RPF0273-Budgeting_Time_Money_and

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00:00:29.400 | Today on Radical Personal Finance we're going to talk about budgeting.

00:00:33.320 | Oh you know what they say about budgeting?

00:00:36.520 | The dreaded B word.

00:00:39.720 | Man I hate that joke.

00:00:41.360 | I despise that joke.

00:00:44.440 | Do me a favor please.

00:00:45.440 | There are very few jokes that you can say around me that make me really angry, but that

00:00:49.360 | one does.

00:00:50.520 | I cannot stand the negative attitude that so many people seem to have about budgeting

00:00:56.600 | and it's perpetuated with stupid jokes like that one.

00:01:00.520 | Because here's my contention, and I say this without reservation period.

00:01:06.440 | Budgeting has the opportunity to change every single aspect of your life.

00:01:15.080 | If you understand what budgeting is, how it works, the progressions of budgeting, and

00:01:23.240 | the areas to which you should apply the concept.

00:01:43.320 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:01:45.360 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:01:49.880 | Welcome to the show.

00:01:50.880 | I'm excited about today's show because some of the concepts that I have to share with

00:01:54.400 | you I believe will bring some real clarity to the conversation around budgeting.

00:01:59.840 | Today I'm going to give you a framework for budgeting, how you can apply it to your life,

00:02:04.360 | and yes I really do believe that this show has the opportunity, the potential to change

00:02:09.960 | your life.

00:02:15.640 | People argue about, well they, oh okay.

00:02:18.280 | People argue about everything.

00:02:21.160 | People who care about finance argue about everything finance related and budgeting is

00:02:24.760 | one of the sources of arguments that people love to argue about.

00:02:28.280 | Talk about different ways and different approaches and things like that.

00:02:32.440 | Yes, hey, we can argue about stuff.

00:02:34.640 | I like a good argument sometimes.

00:02:38.680 | Budgeting is one of those things that you can't really get around and even the people

00:02:42.480 | who think they're getting around it, "I don't budget.

00:02:44.440 | I don't need to budget."

00:02:46.560 | They're getting around it without actually getting around it.

00:02:51.400 | I hope that that becomes very clear to you in today's show that even the people who say

00:02:55.200 | they don't budget, they really are when we understand and expand our definition of budgeting.

00:03:00.520 | My intent in today's show is to share some ideas and some thoughts with you that I think

00:03:04.920 | will maybe help to bring people together on the subject of budgeting because I've been

00:03:09.880 | there, done that, tried different things, seen different things.

00:03:12.960 | Today, I'm going to share with you a continuum of budgeting approaches that I think will

00:03:19.400 | be helpful for you.

00:03:21.320 | You would never run a business without having a budget of some kind and having some sort

00:03:26.760 | of controls on your finances or at least you wouldn't run such a business and expect it

00:03:31.240 | to stay in business.

00:03:33.340 | In fact, if you trace the problems of business bankruptcy, many times you're going to find

00:03:38.360 | that often the budgeting system and the control system and the feedback mechanisms weren't

00:03:43.480 | responding fast enough to be able to help the business owner and the entrepreneur to

00:03:47.920 | be able to make good decisions.

00:03:49.320 | Now, they may – the fault is not always the budgeting system, but the budgeting system

00:03:54.320 | is going to be in there somewhere.

00:03:55.960 | So why would you run your life any differently?

00:03:59.080 | Well, you would say because money is not everything.

00:04:01.960 | You're right.

00:04:03.960 | And that's why today I want to talk about budgeting in an expansive concept beyond just

00:04:11.000 | money.

00:04:12.000 | See, there are very few times I make absolute statements because there are very few things

00:04:18.320 | in finance that are absolute.

00:04:22.340 | But here's an absolute statement for you.

00:04:24.400 | I can't come up with a single valid argument not to have a system of financial tracking,

00:04:31.080 | budgeting and control if you are interested in building wealth.

00:04:36.200 | And furthermore, the better your system of financial tracking, budgeting and control,

00:04:42.920 | the more efficient your wealth plan will be.

00:04:47.600 | Now the cool thing is that principle is applicable to money and money is a great thing to talk

00:04:52.400 | about because it's easily measured.

00:04:54.480 | It's easily denominated.

00:04:55.480 | It's a great scorecard.

00:04:57.640 | But obviously money is not the central focus of life.

00:05:01.380 | Money is simply a tool to fund the central themes of life.

00:05:07.840 | And so that statement can and should and we will today be applied to other areas including

00:05:20.600 | time and food because the budgeting principles apply to each area of life and the process

00:05:25.660 | is the same.

00:05:26.660 | So there are probably other areas we could apply it to.

00:05:28.240 | But I want to talk today about the three major budgets that we need to have in our life.

00:05:32.640 | And those three budgets are a budget for our time, a budget for our food intake and a budget

00:05:37.320 | for our money.

00:05:38.320 | Now you could again expand this feel free.

00:05:39.640 | You could have a budget for our physical activity or have a budget for our emotional energy.

00:05:45.880 | Run with this as far as you want.

00:05:47.000 | But today I just want to talk about three budgets.

00:05:49.040 | Hat tip to Gary North who was the first person years ago when I was reading his site and

00:05:53.280 | he talked about the three major budgets and it's like time, food and money.

00:05:55.920 | I said, "Wow, that's exactly right."

00:05:57.880 | Hat tip to him for originally years ago giving me the idea of three budgets.

00:06:03.120 | But today I've expanded the idea and we're going to go beyond that.

00:06:07.080 | I want to share with you the importance of these three major budgets and how they are

00:06:10.280 | going to impact your life.

00:06:11.280 | I want to share with you the three major stages of budgeting through which people go.

00:06:15.960 | And the key thing here is this is where all the arguments come from.

00:06:19.200 | This is where people argue, "Well, your budgeting system is stink because you use credit cards

00:06:22.640 | and you run it through Mint.com and I use cash envelopes."

00:06:25.800 | This is all a matter of understanding what stage you're at.

00:06:28.800 | I want to share with you the major ideas that are applicable to every type of budgeting

00:06:33.120 | and some truths.

00:06:34.120 | I'm going to talk about some tools, basically the types of tools that you need for different

00:06:38.080 | types of budgeting and then some tools that will give you options.

00:06:41.560 | And hopefully at the end of today's show, if I've done my job, I will have number one

00:06:45.080 | sold you on the concept of budgeting.

00:06:49.080 | I will also, number two, have given you a way to assess your own personal budgeting

00:06:55.060 | system and perhaps discussed some tools that could be helpful to you as you move on to

00:07:00.040 | the next stage.

00:07:01.720 | And so that's the major content of today's show.

00:07:05.780 | Before I start walking through that content, I want to share with you the sponsors of today's

00:07:08.720 | show.

00:07:09.720 | Sponsor of the day, number one today is Jay Fleischman and the Student Loan Show.

00:07:13.400 | Jay is an awesome guy, twice guest on – twice he has been a guest on Radical Personal Finance.

00:07:19.480 | He is a student loan and bankruptcy attorney practicing in the state of California and

00:07:24.240 | New York.

00:07:25.280 | He additionally has a student loan podcast called the Student Loan Show, which you should

00:07:30.480 | subscribe to if you have student loans and go and listen to.

00:07:33.520 | Additionally, he does consulting and he specializes in performing a comprehensive analysis of

00:07:41.280 | your specific student loans, your specific goals and finding ways to save you tons of

00:07:47.160 | money.

00:07:48.160 | That's basically the deal.

00:07:50.120 | So if you have student loans, may I make a recommendation?

00:07:52.400 | As I record this show, it's December 2015.

00:07:54.400 | We're heading into the new year.

00:07:55.560 | If you have student loans, especially if you have big student loans and especially if you

00:08:00.440 | have student loans that are in some stage of controversy, you're falling behind, you're

00:08:05.720 | having trouble making your payment, please go to studentloanshow.com/radical.

00:08:10.320 | Sign up for the $50 email consulting package that Jay has, $25 off his normal price.

00:08:17.600 | He'll do consulting for you on your federal student loans through that package and he

00:08:21.800 | should be able to provide you with at least some good ideas or if not, he can at least

00:08:27.980 | share with you a confirmation that you're already doing the best thing and that is a

00:08:32.440 | cheap price to get good peace of mind.

00:08:34.600 | Go to studentloanshow.com/radical.

00:08:36.280 | Make sure you subscribe to the show while you're there.

00:08:38.160 | If any of you are in contentious situations with friends, family members, co-sign on student

00:08:42.560 | loans, reach out to Jay for help on that stuff too.

00:08:45.800 | You can actually get help with that stuff.

00:08:48.080 | Sponsor of the day number two is – I kind of like that.

00:08:52.440 | I should do the radio voice.

00:08:53.960 | Sponsor of the day number two today is Patrick Snow.

00:08:56.080 | Patrick is actually my personal publishing coach and we're making good progress on the

00:09:00.200 | manuscript of Radical Personal Finance book.

00:09:02.440 | In fact, today's show, some of the content, this is the type of thing that's in the book,

00:09:06.120 | the outline of the subject.

00:09:08.120 | This comes from part of my manuscript of my ideas on budgeting.

00:09:11.800 | But Patrick has been instrumental to me in helping me navigate the process of publishing

00:09:15.560 | but in addition to that, the business of coaching, speaking, basically being an expert in the

00:09:20.040 | expert economy.

00:09:21.220 | He is excellent at that but he has a special skill set in the area of publishing.

00:09:26.440 | If you don't have a book, why not?

00:09:28.080 | Have you ever thought of one?

00:09:29.720 | Well, if so, get started.

