Mindy: Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the 500th episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jenson and joining me today as my co-host is Kaylin Bennett, our senior producer, and she has helped make many of the past 500 episodes happen.
Guest: Hi Mindy. It’s so good to to see you and be back on the show. Um, this may be a little, you know, behind the scenes scoop here, but I haven’t been working day-to-day on money lately. I got moved over to the real estate show, so I’ve missed you and it’s it’s good to see you.
Mindy: I’ve missed you too. I’m so happy you’re joining me today on this really giant episode. I could not imagine 500 episodes when Scott and I started this show way back in January of 2018.
Guest: Yeah, that’s that’s a feat in and of itself and the fact that all of you listeners have stuck around and have loved this show for 500 episodes, we we keep making it for you. And so, thank you for all your comments and interactions with the show. I mean, we’re here to do it for you. So, so thank you, thank you.
Mindy: 500 down, 500,000 more to go.
Guest: Absolutely. Uh, we’ll take your ideas for future topics, everyone. Well, Mindy and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story 500 times and over, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you are starting.
Mindy: And in celebration of 500 episodes of Bigger Pockets Money, today’s episode will be a look back at some of our favorite, most popular and most value packed moments on this podcast.
Guest: Mindy and I are here to give the inside scoop on some of our very favorite episodes that we’ve had over 500. So today we’re going to be talking through some of the episodes that covered financial awakenings, worry-free numbers, boring businesses and something called luxurious frugality. Mindy and I are going to get into some of the behind the scenes stuff of these episodes, uh, why we love them when we made them and also what we think about them now and why it’s important to you today.
Mindy: Whether you are an avid listener and have listened to every episode that we have made, and thank you so very much, or you’re just discovering our show now, you can always benefit from listening to these episodes two, three, four, a thousand times, because sometimes things only click when you’ve heard them over and over again. So we hope these clips unlock something for you today.
Guest: All right, Mindy. Well, the first show that we have lined up is actually one of my very favorite shows that I worked on as a producer. It’s episode 341 and this episode featured Katie Gatti Tason of the podcast Money with Katie. This episode was titled Money with Katie’s middle class wealth trap to avoid. Uh let’s go ahead and play that clip for our audience.
Guest: I became far more critical of my own unquestioning of just the way things are. Like the fact that almost every day my coworkers would go out to lunch. I’d be like, sure, I’ll join you. because you just you don’t think about it unless someone points at that and says, that’s actually not very like that’s probably not what you should be doing. Like, you know, you’re going out and spending $15 or $20 a day on lunch and then maybe going home and picking up food on the way home. Like those little choices that I never really thought much of before or just kind of considered normal because it’s what was modeled to me as normal. That’s what I started to question. Same with, I would say, some of the more traditional, quote unquote, like beauty or like feminine expenses of like always having to have your hair done and your nails done and to have trendy clothes and nice things and things like that, again, that I hadn’t really questioned. I just thought, yeah, I mean, you have to get your highlights and your gel manicures and and you have to have, you know, nice makeup on your face everything. Those are also things that I kind of started to look at through a different lens and say, well, actually, how much am I spending on these things? You know, what percentage and it turned out, it was like 10% of my take home pay was going toward what I now call the hot girl expenses. And sure, now that I’m earning more, I’ve introduced some of them again. I, you know, get my hair done again. But at the time, it was kind of like, oh my god, that is kind of inexcusable that I would spend 10% of my take home pay just on the way that I look. But unless someone really shines a flashlight on it for you and kind of points out, this is the trajectory that you’re putting yourself on with these choices, it’s very hard to notice or question those things on your own.
Guest: I want to put some framing around this clip for our audience here. So Katie was talking about this in the context of having what she’s called a financial awakening, which I love, we all heard the term like spiritual awakening a lot, but I think a financial awakening can be just as important. And basically she was living this life of what she thought was normal. And I I guess like I felt and and I think to a lot of Americans it is normal. I think I felt very seen with Katie where you know, your friends are doing all these things like it’s a lot of FOMO culture, like you have to go out, you have to look good, you have to get your nails done, you have to do all these things. Like and a lot of her disposable income was going to that. And you know, something that we didn’t clip out in this episode that she said was, you know, spending a dollar now, like what’s the difference if I spend it now or in five years? And and that’s overlooking a lot of the beautiful things like investing and compound interest and what that dollar does over time. We’re it we’re not really answering a lot of the change that, you know, putting your dollar somewhere else can do for you.
