Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Scott Galloway: Avoid These Financial Risks

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Achieve Economic Security. Financial EXPERT, Scott Galloway, Explains How Anyone Can GROW WEALTH at Any Age. ACT NOW.   Simple Steps to Get Rich.   Scott Galloway (bestselling author, NYU professor, serial entrepreneur) reveals the UGLY TRUTH about Chasing Your Passion and shares steps we can all take to GET RICH!   In this MUST-WATCH episode for anyone looking to improve their financial stability, Scott exposes shocking truths about economic disparities in the U.S.   He shares how growing up poor shaped his beliefs, why passion shouldn't drive your career choices, the economic implications of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, and the sneaky tactics the wealthy use to maintain their status.   Scott Galloway also breaks down: - Dangers of excessive consumerism and possible solutions - Necessity to prioritize relationships over chasing wealth - The true definition of being "rich" - Societal pressure for excessive spending over social media - Value of financial discipline and identifying specific economic goals - Why we are obligated to plan for financial security - His personal struggles with depression, anger, economic fear, and the trappings of a materialistic world - Importance of talking about money without fear   Scott's practical advice on achieving financial security, untying your identity from your economic status, aligning goals with realistic expectations, and practical saving and investing tips demonstrate why IT'S NEVER TOO LATE to reduce economic stress.   Scott Galloway's latest book, THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH: A Simple Formula for Financial Security: https://a.co/d/dTiNx66   Betterment Disclosure: As of 4/19/24 for the aggressive Target Income Portfolio. Blended 30-day SEC yield is the weighted average of 30-Day SEC yields (standardized calculation) for each ETF in the portfolio, net of fees (0.25%). Yield is not performance; investment returns may vary; investing involves risk including loss of principal. Betterment, not BlackRock is responsible for its advisory relationships with clients.   BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if you could have a pill that would make you less likely to have a heart attack, more likely to stay married, less likely to commit suicide. That pill is called... Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business. He has a YouTube channel. He's won Webby and Best Podcast Awards. We're here to give everyone a shot at being a millionaire at some point. He has founded nine companies.

People that really get heard are what I call the workhorses. Find the industry where if you're good at it, you're going to have a nice life versus the industry where if you're amazing, you're going to drive an Uber. He's a serial entrepreneur. The reality of the situation is money can buy you happiness. We like to think that it doesn't. But every study shows that middle income people

are happier than lower income, upper income people happier than middle income. The good news is that there's diminishing returns. He's a best-selling author. A lot of people don't want to live to work. They want to work to live. He serves on the board of directors of the New York Times Company, urban outfitters.

If you have money, America is a loving, generous place. If you don't, it's a violent, rapacious place. There are enemies everywhere trying to take your money, trying to legally steal from you. What you can't control is your own actions, and you can focus on your relationships and also helping other people in trying to change the system. It's not too late. And with a little bit of discipline, a little bit of correct decision making and strategies, you can get there. Hi, I'm Miami Allie. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. Well, today we have someone coming on the podcast who's going to break things down that I don't know how to,

break down. So it's good that he's here. Let's talk about money, Maim, taboo subject for some. We're having Scott Galloway on. Scott Galloway thinks that it's like the dirty little secret no one talks about. He thinks we should, if people can talk about tennis, if they're tennis stars, why can't we talk about money? We all need to deal with it. Why is anybody shy about talking about money? How to create safety. It's not only about getting rich. It is about creating the life that you want and knowing what your expenses are, knowing how much money you need, strategies, to improving the stability of your financial situation? These are all very important.

I don't know, Jonathan. I think what's more important is understanding what it means to be rich. What is richness? What is wealth? Is pursuing your passion a worthwhile usage of your time? What's the difference between passion and talent? And how does that translate to wealth, to security,

to actually living the life that you want and deserve? Also, what do you want your financial life to look like when you're 30, when you're 45, when you're 80? We'll also have Scott weigh in on kind of the financial and emotional implications of Ozempic and how our economy is fueling both obesity-related needs and also the need to address them with things like Ozempic. Also, a place that I didn't think that Scott would take us, but we go there, how do our instincts and our propensity for need contribute to our sense of enoughness? How does that impact money? How does it impact weight? How does it impact how we parent? We're going to get into all of it. Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of

Business. He's a serial entrepreneur. He has founded nine companies. He's a best-selling author of the four, the algebra of happiness, which we're going to talk about today, post-coronavirus. He also wrote Adrift America in 100 Charts, which is an awesome coffee table book. He serves on the board of directors of the New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters. I mean, I own many of their clothing. Panera Bread. He's a very, very interesting guy. He has a Prof G podcast, also Pivot Podcast with Kara Swisher, which Jonathan and I are fans of.

He has a YouTube channel. He reaches millions of people. He's won Webby and Best Podcast Awards. His books have been translated into 28 languages. is do you want to understand more about wealth, richness, and financial security? I think you do. Let's welcome Scott Galloway to the breakdown to break it all down. Break it down.

It's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thanks for having me. We sort of, you didn't know that we stocked you at South By, but we did. Stock away. Well, something that you should know about us is that Jonathan turned me on to you. and we're going to talk about, I mean, I have all your books. We're going to talk about the algebra of wealth,

but I have to say that I was extremely excited by a drift. You know, Jonathan likes to poke a lot of fun at me because I'm trained as a scientist, but I don't know anything about business. There's things that I have to know. I don't like knowing them. You know, I've been a working actor since I was 11 years old,

and there were a lot of things about, you know, money and business that were either handled for me or mishandled or mismanaged or, you know, but in general, I have this tremendous distaste for talking about finances and money. You know, when I, when I looked at a drift, you know, for me, that's the way that things make more sense to me when there's like a visual and a paragraph. And I did read the algebra of wealth, a simple formula for financial security. And I've also, like, I've done the Susie Orman work. book, you know, like that was assigned to me by a therapist when I was in my, my 20s. I'm going to ask you a very basic question that I don't mean to sound condescending.

Why do I have to care? Meaning, why do we have to care? I think that America becomes more like itself every day, and that is it becomes, if you have money, America is a loving, generous place. If you don't, it's a violent, rapacious place. This book isn't about what is, or what should be. It's about what is. I grew up without money. And the biggest source of stress in my life wasn't that I wasn't doing well in school or that there was some mental illness in my family or that my dad wasn't around. The most stressful thing in my life is me and my mom didn't have any money. And in a capitalist society, when you don't have money growing up, it's like there's a ghost following you and your mom around whispering in your ear constantly that you're not worthy.

