10 Tips for “Adulting” with Money - 192

Welcome Money Buddies to this week's episode of Money Talk. This week we're talking about budgeting, adulting with money and essential tips. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming, and let's get talking. Today we're gonna be discussing a list of 10 money lessons from an article that I found on CNBC. The list is great and I think that it's gonna help a lot of you listening today. It was super helpful for me to review in order to ponder how I'm implementing these various tips with money. So make sure you have a money. Talk about today's episode. You'll often hear people say that adulting is so hard or that nobody taught us how to be adults. So I wanna go through a list with that idea in mind. What are some tips that you can use as a young adult or just getting started with money that can help you get on track and stay on the right track. We're talking about negotiation, learning and money. My favorite thing, intentionality goals, and much more. Today. They all intersect with your wallet. So I hope your wallet is ready for a real boost after today's episode because this is going to be a good one. And a quick reminder that episode 200 is coming up. if you're listening to this, I need you to text me with the link in the show notes or send me an email or comment on social media. I need your questions. We have about eight weeks left until that episode comes out, and I need your questions. I'm hoping to do an a MA episode for episode 200, so please send me any questions you have, send them in soon so I can get a great answer prepared for each and every one of you. I want to talk in Skyler's story time today about some recent vacations and intentionality, because that's gonna be a topic in today's episode. My wife and I recently went to City of Rocks camping. We went to Great Basin National Park. We have a family reunion. We have a trip to New York City coming up. We have a trip to Portland coming up. How are we able to do this and save for these ahead of time and prepare? How do we afford all of these trips that I just mentioned that are in like an eight week span? Well, that is something that you have to be intentional about. We save for quite a while. We have a regular monthly vacation budget That thankfully we're in a financial position to have, so it makes it a lot easier because we just save money every single month and then through October till March, when we're not going on vacations, we're just building up that savings and it really helps make these trips a lot more affordable. we set budgets and specific dollar amounts well ahead of time. If we know we want to go to New York City or some big trip in a couple years, we'll start saving for it now and doing some research now to get an estimate. That's how we afford it, and we plan all these trips on our own. And we do that with a lot of intentionality, some specific planning meetings for things like this. Now, my wife and I don't have kids, and I know if you're saying, oh, if you had kids, it'd be a lot harder to plan, and maybe it would. But I do hope that our intentional habits carry over into the future so that we can still continue to plan and have fun trips like this. But that does it for Skyler's story time. if you have something that you wanna suggest as a topic or a question that you want to bring on the show. Or if you have a scenario that you'd love to get some answers to, please reach out. I'd love to have a listener on the show to deep dive into your financial questions. And like I mentioned, I'm working on an Ask Me Anything episode for episode 200. So make sure to send in your questions, and I'd love to answer them on the show in a few weeks. this week's money talking points are, which of the 10 tips would benefit you most? Second, what does intentionality with money look like? And third, what do you do if your friends have different financial goals? With those many talking points in mind, let's get talking. Okay, So let's jump right into these 10 items, and I hope you enjoy this one. I know I did writing it and thinking about it, so make sure if there's one that stands out to you, you take that and have a money talk about it. But first, the number one thing is to identify your goals, values, and desires, separate from your friends and social media. The key thing is to not chase what everyone else is doing. It says, apart from your friends and apart from social media. Everyone else may be trying to buy a house or fancy cars or things that you don't feel there's value in, so don't spend your money on what everyone else is spending it on. Make sure to spend it on what you really want first. For example, Rebecca and I we're not too interested in buying a house right now. That's an expense that a lot of our friends are considering and saving towards. And it's okay that we don't want to do that right now. And it's okay if you don't want to do that right now. If something feels uncomfortable, that is a good sign that you may wanna wait and not force it. Really ask yourself, is this something we want to do or is this something we just feel like we have to do because of our life situation? The key example that I have, that's a very popular one among our demographic is housing. I used to be a lot more driven towards saving for a house. It was something that was