Ep. 188 | Budgeting Mistakes (with Ramit Sethi)

and minimalists hello everybody welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less my name is Joshua Fields Milburn Ryan Nicodemus is actually down in Florida taking care of his grandma right now but that's okay we ever meet safety in the building in the studio how you doing outstanding how are you I'm doing great thank you for being here today thanks for having me so so we're gonna talk about some stuff today you have a book it's 10 years old now congratulations and second edition is out it's called I will teach you how to be rich I will teach you to be rich oh there's no how in there that's important because here's the thing actually that's perfect because I accidentally inserted some words into this title in fact I was a bit turned off by the title of the book years ago because I realized I was placed on my own judgments on it because it was we think of rich what do we think about we think of filthy rich I will teach you how to be filthy rich as opposed to I will teach you how to be rich or I will teach you to be rich I found myself inserting some words there now what was the impetus of of writing this book and we're gonna dive in some questions here in a moment but can you talk about why you wrote this a decade ago and why was it time to revise it at this point the reason that I wrote the book was I had been writing a blog for years I started it when I was in college and the reason that I started the blog was that I tried to teach my friends about money in college and nobody came nobody wants to go to an event about money it makes him feel bad about themselves and so I started writing a blog and I wanted to write a blog as if you and I were sitting here just like we are and we'd be talking about the cheap friend we've got who doesn't never tips and what do I do with two thousand bucks I've got sitting in my checking account and what are all these investing things people talk about I started writing it making it fun I started learning and after I had done that for several years I treated my blog like a lab an experimental laboratory so I was studying human behavior in psychology and all the money advice out there is very academic keep a budget don't spend money on lattes it all sounds nice on a piece of paper until you actually tried in real life and I didn't want to live a life where I was counting pennies for the rest of my life so I started this blog started treated like an experimental lab and after several years I built a system I loved systems that's scaled what that meant is I could spend less than an hour a month on my money it was going where I needed it to go and at that point people kept asking me the same questions like the same 20 questions okay what do I do with my money what's the best savings account blah blah blah tell you the truth the reason I wrote the book was I just wanted to hand it to him and be like read this like you're the answers to your five questions and the 15 you should be asking read the book guys you know now with with this book to be rich means something different last night we went to a book launch event that you had in West Hollywood and we sort of did this roundtable where you asked everyone like what is their rich life and it's fascinating because quite often when we think of rich it's what I just said is like what is filthy rich and you think of opulence you think of unnecessary splurging on things that probably aren't going to add value to our lives and what I really liked is you went around and asked people what their rich life was and some people were like it means I can go out to dinner once a week or it means that I'm able to put my kids into a private school or whatever it might be and everyone has a different idea of what a rich life is yeah I think you're a hundred percent right that the tight look I don't know if I'd name this book I will teach you to be rich again I picked it when I was in college and I was sober when I picked a name but it was a punchy title and let's be honest if you take a look at a book called I will teach you to be rich with this huge text on the front I'm not surprised that a few years ago you said s not for me because I didn't like to me rich was almost a turn-off because I walked away from a corporate world personally where I was making good money I was Austin still be rich although I was broke man I made really good money I was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in Dayton Ohio and I met I was living paycheck to paycheck I wasn't actually rich I was irresponsible with the funds I was making by the way I wasn't spinning on things that brought me greater joy happiness I certainly didn't feel like I was living a rich life completely understand and and so what happens is you start doing maybe you're doing well maybe you're in debt it doesn't matter what your financial situation is a rich life is correlated although not identical to how much money you've got I was rich before I had money I grew up with two parents in America I went to a great college and I made great friends I was rich back then then I added money to it now money we should be really clear money is an important part of a rich life but it's a small part it's it's in many ways an amplifier I think it's an amplifier I think so I think there's this phrase there's so many phrases in our culture that reveal ourselves and one of them is money changes people and listen to how people say that money changes people such a disparaging tone you know what of course money changes people it should change people it should make you be able to dream bigger than you ever thought it should make you be able to take something that you didn't enjoy doing or doesn't add value and remove it from your life or