My opportunities around where to go to college, my opportunities around where I could live, my opportunities around meeting friends, meeting potential mates, were all limited by my economic insecurity. I'm not saying you have to be a ball or a billionaire, but you do need to be economically secure in America such that you can focus on what's important, and that is deep and meaningful relationships. If you want to be able to raise your kids in a loving, secure environment, you need economic security. I mean, I'm sure. sure there's a lot of Hallmark movies about poor people who love each other, but you're twice as likely to get divorced. Your kids are twice as likely to have diabetes. You're more likely to be

depressed. You're more likely to end up on SSRI. But this is the thing. I'm depressed because these things are true, which is why I don't like to think about them. Sure. Because I was raised by hippies. I was raised by hippies who didn't believe in saving money, which is really not helpful, just like heads up. And my father, blessed memory, you know, when he does, died, it was like, oh, oh, mom, he literally didn't believe in saving money. Yeah, we don't have any money. Correct. That's what happens if you don't save money.

You don't have money. But, you know, I was raised with, you know, this notion of like, this is what's wrong with the world is that we have to have money. So you build this identity, you know, around like, we're bohemian, we're artistic. Like, everything's always broken and we just can't afford a house. But what happens, like for me, when I think about this stuff, is it, it is. It does. It feels impossible because I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I'm like, well, people just shouldn't be allowed to make a lot of money. They should have to give it away. And you mentioned that in your book, right? In a perfect world, we'd be sharing more. We're going to need a bigger boat if we should talk about the way the world should be. This book is meant to be, this is the way the world is. Right. I want you and me and future versions of us to be somewhat free of that stress such that when, they do get older and realize despite the injustices of the world, I do believe capitalism

is the worst system of its kind except for all the rest. No one has invented a better system yet. Communism and socialism, I mean, maybe socialism when you sit on a shit ton of oil and you live in a homogeneous culture, Norway is probably happier than us. It's working for them. Six of the ten happiest countries are socialist countries in Northern Europe, but there's also some noise in there because they have some advantages we don't. Correct.

But given the realities of a capitalist system, I think that they're not. think you owe it to yourself and to your offspring to try and develop a strategy for economic security. And I don't think it takes, and you might find it depressing, okay, it's the world we live in. And I don't think you can control that. What you can't control is your own actions and try and implement a series of strategies and a little bit of discipline and a little bit of financial literacy such that at a minimum, you have an absence from the kind of stress that it sounds like you had when your father died. I had growing up in an economically insecure household, and you can focus on your relationships.

And also, quite frankly, you can focus on helping other people and trying to change the system. I have a lot more ability to implement some of the values around our society that you and I probably share, because I have money. And that's just the reality of the situation. And you can fight City Hall. you know, I would rather be, I have no desire to be someone in tie-dye barking at the fucking moon. That's just not, I admire those people, I hope they're happy. I want to be, you know, I want to be focused on my kids. I want to be able to take care of my father.

I want to know that I can provide for them economically, that they'll get good health care, and then I can give money to candidates that I think are going to try and address food insecurity for kids living in low-income homes. And the reality of the situation is money can buy you happiness. We like to think that it doesn't, but every study shows that middle-income people are happier than lower-income, upper-income people happier than middle-income. That's the bad news. The good news is that there's diminishing returns. Once you get to a certain point, you're not going to get any more money, which argues to me

for a much more progressive tax rate above a big number. The difference between 40,000 and 80,000 is huge for a household. The difference between 80,000, and half a million also will make you happier. But the difference between 1 million and 10 million is tiny, if not zero. So it also kind of begs the question, well, then why wouldn't we be taxing people who make over a million dollars a year? Or call it 10 million, because a million bucks a year sounds like a lot of money, but if you live in L.A. and New York and you have two or three kids, it's actually not a lot of money. There's just some basics around what I call adulting that young people should learn. I think they need to understand that if they sign up for a credit card that has a 22% interest rate, that's a bad idea.

I think they need to understand that buy now, pay later is not innovation. There are just certain basics around, oh, I have this thing at work called an IRA or Roth, and my work will match the money and it's taken right out of my checks. That's a really good thing, and you should understand why that's not just a good thing. think that's a great thing. You should understand that you might be a child star, but you're going to be around here for another 90 years. And if you just save, if your parents had the wisdom to just put a little bit of that money in low-cost index funds, when their daughter turns 40, she could have millions of dollars. And it wouldn't take that much discipline if they'd done that

when you were a kid. And I don't mean to be critical of your parents. I'm laughing. I'm laughing because You're laughing because you're crying. You know, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. That's what the juice. My M. Bialy's breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine.

Drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what Superpower is doing. They send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab. One simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers. That's way more than you usually get.

It unlocks a true understanding of your body. Their app has detailed information on heart, liver, thyroid hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. From disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system out there. I've been super tired of constantly guessing or just trying to read articles online about what to do for health. Superpower gives you an actionable health plan based on personal results. It's a real game changer.

Plus, they have an on-demand clinician team to answer questions. Supplement or prescription suggestions can be directly bought through superpower, so you don't have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499. Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower.

Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention My and Bialin's Breakdown to help support the show. Say, what's wrong with passion? Because, you know, you kind of, you really, you tackle it head on. And I think that, you know, I hate to be that 48-year-old who's like, you know, oh, these kids today. And I have a 15 and a heading into college, 18-year-old.

So a lot of this stuff really, you know, hit home for me, this notion of what's wrong with telling people to live their passion. Well, so first stop, anyone who tells you to follow your passion is usually already rich. And the person telling you to follow your passion made their billions in iron ore smelting. And what I worry about is the young people mistake hobbies for passions. And I think their job in their 20s is to workshop a series of careers and experiments until they find their talent. I thought when I was 17 I was going to be quarterback of the Jets. I'm tall. I have a good plane of vision.

I have an outstanding arm. I don't know if you knew that about me. I mean, you're a Scottish Jew. I think you're probably the Messiah. It just spells athlete, doesn't it? I got to UCLA and very quickly found out that I was never going to be a professional athlete because there were real athletes there. I then thought I was going to be a pediatrician.

I then took chemistry and realized the sciences were not for me. I then went into investment banking and spent two years doing that and found out I'm not a very good investment banker. And then I found analytics and business intelligence and consulting. And it ended up I was good at that and that I could become great at it and being great at anything. and this is the key point, that has a 90-plus percent employment rate, which 98 percent of industries do, avoid the ones that have a 90 percent unemployment rate. If you can master and become in the top 10 percent of any industry that's a non-vanity industry, here's what you're going to become passionate about, being able to live in a nice home,

being able to take care of your parents, being able to take wonderful vacations with your spouse, being able to give money to people when they need it, you'll become whatever will enable you to do that will make you passionate about whatever it is. Mastery makes you passionate about that thing because of the accoutrements that it involves. I don't want to kill anyone's dreams if you want to be an actor, a model.

