Manders Mindset
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
106: How to Escape Paycheck-to-Paycheck Living with Debt Free Dad, Brad Nelson
Feedback on the show? Send us a message!
In this episode of Manders Mindset, Brad Nelson, founder of Debt Free Dad and host of the Debt Free Dad Podcast, shares his inspiring journey from living paycheck to paycheck and losing his home to achieving financial freedom. Brad discusses why money is such an emotional topic, how to break free from financial stress, and practical ways to build a life aligned with personal values.
In This Episode, You’ll Uncover:
- Why money is such a deeply emotional topic—and how to address it.
- The truth about credit scores and why they don’t define financial success.
- Actionable steps to move beyond living paycheck to paycheck.
- How parents can teach kids about financial literacy early on.
- The importance of having a vision for your financial future.
- Why financial freedom is less about earning more and more about intentional spending.
You can watch this episode HERE!
To Connect with Amanda:
~ linktree.com/thebreathinggoddess
~ Instagram
~ TikTok
~ Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!
~ Follow Manders Mindset on Instagram HERE!
~ Explore Amanda’s NEW podcast: Breathwork Magic (Available on all major platforms or you can listen on Apple!)
To Connect with Brad & his Resources:
- Listen to Brad’s podcast: Debt Free Dad Podcast
- Free tools and resources: Debt Free Dad Website
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, Amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, welcome back to Amanda's Mindset. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and you know I'm all about having the vulnerable conversations that most people aren't having, the ones we don't hear enough. And today we're diving into a big one money. Let's be real, money is one of the most stressful emotional topics out there, but it's also one of the least talked about. But it's also one of the least talked about. That's why I'm continuing this series of Raw Honest Conversations to bring the topics we avoid into the light and to remind you that you're not alone.
Speaker 2:Today I'm joined by Brad Nelson, the founder of Debt-Free Dad. Brad knows firsthand what it's like to struggle with money. Brad knows firsthand what it's like to struggle with money. He's been there from paycheck to paycheck living to losing his home, but he turned it all around. Paycheck living to losing his home, but he turned it all around. And now he's on a mission to help everyday people take back their control, take back control of their finances, reduce stress and live the life they actually want to live.
Speaker 2:This episode is packed with insights on why money is so emotional, why we weren't taught how to handle it and, most importantly, how to change your story around money. So if you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed or even ashamed about money or your finances. This episode is for you. Now let's get into it. Welcome to Mander's Mindset, where we explore how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:And I am here today with an awesome guest who I'm really excited to speak to, who was actually referred to us by Sean Rivers of the Growth by Sean podcast. Got a couple of awesome guests from him, so really excited to dive in today. And I am here today with Brad Nelson, who is the founder of Debt Free Dad. As a devoted single father, he's committed himself to help normal everyday people take control of their finances so they can live a happier, less stressful life. With the Debt-Free Dad podcast and his online courses Roots of Personal Finance, beyond Finances, brad values family outdoor adventures in creating lasting memories and I've listened to quite a few episodes on Brad's podcast and he really delves into stuff we do not always talk about, so I am so excited to chat with him today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Amanda, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Always a fun topic with money.
Speaker 2:That it is, that it is. So, before we get into the money, I'd love if we could backtrack and you could take us down memory lane a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing, childhood, the foundation of kind, of how you got to be in the debt-free dad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean I was fortunate enough. I had a very good childhood. I feel like I won the, I guess, the childhood lottery, if that's what you want to say. Just great memories. Had a great relationship with my mom. Unfortunately, I lost my mom back in 2007 because of cancer, young age of 57. But I was always really close to my mom. Mom stayed home part time, was always there picking us up from school and all that great stuff.
Speaker 3:Very involved with sports as a kid obviously baseball and soccer and eventually went through high school and started working at a very young age. I always loved making money. In fact, when I was in grade school, I became the janitor of my school. I went to a very small grade school and they needed someone just to clean up for 30, 45 minutes after school to help out a little bit. And I got my first job there and I wasn't even a legal age yet. They were just paying me cash and that was my first taste of work and money. I really got this idea of I wanted to eventually open up my own business and become an entrepreneur of some sort.
Speaker 3:Sadly, when I became an adult, I got myself into the same rat race a lot of other people do, and that's paycheck to paycheck living and lots of bills, lots of debt. One of the financial lessons I guess the number one financial lessons my parents taught us was the importance of a credit score and how good it is. And I had a great credit score, but I also had a lot of debt and payments, no savings, and I spent most of my 20s living that way. As I made more money in my career, I sold myself like I'll do better, or I'll take that extra money I make and I'll pay off my debt, or I'll save it this time. But the reality is, I just experienced what a lot of people do, and that's lifestyle creep and the car payments just got bigger, the credit card bills just got bigger. It just was this rat race. I got myself into it.
Speaker 3:I finally, in my early 30s, my first marriage ended a divorce and I had a son at the time, noah, who was two, and I ended up losing my house to foreclosure. It was during the housing crisis back in 2010, 2011, 2012-ish, right there. We ended up not being able to sell our house when we got divorced because we owed more on it than it was actually worth. And today's real estate market. That's not happening right now, but back then that's what was happening. I realized at that time the house of cards that I had built in my financial life, and it was like all that it took was just one little card to fall and the rest of the house started to collapse.
Speaker 3:And that's when I decided to get my stuff together, when it came to this stuff, and really learn how it worked, because I realized what I was doing was not working. I was stressed all the time, worried all the time, couldn't sleep, and so I got out of debt. For the very same reasons, a lot of other people want to get out of debt. They want to have peace of mind, they want to have some security, they don't want to have to stress so much about money. And it took me about four or five years to do it and a lot of trial and error.
Speaker 3:I started listening to podcasts, reading books, going to seminars and just trying to implement everything that I was learning, and it's definitely a personal journey you go through, because money is a very emotional thing. There's a lot of behaviors, habits and choices behind it, and it took me some time to learn that about myself, but successfully became debt-free and I have been debt-free outside of my mortgage now for 11 plus years. And going back it all kind of ties together because when I was that kid I wanted to run my own business. I did not. Never in a million years, amanda, I think I'd be on podcasts and teaching people about money and personal finance.
Speaker 3:But that's what I fell in love with, because as I started getting out of debt, people started asking me for help because I was sharing my story. I was sharing how life changing it was and I just started sharing kind of what I was doing, helping people on the side. And I really fell in love with not the money side so much, but just how life-changing this can be and the ripple effect it can have on your life once you take control of your finances. And that's when I decided to open up my business Deaf Free Dad, coming up on nine years ago already, which is crazy. I've been doing this full time that long and since then we've helped thousands of people all over the world save and pay off tens of millions of dollars with just the simple practices and some of the stuff that we teach here. It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:So you've been a hard worker since the get-go. How old were you when you started doing that janitor work?