00:09:31.440 | Talk to Patrick and check him out at thepublishingdoctor.com, thepublishingdoctor.com.

00:09:36.200 | All right.

00:09:37.200 | Let's talk budgeting.

00:09:38.200 | Today, first, I want to sell you on the impact that budgeting can make and why it can affect

00:09:44.640 | your results and then we'll go into the stages of budgeting.

00:09:48.040 | I want to start not with money, not even with time but actually with food.

00:09:53.960 | I want to use food as a good concept or a good metaphor to illustrate the concepts.

00:10:00.200 | Think of the people in the world whose bodies are instrumental in their success.

00:10:05.720 | So here I'm thinking of athletes and ask yourself this question.

00:10:11.680 | Do you think that a highly skilled, highly advanced athlete would have a plan with regard

00:10:20.720 | to their food intake?

00:10:25.320 | It's almost inconceivable that they wouldn't, right?

00:10:30.480 | Think about somebody like a bodybuilder preparing for a bodybuilding competition.

00:10:33.720 | A bodybuilder, they've got everything mapped out.

00:10:36.880 | They know exactly what they're going to eat.

00:10:38.200 | They know exactly the time that they're going to eat it and depending on the type of competition,

00:10:42.160 | maybe they've got four containers of chicken breast and green beans planned out and everything

00:10:47.120 | divided up.

00:10:48.280 | Maybe they're waking up in the middle of the night to slam down their ice cream smoothie

00:10:52.200 | with extra calories so that they can gain the weight they're trying to gain.

00:10:55.960 | They've got their supplements lined up.

00:10:57.740 | Somebody who's preparing for a marathon, they've got their supplements.

00:11:00.080 | They've got their schedule figured out.

00:11:01.400 | They've got their carbohydrate and protein intake carefully mapped out.

00:11:05.680 | An Olympic athlete, everything is planned on a careful program and the higher the level

00:11:10.460 | of performance that you need to go, the more important that plan is.

00:11:20.000 | Are there exceptions to that rule?

00:11:22.000 | I would say yes, there are.

00:11:23.640 | In fact, the exceptions generally in this case prove the rule.

00:11:26.760 | The only exception that comes to mind right now is I remember when Michael Phelps was

00:11:30.420 | competing at the Olympics, Michael Phelps was the Olympic swimmer.

00:11:34.480 | I read an article about how he just eats like a maniac and eats all kinds of different things

00:11:38.680 | because he's in the pool so much.

00:11:40.280 | He's swimming constantly.

00:11:41.280 | He's got to scarf down all the information.

00:11:42.600 | He's eating all the food that he can possibly stuff in.

00:11:45.800 | It's thousands and thousands and thousands of calories per day.

00:11:49.160 | Sometimes the sources were clean and sometimes the sources were not.

00:11:52.760 | The reason that he was able to do that though was because of all of the activity on the

00:11:56.360 | other side, which is why when we talk about wealth planning and you see somebody who is

00:12:00.440 | earning millions of dollars a year and is only comparing it to the fact that him swimming

00:12:05.760 | hours and hours and hours a day and then just scarfing and then him scarfing down calories,

00:12:10.560 | well, if you're not swimming hours and hours a day, you can't just scarf down the 6,000

00:12:14.640 | calories a day.

00:12:15.640 | In the same way that if you're not earning millions of dollars a year, you can't waste

00:12:18.700 | hundreds of thousands of dollars per year like you might see some celebrity or star

00:12:22.880 | doing.

00:12:23.880 | It catches up to you.

00:12:26.800 | Now, do elite athletes reach their level of eliteness and then start budgeting or do they

00:12:37.800 | budget along the way?

00:12:39.960 | Now here for the sake of my illustration, let's focus on something that's very physical

00:12:43.840 | related to the body, something like bodybuilding.

00:12:46.520 | Ignore for a moment basic athletic skill.

00:12:50.060 | Just talk about bodybuilding.

00:12:51.720 | Does an elite bodybuilder budget only after they become elite or did the fact that they

00:12:57.140 | budgeted allow them to become elite?

00:13:00.340 | I would argue that generally it's the latter.

00:13:04.420 | Usually those little disciplines that started when they were a scrawny high school student

00:13:09.100 | and wanted to start building their muscles, those little disciplines, learning how to

00:13:12.620 | eat, learning how the process, learning how their body responded to different things,

00:13:16.140 | learning what was right for them, that's what allows them to go to the elite levels.

00:13:20.100 | Then they hone and refine their skill over time.

00:13:23.900 | That's a really good example because what it shows is that – it shows that the skills

00:13:32.660 | build the platform for somebody to go on and do later.

00:13:36.700 | Now there are people who have natural talent or who have a natural genetic ability over

00:13:43.280 | somebody else.

00:13:44.280 | Well, the same thing happens in money.

00:13:46.180 | There are people who get lucky.

00:13:48.060 | There are people who hit it rich unexpectedly.

00:13:50.680 | But somebody with good genetics and a bad food budget is not going to win a competition.

00:13:56.700 | Somebody with bad genetics, so-called, and a great food budget might win a competition.

00:14:03.300 | Think about it and how that applies to money.

00:14:05.340 | One more point on the food and we'll be off of it is recognize literally how big of

00:14:12.020 | a difference food makes, going away from athletes, in the lives of the common everyday man and

00:14:17.140 | woman.

00:14:19.100 | Our level of performance is going to be driven by the quality and kinds of foods that we

00:14:24.620 | eat.

00:14:25.780 | Our level of – the amount of work that we can put out, the amount of focus, the amount

00:14:30.220 | of clarity, the quality and length of our life is going to be driven by the amount of

00:14:36.460 | food that we eat.

00:14:37.840 | So I was using the athlete metaphor to talk about growth into elite levels, which will

00:14:42.640 | be especially important when we talk about when we switch to money and time.

00:14:46.180 | But just simply recognize that I'm literally talking about having a plan for food.

00:14:50.460 | I just – night before last was helping somebody move and this person was moving into a home

00:14:59.580 | of a relative.

00:15:00.580 | I walked into the home of the relative and this was an older, sick person's house.

00:15:06.020 | I had never met the person before.

00:15:07.940 | But the wife was lying in a chair, obviously very sick and she was overweight.

00:15:15.380 | She had – I don't know if she had medical equipment around her.

00:15:18.840 | She was obviously not very mobile, lying in a chair, very sick.

00:15:24.640 | The whole house had that sick smell to it.

00:15:29.060 | Then the husband was moving around, hobbling around with a walker and he was very obese

00:15:36.140 | and just looked very unhealthy.

00:15:38.580 | The whole house kind of had that sick old person smell.

00:15:42.620 | Now I don't know the circumstances of the health condition.

00:15:45.140 | I didn't ask and obviously I don't know the details.

00:15:49.100 | So this is a little bit of premature judging.

00:15:51.700 | But as I walked through the kitchen, I was just struck by the food that was sitting on

00:15:56.500 | the counter.

00:15:57.500 | There were crumb cakes and donuts and just – it was bread.

00:16:02.000 | It was sugary bread of about ten different varieties all partially consumed.

00:16:08.260 | I couldn't believe it.

00:16:09.900 | There was nothing green.

00:16:11.560 | There was nothing with nutrients.

00:16:12.620 | It was all sugary breads in some state of consumption, way more than even a family of

00:16:19.200 | many people should eat one of them and yet there were only two people in the house and

00:16:22.980 | they were all partially eaten.

00:16:24.180 | I said, "Hmm."

00:16:25.180 | My heart went out to them and I didn't have opportunity to ask any questions nor was it

00:16:29.660 | my place.

00:16:30.660 | But I just thought, "Are they sick because of this or are they eating this way because

00:16:34.180 | they're sick?

00:16:35.180 | Who knows?"

00:16:36.180 | But the same thing happens in money and in time.

00:16:39.580 | That's why budgeting is so important.

00:16:44.020 | The person wastes money.

00:16:45.180 | Are they poor because they waste money or are they wasting money because they're poor?

00:16:48.980 | The person isn't productive with their life.

00:16:51.460 | Are they unproductive because they're wasting time or you get the point?

00:16:57.220 | So we've got to pay attention to each of these budgets.

00:16:59.260 | The major budget I think that will make the biggest difference in how our life turns out

00:17:02.860 | is how we budget our time because the things that we budget our time to do, that's the

00:17:09.460 | stuff of life.

00:17:10.460 | Time is the stuff of life.

00:17:11.980 | Number two is probably food and number three is probably money if I had to put a priority

00:17:15.460 | on them.

00:17:18.280 | So what do we actually do?

00:17:20.140 | Let's talk about the stages of budgeting that I think are important.

00:17:24.300 | I think there are three major stages of budgeting.

00:17:26.260 | If you are getting the results that you're happy with, you may not need to change anything.

00:17:34.300 | Life is not always about constantly changing everything again and again and again and again.

00:17:38.580 | This question is are you happy with the results?

00:17:40.900 | And if you're happy with them, just go with what you're doing.

00:17:43.080 | But if you're not completely satisfied with your results in some area, I think there are

00:17:47.700 | some stages that you can apply.

00:17:49.420 | Stage number one is awareness.

00:17:53.540 | Start with awareness of what's actually happening.

00:18:02.140 | In food, if you were working with a diet consultant, the first thing they would do is provide and

00:18:07.140 | ask you to have some mechanism of tracking your food, whether that's keeping a diet log

00:18:12.580 | and writing down the things that you eat, whether that's taking a picture with your

00:18:15.460 | phone of everything that you eat, some mechanism of recording so that you can become aware

00:18:22.060 | of what's going through your body.