Are you sure, Scott? Are you sure? You want to open a nightclub. You want to be a jewelry designer, fine. But what I would say is just based on the return on invested capital in those industries, if you don't get bright green signals that you're in the top 1% from a very early age, have a sober conversation, and it goes something like this. The most talented actors I'll use your industry. The most talented actors in the world are members of SAGAFTRA. That is not an easy union to get into. You have to be talented just to get into it. There's 180,000 members in the

union. Last year, 87% didn't qualify for health insurance because they made less than $23,000. The top 10% of tax lawyers fly private and have a much broader selection set of mates than they deserve. The top 10% of basketball players get cut from JV in the 10th grade. So, okay, would you rather be, find the industry where if you're good at it, you're going to have a nice life versus the industry where if you're amazing, you're going to drive an Uber. And the majority of industries are like that. So your industry is nearly, I want to want to say it's impossible, but. But for you to reach the success you reached in your industry, in most industries, you'd be worth tens of millions of dollars.

And maybe you are. I don't know. But my point is, the millionaire next door owns a car wash. The guy installing the soapstone, I'm renovating a home. I got fascinated with this guy. He's the soapstone guy. And he's this Iraqi immigrant. He knows everything about soapstone.

He can tell you the veining. He goes to the right quarries. And he charges a ridiculous amount of money because he's gotten this reputation in central London is the soapstone guy. And I've gotten to know him and I've asked some very pointed questions because I'm writing a book. He makes $1.2 million a year. And I'm telling you he just fucking loves soapstone. I can't tell you how passionate about it he is because it affords him an amazing life. And we're all really interested in him. And he does a great job. He has tremendous pride in his work. So this is your. your job. Find your talent, get amazing at something, and mastery and the accoutrements of mastery will make you passionate about whatever it is. Jonathan has an MFA in screenwriting, and he's a poet and a thinker and a dreamer and a healer. And also he works in tech. And so, like, I, you know, I podcast with this person who is, like, on one hand, like, I want to be Scott Galloway. And on the other hand, like, a little bit tie-dye barking at the moon. Jonathan, I want you to weigh in here. Well, Scott, it's really a pleasure to meet you. I listen to a lot of your stuff. You're actually one of the people who I think has the best ability to explain the incentive structure of the world that we're all living in so that we can better understand what the world actually is and then try to make change. Because I really believe that we can't make change until we accept things as they are and understand what they are.

but you know reflecting back on what you just said like my father was an accountant loved being an accountant grew the largest second largest mid-tier firm in Canada from four people to 20 people over his career and I you know had no idea what I wanted to do and he was like you need to find the thing that you're both want to do but you're also is you're extremely good at and for a long time I didn't have that. I was brought up in an entrepreneurial home where it was encouraged to make money and I started small businesses from a very young age, but wasn't proficient in math and wasn't proficient in science. And I went into the arts. And there was a long period of time where I did not have the ability to apply the skill set until I left the arts, left Los Angeles. And I went into the innovation

and design world in a small boutique firm that was doing human-centered. design the likes of an IDO or frog. And I took my skill set and I began to translate the foresight and research that was being done around the changing nature of society to try and explain how new technologies that had not yet been commercialized would create different experiences that companies could invest in. And all of a sudden, there was this merger of my background and my writing skills and artificial intelligence. This was, you know, in 2013 through 2019. And that was really the hybrid. So it's, you know, while I didn't find that through school, I kind of developed the skill that I was good at,

passionate at. And then it took several years for me to find the application of that skill and the training. By changing industries and applying it to an industry that needed that skill set, I was able to find a niche. But I think what your evolution is a really inspiring example of what young people should be focused on and that is okay. There's a big, you're a creative person, you're a storyteller, artist, whatever the term you want to. But there's a big difference between being an artist, being a poet, then being a screenwriter, then doing industrial design or storyboards for Campbell's Soup. And they progressively get less and less sexy and progressively better and better paying. That's true. You didn't lose your sense of art or creativity or storytelling

or design. You just came to the recognition that, and I'm one of the five or six best poets in the world, I'm not going to be able to make a living here, but I can make a living in this thing maybe called screenwriting. Oh, my God, that's really hard and inconsistent. But wait, I can take those skills of artistanship and poetry and turn a phrase in a sense for the aesthetic, and I can help Whirlpool tell a story about a dishwasher. I'm going to guess at the age of 11, you never articulated that as your dream. Absolutely. But the real economy is producing a lot of dishwashers.

And Whirlpool needs creatives and artists and people who understand poetry and understand art and symmetry to figure out a way to sell $400 versus $400 of mechanical engineering and water for $1,100. That's $700 in margin. We need artists to tell the story. And so you went through the workshopping of what I would argue is every young person's challenge.

And I trust that, you know, you may not be a baller, but you're, you know, you have some economic security. And that's what we all want. He also has a lot of economic fear, which is a different podcast also. We all have it. I still have it. I've never lost it. Rationally, I shouldn't, and I still have it. It haunts me.

And it's, I think everybody has it. It's the crystal rock line that he says, you know, I'm extremely wealthy, but I associate as being, identified as being very poor. He also has a great line. He's like, everyone around. me. He's like, guy next to me, he's like, I live in New Jersey in this really rich neighborhood. And he's like, I'm one of the ten best comics in the world. And he is. I'm one of the time that's guy next to me, orthodontist. I don't think he's one of the ten best orthodontists in the world. And so he says, I screwed up. I had to be one of the ten best in the world to live here

in comedy. The guy next to me is like, I don't even think he's one of the ten best in Short Hills, New Jersey. And he's living in a house as fat as my next door. So the point is, It's like I used to surf when I was younger, pretend to surf. And you go to Hawaii and the waves are perfect and you think, wow, I'm pretty good at this. And then you go to the Pacific Ocean and you realize without perfect waves, you're not that good. You want to go to an industry where you just need some talent and you can be amazing. That's really all I'm suggesting. And also around, it's a very personal conversation with your partner who you hopefully have alignment with.

And that is, some people don't. I live to work. I was very focused on having not only economic security. I wanted to be wealthy. It was just so important to me from a very young age. I didn't want to save the whales. I didn't want to be a good person. I didn't want to have a family.

I wanted to be wealthy. And I'm not embarrassed to that. I think a lot of people want that and don't admit it. But a lot of people don't want to live to work. They want to work to live. There's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of good people who make a decent living. I want to spend a ton of time focusing on their family, their church, their hobbies.

