The Financial Habits That Can Change Your Life with Johnny Bohan - 118

[00:00:00] Money buddies, Robo savings, tracking your expenses? Let's talk about those great habits and more in today's episode featuring Johnny Bohan. Welcome to Money Talk with Skyler Fleming, where you learn what you weren't taught in school. Let's get talking. We're back. Money Talk with Skyler Fleming is back.

[00:00:16] We're back as a podcast. I took a break for a couple of months and was trying to decide what I wanted to do. Did I want to do more on YouTube or what? Did I want to keep doing the podcast?

[00:00:25] I wasn't quite sure. It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to do. I recorded a good handful of YouTube videos and then I ultimately realized that

[00:00:34] that's not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to sit there and talk to myself and do a camera. I realized the real fun in doing this was talking to other people about money.

[00:00:44] So that led me back to the podcast because a podcast allows you to sit down with someone for 20 to 30 minutes and have a conversation with them. And I liked those conversations when I got to talk to people about

[00:00:54] their money. And about their money journeys, their money ideas and different techniques and things like that. That's where this show was really fun. So that's what led me back to podcasts. But what's the future? What's the future hold? Well there's definitely still some changes in

[00:01:07] store. I want to do more YouTube, like I mentioned in previous episodes. I was seeing a lot of growth on YouTube and that's what I want to keep doing is growing this podcast and growing the show.

[00:01:17] Because we can never have enough people talking about money. We need everyone to talk about so that's the whole goal behind this show. So I'm going to work on creating more content on

[00:01:25] YouTube. So if you're listening to this on a podcast player or on YouTube, make sure to hit over to YouTube and click subscribe so that you can get all my content in the future over there as well.

[00:01:34] But I'm excited to continue with the podcast. In today's episode we're talking with Johnny Bowen about how small habits can change your financial future and can really change your entire life.

[00:01:43] It's a really fun conversation that we got to have and I hope you enjoy it. We're going to talk about the importance of where you currently are, understanding it and why that's important. Why you shouldn't do this all at once? Roboing your savings, what a money buddy is,

[00:01:57] tracking your expenses and a whole bunch of other things in this fun conversation. So make sure to sit back and enjoy this conversation because it's a fun one. It's going to be a great one

[00:02:06] about financial habits. The money talking points for today's episode are, what small habit can you do over the next three months? And two, who can be your money buddy? With the money talking points in mind, let's get right into today's episode. Hello everybody. Welcome to today's

[00:02:30] interview on Money Talk with Skylar Flaming. Joining me today I have Johnny Bowen and we're excited today to talk about some financial habits that can change your life really for the better.

[00:02:39] And it's going to be a fun conversation today. Johnny, would you go ahead and introduce yourself for everyone? Sure, Skylar. Well, I am a, I'm a dad of three millennials. I'm a certified financial

[00:02:51] planner and I top personal finance and college for a couple of years. And so I got to a point where I thought, you know, maybe I should just put all these unconventional wisdom down on paper for

[00:03:03] somebody. But I try to do in a humorous way knowing that my kids necessarily want to accept what I wrote. So I try to incorporate some of these some good anecdotes that will teach you some good habits.

[00:03:15] Cool. And include a little bit of that dad was them that you gained and make it a little bit fun to read, right? Oh, you. Well, you know, wisdom or just being

[00:03:23] circling the sun for quite a while that kind of helps give you a few things that you've tripped over. Awesome. Well, I'm excited for this conversation. I'm excited to hopefully learn some new

[00:03:32] habits and help our audience gain some new ideas. I kind of want to just start out the gate here saying, why is it important that we understand our current situation before we make a financial change? Why do

[00:03:43] we need to know where we are right now before we can figure out where we want to go? Well, you know, I kind of related to, you know, I live in Colorado and I kind of related to, you know, if you're

[00:03:53] going to go on a hike, you're not just going to wander into the mountains and hope you find your way back to the park and lot. And certainly you're going to look at the trail map and you know,

[00:04:02] you're going to figure out where you are and maybe where you're going to go and hopefully how to get back. And, you know, personal finances no different. You know, unfortunately there's so much stuff on social

[00:04:11] media in the TV for the the older folks like myself that is screaming at you of what you should do. But in reality, we're all a little bit different. And, you know, it's just common sense. If

[00:04:25] you don't know where you are today, you know, how much you have, how much you spend, who do you owe? You know, just the basic things then how would, how do you start investing? You know, how do you

[00:04:34] start being down debt? You know, what's the right place to push your money off if you don't know where you are? So it's, it's pretty basic common sense. But it's awfully hard to do.