Mindy: Right. And what she, what I love about this particular clip so much is, you know, these things she says, you don’t think about it. You don’t think about it when you are surrounded by people who are going out to lunch every day, you don’t think about the cost of going out to lunch every day, you just join them. Um, these, she said, you don’t think about it. Those little choices are considered normal because it was modeled to me as normal. When you don’t question what’s going on, and so many people don’t question what’s going on and then all of a sudden the question pops up and you look around and you think to yourself, it doesn’t have to be this way. And I remember having the exact same conversation with my husband when we discovered the Mr. Money Mustache blog. Uh, oh my goodness, you don’t have to work until you’re age 65. Before we read that on his website, we just assumed we would work until we’re age 65. So having these little things modeled to you that are different is one of the reasons why we have this podcast in the first place. Your life can be very different with very small tweaks.
Guest: And I’ve had my own like aha moments like that on the podcast. So like a lot of my financial awakening this year and Mindy I remember when I called and told you about this is like I sold my car. To a lot of people that’s like, okay, well, why would you sell your car, you need that to get around. But you know, I looked at my life, my partner and I both work from home. Uh we really only need one driver, we go most places together. Like why do we have two car loans and I could make money on it. And then I something I do love is I love vintage cars. So I bought some really dope 1994 Geo tracker, Chevrolet Geo tracker. If you guys don’t know this car, just like trust me, look it up. It’s teal, it’s gorgeous, it’s a convertible. Um it’s dope AF. But you know, I looked at my life and that was going to be a lot more fun and fulfilling and I could pay cash for it than having some car payment for a car that sits in the driveway. But you know, it’s these conversations of the show about looking at that horizon, I don’t have to have a nice daily driver because all of my friends do, you know, I can drive some some dope little zippy car around town during the summer.
Mindy: Exactly.
Guest: The next episode I want to talk about, we’re going all the way back to episode 10 that released on March 5th of 2018 and on this episode we talked with Liz Frugalwoods about how she lives a frugally luxurious life. Gamifying your frugal habits can help make a fun challenge to you when you are trying to remove things from your life or reduce costs when you are first on the F path, first determining how you’re going to uh reduce your expenses and she has a fantastic bit of advice about how she was able to do this.
Guest: Our approach is all about luxurious frugality. And I know people say luxurious frugal, lady, you are crazy, but listen, I really, I really believe in this because I don’t think that frugality is sustainable or enjoyable or even makes any sense if you just don’t spend any money. I that you sure, you could spend pennies and you could eat beans out of a can and you could live in a tent. These are all things that you could do. We did not do any of those things. We really continued living at what I would consider to be a very high level of um, luxury convenience, but we stopped spending on all the things that did not bring us deep and lasting fulfillment. And so we cut out a lot of things that were just ultimately unnecessary. And then the other piece is that we found frugal substitutions for things that we love to do. So, a great example are yoga classes. I love going to yoga. In the city I was going to yoga three nights a week for like $20 a class. I mean just, you know, thousands of dollars every month. And what I realized is that I could volunteer at the front desk of the yoga studio, check people in, mop the studio afterwards, take out the trash and get free classes. And so that was a very small expenditure of time for me. It was about 30 minutes in order to get free classes. And a tradeoff like that where then you’re then saving many thousands of dollars a year is fantastic. And the other piece of that is that I made a bunch of friends. I was part of the community of the yoga studio. I love working at the front desk. It was it was a lot of fun for me in addition to being this financially fantastic idea. So I really encourage people to isolate the variables of what makes them the happiest and if it’s yoga class, or it’s crossFit, whatever it is. There is a frugal analog for that. There is something that you can do in order to reduce the cost of that. We also love to drink seltzer, which is sparkling water. This is the most ridiculous example because people No no no, this is my favorite example. I mean, when she says that they drink a lot of seltzer, I don’t think that you really understand. I think that’s all she drinks is seltzer. She keeps herself very hydrated with her seltzer. Very well hydrated. It’s just water, it’s just sparkling water. I don’t put any sugar in it, I swear. No, but but you can’t just like go and blow bubbles in there, you have to do it with a a machine. You do, you need the intervention of a machine. So this is an example where, you know, someone who is going to extreme frugality would say, oh well obviously you’re going to give up the seltzer and just drink tap water because that’s free. Uh no, we did not give up the seltzer. My husband who is very handy, and we