00:18:23.820 | If you were working with a productivity coach, the first thing that productivity coach would

00:18:27.500 | ask you to do is become aware of what you're spending your time doing.

00:18:32.860 | Where are you actually – where is it going?

00:18:37.260 | What are you actually doing?

00:18:38.260 | Again, an app on your phone, an app on your computer, tracking the time on your computer

00:18:43.260 | and on your phone to figure out what you're actually spending your time on, a written

00:18:47.780 | journal of some kind, anything to gain some level of awareness.

00:18:53.620 | And then finally with budgeting, same thing.

00:18:55.260 | If you were talking with me, the first thing I'm going to find out is where is your money

00:18:58.580 | going?

00:18:59.580 | We have to have a system of tracking and being aware of where your money is going.

00:19:04.220 | That's stage one.

00:19:05.540 | Stage one, awareness.

00:19:07.500 | Stage two of making major change is proactive planning or proactive allocation.

00:19:13.780 | There's a caveat.

00:19:15.180 | It has to be proactive planning, proactive allocation with an appropriate level of detail.

00:19:22.820 | That little caveat with an appropriate level of detail is very subjective and it's very

00:19:26.620 | subjective based upon what you're trying to do.

00:19:30.980 | If you're trying to win a bodybuilding competition, you're going to track every one of your macros

00:19:35.660 | and you're going to have them every single day recorded.

00:19:38.940 | If on the other hand, you're just trying to live a normal life, you don't need such an

00:19:42.000 | obsessive level of detail.

00:19:46.220 | Same thing with regard to finance.

00:19:48.180 | There are times at which very, very specific and careful detail is important.

00:19:53.900 | There are times where just big picture allocation and proactive planning is all you need.

00:19:59.020 | The concept is the same.

00:20:01.860 | Nutrition coach says, "Hey, let's adjust your food.

00:20:04.260 | Here are the foods I want you to eat more of.

00:20:06.100 | Here are the foods I want you to eat less of."

00:20:09.300 | Or "Hey, you've got terminal cancer.

00:20:11.100 | Okay, this is what you're allowed to eat."

00:20:13.420 | There's a food place near my house, world famous, called Hippocrates Health Institute.

00:20:19.700 | People come in from all over the world who are in end stage cancer and just very difficult

00:20:24.380 | situations.

00:20:25.380 | Some people that just want to live a healthy life and they come in for intensive nutritional

00:20:28.980 | treatments.

00:20:29.980 | Man, their level of the stuff, I've gone there for lunch.

00:20:33.980 | Everything's raw.

00:20:34.980 | Everything's green.

00:20:35.980 | It's crazy when you really look at it.

00:20:38.700 | But the level of specificity of the things you must eat, the things you must not eat

00:20:43.340 | is hardcore.

00:20:45.300 | But they're working with people who are looking for hardcore extreme results.

00:20:49.820 | So proactive planning with appropriate detail.

00:20:54.500 | Same applies to time.

00:20:55.780 | Same applies to money.

00:20:57.540 | The third stage is we need a system of ongoing controls with an appropriate level of relaxation.

00:21:05.820 | Whatever the category of life, whatever the system, we must have some kind of ongoing

00:21:10.820 | feedback loop.

00:21:13.160 | That feedback loop can be very simple or it can be very complex.

00:21:17.460 | But it's got to be a livable level of feedback loop.

00:21:22.280 | So three major stages of budgeting.

00:21:24.060 | Number one, awareness.

00:21:25.060 | Number two, proactive planning with appropriate level of detail.

00:21:28.340 | And number three, ongoing controls with an appropriate level of relaxation.

00:21:33.260 | Let me sketch out the framework for you and I'll give some very specific monetary examples.

00:21:40.380 | Before I do that though, I believe there are some major ideas that are consistent across

00:21:45.260 | all these different types of budgeting, all these different kinds of allocation.

00:21:49.780 | First, great results come from having clear goals.

00:21:55.300 | Nutrition coach, what are you trying to do?

00:21:57.420 | I just want to lose five or 10 pounds and feel better.

00:22:02.580 | Or I want to win Mr. Olympia.

00:22:06.540 | Very different process.

00:22:07.540 | But we've got to start with clear goals and the goals inform everything.

00:22:11.060 | Yeah, Joshua, I'd just like to get out of debt, live a normal lifestyle, save a little

00:22:14.420 | bit of money and focus on just hanging out with my friends and doing things I love.

00:22:18.660 | Joshua, I want to retire in five years.

00:22:22.060 | Okay.

00:22:23.620 | Or Joshua, I want to be a mega billionaire.

00:22:27.100 | Okay.

00:22:28.260 | Different plan.

00:22:29.260 | The plan is driven by the goals.

00:22:33.060 | And if you have a goal of being a mega billionaire, that's going to require a very different allocation

00:22:39.980 | of your time and a very different allocation of your money than if your goal is I just

00:22:45.940 | want to live a debt-free life, save a little bit of money and spend a lot of time outside.

00:22:51.380 | Very different plan.

00:22:52.380 | Is one right or is one wrong?

00:22:55.860 | You be the judge.

00:22:56.860 | I'm just pointing out there's a very different plan.

00:23:02.420 | Next major idea is in all of these circumstances, you've got to start with the big rocks first.

00:23:10.700 | Here I'm referring back to the classic illustration of time management.

00:23:15.260 | Stephen Covey is the one who popularized it.

00:23:17.780 | Professor stands at the front of the room, fills up a jar with big rocks, presents it

00:23:23.940 | to the class and says, "Is the jar full?"

00:23:27.100 | They all agree that yes, it is.

00:23:29.940 | Professor puts the jar down, puts some gravel, which filters around the big rocks, looks

00:23:35.020 | up to the class and says, "Is the jar full?"

00:23:37.380 | Class says, "Yeah, we think it is," but they're starting to wise up.

00:23:41.060 | Professor pours sand down in among the rocks and holds it up and says, "Is the jar full?"

00:23:46.680 | One student bravely says, "I think so," but they're not very sure of it.

00:23:50.140 | Professor takes a pitcher of water, pours the pitcher of water in, fills the jar up.

00:23:54.220 | Now is the jar full?

00:23:55.220 | Yes, finally the jar is full.

00:23:57.100 | The point of the illustration is that if you start with filling the jar with water and

00:24:01.140 | then you put sand and then you put gravel, you're never going to get everything into

00:24:05.020 | the jar because you put all the little things in first and you can't ever get the big things

00:24:09.100 | in on top.

00:24:10.420 | The point is life only works if you start with the big rocks, if you start with the

00:24:14.140 | important things and do those first and then fit everything else in around those.

00:24:19.260 | That theme is consistent with regard to money, time, and food.

00:24:23.340 | We've got to start with the big rocks.

00:24:26.900 | Start with the things that are going to make the biggest impact on your situation, the

00:24:32.580 | big habits, the big expenditures.

00:24:35.980 | Sometimes the major roadblock in a budget is the fact that there's a car payment.

00:24:40.820 | If we just get rid of the car payment, it loosens everything else up.

00:24:44.060 | It makes no sense to focus on the little things.

00:24:47.700 | You're spending, you're buying a $4 latte or you have a bad habit of giving a dollar

00:24:52.140 | to the kid on the street.

00:24:53.140 | It makes no sense to start with those things when there's a big giant problem.

00:25:00.820 | Start with the big rocks first.

00:25:02.540 | That concept could be expanded.

00:25:03.540 | It's just a mental concept.

00:25:04.540 | It could be expanded to say why are we focusing on the budget when you're making $11,000

00:25:08.900 | a year.

00:25:10.900 | No matter your level of budgeting prowess, it's very difficult to live on $11,000 a year.

00:25:15.700 | Let's start with the big thing, which leads me to my next major idea, which in some ways

00:25:22.140 | is complementary to the idea of big rocks first, but it's also a little bit different

00:25:26.300 | that both top-down and bottom-up approaches can work.

00:25:30.920 | This is where you can help somebody by starting with the big stuff or you can help them by

00:25:35.160 | starting with the little stuff because we're not necessarily talking about the specific

00:25:40.520 | detail.

00:25:41.520 | We're talking about a person and that person is going to need life change.

00:25:47.480 | Best example on this topic is years ago, I read David Allen's book called Getting Things

00:25:52.280 | Done and his emphasis in that book was on the very tangible tactical level of task completion.

00:26:00.360 | What's the next action that I can take that will result in the project being moved forward?

00:26:06.080 | He didn't spend much time talking in that book about the big giant goals that we can

00:26:10.720 | talk about and how your vision for your life can be planned out.

00:26:14.240 | This is why it's so utterly overwhelming when somebody who's just trying to figure out,

00:26:17.960 | "Well, how do I have enough money to buy food this month?"

00:26:20.840 | Talk about, "Let's plan out a major plan for your life."

00:26:23.640 | It doesn't work.

00:26:26.880 | But if you help somebody with little things, it can do it.

00:26:30.800 | On the flip side, it might work.

00:26:33.200 | That's where sometimes you can do the top down.

00:26:36.520 | The bottom up is the little things first, focusing on the little things, the little

00:26:39.320 | habits, eating the – for food, it would be eating the candy on the co-worker's desk.

00:26:44.200 | For time, it would be how many times to check Facebook.

00:26:47.640 | But you can start with the big ones and say, "Let's just make one big major change.

00:26:51.840 | Let's start with your most important project and spend two hours working on that every

00:26:55.480 | morning.

00:26:56.480 | Let's start with fixing breakfast and have a really great breakfast."

00:27:00.320 | Top down and bottom up are both important.

00:27:05.520 | It's ultimately going to be OK to focus on either of them.

00:27:09.520 | We've got to handle the big stuff.