always on the back of our mind and our budget meeting agendas. We were seeing a lot of people around us get a house or build a house, and then we thought through all the things that we enjoy about our renting situation, the ability to move, not being locked into a specific place, the ability to not have to pay for repairs of appliances and things like that. And then we realized we don't need to be saving for a house because it's just not a goal of ours right now. You can overcome those traditional beliefs or forced financial decisions, and you can rely on your own situation. Think about it deeply. And figure out what works for you and what you want to spend money on. So how do you identify your goals? The first thing to do is to write them down. Well, I guess that'll be the last thing to do after you think through your goals. But the first thing to think about is make sure you're prepared to write them down, because if you don't write them down. you're just gonna forget about'em. So brainstorm and dream a little bit. What do you really, all caps really want to do? is there some business idea you're really fired up about that you really want to do? Is there some savings goal, some vacation? Maybe you do want to buy a house and that's a goal of yours, and then figure out something you really don't want to do. Maybe you really don't want to rent anymore. Maybe you really don't want to go on vacation, and you'd rather use that money towards a down payment. Maybe you really don't want to drive, so you put some goals towards an e-bike and things like that. These are great ways to figure out what your goals are, You wanna make sure to write down your goals so that you have something to look back to. Write down your thought process about the goals so that you can put yourself back in the same head space. you'll do a whole lot better with actually sticking and maintaining those goals. So how do you identify your values? this can be a great opportunity to review your spending for the last few months, it can be an easy way to identify where you're spending your money, and then you can consider, do I value the money that I spent there? Do I value the experience that I got outta that money? Do I value the items or things that I bought? It can also be a great way to figure out what you don't value. And what you need to stop spending money on because it's just not in alignment with your values. Maybe you spent a ton of money eating out and you don't really value that. You just remember it being loud, cold, dark. And you didn't really enjoy all that money you spent eating out. So now you realize, oh, that's not a value of mine, and you can stop spending money on it. Start with just one month and potentially categorize three months worth of expenses. I think three months is enough And I promise that this alone will be a life changing process for you because you'll easily realize where you do and don't enjoy spending money. It'll be very quick and simple to say, yeah, I enjoyed spending that money. Or, no, that money was not worth it. And you're gonna naturally figure out your values just by looking at your spending. And of course, there's values that hopefully go beyond money for you, but this will be a good way to get yourself started and you need to make sure these are your own. Aside from social media, aside from friends, you don't want someone else or some other marketing department running your life. You need to figure out these goals and values on your own. And if it's something pushing you in a certain direction like a marketing ad, or your friends or family. Then maybe you need to take a pause from it. Consider the 24 hour rule or a one week rule to truly think about something outside of the marketing, sales and external forces that are pressuring you to purchase something, you'll realize pretty quickly if you do or don't want it, if you can go a week without it, then you'll probably say, I actually don't need that. Or you'll realize you truly do want it because it's gonna keep coming up in your life where it's like, yeah, I wish I had that item. And you'll move down the path to set a goal towards that item or align your values with it. That does it for the first point in this list. We got nine more to get to, so let's keep it moving. Item number two, compound interest is your best friend. So start investing now. And my wife and I were benefiting greatly from starting to invest just a few years ago. I cannot imagine how it's gonna look 10 to 20 or 30 years from now. So start investing today. If you don't know how. Schedule a money talk with me using the link in the show notes, and we can get some money in the market for you, and I can show you how to set it up. It's very easy. Now let's talk about the rule of 72. It's a favorite one of mine. It's a rule to figure out how long your money's going to take to double. you take 72 and divide it by your interest rate. that will tell you how many years it's gonna take your money to double. So let's do an easy one with 10%. You would take 72 divided by 10, 7.2 years to double. if you can maintain an average of a 10% interest rate over 7.2 years, your money's gonna double. Now, imagine if you could get your money into an investment at the s and p, which is likely going to earn a higher rate over time, your money would double even sooner. And then