The Personal Finance Podcast - 7 Money Habits That Keep You Stuck (And Broke!)

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast,  we are going to talk about the 7 money habits that keep you stuck and broke. Watch this episode on Youtube How Andrew Can Help You:  Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining  Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest!  Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course  Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here.  Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at  shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off! Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Turn your business dream into reality! Apply now at www.oneday.org/pfp  Go to Acorns.com/pfp and start automating your investments and get a $5 bonus today! Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp   Links Mentioned in This Episode:  The Million Dollar Money Decisions You Should Be Focusing On  How and Why You Should Track Your Net Worth (Plus The Exact Net Worth Tracking Tool I Use to Make it Effortless!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media:  Instagram  TikTok Twitter  Master Money Website  Master Money Youtube Channel   Free Guides:   The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money  How to Negotiate Your Salary  The 75 Day Money Challenge  Get out Of Debt Fast  Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking about seven money habits that keep you stuck. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney. slash newsletter and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to hop up the show, consider leaving a five-star

rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Can I thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star ratings and reviews? They truly mean to world to me if you're getting value out of this show. Now, today we're going to be diving into the seven money habits that keep you broken. What I want to do, is I want you to go through each and every single one of these and ask yourself a couple of questions. One, am I doing this? Is this something that I am currently doing? And if I am, how can I improve my specific situation? Number two, what are the action steps that I need to take after each one of these in order to improve on that specific thing? And these are the questions that I want you to

ask throughout this episode as we start to motivate you and talk through some of the things that you need to be doing in order to improve your finances. This is going to be one of those powerful things that if you take action on some of this stuff, you will absolutely change your financial life. But it's up to you to start today and take action on these things. This can be one of those life-changing episodes if you are willing to listen, absorb the information, and then get after it. Because that's going to be one of the most important things that you do this year. So if you're ready for let's get into the seven money habits that keep you stuck. Number one is wishing and hoping instead of having goals.

Now, there are so many people out there who have these different goals in life. They want to retire one day. But I hear so many people say they want to retire one day and they have zero plan in place whatsoever on how they are going to achieve that retirement goal. I have talked to people who should be retired in their 60s who are hoping they are going to retire one day and wishing that one day they can retire. And what a lot of people do with their money is when they do not get their financial life together, they just hope it's going to happen one day. And they just hope they're going to stumble upon retirement or they hope they'll have a fully funded

emergency fund. And if you have zero plan in place, you will never, ever achieve any of those goals. You might get part of the way there, but you're going to have a retirement that's not that fun. You don't have much extra money to go out and spend to travel with your family or spend it doing things that you love. Or you might accidentally stumble upon some money and be able to achieve some of these goals. But for most people, that is not a plan that's going to work. So what I want to do right here is show you how to come up with a plan. Number one is you need to understand your why. Why do I care about building wealth? What kind of life do I actually want and how am I going to achieve it? What would financial freedom look like for me and my family? And you've got to ask

ourselves these questions because understanding your why is your fuel. This is going to be your north star. This is what is going to propel you forward in order to achieve your financial goals and dreams. You have to have that mission statement. That financial mission statement is something that is absolutely imperative when it comes to building wealth. Now, once we understand what we are going to be doing, maybe it's you want to retire early or maybe you want to have that fully funded emergency fund. You just want to get started investing and take that first step towards progress towards growing your money or you want to have cash flow from real estate. It doesn't matter what your financial goal is. Now we're going to start to set up a plan in order to actually achieve

that goal. And so we want to set up smart goals. Now, smart goals for the longest time are just one of those things. You can learn it in high school. You can learn it in college. And people talk about them all the time. But when it comes to your money, they are extremely relevant, meaning you have a very specific goal based on your why. What is your why? What is your goal? Maybe your very specific goal is I want to make sure that I fully fund six months in my emergency fund in 18 months. Well, if that is your specific goal, that is a really powerful goal to have. Or I will max up my Roth IRA contributing $583 every single month. Well, that's another really powerful goal. These are goals that we have to get very specific on. Now, how do you measure that? Meaning with money, you can measure a lot of things,