00:27:11.440 | We've got to handle the big car payment.

00:27:14.680 | But we might need to get there with a bottom up approach or with a quick top down approach

00:27:19.280 | and that's going to be very subject to the person's personality.

00:27:22.480 | Next, we need tools that are appropriate for the job that are based on the goal.

00:27:28.240 | Not everybody needs some fancy dancy budgeting software.

00:27:31.460 | Not everybody needs YNAB, the sponsor of the show.

00:27:33.960 | Not everybody needs YNAB.

00:27:36.680 | When I was in college, I kept my budget on a legal pad and there were six categories.

00:27:41.280 | Every month, I write down the amount of money that I'd had, write to get my rent, take

00:27:44.720 | out my savings, take out my giving, take out my rent, take out my car insurance, and then

00:27:49.600 | I would take cash out of the bank for food and that included any groceries or dining

00:27:54.000 | out and then I'd take cash out of the bank for little expenditures if I wanted to buy

00:27:58.440 | something small.

00:27:59.440 | That was basically it.

00:28:00.680 | It wasn't much more – I guess a cell phone bill.

00:28:02.320 | I missed a cell phone bill.

00:28:03.720 | But it took about five minutes and it was a once a month deal and the constraint, the

00:28:07.440 | level of appropriate control, the appropriate tool in that situation was cash and it worked

00:28:12.720 | great.

00:28:15.480 | But of course now, when I'm running a household with many more budget categories and multiple

00:28:20.360 | people, it's different and I expect it to be much different in the future as my financial

00:28:24.920 | life becomes more complicated.

00:28:27.360 | I could not run my budget today based on cash.

00:28:30.360 | It doesn't work in our modern world.

00:28:36.180 | So they're just tools and you've got to find a tool that's appropriate for the job

00:28:39.940 | based upon the specific goal.

00:28:43.640 | Next major idea is we need appropriate levels of control and here I'm specifically talking

00:28:50.520 | about the curbing effects of a budget.

00:28:54.160 | So this is – when I'm using the term budget, it should be evident to you by now that I'm

00:28:57.520 | thinking about budgeting perhaps in a way of thinking about allocation, choosing the

00:29:03.760 | allocation of resources.

00:29:06.800 | But when many people are thinking about budgets, they're thinking about the curbing effect

00:29:10.000 | of a budget.

00:29:11.240 | The idea that I only have $100 to spend on clothing.

00:29:14.360 | How am I going to – I want to spend $120.

00:29:16.400 | Oh, I can't do it because the budget says I can't.

00:29:19.880 | That can be very, very valuable but that needs to be appropriate based upon the phase of

00:29:24.320 | life, phase of business and the goals involved.

00:29:28.840 | Think about this in terms of a business startup, a business venture.

00:29:32.360 | I am running a business startup.

00:29:34.560 | In the beginning of the business startup, I put a very tight level of control on every

00:29:41.160 | single dollar.

00:29:43.480 | When you're facing a high degree of uncertainty, you've got to keep resources back.

00:29:49.040 | Example, you're walking on a hike.

00:29:51.760 | You see the end of the hike up above.

00:29:53.800 | You're feeling thirsty.

00:29:54.800 | You're just down the whole bottle of water.

00:29:56.880 | No big deal.

00:29:57.960 | You can get water up ahead.

00:29:59.240 | You don't need to exercise a tight level of rationing and control in the bottle of

00:30:02.280 | water.

00:30:03.280 | There's a high degree of certainty.

00:30:04.960 | You're out in the middle of the desert and all of a sudden you realize you're totally

00:30:08.360 | lost.

00:30:09.360 | You have no idea where you are and you have a half a bottle of water left.

00:30:11.240 | Do you just start chugging water?

00:30:13.320 | You're probably going to start to think about caring for things and rationing a little

00:30:18.360 | bit more.

00:30:19.520 | So the amount of certainty that you have about the situation is what dictates your ability

00:30:24.000 | to consume.

00:30:25.000 | So in the initial stages of starting a business, cash controls have to be very, very, very

00:30:29.440 | tight.

00:30:30.720 | Business starts to grow.

00:30:32.480 | Is it appropriate that a highly functioning business that where everything is doing well,

00:30:38.360 | there's substantial profit margins, that every single dollar has to be tracked?

00:30:43.200 | I don't think so.

00:30:44.200 | I'm not going to say tracked, but I mean controlled.

00:30:46.840 | I don't think so because you reach a point in time where it's more frustrating than

00:30:51.020 | it is empowering.

00:30:52.800 | If you are running a large business, the $1.99 purchase doesn't really make nearly a big

00:30:59.120 | difference when you're dealing with $100,000 purchases.

00:31:03.560 | So in business, this should be evident.

00:31:05.080 | Well, let's take it over to personal lives.

00:31:07.880 | Let's say that you are this type of person or you're working with somebody.

00:31:12.360 | Somebody is deeply in debt.

00:31:13.960 | They are behind on their bills and they're really struggling and there's uncertainty

00:31:18.600 | at work.

00:31:19.840 | Guess what?

00:31:20.840 | You need an absolute tight system of control.

00:31:24.760 | Remember, I'm not talking about necessarily how much money he spends.

00:31:27.880 | I'm talking about system of control.

00:31:29.840 | So in that situation, when I'm counseling somebody, we take every single automatic payment

00:31:34.120 | out of the bank account.

00:31:35.240 | We stop every single automatic transaction.

00:31:38.000 | We take the whole – it's like a full stop on everything and we take back radical control

00:31:43.800 | of the budget, every single dollar, every one.

00:31:51.040 | We move to a system of controls that is absolutely foolproof, something like cash because you

00:31:56.000 | can't afford if someone is deeply in debt, you can't afford to have a $35 bounce check

00:31:59.680 | fee.

00:32:00.680 | That's destructive when somebody is in that situation.

00:32:04.720 | So cash is tight.

00:32:06.900 | Put everything on cash, envelope system, budgeting all the way, very, very tight, daily analysis,

00:32:12.320 | daily tracking, what's the balance today, just everything tight.

00:32:16.960 | Now fast forward a little bit.

00:32:18.720 | Out of debt, good margin between savings and income.

00:32:23.380 | Do you really expect somebody to live on that type of tight control forever?

00:32:28.560 | I don't.

00:32:29.560 | I think it's absurd to think about somebody needs to have that level of control and they

00:32:33.440 | have to look in their wallet before going to Costco and recognize I've got $82 in here

00:32:37.880 | so I can only spend $82.

00:32:39.760 | That's silly.

00:32:40.760 | Somebody is doing well.

00:32:41.760 | You go to Costco.

00:32:42.760 | You see one of their fancy doodads they bring in.

00:32:44.760 | Oh, hey, here's a $200 item I'd really like to have and I never knew I wanted to

00:32:47.880 | have it until I went to Costco.

00:32:50.240 | But no, go ahead.

00:32:52.120 | It's not that big of a deal.

00:32:53.660 | And does somebody who's a multimillionaire need a system of controls where every single

00:32:57.580 | day they're checking things?

00:32:59.220 | No.

00:33:00.220 | They just need some basic big picture intention and have a check on it maybe once a month,

00:33:06.300 | maybe once a quarter, maybe even once a year would be totally fine.

00:33:10.500 | So there needs to be an appropriate level of control based upon the situation that someone

00:33:14.460 | is in.

00:33:16.980 | So the process of budgeting is the same in every type of budgeting, time, money and food

00:33:28.100 | and it goes through these different phases.

00:33:30.700 | We always start with awareness.

00:33:32.540 | We build a simple tracking system that's appropriate.

00:33:35.380 | We want to move on to intentional planning and here the key is the bigger the results

00:33:39.140 | that you want, the more intentional you'll need to be.

00:33:42.300 | I've shared on the show how a breakthrough banner year for me was when I was in college

00:33:48.300 | and my senior year of college.

00:33:49.700 | That was the year that me personally, I was determined to get out of debt.

00:33:52.740 | I was doing the Dave Ramsey plan, work like crazy, get out of debt.

00:33:55.500 | I worked a 40-hour full-time job.

00:33:57.420 | I took 19 hours of classes and I did well in school.

00:34:01.280 | But in order to get there, I had to establish a very, very, very tight budget of my time.

00:34:08.660 | Every single hour was planned out.

00:34:10.060 | I'd mapped out all my classes.

00:34:11.620 | The classes were all very efficiently laid out so that I could work on a certain schedule.

00:34:17.060 | Every single thing was accounted for at the time when I'm going to do homework.

00:34:19.660 | The only free time I had was I'd scheduled in a couple of hours of fun on Friday night,

00:34:25.540 | Saturday night, something like that.

00:34:27.220 | It said free time.

00:34:28.420 | That was it.

00:34:29.820 | But I got great results and the level of control was very, very tight because I was shooting

00:34:35.700 | for very high results.

00:34:39.300 | In food, the people who are going to get the best results, their level of control is going

00:34:42.460 | to be very tight.

00:34:43.620 | In money, if that person with $2 million in the bank is determined that they're going

00:34:49.740 | to become the next billionaire, they've still got to have a very tight level of control.

00:34:56.260 | If they're content with a few million bucks, then they don't need such a tight level of

00:34:59.980 | control.

00:35:02.620 | The bigger the results you want, the more intentional you need to be.

00:35:06.460 | So the cool thing about this process of budgeting, we start with awareness, move on to intentional,

00:35:11.340 | proactive planning of allocation, tight controls, and then we transition to habits.

00:35:20.260 | Somebody who's developed good habits doesn't need such a tight system.

00:35:25.460 | We just need to transition to good habits with some kind of appropriate ongoing checking.

