The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Never Worry About Money Again With Jesse Mecham

Starting point is 00:00:00 There's no such thing as saving money. You're just deferring spending. So when someone says, I want to save more, what they're really saying is, I want to spend more later. Like, save up for things and then spend it. But they actually aren't saying that yet. And that's the problem. They're literally just saying, I don't want to spend it, and that is good.

Starting point is 00:00:20 They haven't even said what the savings will be for. So when they have a savings account and a checking account, I'm going to autopilot money into my savings. Auto transfer, I'm going to automate everything. Okay, so they start saving money. Boom, boom, boom. And they're like, I feel good. I'm saving money. But to get over that hump that you're describing of not wanting to ever touch it, like it's this sacrosanct special money. No, it is meant to be an emergency. What's weird, Weinabbers will start to think about what large, less frequent expenses bother them, what they need to be prepared for. And it's weird how if you prepare for something, it's not

Starting point is 00:00:54 an emergency anymore. this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, How to Never Worry About Money Again. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.com. And today, we're going to be talking to Jesse Meacham from Wynab about how to never worry about money again. Now, Jesse is someone who has transformed millions of people's relationship with money.

Starting point is 00:01:32 And I will tell you right now, I am one. one of those people. I got to this point in time where I was living paycheck to paycheck. I found Jesse's rules and his philosophy around money and it transformed the way that I think about money. And so in this episode, we're going to get into how to think about your money and spend it intentionally so that every single dollar that you earn, you can identify a purpose and a job for those dollars. We talk about how to save money in your emergency fund and how to actually put money to work month over month. Plus, Jesse and I talk about something that you may have not heard in personal finance before. Every single dollar that comes into your world is actually meant to be spent.

Starting point is 00:02:13 And we dive deep into why that is. We also talk about how he's building wealth in his life, how he talks about money in his relationship, and how he helps his kids learn how to manage money from when they're young all the way up until their college years. But most of all, the big message that we talk about in this episode is how to figure out what you want your money to do within your life and then using that philosophy to put those dollars towards what you actually want out of life. Now, Jesse has a new book called Never Worry About Money Again. It took me an hour to read that book. And I highly recommend anybody out there to check his book out because it really does reframe the way

Starting point is 00:02:50 that you think about money. And a quick favor before we dive in, the majority of people who listen to this show have not hit follow yet on their favorite podcast player or on YouTube. So if you can, and if you want more out of this episode and help us spread this message that we believe that anybody in this world can build wealth, would you please hit subscribe. And if you are really enjoying it, leave a five-star rating and review, it would really, really help us out in this episode. Now, without further ado, let's welcome Jesse to the Personal Finance Podcast. So Jesse, welcome to the Personal Finance podcast. Thanks for having me, Azure.

Starting point is 00:03:26 I appreciate it. This is going to be a good one, I can tell. I am really excited to have you on here, and I think this is, and I want the listeners to know this, because I think one of the things when I first started my journey, and I just told you this right off air, but one of the things when I started my journey was I discovered Wynab, and I discovered Wynab's four rules from you, and you kind of taught this framework on a way to think about money and how to spend on your values and how to reframe the way that you actually think about your dollars and that your dollars should be spent and they should be something that you utilize. as a tool to get what you want out of life. And those four rules that you implemented, absolutely changed my life. They changed my wife's life and our entire family and the way that we kind of set this up.

Starting point is 00:04:09 So many of the listeners know my story early on where I was living paycheck to paycheck. Well, I found Wynab during that time frame, and that's what helped me figure out exactly kind of how to get out of this situation and how to transform my finances. So first, I'm excited to have you here and I want to thank you for creating Wynab

Starting point is 00:04:26 and the rules and everything else beyond that. But for listeners who don't know you or listeners who haven't heard you before, can you tell us your story and how all of this got started? Yeah, I mean, I've been out this since, I mean, over 20 years. But we launched one in 2004, but the beginning of it was before. You know, my wife, Julie, and I married young, and we made very little money. And I still had a lot of school left. She had just graduated with a bachelor's degree in social work, which is not the most lucrative situation. you know um so she was making 12 bucks an hour and i was just really keen on getting through school

Starting point is 00:05:05 without borrowing any money um and being newly married we also had like no money baggage we could just kind of like how do we want to do this so we built this little spreadsheet and worked with it and at first i'll be honest like i i've always taken to the personal finance topics like even as like a 14 15 year old. I found them interesting. You know, read like the richest man in Babylon, the millionaire next door, the wealthy barber. I've read all these books and been like, okay, I'm going to do this. And when we first set up our very first plan with our money, it was so tight and so oppressive, I will say, that I include this in the book, but the very beginning, I remember walking past this donut shop, you know, and it was 50 cents.

Starting point is 00:05:56 for this donut didn't even include sales tax and they I realized I couldn't buy it and I'm like I'm majoring in accounting I should be good at money how is it that I have the money but I don't feel like I can spend it and we we were it was our first learning realizing like you're what you do with your money when you realize what it's for that is a personal endeavor you know and I had kind of let all these books and best practices if you want to call it that kind of tell us this your money's for this and this and then save save save save and it wasn't until we kind of claim some of that money as for us that the breathing room you know was felt and you're like okay i can do this now so that was the very very beginning of me being like man i'm actually pretty

Starting point is 00:06:43 bad at money i'm supposedly doing it all right and i feel crappy um but we got we got good at money over the years. And the book tries to walk people through my own learning on how to do that. And I hope people will find that the Wynab method, as people, you know, listeners may know it already, it's still totally there. But this new framing is, I hope, much more approachable and more quickly understandable for people where they're like, okay, I can do this. I think it is. And I think it's the way that you structured this is something that I think a lot of people can relate to and they can kind of think through their own finances and how this is going to kind of help them operate with that. Now, you've seen so many different people from different walks of life come