That's fine. but just make sure you have a partner that's aligned with that, and that you have reasonable expectations around where you're going to need to live, where your burn rate's going to be, what kind of house you're going to live in, what kind of car you're going to live in. Because where I see with young people, where they're pelted 200 times a day with people vomiting all their experiences

and personal possessions, they expect to live a life that is literally in the top 1% income earning household, and then they start using the word balance. But I want balance. I'm like, well, okay, boss, you can have, have it all, but you can't have it all at once. You want to have healthy relationships being in great shape, take up kayaking, spend a lot of coach little league, fine. But be clear, you're not going to make a lot of money. So you better move to a low-cost neighborhood and have

a partner who also works or have, or do the smartest thing you can do is be born to rich parents. That's absolutely the best strategy. But assuming that doesn't happen, you just have to have a sober conversation. And if you do want to, but I do think if you, everyone has an obligation to develop a plan, a flight plan for getting some economic security by the time they're my age. Because what I do not want anyone is to be insecure, upset, unhealthy because of economic insecurity, which you will be in this country if you don't have some semblance of economic security or to be dependent on your children or to be dependent upon your parents in your 50s. that attacks your self-esteem, attacks your mental wellness.

And if you start fairly young, and by the way, 45 is young. 45 means you're going to work another 30 years and probably live another 50. It's not too late. And with a little bit of discipline, a little bit of correct decision-making and strategies, you can get there. But you have to have a sober adult conversation. And people need to talk more about money. It's very strange we don't talk about it. I think it's an effort by rich people to keep poor people down personally.

Rich people know how much money you're making. They know how much all their employees are making. They have perfect symmetry of information. Rich people talk to other rich people about money all the time. And here's what happens. We get really good at it. Do you think Roger Federer is afraid to talk about tennis that he thinks it's taboo or uncouth to talk about tennis?

He talks about tennis all goddamn day because guess what? He wants to be really good at it. And everybody has a responsibility. to at least get adequate at money. You need to talk about it. One of the things that when we heard you at South By, it was right at the time when we were starting the conversations about banning TikTok and what is TikTok doing

and you talked a bit about, you know, Facebook's algorithms. And it was really the first time that I heard someone articulate, you know, very clearly and succinctly. What a crazy, crazy world we're living in, or especially for our younger people in terms of the kind of information, the speed of information, the availability of information, and in many cases misinformation.

I like to blame, you know, that for everything. And, you know, what I see with my 18-year-old in particular, he's on his phone a lot. And a lot of what he sees is an aspect of a lifestyle that I think for him, because he was born into privilege, and because of a lot of his circumstances, there are many things there that he can want and have, and I think that's true for some kids.

But from the perspective that I come from, most people cannot have access to this lifestyle that's being sold as, you know, kind of ubiquitous, necessary, and as some sort of birthright. And for me, it's a lot about the consumerism, which I really balk at. You know, there's this intense, intense barrage

of a consumption mindset, right? Buy this, do this, have this. This is the life you want. And, you know, I remember when we were kids, like I couldn't afford the $35 swatch watch that everybody had. There were the kids who had the swatch watch, and there were kids that didn't. There were the girls that shopped at a spree,

and there were those of us who got hand-me-downs from girls that could shop at a spree, and when they outgrew them, it came in a plastic bag, and we wore them, right? but things have changed so much, you know, and I'm 48, everyone now has the Nikes. Everyone now has the phone. It seems like there's this weird leveling out,

which in some ways I'm like, well, maybe that's good because everybody should have all the things, but it just seems to lead to this excessive culture of a need to keep consuming, to have the newest shoes, to have the, like, what is even fashion that you have to buy new clothes when the industry tells you this is like stripes are in. I'm wearing stripes today.

I've been wearing this shirt for eight years. But like, I want you to fix it for me. What's going on? And how do we make it stop? More people have died in our 300 years, 300,000 years on this planet as a species. The biggest killer has been starvation. And so it is just wired into us. For 99% of our tenure on this planet,

if you found salty, sugary, or fatty food, you just gorged because you didn't know when you were going to find it. again. If you had access to free play, you played until sun went down because free play in a safe environment was not readily accessible. Mating opportunities were scarce. 80% of women have reproduced, only 40% of men have reproduced. So what does that lead to? It leads to obesity. Our instincts have not caught up to institutional production. It leads to too much time on phones and scrolling and wanting a dope a hit and it leads to addictions to porn.

So in some, our instincts have just not caught up to institutional production. The consumption culture you're talking about is essentially Amazon. I mean, there's just, I don't know, I look around, I'm at a stage of my life where now that I can finally afford anything, I don't want, I want nothing. My dream is a home that's like one of those Japanese rock gardens where there's a couple rocks and that's it. I want all the clutter, all the shit out of my life. I don't own a car any longer. I don't wind my watch. I have someone dress me in a uniform so I never have to think about it. I just want, I would like to own five things and nothing else. So I'm going totally

the other way. But the instinct to avoid starvation has led to a culture where we always, we never, our desire for stuff has never been stated. And also, wanting to be attractive to people, wanting to signal worth and significance and that you're interesting to other men and attractive to potential mates is so powerful that I understand people who want to own a BMW or spend $1,100 on a pair of ergonomically impossible shoes. You're fighting instinct. It's just, I don't think it's going to change. And every time there's a new generation, we get signals that, oh, this one's more green.

No, they're not. They still want the Rolex. And they're going to. You're fighting 300,000 years of instinct. And it's just we're not, we can modulate it. I think we need to educate people. There's an entire generation of young women in China that live at home, take the bus to work so they can buy a Birken bag once a year.

You know, there are kids buying $10,000 and $15,000 handbags. And a lot of it is their parents want to give them everything. Some of them go to schools here in Los Angeles. they walk among us. Yeah, there's a lot of an overconsumption culture, but you're trying to fight it. And then you layer on top of that, the smartest people in the world

that have the deepest resources and Godlike technology are there to offer you an irresistible offer when you're at your weak point. Oh, I just ordered a tuna cotto from Joe in the Juice, and it immediately pops up. Well, how about flourless chocolate cake

from Baltazar Belangerie? I love chocolate cake. Just click here. Oh, you're going on a guy. trip to Cabo? Well, how about making it really special? For just 280 bucks, you can upgrade to economy plus. And for just 350 bucks, you can upgrade to business class. That's not a, that's not consumption. It's an investment in yourself. These things are tested millions of times a second by AI on top of consumer psychologists. You should assume that every dollar that comes that you have

access to, you will spend. I think that's true of 99% of Americans. So what you want to do, and this goes to advice, is you want to find forced savings vehicles. You want to ask your company, find out the state and federal programs that say, how do I get money taken out of my check? And hopefully it gets matched by my employer or the government, and I never see it. Because if you're like me, every dollar I had access to, I spent. So equity in a company. Right. You talk about that in the vote. Equity in a company is forced savings. You can't spend your options. A house is actually forced savings because most people are very worried about losing shelter,

so they will figure out a way to make their mortgage payment, which is a form of forced savings. But assume you are like 90% of people in the West and that any money you have access to, you will spend. Get the acorns at and round up to the nearest dollar on purchases and have that money immediately transferred into SBY, a low-cost index fund. but there are all sorts of vehicles of forced savings. And what I'm suggesting is you need to understand the concept of force savings.

