing charities, resources organizations around the
world that will help you for free. So the whole idea,
if you have to do this on your own, you
got yourself in this situation. It's your job to get

(24:47):
yourself out. That's not necessarily true. I think to be
able to walk it through with somebody is a really
good move, and there are plenty of places that will
do that without charging you anything for their time and
expertise as well. Coming back to what we started with saving,
one of the best I think motivators for getting out
there is having that clear goal and that target and setting.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yourselves if you can breaking it down.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Into from now to completely cleared, what are the steps
I'm going to take, and ticking them off as you go.
So a lot of people have their sort of charts
they put on the wall. They might have an app
that kind of reminds them of how are they're doing.
They're seeing that number come down. That's so good because
that's just a good thing to do anyway. With saving

(25:33):
these goals, with investing goals, with business goals, anything, and
I think that is a really great motivator. It's just saying,
if I was to pay that much per month by
this date, I'm going to be debt free. And you
do everything you can to stick to that to pay
it down quicker if you can. Very motivating, and that's
worked really well for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Because you just brought savings back up, it reminded me
that I also wanted to talk a little bit more
in detail about the dip into savings because we also.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
A lot of us love to do this. I love
to do it.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'll be like, I have savings, I can go on
that trip. It's there, I have the money.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
So how do we make sure we don't keep doing that?

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Especially in this situation too, when maybe you do have
somebody who's in debt and they're trying to save, or
you just have somebody in general that's trying to save
for an emergency fund, how do we make sure we
just don't touch the savings.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
It's great, Yeah, I can relate to that. Okay, I
think step number one is what is that saving there for?
What is it doing for you? So coming back to
that giving it a reason to be there, I think
many of us grow up with we don't have a lot.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Of financial education.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
We don't, but one thing we do know is we
should be saving like we have this kind of at
the back of our mind, there's a little voice going,
you should be saving, you should be saving, you know
what you should be saving. And so you're out and
about and you're trying to spend your money and you're
just thinking, I should be saving. But no one ever
really tells what to save for. They never really break
it down and say, Okay, this is this type of saving,

(27:05):
there's this type of saving.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
There's that type of saving.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
And I think, when I got clarity and what is
it I actually need to have in my bank account
for my current lifestyle right now to make sense and
then to move on to other things. And I got
those numbers, I was like, oh, greatly, just give me
a bunch of targets to hit. I'll do that and
then I can move on to the other things. So
I think one of those so taking that time to

(27:29):
stop and go, okay, yes, I've got a savings pot,
but why is it there?

Speaker 3 (27:33):
What's it for?

Speaker 4 (27:34):
So the ones you really want to think about is
your emergency fund, which is your three to six months buffer.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
You build up this kind of lump sum of cash
so if.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
Anything happens to your income, if anything awful comes your way,
let's hope it never does, but it can happen. You've
got three to six months worth of living expenses and
not all the fun stuff as well.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Just what does it cost you.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
To live in a month that's saved up and ready
to go if anything happens and you suddenly need to
pay out tomorrow. Now, you want to keep that out
of sight because that needs to be there when the
time comes if you have an emergency. So I think
so personally, Mary and my husband, we've built up ours
and we transferred it recently into another account. I set

(28:17):
up a whole different account. It's got better interest rates,
so I can make a little bit of money on
that money. But also it's very hard for me to
log in because I can't remember my log in details.
Very You've got that three step process to go to
just to even.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
See what's in there at the moment. And I logged
in the other day and I was like, why can
I not log in here?

Speaker 4 (28:36):
And it's all good, it's just great security, But that
process of having to actually go and find out how
to log in is really helpful because it stops me
just being able to quickly.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Transfer money out. Really good thing to do.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
Then you've got your what I call smug savings, but
other people call them sort of sinking funds as well.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
It's another term.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
I call them smug savings because I love this idea
of Firstly, I don't really know what's sick, Like, what's
sinking in that scenario?

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Is ship? Is it a boat?

Speaker 4 (29:04):
I don't really have never really resonated with that term.
So I call them smug savings because what are the
things in your life that you know if that expense
came in you'd feel so smug if you had a
pot of cash sitting there ready to go.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
For that thing.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Oh I love this term.