the magic really starts happening with the second, third, and fourth. Doubling your money doesn't just increase by the same amount every 7.2 years. Let's run an example of this. Say you start with$2,000. In seven years, it's$4,000. In seven more years, it's now$8,000, and then suddenly in seven more years, it becomes$16,000 and just seven more years, it's now$32,000 just by doing nothing. Now, imagine that with a$5,000 or$20,000. With that doubling, I hope this helps illustrate why you need to get started with investing. If you're listening to this right now, you need to get started with investing right after finishing this episode and sharing it with a friend. You could earn even more if you're investments are earning a higher rate of return, it'll double even faster. What if it doubled every five years? Then after 25 years, it's doubled five times. Not just added that simple doubling the first time, but each amount is doubling. That's the power of compound interest, Start investing today, the saying goes that the best time to invest was yesterday, so the second best time is today. make sure you get that money in the market. that does it for the second point about compound interest. It's your best friend. Get it on your side and get it working for you. The third point here is gonna be intentional with your money. It's one of the greatest things you can do with your money. Be intentional with it. know where your money is going and why it's going in that direction. Do you desire spending more money on vacations? Then be intentional with saving for vacations and you can truly enjoy spending money on those trips. Do you enjoy shopping? Then be intentional with shopping for things that are a good value and a good deal that'll last. Do you enjoy going out to eat? Be intentional with setting that up as a goal. The main point here is that if you're intentional with your money, all the fun things that you wanna do in your life are completely okay, and they're a whole lot easier to do. Do you wanna retire early or take many retirements like we talked about a few episodes ago with Jillian John's root? Then you need to start investing today, which is the previous point we just talked about. So just rewind it, listen to that segment again, and start investing. And if you're intentional with all of these, the goals will become easy. Write down one month spending is a great place to start. It brings us back to point number one. Once you can figure out where your money is going, it's a whole lot easier to direct it intentionally for the future. So just start with one month and then work back to three months. Start investing and then be intentional with your money. It's gonna get a whole lot easier. But we still have seven more points to talk about. The fourth one, talk to everyone about money. The more you talk about it, the more comfortable you get. Now this point is made for this podcast. I have been talking about money on this podcast for just shy of four years. I have talked about money with so many various people. I've heard ideas that I don't agree with. I've heard ideas that I've put into practice in my own life. But without talking about money, I don't know where I would be with most of these ideas. My life would look completely differently without this podcast. Sure, you don't have to talk about it as much as I do to the point of running your own podcast and financial coaching. But you can talk about it more than the average person, because the average person hardly, if ever talks about money. You need to talk about it more than that, but if you can talk about it frequently, that is a great thing because the more you talk about it, the easier it becomes. Start with my free resource, the money Talking Points at Money talk.show/resources, and that can help you get conversations started. Here's a sample conversation of how you could get this started. Say you're talking to a friend and now the next time you're with that friend, you're gonna ask, how do you feel about debt? That's one of the money talking points on that free resource, and this is gonna be a great and enlightening conversation where they say. I actually love it. I think it's a great tool. I get it out at low interest rates. I never really pay it off. I just pay the minimum payment. I arbitrage the interest rates by having a higher interest rate with my investments. So I let my debt just sit there and I pay it off casually. I don't really worry about it because I know my cash flow is good enough because I have a steady, secure, nice paying job. And you're listening to this wondering. Would they love debt? That's crazy. Why would anyone love debt? But that is the fun you can have with money talks, is you hear all these different sides of the coin because then you could come back in this conversation and be like, that is interesting and maybe a little crazy. I hate debt. I cannot sleep at night when I have debt on my brain. If there's an auto loan out there or some sort of house renovation project. That loan just eats me up at night and I can't stand it. My mortgage is 3.5% right now and I still wanna pay it off early. And then your friend goes, why would you do that? You can invest at such a higher interest rate. Can you see where these conversations can really bring about some good perception, changing potential? Because