delegate it from your life or simply make it go away money should change your life but the common perception is that if I made a million dollars I'm gonna start blowing it on this and that and that doesn't have to happen that reveals a profound lack of trust in yourself I know I always knew and I know it now if I made 10 times more than what I make today it's not like I'm gonna go blow it on a bunch of Ferraris that I don't care about I bought a four-door Honda Accord when I graduated from college like I'm a sensible Indian dude but I know that I knew that if I made more money I would be able to dial into the things that value that I value things like relationships for example I brought my wife and I brought our parents along with us on our six-week honeymoon we could talk about that yeah at for part of it not for all of it for the first week and then we're like have a nice time and also you've updated the book to talk about relationship advice with respect to money totally and that is another area where as you accumulate money which again is just a small but important part of a rich life you can use it to craft your rich life with your partner or with your parents or with your friends my dream when I started off was just to be able to order rounded drinks for my friends and not have to worry do I have enough money in the bank that's a rich life and then as you make more money your dreams can get bigger so yes money does change people but it should and you choose where where and how it changes you it is an amplifier when I say amplifier I mean it can amplify your bad behaviors true and/or it can amplify your good behaviors right we often talk about tools and technology is one of those tools but a fairly crude analogy is like if you have a chainsaw you can use it for all kinds of really good things like oh my god this trees about to fall on my neighbor's house let me protect them by by cutting the limbs off or whatever or you can use it to chop your neighbor in the tiny little pieces it really depends on on how you use that tool and money is a tool I also think that we we we unfortunately treat it as if it is the most important thing in our lives and then of course we want to swing away from that and we pretend it's not important at all hundred percent we have a very paradoxical culture which is extremely unhealthy on one hand it's so puritanical people are using words like money changes people or money's evil to the root of all evil that's not even the real quote but that's what people repeat and if if they made money they had to step on people to get there all these phrases that we grew up with but on in last night you were you actually had people so when you think of money what is the first thing you talk about I heard words like anxiety or debt embarrassed and bare struggle yeah and then a few people were like security or flexibility oh yeah we had a couple yesterday that used my book and my material and there were a couple and they said we love that we can decide hey we want to go to Paris next week let's go that is a rich life to them and that's flexibility so it's so interesting that in our culture we talk about all the negative things about money but nobody sits down and actually talks about the real positive ones notice by the way that the minute you start talking about the positive people will immediately drift into the negative they'll go like this you go what good money do for you what's your rich life and people will say oh I could travel it's not like I need to go first-class everywhere it's not like I need this or that they start by saying what they don't want we love to define ourselves by what we don't do and what I would challenge people with a rich life is to define yourself by what you do what you want and then work backwards from there isn't it fascinating how one person's rich life is another person sort of misery right yeah I know for me I really dislike travelling and and so I think about these people were like yeah if I just had a million dollars I could travel the world I'm like if I had a million dollars the last thing I would want to do is travel the world with that and that was what was so fascinating about the event last night is people it wasn't this that you put specificity behind what a rich like this let me ask you this what is your rich life my rich life is to be able to never have to make a bad decision because of money specifically never have to work with someone that I don't like or that I don't respect if that's the case goodbye like they don't work with me anymore and that could be an employee a vendor person place I get coffee from that's it it's to be able to travel for one month per year with my wife and it's to be able to create a family trip with my whole family at least once every couple of years where we just kind of really enjoy bring the nephews and nieces with us so those are the things that are my rich life but I have to tell you that Epson flows over time okay well like when I started out 22 years old it was to be able to order appetizers because I never got to do that growing up as a kid then it was like oh I moved to New York I want to take the train excuse me I want to take a cab during summer cuz I don't want to walk into a meeting dripping with sweat I sweat a lot look at this body hair I sweat a lot and then you know your dreams get bigger right so then it was for example with our honeymoon this was an interesting example that I didn't even realize how small I was thinking so my plan when we got married was I've been saving for a honeymoon for a long time one of the things I talk about in the book is the difference between the wealthy and everyone else is the wealthy save before they need to so I've been saving for my wedding when I was