The Rachel Cruze Show - These Money and Life Habits Are Draining Your Wallet with Michael Easter

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Winning with money is 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. That’s why I’m excited to sit down with one of my favorite authors to talk about how to break bad habits and change our mindset—specifically around money. Plus, I’ll talk about budgeting and one big mistake I see everybody making.   What you get in this episode: ·     What Everybody Gets Wrong About Budgeting ·     How Comfort and Scarcity Drain Your Life and Wallet (with Michael Easter)   Helpful Resources:  ·     Start budgeting for free with EveryDollar. ·     Follow Michael Easter and check out his new book, Scarcity Brain. ·     Get Tapple at Walmart or wherever you buy board games. ·     Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries. Sponsors pay the producer of this show, The Lampo Group, LLC, advertising fees for mentioning their services or products during programming. Advertising fees are not based upon or otherwise tied to any product sale or business transacted between any consumer or sponsor. The following sponsors have paid for the programming you are viewing: Christian Healthcare Ministries, Op Games.   Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We basically adapt to the level of comfort we're at, and the level of comfort that we used to think was great. Now it becomes uncomfortable. 50 years ago, the level of being the most comfortable person on the block, you would look at today and be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they're living like that. That's terrible. Hey, guys, welcome to this episode of the Rachel Cruise Show podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. So today we're going to talk about money and life habits that are draining your wallet and what to do about it. You'll hear a conversation I had with author Michael Easter on how comfort and having a scarcity mindset can drain your wallets.

But first, let's talk about budgeting and the things most people get wrong about it. Take a listen. All right, you guys, we're going to go over today some budgeting questions that I get all the time when it comes to percentages of your budget and your budget categories. But the thing is, is that I don't really look at my budget that way. That's why I'm not a big fan of the one-size-fits-all budget when it comes to percentage guidelines, because the budget is about your life and one-size doesn't fit all. So how much should you spend on this or that can really depend on your income, your household, your location, like where you live, your goals, your lifestyle, I mean, so many things.

But there are a few areas where using percentages are a good idea. Okay, most people's budget include these categories, giving, saving, food, utilities, housing, transportation, health, insurance, child care, lifestyle, or entertainment, personal spending, miscellaneous, and debt. But even with all of these categories, there are really three that I recommend specific percentages for. So giving is one of those, and I always recommend giving 10% of your income regardless of where you are. Now, a lot of people push back on me when it comes to giving. But I think giving is such an important part of your financial picture overall, because it affects you. And you will realize with money that so much of you is translated into

how you spend money. So when you are a generous person, and that becomes a habit, that plays out in all different areas of your life. And for me, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, I do lean on that 10% tithe as just kind of a baseline. So again, whether you're someone that believes in something spiritual or not, I would recommend and challenge yourself to be giving. So 10% for me is it, but I do like to say, give a little until you can give a lot. All right, the next category is saving. So the average American saves around 9% of their income. But this is a great example of how a percentage or even an average shouldn't set the standard for you because your savings will vary depending on your goals. So whether you're saving it for an emergency fund of $1,000 or your

fully funded emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, you could be putting more towards savings or even less if those things are covered. But the standard that I follow is that when you have no debts and you have a fully funded emergency fund, then I do want you to invest 15% of your income into retirements. So again, after all of your debt is paid, you have three to six months of expenses, saves in the bank, and I want you to start looking at retirement. So this is things like your 401k or 403B, your Roth IRA, these kind of things. And setting that 15% for you is a great average. It's a great percentage to shoot for for the long run.

As we've averaged everything out, 15%, again, pretty much regardless of where you are financially, is going to help you build a great retirement. All right, the last budget category that I have a percentage on is housing. So housing should be no more than 25% of your take-home pay. And that's going to include your rent or mortgage payment. taxes, home insurance, HOA fees, and private mortgage insurance, PMI. So I know that this is more of a conservative percentage, but here's the deal. We don't want your housing eating up so much of your paycheck because I want your paycheck to be going to other things like paying off debt or investing

or saving for your kids college or living or spending or giving all of this. So you really do want to be pretty tight on this because spending more than that, again, it takes away. and eats up so much of your paycheck. So I know the real estate market is up and down. It's just crazy. And where we are right this minute, things are just really expensive. We may see a correction.