and it's actually very simple to measure things with money. Well, if I want to max up my Roth IRA, $583 need to come out of my account every single month and into my Roth IRA. But you also need to, A, make it achievable. And achievable goals are things that you can actually achieve. If you're going to say, I want to make sure that I make a million dollars this year, well, for most of us, that's likely not going to happen. It needs to be an achievable goal that you can actually accomplish, but it also needs to stretch you a little bit. That's one really, really important note there. Also, it needs to be realistic. This needs to be one of those things that is realistic. It's not way out there in space. You need to make sure it's a realistic goal. And then timebound, one of the most important parts,

because you need to have a time associated with when you want to achieve that goal. So an emergency fund is a great example because let's say you want to have your fully funded an emergency fund over the course of the next two years. Okay. And over the course of the next two years, you know that having a fully funded emergency fund is $24,000 in your emergency fund. That's what it costs for you to have six months expenses saved up. Now, I'm just using this as an example, especially because it's easy math. And so in order to do that in the next 24 months, you need to save $1,000 every single month over the course of the next 24 months. This is just step by step how you are going to achieve this goal. That's $250 every single week in order to achieve your

long-term six-month fully funded emergency fund goal. Now see how easy that is. You start with the big goal and you work backwards towards that goal. Well, how am I going to do this? Well, to take action on this, you're going to automate $250 every single week into your high yield savings count in order to achieve this goal. This is how you achieve goals automatically with how to having to think twice about it. Now, when you're setting up your goals and you're thinking through, okay, well, what are some of my big financial goals here? I want you to first take that big, hairy, audacious financial goal, that huge goal that you have in place. And I want you to think about that goal for a second. And we're going to break this down over time. So let's say your big, hairy audacious goal

is to have that 100K net worth by the time 20, 30 rolls around. And you want to have $100,000 in net worth over the course of the next five years. Well, what is your yearly plan in order to achieve that? Well, I need to make sure my net worth goes up $20,000 per year over the course of the next five years. So that is my yearly plan. So you take your big goal over the next five years. and now what you need to do every single year is have $20,000 per year. Well, what does that mean? I need to save X amount of dollars every single month in order to achieve that goal, which is $1,66 and $0.67 every single month is what you need to be saving

in order to achieve that goal or adding to your net worth. Okay. So maybe you're investing those dollars, maybe you're putting them towards your emergency fund, but you need that amount every single month in order to try to achieve that goal. And then what are your weekly actions? You want to break that down into weekly actions so that you can think through this process. And depending on what type of goal it is, you also want to have some daily checkpoints in there if it is a very specific goal and those daily actions need to move the needle.

This is how you achieve goals is you take big goals. You break them down into smaller and smaller and smaller chunks. We call this goal stacking. So you have the big goal. Then you have the yearly goal. Then you have the monthly goal. And then lastly, you have weekly actions and daily actions that you need to be taking. And so this is how you can think.

through this process. Now, I like to review my goals and make sure I'm on track every 12 weeks. This is the 12 week process that I follow. I got this from a book called the 12 week year. And this is what we teach and master your money goals is how to break this down every 12 weeks. If you never heard of Master your Money goals, it is our course teaching you how to set and actually achieve your financial goals. If you go to mastermoney.com slash courses, you will find it there. But we are going to set targets for the next 12 weeks is what I like to do. and this allows me to track my progress weekly, but in addition, it also allows me to achieve more every year. I'm going to achieve way more every single year because I'm breaking these goals down

and chunking them into 12 weeks and trying to accomplish them faster. And so because of that, you can accomplish financial goals faster because you are really intense about these specific goals for that time frame. So it's a really, really powerful way to break this down. Again, we focus on that in master your money goals a ton. And so this is what I want you to do first, is think about your goals and how you can actionably go after those goals. Number two is not focusing on a million dollar decisions. So one of the most powerful things that you can unlock in your mind is understanding that there are million dollar decisions when it comes to your finances.

And if you don't understand what those million dollar decisions are, today is your day, my friend. We are going to flip the script because this is a huge, huge big difference maker that a lot of people just don't realize. Way too many people focus on the little. things, the $3 latte, and ignore the $300,000 to million dollar decisions that could change their financial life forever. You can retire so much faster if you focus on the million dollar decisions. You can have financial freedom so much sooner if you focus on those million dollar decisions.