in my mid-20s even though I never met my wife until I was in my mid and same for a honeymoon engagement ring all the stuff that is predictable but you just don't quite know when it's gonna happen and I show how to do that with these automated savings accounts so we had planned like let's go on a seven or eight days Safari that was our plan sounds like an amazing honeymoon I've never been there and we sat down with a couple couple of couples and we told them and they were a bit older and they'd been married for a while and they said oh that sounds amazing when we went on our honeymoon we took six months off and my wife and soon-to-be wife looked at each other like who the hell are these people and then they a couple necks it was like we took a year off and we walked out of that dinner we thought they were just normal people like you or me but we walked out looking at each other like our first reaction which is the common reaction when you hear someone spending time or money in a crazy way you say that's ridiculous but then the second place we went was this this amazing place called what if what if we did that what if we just spent a year abroad and we didn't want to do a year but we it kind of blew my mind and it's ironic because I teach people how to dream bigger and how to execute bigger whether it's money career psychology entrepreneurship and we started to say what if we did that and so that we were now living in a place of imagination so we started saying six weeks let's make a list of all the places we could go and we're really bad at geography so we plotted them on Google Maps they're like all over the world like okay okay let's dial it back six weeks and independently our dream which we kind of came to on our own was let's bring our parents with us so let's bring him to Italy Italy safe everybody loves cheese right and like we can take him to the Vatican it'll be beautiful so we brought them and what was amazing was her parents never even had a passport so it was a big deal we brought them with us we created these magical memories that you know we will never be able to experience that exact thing again and we loved it and then we went on to Kenya India and Thailand so that was our rich life for that moment in time and we just absolutely loved it we're gonna dive some more into the book we do have some questions today that I want to - today we're gonna talk about earning income we'll talk about managing money we'll talk about financial willpower and that's something that you talk about we're gonna talk about some budgeting mistakes and I think we may even disagree on budgeting a little bit in the word budgeting yeah I think I think we might disagree on that a little bit we're gonna talk more about what it means to live a rich life and so let's dive into some of these questions here our first question is from Rene in Oklahoma City so I have 125 dollars a month today and I would like to have a recommendation for me wrong on what is the wisest way to invest or save 125 dollars every month now this word budget is almost a bad word for you it's like the worst four-letter word now I I'm a bit of a disciple of Dave Ramsey we went out on tour with his his team last summer so and I agree with probably 99% of what he talks about then the 1% I disagree with our opinions by the way I think were you and I are going to disagree today if we do are actually going to be on our own opinions we're not gonna disagree about facts I don't think right and there's a fact here the Renee hat has 125 dollars a month to save is that effect exactly oh that's a question right is it a fact because what I would say is well if you have a budget maybe you would have more than 125 dollars a month to say so let's talk about that okay I'll tell you we I love healthy disagreements so I'm pumped I love it and I think that for people listening it is very revealing because there are sometimes facts that you know that are just cut and dry and then a lot of times there are different ways to look at the same thing so I don't like budgets for several reasons number one they don't work when people you talk to any American and they know they should keep a budget and yet they don't and why is that because number one it makes people feel bad about themselves and if there's anything Americans are good at it's avoiding feeling bad number two they don't know how much they owe or how much spend but they know it's bad and so who's gonna go through the work of actually riding down this stuff or opening up some account and then looking at it they might do it for one month they may do it for two but after that it's done and I've seen as consistently through my own millions and millions of readers what I prefer is something that is similar but very different and that is instead of looking backwards at what you spent look forward and say where do I want my money to go and so what I do in the book is I recommend some specific percentages here's how much you should be saving here's how much you should be investing and this one people really love here's how much you should be spending on guilt-free spending you want to buy a leather jacket you want to go out to an amazing dinner awesome be my guest so I want people to not necessarily look backwards in their spending but actually look forward and as part of that focus on the things they love as part of their rich life that is much more motivational it also sticks a lot more than every month looking at what you spent and feeling bad it sounds to me like what you're describing is a budget and so maybe we're just using different vernacular in a way because I know an app that is really it's it's Dave Ramsey's app that every dollar app which I think sometimes we just don't know where our money is going right