We may not. I don't know what that means, but I would adjust your expectations and be wise about this because you don't want half of your paycheck going to living because then your house or your living situation ends up being such a burden

and such a curse to you because you don't have as much money there with margin in your paycheck to do other things that you need to do with your money. Now, as far as all the other categories in your budget, that is going to depend really on you and your family's needs. So you really want to align and say, okay, where are we financially and where do we want to put the rest of our money? Because it's really important to be living below your means. And this is what's key. You want to make sure that you're not spending more than what you're making.

And a lot of people fall into that trap, which is what's caused the highest level of credit card debt in America that we've known in history is happening right now. And so it's really easy for our lifestyle to get out of hand, even for basic stuff. And what's hard about that, again, is we are in trying times. Like, with inflation, there's just so much going on. So you really want to make sure that you buckle down. You cut things that need to be cut because you want to stay below what you're making so that you have some margin to do things like saving and paying off debt.

So remember, if things are tight right now, there will be a time for you to have fun and to spend some more freely, but you just got to be patient. you really want that strong financial foundation under you of being debt-free with a fully funded emergency fund. Because here's the deal, too, if you constantly are just having fun with your money and you end up with a negative net worth, that negative cycle is going to catch up with you, and you never will truly be free. Now, if you do want some help when it comes to budgeting on the tactical side, make sure to check out every dollar. It is my favorite budgeting app. It's one that I check literally every day and track transactions and making sure that I'm on top of my money.

This is like one place where you can control something in your life because everything else can seem really out of control. But when your paycheck hits, what you do with it, you guys, is so important. So having something like every dollar that's on your phone, it's an app that we carry around with us everywhere. Anyways, we're constantly on our phones. So use that habit for something good to be looking at your budget and staying on top of your money. So make sure to check out every dollar. Hey, you guys, today I am so excited because I have a special guest with me to but we're going to dive into some subjects that I think are really important, very challenging,

but very important. So I have with me today author Michael Easter. Michael, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. So appreciate it. So I actually got to know you through your first book, The Comfort Crisis, which I've talked about on the show before. And he actually has a new book out called Scarcity Brain, which we're going to talk about

here in a little bit. But comfort crisis, that book, we were on a trip as a family. I think about a year and a half ago. And my brother had it. And he was like, hey, and he bought a copy for my dad for Christmas. And he was like, yeah, this is a good book. Like, I feel like we all should read it. And I love to read.

So I was like, oh, my gosh, yeah. So I started reading it, read it in like a day and a half at the beach, which is the opposite of the whole book, I feel like. But it was, but you did such a great job, though, I think of pairing real life, examples and experiences and this challenge because the whole book is just about how we are so conditioned now just to be comfortable, right? And it goes into a lot more. But from a physical standpoint, a mental standpoint, I mean, all of it. And so I'm just curious for you, like when people read this book, the comfort crisis specifically, what's like one of their biggest takeaways?

Like, what do they, when you talk to them, what's like the biggest thing? Because for me, it was such a challenge, because I am probably the stereotype of like, yeah, I want to be comfortable, right? Human nature we want to be. But we weren't built for that. And we have so much more that we can be stretched. And we're not going to. Yeah. We're not going to. We're not kind of just like crumble and fall. Yeah, I mean, look, everyone wants to do the next most comfortable, next easiest thing. And for all of time, that served us when the world was a lot harsher. And we had to go hunt and gather for food.

And we were exposed to the elements and all these different things. But today it doesn't always serve us and can even backfire. To answer your question, what resonated with people? It's a good one because there's different sections that look at different ideas. So like how our relationship to nature has changed, how our relationship to challenge has changed, how physical activity has changed. And it's kind of telling because certain people gravitate to different sections.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of for me, I'll always ask, what was your favorite section? Yes. And the answers are always kind of different. What was your favorite section? The physical side. Like you go through even how a body is created and how, like where your weight, like rucking, right?

Like having a rucksack. We're built to have weight on our back. we're not built just to like run freely because we were built to gather food, right? Like it's just like this. I mean, it's just that stuff was fascinating. And it's probably my biggest challenge because I don't physically like to push myself very much. I tried training for a marathon and I quit like day three. And my long run, that was like a mile.