Speaker 3:I want to say it's probably like sixth. Seventh grade is when I started. Even outside of that, I was doing car washes outside of our house. I just found ways to make money. I always loved Lego. I never had any money to buy Lego. My parents never gave me any money to buy Legos. I figured out how I could get some money to buy some Lego and that's how it started for me. It was that motivation and, yeah, even at 14 was working at a local restaurant. I mean, I've worked and I've always loved working and creating income. It's awesome.
Speaker 2:So now you mentioned, your parents taught you the importance of a credit score, so what about that?
Speaker 3:Mostly, I mean my parents did their best. I think in today's day and age, this is a lot of people struggle with is that there is a lack of education in the school system, there's a lack of education in the households, and I think what I took away from my parents' education that they gave me was I got to pay my bills on time and make sure you try not to spend more than you make, but always have a credit card for emergencies, and those are the biggest things that I always remember or you're always going to have a credit card or credit card debt. That's what I remember hearing from them, and I had great parents, but from a financial standpoint, they didn't do such a great job of teaching me how this stuff really works, because, as a young 20 something, I had a great credit score. So to me, I thought it was doing great because that's what my parents taught me. They said have a good credit score, make your bills on time.
Speaker 3:Well, I was doing those things no-transcript doing some self-education and picking up books and listening to podcasts and getting outside of the societal norm of paycheck to paycheck living and hearing how other people were doing it. And it's not to say that all of them were saying that the credit score isn't important. They were just saying it isn't the most important. You know, what's most important is having a budget living below your means, making sure you have good short term and long term financial goals and a budget that's going to help you reach those, and focusing more also on the holistic side of personal finance and how money is such an emotional thing its behavior, its habits, its choices. Once I started to kind of connect all those dots, it was like your credit score can play a role in your financial life and it will, but it isn't the end, all be all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I gotcha Now. I think a lot of people struggle with the like they didn't learn it. You know, I myself, like my mom, did her best and explained some stuff, but very minimal. Like you want to have one credit card but you don't want to use it. It's an emergency type thing. Why do you think I feel like so so many parents didn't educate their kids on this?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's definitely back in the day, not today anymore, but I think back in the day there was maybe a lack of information, maybe a lack of know-how when it came to my parents, who were baby boomer generation. And I think, if you look at the history, especially of credit cards, the credit card started coming out in the 50s and the 60s and ever since then, credit card debt has just become, year after year, more and more popular. More debt products are now available. You look at buy now, pay later programs. I mean, debt has become such a, in my opinion, I think it's one of the best, if not the best, marketed products in the world. And I mean, you look at your email, you look at your mailbox. You'll go shopping anywhere. What is always there when you go, it's the offer of debt Sign up for the credit card, sign up for this loan, sign up for this free financing.
Speaker 3:We have become such a payment driven society, so I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 3:Now, today, I think we're starting to realize and a lot of people are, like you know, shouting from the rooftops of how important financial literacy and financial education really is, because if all we're taking is financial education from the financial industry.
Speaker 3:Well, good luck, I mean, because you're just gonna be in debt your entire life, because that's what they want. That's why they have marketed the credit score so well, because credit score ultimately just means you're a good customer or a bad customer of using debt products. It doesn't score you on anything else but your relationship with debt, and so I think that's why a lot of it starts in the schools, I think. I think schools will help, but I think it also we as parents in the home need to understand how important financial literacy is with our kids and that we should be teaching them financial responsibility and giving them a lot of these tools early on, even in their teenage years, especially when they start working. Teaching them early budgeting skills and saving skills, showing them the power of compound interest when you invest, and really showing them how this stuff really works from the debt side and also from the holistic side of personal finance.
Speaker 2:Now that makes a lot of sense. How early do you think parents should be talking about this with their kids?
Speaker 3:Honestly, you could start as early as kindergarten age. I've got a daughter who's just started kindergarten yesterday, which was awesome, and we talk about those things in an open conversation with her. Just having a piggy bank and when you get money, we save, you know. You can begin to start giving your kids this information very early on and as they grow. There are so many teachable opportunities and learning lessons along the way that you can share with your kids and I do this very often with my son and showing them you know how money works and just having some of those conversations, getting them involved with the conversation and admittedly, it's much easier to do that when you have your stuff figured out.
Speaker 3:And I think the reason why parents probably don't share too much with their kids is because, for most people, money is a very stressful thing. If you look at the statistics right now, money is the number one stressor in the United States. It is the thing that's causing the most stress 47% of people say that money is the number one reason for their mental health decline. And so you know you have to. You have to think about those things. So if, if money is that big of a stress, if it's that big of a headache for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:We're not really openly sharing and teaching our kids this stuff because in all likelihood we're not handling things the proper way. And I know I wasn't like I go back into my 20s and if I would have shown my kid how money worked, it would have been bad news, right, because I would have been showing him all the wrong stuff. And so I think, when it comes to parents, I think it's tough because we don't really know what to share, we don't really know what to teach, and so I think that makes it very difficult, especially if you're struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. But, man, you can start as early as kindergarten age and then obviously just continue that throughout their teenage years and even to early adulthood.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense and I think that's a good point. You mentioned that a lot of the parents don't necessarily have a good control over it, so they're not sharing it.
Speaker 3:Right, it's something we hide. It's one of most people that there's some crazy stories and statistics out there of what you know they do, these surveys of people, and people are more willing to share, like their deepest, darkest secrets versus their checking account balance or how much credit card debt that they have, because it's such a money is just such a taboo emotional thing. And you know we want everyone to think I shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of us want a lot of people to think that you're doing well and you look at social media, we celebrate our new car purchase or our latest vacation or the clothes that we bought or the dinner we went out to or whatever, but behind closed doors. Statistically, seven, almost eight out of 10 households right now, and this number hasn't really changed much over the years. I know inflation has made it harder, but seven to almost eight out of 10 households are living paycheck to paycheck. That means if you go down your block and count seven or eight houses out of 10, those seven or eight are just one paycheck away from financial disaster and things getting bad very, very quickly.
Speaker 3:And so that's the that's the reality of what we really got to keep in perspective, because when, when we're hurting that bad and when money is stressful, when we're worried, all the time, it's like the last thing we're thinking about is how can I teach my kids this stuff? You know, but when you go on the offensive, when you get, start getting yourself out of debt, when you start actually improving your financial life, you start to realize how life changing that can be. And then we have people who will come and say, brad, it's great, you've gotten my life straightened out, this is great, I want to start teaching my kids this stuff. So what are some pointers and things that you can do there? So once, as parents, we get ourselves under control, we get our finances under control, then we can start focusing on our kids. But you definitely want to focus on your finances first.
Speaker 2:No, you know it's fascinating to me about how you mentioned money. Like it's not talked about, and you mentioned that in Sean's podcast too, because it's so interesting to me. I always, and everybody tells me not to ask the guests this, but I ask every single guest is there anything you don't want me to say, anything you don't want me to ask you? Majority of the guests have said no, but the only ever response I've gotten is regarding money either what they make, how much their income is, what they charge. It's always something related to the finance. Yeah, like people would rather talk about sex and the craziest sex stories. I've had some stories that I'm like you are sharing this with a stranger, but they don't want to talk about money and I'm like all right.