00:35:31.860 | People who maintain their weight, they weigh themselves every day and if they fluctuate

00:35:36.040 | by more than a certain amount, or they weigh themselves once a month, or they go in for

00:35:39.260 | their annual checkup, we need some sort of system of checking up.

00:35:43.380 | With money, we need to check our account statements and see, "Okay, the last quarter, how did

00:35:47.620 | we do?

00:35:48.620 | How's our net worth increased?"

00:35:50.660 | Those controls and ongoing checking will give you the data that you need to be able to say,

00:35:56.780 | "Are we happy and satisfied or do we need to make a change?"

00:35:59.660 | The better the results, we'll have to tighten up, so we make the budget a little bit tighter

00:36:04.260 | because the biggest results always come from that careful, diligent planning.

00:36:06.980 | But if we're okay with the results we have, then enjoy the looseness a little bit.

00:36:13.700 | Next let's talk about tools.

00:36:14.740 | I think the tools that we use vary based upon where we are.

00:36:20.140 | So here I'm going to talk about money primarily and give you money tools, but I will weave

00:36:25.580 | in food and time because I believe that these concepts are applicable in each category.

00:36:32.040 | First we need a dashboard.

00:36:33.740 | Some kind of overview system.

00:36:36.220 | Some way to have a quick check of where we are.

00:36:39.180 | That's what a dashboard on a car does or a dashboard on a boat or whatever.

00:36:41.940 | It just tells you, "Hey, here are the RPMs, here's the speed.

00:36:44.860 | Any problems?"

00:36:45.860 | We need some kind of dashboard system.

00:36:48.620 | It needs to have good data and it's good if it has some reports.

00:36:52.980 | So those reports are useful if it's money and we can look and say, "Okay, the last three

00:36:57.620 | months we've spent about this much.

00:36:59.540 | Our spending is averaging up.

00:37:01.100 | Our spending is averaging down."

00:37:02.260 | That's useful.

00:37:03.740 | Or if it's time, "Okay, we're spending about this number of hours on productive things

00:37:08.180 | versus unproductive things."

00:37:09.180 | If it's food, "All right, our weight is adjusting in this certain way."

00:37:12.480 | So we need some tools for the dashboard overview.

00:37:17.300 | But we also need tools for big picture planning and intention.

00:37:22.000 | So we need some kind of forward-looking tool that, extending the metaphor of the car, the

00:37:27.980 | dashboard doesn't tell you where you're going.

00:37:29.500 | It just tells you basically how things are going.

00:37:32.580 | So we need to look forward and say, "Are we headed to the East Coast or West?"

00:37:35.580 | Same thing with money.

00:37:36.580 | "Are we headed for this goal or that?"

00:37:38.700 | So we need some kind of forward intention in a proactive forward-looking tool.

00:37:44.860 | Then we also need some intentional boundaries, that system of controls that's going to keep

00:37:49.900 | us on track.

00:37:51.860 | So the best results come when we have tools that address all of these.

00:37:59.820 | And they might be the same tool or they might not be.

00:38:01.940 | And again, it's got to be appropriate to the level of complexity in your life.

00:38:05.940 | Tools should serve you.

00:38:07.980 | You shouldn't serve them.

00:38:09.600 | So some simple financial tools to actually implement these concepts.

00:38:15.260 | Simple dashboards that are available.

00:38:18.620 | Mint.com is the most popular one.

00:38:20.380 | They do a great job.

00:38:21.380 | It's a free system.

00:38:22.380 | You put all your data in there.

00:38:24.900 | They mine your data.

00:38:25.900 | They present to you some simple reports.

00:38:27.420 | You can pull it up.

00:38:28.420 | You can see how all your accounts are at any time.

00:38:31.140 | You can just pull it up and see.

00:38:32.420 | You can run some quick reports.

00:38:33.700 | It works great.

00:38:34.700 | It's a dashboard.

00:38:36.300 | My favorite is Personal Capital as far as they're much prettier and they have more useful

00:38:40.260 | investment functions.

00:38:41.260 | I'm actually launching them as a sponsor on the show very soon.

00:38:45.660 | Links are already on the website.

00:38:46.780 | If you've never used Personal Capital, go to YNAB.com/PersonalCapital.

00:38:50.500 | It's like Mint but better and they have much prettier dashboards and it just does a good

00:38:53.940 | job.

00:38:54.940 | Personal Capital is awesome.

00:38:55.940 | Same thing.

00:38:56.940 | You load all your accounts in there.

00:38:57.940 | It loads your investment accounts.

00:38:59.180 | It gives tracking.

00:39:00.180 | You load all the information in there.

00:39:01.700 | What both of those companies do, Mint and Personal Capital, is they're taking a look

00:39:04.500 | at your data and then they're trying to offer you something better, a way to save money,

00:39:08.700 | trying to offer you a way to enhance your situation in some way.

00:39:14.420 | We had on the show Peter Polson from Tiller.

00:39:16.380 | Tiller is great.

00:39:17.380 | It's cool.

00:39:18.380 | It's a tracking system.

00:39:19.380 | It's a great way to track your data and you can use it to have great spreadsheets.

00:39:23.300 | That can fill the job.

00:39:25.500 | Your dashboard could be something as simple as checking your account statements, your

00:39:30.380 | checkbook register.

00:39:32.140 | Is money going up or is money going down?

00:39:34.460 | These are just simply concepts of – these are tools for looking at a dashboard.

00:39:38.300 | YNAB is a great dashboard.

00:39:40.420 | You can pull it up.

00:39:41.420 | You can see all your account balances, see how things are going.

00:39:43.960 | They have some good simple reports for tracking.

00:39:46.300 | Just hey, here's where the money is spent.

00:39:48.480 | These different things perform that dashboard function very well.

00:39:53.200 | With regard to tracking of expenses, I jumped the gun there and talked about YNAB with tracking.

00:39:57.500 | YNAB will work for dashboards because it can show you some account information.

00:40:02.460 | But the downside with YNAB is it's got to be account information that you enter currently.

00:40:06.580 | It's not the type of dashboard that will illustrate for you your investment balances.

00:40:14.120 | It doesn't auto-import that kind of stuff.

00:40:16.740 | Tracking software, your bank has some kind of tracking software.

00:40:18.900 | So you're figuring out where is the money going.

00:40:22.100 | Most banks now, if you categorize the stuff, you can pull up those reports.

00:40:25.380 | So you can figure out where is the money going.

00:40:27.260 | Quicken, Microsoft Money, all of those systems do a great job of – if you're importing

00:40:32.080 | the data, tracking where it's going.

00:40:33.740 | Mint does it.

00:40:34.740 | Personal Capital does it.

00:40:36.180 | Here is where YNAB does it.

00:40:37.640 | If you're entering the data and it's tracking, it's tracking the data going back.

00:40:42.800 | So you can have different tools for a dashboard system, different tools for a tracking system.

00:40:47.780 | I don't track any categories for me.

00:40:49.880 | I don't track any categories in Personal Capital.

00:40:52.780 | All I use it is as an easy way for me to aggregate all of my accounts.

00:40:56.380 | I'm testing Tiller.

00:40:58.060 | Tiller does tracking and does kind of big picture view dashboard stuff.

00:41:02.940 | Then you move to the concept of proactive planning and that's where your options become

00:41:08.540 | far fewer.

00:41:11.580 | You can do proactive planning with a yellow pad if your situation is simple enough.

00:41:17.940 | If you're working with a yellow pad, probably you will need to just do a cash envelope system.

00:41:22.540 | If your situation is simple or let's say you're teaching your kids or you are a young

00:41:27.180 | person with a simple life or maybe an old person with a simple life, some of us who

00:41:33.300 | are at more complicated stages probably a little envious of you, cash in an envelope

00:41:38.180 | and then you're putting some constraints on there because when the cash is gone, I

00:41:41.940 | can't spend it.

00:41:42.940 | But you're proactively allocating, "Hey, here's $2,000 and $100 bills.

00:41:47.100 | It's being divided up in this way," and then there's a constraint on there.

00:41:50.300 | There's a control.

00:41:51.980 | A great piece of software that I've used in the past is a software called Envelopes.

00:41:58.980 | As in Mike, Envelopes.

00:42:00.820 | They do a good job as far as that's their whole concept is taking the cash envelope

00:42:05.020 | system and putting it to a proactive forward-looking system.

00:42:09.620 | I didn't like the price tag on Envelopes which is why I never continued through buying

00:42:14.060 | their service, but they do a good job.

00:42:15.940 | That was why when I switched to YNAB, it was a better value.

00:42:18.340 | Once I tried YNAB again, those of you who have listened to the show and that's when

00:42:21.860 | I brought them on the show as a sponsor, when I tried YNAB, I realized, "Wait a second.

00:42:25.580 | This does everything Envelopes does and it's a much better price point, much better deal."

00:42:30.100 | If you'd like to try YNAB, radicalpersonalfinance.com/ynab is the link for them, the sponsor link for

00:42:36.100 | them.

00:42:37.420 | But those tools are not necessary for everybody.

00:42:41.820 | You don't need to necessarily track week to week, month to month.

00:42:45.380 | I do.

00:42:46.380 | I'm at the stage where I need to.

00:42:47.660 | I don't anticipate doing that forever, although I might because maybe it becomes such a good

00:42:53.020 | habit and I see the value of it, but if I had 10 million bucks in the bank, I don't

00:42:57.980 | think I'd do that.

00:42:58.980 | If I had 10 million bucks in the bank, I'd create some kind of just annualized pro forma

00:43:04.100 | big picture idea based upon my income sources.