Speaker 4 (29:20):
Yeah, it just makes more sense to me. So, Maddin,
Christmas is coming up. If you celebrate Christmas, you're making
me a bit of a spending time of year. You
get to the first of December and you look at
your accounts and you've got a pot in there in
your bank called Christmas ready to go for the whole
of December to go enjoy yourself.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
You're going to feel so good.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
You're gonna be like, yes, go me, I'm so good
at this money stuff. So I think taking a step
back and looking at your life as a whole, what
are your big expenses are too big for one month
that you really should be putting money aside towards every
month to fund those little pots to make sure whenever
that expense.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Comes in, you've got money ready to go.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
Outside of those two things, there are are some other
things like saving for a house to posit, and maybe
a big expense like a car. But really, once you
funded those things for your life and for what your
numbers are, that's when you can go cool, I've done it. Now,
I can move on to the other stuff, and I
could put my money elsewhere. So I think knowing what
the things are for helps you to not dip into

(30:21):
them and helps you to have that separation between them,
so it's not just one big giant pot of money
that's fair game for any cool thing that might come
up in your life.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
This is the part where my mom comes in, and
she was really big on when I started saving, and
she said, I need you to have specific, different categories,
because that's going to help you understand what you're saving for,
what it looks like, and at the end of the day,
why you're putting it in there. And when I adapted
my dog she goes time to add another emergency fund.

(30:50):
You need to have something ready in case something were
to happen, And it did really help me just to
have categories of things, especially in the beginning. Now I've
gotten it's such a habit and it's just I'm so.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Trained in the brain to do it.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
But in the beginning it helped me as very young
twenty something girl who had no idea what I was doing.
It just categorized things so much easier and made it
seem very real versus just money going to a different account.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
Absolutely, yeah, I think the more you can map that
out for yourself early on, the better. And like you say,
what a wise women to tell you don't just get
the dog planned for the dog financially because they dogs
are expensive, aren't they? And I think that's wise, that's
good wisdom of using your money well so that you
don't end up in a spot where you're having to
dip into some other savings because you never planned for it.

(31:40):
But I do think that the whole idea of just
mapping it out for yourself it seems again a silly.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Thing to do do.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
I meaned to do that, Yeah, you do, because life's complicated,
and I find as I'm getting older, I've got three children.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
As they're getting older, more variables. Every day, it seems
more things.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
I'm like, what how else do I need to put
on my budget? I had this lovely moment last night
that made me chuckle. So in the UK, we have
this banking system called Monzo. It's like a I think
it's in the US, but I think it's early Days
in the US, which basically just allows you to split
your money in your bank account into different pots, so
you can physically move your money into pots inside one account.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
So it's not which is amazing, it's incredible.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
It's literally an absolute game changer. So we've got this.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
So I teach about these pot systems a lot because
for me it was one of the things that took
me from somebody who wasn't saving to somebody who's good
at saving. So it really changed things for me. Anyway,
me Mys, we were sitting there doing our budget last night.
We were we've just moved, we've moved to London. We've
changed a lot in the last year, so we're constantly
reviewing it at the moment, which is it's not the
funniest job in the world, is it.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
You'd rather be watching TV? In the evening.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Anyway, We're sitting there and then he just goes So
we joke about how many pots I got, and I
think at the time counted it was about sixteen or
seventeen different pots, different categories.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
So wasn't it not though, just the great example of
a mom like that, if anything that details it.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, And he was sitting there last night doing the
automations for next month and he just hit the button.
It was like, you've exceeded the maximum amount of pots.
And I was like, yeah, that sounds about right. That
sounds about my life right now. So I was like, oh,
can you screenshot that because I feel like I need
to share that on socials because that's too good.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
But I've watunate it was gone.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
So I think the more the Mary I map out
your life, look at your situation. And remember personal finance
is called personal finance.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
It's personal to you. Doesn't need to.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
Look like somebody else down the road. It doesn't need
to look like how your best friend's doing it. What
do you need to make your life work? What do
you need to have in your emergency fund? Based on
your lifestyle? So make it personal.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
There's one thing I want to end down here because
you're giving such great advice and just educationally, this is
something that I just so wish that I had in
my teens, even in high school. I wish it would
have been in it as a seed. I want to
end on this one. When we look at buying things,
what you talked about big purchase, its house, its cars,

(34:08):
getting a dog. What are some things that are a
very smart investment, like as far as personally to do
versus looking at this is probably something that might drag
you down the later. Maybe it's more credit cards, but
it could be any number of things. Yeah, when you're
talking to people, what are those kind of two things
on that side of things?