Speaker 2:Yep, okay, interesting, it's a little mind blowing to me, not gonna lie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so true, so true.
Speaker 2:Why do you think there's so much shame around money?
Speaker 3:Well, again, I think it comes from a social thing. It's a very you know, especially in today's day and age with social media everything's online. You know, today's day and age, with social media, everything's online, you know. I mean, we want again to give this portrayal that we're doing great. I know this was me, so I'm going to speak from it from my standpoint.
Speaker 3:And again, I wasn't living this super flashy lifestyle, but based on the income that I was living. I was, you know, I was. I lived in a house that I couldn't afford to live in. I drove cars that I couldn't afford to drive, even though I can make the payments. And we trick ourselves into thinking that, well, I can make the payment, but the reality is is I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford the clothes, I couldn't afford the vacations that I was going on, I just couldn't afford it. But there was this ego thing, there was this pride thing. I wanted people to think that we were doing great, you know, and we also want to. Always and I shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of us like to be a step ahead of the other person, right? So, and they've proven this with data and statistics, and they say they've proven if you live in a certain neighborhood let's say you live in a fluent neighborhood you are much more likely to live a high cost of life, high cost of living life living in a fluent neighborhood than, say, more of like your typical average neighborhood, because of the social influence of keeping up with the neighbors and what everybody else is doing and all of that.
Speaker 3:So I think I think that's why we struggle so much and why this is such a hard thing, because the reality is, is the advertised American life has become unaffordable, and it hasn't just become unaffordable just because of inflation. It's become unaffordable for quite a long time. You know, and you know this whole idea of the great house with the perfectly manicured lawn and the two new cars and the vacation and all the clothes and all the stuff and giving your kids these extravagant birthday parties, all of that stuff that they say that we've got to be doing, has, has is unaffordable. The only way you can do it is with debt, and a lot, of, a lot of people want other people to think like they've, they've got to figure it out, they're doing really, really well with money because they look really good, they got this nice wrapper. I know I did. But the reality is, on the inside, most of them are broke and and this just doesn't go for people who make normal incomes.
Speaker 3:I have had colleagues, other financial coaches, that work with people like, say, on the West Coast or the East Coast in these big cities like New York, la, these people making seven figures, and they're like I just I, because I was I would ask them the same question like how, how is their problems different than somebody who makes 60, 70, 80 grand a year, or even, you know, 40 or 50 grand a year? And you want to know? The crazy answer is they said there's not one difference. They have nicer stuff, they live in a high cost of living area, but the reality is, if you look at their bank accounts and where they are financially, they're in no better position than, say, someone making a lesser income. So that's the other thing we trick ourselves in. Is, is this whole idea of, well, if I make a big income, that's going to solve all my problems? The reality is, is we don't see that? We actually see people make higher incomes, just spend more money? The same types of habits, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, Really OK, yeah, so. So the solution isn't to make more money.
Speaker 3:Not necessarily. I don't think it's necessarily bad to make more money, but making more money without a good financial plan and what to do with that money is the challenge. I just had this conversation with an older gentleman. I was at a restaurant and I see I see him and he's an older guy, he's in his mid-70s, he just retired, worked in the car industry all his life and he made great money, made well over $100,000 a year. And he's like he got to talking about what I did and I explained it to him and he's like I have so many regrets.
Speaker 3:I have so many regrets that I didn't do better with managing the amount of money I had. I never paid attention to it, I just spent, didn't have a really good plan, didn't have any like just nothing, no idea for retirement, and now he's living on social security and actually I was just talking to him yesterday and he said it was it was such a just a wake up call of just I was going. I went from a hundred thousand dollars a year to making less than $30,000 a year and that is just like this huge life changing thing. And so income is not the driver behind financial wellness, it's how you manage the income that you're making and then, once you get that down, making more money is great, because then you get to start putting in all these little different areas that are driving you to increase your wealth and build financial freedom in your life.
Speaker 2:I gotcha. No, that makes sense. I feel like that's kind of like people who win the lotto you'll win a big amount of money and then suddenly maybe not right away, but slowly over time they're in debt again. Like one of my best friends in high school, her mom won a million dollars and everybody's, oh, they're going to be set now. Next thing, you know, six months later, she was in debt again. She couldn't pay the house payments and everybody's like how. She just won a million dollars and she didn't know how to manage it. She wasn't used to that much money and didn't know how to control it.
Speaker 3:I guess 100% For most people. A windfall of cash for the typical. Even though we all feel it would be a life-changing thing, in most cases it's very short-lived because they don't know how to manage it and where to put it, leave it alone. They don't have the behaviors and the habits created to manage the money whether and again. So if you can't and this way I want you to think about it, and I know in today's day and age, like with the way the inflation is and how expensive things are, and I get that things are hard for a lot of people but if you can't manage the current income that you're making, what's to say you can make or manage double that. And a lot of people say, well, of course I could, because life would just be so much easier. But the reality is for most of us it wouldn't be. It wouldn't change anything. You would have more stuff, likely a lot more payments, and that's what we typically see. And again, that's not everybody. We can't put everybody in the same bucket, but for the majority of people they would likely still struggle.
Speaker 3:You look at professional athletes who have these huge contracts, right, and there was this guy. I don't know what the statistic is anymore, but it was. Near 80 percent of NFL players were broke within three years of leaving the league. That we will ever see right, and not all of them, but a lot of them, but within three years of leaving. And that doesn't come down to not having enough, that just comes down to mismanagement and not knowing what to do with it. And the same thing's happening with people who you know again, start out in their 20s making 30, 40, then they get those wage increases, their career improves, you know they start making more and more and more money. But start making more and more and more and more money. But the habits, the choices, the behaviors, the plan behind that financial plan, the lack of a financial plan, it doesn't really do anything different for them. It doesn't change anything.
Speaker 3:And then you look at the statistics of happiness and they say you know, anything after $80,000 ain't going to make you any more happy. $80,000 is a threshold. They say if you can get it to $80,000 ain't going to make you any more happy. $80,000 is a threshold. They say if you can get it to $80,000, you'll. You know, obviously, if you make 50 to 80, you'll have increased happiness in your life. But anything after 80,. They say that's the threshold. That's where they see you Like your happiness doesn't drastically increase if you all of a sudden made $150,000. So that's like the more of the holistic side and really what comes down to being really important in your life.
Speaker 2:Wow, I never knew that $80,000.
Speaker 3:Wow, right around there. Yeah, it's right around $80,000.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know that makes me think of. I listened to one of your episodes about how financial stress is worse than divorce, Like going through divorce. Yep.
Speaker 3:Which is really it's worse than divorce, bereavement, losing a family member, you know. It's worse stress than all of those things. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:That's mind-blowing to me. Yep. Why do you think that stress is worse?
