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With no hidden fees and a 100% purchase guarantee, you can feel confident when you book your premium LA tickets with Sweet Hop. Visit suitehop.com today. Today on the show I'm going to give you the one rule about finance that you need to know that will help you figure out all the other rules.

I know it's a big, big claim. Let's see if I can deliver on that. It's Friday afternoon here as I hit record on the microphone. It's 3.30 p.m. on Friday, October 20, 2017. I've had an interesting week. This week I've been focused basically exclusively on responding to listener emails.

For about the last six months, I didn't really respond to any emails. I was kind of depressed for a few of those months and as part of trying to deal with that and figure out how to get myself out of my funk, I just shut off the email basically and I just couldn't respond.

It took too much emotional energy for me. And yet so all these things piled up and so I began the week with about a thousand emails and I was determined to go through and read and listen because emails, although they are voluminous, they're one of the primary ways that I hear from you.

And if I lose touch with you, then I feel like I don't know how to talk going forward. I don't know what to speak to. And so it's very important to me that I maintain my contact with you. So there's something about answering a lot of emails and answering a lot of questions just systematically one after the other.

You start to see the themes, and that's why I did it because I needed to clarify some of my projects. I've got a lot going on right now coming up on the 500th episode of the show. I'll be at FinCon next week. I'm working desperately to try to continue finishing and delivering this beta version of the Radical Personal Finance Career and Income course that I've been doing.

That's been more challenging than I thought, and so far I'm happy with it, but I've also just felt that I wanted to make sure that I delivered everything that I want to deliver. And so I decided that I really just wanted to spend, as silly as this sounds, I wanted to spend the week listening to you.

Let me tell you what the theme is that I hear. You're trying to make financial decisions without thinking about your life. You're trying to make financial decisions based upon what someone else thinks you should do with the money instead of your thinking about how the money affects your life.

Let me give you an example. Sam writes in and says this. "Hi, Joshua. My name is Samuel, and I'm currently a 23-year-old just over a year out of college." And by the way, I'm interrupting Sam's email here. This is not something that's exclusive to 23-year-old young men or 23-year-old young women.

I get emails from 63-year-old young men and 63-year-old young women who are asking the same question. So don't let that affect you. This is just a phase of life thing. "I'm currently a 23-year-old just over a year out of college and two months away from being employed with a career job for one year as a financial compliance analyst.

Recently found your podcast and have been listening to just about as many episodes as I can fit in a day. I love your definition and goal of financial freedom and independence and really love your outlook towards those. I currently have $37,000 of student loan debt, $2,000 owed on a 0% APR credit card that has 11 months left of the 0% deal with a limit of $2,500, make roughly $40,000 per year, and I'm looking to propose to my girlfriend of six years within the next six months for timing reasons.

I've been struggling with trying to find a mixture of savings, investing, and paying off debt. I know there are lots of things that could be done and many strategies to take. I know you're busy, so I would like to know some of the very basic steps that you would suggest taking, such as where should I allocate my money immediately and how to get my feet wet in the investing world while taking care of necessary payments and other things.

I did graduate undergraduate with a degree in economics and have a fairly good understanding of stocks and the markets, but would love to hear an expert's point of view considering the position you are at in your life. Thanks for your time, Sam." Now pay careful attention to what you heard in that question and what you didn't hear.

I chose this one for this show because it was short. Some of you write me two-page emails, which by the way, I can't effectively process and respond to two-page emails. If you want an answer, just write your question and then give me a paragraph or two and I'll do my very best to respond, but I can't do two-page responses.

But some of you write me a two-page email and you basically do the same thing. You ask what the financial solution is and you miss what to me is the most blindingly obvious thing, your life. Notice that Sam is asking about a mixture of savings and investing and paying off debt and he's thinking about investments and should he pay off his credit cards and student loans and things like that.

But what blows off the page at me is the fact that he's looking to propose to his girlfriend and get married. That's the fundamentally most important thing in this list. The rest of the stuff is just noise. It doesn't even matter. What is it? I'll qualify that in just a moment.

But in comparison to the importance and the value of proposing to your girlfriend and getting married and building a life together, what does it matter whether you owe $37,000 on your student loans or $33,000 on your student loans? What does it matter if you have a $2,000 balance on a credit card or a $0 balance on a credit card?

Those things matter only a little bit compared to the life decisions. And my goodness, if we're talking about the value of being married versus dealing with money, forget the money. Get married. Now, this is not exclusive to weddings. You may be writing me and saying, well, what should I do about this specific job because my mom or dad is failing and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with the person and how we're going to care for them.

Focus on caring for them. Or we want to move to a certain place. Move. Go. That's life. And that's what matters the most. I'm not a Pollyanna about this. I'm not saying be stupid or don't make a plan. I'm not saying that, well, whatever you want, you should just get it right now.

Be thoughtful and creative, but recognize that the money is not a goal. The money just funds a goal. Listen, when you're dead and gone, the money isn't going to matter. If you're sick, the money isn't going to matter. If you divorce your husband or wife, the money doesn't matter.

The money is a very poor substitute for a good life. Money can help fund a good life. Money can make life a little bit easier. Money is very important and very integral to life, but it is not the substance of life. Don't try to ask investing questions until you've figured out the life questions.