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Oh, such a good question.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
I think make sure you understand the difference between assets
and liabilities. And I don't know many of your audiences
probably read the book Rich Dad, Poor dab By Robert Kiyosaki,
excellent book, but he really introduced that whole concept to
me of assets and liabilities and just understanding that one

(34:53):
concept alone can massively change.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
The way you spend your money.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
So, in terms of what you've talked about ragging you
down in the future, what a great way to put it,
because that's the job of a liability, and liability is
something that you buy that then costs you money to
have it. So I hate to say it, but even
a dog like sounds awful, But like.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Dogs cost money.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Your dog's not going to make you money unless you
make them on Instagram dogs Superstar and then you start
making money that way. But that's okay. Doesn't mean they're wrong.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
It's not bad to have a Dog's great to have
a dog.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
But it's just understanding that is going to be something
that costs you money later on down the line.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
And I think being.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Real about that and having a strategy and a plan
for that if that's what you want to do, because
we can't we can't just say liabilities are bad.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Anything that costs money is bad. We need to live
super frugal lives and be miserable.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
That's not the goal here. But I think just understanding
how many things in your life have you got that
fall under a liability category. Have you got an expensive
car that's costing you lots and lots of money each month?
If you're thinking about buying a car in the future,
how do you want to go about that? Do you
want to do it in a way that's going to
have a massive monthly expense that if something happens to

(36:04):
your income later on, that's going to be a real burden.
There's just a lot of just understanding that liability categories
really helpful. And then on the flip side, you've got assets,
which are things that you can buy that do make
you money and actually adds to your income. So liabilities
again not wrong. If you've got to just how much
that's going to cost you to keep them and have them,

(36:25):
can you actually afford that? And then assets super cool
because go for it. Get your assets going because they
actually add to your income, and then you've got more
room each month and your budget to use and do
what you want to do with that money. So assets
would be things like investing in a property that you
can rent out. It would be things like we talked
about investing investing in a business so that you can

(36:47):
actually one day make an income from that business, but
potentially dividends from that business. All kinds of different ways
of creating assets. But I don't think we really talk
enough about assets and how to create assets other than
thinking about your one stream of income. Much is your job,
and then you've got your liability. So I think learning
about assets understanding them is a really good thing to.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Do as well.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Oh you just made that sound so beautifully and just
so helpful and the most basic of terms.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
So I appreciate you for that because it's again, those
aren't even terms.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
I learned when I bought my house that this was
an asset and this would be helpful versus me for
five years pain rent that went no place at all.
So I learned as I got older, and it's something
that I'm continuing to learn.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
But just hearing you talk.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
About it, I think it's going to be super beneficial
for a lot of people. And I thank you for
being here, Thanks for talking with me and sharing so
much of just your knowledge on wealth and understanding, and
I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Thanks having me.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Right now. I have on Daniel Brigham.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
I saw a lot of Daniel's content online sharing his
story his relationship to money, and so I wanted to
bring them on to talk about some of those experiences. So, Hi, Daniel,
how are you? Thanks for being here?

Speaker 5 (38:04):
Yeah, thanks for having me on. How you doing.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
We were both talking about how we didn't get much sleep,
so we might be a little delusional during this episode,
but that's okay.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
Those are the make it more interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
It definitely will.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I want to kick things off by having you share
your story of how you grew up, how you had
some drug and alcohol problems that also related to some
of the financial problems, and how your dad getting sick
led you to also making some changes.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
So if you are up for it, that's where we're
going to start.

Speaker 5 (38:36):
Let's do it. What a good way to wake up.

Speaker 6 (38:40):
I grew up in a super small town in Vermont,
which I'm incredibly grateful for. I think it's really shaped
who I am. But one of the things that was
part of that as I grew up with a single
mom in a trailer and a really small town that
wasn't like a poor town. There's actually a lot of
people there money, and so my whole life I just

(39:02):
felt a little bit discouraged by our financial situation and
always thought why did we have to be the ones
with no money? And so as a result, as I
got older and went to college, I was oftentimes trying
to overcompensate for the fact that I didn't want people
to think that about me. I wanted people to think

(39:22):
that I had money, and I actually became more obsessed
with people perceiving that I had money even if I
was completely broke. Then people to think that I didn't
have money and maybe actually start saving money over time.
That led to a lot of bad spending decisions, a
lot of bad decisions with my budget.

Speaker 5 (39:39):
And it wasn't that's funny.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
I had like around one hundred thousand dollars in debt,
and it wasn't until like you just brought up my dad.
It wasn't until my dad got sick and I realized
I had no money to go and see him. My
parents didn't, Neither of them had no money. My dad
never had a job for more than six months kind
of guy. And so I really had to figure out
a way if I wanted to be able to go
see him before he passed away, to scrap up some money.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
And it was a big awakening to just thinking that
I had.