Speaker 3:blowing to me. Why do you think that stress is loose? Well, again, because money. It impacts every area of your life. If you think about it and you know money is at the center and it doesn't mean that at the center means it's the most important. But without proper management of your money, it affects you as a person, it affects your relationships. Money and personal finance fights are one of the top reasons for divorce in the United States. It affects your relationships. Money and personal finance fights are one of the top reasons for divorce in the United States. It affects your parenting skills because, obviously, if you're stressed and worried about money on a regular basis, you have lack of patience, can't provide for your kids the way that you want to, so you feel guilt and shame because of some of those things.
Speaker 3:You look at the statistics of how much we worry about money at work, the hours, the countless hours that are lost because of our worry at work of personal finance issues and things going on at home. Then you also think about well, I'm not performing my best at work because now I'm worrying so much, so you probably have maybe less promotions, less raises. In fact, a lot of the people that we work with over the years. It's pretty amazing how, once they get their finances in order, all of a sudden they're getting promotions, they're getting raises, they're getting other opportunities that they weren't getting before, and that's because they're not spending so much emotional energy just worrying and stressing about money. Because they got a plan, they know what they're doing and they're actually making better progress. And that is so life-changing when you can reduce and get rid of a lot of that financial stress and worry. So if you think about how money is connected just to everything, no-transcript creates the livelihood that we have, so without it you realize like I'm going to lose things. So we stress.
Speaker 2:No, that's a fair point that it affects everything From your relationships to what you can do, whether you can send the kids to daycare or you can't. All the things.
Speaker 3:All the things, even down to the basic necessities of life, and those are the ones you know, amanda, that are hard. You know when we start working with people that are, you know their electric bill is going to be shut off, or you know they're having trouble buying food and things like that. So it isn't just always the nice things that you're going to lose, but it is sometimes the basic necessities, too that can be worrisome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I completely get that Now. So what would you say is like a first step to try to reduce the stress in people's lives?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think one of the first kind of, I guess, actionable items that I would suggest to anyone who's I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck, I'm tired of stress. You know, I want to start doing some things different. I think the first thing is really getting a handle and becoming more aware of what your current financial life looks like and where things are going. So first thing I always tell people to do is let's go back and look at where you're spending your money. All right, most people have no idea. In fact, we had a statistic shared in our podcast upwards of 50% of the millennial generation. We're just counting them. 50% of them have no idea what's going on with their bank account. That's what they say. So we need to fix that, and that's going on along with all the other generations too. It's not just the millennials, but we need to get a really good pulse as to what's happening with our money. So the first thing I would suggest is go back and print out the last three, six maybe, if you want to go even further, and do an entire year, do 12 months of your bank statements, your credit card statements, look at your PayPal, your Venmo, your cash app, your Apple Pay accounts. Look at anywhere If you're using cash. Start keeping your receipts, like really figure out where all your money has been going, and once you do that, then you can start categorizing what you are spending in certain areas, like how much money are we spending on groceries? How much money, on average, are we spending on gas every month? How much money, on average, are we spending on going out to eat or subscription services or prescriptions or whatever it might be? You know, this really gives you a good understanding of where all your money is going.
Speaker 3:And, amanda, time and time again, there hasn't been one person that's ever come back to me that's done this. And they said Brad, I knew exactly where every penny was going. It's always the complete opposite of Brad. I am so sick to my stomach seeing what I found, seeing how much we were spending on going out to eat, seeing how much money we were wasting on subscriptions we weren't using anymore, or wasteful spending at convenience stores because we didn't have a good grocery plan or food plan or whatever. You know, it's just, it's like all of these different things because it's so easy to spend money nowadays and and we always use this Well, it's only a few dollars. Well, a few dollars here, a few dollars there, a few dollars here, and you eventually just begin to forget how much a few dollars is slipping through your fingers all the time. In fact, there was that meme going around a long time ago what does it take to spend every day to waste $10,000 a year? And it only takes $27.40 a day of spending to waste $10,000 a year, and so that's why I think it's the best first step for anybody is to really get a good understanding of where everything's going. Once you have a good understanding where everything's going now, it's super easy to put together like a monthly budget, because you know what you're spending on everything.
Speaker 3:A lot of people's mistakes of starting a budget is they start a budget without really knowing what their spending habits are or what their averages are. And then what happens? They do their first budget, they get to the end of the month and then all of a sudden, they're like well, that didn't work. I guess the budget budgeting doesn't work for me. Well, no, no, no, no. These are just unrealistic numbers that you started with. We need to, like, really get a good understanding. So it takes some time to do this, but I think it's one of the best things that people can do. And then they can start to figure it out based on what they find is what am I going to keep, what can I shop around to get cheaper services for and what can I get rid of? And you begin to organize your financial life from a monthly basis of what your expenses are and what your income is and then you can start moving forward based on that of what your expenses are and what your income is.
Speaker 2:And then you can start moving forward based on that. Okay, no, that makes so much sense. You know, I talk about all the time how so many people are just on autopilot and they don't. They're unaware of so many things, whether it's just decisions. They make things we spend money on whatever it is, but you can't change something that you aren't aware of. You know Right. So, okay, that makes a lot of sense. I'd love it. Sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. No, you were going to say something. I know what I said.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say. Once you go through that, then the next step is the most important part, I think, is really sitting down and figuring out, like, what the heck do you want, and not what everybody else wants, but what do you want? What are some short term and long term financial goals for you? And when I say financial, it doesn't mean financial products and things like that. It's like like where do you want to live? What kind of life do you want to live? What do you want for your kids? What is you know? And if you're younger, I know this is a crazy thing to think about but what does retirement look like to you? And you know, just really kind of starting to consider some of these things.
Speaker 3:I think one of the things that causes most people to struggle living paycheck to paycheck is a lot of us are just kind of living for today.
Speaker 3:We don't really have any clear vision of where we're heading, though, and when you don't have that, you know it's so easy to spend money.
Speaker 3:Marketing and advertising of products is so incredible Now you look at especially social media and TikTok shop but they are so good at getting us to spend money and even going into debt for things that we didn't plan on going into debt for.
Speaker 3:And so without a good plan, without good short term or long term goals, it's easy to let emotional and impulsive spending wreak havoc on your life.
Speaker 3:So once you understand what your expenses are, then really sit down and create that vision of where are we going, what do we want to achieve and how are we going to use our current income in order to get there. And once you start doing it again, this is why it took me four or five years to get out of debt, because this is so easy to say but it's hard to do because of the behaviors and the habits that go along with it. It takes time to rewire your brain, so you are going to mess up at times, you are going to bust your budget, you are going to spend when you shouldn't, but you learn from that and you just get better the next time and you just stay committed. But the way you stay committed is by being vested in that small and short term goal that you have, or that you know that long term game plan of what your financial life needs to look like, because you'll recommit, get back on the wagon, get back to work again.