detail this process on our blog. So if anybody wants to do this, you really can follow the steps. It’s actually quite straightforward. We hacked our soda stream machine to hook up to a 20 pound canister of CO2. And so this now costs us, you know, pennies and I do the cost breakdown on Frugal Woods and you can read through that. But the key with a soda stream machine where you’re spending the money is on the inserts, you know, the the CO2 inserts that you have to swap out. and we were spending, I think it was maybe $40 a month on those. We now spend I think it’s $60 per year on this CO2 tank. and I have to tell you the evolution of the seltzer because originally, let me tell you, we were buying two liter bottles at the grocery store. All right? So that’s the most expensive way to get bubbly water to your home. It’s also very heavy when you don’t have a car and you’re walking back from the grocery store. So my devotion to this seltzer is very profound. So then from there we bought a soda stream, that is less expensive and then from there we hacked it to use this CO2 tank, but it gets better. We originally bought the CO2 tank from a beer home brew shop because it’s the same CO2. I looked at the CO2 tank and it had a sticker of a welding supply company on the side and I was like, this home brew shop is getting it from the welding supply and then marking it way up at the hipster home brew shop. So I called the welding supply, sure enough, it’s half off at welding supply. So we now it’s the same thing. They were just like hipsterizing it, like putting a bow on it, you know, at the home brew shop. So there’s always a cheaper option and you know, what kind of underlies this story is how much fun it is to make these discoveries. This was truly enjoyable for my husband and I and I cannot tell you how excited we were and then excited to share with other people. And so I think it’s when you see it as an enjoyable aspect of life and you see it as a competition and you see it as really a way that you can innovate and be creative, becomes a lot of fun because we live in this society of just use an app for um anything that you need and you know, what I’m advocating is use your brain, be creative, be innovative, find ways to get what you want without spending money.
Mindy: Mindy, I have to say like the amount you’ve referenced this episode to me personally, like it’s probably weekly. So I know that this is like in your top three favorite episodes ever on the show.
Guest: Kaylin, this is one of my absolute favorite episodes. You’re right, because she tells her story so well and you can hear her excitement when she’s talking about, I’m going to get rid of everything. And then you can hear a little bit of anguish, oh, I really didn’t like this life that I was living now when I got rid of everything, but I knew I wanted to reduce my expenses. I knew that was going to be a key component to becoming financially independent. So I’m looking for ways to keep in the things that I like at a reduced cost. And I just love her ingenuity. I love the she didn’t take no for an answer. She figured it out and it was so easy for her to do. I it it’s just such a shining example of what you can do when you put a little creativity at your problem and you think outside the box.
Mindy: I completely agree and something that, you know, you and I talk not on the show about but offline about when we for when I’m producing when I was producing the show was we we like to say like you can have your coffee and drink it too. Like you can be on a budget but still live a happy fulfilled life where like you can enjoy the things that you enjoy. I think that there’s this really big misnomer in the FI community that that you have to give up everything to get to fi and then you can start living your life. And I personally have had a really hard time with I guess that story that I keep hearing, I see online or in the forums or on Reddit or or whatever when we’re researching shows and I think that this episode really is an answer to that, which is you can be frugal but still live a luxurious, happy life and she does that with such ingenuity. And so Mindy, I’m just wondering like how have you done that in your personal life? Like how have you lived a luxurious life while getting to FI, um but with just a little bit of creativity?
Guest: One of the things is I don’t spend money on things that I don’t truly value. So I really don’t care about the clothes that I wear. I shop at a thrift store. I go to garage sales and that I’m fine with that. But I really want to feed my family good food. So I don’t skimp at the grocery store. That doesn’t mean that I don’t use coupons. That doesn’t mean that I don’t shop the sales, but I’m not willing to go down to the uh another person in the FI community is Jacob Lund Fisker from early retirement extreme and extreme is really the the keyword here. He lives on something like $7,000 a year or he did, you know, when he first started. But his $7,000 a year is extreme. He’s living on beans and rice and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he is not living a life that I want to live. So I don’t live that life and I think that while his choices are his choices, he makes a lot more money than $7,000 a year, he chooses to live on $7,000 a year. So that’s the key here. People see that and think, oh, that’s what I have to do. No, you can do whatever you want. and I love what Paula Pant says, you can afford anything, you can’t afford everything. So figure out what you want to keep in your life.