Starting point is 00:07:32 through and learn about YNAB. You guys have done, you know, webinars and things like that for years where you are kind of actually actively working with your customers to make sure that they are, you know, educated when it comes to budgeting, when it comes to managing their finances and their money. Why do you think so many people are bad with money? Oh man, we just, it's a skill, you know, like when we say, when I, when I say bad at money, I mean bad at spending it. I don't mean, I don't mean anything else. So some of might be like, oh, I'm good at money. I earn a lot. Nope. That's not what I'm talking about. That's great that people earn a lot of money. I love it. Like, go earn more, you know? But yeah, being bad at money, as the book explains it, and as I say it

Starting point is 00:08:11 here, it means bad at spending it. The sole purpose of money is to be spent. Full stop, the end. And so when you want to get good at it, you have to get good at the sole purpose of the thing, and that is to spend it. Most people are bad at it because they just haven't acquired the skill. I used to be bad at swimming when I was really, really little, and now I'm at least decent. You know, I took lessons. You learn how to do it. And no one, you know, like, Andrew, if I were to be like, see you flail in the pool, you know, like, let's say you don't know how to swim. I could be like, Andrew, you're bad at swimming. And you wouldn't be like, how dare you?

Starting point is 00:08:45 I find that offensive. You know, you'd be like, you're right, I am. You know, I almost drowned right there. And but with money for some reason, because there's so much baggage, so many stories we have about money, when I or someone else says, hey, man, you're pretty, you're pretty bad at money. It's, it can come off as, uh, well, it's a little hard, hard to hear. But I mean it in the most loving way, you're bad at money and you can totally turn it around as you started the show off by saying absolutely that transformation can happen at any point in time

Starting point is 00:09:16 and it could happen today just from listening to this episode there's a lot of things that that people can learn and take away where they can really just you can transform your finances can happen in the blink of an eye and having that light bulb moment can can be one of the best things that you ever have and I think you nailed it because the skill of spending is a skill and it's a skill that can be developed over time many people feel as though no I just buy things that I need and or I spend money on some of the necessities and maybe I buy some stuff for myself, but it is a skill over time that you can develop. I can tell you even, you know, early on, I was working towards developing that skill. And in my 20s, I was overly frugal. I was overly frugal when it was coming from this place

Starting point is 00:09:52 of being someone who, uh, came from, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. And I was like, I don't want to ever go back to that point in time. You're doing it out of fear. Exactly. And so it was out of fear. And I didn't want to go back to that. And over time, I learned how to develop this skill and how to kind of build this skill of spending, which I think a lot of people can relate to you. And you can be all the way on the other side of the spectrum where you're looking at something and you are making good income and you are spending the majority of that income. In fact, we were just looking at stats at 47% of people making over $150,000 per year are still living paycheck to paycheck. So it can go on both ends of the spectrum, which is absolutely interesting. If you've been listening to this show for a while,

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Starting point is 00:13:22 How can they make sure that they are actually spending on what they value? Yeah. There's only one question. The whole book is built around one question. And you have to answer the question. The question is simple, and it's what is it for? What is the money for? What's it?

Starting point is 00:13:35 for the answer to that question is not easy in the sense that you and i could talk for two more hours you know we could be like hey uh it could be for this it could be for that yeah ad nauseum you know even just between the two of us our answers could be so wildly different and um that doesn't make them wrong or right it just makes them what they are so answering the question of what is this money for is far harder than saying some money should be spent some money should be saved there's no such thing, and sit with this for a second, everybody, pull over if you need to. No, I'm just kidding. There's no such thing as saving money. If you think about it, you're just deferring spending. Okay. Now, the reason it's important to note that so that we don't do this

Starting point is 00:14:24 convenient but useless exercise where we say savings good, spending bad, that's a very common bifurcation that people deal with. That's like, hey, what do you, I want to get better money. well, what do you want to do? Well, I want to save more. That, like, everybody says that. Or I want to get better at money. What do you want to do? I want to spend less. Boom, done again. It's like it doesn't move any needles. There's no skill acquisition in there at all. So when someone says, I want to save more. What they're really saying is, I want to spend more later. Like, save up for things and then spend it. But they actually aren't saying that yet. And that's the problem. They're literally just saying I don't want to spend it and that is good. They haven't even said

Starting point is 00:15:08 what the savings will be for. So when they have a savings account in a checking account and they're like, I'm going to autopilot money into my savings, auto transfer, I'm going to automate everything, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So they start saving money, boom, boom. And they're like, I feel good. I'm saving money. Then something happens. The car makes a weird noise. My car yesterday, no, two days ago, my car started like shaking, like the transmission is doing something weird. You're like, okay, that sounds expensive, you know? So this starts to happen. And then they have to spend their savings. They are not patting themselves on the back. They're not like shooting confetti cannons. They're not add-a-boys at all. They're mad. They're disappointed even in themselves that they

Starting point is 00:15:55 have to spend their savings. And that is the breakdown right there. we have to get past this idea that it's one or the other. It is only spending and then on a different time frame. So if I'm like, Andrew, you want to go to Tahiti next year? You're like, yeah, how much it will be? I'm like 10 grand. I'm like, okay, I have 10 months to do Tahiti, 10 grand, $1,000 a month, saving up for Tahiti, boom, we're done, we're going to Tahiti.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Like that money is meant to be spent the whole way. Like every month we're talking about, you're ready for Tahiti, you're getting ready for Tahiti. It's always meant for Tahiti. The problem is we don't label our savings. We don't say what it's for. We don't answer the question of what is it for. It's just for saving. And that's for nothing.