and I think what you're talking about when you say looking forward is like okay how if I'm making 2,000 I'm bringing home $2,000 a month how am I going to best spend this money right and it sounds to me like Renee is saying okay well have that mm I have $125 left and now she's asking what well what the hell do I do with this money I think they're similar but I don't think they're exactly the same so if you talk to someone who keeps a strict budget and they track where they where they're spending it I bet you they're really good at knowing how much they spend on groceries every month or how much they spend on their car payment but if you ask them where do you want your money to go where do you want to be in a year or three years what are your values that are being represented through your spending they will suddenly get very quiet because it's one thing to know line by line how much you're spending on your car payment in groceries it's an other thing to say this is my philosophy this is what I love spending on and I spend sixteen percent of my money on this area because I love it but I spend only three percent of my money or have no TV because that's not part of my financial values so that is there is a subtle but profound difference now I will say that I do encourage people to track their spending for a couple of weeks in the book but beyond that I want them to look forward not only look backwards yes so with Rene she says she has 125 bucks left first thing I would say is if you're in debt I would I would get out of debt and I'd use that money to pay off debt that be my personal advice what I would do if I were in her scenario now if Rene is indeed debt free where do we go from there well there's a short answer and there's a longer answer the short answer is I would start saving that money and build up about three months of expenses that's a nice emergency fund once she's got that built up which will take her a while she can then go on and start investing it and there are nice ways to do that simple easy ways like a target date fund what I would the longer answer is I would say are you sure you have a hundred and twenty-five dollars only I would love to take a look at her spending I would love to take a look at her income there are often ways to save hundreds thousands of dollars like right off the bat and I'll tell you some of the stuff in the book and I have the exact words that you can use people pay their cable companies and they don't realize you can call them and negotiate six hundred dollars off with one phone call same with your cell phone company same sometimes often with your rent okay I've done that before in Manhattan so there's lots of different ways you can make instant savings and that money can automatically go into a savings account or in her case an investment account as well and so you can reduce those expenses you can radically reduce them by eliminating and like you said it yeah I'm paying you know 60 bucks a month for cable but I watch it three times a month why am I even paying for this at all and so instantly you've given yourself a raise yeah one of the things that Ryan and I often say is that the best way to give yourself a pay raise is to spend less money like that's an immediate pay raise but then also in the book you do talk about like it's not just about saving money it's about bringing more money in or finding different ways to to increase your income there is a limit to how much you can cut rare is no limit to how much you can earng yeah if you're spending $20,000 a year right now you can only cut $20,000 a year yeah and at a certain point you've you've cut to the bone what's interesting is I'll just say this one thing about cutting when people come to me and they say I've cut to the bone there's nothing else I can do I say okay what have you done and they basically say I've done one thing and that's it and so there's usually more than people think they can do but there is a limit and I find it much more rewarding and also more mathematically compelling to focus on the earning side now there's a very interesting question about why don't more personal finance people talk about earning more the answer is very simple they don't know how most people writing about personal finance their bread and butter is simply cutting back and so I wanted to change that with I will teach you to be rich that's why we talk about entrepreneurship we talk about freelancing we talk about the fact that you can actually doesn't matter where you live she lives wherever she lives you can find clients whether they're local or whether they're remote and we have people we have caricature artists we have dog walkers we have Excel consultants and you can dramatically increase your earnings last night one of the guys who was at the event he said I used your YouTube video on salary negotiation I sent an email and I got a $5,000 raise right there are the actual words and get them for free on YouTube or on my website or in the book and you can negotiate massive raises so people shouldn't forget I have this thing I call the CEO strategy cut costs yes earn more don't forget about that and then optimize your expenses your cable your cell phone you can call them up and you can negotiate five 600 bucks off right away I like what you said about values a moment ago because I don't want money to be the primary driver for doing what you do if you're making money just for the sake of making money that's not it's not very fun in long term it's it's not it's not a rewarding strategy I mean you might reward your bank account but you we've all seen you know the the the the sort of picture of opulence like the the the guy alone in his mansion sort of thing and like I don't aspire to be that what you're talking