And so this is the way that we need to think through our money when we are taking actions when it comes to building wealth. So a lot of people, they'll skip the latte, but then they'll go out and they'll finance the $60,000 card and an 8% interest rate. or they'll cancel Netflix, but they never invest in their 401k or reallocate those dollars. Or they'll coupon hunt, but they'll never question their $2,500 rent. This is what keeps you broke, is focusing on the wrong things when it comes to your money. And a lot of people with a scarcity mindset focus on the wrong things because they were never taught how to focus on the right things when it comes to your money.

So here are some of the big multi-million dollar decisions that you need to understand. Now, one big thing I'll note is with each of these decisions, we also like to factor in opportunity cost. If you don't know what opportunity cost is, that means how much money would this money be worth if you also invested those dollars? That's what takes six figure decisions and turns them into million dollar decisions. Is that opportunity cost? It is a really powerful way to think about your money. So housing is the number one expense for most people. And so controlling your housing expenses is going to be really, really important. Because if you buy way too much house, if you're spending more than 30% of your income every single month on housing, you are spending too much

on housing. You need to make sure that your housing spend is below 30% of your income. So if you're renting out a luxury unit or you're living in a really high cost of living area, but you cannot afford that, that means that you are most likely house poor or spending too much on housing. Now, if you are in a big city like San Francisco or New York and housing is really high, then you're going to need to sacrifice somewhere else like transportation or some of these other big areas in order to make that fit into your budget. Where you live matters and it matters tremendously when it comes to building wealth. And some people will struggle more building wealth because of where they live. Number two is transportation costs. Way too many people in the U.S.

right now are spending way too much on their car payments. But not just their car payment. They go well beyond that and spend way too much money on transportation costs alone. Because buying the brand new fancy $70,000 SUV comes with high. insurance costs. It can come with a higher gas bill. And all of these things factored in means that your transportation costs will rise over time. And all this to get from point A to point B is not worth it. A car is a depreciating asset. It's not like it's an asset that goes up in value over time. It goes down in value over time. And so this can absolutely kill your wealth building ability if you get a brand new car every three years. So we have a rule called the 24-7-10 method.

meaning you put 20% down on a car, your payments on that car if you're not paying cash, should be four years or less. You should have 7% or less of your income spent on the car payments, and you should drive that car for 10 years or longer. Okay. So that's how we think about cars and how we want you to think about transportation costs. Next, number three is asset allocation, meaning not investing or being too conservative with your money and having the wrong asset allocation can be a multi-million dollar decision. For example, if you are earning a, four or five percent rate of return on your portfolio and you're in your 20s and you have a really long time horizon before retirement, that could be detrimental to the long-term impact of what your

portfolio can be. And so you want to make sure that you have the right asset allocation, meaning the right mix of stocks and bonds in your portfolio based on what your goals are. So this comes down to having an investment plan in place and making sure that that plan is something that's going to help you over time. This is why it's really important to have a financial team in your corner and or listening to podcasts like this so that you can, you can, can have an understanding of how to put those plans in place. Four is investment fees. This is a really, really high impact multi-million dollar decision. Investment fees can make or break your portfolio and will cost you well over a million dollars if you are not careful. For example, we have talked

about this before in the past, but if someone had a $5 million portfolio that they built up over the course of 40 years and they had a 1% fee on that portfolio, their portfolio value is going to get reduced $1.5 million because they had an additional 1% fee. In addition, if that fee was 1.5%, their portfolio value is going to go down over $2 million just from this small fee. So you have to make sure that you are controlling investment fees. It is for sure a multimillion dollar decision. A couple of other ones, and I encourage you to listen to the entire episode where we talk about the million dollar money decisions, but there are things like interest rates on debts. That can absolutely destroy your wealth building ability. You need to make sure that your interest rates are below 6% on all of your debt.