You need to understand how difficult it is to resist 300,000 years of instinct and set yourself up for victory by creating a series of force savings mechanisms. It's great advice. Scott, I have a bit of a philosophical question. But first, who is your friend there? This is Leah, my great Dane. Oh, you have a great Dane. That's fun. Every two years, we used to do it every year, but I got too expensive. Every two years, my wife and I sit down and say, clean sheet, what would make you really happy?

Everything aside, indulgence, how stupid it sounds, money, like we may not be able to do it, but what would make you really happy? And we list a bunch of things. And I usually can't come up with stuff. She's very good at coming up with a lot of things. And I came up with a great one two years ago. I grew up with a great day. They make no sense. They're too big.

We get rescue dogs. We don't get pure breads. And I'm like, you know what, I'd really like a great dang. And she's like, done, let's go. And we flew to Kentucky and got a great day. And by the way, we have her here in London. And just so you know, it's super easy to get a great dayn across the Atlantic. Just no problem at all.

But anyways, this is Leia, my great tang. I think that's very sweet. It brings you back to childhood, I would imagine. About the consumption, you know, you talk about going, now that you can afford everything, you don't want anything. I wonder if maybe not a mass solution, but is it a spiritual solution? Is it that people need a connection to something greater than themselves? And I know you've talked about your experience with ketamine that opened up an altered state for you.

And it sounded like you've experienced, I don't know if it's divine, because I know you associate as an atheist, but you experience something, you know, greater than what the ordinary senses are. And I'm wondering if it, you know, the solution to some consumption or being driven by those instincts purely, we can't get over the AI. We can't get over the fact that we're being targeted. But breaking out of that cycle somewhat, I'm wondering if it is a spiritual solution in your mind. I need to be careful not to sound more stoic than I am. You're talking to a guy who owns a plane and is going to the south of France next week. So I still fall into the material trappings of the modern capitalist society.

and I spend a great deal of money on where I spend my money is on experiences, not on things. There's a ton of research. I'm not very good at happiness. I struggle with depression and anger. So I wrote a book on happiness because the way I learn about something as I write about it. And every study on happiness, there's one key feature that is almost every study, and that is people overestimate the joy they're going to get from things, and they underestimate the joy they're going to get from experiences.

So the learning is drive a Hyundai and take your husband to Africa, right? So I spend a lot of money on, on experiences. In terms of trying to break society out of a consumption culture, I think that's really unlikely because our economy runs on it. Our economy is a consumption culture. And every signal and every piece of media is telling you that you're you're just going to be cooler and more likely to be successful if you wear Nike's and own a Mercedes. And there's just beautiful things everywhere. I mean, there's just gorgeous things that would be so much fun to own and that you really would. It's fun to cook in Calphalon. You know, I mean, there's just a capitalism does produce beautiful furniture. It produces just, I want, Tom Ford glasses are going to

make my cheekbones look higher. I mean, there's just so many wonderful things that capitalism does provide and experiences. I can take my kids to the World Cup and see Argentina play France and have this incredible moment with my children. It costs a lot of money. So I don't think, unfortunately, I wonder if it's just going to get worse. So my strategy is put yourself in a position such that hopefully at an earlier age, you do recognize that money is a means to an ends and the ends are deep and meaningful relationships. But you do need to, certain level of economic security and just try and be mindful the fact that at some point, more stuff is not going to make you happier. What you need to get to is economic security,

such that you have an absence from anxiety around economics, such that you can focus on relationships. And also, in a capitalist society, money is a tremendous lubricant for doing, for experiences that will cement your friendships, your relationships. You know, it's just hard, I don't know where you guys live. It's hard to have kids without money. Kids are just so. so expensive. They're going to pick up on your stress. They're going to figure out when you're really stressed. It's that in health, too.

You know, it's kids and also health and getting the right health care, getting the workouts or the things that you need in order to, and the time also to maintain your health. Well, what if you could have a pill that would make you less likely to have a heart attack, more likely to stay married, more likely to be in good shape, less likely to commit suicide, that pill is called money, and we don't like to admit it. And I'm not suggesting that more money, again, it's not the more money you get.

At some point, at some point it's not your story. I think of money is ink in your pen. It can write different chapters. It can make certain chapters burn brighter, but it's not your story. This is a good problem. At some point, when you're tracking towards some level of economic security, you want to slow down and say,

what is my story? I don't, you know, everyone should, have a number, I think, and say, okay, am I tracking towards my number? I think you need to figure it out. It gives you a sense of control and a sense of agency. When I hit my number, I was blessed with the problem. Like, well, what's my why? Like, what do I do now? And I thought, well, you know, I've got X millions. I'd like to be a billionaire. And then I thought, why? Wait, what's the point? Why would I ever want to be a billionaire? Am I going to be happier? It might be cool. I'd like people to refer to me as a billionaire. And I thought, is that going to make me half?

happy. And then, and again, these are the best existential problems in the world. I had a moment where I thought, okay, I'm that guy that gives money to the local hospital, so I get a different number such that if I get sick, I get doctors who come to my house. That's total privilege. And they have this floor that when you're giving birth or you die, you go to and it's like a four seasons, best doctors in the world and you die in a four seasons, basically. And I thought one of my fears, and it was very chilling for me is, what if I got really wealthy? And I end up at this place, but it's all, it's no one I really know. I die in a really nice setting with a bunch of strangers.

Because this was my observation in my 40s as I started to get wealthy. And that was I cared way too much about the approval and opinion of people that didn't know me versus the people who knew me really well. One of the attributes of getting wealthy is working so hard and getting a lot of affirmation from the validation of external forces, money, relevance in your sector, your industry. And if you're not careful and you spend too much time doing that, you're going to find your kids don't like you a lot, or your spouse is really disappointed in you, or you have fake friends, you have professional friends, but you don't have real friends, or you haven't

spent as much time with your parents as you'd like to think you would, given how much they invested in your happiness when you were a kid. So I know a lot of very wealthy people who I think are tracking towards dying in a very nice place surrounded by strangers. And I think that is the ultimate failure because then you have no excuse. You had the money. You had the resources to establish really deep meaningful relationships with the people who matter, but you couldn't get off the hamster wheel. You couldn't slow down. You couldn't stop thinking about what the world and the industry and your bank account thought about you, and you didn't invest enough at home.