Speaker 6 (40:07):
A good job, that I was doing all the right
things because I was told to go to college and
just get a good job, to realize actually I was
being a complete boso with my finances.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
I'm curious, did you have to kill your relationship with
yourself of what you experienced growing up before you could
start to look at finances and change that relationship or
did it all happen at the same time.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
So it actually that stuff happened later on as I
was going through that journey. So because when my dad
got sick and I realized I had no money, I also,
when I made a budget, realized that I was going
further into debt every single month and that I wasn't
going to be able to even pay for my rent.
So the reaction that I had in that moment was

(40:55):
more fear based.

Speaker 5 (40:56):
And there's a good.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
Thing that came out of that where I it really
forced me to get better. But I never was actually
processing any of my trauma that I had growing up
with money and finances, and it wasn't until I became
more stable where my wife used to buy these go
Macro bars and they're like three dollars, and I would

(41:20):
have these knee jerk reactions once she came back with one,
because I had this trauma around We're gonna run out
of money, We're not gonna be able to pay rent,
all these things that are just completely ridiculous. But it
just really triggered me when I felt like we were
spending things that weren't part of the budget, and that's
when I decided to be like, Okay, I'm clearly this

(41:40):
is causing problems in my life. I should go figure
this out. But that was years after all those events.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
So really the starting to budget and change your relationship
with money really came at that heels of really wanting
to see your dad and then shifted and you're just like, Okay,
this makes more sense for me to go down this path.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
Yeah, pretty much. So it was a combination like that.

Speaker 6 (42:06):
My dad was the catalyst to making the budget, cause
it I was confused. I at the time, I was
working in tech sales, which I think if most people
heard that, they say, oh, you make good money doing that.
And I was making fifty grand a year at the time,
which to me felt like it was good money. But
obviously people are aware of the economy. It's not like

(42:27):
I was rich or anything. But by going through and
being like, Okay, why can't I afford to go and
pay for a flight from Austin to Philadelphia that didn't
make a lot of sense to me, And so when
I made the budget, it just really exposed how irresponsible
I was being and how that was going to lead
to me basically coming to a point where either I

(42:48):
could choose to pay rent or I could keep, you know,
going out and doing drugs and alcohol and partying and
being flashy with the little bit of money that I had.
So my dad wasn't necessarily the motivator. I wish I
could say that he was the motivator to get better
with my finances, but it really was just rooted in fear,

(43:10):
which I think, unfortunately, if you think about the stick
versus the carrot, we all tend to be more motivated by.

Speaker 5 (43:16):
The stick, unfortunately, than we are by the carrot.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah. Were you ever at a moment.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
During all of this that you got so far into
a hole and you were like, how do I get
out of this?

Speaker 5 (43:30):
Yeah? Yeah, That's how I felt immediately. At the time.

Speaker 6 (43:33):
I didn't even think that I was going to be
able to get rid of all my debt. I had
a personal loan with a really high interest rate, and
I told myself, if I could get rid of that
at least, then I could maybe go back to being
an idiot, and I could manage the car payment, and
I could manage my student loans, and I could manage
the credit card. But if I got rid of that

(43:54):
personal loan, it would make a big impact. And so
I did some just really wild things, like I sold
my blood plasma.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
I just started working every single day.

Speaker 6 (44:03):
I signed up for Rover, I signed up for this
brand Besti's thing, which is like brand ambassador work, like
I just was looking for. If I could work twenty
four hours a day, I would have at the time.
And then as I started doing that, the good thing
is when you're working, you're not spending money. So it
slowed down my ability to go spend money. But it

(44:25):
just made me think, man, I'm doing all this effort
to make this money. Maybe I don't want to buy
that thing. So it was a slow build where it
made me just appreciate the hard work that I was doing,
and so then I just didn't want to spend my money.
And then when I paid off that loan, that was
when I started to think, Okay, maybe I could actually

(44:45):
pay off my credit card too, and maybe I actually
don't need this car, right, And so I actually swapped
it out for a soccer mom ban, and slowly but
surely it was like, Okay, maybe I don't need these
fancy clothes. Maybe I actually can just thrift something, or
maybe I don't need to go out to eat all
the time.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
Maybe I can actually just make my own.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
Like I used to make this chicken stew and spend
twenty five bucks a week on groceries and I just
eat nothing but chicken stew. So I did a lot
of weird things, but it was all rooted in the
fact that I just started to appreciate my dollar more
because I was working so hard.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, and that's a hard lesson to learn, especially what
you talked about how you grew up in that way.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
You were never taught those things.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
You had to learn them on your own and have
those personal experiences, which.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
I think a lot of people can relate to, because.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Everybody has a different relationship with money and it's all
rooted in how we grew up and what.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
We were taught.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
So can you expand on that a little bit more
like your experience and your emotions that you would feel,
especially looking back on your life and you're like, why
didn't I get to like you mentioned, why didn't I
get to grow up rich and not have these problems?