I was like, yeah, this is for the birds. I don't want to do this. Well, the good news is that congratulations, you're very normal. Oh, thank you. The idea of people going out and being physically active and burning calories just for the sake of it is a brand new idea in the grand scheme of time and space. We only started doing it after the Industrial Revolution once we basically engineered activity out of our life and went, wait a minute, now that we don't move around as much, we seem to

get more disease. And we're like, oh, well, maybe we should find a way to be more active. Okay, let's invent gyms. Let's just run just to run. Let's just call it exercise. Yeah, we'll call it exercise. For all of time, people avoided physical activity because you don't want to burn calories. Right, right.

Because food was hard to come by. Yeah. well, my husband and I have started working out. He's worked out always, but it's been so good because you're uncomfortable, right? You're so, I mean, all of it. And then we got a sauna. So then the uncomfortable stuff of the elements of like the heat to like a cold plunge, like that whole thing, right?

I mean, all of it because I'm like, it's true. Like the science behind it, it's the discomfort actually brings such strength. And so, you know, on this show we talk so much about money and specifically sacrificing lifestyle to get where you want to be financially because so many people live above their means and the stress and all that that comes with it. So when people are getting out of debt, you know, I tell them like, hey, first season, just cut everything out.

Find the margin you can to get ahead on that goal. But it's uncomfortable. And people are used to their routine. They're used to living at a certain level, right? And when you tell someone to go below that, it feels off because I feel like we're so naturally wired to continue to achieve. And when you cut things out, it can be so difficult.

So what would you say to somebody, like through the comfort crisis lens, who is walking through that journey. And they're like, okay, yeah, it is uncomfortable to do things differently. Even from a lifestyle standpoint, to gain ground. But there has to be a level of that sacrifice. So in the book, I talk about how we basically adapt to the level of comfort we're at. And the level of comfort that we used to think was great.

Now it becomes uncomfortable. So if you put it in context of most of time, you know, even 50 years ago, the level of being the most comfortable person on the block, you would look at today and be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they're living like that. That's terrible. They only have one car? Oh, my gosh. How could anyone do that?

Yeah. And so I think that really put ourselves in a situation that's uncomfortable. It's because we were at a level of comfort before. And we'll eventually adapt there too. But it's not going to be a two-second thing where you go, oh, man, this is a little uncomfortable now. But actually, I feel great immediately, right? There's going to be a little bit of an adaptation period. But the reality is, is that, you know, your grandparents were perfectly happy and their lives were a lot more uncomfortable and didn't have as much as you had.

And same with their grandparents and on and on and on. So a lot of times what we consider comfortable is just sort of determined by time and space where we are. In 100 years, people are going to look back at how you and I are living and be like, oh, my God, I can't believe they live like that. That is terrible. How are they surviving? Yes. What an insane lifestyle. And so keeping that in the back of your mind that, you know, we're just sort of creatures of our environment. in a way, and we're always comparing.

Not always in a way that improves our decision-making and improves our mental health and improves, most importantly, our life satisfaction. It's important to know because once you can kind of look back at that machinery and see how the machinery works, you can go, oh, okay, well, maybe I'm not making a super rational decision right now. Do you look at the world and are you, like, discouraged? Are you just like, oh, my gosh, are we just like the worst human beings in the generation with just all of the instant gratification.

I mean, everything we have that we want, we can basically get for what I feel like, for the most part. Do you, like, is it, like, what do you think? Like when you just, like, look out or see, not even the news, but just like just society in general and how we're functioning. Well, I will say that I have to stay off my HOA's Facebook page

where I go absolutely mad with the problems that people bring up. I think that as we've advanced, as a society, I think things have as a whole gotten better, and that's a good thing. But having first world problems is kind of the price of progress. And a lot of times our advances, they come with side effects that we're not always aware of. So to kind of go back to our exercise one, it's like we've totally engineered exercise out of our life. Yeah.

Which, look, I don't want to have to go hunt and gather for every meal that I get. But at the same time, if I don't find a way to replace that activity I would have had in the past, it's probably not going to be good for me in the long run. So you have to do some seemingly strange things today in order to live well, and oftentimes they're going to be uncomfortable. And, yeah, as far as, you know, where we'll be in the future, I don't know. Yeah. It's, I have moments where I'm very optimistic.