Starting point is 00:16:41 And so it leaves the person feeling bad if they spend it. It leaves them without any kind of number as to what they could reach. It leaves them when they do spend it second guessing the whole time. Even if they don't feel bad, just like that little second guessing, it's just all broken. The worst advice. I feel like some of the worst personal finance advice is save more, you know, live on less than you earn. You're like, I mean, over a lifetime, I want to live on exactly what I earned, you know? Even if it meant I leave some to my kids, cool, whatever.

Starting point is 00:17:15 But like, it's all meant to be spent. It's the only thing you can do with it. You're like, oh, no, I want to give it away. He's like, yeah, and then the charity spends it. If they're a good charity, like they put it to use, you know? Anyway, I ranted for a while, Andrew. I'll let you try and cry. corral that into something.

Starting point is 00:17:31 It's amazing the way that you can reframe that in a way where it makes complete sense, because that's ultimately what's going to happen. And even like, you can even think of a book like Die with Zero, for example, where like you go through that book and you realize, okay, well, I don't want to get to the point in time where I have way too much money that I don't know what to do with and my kids are inheriting way more and I just worked all these extra years that I didn't want to work so that I could, you know, accumulate this massive nest egg. But in reality, if you reframe this as something that's going to be spent, I think

Starting point is 00:17:58 there's just a lot of really cool stuff that you can you can kind of think through and I love that reframe for for most things in reality because that's what's going to happen that's exactly what is happening and over the course of the long term you know when you save you and you've said this for for a long time but like there's this you know there's this group of people or there's a large portion of people we have a lot of listeners this same way and I have to kind of try to massage this and help them kind of go through this process is they build up an emergency fund and then they don't want to touch that emergency fund ever the intended purpose of that emergency fund is to go and spend it and to utilize it to protect your finances from anything that can happen in life.

Starting point is 00:18:32 And they don't want to spend those dollars. And so you have to reframe and train your brain to understand, well, this is what it's for. This is what it's for is to have it in this spot. So I just love that. I think that's a great way to think about it. I would urge people with the emergency fund to just be a little more specific with it and name it, like name it more specifically. So like, let's say you got 12 grand in there and then just say like two grand is for car repairs. Yes. Four grand is for HVAC. Start naming it stuff. And then when it happens, you look like a clairvoyant. You're like a superhero.

Starting point is 00:19:04 And so when the HVAC goes out, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm amazing. I have six grand sitting there for the HVAC and, you know, done. The blanket emergency fund advice, it is good to just give people breathing room. Like maybe they don't know what will hit them yet. So I get them. I mean, let's be honest, having cash versus not having cash, more in a better state if we've got the cash. I don't care what you name it. But to get over that hump that you're describing of not wanting to ever touch it,

Starting point is 00:19:33 like it's this sacrosanct special money. No, it is meant to be an emergency. What's weird, Wynabbers will start to think about what large, less frequent expenses bother them, what they need to be prepared for. And it's weird how if you prepare for something, it's not an emergency anymore. And so you will get this weird thing.

Starting point is 00:19:53 Like a lot of Wynabers don't do an emergency fund, but they have categories for all kinds of things that other people will be like, those look like emergencies, and you're like, well, they're not because I have money. It's only an emergency when you don't have the money. You're like, oh, geez, what are we supposed to do now?

Starting point is 00:20:08 You know, then you're like, oh, this is an emergency. But if you got the money, you're like, oh, this is annoying. Like the cover on our pool just broke. I'm like, mother of all, like, good grief, you know. People that they're like, hey, pools are cheap. No, they're not. Anyone that says like a pool, no. They are maintenance.

Starting point is 00:20:25 Maintenance, maintenance. So love the pool, whatever. I'm not knocking pools. Julie would never not have that pool. Favorite thing she's ever owned. But the dumb maintenance. So it's an inconvenience. It is annoying.

Starting point is 00:20:38 They're literally out there right now getting that pool fixed. And it's going to be some amount of money. And it'll be annoying. But it's not an emergency, right? That's, there's a feeling there that's completely different. One has worry attached to it. And the other one is me sitting here on this podcast complaining and whining. but I'm not in an emergency situation.

Starting point is 00:20:58 Absolutely. I think that's one of the, and it's the most freeing feeling because the first time that you start to save like in the car repair fund or the home maintenance fund or whatever other fund that you have in place, all of a sudden, I remember the first time that happened,

Starting point is 00:21:10 I had to replace like an oil pan in my car and this whole thing was like a $2,500 expense. And I thought, forever, I would have been so stressed out about this, but the money was just there. And there's power in just having the money there where all the stress and anxiety just melts away. And that is,

Starting point is 00:21:25 the best possible feeling that you can ever have, I think. Yeah. Just think anyone that's like, wait, how do I do that? Just think what large, less frequent expenses will I experience in the next year or something? Go back through your old bank, credit card bills, scan, do a squint test and scan for large numbers that were like big pops. Think if that'll ever happen again, whatever it was. Yeah, brainstorm it. But anything, like, everything will wear out.

Starting point is 00:21:52 And the big stuff is what you want to hit first. You know, home, car, those are big. And then fun stuff, too. Travel, you know, quarterly taxes. I'm not, I'm going not fun again with that one. Property taxes, not fun. Anniversary trip, fun again, right? So Christmas, fun.

Starting point is 00:22:12 And we can really just prep for them where Christmas morning, you're just there with the kids doing Christmas. You're not like doing, you know, this totally freaked out back of the napkin math. wondering what January's credit card statement's going to look like. Exactly. It really does, it does free it up. One of the things that I love to do for Christmas time,

Starting point is 00:22:33 for example, is I'll go look at last year's spend. I'll divide that by 12 and just start saving it every single month. And then it'll be there every single time. And I think it's just such a powerful position to be in. And one of your, one of the folks that you have in the book, and the book has a bunch of wine abbers who are in there

Starting point is 00:22:47 and kind of giving comments in ways that some of this stuff has worked through their life. And one of them mentioned something that they called random, of money or Rams, where it was, you know, for me specifically, I feel as though like every single time you have a bunch of expenses pop up when it rains it pours, like a bunch are just going to happen all at once and it's these random attacks of money. What causes these and what can kind of people do to defend against this? We've kind of talked about it or alluded to it already, but is this something that you feel as though it's just kind of, hey, let's set aside, you know, cash on hand into some of these different categories so we can ensure that this just doesn't happen and derail us.