Speaker 2 (46:00):
What was that like for you?

Speaker 1 (46:01):
As you're finally addressing some of those things and those
feelings you were having.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
It's interesting.

Speaker 6 (46:07):
I found that sometimes how much money your parents have
nothing to do with the financial principles that they instill
in you. Like sometimes people make a lot of money
and they instill those But it's really interesting. My mom
has a learning disability and my dad was autistic, and
so I think for them. One of the things I
really had to deal with as I was facing these

(46:28):
things was you don't think about that. As a kid,
You're like, oh, my parents, we aren't they like other parents.
But as an adult I started to just really feel
for them more and really accept them and say, you
know what, I shouldn't have these massive expectations for them.
They're humans, it's not that so no one told them

(46:48):
taught them how to be a parent, and so really
a big part of that for me was just accepting
my parents for who they are and not holding this
grudge against the things that I thought they could have
done differently with either progressing their career or holding down
a job or even today, my mom makes a lot
of bad financial decisions, and it's really hard for me

(47:10):
sometimes to not be able to control that because she's
her own person and so I think a lot of
the trauma was just really on that piece. Because I
want to have a good relationship with my mom and
I want to have a good relationship with my parents.
But if I'm like resenting them for things that are
really not their fault but maybe they should have taught me,
that's probably not fair for them. But I think your

(47:33):
question was more maybe like reacting to other people around me,
and that part I still do struggle with a lot.
If I'm just being honest with it's really hard to
not have imposter syndrome. You know, my wife and I
now are coming up on being millionaires, and it's.

Speaker 5 (47:53):
Wild to think about that.

Speaker 6 (47:54):
But there's this voice in my head that still tells me,
even though I've made it that far, still the person
that was growing up poor not worthy, and that people
who grew up with parents that had money are better
than me, even though maybe they have a bunch of debt.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (48:13):
Maybe I'll eventually be able to figure that out, but
it's still something that really is like a battle in
my mind.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, there's a few kind of different ways I want
to go with this. You mentioned.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Your wife, which I would like to talk about the
experiences you had when you met her, especially as all
of this is happening.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
But I also want to.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Acknowledge that I think as an adult, it's really hard
to come to terms with understanding that your parents were
also kids two at one point, and they had to
grow and they were the best way I could ever
say when I talk to people about parents is your
parents are also experiencing life for the first time too,
and they do truly the best that they can with

(48:57):
what tools and resources they were given. And you have
to acknowledge that as an adult, which is a very
delicate balance to understanding, Okay, this is somebody that I
love and care for, but also they're their own human
and they had all of these reasons, and I can't
hold this against them.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Now it's my turn to also do better.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
So I want to recognize that you mentioned that, because
I think that's something a lot of people experience, especially
when they get older and they look back on their
life and they're addressing things that happened when they were kids.

Speaker 6 (49:29):
It's so tough because there's still a part of us
that's like the teenage version of ourselves that's okay, mom, okay,
and thinks that way and it actually I've noticed it
more after my dad passed away, where I started to
have more conversations because I was about twenty four or
twenty five when he passed away, so I was really

(49:50):
just becoming an adult at that phase, and he had
been sick for a couple of years, and so I
didn't really ever feel like I got to know him
as an adult. And so I spent time with his
sister and I spent time with my grandmother, just trying
to get to know him more because I had realized

(50:12):
I had developed all these perceptions of him, and as
I was going through that journey, that's when I started
to realize that, yeah, he was just his own person,
with his own struggles, his own traumas, his own limitations,
and he loved me very much, but he's an imperfect
person like we all are.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
And it stinks that it took that for me to
realize that.

Speaker 6 (50:33):
But now I try to when I think about my mom,
I really try to appreciate that more.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Yeah, and it's probably helpful with you and understanding your
relationship with your mom too, I would imagine.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
So there was a reason for it, but it is
also it.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Truly is hard and you have when I say, the
delicate balance of honoring that like you feel a certain
way because you didn't have certain things, while also honoring
that they were at their own and they had their
own experiences and their living life for the first time too.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
That's really hard.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
You're experiencing multiple different emotions in that same span of
things happening.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (51:13):
The biggest challenge that I'll cap it off with I
think that I faced with all that was and I'm
sure other people can relate to this, but my dad
got sick and we hadn't talked for over two years
because we'd gotten in this big fight, and I decided
I didn't want a relationship with anymore, relationship with him anymore,
And when he got sick, then I immediately had to