maybe you talking to this friend, you're now like, wow, should I be paying my mortgage off early? Is there potential for my money to make more and my mortgage to essentially be free because the interest rate is so low that I'm making more than the interest I'm paying, the real conversation there is the math versus behavior, and each person can take a different side of the coin on any of the money talking points in the guide. So start talking about money. Download the free guide. And start with something simple and easy from those money talking points. And then from there you can incorporate your own financial situation into the questions that you have. And if you wanna talk about money with someone, even if it's just one of the money talking points, I'd love to have a chat with you. Perhaps you want to come on the podcast and we can work through your money story or a couple of those money talking points, that would be phenomenal. So if you're listening right now and you're feeling that urge saying, oh, that'd be kind of fun to talk about money, please let me know. I'd love to have you come on the show. But remember, if you text me, make sure to include some way for me to reply to you. the fifth point here is learn to negotiate. This can be tricky, but once you learn that everything is negotiable, you're more willing to ask questions. You don't even have to ask questions to the point of trying to make a deal for yourself. You're just better at asking questions about, Hey, how does this work? A perfect example of this happened yesterday. my wife and I have a punch pass to our local ice cream shop, it says. One small cone or larger, and she wasn't quite getting a cone. She was getting a milkshake, but it's technically more expensive than the small cone. So my wife was willing to negotiate and say, Hey, does this count towards our punch pass? And they said, sure. It's more expensive. That makes sense. Maybe we get to our free cone faster, right? But if we're not willing to negotiate in our lives, we don't ask questions like that, let alone ask questions about How can I get a raise? Can I get a raise? I need a raise. Once you learn how to negotiate, you're not afraid to ask questions about pricing deals, raises or otherwise. Also, don't be afraid to ask for discounts. Maybe something's a floor model, and that's a great way to get a discount on an item. Don't be afraid to push the boundaries if you think something is adjustable. To get a desirable outcome for both parties, ask questions. Learning to negotiate can be a huge skill beyond just getting a raise or negotiating a contract We're picking up our pace here with this list as we're moving towards the end of it, but we're about halfway. So let's review the five points so far. First, identify your goals, values, and desires, apart from your friends and social media. The second one is compound interest is your best friends. So start investing now. The third one is be intentional with your money, and the fourth one is talk to everyone about money. The more you talk, the more comfortable you get. And then the fifth one that we just talked about is learn how to negotiate. Let's get on with the list and talk about number six, advocate for yourself. If you don't understand something, ask. This is in the same vein as negotiating. Ask for help, especially with money, but really in all areas. If you don't understand finances, there are so many great podcasts like this one. That'll happily take your questions like me for episode 200 I'd be happy to cover them on the show or reply to you if you leave your number in the text message. But don't be afraid to not accept something that isn't quite right. Don't feel like you have to agree something just because you're young or you don't quite understand what you're getting into. this is the perfect reason to slow down and take a deep breath, especially if you don't understand what you're getting into. That is your warning to stop and ask questions, because if you don't understand it, It's likely that the person on the other side of the deal understands it a whole lot more, and they know exactly what they're doing, manipulating you into the perfect deal for them. But number seven, learn from your mistakes. You're going to make mistakes and it's okay. Learn from them. Missed questions or mistakes or opportunities to learn and do better next time. These podcasts and resources online are a great way to learn from other people's mistakes. Create some sort of review process for your mistakes. This can be super helpful. Figure out what went wrong, figure out what there is to learn about it. Figure out what you need to do going forward, and avoid the mistake and apply what you learned going forward. the key is to be prepared for mistakes and understand that they will happen And then boom, your process goes into place and you really work through it. We're not immune to messing things up, just learn and move on. A mistake that I've made before and talked about on this podcast is focusing too much on the math with Rebecca's student loans. I was very much the friend that wanted to play the math game. And arbitrage those interest rates and make more money on my investments than the interest rates. And so with my wife's student loans that she got while she was in PA school, the interest rate was fine. It