Starting point is 00:23:23 Yeah, random attack of money stress, right? It's just, I thought that was funny. Like, they, he was like, I call them Rams. I'm like, oh, that makes sense. Like, that's a good, it's a good acronym. I love a good acronym. It's life. Like, that's what you're seeing when someone's describing that.

Starting point is 00:23:36 They're describing being alive and things happening. And, you know, that's it. The only thing that will stay the same is that things will change all the time. That's our only constant is change. So all you can do is say, well, how can I be more ready for change? and the way you do that is with cash. Cash is the ultimate option. It gives you a, like, you can always get rid of cash.

Starting point is 00:24:03 You can always be like, I don't want it anymore. I'm going to get rid of it. But you can't always get it, right? So if you have it, you have the option. If you don't, you don't. So when someone's like, I don't know how much a car repair will cost, we know it'll cost more than zero. So save more than zero.

Starting point is 00:24:18 Just set a little aside. We used to set aside money for our Honda Civic way back in the day. I think it was $150 a month. I just out of the air, I was like $150 a month, set aside for the Honda Civic. It was an O2. It was probably at that point,

Starting point is 00:24:31 10 years old. And we had just been putting money away. And one day I look in our civic repair category, and we had like $6,500 in there. So I go on to Blue Book, and it was worth like $4,200. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I actually, like, there's no way.

Starting point is 00:24:49 I'm going to drop $6,200 on that car for repairs. So we literally moved some of that money. We were saving up for this Disney cruise, like it was probably 14 years ago. And I was like, oh my gosh, Julie, we're going to move some of the money toward the Disney cruise. And we were both like, we just found free money. You know, like this is amazing. But the money was there as an option. And we just redeployed it once I realized I was basically over, you know, over saving in that situation.

Starting point is 00:25:13 But the fact of the matter is I had just pulled out of thin air, $150 bucks a month for this apparently mega reliable car that, never broke. So that's all we want to do is just set money aside for it. Average American spends just over $900 a month on Christmas. I don't know if that includes travel. Um, so walk that through, you know, and kind of think through it for yourself. Think about travel, extra food, hosting maybe gifts, but that's one example where you can just say, I'm not going to have that be an emergency anymore. Um, there are no normal months in life. People will, Andrew, you've seen this, I'm sure. People so often. We'll be like, all right, we'll put it on the card, whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:25:53 We'll put it on the card. Next month, we'll pay it off. We'll just wait for a normal month. We'll be able to pay off the card. Waiting for a normal month, that is a fool's errand, man. They never ever, I mean, look, I was just complaining about my pool cover. Boom. I just mentioned how the car is vibrating.

Starting point is 00:26:09 There's another one. Like, God, when is a normal month going to happen at the meekams? I don't know. You know, we are yet to see one. So there is no normal month. There's just cash that you've set aside for life. And when you name it those specific things, you spend it not happily, but you spend it confidently. And you can be like, look at me.

Starting point is 00:26:31 I was totally ready for it. You know, I'm a superhero. It's one of the best feelings. And I think for a lot of people listening right now, they may be saying to themselves, well, I don't have that much margin left over to do this kind of stuff. But the key is, and this is something that I think most people need to understand, is just put something towards it. All of a sudden, what's going to happen is once you start to put some of your dollars towards some of these different, categories in some of these different goals, you're going to realize, oh, I'm going to get a tax return. And when that tax return comes in, I could put a little more towards this. Or, oh, I just got

Starting point is 00:26:59 this bonus. And when this bonus comes in, I can put a little bit more towards this. And just getting it started means that you are starting to roll that snowball downhill. And it's just really getting a little bit of momentum going. And you mentioned this in the book. Let's say, for example, you have a car repair that needs to happen. And you have $700 in your car repair fund. But then all of a sudden, that car repair is $850. Well, then all of a sudden, all you have to do is come up with an extra $150 instead of the full $850. It would have completely stressed you out and derailed your finances for the month and made you feel as though you were in this massive anxious state. No, instead, you've done most of the work.

Starting point is 00:27:35 And then all you have to do is come up with the difference. And I think that's just so incredibly powerful for people out there who are just trying to figure out, like, how do I figure this out? How do I make these ends meet? This is how you do it. Just slowly over time contributing to these funds. Yeah, I like to you mention the windfalls, tax return and things like that or tax refund. People underestimate how many windfalls they get, like how much extra money just kind of appears. Three paycheck months are a common one.

Starting point is 00:28:01 And so, yeah, note that like I said there's no normal month and that also can be to the upside. Like windfalls happen and, yeah, make sure you are aware of them and use them as appropriate. Most people, when they're looking for margin, I don't mean to like take away the magic of this transformation for everybody. people are looking for margin. We've done so many interviews. And I personally conducted well over 100. And I've gone with people that have paid off mountains of debt. And you're always like, okay, you were 30 grand in debt and now you're debt free and it's been a year and a half, two years. Like, what, how? And I'm not kidding you, Andrew, 100% of the responses when I say, how did you find the money to pay off all that debt?

Starting point is 00:28:48 100% say we ate out less. Wow. And I hate saying that because it's so not interesting as an answer because you're like, well, hold on. And then I have this existential moment where I'm like, wait a minute. Are you telling me my whole existence, my whole career has basically been helping people become aware of how much they eat out and then they decrease it and then they have money, you know?