(51:37):
throw away this grudge that we didn't ever work through, right,
And I remember when he did pass, I was really
struggling with I should be more sad than I am.
But at the same time, I didn't have the traditional
relationship with my dad, and that's always been a really
wonky one too, because I think oftentimes we feel pressure

(51:57):
from society to have a certain relationship with our parents,
because that's like the hallmark version of it, when in reality,
our relationships with our parents are super complex and very unique.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Yeah, that's a great point, and I know we're talking
finances and stuff, but I'm so glad you shared that
because it is it's very unique.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
And just like with all things in.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Social media, we love to compare ourselves to others in
every single way, and seeing people have those experiences while
you don't is difficult and when it's challenging, that's part
of it. Now, you had also talked about your wife
a little bit. What was it like for you because
you did have this specific relationship to money and I
imagine probably at the point where you were looking to

(52:41):
meet a partner, you were probably pretty frugal and you
were trying to understand what this would look like. So
when you start looking for a partner and these all
things have happened to you, what was that like?

Speaker 5 (52:52):
I think there's some context here.

Speaker 6 (52:54):
So for one, my skill set and when it comes
to finances, we only need to lean into of what
our god given talents are. And one of my biggest
skill sets is just being able to network with people
and create connections and be really outgoing when it comes
to dating, it turns out that's a really good skill
to have. So I want to put that caveat in

(53:18):
there because I understand that is just going to result
in me probably having a slightly different dating world than
other people. But when it came to going past the
just meeting somebody and actually developing intimacy, like letting someone
actually into your world, I was. I actually feel like

(53:39):
the reason why I let my wife more into that world,
I was always very hesitant. My dad was sick when
I initially met her and passed while we were getting
to know each other still, so I was just very
guarded at the time in general.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
But one of the reasons why I.

Speaker 6 (53:54):
Chose to let her in was because I felt like
there were little things that I started to pick up
on that we were aligned on, and finances was one
of those things, and so I just felt very.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
Confident being who I was.

Speaker 6 (54:07):
I didn't feel like we needed to have the same
financial situation by any means, but I felt like I
could share where I was at and I wasn't going
to be judged. And I think for anybody when it
comes to dating, you need to be able to talk
about those things, because finances might not even be your problem.
But you're going to have some problem, and if you
can't talk about that with the person that you're going

(54:29):
to be the most intimate with, like what a awful relationship.
Like that's one of the major benefits of being in
a relationship. And so I hear a lot of men
talk about how they want to get their financial poop together.
They'll say, Hey, I want to get my finances together
before I get out into the dating pool.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
And I just don't think that should be a factor.

Speaker 6 (54:50):
It'd be like sometimes I feel like it's almost an
excuse to not commit to something, or it's an excuse
not to get intimate with someone because it's scary and
we've all been hurt before. We just want to keep
our independence because we're all a little bit selfish. But
I just think that if you're it doesn't matter where

(55:11):
you are on the journey, and in fact, if you're struggling,
having that partner is going to probably help accelerate that journey,
because it definitely did for me.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
And to your point, if you try and make sure
everything is perfect before you find someone, before you do anything,
before you chase a dream, before you get your finances
in check. You're going to be waiting a long time.
There's never going to be a perfect time to do anything.
It's a perfect time for you that matters. And I
like that you address that because dating and finances there's

(55:43):
a lot that comes with that, and you have a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Of people who feel this need.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
To provide, especially on the men's side, where they're like,
I need to do all these things and I need
to have all my.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Ducks in a row. You can have a lot of
ducks in a row and still be good.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
You don't have to have every single thing figured out
that part of a partnership. But to your point, it
is what I see a lot on social media. Finances
and guys in dating is a hot topic.

Speaker 6 (56:09):
Yeah, And then it's funny because then you have the
guys that are really successful, right, maybe they did wait,
but then they probably have this fear of I'm gonna
go to the dating pool and I can't really relate
to this because this was never me. But I imagine then
they're thinking, was this person can actually like who I am?

(56:29):
Or are they just gonna like all the things maybe
that I can provide? And then also can I even
be vulnerable because they only know me as this person
who's like strong and successful, and so if I were
to lose everything, or if I were to hit this
rock bottom moment in my life, with that person stand
by me. And one of the amazing parts is I
met my wife when I was going through rock bottom.

(56:50):
So I have a lot.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
Of confidence that unless I did something.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Really stupid, but if bad things happen to me, if
a storm came my way, I know my wife would
stay with me. And that's really amazing security. And one
of the reasons why I have that. I'm not saying
the only way to go about it is to do that,
but one of the reasons I have that is because
I went through that.