Otherwise, you need to pay it off because it's a pants on fire emergency. Your education decisions are a million dollar decision. Going to the fancy school, that's $200,000 per year instead of the in-state school, that's $15,000 per year can absolutely set you back decades when it comes to your finances. Career and income growth. Growing your income is one of the most powerful things that you can do. It is a million dollar decision to learn the skill of negotiating your salary. you need to have that skill that is very important. And lifestyle inflation is another one that could absolutely kill your wealth. Now, some lifestyle inflation is good, meaning as your income increases, you spend more on things. You get the bigger house. You get the fancier car. You get the nicer groceries.

That's completely fine. But you need to make sure it's control. So when your income increases, 50% goes towards future you. 50% goes towards current you where you can enjoy that money. Big rule of thumb here that I want you to understand on this one is I want you to focus on a million dollar decisions and not the $10 decisions. That is what is going to change your financial life and what I want you to focus and optimize your time on. Number three is worrying about things they can't control or playing small. So broke people stay stock because they waste their energy on things they cannot change.

What if the market crashes? What if the Fed raises interest rates? What if the new president ruins the economy? Here's the truth. You can't control the Fed. You can't control what the president does. you can't control some of these economic indicators that are happening right now, but what you can control is your actions with your finances. And so focusing more on the things

that you can control and reducing the amount of time that you're reacting to things within the news is what is going to allow you to build wealth. Wealthy people. Look at all the wealthy people around you that you know. Did they worry about what's happening on the news right now, or did they get up every single morning, they start taking action on building their career or building their business or building up their financial situation in a way that is going to benefit them in the long run. It's going to be the latter. And that is what I want for each and every single one of you as well as you go through building wealth. Here's some things you can't control. I'll give you a bunch of examples so this hits home. Market dips or recessions are things that you

can't control. And guess what? You also can't predict them where a lot of people think they can predict market dips and recessions, you absolutely cannot. And if somebody tells you that they can predict a market dip of recession, you need to write that person off immediately. Inflation trends. Inflation is not something you can control. It's something you're going to have to deal with, but you cannot control inflation trends. Who gets elected is not something you can control. You can cast your vote, but that's all you can do. And I encourage everybody to go out and cast their vote, but that's all you can do. You cannot control who gets elected. The next crisis in the news, There has been crisis after crisis after crisis for decades and the market continues to go in which direction.

If you pull out a stock market chart and put on the longest time horizon within that stock market chart, what direction does it go in the long run? This is why I am a long-term investor. This is why most listeners of this podcast are long-term investors because we know the market goes in one direction over the course of the long run. What else you can't control is what your friends and family think about your financial goals. That is something that a lot of people, struggle with if you have specific financial goals or you want to do things in a specific way and people in your life are pushing back you cannot control that but you don't have to listen to them if you don't want to or what the latest TikTok trend or finance trend is or what other people

are doing that contradicts your plan let me tell you right now there is a lot of bad information out there online a ton of bad information out there online and even stuff when I talk about specific things. Do your due diligence, do your homework and trust, but verify when it comes to some of this stuff. You need to make sure that you understand what you're doing and what you're investing in before you go about and taking action on it. Now, here are some things that you can control and things that you can focus on. How much you save and invest every single month. Automating your finances so you don't have to lift a finger when it comes to managing your money. Tracking your net worth, reducing lifestyle creep, increasing your income, learning a new skill that is going to help you earn more

throughout the rest of your life. Or following a long-term plan and sticking to it. These are all the things that you can focus on and these are the things that you can control. I want you to spend more time doing those things because that's it. That is the entire game. So if you feel like you are anxious about the news, you feel like you are anxious about the things that are going on, here's a couple of tips for you that I hope will help you out.

Now, you hear people talk about this all the time, but when the market is going up and down, day in and day out, and you're looking at the market. and it's going crazy and you're like, oh my goodness, this is so crazy. Should I get out of the market? Should I stay invested? What do I do right now? I want you to zoom out and look at the market over the long run. What happens to the market over the long run? That is going to give you the consistency because time in the market always beats timing the market. I'm going to say it louder for people in the back. Time in the market always beats timing the market. Do not think you are some professional money manager and you know when to get out. It is amazing. how many people think they know when to get in and get out,

and most of the time they are wrong. Number two is to build a rule-based system. What do I mean by that? That means to set up auto-investments. Choose your index funds and understand what your system is for that. Use a consistent strategy and remove emotions from the process so that you can remove stress because this is how you do it. Make it black and white for yourself.