about is identifying what your values are and then figuring out how money will amplify those values 100% and I agree with you I mean in fact when I was in my early 20s if you had asked me what do you think about money I would have said I want more and if you had said why I wouldn't have had a good answer I might have just said some words but ultimately it was something that I wanted I want and I was willing to work for it which is good but there wasn't much thought as to why and so I think it's an interesting journey because I came from a family that was very middle-class my mom stayed home with us my dad worked now having earned more through my business and through investing I can say that money is important it definitely allows me to do things and dream bigger than I ever would have but an extra zero doesn't change anything it really doesn't and in also just like if if I had another million dollars tomorrow I would not go out and buy a Ferrari or any kind of cuz I just don't care about that I don't even have a TV it's not important my laptop that I run my entire business off of with dozens of employees is a 2012 MacBook Air and my wife makes fun of me but it doesn't matter it works I like to buy the best and keep it for as long as I can so I believe in that but on the other hand I do have things that I absolutely love and I spend extravagantly and unapologetically on those are the things that get me excited it's not the money in the bank account it's living outside the spreadsheet and and you know for example being able to do this and come in here but it's not it's not to impress other people no it's in line with the person that you want to be in fact if anything like I'll give you an example cuz one of my money dials the thing that I call it a money dial I love spending on his clothes you will never sell your wife's a personal stylist she's a personal stylist and but I loved it before her but I got a lot more sophisticated once she taught me what she does and you will never see me wearing some big logo shirt in fact if I am successful my clothes are for me not for anyone else and you never know what brand I'm wearing never so as I became more interested in this area of life it's funny because most of my readers they follow me when it comes to psychology careers etc but they think clothes are stupid and shallow it's really funny and so I get it because when I was younger I thought the same but then I started to fall in love with the craft the craft of like who's making this what's the artisan that's creating this sweater by hand and as part of our honeymoon in Italy we went to the factory of my favorite brand and saw the artisans creating it and kind of learned about where they come they have a school there on the property that to me represents what when you truly love something like if somebody has five BMWs to me I don't get it but to them they're like let me show you the torque in this BMW let me show you that I went to Germany to pick up my car and drive it on their track they love beyond showing off at a certain point it's not about showing off it's about finding the value in that thing for yourself it's finding the experience that that resonates with you because I'm with you like for me having five BMWs but do know my Toyota is fine for me yeah although I did used to Lexus's at one point back in my corporate days yeah same time and a Land Rover and there was nothing wrong with those cars they're really nice cars and I worked really well but I didn't actually own them either I was making the car payment on them every month and that's a terrible strategy I would never recommend ever having a car payment I don't know if you talked about that at all in the book but listen I have my own rules on money and one of the things that I would encourage people to do is to create their own rules so you can find mine online it's on my Instagram account or everywhere one of them is you know I want to save twenty to thirty percent every year and if I'm doing that then I know that my expenses are basically being handled another one is that I want to pay I want to pay in full for large purchases a car I want to be able to pay in full or go in there and painful a trip a honeymoon a wedding I have the money already saved up I am definitely not going into debt then there are a couple of others that surprise people one of them was Mary the person mm-hmm I think that's probably the most important financial decision you can ever make but remember as I say money is about living outside the spreadsheet so yes you can learn how to automate and invest in all this asset allocation yes you should learn the technical stuff most people who complain about money have never spent one weekend reading anything about money they're 45 Oh boohoo life is so tough Oh systemic inequality all those things are true but you never spent 48 hours reading anything about the most important complaint in your life get real so that's that's one thing your relationship is critical and then another thing is I wrote a rule saying any flights over four and a half hours business class now you might not agree you might not care you might think it's a waste of money or you might not be able to afford it any of those things are fine what I want everyone to do is to create their own point of view I guarantee someone's gonna say you know go to this steak place once a month because it's so cool like I don't care about that steak that's not my thing but if you love it and you can afford it god bless that's what I want everyone to do come up with your own point of view and be unapologetic about it let's do a few of these lightning round questions so we pick up some questions from Twitter Instagram and Facebook we're at the minimalists on all those platforms