Speaker 5 (57:09):
Journey with her.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
One of my therapists told me she always said in
the beginning of dating, and she's like, honestly, you need
to go through one hard moment. It doesn't really matter
what it is, whether somebody loses a tire and they
have to change it on the side of the road
or some major kind of moment in somebody's life before
you truly start knowing who that person is to truly
say I can commit.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
To them, because you don't until you've seen.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Someone go through something hard, you don't really know who
that person is. And I think there's a lot of
truth to that in what you're saying and the experiences
you had.

Speaker 5 (57:43):
Yeah, that's so true.

Speaker 6 (57:44):
And my wife has gone through a lot of hard
things too, So on the flip side, I've seen that
and it's true.

Speaker 5 (57:50):
And I think vice versa.

Speaker 6 (57:52):
If your partner goes through something tough, they get to
see how you handle it, and if you go through
something tough, they get to see how you handle adversity.
And I think it's both of those things are equally important.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Yeah, and for you, when you did meet your wife,
how did you bring up the topic of finances and
understanding that you guys are on this level.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Because finances are a hard thing.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
People don't love to talk about them, and it's weird
to be like, this is how I am, this is
how I feel.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
It may have been a little bit easier.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
For you because it's part of your story, but I'm
curious how that went.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
Oh man, I.

Speaker 6 (58:28):
Met my wife like eight years ago, and it's so
we met in San Francisco. I was out there visiting,
and then.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
Afterwards we were a pen pals for a few months.

Speaker 6 (58:40):
Because I was going out to San Francisco quite a bit,
so I'll admit in the beginning, no finances were talked about.

Speaker 5 (58:46):
It was very just like flirty text.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
And it's okay, you got to you gotta talk to
somebody to get to know him a little bit.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
For somebody just drop some bombs.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
Yeah, And then after that, I think it was a
little bit we were the first time we ever talked
on the phone. We ended up talking for three hours.
So then you're like, WHOA, I have a lot to
talk to this person about. So I'm trying to think
about when some of the more finance related things, because
I definitely felt a little bit nervous because it wasn't

(59:15):
an area that I was feeling very confident in myself
about what it felt like a blemish, and so I
was like, Okay, what am I going to reveal this
blemish of mine? But then she had a moment where
she was vulnerable about some stuff that her parents were
going through financially, and it made me feel as though, Okay,

(59:37):
I can share this with her and she's not going
to judge me. After I started talking to her about it,
I almost was like desperate puppy afterwards, I was like, please, don't.
I just shared this really vulnerable thing, don't judge me
and run away. So it was this really big weight
when I finally did start talking to her about those things.
But then we're both incredibly emotional, so as you can imagine,

(59:59):
when we it is not pretty. But then we have
like super quick rebounds. But we decided to just move
in together after three months of dating long distance, and
so that's when finances really just started. You can't avoid it,
like we're living together and we're figuring it all out.
And the good thing was my wife was a writer,
so she was not really making a lot of money.

(01:00:22):
But the bad news was she moved in with me
and I got laid off the very next day. To
your point about it, like adversity, like neither one of
us are making any money right when she moves here.

Speaker 5 (01:00:33):
And one of those moments where.

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
I didn't think about it as much as we were
going through it, But afterwards, I thought to myself, man,
she could have totally been not down with it. She'd
only been there for maybe a month, so she could
have decided to just leave. But she suck it out
and she'll joke about it now and say, I.

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
Was wondering if this was going to work.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
But I think to your point about the adversity piece,
it just it came up really quick. And yeah, neither
of us, I think, just neither one of us were
judging the other person every time that finances came up.
I know that's not a great answer for maybe someone
that's early on how you go about bringing up finances.
I will say I lead a group through Dave Ramsey's

(01:01:17):
Financial Peace University, and this past group or whatever, the
last group that we went through over the nine weeks,
I was with a bunch of just single girls, which
obviously my wife was crazy about. I just got paired
up that way, and so dating would come up a
lot with them because they felt like they were doing
all these things to improve their finances and how they

(01:01:38):
think about it and their financial literacy, and so they're like,
I don't want to date a guy that doesn't care
about this.

Speaker 5 (01:01:44):
As much as me.

Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
But the consistent thing that they would say was I
don't care necessarily that he's got everything figured out. I
just want to know that we're aligned on how we
think about these things. And I just think if you're dating,
if you're early in dating, you're questioning or the things
that you ask shouldn't be about how much money they
have or how much debt that they have initially. It
should just be more about how they think about those things.