was below that gray area where you would want to pay it off quickly. So I was willing to say, let's just make that minimum payment, invest money and make up the difference over the long term and let the loans pay out naturally over their 10 year time horizon And my wife was not okay with that. She knew for her these loans represented a requirement to work. not that she wanted to quit work as soon as they were paid off, but she knew she had to work, as long as those loan balances were still outstanding a 10 year plan felt very overwhelming, and maybe a little bit longer than she wanted to continually work. Maybe she wanted a mini retirement in there, or a break or something along those lines. So there's really two sides of every coin with every decision and learn from these mistakes and move on. And now I know that when we're approaching debt conversations, I need to be a little bit more on the behavioral side of things and acknowledge that maybe we do wanna pay it off faster than the math tells us to. That does it for point number seven. Point number eight, surround yourself with people who support your money goals. This is permission to ditch those friends who you feel keep making you spend money. Just tell them the activity is not in the budget, and Blame Money Talk like, yeah, this Money Talk podcast tells me I can't do these things. Now feel free to throw me under the bus. And you could even say that your friends aren't in your budget, but that's pretty petty and rude. You don't have to ghost your friends, but maybe you need to find new ways to hang with them that don't drain your wallet. Join the Money Buddies or a community of people with similar money goals, don't shy away from participating in groups online. I've been a lifelong lurker online and I'm pushing myself more and more to participate and engage. it's turning out to be really helpful. I'm able to contribute some good ideas to people. They're saying thanks and that they're really considering what I'm thinking and telling them, and it's really fun. So consider participating in online groups, money buddies or accountability partners. Those are a great way to keep yourself on track with your money goals. And now you're probably thinking, what if I don't wanna bail on my friends, or leave them completely, or just completely ditch'em? Well, think about this. What if you need to? If it's a really bad situation, you may just need to pick and choose what conversations you're having with them. You may have learned that asking your friends for financial advice just leads you down a crypto covered road that you don't really want to go down. So maybe you are stuck on index funds. Great choice, by the way, and you don't wanna invest in crypto. Just choose to not have those investing conversations with those friends. stay away from the conversations that are leading you down the financial path that you don't want to go. Now, yes, you just heard me say don't have money talks, but it's really situational. I would say money talks overall are better than worse. And if you know your financial situation. Even having a money talk that leads you down a crypto covered road can be helpful. It can help you consider a different perspective, but if it's just always leading you down towards spending more money on stuff on Amazon or Walmart that you don't really wanna buy, then maybe stay away from those conversations. But number nine. Find free or low cost hobbies and activities that you enjoy. My wife is the best at this. Free things are the best things, and they can still be so fun. They're often city or county or neighboring city events that are a low cost or free way to have fun. My wife is a Facebook events fiend and finds all sorts of fun stuff for us to do. and honestly, we're hardly ever paying for admission to most of these things. She'll just throw small little things on the calendar that keep our schedule busy and keep us having fun. We don't have to constantly go through the pain of planning giant trips and fun events when we have all these free little activities scheduled and scattered throughout our summer, spring, and fall. Free things are highly underrated. Check with your library or your city's website for event calendars, and I would encourage you to try new things. Sure. I'm not a super fan of every single thing we do, but I always have fun. And if one of your values that you defined earlier is community or spending time with family, then free activities can be a great way to hit both of those. But number 10, this is the final one here. True wealth is about more than money. Wealth is not just about your net worth. Wealth is about enjoying your life. Wealth is about the opportunity to do things you want to do, when you start doing anything with your money, you're gonna have more and more opportunities than you could ever dream of, If you apply a couple of these lists, you're gonna have more opportunities by the end of this show than you would imagine. I can attest that money gets super fun when you start working on it and being intentional about it the stress disappears because you gotta have fun with money. So what does wealth mean to you? Send me a text message. I'd love to share some on the show. What does wealth mean to you? Click the link in the top of the show notes. That does it for the 10 items about adulting with money. Let's go through all 10 of them real quick here, and then we'll wrap up with the money talking points. First, identify your goals, values, and desires, apart from your friends and social media. Second, compound interest is your best friend. So start investing now. Third, be intentional with your money. Fourth, talk to everyone about money. The more you talk, the more comfortable you get. Five. Learn how to negotiate. Six. Advocate for yourself. If you don't understand something, ask. Seven. Learn from your mistakes. Eight. Surround yourself with people who support your money goals. Nine. Find free or low cost hobbies and activities you enjoy. 