The Rachel Cruze Show - My Honest Advice to Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom

Starting point is 00:00:05 So the first step toward building wealth is really believing that financial peace and freedom are actually possible. But it takes more than just that mindset to win with money. So today, I'm going to share with you my honest, maybe a little tough love advice to anyone out there that really wants some stability when it comes to their money. Now make sure to subscribe to the channel and share this video with a friend. All right, number one, remember talking about tough love here? Piece of advice. Get over yourself. That's right. So much of our, ego, you guys, is attached to our decision making. I was talking to one of our writers the other day, and she was like, oh my gosh, my pride sabotaged me because she went in, which I totally related

Starting point is 00:00:44 to this, to this really fancy boutique. Everything was like $300 or more. And she had to exchange this Christmas gift that she got from a family member. And so she went and she was like, I felt so like pretty women, right, where they're all just like looking at her. And she felt this like pressure to like buy stuff. And she, yeah, it was like this whole thing. And all because of our and how we feel. And I know we have all been in situations where we feel that. But the problem is, is that type of emotion, even though that was like a one moment in this one store, can ripple through the way we spend our money because we end up spending money just to impress people. And as the old quote says, spend money we don't have to impress people

Starting point is 00:01:21 we don't even like. So listen, give yourself grace. We all can fall into this trap. But we got to get over ourselves because if our ego drives all of our decision making, we'll probably end up broke for the rest of our lives. So put the ego aside. Now, also, when comes to spending your money, my second piece of advice is number two, be an adult and budget. Guys, you have to know where your money's going. And we talk about budgeting a lot on this show, but it is so true. I mean, this is such a powerful tool when it comes to your money. And I say be an adult because a lot of people give a lot of excuses for budgeting, which some of them I totally get, where people are like, oh, well, a budget, you know, it just doesn't work for me,

Starting point is 00:01:59 or I have an irregular income so I can't budget, or I tried the budget, it just doesn't work for me and a lot of excuses, but here's the deal. Anyone can budget. Does it take time? Does it take learning and changing it throughout the month to get it right? Yes, absolutely. But to be an adult and say, hey, I'm going to have a plan with my money and I'm actually going to follow my plan and not just let my money happen to me. And if you need a great budgeting tool, every dollar is my favorite budgeting app. It's the one that I use and so many people, you know, I mean, millions of people now have downloaded it, which is amazing. And so make sure to check that out. I'll leave the link down below. All right.

Starting point is 00:02:35 Number three, a little tough love. Do some fifth grade math. Because I want you to see how much your debt is actually costing you. Now, I love to use our Ramsey investment calculator to really figure out if you were in debt, even minimum payments throughout your entire life. And instead of paying those to a bank, if you just had invested that for yourself, what it would be. So let's just take an example of a car payment. So on average, now new cars, they're actually.

Starting point is 00:03:02 average car payment is like $700, you guys, kind of in that range. Use cars is around $500. So if you think about it, if you add two of those together per household, then you're paying $1,200 per month in car payments. So with a 10% rate of return, if you had not paid that $1,200 out to someone and instead invested it, and you did that every month starting at age 35 to age 65, you would have $2.7 million. Is that not crazy? But again, we're throwing our money away to car payments and instead of investing it.

Starting point is 00:03:35 And you could do that with all different types of debt because it's not only the payments that you're taking your income and paying, but it's also the interest on top, which basically is that penalty of borrowing money. And so it ends up being even more than that. So it is wild. You have to think about opportunity costs. If you're sending your money somewhere, then it's not being used for you. Now, I understand we're going to spend money and enjoy money. So you're not going to save every single penny or invest every single penny of your money. but I do want the bulk of your money working for you and not working for the bank.

Starting point is 00:04:04 All right. Another part of being a responsible adult also is protecting your personal info from internet scammers, which is why I personally use delete me. And we spend so much of our lives online. I mean, if you think about it, social media, shopping, banking, I mean, so much of what we do is on the internet these days. And so when it comes to that, our names, our addresses, our work history, phone numbers, email addresses, so much more.

Starting point is 00:04:29 is out there for bad guys to exploit. And so we need to protect ourselves. And that is why I love and use Delete Me. So Delete Me finds and removes your info from hundreds of data book or websites that buy, sell, and trade your personal data. So take control of your online privacy today and find peace of mind with Delete Me. Individual Delete Me plans start as low as $9 a month. So sign up today at join DeleteMe.com slash Rachel for 20% off or I'll put the link in the description.

Starting point is 00:04:57 All right. Number four, well, tough love is it's not all about you. So much of our world, you guys, is so self-looked at, right? Like we like have cameras on the front of our phones to take videos and pictures of ourselves. Like so much of what we think about is about us, us, us, us, us. And again, when it comes to your money for a season, that is going to be important because you want to get yourself out of a financial hole if you are. So if you're working a ton to get out of debt or you have a savings goal to get an emergency fund to kind of get this baseline to be healthy with your money. Absolutely understandable. But there is a point where for the rest of our lives, we can't just keep looking at ourselves, me, me, me, me, me, me, when it comes to our money. You actually

Starting point is 00:05:40 want to look at other people, look at other situations, look at what's going on in the world. And when you do that, what ends up happening is you're like, take your eyes from you up and around, and that is where generosity comes into play because there is not this amount of money that's going to make you happy. There's not. Again, I'm all about security and being wise with money, but I think we're under this illusion that if I just had more, more, more, I would be okay and happier when in fact, the research shows the opposite. Actually, when you give the level of joy that you get from giving outlasts buying actual things for yourself. And so generosity is a big part of your financial picture. If you want a holistic, healthy life when it comes to your money, generosity has to be part of

Starting point is 00:06:25 that. And so what the beautiful thing is is that, again, it takes you from like this burden of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to just like focus on me all the time to actually opening your hands and not letting money control your life because you have an open hand mentality where you're actually going to be generous. And so it moves you on the spectrum of being selfish to selfless. And selfless people, I really do believe have a more, not just prosperous life, but it's more of just a joyful, content life. And so, understanding that, that it's just not about us all the time, 24-7, is a part of your financial picture I want you to have.

Starting point is 00:07:01 Now, financial peace, it can't exist really when you are trapped in debt because it is exhausting and there's not a lot of peace that comes when you owe people a ton of money. So don't miss my episode on this topic. and it's called the fastest way to pay off debt in 2025. You can click here to watch that, or I'll put a link down in the show notes if you're listening on podcasts. All right, you guys, remember to take control of your money

Starting point is 00:07:25 and create a life you love.

The Rachel Cruze Show - My Honest Advice to Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom

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