Starting point is 00:29:14 And you're like, yeah, that basically, you could, you summed it up. You know, we have cool software or whatever, but it's just telling people not to eat out as much. Anyway, I'm a fan of eating out if it lights you up, but I am serious when people, like, that's where they find the money. You use the word margin. That's what kind of trip me up. That margin is found, I mean, look there first. People talk about subscriptions. They're like, I'll find subscriptions you don't use.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Sure. Yeah. I'm telling you, that is not the needle mover. The needle mover is the eating out. Right. It's just crazy. It really is. And I think there's even along a similar line.

Starting point is 00:29:51 I've talked to people in the past where I've said, hey, how much are you spending on groceries per month? A lot of people, if they don't budget, they'll say, oh, I'm spending $800 per month on groceries. And I go, okay, let's go add it up over the course of the last three months. And they'll add it up and they realize they're spending $2,000 on groceries because they're just grabbing stuff and put it in the cart. And there are little things like this that you can do where you can really look at needle movers, things that are going to really, really shift and move the needle. Obviously, a lot of people talk about housing, food, transportation. Those are the big three that I think a lot of people look at when it comes to this. Daycare can be kind of like a fourth, depending on the season.

Starting point is 00:30:23 Daycare is big. Yeah. And that's another big one for sure. And those are some of the areas that if you can really, you know, nail those in, you can make a huge progress on things like paying off debt or things like, you know, achieving financial freedom. You and I both know many people who have achieved financial freedom in their 30s and even, you know, early 40s. And it's because they do stuff like this. everything through this stuff. Yeah, and it's not me saying, like, don't eat out. Like, I don't care. Like, I truly don't. You can do, your money is yours. You can do what, I mean, the whole book is about do with your money, what you want to do. I just want you to do with your money what you want to do when you are aware of what you

Starting point is 00:30:57 were trading. Once you are aware of those tradeoffs, asking what it's for and answering that question and realizing that if I do it here, I can't do it over here. If you're aware of the tradeoffs, I really, I just haven't seen people make poor decisions. They really do make good decisions. They're like, oh, I want to get rid of this credit card bill. This is killing my cash flow, you know? Yeah, they do it. And they don't do it in a way where they feel deprived either. They do it in a way where they're like, no, I didn't want my money going over there. So now, using you now as an example, again, couldn't care less people. I don't like eat out all you

Starting point is 00:31:34 want. Just be aware. But if someone were like, oh my gosh, a lot of times people will spend, usually what they spend on groceries they will at least spend eating out and i mean that's the kind of the numbers that we we see and when they see that that when you transform an eating out number into more groceries it's usually like you know you you can reduce that by 80 90 percent right so they'll see it and they don't feel like suddenly life is sad you know because what they're doing is they're redeploying money from a place that wasn't adding value to their life to a place that is. And it's just a question of being like, well, is this what I want my money to be for or not? And when it's not, you don't feel deprived.

Starting point is 00:32:24 You feel good. So we're not talking about being frugal for its own sake, but it's just someone being like, okay, I was spending money here and it was adding a lot of worry to my life. now I'm clear on what I want my money to be for and it's not that thing so they spend less and then the worry is gone so you're spending less with the worry gone and then you have more money and then you have to decide what that more money is for and for a lot of people it's getting out of some debt freeing up more cash for that way you know starting to do some stuff for retirement thinking about financial independence things like that so I love that I don't have to tell people what to

Starting point is 00:33:00 spend their money on you know like that's it's very it's very fun and I love when I can get to a point where I'm like, well, what do you like to spend your money on? And then you kind of get to know the person, you know, it's fun. I love that part of things. So we get things cleaned up. We make sure their money's doing what they wanted to do. And that margin is found usually by redeploying and they're paying off debt and just killing it. Yeah. And not making more money. I guess that's another thing we haven't really talked about. Like you mentioned it a little briefly, but, you know, people making over 150 grand or whatever. Like, we're talking about people that are making good money that if their 25-year-old self saw them making that money, they'd be floored by how much they're making.

Starting point is 00:33:41 And they're carrying around the same stress as the 25-year-old, maybe even more because the 25-year-old was still probably a little clueless and naive. So they're just carrying the stress and making so much, like more money does not solve a money spend, a lack of skill around money spending. Exactly. It's the area that I think you can do a tremendous amount with the more. money that you already currently are earning and the money that you already have is what we say all the time. And I think that's where for many people, once you learn this skill, you're going to realize pretty quickly that this is freeing. I think the resistance for a lot of people is like, ah, this is going to be so restrictive. How am I going to do this? No, it's actually freeing because

Starting point is 00:34:19 all of a sudden now you're taking your dollars and you're identifying those priorities and you're spending more on the things that you love. And this transformed, you know, my life when I was starting to do this. When then all of a sudden I realized, oh, this isn't restrictive. This is actually putting the dollars towards what I want. I'm not just taking random trips to target and just throwing things in the cart and, you know, just walking out with the checkout and have a $200 bill all of a sudden I didn't plan for. No, I'm being intentional about this. And that's where that's where all of this comes into play. Yeah, it really is the, I mean, you hit it with being intentional. That's the whole, that's the crux of it. Exactly. That's the, that's the best thing about this. And one of the things that I love that you talk about, too,

Starting point is 00:34:56 is you talk about, you know, identifying some of this money as you start to get through some of these goals and start to accomplish some of these things, but making sure you have some money for you and having a way for you to identify some of the things that you really want to do at a life. And I remember a long time ago, you had an episode that you were talking about going through and you were saving for something. I can't remember exactly what it was, but you were saving for something and you're like, I just started to put like $20, $40 a month towards this specific thing. And I think it was a bigger ticket item. It was like something that was out there. And you started to just save small amounts of money. And it seemed like it was so far away. And it was something that it almost felt silly to save