00:43:06.820 | I'd have a bookkeeper track that stuff and have the bookkeeper be the one providing controls

00:43:12.140 | and just give them some guidelines to say, "I'm going to look at this stuff quarterly

00:43:16.060 | and then let me know if I'm making a wide variation in my spending."

00:43:22.020 | It's going to change based upon where you are.

00:43:24.540 | That's what – speaking specifically on the money question, this is what's so frustrating

00:43:28.020 | to people is the system that you need at 18 is not the system that you need at 68.

00:43:36.260 | So people often have experience with their system and they don't know how to think

00:43:47.060 | about somebody at a different place.

00:43:49.540 | Let me give you an example just to illustrate this with an email exchange.

00:43:53.460 | A listener of the show named Brian emailed me.

00:43:55.980 | He says, "Joshua, I wanted to get your opinion on something as it relates to one of your

00:43:59.260 | sponsor's products.

00:44:00.260 | I'm trying to figure out if I'll get anything out of using YNAB.

00:44:02.540 | I'll give some background on my current financial status and goals.

00:44:05.420 | I've been using Mint to track my finances since 2009, so I have a historical data going

00:44:10.540 | back to then.

00:44:11.540 | I have a budget set up on there that I use to track all of my monthly spending.

00:44:15.300 | I meticulously itemize and categorize every transaction that Mint pulls in and I check

00:44:19.380 | it every day.

00:44:20.380 | I think it's fun.

00:44:21.380 | I pay off my credit card balance every month and the only loan that I have is the remainder

00:44:24.540 | of my student loan, currently $1,300 at a 1.62% interest rate.

00:44:29.140 | So I'm not paying it off in full until it's just making the payments.

00:44:33.340 | I max out my 401(k), my HSA, my Roth IRA, and I put any excess money into taxable investments

00:44:38.940 | after making sure my three and six-month safety nets are fully funded.

00:44:42.300 | I live a simple life focusing on minimizing my expenses and environmental footprint.

00:44:46.680 | My current savings rate is between 60 and 65% and I'm aiming for financial independence

00:44:50.780 | at 45.

00:44:51.780 | Currently, I'm 34.

00:44:53.220 | Once I get there, I'm going to be volunteering my time and I'll probably still be earning

00:44:57.040 | some money with some more fulfilling part-time work.

00:45:00.620 | This is where I start to question my current methods.

00:45:02.540 | I know already exactly where every single cent of my money is going but I'm wondering

00:45:06.140 | if switching to YNAB to track everything would be beneficial for an active budgeting once

00:45:10.620 | I'm not relying on an external paycheck.

00:45:12.900 | Were all my money current spending and savings habits strong enough that I wouldn't need

00:45:16.340 | it?

00:45:17.340 | Most of the YNAB users I read about, they're focused on getting out of debt and getting

00:45:19.940 | their finances in order.

00:45:21.180 | They usually start using it at a place of complete financial ignorance but I know I'm

00:45:24.900 | already in a good place and there's room for improvement.

00:45:26.980 | So he says, "So starting where I am right now, do you think it would be a good investment

00:45:30.940 | of time and money to switch my finance tracking to YNAB in preparation for the future?"

00:45:35.180 | I don't know if a 30-day trial period will answer him.

00:45:37.300 | Here was my response.

00:45:38.300 | I said, "Brian, it's probably not going to make a big, huge difference for you how much

00:45:42.420 | money you're able to save.

00:45:44.300 | You're already disciplined and you already have a system," I would insert here, "a system

00:45:48.840 | of controls that works well for you.

00:45:51.020 | You have a steady income and as long as you're earning a steady paycheck, you don't need

00:45:54.340 | the extra budgeting figures because you just don't need it.

00:45:58.260 | I think it would be helpful when you leave your job and start living.

00:46:00.860 | Just try it for 30 days and see it.

00:46:02.220 | Do you need it?

00:46:03.220 | No.

00:46:04.220 | You're doing fine without it.

00:46:05.220 | Is it better than mint?

00:46:06.220 | Yes."

00:46:07.220 | The point was this person already had a good system of tracking and there was plenty of

00:46:11.540 | margin in what they were doing.

00:46:13.340 | They didn't need to track every single dollar.

00:46:17.060 | If somebody is saving 60% to 65% of their income on an ongoing basis and they're already

00:46:20.900 | tracking carefully their money and they decide they want to spend something, they want to

00:46:25.300 | buy some $200 item, do they have to all of a sudden rework their whole budget to figure

00:46:29.800 | out the $200?

00:46:31.380 | No.

00:46:32.380 | That's very different than if you're month to month, day to day and you got to figure

00:46:38.360 | out where do I get the $200 from to buy this item.

00:46:40.940 | Very, very different.

00:46:43.360 | The appropriate level of control has to be there at different stages.

00:46:47.360 | I want to briefly cover how these different types of tools are available for tracking

00:46:52.200 | time and for tracking food as well and then wrap up with some budgeting questions from

00:46:56.960 | the Patreon page.

00:46:58.800 | But first, quick dashboard.

00:47:00.600 | So let's talk about time.

00:47:03.440 | Dashboard overview is where is my time going?

00:47:05.620 | That might be your calendar.

00:47:06.620 | I like to have a list of here's the number of hours that I'm spending.

00:47:11.720 | So here, dashboards and tracking.

00:47:15.000 | I've used a few tools in the past that I've mentioned on the show.

00:47:17.640 | Presently, I am using something called Toggle.

00:47:22.120 | It's T-O-G-G-L.com, Toggle.com.

00:47:26.840 | What Toggle does, it's a free time tracking.

00:47:28.600 | They have a smartphone app.

00:47:30.400 | They have a web app and they have an actual program for your computer.

00:47:36.080 | The great thing about Toggle is it allows me just to put in what I'm working on and

00:47:38.840 | how much time and I have some different projects put in.

00:47:40.840 | So what I track is what am I doing and then I track it.

00:47:44.560 | Is this income producing or is this not income producing?

00:47:48.640 | Because as an entrepreneur, it can be very, very challenging to stay focused on the things

00:47:53.140 | that make you money instead of on the things that cost you money because the things that

00:47:57.480 | cost you money always seem to be yelling louder than the things that make you money.

00:48:01.760 | So I use that as a simple time tracking thing.

00:48:04.080 | That's been helpful for me as I've just tried to get a handle on now that my life is settling

00:48:09.220 | down a little bit and I'm able to rebuild the structure.

00:48:14.080 | It's helpful and I would encourage you every single year, at least take a month or take

00:48:18.800 | a week, two weeks or something and just kind of get a grasp on where is the time going.

00:48:23.080 | Track your time and get a quick overview.

00:48:25.200 | When it comes to proactive planning, you have to choose, OK, how am I going to proactively

00:48:30.680 | plan my time?

00:48:31.800 | So here in the next year, my wife and I, we've sat down.

00:48:34.920 | We've completely reworked our household schedule.

00:48:37.540 | We've got my schedule changed.

00:48:40.720 | We've got her and the kids are on a schedule.

00:48:43.800 | So we know exactly at a certain time at 1 o'clock every day and it helps so much with

00:48:47.840 | a toddler and a baby.

00:48:49.400 | The baby is a little bit schedulized.

00:48:52.480 | We're not hardcore on having her totally scheduled.

00:48:56.240 | But also it's not totally free.

00:48:57.720 | But with my toddler, then we have a plan for him.

00:49:01.820 | So we know at 11 o'clock, here's what the plan is because otherwise what happens is

00:49:04.840 | you go from one thing to the next and you wander instead of, OK, at 11 o'clock, we're

00:49:08.480 | going to do art.

00:49:09.480 | At 12 o'clock, it's nap time.

00:49:11.120 | At 2 o'clock, it's going to be time to go for a walk.

00:49:14.320 | Then it's going to be free time at the park.

00:49:16.160 | Here are the days we're going to go to the park and here are the days we're going to

00:49:18.080 | do laundry.

00:49:19.480 | The concept is the same whether you're running a multimillion-dollar business or running

00:49:23.960 | a household.

00:49:25.240 | So we have – we've built out schedules and those schedules are up on the refrigerator

00:49:30.200 | and on my desk of here are the hours that I'm working.

00:49:32.800 | Same thing when you come in with proactive planning, you have to have an approach for

00:49:35.800 | your workday.

00:49:36.800 | What are the most important things that I'm going to get done first?

00:49:39.960 | If you're not doing that, everything falls apart.

00:49:42.080 | I'll be doing I think the next show after this which will be the final show of the year.

00:49:45.920 | I'm intending to do a kind of a state of the show, just a little bit of a personal

00:49:50.360 | story.

00:49:51.360 | Here's where the show has been.

00:49:52.360 | Here's where it's going in the next year, some of the changes I'm anticipating for

00:49:55.160 | 2016.

00:49:56.360 | But one aspect of that is when you're not on a schedule, you can't get much done.

00:50:01.360 | The challenge in my house, the big challenge has been because of the needs of my little

00:50:05.360 | baby girl, that completely upset the apple cart with regard to the show.

00:50:10.200 | My average monthly show production dropped from 18-ish, 18 to 20 shows a month to – there

00:50:16.960 | were two months I think that had 12, eight?

00:50:19.120 | No, two months that had eight, 12, just dramatically dropped.

00:50:23.240 | Well, why?

00:50:24.280 | Because everything else upset the schedule.

00:50:27.780 | So no problem.

00:50:29.400 | You got to deal with the emergencies when they happen.

00:50:32.520 | But that's – it all comes back to budgeting.

00:50:36.120 | You got to have tools with regard to food as well.

00:50:38.600 | So you can have simple overview tools.

00:50:41.360 | Hey, I've got a scale.