[00:04:45] Yeah. And I've heard that kind of description of you make sure you look at the map and stuff before you go anywhere else. So why don't you do it with your money? I've heard it described as if you're

[00:04:54] trying to drive from Los Angeles to New York, you're not just going to start driving down the road. If there wasn't signs around and things like that, you may get there but it would take you forever.

[00:05:02] So you kind of got to figure out where you're starting. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and you don't think about it. You know, I, I am an advisor so I do get a lot of questions and random questions too

[00:05:13] from probably more from friends and family that, you know, just say, hey, what should I be doing now? And I'm like, I don't know, it depends. You know, I know nothing about you. And so I put the same

[00:05:26] for all of us who are trying to do it ourselves is, you know, if you have a basic understanding of again, you know, what do you own? What do you owe? How much money is coming in and then really,

[00:05:37] what are you spending? You know, then you can start to make some better informed decisions. Yeah. Figure out where you're at and then it all kind of gets a little bit easier. So

[00:05:47] it's a good place to start. So let's dive into some of the things people have thought about where they're at. Maybe they're struggling in debt or something like that or they can't quite

[00:05:56] make ends meet or a whole host of all sorts of different financial struggles that everyone goes through from time to time. Let's talk about some of the habits that maybe they can implement

[00:06:05] to change that future a little bit. What are some financial habits that you've seen that can really impact someone's future going forward? Well, kind of going back to starting with, um,

[00:06:17] you know, and just call it maybe it's a balance sheet. You know, you figure out again, what what stuff do you own? So do you have a car? Do you have a condo? Do you have a vintage ukulele that you

[00:06:28] think is where something? You know, what do you own that somebody else might pay you for? You know, that's a start. And then who do you owe? You know, do you have a car payment? Do you have a

[00:06:39] mortgage? Hopefully you don't have any credit card debt, you know, those type of things. So again, finding out where you start and then again, you can make some hopefully more informed decisions going

[00:06:52] forward. And I don't, I don't think you need to check that every day because we don't want to. And unfortunately certainly each week, but heck right now, the start of the year is a great time

[00:07:03] to just put together that statement of what do I have? And I don't care if you're 22 or 72, you know, starting out and then you can compare it, you know, each year in hopefully the numbers

[00:07:16] are trending in the right way. But it's, it's awfully hard when you're, you know, recently at a school, 20s, 30 new family. But I think the first habit is, and maybe it's just on Sunday night,

[00:07:30] you know, you set up that first document again gathering what you, what you have. And if you just checking out at once a month, now people do it a couple different ways, you know, people might

[00:07:42] just jot it down on a piece paper, certainly you can put together an Excel spreadsheet. There's plenty of, you know, software systems that you could probably get like mint.com and so forth.

[00:07:55] But I bet your credit card company probably has a tool that you could use for free. And if you're being smart with your plastic, you can pull all that stuff in. And so I think

[00:08:07] one good habit is just, you know, check in. Just check out where you are at least once a month. Yeah, that's a great one. And once you start, I think you're getting that looking at your net worth

[00:08:19] is kind of the the big word that you would use with it is figuring out what your net worth is. And I really like what you said about your credit card company probably has some sort of

[00:08:28] tool that you can put your numbers into and stuff like that. And honestly, most credit unions do too. They all have the same back end tool that you can access through their website where you can

[00:08:39] even connect your other accounts. So it'll kind of do all the math for you for free. So then you avoid another subscription that you maybe don't need with a random app that you hardly ever