I have moments where I'm very pessimistic. And, yeah, we'll see. Yeah. But I try and focus on the positive. Man, all us people off there, you know, you know, it's. Okay. So your newest book, Scarcy Braina came out in September. congratulations. Thank you. Okay, so what caused you to write, write this? What was kind of the thought

behind it? Yeah, so March 2020 pandemic happens. The news comes out. Okay, we're shutting down. I go to the grocery store. I have a long list of items of food that I need to get ready for this thing. Literally everything in the store is gone, right? Like you go, this thing's not here. This thing's not here. And then I see this guy with this shopping cart that's got this, he's just piled with cans. And he's in a Tyvex suit. and he's wearing a gas mask and he's got these glasses on. And I just saw that and was like, oh my gosh, this is like, you know, it's coming. And so your natural inclination, everyone's inclination into that when they thought that what they needed to survive was scarce,

we all went into like hoarder mode. Everyone freak out, right? Get as much toilet paper as you can. Yes. We're going to need 100,000 gallons at least of hand sanitizer, right? So after we have this initial freak out of hoarding when the pandemic first sets in, And then you start to see this new trend set in where people start to acquire more in different ways. So shopping increases, online shopping has never been higher.

You start to see a lot of people gain a significant amount of weight. We start moving even less. Screen time goes through the roof. People spend insane amounts of time going down crazy information rabbit holes, especially with the pandemic. Who would that be, Michael? Who would that be, conspiracy theory? And so I kind of just wanted to know why that is. Yeah.

And I sort of started researching the phenomenon and kind of realized that, you know, we are creatures who, whenever we think something that we need to survive might be scarce, our reaction is to go and get more of it. The thing is, we now live in a world where everything we need to survive is abundant. And we still have this sort of drive to acquire more food, more stuff, more. more information. Oh, more status, right? And all these things have just been put at scale. So status, we now have social media. Right? There's millions of people and it gets quantified. The average home today has more than 10,000 items. We used to have maybe 100 items in a house, 150 years ago. A person today sees more information in one day than they would have seen their entire life 700 years ago. No way. Yeah. And then, I mean, just food, we throw out about a third of the food we produce. You know,

And so the book really looks at all these things that were sort of built to crave and how technology is really pushing us into overconsuming them and how that's come with a lot of downsides. I mean, relevant to what you guys talk about here, just financially, like, people spend so much money on things they don't need. But we think we need them because of marketing or because of, you know, we're bored. And so, like, we're sitting on our couch and scrolling Amazon, like, oh, I'll buy that. Even 10 years ago, you would have had to drive down to the store and buy it, so you just wouldn't have bought it. Okay, so that is interesting because needs versus wants, it's a big conversation. I feel like that we always have to be able to evaluate and prioritize like your budget or things, right? Or if you're cutting out things to get out of debt or save up your emergency fund, like, whatever it is,

evaluating needs versus wants is huge. And what's so funny is walking through someone's budget even and seeing what they're like, no, no, no, but you just assume like, no, I have to have that. And so chipping some of that away, kind of going back to even comfort, like, it's uncomfortable. So what for you, as you're doing all this research, like, seeing that blends so tightly, and it's just, I guess, what we get used to. But why have those needs and those wants overlapped? And it's like, it's, and it feels like they're so tangled up that you can't even disperse, like,

what is a need and what is a want. I mean, for some people, it's bizarre. Yeah, like the car thing. Like, seriously. It's like, well, sell the car. Right. And it's assumed, well, we have to have to. because X one Z, and I get logistically all of that.

But there's a lot of people that survived with one car for a season. And so it's just wild to think and to ask people like, hey, if you want to get ahead, that sacrifice has to happen. So the needs versus wants, why is that so entangled today? Well, I think that, you know, we always say that necessity is the mother of invention. But I think that it's actually the other way around. Invention is the mother of necessity. So something gets produced.

A lot of people buy it. We see other people with it. We think, oh, that could probably improve my life too. And we start to think that, like, oh, we absolutely need this thing. And a lot of it is societally driven. And I think that can get people into trouble. More importantly is that I think we live in a world now where we're seeing so many cues that we do need this stuff, you know, through our phones, through TV. Yeah.

That it's easy to start to believe that story. But it is ultimately a story. Yeah. You know, a lot of what I look at is, you know, everyone knows that everything is fine in moderation. You know, we all suck at it. Yes, yes. And so why is that?