00:50:42.360 | OK, that's a dashboard.

00:50:43.800 | Here's my weight or body fat percentage or whatever.

00:50:46.520 | How you look in the mirror, I don't know.

00:50:47.740 | This is where I struggle the most.

00:50:49.760 | So I'm slow to give advice on this.

00:50:52.320 | But if you look at things like tracking, something is simple.

00:50:55.140 | Have a system of tracking.

00:50:56.440 | For me, taking pictures of the food as I eat it.

00:50:58.480 | So at least if I could take a picture of it, I can be aware of it and I can go back through

00:51:01.600 | and look for patterns and trends.

00:51:03.040 | Am I really overeating or am I not?

00:51:05.040 | Am I really eating too many carbohydrates or am I not?

00:51:07.680 | Just simple habit of taking a picture.

00:51:09.760 | Then the proactive planning is how do I make sure that the choices are there?

00:51:14.480 | Where are the problems?

00:51:15.480 | How do I budget my time so that I can cook the good food?

00:51:17.640 | How do I make sure the good food is available when I'm in a bind instead of the wrong choices?

00:51:23.880 | You'll have to figure out what works for you.

00:51:26.640 | So I want to answer some questions here from the Patreon page and then we'll be done for

00:51:30.520 | today.

00:51:31.520 | I put this out, the show topic out on Patreon in advance and a few people asked questions.

00:51:37.800 | So I want to answer some of those questions.

00:51:39.080 | Scott asked me the question, he said, "What are the pros and cons of micromanaging discretionary

00:51:43.960 | expenses versus having a monthly lump sum not to exceed limit?

00:51:48.720 | Example, food, clothing, home, pet, baby versus Costco."

00:51:51.680 | Scott, I think it very much depends on the phase that you're in.

00:51:56.040 | If you're trying to make a change.

00:51:58.440 | So with budgeting, if you're just trying to make sure you don't overspend your income,

00:52:02.640 | it doesn't matter much whether Costco is broken out into each of those different things or

00:52:08.160 | if it's just Costco.

00:52:09.160 | You're just trying not to overspend.

00:52:10.600 | But if you're trying to make changes at that, you need to know what those transactions are.

00:52:16.200 | So if you're looking down and you're saying, "Man, we're spending $800 a month, $800 a

00:52:20.600 | month on food," and you hear someone else say, "Well, we spend $400 a month," you say,

00:52:24.840 | "Well, that sounds a little extreme."

00:52:26.640 | But if Costco is at $800 a month, you're probably not just buying food.

00:52:32.740 | You're buying food and you're buying a generator and you're buying clothing, like you said

00:52:37.160 | here, and you're buying dog food.

00:52:38.600 | Well, you're spending $800 a month on all that stuff, not just on food.

00:52:42.960 | And so if you're trying to make a change or if you're concerned, you got to drill down

00:52:45.780 | just to see what's actually going on.

00:52:48.640 | Not on a month – do you need to every single month sit down and carefully itemize your

00:52:54.480 | Costco receipt only if you're tracking it for a purpose?

00:52:59.040 | Otherwise, it's probably not the best use of time or at least it's not the best use

00:53:02.680 | of time as long as you have plenty of other money and you're just kind of doing it for

00:53:06.680 | interest.

00:53:08.000 | If you've got money, the money is flowing, there's excess, you're saving towards the

00:53:10.920 | big goals, I don't think you need that crazy level of detail unless you're really going

00:53:15.840 | for dramatic results.

00:53:17.600 | Food is a good example.

00:53:19.280 | Does every single person out there, every business executive, does every business executive

00:53:24.480 | need to track every single one of their micro and macro nutrients?

00:53:27.520 | No, only if you're trying to pursue elite athletic ability.

00:53:31.440 | But if you're trying to dig in and say, "Why am I gaining weight?"

00:53:34.560 | It might be good to track them for a month and find out what's going on.

00:53:39.440 | You can draw a lot and extrapolate a lot from a month.

00:53:42.440 | So that would be my answer.

00:53:43.640 | Joe asked, "What's a good budgeting strategy for a two-income household where one income

00:53:47.140 | is steady and predictable and the other is unpredictable in timing and amount?

00:53:51.640 | Cheers."

00:53:52.640 | Joe, I would say budget for the bills, the ongoing expenses off of the steady income

00:53:58.680 | and then budget the unpredictably timed, unpredictably amounted money for the more discretionary

00:54:07.080 | expenses.

00:54:08.080 | And so this would be...

00:54:09.080 | YNAB is getting lots of plugs today, but this would be why I love YNAB.

00:54:13.860 | Because with YNAB, what you're doing is you're budgeting the actual money that you have in

00:54:17.800 | the account.

00:54:18.920 | And so in that situation, I struggled with this for years because I've been on unpredictable

00:54:24.040 | income forever.

00:54:26.460 | And YNAB has made such a big difference even just to...

00:54:29.600 | My system was just more of a tracking system because I couldn't figure out the easy proactive

00:54:34.120 | system.

00:54:35.120 | So I would do it on the fly.

00:54:36.120 | I struggled for years.

00:54:37.800 | It's so much better now.

00:54:39.620 | So I would try to...

00:54:42.160 | If the steady income lines up, and I've just got to figure out how much is it versus what

00:54:47.160 | the goals are.

00:54:48.160 | If the steady income lines up with the bills and hopefully the savings as well, then use

00:54:52.480 | the other one for discretionary stuff.

00:54:55.560 | And you just, with YNAB, you budget the money that's in the account.

00:54:58.560 | So when the money comes in, you sit down and say, "What should we spend it on?"

00:55:01.800 | And you prioritize.

00:55:03.220 | We want to fund the vacation fund or we want to go get our teeth fixed.

00:55:07.480 | Okay, which one is more important?

00:55:09.840 | And just budget on that.

00:55:11.240 | But the nice thing is most of us live in a monthly society.

00:55:14.480 | We pay monthly bills and that steady predictable floor can make a big difference.

00:55:18.040 | That's the best I got for you.

00:55:19.440 | Sam says, "Do you have any particular advice about how to budget for gift giving without

00:55:23.080 | becoming overly stingy about it?"

00:55:26.180 | My advice is to have a percentage of your income that you are going to give away.

00:55:33.000 | Set that aside in a separate account and always have it available so that it's there for the

00:55:37.440 | gifts.

00:55:39.520 | That's what I do.

00:55:40.520 | Take a percentage of your income, set it aside and use it for gifts.

00:55:43.120 | Now, you can decide what the meaning of that category is.

00:55:46.280 | So is that gift, do those gifts include birthday gifts and Christmas gifts and graduation gifts

00:55:51.160 | or do those gifts include people on the street?

00:55:55.280 | You've got to decide for that.

00:55:56.560 | But just figure out how much of my money, in my percentage of my income do I want to

00:56:00.240 | give away and then just try to give it away.

00:56:02.520 | That's one of the best things you can do.

00:56:05.120 | I have strong feelings about budgeting to be able to give and save before you do anything

00:56:11.800 | else.

00:56:12.800 | Once you have a giving account, it totally changes the way that you view life.

00:56:18.600 | It helps you to feel less stingy.

00:56:21.080 | It helps you feel richer.

00:56:23.520 | What's remarkable is if you start building up some funds in your giving account, let's

00:56:30.920 | say that you allocate 10% of your income, household income $50,000, you're going to

00:56:37.800 | give away 10% of your income.

00:56:39.480 | That's $5,000.

00:56:40.820 | That is amazing when you start to even just on that, a median income, think about giving

00:56:45.160 | away $5,000 every single year and you allocate the money in advance and then you have an

00:56:50.800 | account that always has money in it.

00:56:52.880 | So when you come across a need and you say, "Hey, here's a need that I can help," you

00:56:56.840 | start packing it up and you can make some really nice gifts just by simply allocating

00:57:00.960 | that money steadily over time.

00:57:03.300 | That makes a huge difference in your outlook on life and it is so empowering and it's the

00:57:08.160 | most fun.

00:57:10.400 | It's so empowering.

00:57:11.400 | So that would be how I would handle it is decide what percentage of your money you're

00:57:14.680 | going to give away and get rid of it and give it away.

00:57:17.720 | Look for the opportunities but give it away.

00:57:21.440 | Someday I should do shows on giving but for today, I'll just say it's more blessed to

00:57:24.940 | give than to receive.

00:57:26.080 | So Chris asks, "What's the best method of budgeting calories and food?

00:57:29.560 | I've spent over two years tuning in my usage of YNAB, which is the best product out there

00:57:34.120 | for money budgeting, but have not yet found a good way to track my eating.

00:57:37.420 | Many of my approaches were just not convenient as I would have liked and ended up only getting

00:57:40.840 | a few weeks of actual usage."

00:57:43.240 | Maybe you can give some ideas.

00:57:44.480 | So Chris, on this one, I don't have a perfect system.

00:57:48.280 | This is my biggest weakness personally.

00:57:50.400 | I'm good at time.

00:57:51.400 | I'm good at money.

00:57:52.440 | I'm not so good at food.

00:57:54.320 | So part of me doing the show today is to encourage myself and to push out the ideas that can

00:58:00.000 | be useful.

00:58:01.360 | I've tried some of the different apps as far as where you enter in every meal and everything.

00:58:05.280 | I found them so constrictive because I don't eat from a package.

00:58:09.080 | Interestingly, I saw on J.D. Roth's Facebook page that he was actually telling his girlfriend

00:58:15.560 | – he was going to design – his girlfriend wanted to lose weight evidently and his diet

00:58:19.440 | for her was that he was going to put her on a packaged food diet.