Hey, I'm going to buy these three index funds consistently over the course the next 40 years and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to auto-invest my money into my emergency fund until I have six months of expenses saved up, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to continue with my consistent strategy in order to make sure that I can build wealth long-term. Three, is if news stresses you out, limit your news intake. So we have a new show called The Business Show that I've talked about a number of times on here, but the business show, it's the news.

And the reason why I created this show was I was so sick of the doom and gloom on the news, where I am reporting the news. And then if it is something that is doom and gloom, I am going to tell you, don't worry about it. That's the entire goal of the show is to reduce your stress and anxiety around news and to realize that a lot of this stuff short term is not something that you need to worry about. It can impact your money. It can't impact how much things cost. It can impact certain things, but we are going to ride through this thing together. So if you're not subscribed to the business show, check it out if you like news. Journal on what you can do. So think through, okay, if you're getting stressed out

about a situation and you're like, okay, the inflation rates are rising or tariffs are absolutely destroying my finances, take out a piece of paper. and start getting some clarity on this. Well, what are some things I can do to make sure I combat this? Or what are some things I can do to ensure that my financial security is intact in this situation?

Sometimes the best thing you could do is nothing. And that's what I want for a lot of people to understand is nothing is sometimes the best action overall. And so those are some things I want you to think through, but focusing on what you can't control is a poverty habit. Focusing on what you can control

is a wealth-building superpower. Act accordingly. Number one. lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy, clothes don't fit anymore, and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding. And when your life grows, your responsibility grows with it. That's something I've been thinking about more this spring, making sure the safety net we have in place actually matches the life that we're building. And that's where PolicyGenius comes in. PolicyGenius is an insurance company.

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And there's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash personal finance. Just go to Indeed.com slash personal finance right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash personal finance. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local

news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, Because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community.

Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out-of-office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. Number four is ignoring real money problems with an action. So most people don't need more information.

They need to stop hiding from their money problems. There are way too many people out there who have money problems and they're like, I'm just not going to do anything about it. They know they're in debt. They know they're not saving enough. They know they have no plan. And instead of taking action, they freeze. Now, this may be some of you out there who you have

frozen because you just don't know what to do. You have been grinding so long. You're so busy with work and your family and your kids. You just don't know what to do next. And so part of the goal of this podcast is to make that easier for you. That is my entire goal with this is to bring you as much value as possible by making finances easier. Or if you are someone who freezes, maybe you distract yourself with these really small little wins. Hey, I didn't buy a latte all month this month or I saved $49 this month by eating out less. Those are all fantastic things. but they don't always move the needle depending on your financial situation. So here's the truth.

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. In fact, it makes it get a lot worse if you ignore the problem. So every day you wait is another day you are losing to mounting debt or compound interest or growing financial stress. And so what I want you to do is think about this. Here are some common money problems people ignore because I want you to understand what I'm talking about here. Carrying credit card debt and only making minimum payments. If you are someone who has credit card debt, which is a high interest debt and you're only making minimum payments, you are going further and further backwards every single month.

And I need you to understand this. This is a very important thing. If you have credit card debt, it is a pants on fire emergency. You need to pay it off. We have a free debt course if you go to mastermoney.co slash courses that will teach you how to put together a debt payoff plan. Now, not knowing how much interest you're actually paying is another thing that people ignore. They go, they sign up for the car loan and they have no idea what the interest rate is and they don't really care. They're not going to deal with it because they know they're not going to sell the car. You could have a 12% interest rate on that car and it would take you an extra decade to pay off or it's going to cost you double what you actually bought it for.

And that's what I think a lot of people need to understand is that there's a huge impact on the amount that you're spending. Or not having an emergency fund to protect their finances against things that will happen in life. Life is going to happen. You need to have cash on hand to solve your money problems when they come up. Not investing because they're afraid or don't know how is another one. Well, we need to get together. We need to learn how to invest. and we need to take the simplest path possible to getting started investing.