Yep. Living is, I live in Las Vegas, and there's slot machines all over town, and people will play these things for hours and hours on end. And to me, that's like the most irrational behavior ever. Right. It really is just you are, you just can't get enough of this thing and why are you doing it. To understand why people play these things, I end up traveling into this, casino lab. So it's not really open to the public. It is used entirely for human behavior

research. And it's funded by the gambling industry and big tech. From this experience, I learn why slot machines are so good at hooking people. And it relies on this three-part system that I call the scarcity loop. Okay. Three parts. So one is opportunity. There's an opportunity to get something of value. Two is unpredictable rewards. You know you'll get that thing of value if you just keep repeating behavior. But you don't know when and you don't know how valuable it'll be. And then three, quick repeatability. You can repeat the behavior immediately, like over and over and over. The cycle is just like right there, yeah.

Yeah, so you see it on the slot machine. Like, I can win some money. I know if I play a game like I could lose, I could win a little bit, or I could win a lot. And that's really exciting. That hooks all animals focus on unpredictability. Three, quick repeatability. People play like 16 games a minute, which is crazy. Oh, my gosh.

More than we blink. Now, the reason that there's, it's not just the gambling companies invested in this place. it's also big tech, is because you can put this system in all sorts of other things, to get people to repeat a behavior over and over and over that is fun in the short term, but can hurt them in the long run. Yep. So, for example, it's what makes social media work. It's what makes dating apps so compelling.

It's being put in a lot of online retailers and advertisements. It's being put in a lot of personal finance apps like Robin Hood that dial up the quick repeatability. It explains the rise of sports gambling and all these different things. So I think that's kind of a long way of saying. We have so many different forms of tech in our life, along with so much data on what makes humans consume and buy more and spend money. I mean, there's literally labs where they're studying this that we're up against a lot. That's right.

We never had this. Even 40 years ago, you know, we knew a lot about consumer behavior, but it wasn't on a person's, in a person's hand all the time. Constantly. Yeah. feeling like a need too, right? Like, well, I have to have the phone. So then you're just already sucked into, like, the world of it all.

And that's what's wild to me. And that's what I think about this a lot, whether I'm online on Amazon or whatever. And I'm like, like, these are billion-dollar industries. Like, some of the smartest people on the planet in Silicon Valley, like, wherever they are, they know what they're doing. And here's, like, little me and National Dynasty on my phone, thinking somehow I'm going to outsmart them with the 30% off sale, whatever I'm seeing from the email that I got, right? Like, it's like you kind of have to like snap out of it and be like, wake up, y'all, wake up.

And, you know, within the credit card industry too, I feel like they're brilliant at all of that. That can people write in. And they know what they're doing. And so I think there's this, it's naive to think, well, yeah, I have, you know, I have the ability to be okay all the time. I'm just going to do what I want to do. You have to be aware. It's like this cautionary tale to say like, no, no, no, there's industries literally after you, whether it's to get your money, your time, your attention, all of it.

And so it's just, yeah, it sounds to be fearful of. But it's just to be aware and don't just like sleepwalk through life. Yeah, I think that one of the ways to get out of a lot of these behaviors is to your point one, becoming aware of that you're in it. And there's good reasons for that. Like we tend to focus on things that are unpredictable, whether it be like, oh, this limited time bargain that you only you got, whether it be a gambling game for reasons that go back to how we used to survive with finding food.

So, you know, we used to have to walk the earth to find food. And it was very unpredictable. So you got a point A, no food. Point B, no food. Point C, jackpot. There's so much food. And by the way, you have to repeat that the next day. That is the exact same architecture as a slot machine.

It's wild. Opportunity to get something. You don't know when it's going to happen. You don't know how good it's going to be. And you've got to repeat it all the time. And so we're sort of built to fall into this. So being aware of like, oh, that's just my brain doing this thing that it thinks is good. Yeah.

Two is, you know, those three parts that I laid out, if you can change or remove any of the parts, that slows down the behavior. So, for example, we'll take shopping. If you shift your mindset of why am I buying this item in the first place, so what is the opportunity I'm getting from this thing? If you really ask yourself, a lot of times we don't know. Like, I'm just, what am I really getting from this, right? And so shifting to, like, how am I using this to a tool as a tool and how is it really? going to allow me to do this thing.

And is there another way that I could do that same thing with something I already own? Yes, and not having to buy. Is that when you talk about the merch versus stuff? Yeah. Is that kind of in that mentality? Yeah, exactly. Because even changing your words, you said that, like, how important that is. So I put it in, yeah, I put it in terms of gear versus stuff.