Speaker 2:I really like how you mentioned what do you want. I think that's so key, like we're Even when it comes to experiences. What experiences do you want to spend your money on? What do you want to do at the end of your life? How do you want to look back on it?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, and it's not only that too, it's also breaking away from this whole what everybody else wants. Get rid of all that, what do you want? And then work really hard at not caring what anybody else thinks. If you look at Bonnie Ware's if you've ever read this blog post awesome blog post by Bonnie Ware it's the regrets of five regrets of the dying.
Speaker 3:And Bonnie Ware was a palliative nurse who helped people pass in hospice and she started to document what these people had regrets over. And one of their five regrets was caring too much about what other people thought or allowing people to dictate how they were living their life and not doing essentially what was going to make them happy. So worrying too much about other people's opinions and things like that. So if you think about that, that's incredible to me. Also, the five regrets not one is I wish I had a bigger house. Not one is I wish I drove a better car. Not one is I wish I had every Stanley Cup color out there, you know. Not one is I went. I didn't go on these glorious vacations, not to say don't go on vacation. I love them.
Speaker 3:Those are great life experiences, but it was the free things in life that they regret it, but the reality is is when you don't have good control of your finances, it takes away from all of the things that truly are important to you. It really does. For instance, if you want to have a better relationship, get your money in order. I guarantee you it will improve your relationship. You want to be a better parent? Improve your money, I guarantee you it'll make you a better parent. It's just, it's amazing the ripple effect it'll have, and I love that. I love that blog post because it truly shows us like these people live their life. And they're telling us like hey, these are the things that you should be focusing on. And they're telling us like hey, these are the things that you should be focusing on.
Speaker 2:And, sadly, when your money is out of control. It pulls us away from a lot of those things that are the most important things. Wow, I've never read that blog post or heard of it, but it makes sense that like not caring what people think because you might have lived life differently or made different choices, you know, if you didn't think about what Joe Schmo on social media thinks about what kind of car you drive.
Speaker 3:Yep, I can't tell you how many people made fun of me for wanting to get out of debt, because it's such a thing Like what do you mean you're not going to have credit cards? What do you mean? You're not going to have car payments? People literally would make fun of me for it. And you know, I don't know what. At first it was a little weird. Today I'm okay with it, I don't really care.
Speaker 3:You know, the whole thought process of the grass isn't always greener on the other side. I can promise you it is greener on the other side. When you have less financial stress, you will be so much more happier, so much more content. You'll have so much more content. You'll have so much more energy to focus on other things. It is, it is a pretty amazing place to be and, again, these are normal, everyday people who are doing this too. This is want to be clear.
Speaker 3:Man, are these, like the stuff that we're talking about, these ideas that we're sharing aren't reserved only for the people, again, who are making just high incomes?
Speaker 3:I mean, we work with people from all different walks of life, all different types of incomes, all different types of situations and challenges, and it's been proven time and time again that if they just practice these simple things again, the timeline will be different for everybody, because we have we all have our own different types of income and challenges, but the results will still come. It just takes time and I believe, I truly believe that anybody who makes again we're keeping poverty out of it, because poverty is a very real thing. But people who make these average incomes, you know, in typical American incomes, they don't have to struggle and I know again I'm going to say it again because there's this idea out there and I get that it's hard but inflation is stopping people from doing all this. Then I still wouldn't have people coming through our doors saving and paying off seven grand in six months. These are normal people, like they're doing amazing things. So it is possible to still make progress and have less financial stress, even in today's economic times.
Speaker 2:Now I'm curious why? Why will people make fun of you for trying to get out of debt when you first started?
Speaker 3:Because it's weird. I mean, debt is the American way, paycheck to paycheck living is the American way, of course you know. And again, we also throw up our walls in a way when people want to improve, because, again, we tend to associate with people who are in our same circle. And what do they say? What is the? What is the saying? You're the average of the? What is it? Five, six, seven people you hang out with?
Speaker 3:or something like that. Yeah, so when you become the person that wants to become out of that average, you know they want to pull you all back down Right, and so it's a. It's a weird thought Now in today's day and age. When I started back in 2011, social media was around, but it wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is today, and I think the message of financial freedom you know the financial, you know literacy and having good control over your I think the messaging out there today is so much better than it was, you know, 12, 13 years ago, and so I think the idea of it has become more widely accepted than, say, when I first started 12, 13 years ago. Yeah, there were financial people out there, like the Dave Ramseys and the David Box and the Susie Ormans, and some of them were out there that were big on mainstream media, that were talking about some of this stuff.
Speaker 3:But I think social media podcasting, I think the internet, has opened up the window to have normal people like me, people who are living normal lives, who live in normal houses, who drive normal cars, who have normal family life challenges to open up their voice to say, hey look, we are doing this. Well, this is how we're doing it and you can do it too. There's no reason why you can't. And I think that's the biggest difference between like me and a lot of other people like me who teach this stuff and some of these bigger people out there is like we're normal everyday people. You wouldn't be able to pick us out of a crowd. I probably drive older cars than most people do and I do things just much different than most people do, but that's allowed us to maintain this debt-free lifestyle that we live.
Speaker 2:Now I'd love if we could backtrack a little bit. But you mentioned you got divorced around when you were 30 and the house foreclosed. So where'd you go from there?
Speaker 3:So I and this would have been I'm trying to think of the year that would have been 2011,. 2012-ish. I moved out, I ended up renting. I ended up renting for almost nine years after that, I think. Was it nine? Oh, it was like eight or nine years and so I ended up finding a really affordable place to live rented wasn't the ideal location got my life back on track, ended up meeting my second wife and we ended up getting married back in 2014. And that's right around the time. It was 2013-ish is kind of right around that. 2013, 2014 is when I finally became debt free, because I was working on getting out of debt before I lost my house, because I knew it was a bad thing, but it was losing my house. That really was like I really need to start doing this better, right? So I married my second wife and we ended up having I had my son Noah at the time for first marriage and we ended up having my daughter, avery, back in 2018.
Speaker 3:Avery was born with a condition called HIE hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy which is essentially a condition where it's developed because she lost oxygen during birth and it caused a brain injury like 24 to 30 seizures within the first 24 hours of her life, and it was pretty grim at first. In fact, they told us that you know, there's a 50-50 chance she may not even make it or make it out of the hospital, and my wife, sarah, had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, no concerns. This was something that was just a huge blow to us because of how healthy of a pregnancy she had, and four days later, they finally were able to do an MRI on her daughter, and they told us that it's not looking good, she's not going to live a normal life, she'll likely be in a wheelchair, she'll likely be on feeding tubes, she's not going to dance, she's not going to be a normal kid, she's never going to go to normal schools, and they pretty much prepared us for the worst outcome that we could get, and again, huge devastation. And so how money kind of fits into this, though, is that because we had control over money, because we were debt-free. I worked at home, I had started this business, sarah was working from home. She had started a business because we were both debt-free, we both started doing our own thing. It allowed us to have freedom and flexibility of schedule and time to work with our daughter, and that's exactly what we did. We started therapies right away and this went multiple times throughout, every single day, throughout the first several weeks of her being a newborn, and I mean there was a lot of doctor's appointments, a lot of stuff that we've done over the years.