And so taking that next step. Now, if you're that person, we have a free investing for beginners course. If you just go to mastermoney.com slash investing for beginners. I'm plugging a lot of stuff today, but they all are falling right into my lap here. Not tracking spending or a basic budget or letting lifestyle creep eat up every extra dollar. So here's how to stop ignoring and to start fixing because I want to give you action points and things that you can actually do right now in order to fix your financial problems. If you're watching me on YouTube, my hands are flailing everywhere because I get really passionate about this stuff.

but let's talk through these a little bit. First, you need to face the numbers. And facing the numbers means you need to look at your debt. You need to look at your balances. You need to look at your interest rates. And you need to go through and face those numbers. Secondly, is you need to start tracking your net worth when you're facing the numbers. You may be in debt and have a negative net worth. This is your assets minus your liabilities. If you want to learn how to do that, we have a bunch of episodes on it teaching you how to track your net worth. Or maybe you need to also audit your spending. And so we talk about that a ton too on how to audit your spending. But those are some things that you need to do is start facing the numbers when it comes to your finances. Then you need to

start creating a simple plan. Well, I just taught you how to set money goals, but now we need to create a plan in place, and it doesn't have to be perfect. One thing I want most people to understand right now is if your financial plan doesn't work the first time when you set it up, who cares? Adjust and try again. This is not a situation where you're perfect. I have never had a perfect financial month in my entire life. I guarantee there are three Amazon boxes at my front door this week that are something that I just frivolously spend money on and I'm going to regret later on. Nobody has a perfect month when it comes to spending or budgeting or putting their money together. If somebody tells you they do, then they are either way to optimize or they're lying to you. Also, when you're creating this simple plan, I also want you to focus on one issue at a time.

Maybe it's debt first. Maybe it's savings. Maybe it's investing. Usually, if it's between those three, let's do debt first and make sure we get that paid down. Three is also try to automate everything. Auto transfers to debt. Auto transfers to savings. Auto transfers to your investing. All of this is going to be really important to help you move towards that. And if you need to, start small and in scale, 10 extra dollars towards debt, $25 into investing, $100 into your emergency fund. All of these are going to have a long-term impact, but it's going to get you started. It's going to get the train rolling.

You're pushing that cart down the hill so that you can start to build up this wealth-building snowball that is going to make a massive, massive, massive. difference in the long run. Now, if you don't know where to start, you feel like you continuously keep freezing and you are pulling your hair out, get help. Ask somebody for help. Talk to a money coach. Go talk to a financial planner who actually knows what they're doing and they're not just trying to charge you out the wazoo for no help. Okay. Go talk to an accountant and get your tax situation lined up. But start asking people for help and learning more. Read and learn as much as you possibly can. And subscribe to this podcast. We'll help you as much as we possibly can throughout this entire process.

Five is spending without intention. So spending money isn't a problem. Spending without intention is a huge problem. Now, money isn't something that's just meant to be hoarded up in cash. It's meant to be used to enjoy life, to take care of your family, to build the future that you want. Money is a tool, and you need to use it that way accordingly. This is not something where we're going to hoard a bunch of cash under our mattress like a drug

dealer. We're going to stick it into the safe in our life. bedroom. What we're going to do with our money is we're going to utilize it for things that we want to get out of life. Maybe it's financial freedom. So investing your dollars into your retirement accounts is what you want to spend your money on. Maybe you want to go on more family vacations. Maybe you want to spend more time with your kids or your aging parents. All of these are amazing use cases for money and it depends on you in your specific situation. I feel like there's way too many people out there who are like, ooh, I spent too much money today and they just feel guilty about it. But meanwhile,

what they spent money on was an amazing experience with their family. Maybe you went to a football game or a Formula One race or you went out on vacation or you took a family day trip down to the beach. All of these are amazing things that you can spend your dollars on. And if you feel guilty about this, we need to reframe the way that you are spending your dollars because I want you to spend more on the things that you love, but less on the things that you hate spending money on. Now, obviously, you got to spend money on bills.