[00:08:48] check, you can just send your credit union to keep it all there for you. What do you think? What do you think the value is in tracking that when you're looking at it? Because I think it can be

[00:08:56] huge towards getting your mindset and the right direction. Well, you know, right now we just been talking about kind of your assets and liabilities. Again, what do you have? And who do you

[00:09:04] owe? But you know, in addition, so let's say that you are you're being pretty diligent. You're putting most of your purchases on your credit card. But you're paying it off every month because

[00:09:15] by God we know you should and you have to. And I always say if you don't have the money to pay it off each month and you probably shouldn't put it on a credit card. Use your seven done. I understand

[00:09:27] but if you're pulling in all that information and then you start to see where you're spending your money, obviously. You know, COVID changed it a lot for us, but I think we were probably

[00:09:38] ordering in more food over COVID. But over the last couple of years, certainly we've all started to travel a little more if we can. So you just see where your expenses are going.

[00:09:48] And then if you can start to track that, and again, it's the easiest thing to do. The easiest habit is to control your spending. You can't always control how much money you're going to make,

[00:10:02] but you certainly can control your spending. And I know we can dive into that a little bit more. But we all have financial obligations, but that discretionary money that goes out the door, you can decide how much you want to spend and curtail that for sure.

[00:10:20] Yeah, I think tracking, honestly when people get a little fearful of the word budget, like you mentioned it in the act, like it's a four letter word sometimes. But I honestly think before even budgeting, you got to start tracking and that that can be automatic with these tools

[00:10:35] like we're mentioning. Maybe you use only use one credit card so it's all tracked there for you. There's probably a breakdown where they take those codes that the merchants use to categorize your

[00:10:45] expenses and you can probably look at it automatically to see what everything is. And that that little bit of tracking can really unlock just in your mind saying, wow, I spent so much money on

[00:10:55] eating out like you said during COVID, that one up maybe it never came back down. So just look at your credit card history, look at your bank accounts and see if it'll do that stuff for you

[00:11:04] automatically and that can take a big bird and off of you and make it a little less overwhelming. But you mentioned spending, it's something that we can control and once you start tracking it,

[00:11:13] you get in a little bit more of that control. And I think that'll probably tie into our next question about being a cheap skate. You mentioned it in one of the chapters of your book. It kind of carries

[00:11:23] a negative tone. I know if my wife calls me a cheap skate, it's maybe not a good thing. But how can it be beneficial? So if your wife calls you a cheap skate, do you appreciate that or you offended?

[00:11:35] I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure. Usually I appreciate it. It's like, okay, I'm doing the right thing. But yeah, you know, it's funny when I was putting the other book a good friend of mine is a

[00:11:47] professor of personal finance at a university and I've said him kind of at a bank copy this summer, I said, hey, take a look at it. And he said that he goes, well, you know, that cheap skate

[00:11:56] work can have a negative connotation. I said, absolutely, that's the goal. So I view it. Now, obviously, I'm from a different generation, but kind of as a badge of honor. You know? And so

[00:12:10] I relate some stories when my kids were little and we would go to Sonic, you know, driving and it had to be during happy hour because from two to four in the afternoon, you get a half off

[00:12:22] your drinks. Right? And that's just, and there's a story where we actually waited 15 minutes, you know, to get in line to save probably a buck and a half as my son points out. And so the

[00:12:34] reason I go, you know, call it overboard into that cheap skate territory is again, we can really make a difference on our spending if we evaluate every dollar that goes out the door.

[00:12:47] Now, you and I know folks that they say they are terrible with money. Well, they just don't want to put a whole lot of effort into it. And I would argue nowadays it's easier than ever. You know,

[00:12:59] if I'm going to go buy a pair of tennis shoes, well, I'm probably, I can shop online pretty easy and never leave. I mean, I know my size. I know shoes that don't fit great, but I also know my

[00:13:09] size. And then I'm going to go to multiple size to find the best deal. So I think although some folks certainly want to be called a cheap skate, if you can pattern your life to try and evaluate each decision,

[00:13:24] you know, and I go further by saying, and that's just, and I call it knowing your burn, you know, how much money are you burning through, call it each month? And that might be hard for