Speaker 3:But fast forward to today. Avery started kindergarten yesterday. She started in a normal school. She's doing great she. Kindergarten yesterday she started in a normal school. She's doing great. She's walking, she's talking, she's dancing.
Speaker 3:We send her up from gymnastics. She's doing absolutely fantastic. She's nothing like what they said that she would be. She does have.
Speaker 3:She was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy, because those are some of the conditions that can be caused from HIE. So she does have some muscle tension and tone in her mostly. That's suffers like mostly in her left hand. So she struggles with fine motor skill movement in her left hand and things. So we do a lot of occupational therapy and things with her.
Speaker 3:And then she also does have a speech delay, which they did tell us that would happen, because if she overcomes so much physically that she's had overcome speech tends to kind of come behind that which we're working with her on speech. But she's also doing absolutely fantastic in that area too. So we're very, very excited about where she's at and couldn't be happier, honestly. In fact, we just went camping over which this, as we're recording this, it's the Wednesday after Labor Day and we went up to a campground and she's like, swimming on her own and four feet of water, diving, getting dive sticks and all sorts of stuff. Swimming on her own and four feet of water, diving, getting dive sticks and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, it's, it's pretty. It's when you sit back and you look at how how much of a miracle it is. It's pretty great to be a part of.
Speaker 2:That's phenomenal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah she's, she's doing wonderful, so we're really excited about that. But, yeah, I mean, but as parents, you know, I mean if I would have, if I would have, if I take this to the money side again if I would have had a gone through this back in my mid twenties in debt, having all the financial problems I was having, I don't feel like she would have been where she is, because we have been fully involved with her entire life. In fact, yesterday, outside of 4k, which she did last year for half days days, you know she'd been with me since she'd been born. I mean, we've spent every single day with her and we did all the therapies with her and we were able to be a big part of that. Not to say that there's anything wrong with daycare and child care programs and things like that, but I don't feel like she would have gotten nearly as much intensive therapy as we've been able to give her as her parents to make sure that she is where she needs to be.
Speaker 3:And money and having control over our money is what afforded us to be able to do that. And again, we're just normal, everyday people. I still make a pretty normal income. I'm not super wealthy, rich. I'm just handling my money different, and it's allowed me to be more present in a lot of other areas in our lives and also be prepared for a lot of you know bad things that are going to come up too.
Speaker 2:It gave you time almost.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, yep, absolutely, and that's something that I will I'll never regret. You know, I look back on all the hard work that we've put in to get our finances in the best place, and it is some of the best work that.
Speaker 2:I've ever done in my entire life, because of how, how much it's given us outside of money. Yeah, I talk about that all the time, how that's the only thing we can't get more of. You could have all the money in the world. You can't buy more time. When your time's up, it's up, you know you got it right. So what would you say was like your biggest mindset shift to help you get out of debt?
Speaker 3:I, I think it was that I would always relate money with more stuff, and it's like you just said it's having control over your money equals more time, and it really does. There's so many people that I've worked with, even in my own life you know, working as many hours as I did. As much as I love work, I also like to take steps back now I'm 45 years old and you know I also like to not work as hard. I also like to be more present with my friends, my family and my partner and my kids, and not be working and doing things. So I think to me, I think the biggest mindset shift for me over the years has been more money does not mean more material possessions. It means more options. It means more choices, it means more time, more freedom, and that's the way I kind of look at things is I have created almost like this filter for my life, when, when I am approached with buying something or an opportunity, I always look at it as is this going to make me have to work more and take more time away from the things that I want to do, or is this going to give me more time? Is this going to help me spend more time doing the things that I want to do. And so I think that's the biggest mindset shift.
Speaker 3:And I think in this day and age and in a society that we live in you know we're such a consumer driven society it's more and more stuff Buy, buy, buy. I mean, a perfect statistic is this is crazy there are more storage facilities, independent self-storage facilities, than there are of Starbucks, mcdonald's and Burger Kings combined. Yes, there are. In fact, there was a statistic a while back. It probably is even more now. But you could put every American citizen under one roof of all the storage facilities nationwide. If they put them all together, you could put every single citizen under that roof and they could all stand with their arms out without touching a single person.
Speaker 3:That is how much storage. So again, you know, and so that's. And again, I'm not saying that everyone uses storage facilities just to store their stuff. I get there's moving situations where you need storage, I get all that. But I think you look at the home sizes. Home sizes have nearly tripled since the 1960s. And what happens when you got bigger homes, you put more stuff in them, right? So again, going back to your mindset, I think that is it More money does not have to mean more stuff. For me, it means more time, more freedom, more choices and more experiences, which I think is really fun.
Speaker 2:You've mentioned how money is emotional. Why do you think it's emotional?
Speaker 3:Well, just everything that's. I mean every purchase that you make, most purchases that you make. There's the emotion there, driven Like when you buy a car. Oh, there's emotion involved. Right, there's emotion in a vehicle purchase. I like this car, I like the way I look in this car, I want people to see me in this car, right? No-transcript, which essentially gets us to spend money, and that's why it's an emotional thing. No-transcript, you can be feeling more grateful, you could be feeling less stress, and so there's a lot of emotion that's driven with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I gotcha Now. So what you say to somebody that has almost the mindset of impulsive spending? Because this is how they basically like, like YOLO, but basically I'm going to spend, impulse spend money, because I don't. I don't know what tomorrow brings.
Speaker 3:This is a tough one because I struggle with this too. Part of my background story, too, is I did lose my second wife, sarah, to suicide several years ago, and I have gone through this mindset shift too of having her pass away at a young age, of you do only live once, your days are numbered, and I have noticed a shift in my spending patterns because of that. But I think there's a balance. I think you need to have a balance of this and I think that's what I want people to like, I guess people who have this mindset of you only live once. I'm not gonna worry about the debt, I'm not gonna worry about the payments I'm gonna worry about I'm gonna enjoy life.
Speaker 3:Now the reality is is man, I used to have kind of. I got out of debt, I focused on this stuff and I enjoy my life a heck of a lot more than I did back then, but at the same time, I'm not consuming more things. I'm mostly taking advantage of more time, more experiences going on, more vacations than I used to, and, again, because I want to have those moments, those are the things that are the most important. It's not the stuff and from a you only live once. It's a struggle, but I think there needs to be a balance in your life of good financial health, good financial habits and behaviors, but also give yourself the freedom and flexibility within your financial life to be spontaneous, to have some of those moments as well.
Speaker 3:I'm definitely not one of these fans of the scorched earth get out of debt, do everything at all costs to do that. I feel like that can work for some people. For the majority of other people it just can't, especially if you've got kids. And so I think there needs to be a balance of we need to get ourselves out of debt, we need to get ourselves in a better practice of creating a habit of saving and building emergency funds and all that stuff, but also, at the same time, we need to live life a little bit too.