That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the frivolous trips that you take to Target, that help you feel better for five minutes, or the random Amazon purchases that you buy in the middle of the night on Friday nights. Those are the types of things that I'm talking about, where I want you to spend less on those specific things. Intentional spending means three things. It means you know what's worth spending money on and what isn't. It means you align your spending with your goals and your values and your season of life. And it means you give yourself permission to enjoy your money. Some of us just have a really hard time giving ourselves permission to enjoy

your money. I was one of those people. I completely had a mindset shift and it was amazing how much easier life is when it comes to your finances when you give yourself that permission. So how do you spend money with intention? Let's talk about this step by step. One is you want to define your values. Ask yourself, what do I love spending money on? Is it travel? Is it great experiences? Is it helping others? Is it a beautiful home? What do you love spending your dollars on? What do you want to make it rain on when it comes to spending more money. And then make a list. These are your value categories. I want you to write this down, put it in your phone. I don't care where you put it, but make this list. Now, audit your current

spending. So if you spend over the course of the last 30 to 90 days, look at what you spent your money on and pull out your banking credit card statements. Highlight the areas that are frivolous spending and it's places that you do not want your money going there anymore. So are there a bunch of Walmart trips or are there a bunch of Target trips that you don't even remember what the heck you bought when you bought these things? Or is there a bunch of Amazon light items? Or what about the 12 different Apple charges that we get on our phone? And we don't think twice. I got one for $10. I got one for $7.99. I got three for 99 cents. I don't even know what these charges are. Let's look at all those different things and figure out what we are spending money on that we could care less about.

Three, we are going to cut the waste. I want you to cut out all the waste. And we're going to take this chunk of money and do something really, really cool with it. Cancel all the subscriptions you don't use. redirect that spending towards what actually matters. Boy, oh, boy, is it amazing when you start doing this. You start reallocating money. Don't leave it commingled in your checking account. You actually have to take action with it with the CIA method. So you cut, identify, and then take action and automate towards the actual place that you want that

money to go. And then build a values-based budget. If you do not budget right now or don't have a spending plan, it is one of the things that's really going to help you when you want to spend more on things that you value. And then you want to have that spending. plan in place. Spending money is not the enemy. Spending money does not mean that you are bad with your finances, but spending money on things that you do not value is what is the true enemy. I want you to change the way you think about that. Number six is letting your money beliefs become reality. So your

beliefs with money, shape your reality with money. If you think money is evil, you'll subconsciously push it away. If you believe you're bad with money, you're going to act like it. And if you think, I'll never be rich, then you probably won't. You have no. No idea how powerful our words actually are and how powerful our thoughts actually are. And so you need to make sure that you need to realize that your inner money scripts are running the show. Whatever monologue that you're playing in your head is running what actions you take day in and day out. And if you're someone who thinks like this, you're going to be repeating the same cycle over and over and over again. Here's something I want you to understand.

Your beliefs build your behavior. Your beliefs are. are building your behavior. Every time you think about something, if you think that is true, it is building up your behavior. So entrepreneurs all know this. To be an entrepreneur, you have to be pretty positive in some pretty heavy and difficult situations. Can't make payroll this month. We're going to find a way to make payroll. If you can't figure out how to raise some capital, we're going to have to find a way to raise capital. But you have to stay positive through all these very difficult things. But I want you also, if you're struggling with your money right now, I want you to figure out a way to turn it around. Here are some common things that people say to themselves. I'm just not good with money.

You need to reframe that. People like me just never get ahead. I believe every single person in this world can build wealth and anybody can get ahead, which is the purpose of this podcast. Money always just disappears somehow. Well, if money always is disappearing, we need to put a plan together in order to track it properly. I'll start saving when I make more. This is a big one a lot of people do. Oh my goodness. I will start saving when I start making more. We need to put a plan together. to start making more so that you can start saving. Rich people are greedy. Okay, this is one that we could do a whole podcast episode on,

but just thinking that all the time is going to be something that is detrimental to your finances. You have to work 80 hours a week to be wealthy, and people think hustling all the time is something that is what you have to do. All of these, you know what all of these things do? They create financial ceilings on your life. And the longer you hold on to them, the longer you will stay stuck. So instead, let's try to replace.