Starting point is 00:35:33 this amount of money. But then all of a sudden, over the course of the next couple of years, you went back and looked, and it was one of those things that you had a full amount there. And it was, it was just there. And I think that is really, really powerful for a lot of people to think about. Maybe someone right now, they've got their debt paid offer, they've got their goals achieved. And they want to buy a boat, for example, and they want to go out and buy that brandy buck. It's just setting aside a little bit of money now, even if it's 50 bucks, 100 bucks. If it feels silly to you, I think it's still worth doing, no matter how small the amount of money is. Can you kind of talk about people kind of identifying what they want to do with their money

Starting point is 00:36:06 and how they can kind of spend a little more on themselves, especially those who maybe are not used to spending on themselves? Yeah, it's a trick. Sometimes we maybe have been raised just to think that spending is, you know, only spend on needs. You mentioned the word needs early on and, you know, people only spend on needs and maybe a little bit on wants. I don't even like the distinction of needs versus wants. I just call them all wants. Like, I want electricity. I want shelter, you know, badly, right?

Starting point is 00:36:32 Yep. And so, like, we don't need to have any kind of arbitrary distinction that we have, where we have to quibble. Need one, need one. All wants. We just want it all. And so then it just comes down to, well, what do you want? And it's interesting to think through when people have a hard time spending on themselves,

Starting point is 00:36:50 I just think they need to do the exercise of asking themselves what really lights them up. Like sometimes it takes, it's worth elevating money in their mind and showing them what they're trading to get money. They're really, and the book goes into this in the year in the first half. Like, I say first half. It's a short book everybody. Like I purposely kept it tight. Uh, we self-published it. We didn't have to hit any arbitrary limit. I'm really, really happy with the length. Um, so first half of a very approachable book. But we talk about how money is you. not that your value is tied to how much money you have, of course not. But when you look at what you give to get money, you give of your time, your knowledge,

Starting point is 00:37:35 your know-how, your network, like how you were raised, all the stories, everything kind of rolls up where it's you. And you offer yourself to the market and provide some service or value and you get money in return. So sometimes when someone's having a hard time spend. money on themselves, I will take that tack where I'll say, well, listen, look what you give up for this resource, time away from family, you know, like 40 hours of your week, if you're lucky, right? If you're normal, it's more like 50, 60. And look like, look at everything you give up for it.

Starting point is 00:38:11 Sometimes we give up our health for it. Sometimes we're like, I can't, I can't exercise because of my job. I can't eat right because of my job. I mean, on and on, I can't do these hobbies because my job. So look at what you sacrifice for it. And then just when you look at how much of you, you give for the thing, you can then turn around and say, well, isn't it okay and totally appropriate and maybe even beautifully symmetrical if I also had some of me on the spending side, right? Like, just lights me up. And that's an introspective exercise for people. Like, that's them, really having to think deeply like put away the social media stop scrolling get out of pencil and paper and like laundry list like what would light me up doing my money in this way what would like what could

Starting point is 00:39:03 I spend on what could I buy um what how could I give it deploy it name your verb but what is my money for that lights me up and and then tell me about it because I love hearing those stories those are the most interesting stories when people have figured that out. I agree. And I think it's just so fun to start to do that and to start to save up money in small amounts and really just see the growth over time. And if you automate this, like you don't even have to think about it. It just kind of goes into whatever, you know, whatever structure you have, whatever account, and you can automatically save for some of this stuff. And it's very, very simple. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now, I know it's

Starting point is 00:39:47 really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals, and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five minute drill every single morning. I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow, and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. And I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks. I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll flag spending changes, upcoming expenses, or shifts in my net worth

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Starting point is 00:41:43 you can find 20-year life insurance policies, starting at just $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to PolicyGenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com. Now, I think one of the cool things about your story is how good that you and your wife are at kind of communicating about money and how good you are at having these conversations about money.

Starting point is 00:42:12 And, you know, I've noticed that, like just from your... content and some of the stuff that you've talked about in the past where you guys really do have these conversations that go deep when it comes to money. What does a good money conversation have? Do you guys have a routine of how you talk about money or is it just as things comes up? And what does that look like in your relationship for people who are listening or trying to figure this out with a partner? It's pretty ad hoc, honestly. I'm the budget guy. Like I'm the guy in Wynab. You know, I mean, obviously we're using our software. And Julie is not in it. Like we tried one for one of my annual experiments, she agreed to this.

Starting point is 00:42:48 And I was like, okay, Julie'll run the budget. You know, she'll run YNAB. It did not work very well. Like, it's just not her thing. So many other things are totally her thing and she kills it. But it just, it's never been her thing. So we're at peace with the fact that I'm totally in the app. And I have to do things like, hey, Julie, there was a $60 Venmo.

Starting point is 00:43:11 You know, what was that? And she's like, it was horseback lessons, remember? and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. 60 bucks every time is usually horseback. So in that way, this, like the division of responsibilities, it works well. I'm in the app and she can tell me, if, when I have questions, you know, she'll be like, oh, is this or that? The cool thing is she never feels attacked when I'm like, hey, what was that 60 bucks?

Starting point is 00:43:33 She doesn't feel like I'm coming down on her because that's after years of knowing what our money's for. We don't live paycheck to paycheck. The stress isn't there. It's really just a benign question. Now, if you were to ask Julie, well, what are your goals for your money? She would know. We're in the process of building a new home.

Starting point is 00:43:54 We've been in that process for forever, it feels like. We're on the home stretch. And so she knows, like, oh, our money primarily, we're just funding that, you know? Like, there's not a lot else. But then she'd say, well, where else do you like to spend money for the family where it's important? And she would tell you travel, absolutely. You know, nothing crazy, spring break, fall break.