Speaker 3:But I promise you you will live life more fully when you're out of debt and you're not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. You will be amazed at how much more present and how much more you will enjoy your life without having to worry about some of that stuff, because, again, it's how much. It's interesting that we will justify that you only live once. So we're going to make this purchase. You only spend about what? Five maybe five if you're lucky 10% of your time actually doing those activities, and then the other 90% of the time worrying about how you're going to pay for some of those things, right, and those debts and those things that you've incurred. So I think it comes down to a balance.
Speaker 2:I gotcha. I'm sorry about your wife. Yeah, I appreciate that. Did that change your habits with money after that at all?
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, there certainly is that emotional. You know, you go through grief and there's some emotional spending patterns that can, that can happen. But because of what I do and because of my background and because I've been teaching this stuff for so many years, I knew it was coming and so I had mentally already started to prepare. Like I knew, like during the grieving process, at some point I'm going to be triggered to buy this or do this or do this, and I, I, I and I did some of it. But I also have put a wraps on a lot of it and and and said no to a lot of it, because I knew I'm not doing this because it's healthy. I'm doing it because it's it's coping with the grief and I don't want to do that. I wanted to find healthier ways to go through that and so I didn't want to cope with spending, because if I just cope with spending, eventually spending runs out and it's now what do we do, right? So I knew, I knew that those types of coping patterns can come up and some of those, some of those things can happen. I mean just coaching other people who have gone through loss and grief, and so I would say it affected me to a somewhat of a degree from a spending habit pattern, but for the most part, no, I still practice the same habits that I've always had and some of the things that we've always done budgeting and saving and still doing the things that I've done.
Speaker 3:Did I pause on some of those things for a little while until I got my head right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, but I think, like you said earlier, time is one of the best things that you give yourself, especially even in my daughter's situation I would say the same thing when it came to Sarah's passing is.
Speaker 3:I got this blessing of time because I had my financial affairs in order, because I had stuff, money put away for these types of events and disasters that can happen, large emergency fund put together so I could take a step back from work, I could focus on my kids, I could focus on me and grieving and healing and moving forward in some way and building this new life that I had to build. So I think time and time again, especially in the bad times of life, this work has served me so well in taking control of my finances and helping us move through some of these things that we're all going to face in life at some time on your show, one of the guests talking about a loss she went through and by not having debt she had the ability to take more time off from work to be able to grieve and just feel the shit that she was going through.
Speaker 2:you know which we don't all get to go through. You know there's so many companies like bereave in time. You get like the wake and the funeral and then you're supposed to be back to work. Yeah, what the fuck is some of that? You know?
Speaker 3:how are you going to write? How are you going to move through something like that so quickly? And you know I did start working a couple of weeks after, but it was very limited, is very limited, and I really put most of my focus into exercising, getting out of the house, making myself do stuff because you can. And again, I know every death is different and how significant it plays a role, but when it comes to a spouse, you know you could put yourself into a hole, into a cave, and not want to come out and I had to force myself not to do those types of things.
Speaker 3:So again, I think if you, if I, was put in the situation again, going back to the May 20s, having to go through the same thing, I can't imagine the financial stress I would have lost everything. I would have lost all of everything that we owned because my she, she made a significant income. Like she, she made more money than me. I mean, we still made normal incomes, but she, you know, again, we still had a mortgage to pay, we still had bills to pay, we still had things right. But if you put all credit cards and car payments and all that stuff that I had back in my 20s like we would have. I would have lost everything but being all my vehicles were paid for and we had money put away. We had an emergency fund put away. We had life insurance that we did all of these things to prepare and because of that it allowed our family to be able to grieve in in the most healthy way that you can and to move through that that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Time like time, I think, is the biggest, biggest thing. Because even regardless how much money you have, you can't buy it. Like it's not a tangible thing, know, like, regardless of what you have for resources, whether you're bartering, whether you're spending money, you can't buy it, no matter what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the one thing I will piggyback on this just get on my soapbox a little bit. If you don't have it from a financial standpoint, go get life insurance, get life insurance. It's I, I can't say it enough. You can get something as cheap and inexpensive as a term life insurance. I can't say it enough. Even get something as cheap and inexpensive as a term life insurance policy.
Speaker 3:And I see this tear apart families and it is so unnecessary. And I get based on your health situation, you may not be able to get insurance, but if you are healthy and able, make it on your to-do list, like this week Get yourself some life insurance. Because, again, if you have someone depending on you for income and you're their means to survival, think about if something happens to me how would my kids, how would my family, how would my spouse, how would these people still be able to survive? And reality is, if you don't have any life insurance, you don't have anything to give them.
Speaker 3:When you leave, things get very hard very, very quickly and I've coached so many people and families that have gone through this and it is heartbreaking to see because it is so avoidable by just getting some proper life insurance put into place. So again, I don't care what kind you get, I would just suggest term because it's cheap, it gets the job done. But if you want to look at whole life insurance policies and things like that, you can. But for most people term term is what it does and go get it. This is like giving your family the biggest hug that you can when you're no longer there, and it allows them to be able to again grieve in the most healthy way possible. I feel move through that process to help them rebuild their lives.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. Now, what would you suggest for somebody who live in paycheck to paycheck, doesn't have much of a savings and is in debt? Maybe they've got a little bit of a budget, they know where they're spending some of the money, but how should they? How should they go from there? Yeah, so, like I said, going back to spending some of the money, but how should they? How should they go from there?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like I said, going back to the kind of, the first actionable item I think you could take is go back and track the last three to six again, maybe 12 months of expenses. Figure out where that is, get yourself on a really good written budget. And budgeting is a learned is a is a learned habit. It's not something that we're just good at. Creating the budget is probably the easiest part. It's following it. That's the hard part. It's actually doing what you've planned to do and kind of keeping your eyes off of all these shiny objects that are out there wanting you to spend money.
Speaker 3:Once you have that done, then it's just a matter of your own particular situation, but in most cases, most people lack a savings of any kind. In fact, the last statistic I had read was about 63% of the population can't handle a $500 emergency expense without going into debt, and that number hasn't changed since like 2017. The number's been about the same. So my suggestion is you're never going to get out of debt. You're never going to improve your finances if you don't stop depending on debt to save you during hard times. So get yourself some sort of a small savings account put together. I would start with, excuse me, of $1,000 to $3,000. And then, once that, $1,000 to $3,000, then you have something to fall back on. You can stop using credit cards when you need a couple hundred bucks for an emergency that came up. This gives you the opportunity to breathe during life emergencies and things that pop up, and then use that money to pay for those emergencies.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense, I gotcha Okay. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you speaking with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? I have, yeah. So he's got a podcast called On Popus and he ends it with two segments, and I end mine with those two segments as well. Both segments are called the Many Sighs to Us. There's five questions and they need to be answered in one word each.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:It's fun. Number one what is one word someone who is meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as Confident? Number two what is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you?