[00:13:33] some folks. So you just kind of back it down to the week. And how much am I spending on food, rent, utilities, and then beer? I don't know. You know, all the major categories. And if you

[00:13:46] really know that, then again, you can kind of control which way you're going to lean one or the other. And I am very cheap in some areas, and then not so cheap on others. You know,

[00:13:57] if we're going to travel, I'm not going to state the Firestar Hotel, but I don't want to state that one star hotel, and neither does my wife. So, you know, we want to enjoy some of those

[00:14:08] experiences, which I know is, is changed quite a bit over the last several years. Awesome. I think for both of us, it sounds like it might be our wives helping us keep

[00:14:18] off of that too far of the side of being a cheap skate. And that's good. Yeah. That's what I'm about to, that's about to bring up. Is there a point where we take it too far? Like,

[00:14:29] it's staying in only one star hotels and doing all those things that are really like, you're going through the bottom of the barrel to try to get the cheapest deal. Is that, is that a problem or should people be doing that to save all the money they can?

[00:14:41] Well, it's fair question. You know, obviously we've all heard stories of that, that old guy that worked at, you know, we worked at Walmart for 60 years and he never

[00:14:51] spent a nickel. And then all of a sudden he passed away and he gave $4 million to all of his co-workers, you know. And that's fine. If that's what makes people happy great. You know, have I driven an extra

[00:15:04] five miles to save two cents on a gallon of gas? Absolutely. You know, is that the smartest way to do it? No. But you know, I think evaluating if you are saving money and then really taking it the next step

[00:15:19] is what are you going to do with that money? You know, if you have a dedicated savings account, all right, I'm just going to make sure if I can save another 50 bucks a week or 50 bucks a month

[00:15:29] or 500, well, if I'm dedicating that to a certain bucket, then I'm pretty excited after a year two. Well, now I've got some money in there and reward yourself. You know, so to your point,

[00:15:43] you can be cheap all you want. And again, we all have demands on our money with retirement emergency savings and then as you start to have kids at any number of expenses. But certainly, if you

[00:15:55] dedicate the money to a certain bucket and you see it grow, and maybe that's your travel bucket. You mentioned I'll just jump in quickly on the budget being a four-letter word and that's why

[00:16:09] I kind of steered it towards you think of it as your travel money. You know, so, you know, my kids they're all in their mid 20s travel a lot more than I certainly ever did and maybe have to this point.

[00:16:23] But that's where they like to spend their money. They didn't want to buy a car, they haven't needed a car but they wanted to travel and so in order to travel efficiently and effectively you

[00:16:33] have to budget your money. And so for a lot of folks, that's a one way to do it. If you have a final destination for that money then it makes it a little bit more enjoyable to actually get it done.

[00:16:46] Yeah, I think that what you just said honestly, you kind of wrapped the couple things we've been talking about so far into a nice bow is you got to figure out where you are

[00:16:54] or if you're just being a cheap skate everywhere, you're never really going to know what's going on. You just seem like you're being cheap. So you got to figure out where you are, where you are,

[00:17:00] start tracking things and figure out where you want to go, and then those cheap skate behaviors can start to funnel you in the right direction. And then hopefully you get it back off,

[00:17:08] being a cheap skate a little bit and you can have some fun once you start building up those goals and things or you keep it going and you just drive that momentum and it just gets faster and faster.

[00:17:17] Now I will admit, I don't want to I'm the very good tipper. You know, so I'm not the guy who's going to leave a waiter at Wachers High and Dry and I also don't want to be that cheap skate that

[00:17:30] when you know the bill comes to the table and also I get dinosaur arms and I'm not going to actually you know go after the bill. So from that's the end point, you know, am I going to order something

[00:17:40] on the menu? You know, maybe I don't need a beer or a Coke, you know, water is fine, whatever it is. Is that being cheap skate? Well, no, I'm just not ordering something because I don't I don't want it.