Starting point is 00:44:12 we just whenever the schools will let us leave you know that kind of thing so our big goals were just totally clear now i've been in the business the whole time and we raised we've raised i mean we aren't done raising some of them but we've raised seven kids and so she's never worked out of the home uh since the first one arrived and that's just been always what we've how we've chosen to divide things so she runs the house like a champ and that's allowed me to just come to work kill it at work hopefully, and then come home and the house is, it's running great. So she, like, if you were to ask me, like, what shoe size is your six? I have no idea, you know, like, I don't even know, I have no clues.

Starting point is 00:44:55 So we have very much division of responsibilities. As it comes to, as it relates to money, I find it extremely important that she is very well versed on the business. Like the finances, it's, it's, it's not complex. But I will this I'll just say it frankly. If I were to die, I don't want her to be sad and also have this horrible financial black box where she's like, okay, Jesse for 20 years just kind of did his thing. Never, not dishonestly, nothing hidden, right? But just not clear, not like not easily conveyed.

Starting point is 00:45:34 So I'm very, very keen on, well, I'll tell people, I do this thing called the green box. That's like, that's a phrase that we use. learned it from a guy 15 years ago. And Julie knows in our in our password vault, if I were to die, she would just type in green box and it's just everything she needs to start figuring stuff out and making sure she knows what's going on. So that was a long answer to your question, Andrew, but it's super important. I wanted to hit on two things.

Starting point is 00:46:03 One, it's totally cool and appropriate and fine for a major division of responsibilities. but at some point you got to make sure that you are you both know the direction you're headed you head that direction and if there is someone that's heavier in one arena like i am with the finances it's super important just like literally for just the worst of worse things to happen super important that she doesn't have that massive burden to carry as well as you know the grieving and all that so that was a lot for people but um green box you can probably google it and find someone's written up about it. It's not like, it's not my idea. I love that. Google that and just like, you know, just get your things tidy.

Starting point is 00:46:43 It'll take you three hours to tidy things up. And, um, yeah. And I think that's, that's perfect in terms of like how, I think a lot of households are like that, like that, where they are trying to, you know, there's a division of someone's usually the budgeter that they're on top of a lot of time hand the bills or whatever, the CFO. Exactly. And so a lot of times that, that can happen. I can tell you the wrong way to do this because the way I started was the absolute wrong way where I finally was like, okay, I put everything into YNab and I had it all structured. And immediately, what I did was I took YNab and I ran over to my wife, who I didn't even talk about this to yet. And I said, we are spending way too much in all these different areas. And I'm showing her

Starting point is 00:47:18 the computer and kind of going through this whole, this whole category thing. And then all of a sudden, she had this like resistance immediately. Yeah. Whereas then I get, I step back and I thought about and I reframed it. And I said, actually, you know what? Let's talk about our goals and what we want do and the ultimate the destination where we're going and this reframe kind of transformed it for her as well so for anybody out there who is like got someone you know who they are you know married to or they're in a relationship to who is not on board this is the way i did it was i i looked at kind of looking at our why and the reason where we're going and that we want to pursue financial freedom we want to do these different things we want to travel the world and that was what allowed the shift to happen in my

Starting point is 00:47:54 household so don't do what i did and kind of throw a spreadsheet in someone's face i've done that i've done that before I'm like oh my gosh groceries why do we spend so much in groceries and finally like literally a decade and i'm like okay we're just to put more money in groceries like that's that's what we're doing and until i start grocery shopping and cooking and managing it and like pulling my like pulling my weight there i need to just accept this is how julie's going to run it and i did and then i was like oh we're we're good you know it's that's that's the reality exactly yeah the reluctant spouse um reframing them where you have them where you're like we're going to work toward this goal, this is what our money is for, being really strong there versus not avoiding, but it's less

Starting point is 00:48:35 about our money is not for this, this, this, and this, and more just this is what our money is for in this positive framing tends to go a pretty long ways. Absolutely. And I think that's the thing that I saw immediately where the shifts happen for our family. Now, she's probably more, more on board than even I am at times now where she spends less than I do. So I love it. And that's been one of the coolest things. Now, you've also, you just mentioned it, you've, you've raised a big family. Are there things that you are doing when it comes to your kids to teach them these principles? And are you building any kind of wealth building accounts or are you having them kind of figured out on their own? Or how are you thinking about that?

Starting point is 00:49:10 Yeah, we've told them and we've pretended like, they won't listen to this episode so I can say this, you know? But we're, like, we just tell them like, you save half your money. We just made it sound like it's the most obvious thing in the world. So they all think that that's like the most normal thing to do. just save half of it. And the half is for like college, a church mission, basically once they're out of the house, you know? And then the other half, they tithe on it on the whole amount,

Starting point is 00:49:39 and then they save half, spend half. And so that's just been kind of like, you just do that. And they've accepted it as truth, and that's worked out. I will say when they're eight is when I actually will give them a Wynab account, or I use my same account because I think Wynab lets you do, I think we allow like up to five maybe different users all under one account. So you don't have to like have multiple subscriptions, just one subscription. But you, so when they're eight, I put them on there.

Starting point is 00:50:12 And then we'll figure out how much money they have. It's usually in a little separate account. And we start to, I show them how to set up categories. And every first Sunday of the month, I'll sit down with them. and we'll reconcile their account. They've spent almost nothing, you know, and we'll just get them all square again, and then we'll assign new money.

Starting point is 00:50:34 They work for the business sometimes. They do mundane things. You know, I try and find work for them to do, where they actually get a paycheck from the company, and so they do work like that, getting mail, you know, you can imagine the kind of little kid stuff that you can give them to do.