It happens to a lot of people, and I recognize very early that if I ever got fortunate enough to have economic security, I was not going to let that happen to me. I hope that I'll be dying a really nice, comfortable place, but my real goal is to have a bunch of people around me

who will be there and will be really bummed out that they're about to lose me. So where do people start? What's a good starting place for this? like if you were to I mean I like that you said that you know 45 is not too not too old to kind of be thinking about this give me a scenario give me a person and I'll tell you what I think that should be focused on I think like between 30 and 35 okay so at that point hopefully you found something that you think you're reasonably talented at what you should do then is really double down stop all the side hustles if you're doing side hustles it means you need a

new main hustle and really go all in on trying to establish a savings muscle and a talent such that you make more than you spend and start regularly saving through four savings vehicles. And also recognize you're going to be around for another 50 years and do the math. If I'm going around another 50 years and I'm going to start spending money or spending more than I make and say 40 when I'm 70, what do I need to get to that number? If I'm going to make 8% a year and I need to make $160,000 a year to live the life I want to lead in St. Louis, then I need to get to $2 million in net worth. And over 30 years, that may sound intimidating, but that's probably, I'm going to guess,

probably saving $8,000 or $10,000 a year, $6 or $700 a month, sit down with your partner, walk them through your thinking, does this sound good to you, does it sound right to me? Oh, wait, we're never going to save that much. Okay, then we can't live in St. Louis. Well, could we live in Costa Rica or Mexico? How do we take our burn from 160 to 110? And then we only need to save $450 a month for the next 30 years. Get alignment.

Get alignment. And recognize that 30 or 40 years is going to go really fast and that you have to have some discipline. You have to figure out a way to save that $300, that $400, that $700 a month, and gamify it. Sit down every month, write down your expenditures, and high-fifference. five each other when you save more than that $700 and put it into low-cost ETFs and index funds. Anyone on CNBC or anyone who has a logo or an ad on TV is a grifter, they're going to underperform the market by the amount of their fees, Vanguard, low-cost ETFs, and set

yourself on a path for some sort of financial security, because here's the definition of rich. It's passive income that's greater than your burn. I have a close friend who runs the M&A group at a large Bolterracket investment bank. He makes between $4 and $14 million a year. He pays 54% a year in taxes because he's a super earner. Superowners don't pay taxes.

Super earners pay a ridiculous amount of tax. So he walks home with somewhere between $2 million and $7 million a year. Between his ex-wife, his alimonyos, child support, his home on the Hamptons, his flex check card, and the trappings of a master of the universe life, which he feels justifiably he needs to have, he doesn't save a lot of money. He has nowhere near the passive income that he would need to support this lifestyle, and I can tell you firsthand, he spends a lot of nights staring at the ceiling, very stressed. Other example, my father, who's turning 94 in three months,

between his pension from the Royal Navy, Social Security, and he owns 17 washing machines and dryers in trailer parks where he collects the quarters every day. He makes $52,000 a year. He spends $48,000 a year. He has $52,000 in passive income a year. He spends 48. My father is rich. My father never needs to work again, never needs to worry about money. He has a total absence of economic security.

He is rich. So rich is passive income, then it's greater than your burn. So you just need to put yourself on a path towards that and have an adult conversation around not only what you earn, but what you spend. My father said to me from the time I was very young, his line is keep overhead low at all costs. Yeah, it's like that there was a guy named Wayne Heisanga who started Blockbuster. You just do these ads for Florida and he'd be like, it's not what you make, it's what you keep. I mean, I almost think that the best thing anyone can do in their 20s is a real victory, workshop and find talent.

That's a huge thing. And also, if you get used to saving just $100 a month, you know how to do that. You're immediately in the top 10% most financially responsible people in America. Most people can't do that. If your kid right out of college figures out a way to consistently save $100 a month, that savings muscle, that mentality, that discipline, They're going to be fine. They're going to be fine because here's what happens.

These kids don't know what they're spending. They don't think about it. They don't know what the interest rate is on their credit card. And they get these offers for free credit or they think it's free credit or they go up to the cashier at Urban Outfitters and they go, oh, good news. You've qualified for buy now, pay later loan. Oh, and you're going to Coachella. How about another outfit? And they convince them that it's innovation, that they're being responsible.

They're not part of the credit card economy. they're part of the debit. I mean, it's just there are enemies everywhere trying to take your money, trying to legally steal from you. And it takes real maturity to not do that. My first bonus of Morgan Stanley, I got a $28,000 bonus, so I immediately went out and bought a $35,000 BMW. And if I put that $28,000 into an index fund,

I think it'd be worth $2.4 million now. Let me use, we've been talking about parenting a lot. I've been thinking about this a lot. When I lived in New York, I had a one-year-old and a four-year-old, and I'm a narcissist, so I thought, I want my kids to go to the best schools, First Presbyterian or Grace Church. These are the best schools. $62,000 a year for these schools. And that's before you give them. By the way, in the interview, they ask you how philanthropic you are, which is Latin for how much money you're going to give us. So let's assume that it's just $62,000 a year. And you think, well, okay, why are you sending your kids there? For me, it was because I want them to, I want the best possible outcomes for them. Close number two was I'm a narcissist and wanted to hang out with other rich parents and tell people my kids went to Grace Church, if I'm really honest with myself. But most of it's because I thought I want the best for my children.

And the question is, well, okay, what is the best for your children? Well, I think they most likely have better outcomes than if they went to the public school. Well, what do you mean by best outcomes, better outcomes, better outcomes? More likely to get into a good Ivy League. Well, why do they need to get into an elite college? because they'll get a better job. Why do they need a better job? So they'll make more money.

Well, why do you want them to have more money? So they'll get a house, be economically secure, be able to form a household. Okay, here's an idea. If that's really true, if you have the discipline, send them to the closest public school. And there's a lot of research now showing that the best school for your kid is the school that's closest, right? They'd take that commute time and spend it on sleep, play, right, and time with loved ones. Send them to the local public school. Take that $62,000 a year from the age of four and invest it in an index fund and assume you are wrong.

Assume the kid does not get into an elite college. Assume the kid does not make enough money. Assume the kid can't buy a house. Well, guess what? If you put that $62,000 into low-cost index funds from the age of four to 18 and at 35, they still don't have a house, they still haven't found a mate, they're stressed over money, you're going to have $5.8 million. to give to them to ease their pain. So, and I would bet 50 to 80% of people who have their kids in private school, that it's a strain on their household.

It's like, shit, we're working hard. Well, we got to make the tuition. We want the best for our kids. Well, what do you mean by the best for your kids? What do you mean by the best? And it's always economic security. And it's like, well, guess what? There's other ways to get to economic security than paying these Tony schools.