[00:17:50] However, it doesn't mean you need to be cheap with folks that you should be tipping, you know, do you have to when you go pick up food that you ordered online and you walk in to get it,

[00:18:02] do you need to tip them 25 or 30 percent? No, you know, can you tip them 10 or 15? Absolutely. In 20 if you're feeling great, you know, so however it feels is fine but yeah, Chiefscape,

[00:18:15] that work could get out of control if you were. If you really watch in the book when selling probably deserves a, you know, a pattern. The extra. Yeah. And I think there's definitely ways to save money when you're buying things, but when you're getting a service from someone,

[00:18:31] I think that's where the I think that's where the negative connotation of cheap skate can like be true. If you're being cheap on tipping and things like that, but if you're just going after a sale because it's a product that's on sale or nothing wrong with that,

[00:18:43] say just an extra money and put it where you want it to go? Yeah, awesome. I want to talk next. 20 or chapters talks about a money buddy. What is a money buddy? Can you explain that a little bit

[00:18:53] more for everyone? Yeah, you can probably guess what it is. You know, I think this time of year is when we've all gone back and rejoined the gym and everything and figured out,

[00:19:03] we got to get rid of that. Those holiday illbies and so obviously going back into the gym or your exercise routine or, you know, maybe you know, you had a dry January and which might

[00:19:18] made it about four or five days. But whatever you're trying to accomplish, obviously having a buddy certainly helps. You know, for myself, I like to to cycle a lot and so having other

[00:19:34] people that are ride with kind of keeps you in tune also it kind of helps when you crash on your mountain bike and someone can pick up your phone and call someone to come get you. So that buddy

[00:19:45] that you might have as a workout buddy is pretty self-explanatory. Obviously, just came up with a term money buddy for a similar reason. For some reason, we all grew up not talking about,

[00:19:58] you know, as taboo to not talk about religion, sex, politics or money. I don't know how money got lumped into that, but yeah, that's the least crazy of the course. Exactly. And I think the

[00:20:10] I think the money category, I think it's opened up quite a bit more with, you know, with the Gen Z and millennial generation, I feel like that group does talk much more, you know, about your

[00:20:22] incomes, your savings, things you're running into. And so having a money buddy that is in a similar situation doesn't mean you make the same investment decisions. Doesn't mean you're making the same

[00:20:34] income, but maybe you have the same issues of paying down your student loan or whatever. So what I propose is, you know, get together again with that money buddy and maybe it's that once a month.

[00:20:46] And it can be, it can be a coffee, it can be a beer, it can be just a text. I do think your money buddy is probably not your mom, you know, because your mom's going to let you off the hook. If you don't

[00:20:59] do it, she's like a dry Johnny you're close, but a money buddy still can't hold your close. So, you know, a money, it's pretty self-explanatory. I think that can help someone more than

[00:21:10] anything else. And if you're in a group and there's five or ten people, it's probably too many. But if it's one, two or three of you, fantastic. Great. That was going to be one of my questions

[00:21:24] is do you think there's, do you think there's value in these large big groups like a Facebook group or something like that? Are you really going to get the accountability you need or do you

[00:21:31] think that one on one to two or three people is that sweet spot? Yeah, I mean, I certainly think it's just a couple of folks because then you have that interaction with a person and again,

[00:21:45] you know, maybe they were trying to find a new travel credit card. You know, and you were just talking about the pluses and minuses and we we can all find all the information 247. But if there's

[00:21:56] a way that you can talk with someone about some other things, they already found, well then that certainly helps. But I think if you get more than two or three people, you know, you're probably

[00:22:07] going to lose touch a little bit and it's hard to really hold somebody accountable. And I think the other thing of that is, and I've had certain groups like that before try it out for

[00:22:19] three months or four months. And if you find out that other guy or gal is just worthless then punt move on. And if they aren't maybe you are, you know, so but I think you try it out and then

[00:22:34] you have that agreement up front. So hey, let's try it for three months and if it's not working or let's just reevaluate so you can be honest and see if it helps. Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you're

[00:22:43] moving through money buddies once a month, maybe you're the common denominator. Yeah, I get a look on the mirror in that one. Yep. Do you think a spouse could be a money buddy? Or do you think maybe each

[00:22:54] spouse needs their own separate money buddies to talk about money with? Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's well inherently they are a money buddy. But, you know, obviously what's the most common

[00:23:07] you know, cause a divorce that's usually money, you know? And so that usually happens because there is no discussion of money. So, you know, I think you absolutely have to have that conversation and

[00:23:19] again, it can be once a month. There's one of the spouses is more interested in this financial stuff than the other. If you're both very disinterested then hire someone to help you, you know?