10. True wealth is about more than money. That does it for the 10 tips for adulting. Next, we're gonna move on to the three money talking points for the week. The first one is. Which of the 10 tips would benefit you the most? I think I would benefit the most from tip 10, understanding that there is more than just money. When it comes to wealth, it's more than just numbers or your net worth. There is opportunity. I have been learning this over the last few years. I used to be super focused on the numbers and net worth, but wealthy is kind of like the word joy. They're a leveled up version of the words that you would normally think as synonym. Joy is kind of a leveled up version of Happy and Wealthy is kind of a leveled up version of Rich because there's opportunity behind both of those words. The second money talking point is what does intentionality with money look like? For me, it's being specific with our goals. It's writing down where we want our money to go, and it's understanding that it's okay to spend money on things that we truly do want. Make sure that you identify what you truly want. Intentionality means that you know what you want and that you are going after it. Now, what do you do with this third money talking point here? Have a talk with your friends or just yourself or your family. What do you do if your friends have different money goals? Well, don't stop being their friends. I was being kind of sarcastic when I said you just ditch your friends and tell'em they're not in your budget. Don't just stop being their friend. But understand that you may have to make sacrifices in some areas with that friendship. Maybe your friend is super early into early retirement and doesn't ever want to go out to eat. Then you have to accept that you won't be going out to eat with that friend. Or find a free or super cheap activity that you could do with them. Maybe you could have a picnic instead where you say, Hey, instead of going out to eat, could we both contribute some money to buy some bread and meat from the grocery store and have sandwiches? Or you go to the deli and find a cheaper option. But the same goes for your friends. If they just want to spend money and always eat out, and maybe you're the one that wants to retire early, you may not be able to go to every restaurant night out with them, and that's okay. Maybe your presence can become sort of a special treat every once in a while, maybe once a month. your friends, may also appreciate you standing up for your money beliefs, and it may help them break a bad spending habit that they didn't realize was even possible So if you're standing up for your own money beliefs, it may empower your friends to say, yeah, I want to do that as well. I spend way too much money eating out or shopping Thank you for showing me that it's possible to not do that. These are all great money talking points for this episode. So make sure to have'em with your friend, and as you're having a discussion, send me the questions that come up for episode 200. But let's wrap up this episode on 10 tips for adulting with money. I think that these are certainly a chance for you to change your finances and potentially your life. There's one big theme for me, and it's being intentional. It makes all the difference, whether it's saving for a trip or choosing to spend money on purpose. Doing it intentionally removes the guilt that we so often feel with our finances. You don't have to have it all figured out right now, Baby steps. Take it one step at a time and work through the learning. If you make a mistake, that's okay. How else would we learn? Figure out what went wrong. Course correcting. Keep going forward. Money gets a whole lot more fun when you start talking about it more and being proactive with it. Start Your Money Talks today by sending me a text about one of the 10 things that stood out to you. I'd love to hear from all of you and make sure if you have any questions, send them for episode 200. thank you for listening to today's episode. The best way to stay up to date and connected with All Things Money Talk is to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email list. Head over to Money talk.show and submit your name and email. on the homepage and use the contact page to send me any questions. if you're looking to get started with budgeting, a great tool is my budget coach, and I'm a coach on the platform, so you and I can work directly together. Remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about today's topic with a fellow money buddy. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Money Talk. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming. Have a great week.