(01:02:07):
And you can notice little things like if you go
on a date with the guy and he's driving a
thirty thousand.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
Dollars car and he makes sixty thousand.

Speaker 6 (01:02:13):
Dollars, I don't know, maybe that's a sign that he's
an overspender.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Yeah, you gave a lot of tips in there and
stuff you did great, and you shared a lot of
pieces of that. I think something that I noticed from
all of is that you were willing to be vulnerable
even though it was so hard, because you felt you
were in a safe space and you felt there was
empathy there that you could be.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
That person that you needed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
And I think that's what everybody's looking for and dating,
and when you find that right person, I think these
conversations can start to become a little bit easier.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
And maybe that's also a sign.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
When you meet someone you're like, this doesn't feel comfortable
to talk about. That's probably not the best situation to
be in. So there was a lot there that you
gave and I really enjoyed that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
One thing I want to make sure to ask you
about too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Some of what you were mentioning in there sounded like
budgeting and as you were changing things, Why is budgeting
so important to you? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
I know you also talk a lot about that in
your social content.

Speaker 6 (01:03:15):
Yeah, I think no matter what stage you're at, maybe
if you're like Elon Muskritch, maybe you don't need to
make a budget, but he probably even has a budget himself.
I think regardless of what stage you're at, budgets can
serve a very different purpose. And I've noticed that there's
a perception of restriction or even hey, I don't need
to budget. I'm not broke, right like people oftentimes maybe

(01:03:38):
associate budgeting with being broke.

Speaker 5 (01:03:41):
But when you're in a.

Speaker 6 (01:03:43):
Partnership with somebody, a budget is a written I wouldn't
say contract, but a written contract of how you guys
are going to spend your money. Because my wife and
I don't talk about your money and my money. We
talk about our money whenever we do things, and it
doesn't mean that if she goes and buys something for
twenty dollars that I'm like, hey, you spent our money.

(01:04:03):
But it means that if we spend a certain amount,
like I think for us it's around like something that's
over five hundred dollars, we usually will ask each other
about it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
So it's our money.

Speaker 6 (01:04:12):
So if you're in a relationship, budgeting is a great
way to just get alignment with each other and have
that conversation. And for us, I don't think that we
would talk a lot about how we would spend our
money if we weren't sitting down and making a budget.
But if you're just someone who is just feeling like
you're struggling, a budget is an audit of your situation.

(01:04:33):
Budgets are like going to the doctor when you're sick.
You know, you can't figure out how to heal yourself
if you don't get a proper diagnosis. Right, If you're like, hey,
I'm living paycheck to paycheck but you never actually go
through your expenses or how much money you truly have
coming in, I don't know how you can expect to

(01:04:54):
get any better. And so I felt like that was
just such a foundational staf And then on top of it,
it's it also it's a test of your behaviors, So
it's one thing to commit to making a budget, but
ninety percent of it is actually sticking to it, and
so to me, it feels like if you can just
do that part, you could almost know nothing else about finances.

(01:05:17):
But if you're just good at sticking to a budget
and living within your means, you're going to be just
fine because you'll probably figure out a way to start investing.
Over time, you'll probably save up for emergencies. Like all
the other stuff is smaller details that can definitely help
you accelerate your journey. But if you can't follow a budget,
the I'm like zero to one right. If you can't

(01:05:39):
get to one, you're never going to get to all
the other things.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Baby steps are very important, the baby steps, Yeah, could, Daniel.
I so appreciate you being here and sharing your story.
I think it's really important. And just how you share
and how you talk about these things. Is there hard
topics and people need to hear these things? Is there
anything that we didn't get to want to make sure
people here know about anything like that?

Speaker 5 (01:06:05):
No, not really.

Speaker 6 (01:06:05):
I'm pretty new to this game myself and trying to
figure out myself online a little bit, I think right now,
So I think the one thing that I'll just echoes
that zero to one piece. If people are struggling to
get from zero to one, that's the stuff that I
talk about online, that's the stuff that I write about
in my newsletter and all that kind of stuff. But
if you're past that, then there's probably way better people

(01:06:26):
than me to get your advice from.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
I think you're super relatable and what you're doing again
is important. So Daniel, thank you for being here, Thanks
for sharing your story, and it's really great to talk
with you. Likewise, I hope you came away from this
episode with some new tools and resources while also feeling
heard when it comes to maybe your relationship with money.
If you like the episode, please subscribe it's a huge help,
and follow the podcast Instagram at take this personally. As always,

(01:06:52):
I'm so happy you're here. I'll talk to you guys
next week.