Starting point is 00:50:48 They used to clean the office and things, well, they still do sometimes. When they're like 13, 14, they can start to run wide up on their own, and then they'll inevitably like break it or get it out of balance or something and they'll come to me and we'll we'll figure it out. So it's pretty hands-on for the first, you know, when they're little. And that's worked really well. Like my favorite thing is when my kids will say things like, I can't go to the movies because I don't have money for movies, but they've got like thousands in their account. Like they've got money. Like they have one account for their savings for their spending. It's all like that 50% savings. You're just sitting in the account still. They only see it. in Wynab as here's my savings. And they act like it's as gone as gone could be. And that's, that is the ultimate. That's what I want is where they're like, that's not it. They look at their movie category and they see nothing's in there and they're like, oh, I don't have any money.

Starting point is 00:51:40 I love when that happens. All that to say, though, the most important thing, most important is that they see their parents talking about money positively, spending intentionally, saying why you say no like can i have this no because we're going to use our money for this and don't just say we don't use our money for that say what you use your money for right like it's an it's a trade off tell them the full trade um but and then seeing you talk to your spouse seeing you know mom or dad seeing mom and dad talk in that way that's um positive about money what you want money to do um yeah when you go on some cool vacation tell them like guys we saved up for 18 months for this vacation this is going to be so freaking fun

Starting point is 00:52:29 you know like this will be so fun and let them know like this is one of the reasons this is so fun is because mom and dad have have worked on this for 18 months you know we set aside $1,100 every month for 18 months that'd be a sweet vacation and and then they'd be like mind-blown one is because $1,100 is a ton of money for a kid and two because they're like wow I can't believe how easy it is to spend that much money and it kind of starts to put prices on things, but also you show them like, this is how you win, you know, like deferred gratification, the whole thing. So it's, it's so much them observing and you just having it be positive because you're good at money. And then they see you good at it and they'll follow

Starting point is 00:53:10 along. And sometimes they'll spend it on the funniest things. And you're like, oh, man, I wish, I really wish you wouldn't buy that. It's such a waste. But you got to stay quiet because they got to figure it out on their own. That leads me into exactly. to what I was about to ask you, which is, have you noticed that some of your kids have different personalities when it comes to the way they spend? Like, let me give an example. I have three kids, and my oldest is eight, so they're still young, but my oldest will not even spend a single dime. He hoards every single, every single dollar that he has come in. He goes and he will not spend a single dollar. He waits till his birthday to buy anything, and he wants us to buy it for

Starting point is 00:53:44 him during, you know, as a present, that type of thing. My middle son, I gave them, for example, we went on vacation just recently to the Bahamas, and I gave him each of them like $25, to go spend at the arcade. So they go to the arcade. My middle son is on the claw thing and just spending it in 20 seconds, like spending the entire body. Yes, whatsoever.

Starting point is 00:54:00 And then my youngest is still too young. She's only one and a half. But like, have you noticed that? And how do you, do you actually kind of guide them in different ways when you see those personalities come out? I tried. Like, I had one that was a spender. It was like, if the money was there,

Starting point is 00:54:14 his task was to figure out what to buy. Like, and I try as I might. I'd be like, don't you want to save up for something? Nope. If I have money, I want to spend it. He's my oldest. And now he worked all summer, saved up. He's in college and stuff.

Starting point is 00:54:30 And he's, and I was like, you know, you got to, you know, all that summer money. He's like, yeah, I'm budgeted out through April. So he picked it up along the way, you know. But yeah, at the time, I was like, oh, my gosh, this kid, it's like, it's burning a hole in his pocket. And then I have, like, my, I have to, like, do so much math to figure it out. My fifth, she, uh, she, like, just loves how much money she has. the number itself is meaningful. So you have to be like, do you want to buy anything?

Starting point is 00:54:59 But she just likes that she has more than her older brother. So, you know, we'll just take it. See where that goes. Yeah, they all come so different. And you think, like, you figured out the parenting thing and then the next one comes, you're like, oh, my gosh, no, we didn't. This is totally new.

Starting point is 00:55:14 Yeah, they all have different personalities with it. And I'm, you know, controlling and OCD and all these things. So I have to really, I have to be a cheerleader, not a coach a lot of the time. It should be like, you got this. You'll figure it out. And instead of being like, hey, if you would just blah, blah, blah. It's like, nope, no, just, hey, man, you got this. You'll figure it out.

Starting point is 00:55:36 I think that's great. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, as time goes on as they get older, my goal is to just continue to implement those lessons, talk through money, elaborate on some of the things just like you talked about. And I think that's going to be really, really powerful. Well, Jesse, thank you so much for coming on here. This is absolutely amazing. Where can people find out more about you, the book, and everything else? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:57 So the, I mean, whinab.com, if you're interested in the software, the book is never worry about money again.com. And I'll just tell people, go to the website because we're having, with this new age of AI, so many pirated versions. Like, I have, there was a copy of an audiobook. Like, we haven't released our audiobook yet. I have recorded it. And there was an audiobook released of our book of my fake AI voice that I'll be honest.

Starting point is 00:56:22 didn't sound it sounded a little bit like me but it wasn't me and uh that kind of stuff's happening now so never worry about money again.com make sure you go there and don't get some pirated you know fake version um and it's a quick read i wanted people to accidentally read it in an hour i really wanted to not just be this tome you know like the message is simple not easy work but it's a simple message people really can do it i mean at the end of the day if people more and more people know what their money truly is I think I think I will have I will have let a good life leading people in that direction be very content with that. Absolutely. And again, I read it in just about an hour. It is an easy read. So I highly recommend every single person take a look. We'll have it linked up down in the show notes below so that you guys can check it out.

Starting point is 00:57:12 Well, Jesse, thank you so much again and for all the good that you've done in this world when it comes to money. I truly appreciate you coming on here and loved this conversation. Thanks for having me, Andrew.

The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Never Worry About Money Again With Jesse Mecham

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