$62,000 a year for 14 years. You speak to topics that are sort of outside of, let's say, finance or business with a tremendous amount of eloquence. And one of the things that Jonathan and I really, you know, love to hear you talk about, things that are close to our heart is, you know, the industrial food complex and industrial medicine. And, you know, in particular, we've really been fascinated by what has been happening with Ozempic. You know, I don't really consider it my industry anymore. like my industry right now is podcasting and raising my children. But, you know, everyone all of a sudden looks very, very different and we're learning so much more about OZempic. And, you know, also I, I studied

obsessive-compulsive disorder and I studied, you know, eating disorder. Like, this is part of sort of my thesis work. So I'm fascinated with how we're talking about satiation. But it's not simply a metabolic issue. It's an emotional issue. And, you know, Jonathan really wanted to watch like the Oprah special. and I was like, I don't want to take an information about it like this, but I do want to take an information about it from you. What is happening? Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? I think everybody's just losing their minds, and to me it's another form of numbing. But what is happening? First off, this is not medical advice. I have no domain expertise around in medicine. I just look at the data. And every year, I predict what the technology the year will be.

In 2022, I said the technology of 23 would be AI. That wasn't a bold decision. And I think I got that mostly right. In 23, I said the technology of 24 would be GLP1 drugs. I think this technology is revolutionary. And it goes back to our earlier statement. It's essentially scaffolding on our instincts. And that is humans, when we're presented with this food type that has been especially hard to find for most of our tenure on this planet, we gorge.

and presented with institutional production, we end up with 70% of Americans are obese or overweight. 70% of Americans aren't anything. They're not anything. The one thing that America has in common, two-thirds of us, is we're either obese or overweight. And in addition, you have an enormous industrial food complex that wants you to consume more than you need. McDonald's, Kraft, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, General Foods, they're not companies that are obesity indices. And as morbid obesity has gone from 5 to 9 percent, obesity's gone from 30 to 40, these company stocks have gone up 10, 12, and 15 fold in the last 30 years.

And then comes GLP1, which, crudely speaking, is it turns off the signal or on the signal in your brain that says, oh, no, you're full. Before it would, that signal would say you're full before. So just to be, just to be, just so that I'm following along, the industry has essentially made us fat and now they're going to give us medicine and we will pay them to make us unfat. It was worse than that. Before it was the industrial food complex hands you over to the industrial diabetes complex. The obesity's, the obesity-related economy is $1.7 trillion in the U.S. It's everything from kidney dialysis to knee and hip replacements to statins to high blood pressure.

I mean, there's a lot of money in obesity. And GLP1 drugs essentially say, Oh, wait, you're full. But in addition to your research around OCD, they're finding some amazing things about GLP1. 40% of people on GLP1 drugs say they're drinking less. They're not biting their nails. They're not gambling as much. This literally might be an upgrade to our instincts. And I don't doubt, there's never, I found with almost anything, there's never a free lunch.

I don't doubt we're going to find there's some drawbacks here. but if you could take obesity down in America substantially. That's what's troubling to me about this kind of conversation is like you can shut down, you can indicate satiety. You know, we have other drugs that have also been doing that for a lot of different populations. But my question is sort of like,

what does it mean about how we actually interact with food or with addictive components? I mean, that's what it is. It's that, you know, that's the dopamine, you know, kind of reward loop that's being tapped into for any compulsive behavior. And for many of us,

food is a compulsive behavior. Everything we talked about previously that our society is running on consumption. If we are upending the intensity of our consumption drive, what does that do to the economy, the big food, big health, if the diabetes industrial complex is that amount of money that you mentioned, like, what is that going to do to gambling, alcohol, big food, big medicine? Well, don't buy stock in Diageo or McDonald's, but it'll be, I think it'll be wonderful. I think it'll be enormous unlock for, I mean, $1.7 trillion of a 25, that's like a 7% of our economy might get unlocked to, quite frankly, more productive things. So yeah, Coca-Cola shareholders are going to get hurt. Your friend who owns a franchise of Burger Kings is going to get hurt,

But on the whole, I think it's going to be, when you think about just the toll, obesity, I mean, what is it, kids who kids who childhood obesity, it kind of dooms them. I mean, it really does make their lives harder. And so I think these drugs are an unbelievable unlock for our society. I'm really, I think this is, I think this could be, they're talking about putting people who have serious gambling addictions on GLP1 drugs. gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any addiction because people can know you don't, you have a problem and not intervene. They don't know. I got a ton of shit for this for saying us, I think it's going to have a bigger impact on the economy in the short run than AI. So much money being doled out to food, to hospital systems, to all sorts of pharmaceutical companies

that those people will be able to spend and the economy and the government will be able to spend on other things. The book is the algebra of wealth, a simple formula for financial security, and also recommend all of Scott's books. It's really been such a pleasure to talk to you. We really appreciate it and enjoy the rest of your evening in London. Thanks, and I really appreciate the thoughtful discussion and congratulations on your mutual success. The majority of TV commercials are for fast food, soda, pharmaceutical drugs, and insurance commercials. I mean, that's pretty much it. Eat this food and you will need these drugs

and you'll also need this insurance because you're going to need all the drugs because of the food and the soda. Oh, all of these health problems that you have but don't ever consider the food you're eating. Like if you look at a school lunch in almost any public school, it is totally void of any nutritional value.

That's starting to shift and there's starting to be a conversation about that. I remember there was a hospital that had a McDonald's in the hospital complex. And there was a big hubbub about it because it was like, what do we do here? But, you know, the reality, and you hate when I talk about the reality,

the reality is that is the food that is most affordable. Yeah. That is the food that is most affordable. And if you are in a single income home, which typically is going to be a mom working, she does not have time to make dinner. So what she has time to do is pick something up on the way home.

And it has to be fast and it has to be cheap. So that's just the reality. That is the food that is easiest to procure out in the world. I mean, a crock pot and a lentil soup with rice is probably less expensive, but most people don't eat that stuff. Yeah, I mean, part of it is also, you know, what Scott talked about is there's a certain, you know, conditioning for, you know, food that many of our palates really like.

You know, we like, we like salty, fatty, you know, delicious things. Like, you know, when people, I mean, especially when I do lactation consults and, you know, we talk about, you know, the beginning of weaning, which is, you know, feeding solids and things like that. And people like, well, my kid loves cheese. I'm like, yeah, because it's fatty and salty. Like, it's delicious. It doesn't mean that that's the first food a child needs to eat. You know, people love to be like, let's give them lots of salt. Like, let's give them a stick of, you know, processed cheese. But I think a lot of the, um, but I think a lot of the, you know, a lot of the challenges that I have with understanding this world is, you know, I really balk at elitism, you know, it's really like it's ingrained in me. And I think, you know, maybe that's just because of the way I was raised. I was really raised to fear, you know, and have skepticism about people who are well off. And it was assumed that, you know, they think they're better than us and things like that. And, you know, in his book, he says that like a lot of wealthy people, they're not bad people. You know, many of them are very good people.