00:58:25.920 | The point was that by being on a packaged food diet, you could use a tracking app like

00:58:30.560 | MyFitnessPal or whatever, something like that.

00:58:32.560 | You could use a tracking app, scan the barcode and have all the nutritional data automatically

00:58:36.960 | installed.

00:58:37.960 | His point was calories are more important than anything else and so by tracking that

00:58:46.760 | with a barcode, we'll be able to make more options.

00:58:49.200 | I thought, "Interesting idea," because I can see the value.

00:58:52.240 | Now we don't eat – in my family, we don't eat a lot of packaged foods and so it's

00:58:56.160 | really frustrating when I'm sitting there making something with food and, "Okay,

00:58:59.120 | am I going to weigh this and I'm making a big bowl for the family?

00:59:01.480 | Am I going to sit there and put these things on a scale to be able to track this?"

00:59:04.600 | I haven't been able to come up with that.

00:59:06.260 | So what I'm convinced has the biggest difference is personally for me, overweight guy talking,

00:59:12.320 | take this with a grain of salt, do your own research.

00:59:14.280 | I'm convinced calories are not a major factor in weight.

00:59:20.840 | I'm convinced they're also not a major factor in health.

00:59:23.160 | Now there are lots of people who disagree with me but I've read as extensively as

00:59:27.440 | I can and I can't find the data that demonstrates that calories are the key.

00:59:32.000 | So what I've been working on is adjusting the major choices.

00:59:35.800 | So many people seem well agreed on the fact that calories are not the contributor of weight

00:59:41.960 | gain, it's carbohydrates.

00:59:44.400 | And so each of us will have a varying level at which our bodies come out based upon the

00:59:51.600 | amount of carbohydrates.

00:59:52.960 | So that to me is easier to track.

00:59:54.760 | It's not necessarily to track in an app, it's easier to track with the choices.

00:59:59.660 | So that's what I choose to do and so for me, I try to just take pictures and say, "Remind

01:00:04.440 | myself, what am I eating?"

01:00:05.520 | And so that way I know if I chose to eat something that had more carbohydrates, "Oh, I've got

01:00:09.720 | the record there."

01:00:11.360 | So it's not a surprise.

01:00:13.160 | But you're going to have to go to someone else because I'm not an expert, anything beyond

01:00:16.040 | that.

01:00:17.040 | I would say if the most compelling book that I read on the subject was Why We Get Fat by

01:00:23.840 | Gary Taubes.

01:00:24.840 | Another compelling book was Wheat Belly.

01:00:26.800 | I read those books a few months ago and they both were really, really compelling.

01:00:30.400 | And I knew the basic premise of them but finally I read the books and they helped me to be

01:00:35.800 | confident and more confident in my perspective.

01:00:40.560 | But there's too much of a battle out there.

01:00:41.840 | I don't want to get into that one anymore.

01:00:42.840 | Lee asks, "I'd love to get to Jesse Mecham's live on last month's income but other than

01:00:46.480 | cut back on spending, do you have any practical tips?

01:00:48.760 | P.S. close to 20% of net income is put straight to savings so it's not like we're spending

01:00:52.760 | everything."

01:00:53.760 | Lee, I would say you're using YNAB and so one of the major premises of YNAB is live

01:00:57.880 | on last month's income.

01:00:59.360 | I didn't get that until I walked through their training and all of a sudden I realized what

01:01:03.400 | that little function of budgeting the income for December or January was.

01:01:07.920 | And so it's very simple.

01:01:10.140 | If you are saving that much money, you're saving 20% of your income.

01:01:13.320 | As long as you've done that for five months, you have one month's income in savings.

01:01:18.240 | What I would do is just simply move the money into my checking account and then I would

01:01:22.720 | allocate – I would start putting this month's money and allocating it for next month and

01:01:27.160 | then I would go ahead and just replenish the savings and just adjust it very simply.

01:01:31.320 | If you're saving that percentage of your income, you're in good shape.

01:01:35.040 | If you don't have that much money in savings, then follow the plan that they have in their

01:01:40.080 | budget where you set up a buffer account.

01:01:42.720 | What you do is in your YNAB budgeting system, you establish a buffer account and you fund

01:01:48.120 | that buffer account until it's equal to one month's expenses.

01:01:52.920 | So the money will gradually grow in your checking account and then once it's grown to be an

01:01:58.160 | amount equal to one month's expenses, then you just pull it out of the buffer account,

01:02:04.000 | budget it and from then on, you put all the money into the month ahead.

01:02:07.200 | So that's the way that they do it and it really works great.

01:02:11.400 | Last question comes from Victoria.

01:02:12.600 | She says, "How do you fit budgeting for big expenses like a kitchen remodel into your

01:02:16.280 | budget?

01:02:17.280 | I tend to stop my long-term savings for X number of months to save for big purchases

01:02:20.360 | but wonder if there's a better way."

01:02:22.640 | So Victoria, I don't know if there's a better way.

01:02:25.440 | No.

01:02:26.440 | I would just say for me, the key question here would be getting clear on your priorities.

01:02:31.900 | So I don't have a lot of experience as being a homeowner for decades to where, "OK, I'm

01:02:37.040 | going to remodel the kitchen."

01:02:38.040 | I will tell you where I'm at now at my age is I wouldn't remodel the kitchen because

01:02:42.620 | right now, it would cost me too much money as compared to my long-term goals of financial

01:02:47.160 | independence.

01:02:48.540 | But if I started to realize that remodeling the kitchen was a priority, then I would assess

01:02:55.120 | it and I would say, "Would I rather have the kitchen remodeled?"

01:03:00.300 | Maybe that would bring my wife a greater deal of happiness and that would be worth it.

01:03:04.300 | Maybe it would bring me – if I would, I'd rather have the kitchen remodeled and delay

01:03:07.980 | financial independence by X number of months or years or not.

01:03:13.680 | I would run that calculation so that I knew.

01:03:16.560 | Then if I knew that I'd rather have the kitchen remodeled, I would do exactly what

01:03:19.720 | you said.

01:03:20.720 | I would just say, "OK.

01:03:21.720 | Right now, we're going to remodel the kitchen and this is going to be the major priority."

01:03:25.360 | I don't know of anything more intelligent to do than that.

01:03:28.480 | Maybe some of you guys have a better system and you can help Victoria out with that.

01:03:32.640 | I hope these ideas have been useful to you.

01:03:35.320 | I know some of these things are a little bit conceptual but I think they're powerful.

01:03:40.640 | Just to reiterate, three major budgets, time, food, and money.

01:03:44.320 | There are three major stages that we go through.

01:03:46.680 | First stage is getting an awareness.

01:03:48.960 | Got to start with getting awareness.

01:03:49.960 | If you don't have awareness about one of those aspects of your life, start with just

01:03:53.160 | getting awareness.

01:03:54.160 | Don't try to plan.

01:03:55.160 | Just get aware.

01:03:56.360 | Then try to do some proactive planning.

01:03:58.760 | If you need or want big results, do very tight proactive planning.

01:04:03.200 | If you just need OK results, then do looser proactive planning.

01:04:07.080 | Do proactive planning with appropriate detail.

01:04:09.520 | Number three, set up a system of ongoing controls with an appropriate level of relaxation.

01:04:13.560 | If you're getting great results, you don't need to do that tight planning forever.

01:04:18.280 | If you are – there was somebody I was corresponding with in the Facebook group.

01:04:22.080 | He said, "Hey, I'm doing great.

01:04:24.120 | I've done fine.

01:04:25.120 | I've used Quicken for years.

01:04:26.120 | Do I really need YNAB?"

01:04:27.760 | My answer was no, you don't because you don't need to do that month-to-month planning.

01:04:32.500 | You just need to have a vague idea of, "OK, in 2016, here's how much money I'm going

01:04:35.560 | to make.

01:04:36.560 | We're going to spend about this much.

01:04:37.560 | We're going to save about this much.

01:04:38.680 | So I know this much about is available."

01:04:40.360 | It's my opinion.

01:04:43.160 | You go through phases and you got to get clear on the goals, put in the big rocks, get the

01:04:49.240 | tools that are appropriate and make sure that you're having a level of control that's appropriate

01:04:53.380 | for what you're trying to do.

01:04:55.040 | The better the results you want, the tighter you need to make those results because mega

01:04:58.920 | results come from the most careful, diligent planning but that may not be where you're

01:05:04.800 | at.

01:05:05.800 | So I hope this is useful to you.

01:05:06.800 | I hope it can inspire you.

01:05:07.960 | Listen, December is a great time to be doing budgeting because you can start with a fresh

01:05:12.960 | years of data, a fresh month.

01:05:15.200 | It's just great.

01:05:16.200 | So this show is going on December 17th.

01:05:17.880 | If you're not using a system, start with something.

01:05:20.440 | Sign up for Tiller.

01:05:21.440 | I think they still have the free code there.

01:05:24.240 | Maybe they still have the two-month code working.

01:05:25.560 | Go to tillerhq.com/radical.

01:05:26.560 | Tillerhq.com/radical.

01:05:27.560 | Try YNAB.

01:05:28.560 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/ynab.

01:05:29.560 | Try Personal Capital.

01:05:30.560 | Radicalpersonalfinance.com/personalcapital.

01:05:31.560 | You're getting the idea.

01:05:32.560 | But try something and start working on it and don't be scared if it doesn't work.

01:05:33.560 | I'm not going to say it's a bad idea.

01:05:34.560 | I'm just saying that it's a good idea.

01:05:35.560 | I'm not saying that it's a bad idea.

01:05:36.560 | I'm just saying that it's a good idea.

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RPF0273-Budgeting_Time_Money_and_Food