[00:23:32] And you might hire someone anyways but one of you is more interested, you know, either husband or the wife and so that's fine. Just figure that out. I think the it's okay that they have conversations

[00:23:45] and should with other people in similar situations. We all have friend groups that are probably similar to how we are. Yeah, you can compare notes and then you take it back to your spouse to

[00:23:56] make sure you're on the same page. Awesome. Well, you're speaking, you're speaking my language. That's the whole my whole thought around the podcast is that we don't talk about it enough. So, your money

[00:24:05] buddy idea, money buddy. Yes, I said that right. I keep thinking we're saying money buddy and I'm getting hungry for a snack. So, there we go. Awesome. Well, we're speaking the same language here. I love talking

[00:24:17] about money getting people to talk about it more. But let's move on to maybe one of the things that I think goes in line with your, your talk on being a cheap skate and funneling that money towards your

[00:24:28] goal. And I think this aligns with the well and that's row bowing your savings. What does that mean? Is it is it in the vein of automation? How does that go? For sure. You know, um, we'll for example right now

[00:24:41] and this has evolved over the last couple of decades. But um, right now if you join a new company that has it's a decent sized company and they have a retirement program called a 401k.

[00:24:52] Most of those companies now when you're going through your HR sign-up, you are automatically signed up for a 401k and they've also added the feature over the last couple of years to add basically negative

[00:25:06] consent, which means not only you signed up but now you're also contributing probably 3% of your paycheck to the 401k. And furthermore, now it's contributing to a target date fund which is coincide

[00:25:21] with when you could possibly retire 40 years down the road. The reason those were all put in place is because we were not doing it on our own and what happens is okay well they automatically

[00:25:33] roll you up. We'll grade well people didn't put in a percentage. Well now we put in a percentage. Well then people left it in cash. Well now they put it in investment so all of that has been done

[00:25:42] just to take that decision away from us. So if you look at Robo savings and then the goal is to increase those percentages each year, right? Um, as a certified financial planner you know I'm always harping on

[00:25:55] people is like investing is actually really easy if you have decades to do it. But what happens is we get in between our ears were worried about interest rates, were worried about geopolitical events, were worried about all these things that could affect our portfolios and the long run

[00:26:15] they have little effect. And the short one certainly they do have effect. So Robo your savings is to take your emotions out of a little bit and obviously you just figure out what can you start with?

[00:26:30] So let's say that you have, let's just forget about the investment side. Let's just say that you have a savings account, you know they're not paying a whole lot at the bank but maybe it's

[00:26:39] something that you get at you know at a custodian and then money market fund and you just put in $500 and then you add $50 every paycheck. So it's just running parallel with your retirement

[00:26:52] program. So you got your retirement program put in money each week or each paycheck and then the same with Robo your savings. When it comes out of your paycheck automatically every time you don't even

[00:27:03] know it and eventually you just won't even think about it. And obviously after time maybe there's something there that you can start to invest in a little bit more diversified allocation but Robo your

[00:27:15] savings is pretty much put in on autopilot and then you still have to revisit it every so often because maybe you can contribute more or maybe you got a bonus and you should dump that in there too.

[00:27:28] It's just kind of taken your brain out of the middle of it. Yeah I love that because I think honestly direct deposit is the superhero of the financial world because you can automate it to

[00:27:38] go to those different routes. So if you had that savings account that didn't have access to it immediately like you don't have a debit card or something and it's going in there automatically.