Speaker 3:Authentic.
Speaker 2:Number three what is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Number four what is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would you use to describe you?
Speaker 3:That's a good one, I'll go with cocky.
Speaker 2:What is one word you're embodying right now? Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in up to a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Man, that is a tough one, man. I'm stumped. There's so many of them. This is hard. Time is limited, so don't waste it.
Speaker 2:Why is that the best advice?
Speaker 3:Because it's true Absolutely true, okay, fair enough?
Speaker 2:Number two what is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Oh man. Well, since we talked about money today, I would say you only live once. Go into debt, take the payments.
Speaker 2:Okay, Number three what is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 3:Again, going back to what we said today, I would say stuff and just having things.
Speaker 2:Okay, number four if you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone were reading it, what would you want it to say?
Speaker 3:I would say in short that I provided value and helped people improve their lives.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh One law.
Speaker 2:Good questions, I know.
Speaker 3:These are good man. I would say just don't bully, Be nice. I think that's why is because you just you have no idea what people are dealing with on the inside. You have no idea what someone's gone through, what their life history has been, and it doesn't cost you anything to be nice. It doesn't cost you anything and it can be life-changing in so many ways to that other person. So, yeah, that's what I'd say.
Speaker 2:Okay, I like that. I like that. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Now, where can the listeners connect with you?
Speaker 3:absolutely yeah. If you want to find out more information, I think one of the best places that you get started is checking out our podcast, every dad podcast. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, but you know, if anything that triggered you today of, hey, I want to hear more about this stuff, learn more about this stuff and we have five hosts on our show and we put out two new episodes every single week and we're all normal everyday people on the show, and I think that's the thing that I want to really drive home is that normal everyday people are still winning and taking control of their finances and any paycheck to paycheck living, and you can too.
Speaker 2:We also have a lot of free resources and workshops right on our website that you can check out too at deafreedadcom Awesome, well, thank you so much, and I love how you emphasize that y'all are everyday people, because I completely relate to that, so I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. Now, before we close out, I do always like to leave it to the guest Any final words you want to share with the listeners. Always like to leave it to the guest Any final words you want to share with the listeners.
Speaker 3:I would say, just kind of piggybacking on what I just said, is that there is hope out there. Like I said, finances right now are the number one source of stress. They typically rank in the top three, but right now, with the way expenses and inflation is over the last couple of years, they've definitely have been number one. Like I said, you can get out of debt, you can improve your life, and it takes time. It takes a lot of hard work, but the tools, the resources are out there and you're willing to do the work, you too can eventually reach financial freedom. Whatever version of that you want it to be, you can have that opportunity.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you so much Again. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:And thank you, guys for tuning in to another. Hey guys, before we wrap up this episode, I wanted to take a second to highlight some of the most powerful points from my conversation with brad nelson. We talk so much about how to break free from paycheck to paycheck living, to why financial stress affects literally every area of our lives, and even how to start teaching kids about ways that they can save money and about money in ways that actually make sense. Now, if you're thinking, okay, that all sounds great, but where do I even begin? Don't worry, I've got you. I'm about to break down simple, actionable steps you can start using to take back control of your money and give you more peace of mind in your life. Let's dive in. First of all and this is key know where your money is going. No more guessing. Go back through the last few months of your bank statements, credit card statements, venmo, paypal, anything you use to send money or to receive money. You might be surprised and even a little horrified, but awareness is everything you know. Even like Brad mentioned in the episode, sometimes we don't become aware of where our money is going until something catastrophic or something negative happens to force us to. I didn't create a budget in my life until I lost my job back in 2023. And I didn't have awareness of where my money was going. You know I talk about awareness guys in every area of life, but if you are not aware of something, you can't change it. If you don't know where your money of something, you can't change it. If you don't know where your money's going, you can't change and spend it or budget it differently.
Speaker 2:Second, build a mini emergency fund. It's so small. Brad mentioned $1,000. Even starting with a few hundred is a game changer. But when life throws something unexpected at you, maybe you run into a car issue and you need to replace something. If you have $500 in an emergency fund, that's debt you don't have to use. It's now your. I'm not going into debt for this fund. It'll make a difference. That's the second actionable step. Third, budget without the bullshit. Let's be real here. Budgets can feel restrictive, but they don't have to Use what you've learned from step one to create a budget that works for you and your life. It will likely take a few tries to create this budget and to stick with it, so don't beat yourself up if it's not perfect right away.
Speaker 2:Next, ask yourself what do I really want? Forget what everyone else is doing. What kind of life do you want? What's important to you? Use that to guide your financial decisions, whether it's saving for a dream trip, cutting back on impulse buys or just having some peace of mind. It is knowing what you want your life to look like, and not what society thinks you should. That fancy new car maybe that is meaningful to you. Maybe it's not. Maybe that trip that you want to take your parent on, that you never got or imagined you'd be able to do Maybe that's meaningful to you. What do you want? I don't know. You got to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Next, balance is everything. Brad said it best. You don't have to go full force and cut out all of the fun from your life. Be intentional. Find the balance between enjoying life now and setting yourself up for a less stressful future. Brad even emphasized not denying yourself an enjoyable life, but also having the balance of not getting into debt.
Speaker 2:Next, teaching what you learn is really key. If you've got kids or younger people in your life maybe it's your nieces, maybe it's your nephews start having those money conversations. Maybe it's your nieces, maybe it's your nephews. Start having those money conversations. The younger you are when you understand this stuff, the easier it is to break the cycle and make smarter financial decisions. Brad and I talked about how a lot of these money conversations were not being had when I was a kid, when he was a kid, because our parents didn't understand. But if you understand something about money, about finances, teaching that to the younger generation is how we break this cycle.
Speaker 2:Lastly this hit me hard, but remember money buys options. It doesn't buy happiness. It's not about the stuff or the paycheck. It's about the freedom, the time, the choices, the choice to have the time, as Brad and I talked about, to take care of our loved ones. If you get sick, being able to utilize that time. When you've got that under control, life feels so much lighter. And here's the thing when you start managing your money and being intentional with it, you will feel the weight lifting off your shoulders and you'll realize that it's not about having it all, but it's about creating a life that works for you. So take that first step, no matter how small, and start building toward a future where you have the freedom to focus on what really matters to you.
Speaker 2:I really hope you enjoyed this conversation. I hope it helps you have less financial stress. I hope it helps you look at money in a new light, and I'd love to know what is that one step? What is that one step you're going to take? One step, what is that one step you're going to take? We tend as people, as human beings, to be more intentional and act upon things when we have some type of an accountability buddy that we are checking in with. So, reach out to me. I'd love to know what is one actionable step you are going to take from this episode.
Speaker 2:You can find me on social media the Breathing Goddess or Amanda's Mindset. Well, thank you guys. So much for tuning in to another episode of Amanda's Mindset. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd really appreciate it if you left me a rating, left a review and shared this episode with anyone you think needs to shift their mindset around money. Thanks guys, until next time. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