So gear is something that can allow you to achieve some higher goal or higher purpose, whereas stuff is just like, you kind of get it for the sake of it. Another example would be slowing down how quickly you, you can do the behavior of shopping. So even something as stupid as, like I said before, like, I'm only going to buy stuff in person. Now you have to drive to the store. It's a pain, right?

And along the way, you're probably going to forget what you were going to buy anyways. Totally. If you have to buy something online, it could be like, all right, I'm putting a three-day holding period on. And so, like, I'm not going to buy it unless I'm for sure, I think I still need it in three days.

Chances are you'll probably come to your senses. But basically, as a general rule with human behavior is that the faster you can repeat a behavior, the more likely you are to repeat it. So speed is kind of the ultimate currency when you think of this is why places do limited time deals. Oh, and by the way, we only have three left. Right?

And so these triggers really just lead us to do things that I think sometimes we wish we wouldn't have. Yes, yes. Oh, for sure. That's so interesting. Okay, so you mentioned, too, in the book, just about minimalism and how it's not always like the best route. I feel like minimalism has kind of become this buzzword and people like, I want to be a minimalist and all of this, right?

And I can see some benefits, right, just in the overall messaging of like, yes, we just don't need all the crap that we have. We just don't need it. So talk me through through that part of the book. Yeah, so this is from a psychologist I talked to who's at University of Michigan. Her name is Stephanie Preston. Her conclusion is that minimalism and acquiring too much, so almost like light hoarding, you can think of, they're driven by the same thing.

And it is essentially, it's kind of driven by anxiety. So she, her research shows that people who are really bad at getting rid of stuff and acquire too much, they do it because it gives them a feeling of control. I might need this at some point. It might need this. Oh, I could use this. I'm like, I don't want to get rid of it. Minimalists, on the other hand, it gives them a sense of control.

Everything is in its perfect place. My environment is perfectly tuned to exactly how I want it, and everything is going to be fine, right? So it's really driven by something that has nothing to do with the stuff itself. And so what she's observed is that people will, your average person will buy a bunch of stuff and then they'll kind of look at their space at some point and go, oh my gosh, I have so much stuff. I need to get rid of it. I need to minimize. So they'll throw out a bunch of stuff.

And then they'll start buying again. And then those just kind of accumulate and accumulate. And then they'll hit that point again. So she really pointed out is that people go through cycles and they haven't really stopped and asked, why am I buying so much stuff in the first place? Yeah. Because if you can answer that question, not only do you not have to do the crazy purge, you just won't acquire more and you'll end up saving more money in the long run.

And it is, it's so true. I'm like, it's never usually about the stuff or the money, but it's the why underneath. Yeah. Why am I doing it in the first place? Am I bored? Am I insecure? Do I want? Is it the comparison gate?

Like, right? Like, what is that? And when I can fix that part of me, then the output, you know, automatically helps change the habit that's created. Yeah. And so, you know, with minimalism, a lot of people will be like, okay, I need, I'm going to be minimalist. I need to go to the container store and buy a bunch of containers so I can be a minimalist. So organize all them. How does that work? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so good. Michael,

thank you so much. I so appreciate it. I think it's such good conversation. And I just appreciate the challenge to all of it because you can just get in this place where I'm like, your norm takes over your life. And until you kind of shake it up and realize, oh my gosh, something could be done differently and probably better in certain areas is so huge. And the fact that the, I love that this book and how it all started and all the science behind all. You just do such great research and all of your, all of your stuff. So I, I appreciate that because as the reader, I'm always like, oh my gosh, this is so good. Someone way smarter than me, but all of this is in a great book for us, you guys, to be able to read it. So you guys make sure to check out Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter. It's awesome.

And all this stuff you writes in a course comfort crisis. Such a great book. So where can everyone find you? I'm at Eastermichael.com and then on social media, Michael underscore Easter. Yeah, that's right. So great. Thanks, thanks, Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Much for having me. Wasn't Michael great, you guys? Such a good conversation.

Again, I love his books. I love everything that he researches and talks about. I think it's so helpful. So I want to thank him again so much for being on the show. And you guys, if you love this show, make sure to review the podcast, leave that review, hit the subscribe button, share this with your friends and family

because it is so helpful for us to hear when it comes to future episodes that we want to produce. So you guys, thanks again for listening. and remember to take control of your money and create a life you love.