[00:27:47] Odds are you're gonna forget about it and your lifestyle is gonna adjust naturally to make up for the difference. One of my favorite things is from the book automatic millionaire he talks about that

[00:27:56] idea of 6% to 7% is such a small adjustment your 401k. You might notice it that first paycheck but your lifestyle is gonna just immediately adjust and you'll be just fine. Like you'll you'll figure

[00:28:07] it out. You'll figure out where to cut back automatically just just make those contributions and keep going automatically. Love that that's that's fantastic and I love the idea of target date funds

[00:28:17] keep it simple figure out not where to put your money but how much can you put in and just keep it super simple at the beginning and you're gonna be fine especially like you said if you have

[00:28:27] decades to invest if you're just starting your first career and it's your first ever 401k just get some money in there and let the market do its magic. You know don't overthink it and it's kind

[00:28:38] of like again going back to the you know you know workout routine you know and for me if I'm gonna go on a bike ride the hardest part is getting ready and get down the bike you know once

[00:28:48] you go for a couple miles like oh well this is great why don't do this earlier so a hardest part is getting started in like you said once you can kind of you know add to that keep on it and then

[00:29:01] really not think too much about it you know you should be fine down the road. Fantastic how do people make these changes last we've talked about things like tracking your expenses we've talked about getting a money buddy we've talked about all sorts of different things

[00:29:16] tiny little habits they can implement starting with their 401k all sorts of different things how do they make these things last. Well I do think probably one of the best ways is probably with

[00:29:27] the money buddy you know so if you have someone who is you know tell them hey here's three things that I want to start doing this year I want to robos some more savings I want to start you know

[00:29:36] really tracking what I what I make and what I spend each month and what you make might not be overly complicated certainly what you spend is something that you got to track so I think having a

[00:29:48] money buddy can can help quite a bit but like anything I think you put it in small chunks you know you put it in let's just do this for three months and see how we do you know I forget

[00:30:02] the statistics and you probably know better than I do but you know creating a habit and how long that takes it has been written about you know all over the place and getting started is very difficult

[00:30:13] I think people are so nervous about you know quote the markets that they're like I don't know where to start so they just don't you know and again you you put it perfectly if you start to put

[00:30:25] in a certain amount of your paycheck you know when you first get out of college or you're in your early twenties and you have your first quote real job you are now making more money than

[00:30:35] you've ever made in your life at Domino's you know so you're you're knocking it out of the park and if you start to have a significant other and you're sharing finances well now you can buy

[00:30:44] that now you're making you know more money than you've ever made however now we got cars and houses and kids and student loans and I get all that so certainly getting started but I would say

[00:30:58] a money buddy and three month chunks you know and then you just you just adjust. Awesome yeah if anyone needs something motivating to get started early it's look up look up there's a lot of different things that explain the difference between investing from 20 to 30

[00:31:14] versus investing from 30 on and how you can have more money only investing that short window then starting later so those those are really motivated really quickly but we're about at time here so this has been a really fun fantastic conversation I encourage everyone to share this episode

[00:31:30] and listen to how your friend listen to it and then ask them to be your money buddy think that'll be a good plan absolutely how can people find you learn more about you find your book how can people find

[00:31:40] yeah a couple of ways certainly my my website is just Johnny P. Bowen, P. as in Patrick Johnny P. Bowen dot com and then on on Instagram but not another lecture is his name of the

[00:31:55] Instagram that I did not do but someone did it for me so we started to post some videos and what we try to do is just address a lot of the questions that you know millennials and and

[00:32:08] the younger generation are facing and kind of you know post some simple answers and hopefully some entertaining ways fantastic well there's a lot of questions out there hopefully we answered some of them

[00:32:21] on this episode today Johnny thank you for joining and of course everything of yours I'll link in the show notes and yeah it's fun fun getting to chat with you about this is really insightful conversation thank you

[00:32:30] for coming on all right thanks Skylar's lot of fun thank you so much for Johnny for coming on today's episode but how can that interview that you just listened to impact your life well I can really

[00:32:50] attest to the fact that those habits will change your life like I said in the interview tracking is one of the biggest things you can do it's really a great first step and honestly something I