you're at ramita and Instagram and Instagram nice and so you can you can follow him there you can ask him some more questions on social media our first question here all by the way we share these in the show notes as well so what we do is we try to answer with like a pithy tweetable answer but really we can ramble on a little bit and Shawn will tweeze out something that sounds good and then Jessica puts all these in one place minimal maxims calm our first question is from Nile Chronicles in Istanbul how can we block the sudden urge to spend our hard-earned savings on shopping gifts luxury items and dining out I mean what can we do to stop the urge don't block your desires you plan for them and acknowledge them so what I guess maybe maybe I would I would say is are they your desires or are they desire someone else handed to you right right well that's the whole thing I mean you know many people especially in America are buying things that if you probed him why they're getting it it boils down to I want to feel good for a couple of hours yeah I want to spend money I don't have yeah to buy things I don't need to impress people I don't even know yeah on the other hand though it's perfectly okay if you say to yourself you know what I really want that yes get it let me show you how to even dream bigger so I think for this person what I'm willing to bet is that they are playing whack-a-mole with their money so they wake up they start the month oh I'm motivated I need to save some money I really should do that and then by the end they're scrolling Instagram they're reading their emails with links to stuff to buy and they buy this and they buy that and they don't even really care about it I would rather have them sit down and say you know what what do I love stop dreaming small dream big I I want a leather jacket I'm gonna make this up maybe I could get a leather jacket from Gap dream bigger maybe you can get an even cooler leather jacket or something you really love okay great what's it gonna take to get that I'm gonna need to save for X months and I'm gonna discipline myself by automating the money so I don't have to log in every day and by that you're building this muscle of discipline of automation and at the end the payoff is you get that thing you truly loved what a lot of people might discover which I think aligns a lot with the minimalist philosophy is I didn't really even want this leather jacket yes ultimately the message of minimalism is you probably don't want that and my message is maybe you did and if you did awesome now you know the work that it takes to get there and now you can plan for something even bigger next time and my pit the answer here really echoes what you were saying is a bad habit is better replaced than avoided so will you talk about what the whack-a-mole this person niall chronicles is saying well you know I've got I want to buy this one I buy this on to buy this and I think they're all bad habits well maybe most of them are but maybe there is something that will truly add value to your life that's the thing you aspire toward and the other things are then replaced by that higher-quality thing totally agree let's take dieting as an example by the way dieting very interesting when I first wrote this book ten years ago I compared fitness and food with finances and you know it's there's obvious links you we don't count calories we don't count where we spend our money etc etc this time 10 years later I was strongly advised to strip out all recommendations about diets and food why because it's become controversial to even suggest that people might want to change their body lose weight etc and I refused because I've gone on not only my financial journey but my fitness journey I used to be 127 pounds super skinny I called myself a skinny Indian guy which is the language we use to describe ourself is very toxic right we some of us say oh I could never make money my family doesn't do that on and on and on I had to learn to change the way I describe myself and then get help from teachers and trainers and things like that so in the book I talked about again the similarities between fitness and finances and one of the things you'll see people when they're going with their plate they're fixated on how many carbs should I have pastas really bad for you that's one way to look at it let me try to take away the bad another way to look at is let me start with the good let me add a little bit more lean protein it's okay if I want to have dessert no problem but I'm gonna start by filling my plate up with what's good and that is totally applicable to finances if this guy is worried about all these bad quote bad things I don't even like using the word bad these things that he tends to overspend on maybe he can start by saying what is the thing I love let me focus on that and the natural overspending areas will disappear when he's focusing on what his rich life is yeah I often think about we're fixated on all of the negative you're probably gonna get a negative result there we've got another question here from our lightning round Li Sophia from Washington State asks how did I get into this mess with all my credit cards I just give you a pithy answer here a ditch is dug one shovelful at a time I mean that's ultimately you probably didn't go out and get ten credit cards here the what is it the average American has four credit cards one in ten American has ten or more active credit cards in his or her wallet and you probably didn't go out overnight and have ten credit cards I'm gonna max them out tomorrow it happened one shovelful at a time that's how you got to a ditch I'll give you a second pit the answer here every foundation was once a ditch and so you might be in the ditch right now but this