And I actually really appreciated that he talked about that, that like, you know, what is financial security? It's having enough money to not have to constantly work, you know, not have to work until you're 80. And to be able to have time, you know, to spend with people that are important to you and to be able to have experiences, you know, which are important.

And also to be able to give money to other people, people who need it. You know, I think that's actually really, you know, he kind of made a comment about when he was thinking about private school, you know, that you're asked, how much money do you give? And what's your philanthropy level? But, but that that is something that he included, you know, in this concept of, you know, feeling financially secure. I mean, I thought the story about his dad, that's fascinating, right? To say that his dad is rich, you know, I thought that was really sweet. People look at all the things that they want, but they don't actually think about. the amount that they're burning a month or a year and what that total number is. I would say that

I think I would be surprised if the majority of people can turn around and say, this is what my life actually costs every single year and know what that math is. And I think it's a level of self-awareness that is important. Whether you choose to change that, whether you're like, well, that's just what it costs. And the other thing that I really heard in this interview is that we are fighting instinct. We're fighting the immediacy instinct. And we are being targeted all the time to get the thing faster, to get the thing easier, to upgrade and spend the next $200, $300. I was just recently purchasing a plane ticket. And I had the exact same thing.

And they have big, beautiful block letters and click now to upgrade. And do you want the only economy? Or do you want the middle one? And we're targeted through very sophisticated mechanisms to spend more, to buy more, to buy more, to want more. And yes, that is what the entire economy is based on. However, however, making small little incremental shifts just the way that we think about emotional triggers. We have an instinct. We get upset about something. We learn to recognize that as, oh, don't just blindly follow that instinct. Know where it's coming from. If we have the same understanding

of our instincts to consume or to want, and we can start to associate. oh wait a second, that thing that I want, if I take that money and save it, I mean, we have a very hard time. We are not designed to think into the future in that way for rewards into the future. But that's what I hear is that we have to fight our instincts that are very ingrained in us as human beings in order to have safety, security later on. I think one of the things also that, you know, this made me think about my, my older son loves to talk to me about how Bill Gates, you know, couldn't guess the grocery store prices. Do you know about this?

He was on Ellen, and she did this thing of like, does Bill Gates know how much a loaf of bread is? And my son's always, you know. $27. Exactly. And so we kind of joke about that because my favorite game show is Price is Right. I love the Price is Right. And I've watched The Prices Right for a very long time.

And one of the things that I do love is the games where you do, you have to literally like know the prices of like products. And sometimes I'm thrown for a loop because I don't eat a lot of the things that like are, like that are being touted, you know, so like I don't eat me. Buckets of sour cream. Right. Like I don't, I don't purchase. Like a lot of the things that I purchase are overpriced because they're specialty because

they're vegan. And so like, it's true. Like things get very skewed for me. But the thing that most surprises me is not the price of a loaf of bread or, you know, a thing of eggs or whatever. And I can tell the difference between like Aeroon prices and sprouts or Ralphs or CBS, you know. And also like, you know, I come from a life where. even in college and grad school.

I was budgeting. I would go to like, this one to buy bulk for this, and we would go here for this, and I would go to cut. I would go only get this because it was organic, but it was cheaper to get it here. So like I come from this mentality, even as a grown-up.

The thing that I am most surprised about that costs money is all of the fun things that people do that, in my opinion, have zero value. I am astounded the number of women, and this is not a judgment. I am astounded the number of women, of women who get manicures and pedicures. Based on the price alone, I cannot wrap my freaking

head around spending that much money to have pretty nails and toes. And again, you're allowed to do that. It's great. It makes you feel pretty. It's good for your mental. Like, it's self-care. Whatever it is. Mazel tov. I'm happy for you. I personally am astounded when I learn the prices. Also, I am not a coffee drinker. And this is something. that like my mother literally like offered my kids coffee. They're like, oh, do you want to taste? And I'm like, no, I don't need this drug in their body. This is not, but a huge component of why I don't want my children

to have this addiction. The amount of money that people spend routinely on going to a fancy facility for them to give you what forgive me is mostly a sugar beverage with caffeine. Like a lot of the stuff that you are purchasing when you go to these coffee places, like that, kind of stuff blows my mind. So this is where I was interested, like,

as I send my kids to college, right? Like I did the Susie Ormond thing. She makes you write down everything you spend for like a month. It's crazy. But that's kind of the challenge that I'm interested in when I think about, you know, sending my kids to college. Like, what would that be like for you not

to just keep handing that card over, right? But to be able to say, oh, do I need this? Is this a thing? And I know everybody's like, oh, you want your child to like just drink. drink water and eat stale bread. That's not true. And I wouldn't want that for myself either, although that is a little bit how I live. But that's more what surprises me. And that's where I think a lot of people could consider, even if you did like one less coffee a week, like that adds up.

I believe that adds up. And I think Scott would agree. Before I got rid of a lot of sweet things like sweet tea or sweet iced tea. When I was in university, I was budgeting for my food. And, you know, I kept having really high food budgets. And I was like, how do I navigate that? Obviously, cooking at home increases or sorry, decreases food costs. But the other thing that my sister said, she's like, the drinks add up. You go to a restaurant and you get that Snapple ice tea.

All of a sudden, it's an extra. six, eight bucks on your bill. $30 if you ask me. And so like these little micro changes can save people a lot of money and the notion of that aggregated over a month does add up. And you know, the coffee is a tough one. I totally agree about the sugar, but I drink black coffee. So I like to go and sometimes you get a nice black coffee somewhere else other than home.

But if you do it at home, far less expensive. but the other side you're paying for I'm going out I'm being around other people but like go grab a coffee to go every day sometimes multiple times a day you're spending a lot of money a month that you could be putting elsewhere or nowhere just saving it he used a lot of fancy terms that I think you'll have to get the book to fully understand there's a whole I should say you know the book has a section on stoicism and character and behavior and focus and, you know, finding what that talent is and things like that. And then he has a whole section on time, you know, how we spend our time and how we distribute that. And the

final part of the book is diversification. And he really lays out very simply the basic principles of investing and the, yeah, taxes and all those things. So I do recommend the algebra of wealth. It's a very helpful book, especially if you've kind of like never entertained this and are nervous to entertain these kind of conversations. I think it actually is a really good place to start. So from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next. It's my and biolics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.