[00:32:59] recommend before budgeting you got to know where your money's going before you can figure out what you want to do with it couple of quick episode references in case you liked what you heard in today's

[00:33:08] episode one of the great ones to listen to is my episode of Paul Merman we talked about the target date fund in that one a little bit more so I know we touched on it in today's episode but if you

[00:33:17] want to hear a little bit more about it and hear Paul Merman's take on it go check out that episode with him a couple more that I recommend our episode 10 episode 44 and episode 85 those are

[00:33:28] about simple investing or automating your finances which go hand in hand with row bowing your savings and some of the simple habits that we talked about in today's episode so how can this impact you today

[00:33:39] well if you started today you're going to change your financial future forever because compound interest is the best thing since sliced bread so get your money going and working for you today with that automated investing that we talked about put your money automatically into your 401k and just

[00:33:53] let it get going for you and let it build that momentum next I want to talk about the money talking points so we have two great money talking points come from today's episode the first one is what

[00:34:11] small habit can you do over the next three months well we talked about a few and there's definitely a lot more out there but I think one of the most beneficial ones can be a money buddy having someone who

[00:34:20] can help keep you accountable or if you have someone you talk to about finances consider row bowing your savings take a look at where your direct deposit is going do you have a 401k at work

[00:34:29] and are you taking advantage of it make sure you're doing that because there's a lot of potential that comes from that the second money talking point is who can be your money buddy well i'm happy

[00:34:38] to be anyone's money buddy if you want me to i'm happy to email back and forth and talk to you about your financial goals and keep you on track i'm more than willing to do that so if you want

[00:34:48] a money buddy and you don't have one shoot me an email at money talk it's gatherfilling.com but I hope you have someone in mind who you can help them keep accountable and they can help

[00:34:56] you stay accountable to your money goals and reach out to them with this episode say hey give this a listen what do you think of the money buddy idea that they talked about in the interview

[00:35:04] and then ask them to be your money buddy i think you're gonna really unlock a lot of fun things you get to do with your money when you're staying accountable and you have someone to help you do

[00:35:12] but let's wrap up today's episode next thank you so much for listening to today's episode the podcast is back and it couldn't be more excited for it i'm excited to keep talking to people

[00:35:21] i have some great guest lined up we have some great topics coming up so make sure you're subscribed on whatever podcast player you listen to and on and head over to youtube and subscribe

[00:35:29] there for more great content but the podcast is back and we're in full swing the habits we talked about today they can have a real impact and they can have a real impact quick but give yourself three

[00:35:41] guests it out for three months see how you like it and a job i would really recommend you handle your financial life in three month increment because you're not gonna find something that's

[00:35:49] gonna make you rich today but you can definitely find habits that'll make you rich far into the future if you just give them some time to make sure whatever you're gonna try out give it at least

[00:35:58] three months and then send me an email how it went or reach out to johnny and let him know how it went but thanks again for johnny for coming on this episode of course you can find his contact information

[00:36:07] in the show notes and you can find his book in the show notes and anything you need to be able to reach him i really appreciate him coming on today's episode and i hope you enjoyed our interview today

[00:36:15] like i mentioned earlier i'm willing to be your money buddy if you need one to help you stay accountable true me and email moneytalk at scatlerflaming.com and we can sit there and chat about your

[00:36:24] money goals and i can help keep you on track but thank you to everyone for listening be sure to subscribe and please share i want to continue growing this podcast and that's one of my main focus

[00:36:33] like i said we can never have enough people talking about money don't please share this episode with the friends so we can continue grow do you have any questions or feedback about today's episode

[00:36:42] i would love to hear it please leave a comment on youtube or send me an email at moneytalketscatler flaming.com you can also leave any feedback at scatlerflaming.com slash contact look forward to hearing from more people maybe i can get your questions get some feedback on how

[00:36:55] to improve the show and we can keep talking about money together but thank you for listening the money talk with scatlerflaming i'm your host scatlerflaming have a great week thank you for listening to money talk with scatlerflaming this show is provided for

[00:37:07] information and entertainment purposes and may not be specific to your unique situation please be sure to do additional research before making any financial decisions