these limiting beliefs with some abundant ones because your mindset is everything when it comes to building wealth. Identify the belief is number one. The first thing I want you to do. And I want you to write down what you actually think about money and be brutally honest. I don't want any filters here. This is between you and yourself. Write down what you actually think about money. Number two is it's time to change that belief. So how can we change that belief and ask yourself, is this always true? Where did I learn this? Is this actually serving me in a positive way? Or is it just a negative thought that I'm always going to think, and it's giving me an out as an excuse. Number three is, I want you to rewrite this narrative. Replace it with something that is empowering. So instead of saying, I'm bad with money,

say, I'm learning to master my money every single day. Instead of saying, I'm never going to be rich, say, I'm building wealth, one smart choice at a time. My friends, your words are so incredibly powerful, and you need to figure out how to flip this script. And they're going to reinforce this with action. So we are going to start stacking small wins. And every smart money move that you make is going to build more confidence. And confidence is going to reinforce that new belief. So you got to take action on these new beliefs in order to make them concrete within your mind. And then surround yourself with people with positive attitudes.

If you surround yourself with people who are just all negative about money and they are all just in this negative place, you need to make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people who are also positive around that. And remember this. If your beliefs are broken, your bank account will be too. Number seven is not learning to master money psychology. Now, this is one that we are going to have an entire episode on coming up in the next coming week or so. And it is going to be one of the most important things that you need to understand is your

money psychology. Morgan Howells rolled an entire book on it called The Psychology of Money, and it is one of the most powerful things that I think most people need to understand. Money isn't just math, it's mindset. In fact, 90% of building wealth comes down to your mindset, and only about 10% comes down to your head knowledge. That's why mastering money psychology is one of the most important financial skills that you can develop. Now, why is mastering money psychology so important? First, it helps you stay consistent when motivation fades. We cannot rely on our willpower is one of the

most important things you need to do. Two, it stops self-sabotage when you're making progress. Three, it makes investing feel normal. Not scary when the market's going up and down. Four, it gives you the tools to fight fear, shame, and guilt, and comparison. understanding your money psychology is going to help you overcome any challenges that you have. Five, it builds long-term habits instead of short-term hacks. It helps you make more aligned decisions and not emotional decisions. Your emotions can destroy your finances if you do not get them in check. And so this is going to help you is mastering money psychology. And it rewires your relationship with money to serve you and to not stress you. And so to master your money psychology, you need to know a

couple of things. One, you need to know your triggers, meaning what makes you spend when you don't want to, or what causes you to avoid checking your bank in account or identify emotional patterns tied to money decisions. When you get stressed out, do you start spending money? Think about what those patterns are. Two, is I want you to build self-awareness. I want you to think about some of these money thoughts that come up. I want you to write them down. And I want you to ask yourself, what emotion is driving this decision? What is actually driving this decision forward and making me believe that this is the best decision going forward? Track not just the purchase, but the why behind it. I want you to think through the why and why you actually did this specific purchase. And then create guard rails,

not just goals. And so using automation to remove real power in the equation is the number one thing I want you to do. It helps you solve this problem pretty quickly. So you're not relying on your willpower. You're not relying on your motivation or your emotions to get you through this. And I want you to design a system that makes good behavior easier. The most helpful thing for me when it comes to money psychology is continuously learning and continuously reading. So I try to read a book every single week. I listen to a lot of business, financial, motivational podcasts that help me reinforce these positive thoughts on what I want to do with my money going forward. Because if you don't learn to master your money mindset, your emotions will master your money. But when you get your

psychology right, wealth building becomes natural. And that's what I want for each and every single one of you. So we're going to do an entire episode on that coming up in the next week. So make sure you're following this podcast if you're not already. Now listen, thank you guys so much for being here on this episode. If you found value on this episode, share it with a coworker, a family member, or a friend. Also, if you enjoyed the show, consider leaving that five-star rating and review. I cannot thank you guys enough for being here again, and we will see you on the next episode. Let's talk groceries, specifically your groceries. With Instacart, you want your groceries just the way you like them, right? Well, the Instacard app lets you do just that. They have a new

preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences up front, helping guide their choices. Instacard, get groceries just how you like.