So, Sam, here's my answer to you. If you make $40,000 a year and you have $37,000 of student loan debt and you owe $2,000 on a 0% APR credit card and you want to propose to your girlfriend and get married, I would basically put everything financial on hold. Now, in order for you to be a good and suitable potential husband to your wife, I think it would be very beneficial for you to be out of debt.

That's important. If you were coming and you were interested in my daughter, I would inquire into your financial situation before I gave you permission to marry my daughter. And so I think you should take that very seriously. If you can clear the credit card debt, you're not going to be able to clear the student loan debt between now and a wedding.

But if you can clear the credit card debt, that would be excellent and just go in with the student loan debt. But even if you can't do any of those things, if you have a job and you're employed, you have everything that you need to support a family. All you need is a job and a source of income and the desire and the willingness to be married.

And at this stage in your life, that should be your number one financial focus. So if I were in your shoes, I would immediately put everything on hold, financially speaking, and I would save towards a reasonable engagement ring if you plan to use one. I would save towards a wedding and I would make it reasonable and appropriate based upon what my wife and I talk about as being important to us.

And then I would focus on establishing a marriage on a strong foundation. Everything else can wait. And I would caution you about getting too far down the road in any of your investment decisions or business decisions or career decisions until you are married. Because it's one thing to plan out your career, plan out your business, plan out your investments as a single man.

It's another thing to plan those things out as a married man. And you need the input of your wife. You need to work to figure out how you'll be integrating what's important to her and what's important to you and how those things are going to work out. But when you're facing a major life change, that should be the important thing, not becoming financially independent in 10 or 15 years.

That's fine. You'll get to that. But take that next step. Now, it's the same with almost any change in life. If you are pregnant and expecting a child, well, that should become your primary area of focus. I don't set a big goal if my wife is expecting a baby.

I don't say, "Well, this is the year that I'm going to have a breakout thing, breakout financial goal." That's nice if it happens. But I set as my goal help and work with my wife so that we have a successful and effective and happy, healthy pregnancy and baby. Because let me tell you, having a healthy wife and a healthy baby is far more important to me, to my life, than reaching some arbitrary, stupid money goal.

The money goal only matters to the extent that it funds my life. And so these shorter-term goals are important to put into place. Prioritize them over the long-term intangible of financial freedom or financial independence. If you decide that you'd like to buy a house, if that's appropriate and helpful for you and you've thought that through, then make that the primary goal.

If you've decided that you'd like to move, make that the financial goal and plan towards that. And then if necessary, put the long-term things on hold while you deal with those short-term scenarios. I'd much rather have, as a new husband, I'd much rather have $37,000 – let's just assume you pay out the credit card.

You can pay out the credit card in the next couple of months. Get that thing gone. But I'd much rather have $37,000 of student loan debt and make sure that my wife and I had a budget of maybe $1,000 or $2,000 set aside to be able to properly furnish a place that we're going to live or decorate our apartment or make sure that we have enough money to do some fun weekends together and spend on those things and deal with the student loan debt.

So focus on life first. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the best area of focus for any young man making $40,000 a year who's 23 years old, your most important investment should be in increasing your income. For young people, that is the single most important factor that drives your financial success and fuels the path to financial independence because it's a whole lot easier to clear your student loans.

It's a whole lot easier to become financially independent when you make $100,000 a year when you're 30 than when you make 40 or 45 when you're 30. So focus on that. But that's the financial answer. But the life answer is more important. So pay attention to life. The life challenges and the life decisions and the life stage changes are not constant.

And so what you'll find is there are a period of big changes followed by periods of stability. When you see one of those big changes, focus exclusively on that. Marriage is a big change. Being newly married is a big change. But what you'll find is that after you're married, after you've been married a year, you and your wife will start to be settled in together.

And then you can kind of pull back and say, "OK, we're stable. What's the next big thing?" And that's when you set the next financial goal. "Hey, let's get these student loans paid off." And if something happens along the way, your wife gets sick, you get sick, you have a baby, you decide you want to move, your mom and dad aren't doing well, you decide to move back, you have a career change, et cetera.

When those big things happen, you quickly adjust your focus, deal with the short-term changes, marshal your cash, and then go back to the big long-term plan. Everything about the financial independence and the retirement and putting money in retirement accounts and buying real estate and building business, all that stuff, that stuff is the overarching long-term plan.

It's not the short-term. So focus on life and the life goals. Execute well on those things and focus on installing the habits for the money and the money will take care of itself. The stocks and the markets and the businesses and the houses, all those things will be there next year.

But your wife may not. She's already been there for six years. And by the way, man, is that a long time to be dating somebody and not be married. I'm glad to hear you're finally taking some action, but don't dick her around for another three years working on some kind of magical financial goal.

She might decide she's ready to go off and be with somebody who will actually take action and be willing to step up and claim her. Sure would be a shame to pay off a little bit more debt, have just a little bit more money and lose the love of your life.

So for now, get that stuff squared away. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You can have a reasonable wedding. You can have a reasonable engagement. You can rent a reasonable and inexpensive place. But those things are principles that can be applied. Your focus should be on life. Take those life steps steadily, systematically, consistently, and in a focused way.

Let the money work out over the long term. This show is part of the Radical Life Media network of podcasts and resources. Find out more at RadicalLifeMedia.com. Don't just dream about paradise. Live it with Fiji Airways. Escape the ordinary with Fiji Airways Global Beat the Rush Sale. Immerse yourself in white sandy beaches or dive deep into coral reefs.

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