could be your future foundation you might be at your breaking point love that mine is the problem is not credit cards the problem and the solution is you the credit cards if it wasn't the credit cards it would have been something else the real opportunity here is to look at why you opened him up go back and get really specific what happened on that sixth credit card somebody came to you when you were shopping at Banana Republic and said 10% off ho-ho 10% is such a great deal you save four dollars opening that credit card why are you bothering most people are asking themselves three dollar questions they really should be asking themselves 30,000 dollar questions that's the real problem I almost guarantee this guy's going around trying to save four dollars or oh I got a 10,000 mile bonus for opening up this airline card stop thinking at the three dollar level close those accounts it'll hurt your credit for a little while but they will recover focus on one or two great credit cards cash back travel keep it simple and focus on changing your psychology away from $3 questions to focusing on $30,000 questions like investing I think I would say about credit cards what will wrap it up on this is if you're in debt you don't need credit cards I mean it and then we could obviously have an argument of whether or not they're beneficial if you're out of debt we can have different opinions on that but if you're gonna if you're gonna if you want to get out that ditch stop digging and and the first way to do this I mean you gotta you gotta get rid of these credit cards got to get them under control I know for me I had massive amounts of debt made really good money but spent even better money and so I had six figures worth of debt and I had 14 active credit cards and the car payments and the mortgage on the oversized house with more toilets than people liked it just I had all this stuff that wasn't bringing me joy satisfaction a sense of meaning to my life you know can I tell you something like when you say that and I here you and I can just see it in your face like it looks like hell to me to just have all this stuff around and I want to just contrast the name of the book I will teach you to be rich with this idea as you said of opulence my rich life I've lived in the same apartment for 10 years it's a one-bedroom apartment I love it it's very nice but my net worth has increased over the last decade and I stayed I picked the best and I stayed there I picked the best computer and I kept it on the other hand so that's not important to me I actually was driving around La and I saw these massive houses and I didn't feel like I want that not at all I felt like oh my god that's a lot of maintenance who's gonna clean the dust off that's I don't want it yeah but also you can appreciate it and that's what I like about your perspective is it it's just like if you go to the Lachman you see a Picasso painting you can enjoy it without having to consume it right yes and that that is really when you start to understand your own desires and acknowledge them it's like I appreciate the beauty and the art and the craft but that's not for me on the other hand there are things that I absolutely love and I save or invest to be able to enjoy them and some of them are physical material goods some of them are like you said experiences so I just I want everyone to be unapologetic about what they love but also know that just cuz your net worth increases you don't have to buy another car landrover a new apartment new computer you can keep that stuff as it is you can focus like a laser on the stuff you want listen we got several more surprise questions here what are your opinions using about using credit cards to accrue points what investment recommendations do you have for those seeking early retirement we could talk about that if a house payment is the same as a rent payment could that be considered good debt to take on if I'm actually might disagree on that one that'll be fascinating if I'm going to college is that why is here wiser to continue investing in my retirement accounts or invest instead in my education and minimize my school loans and finally how should I prepare financially to leave an unsatisfying job that provides a comfortable living to instead pursue a more satisfying career and if you want to hear all that you can listen to this week's maximal episode available exclusively on patreon that's right you're currently listening to our weekly minimal episode but each week we record an entirely different much longer maximal episode on the minimalists private podcast which gives us the private space we need to talk about stuff we don't usually talk about in public Plus patreon is the best way for us to fund this podcast and keep it 100% advertisement free when you subscribe to the minimalist private podcast on patreon you'll also receive a personal link so that our maximal episodes play in your favorite podcast app you also get access to our entire back catalogue of more than 100 private podcast episodes find all the details and all the good stuff including an additional private podcast episode every week over at the minimalists dot-com slash support and now here are some voicemail comments and tips from our listeners hi I'm Kari from Denver with a tip about answering the what do you do question I love your advice about answering that question by saying what I'm passionate about but I found that my answers were being dismissed a little bit maybe because I'm a stay-at-home mom and there's a little bit of like an entitled stigma attached to that role so I tweet to my response now I answer with I work really hard at maximizing the things that matter most to our family I'm an ambassador of purposeful living so to speak and then I go on to talk about writing and camping and the other things that I'm passionate about and ask the other person what they are passionate about it's opened up some really incredible conversations and I'm so grateful for your advice hi my name is Tracey Willard's and I live in Sioux Falls South Dakota I have a comment is listening in to your Vermont show and somebody asked about children and how to be a minimalist with all the stuff that comes with that and I wanted to share a couple of tips I have a one-year-old and we started our minimalism during when I was seven months pregnant before she was born a couple tips I have learned over the last year or so is our Father Fergus asked for passes or memberships to local museum use gymnastic centers etc these get you in your child out of the house and engage you in your community there's also extra perks discounts for special events or numbers that I come with those passes and it's a really great way to do it another thing is oftentimes children under two are free for us so really your membership only includes you maybe your other family members or Plus Ones as far as toys go rental services exists in many places our local library for example allows has a toileting service so you can rotate toys out and take them back without cluttering up your space there are also online subscription services that a better similar one local one for us is called Bloom box and it has really beautiful toys and educational activities that go along with them that you rent for a month concern back another thing about toys is that I found is designating a space in your home to keep those toys so that they're not ending up everywhere around the house really helps you to kind of keep me a manage what you actually have and once that space fills up you can get rid of those toys or let go of toys toys can also be donated if they're in good condition to daycare centers children's hospitals shelters etc you can also sell them at stores like Once Upon a child as far as clothes I've found going for second hand is very helpful as many of the clothes get ruined or messy anyway often also the child grows out of clothes before they're able to wear them very much so it's nice to not have spent a ton on it and no matter what baby clothes are pretty much cute perfect really cute thread up is another great website that I've used to buy things that are in great condition as well as one's kind of child and then finally with accessories try a packing party with your bottles your towels your bibs anything that isn't like the toys and everything and if you don't use those things in 21 days you probably don't need them alright y'all thanks again to ramita day make sure you check out his book I will teach you to be rich you can also find him online IWT comm is his website and real quick for right here right now here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists if you like coffee well if you like good coffee you know Ryan and I own a coffee shop down in st. Petersburg Florida or at least we're partners in a coffee shop with Joshua and Sarah Weaver our friends down there and until recently the only place you could get our coffee was in the four walls of the coffee shop and now it's available online and each month we're doing something called the minimalist choice it's our favorite coffee that we're roasting and drinking right now from bandit so if you want to find that you just go to the minimalists dot coffee the minimalist stock coffee you can find the minimalist choice our favorite coffee of this month if you want to check out our coffee and see what we are drinking also if you want to check out our favorite coffee houses throughout the United States and worldwide we just put a list and it's a growing list as well you can find that at the minimalists com we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well it's called the minimalist favorite coffee alright if you have a question comment or minimalism tip for our podcast leave us voicemail 4 zero six two one nine seven eight three nine or send a voice memo to podcast at the minimalists comm you can comment on this episode at youtube.com slash the minimalists and if you want our show notes in your inbox then sign up for our email list over at the minimalists comm and you'll also receive our simple Sunday emails each week for added value this week let's listen to our pal Matt carnies new old song this year is the 10th anniversary of Matt's second album city of black and white it's my favorite of his six albums and he's currently bringing new life to songs from that collection by by stripping them down to their beautiful bones when I reached out to him he told me that he quote went minimal with this project here is the revisited reprise and reassembled stripped down title track form at Carney's city of black and white and if you leave here today with just one message we hope it's this love people and use things because the opposite never works thanks for listen y'all we'll see you next time and minimus

Channel: The Minimalists

Views: 425,575

Keywords: contribution, decluttering, finances, growth, health, minimalism, minimalists, passion, purpose, relationships, simple, simplicity, the minimalists, podcast, Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, useful tips, tricks and tips, personal growth, finance, more with less, Ramit Sethi, Ep. 188 | Budgeting Mistakes (with Ramit Sethi), I will teach you to be rich, book, money book

Id: pqBYMIrMqcc

Length: 44min 32sec (2672 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/greenback_litquid]

Na čijoj si ti filozofskoj strani Ledeni? Ja boga mi na strani gosta.

[u/[deleted]]

Je l' pročitao neko Ramitovu knjigu I Will Teach You to Be Rich i ako jeste, koji su vam utisci?