Mindy: I love that. and something like a life bulb moment for me while producing this show. I don’t even remember who said it. but a budget isn’t a limitation, it’s what I can spend things on. It’s not what I can’t spend things on, it’s what I can. And I think that if you can’t afford like Liz was talking about in this episode, like or you don’t want to afford, you know, buying bubbly water in the can if you, you know, drink it by the gallon like she does or like paying for a really expensive yoga membership, you can find uh creative ways to make that stuff happen. I’ve done that in my in my own life. Um I realized that the monthly membership to the yoga studio I love wasn’t worth it, but I could buy class packages and it would be cheaper and I go when I want to go and and and it checked the box and I’m saving $70 a month. So I think that like if you’re just willing to do some research, you’re willing to be a little bit creative. You can fit everything you like in your life in your budget. Like I love going out to eat. I love going to a bar, like I work from home, girl needs to get out. You know, I I can’t look at these I four walls all the time. But I learned I I literally went on a map and I mapped out the best happy hours in my area and things for my partner and I to go to. And we go out and we spend like 40 bucks between the two of us, you know, once or twice a week. That’s not going to break the bank. We’re in we’re having a great day night, we’re enjoying our time, we’re meeting new people and it’s scratching that itch that we we want. Like we value going out. so we just have to do it smartly.
Guest: Exactly, exactly. Figure out what you want to keep in your life and what you want to get rid of. Now, one thing that we didn’t share on Liz’s recap episode or recap clip is that she actually removed a large amount of things from her life and only added back in a few things, meaning she still was saving a lot of money. She just was able to add back in the things she wanted and continue to save money on those as well.
Mindy: All right, Mindy. I don’t know how you follow Liz Frugalwood, but we do have a maverick of a show to follow up with that and that is Cody Sanchez talking about boring businesses. This was episode 416. So let’s go ahead and play that clip.
Guest: You just said don’t buy a job, buy a business. And I think that’s fabulous advice. I can hear a lot of people, oh man, I bought this business because I listened to Cody and then it’s it’s all I do is work at this job. How do you differentiate what’s going to be a job and what’s going to be a business before you actually own it and now have to work three two jobs full time to try and make your investment not crash?
Mindy: Well, um, a lot of this comes down to, so there’s 10 steps to buying a business. Let’s answer it this way. Um, there’s 10 steps to buying a business. First step to buying a business is understanding that the opportunity is out there. Um, and that it’s possible to do with not a lot of cash if you want to and that that business could potentially replace your 9 to 5, totally doable. Second is deal clarity, which means, hey, I know exactly what type of business would be good for me. I have asked myself, we have 25 questions we ask you, but I’ve asked myself these 25 questions. Third is origination. How do I find a business? Uh, where are they located? Fourth is due diligence. This would be this section. So how do I know if this is a good business that really does what it says it does where the owner actually only works 20 hours a week and it makes this much amount of money that they say it does so I know what I’m getting myself into. Fourth is negotiating. How do I negotiate well with the seller in order to get what I want. Six is selling you, so how do I convince the seller that I am the person to take over their little baby that they’ve built their whole lives that they spent their whole lives building. Seven is going to be um financing, so how do I get the money to actually do this deal. Eight is closing, so how do I take this uh how do I take this business with my attorney and my accountant and actually close the deal overall. Uh nine is the first 90 days and the 10 is growth.
Guest: Okay, so for those of you not on YouTube right now, uh that are just listening to this podcast, I just like have to point out that Mindy is wearing the exact same shirt in this recording and the Cody Sanchez recording.
Mindy: I thought it looked familiar.
Guest: Yeah. I love it. It’s a good shirt. She looks amazing at it. So, um, so I I do want to like give a producer’s note on why I love this episode and why I I picked this episode. So, something that we do at bigger pockets is we talk a lot about creating wealth and creating financial freedom through real estate. And I think there’s a lot of different ways to become financially abundant, to reach FI, and I love in this episode that we highlighted a different way. And Cody does and has invested in real estate, but she really frames this through buying boring businesses and gives us a really strong framework of how to go about making that possible in your own life.
Mindy: Yeah, I love her 10 steps. That’s super easy to understand. She’s not using huge jargon in here. Uh one thing that I found really surprising through this episode is uh she said boring businesses. Buy a business with no mote. and what made me so surprised by this is because this is the exact opposite of Warren Buffett’s mentality, buy businesses with big modes. And Warren’s makes sense, but he’s got billions and billions of dollars so he can buy the railroad company. Um I don’t have Warren Buffett money. I can’t afford to buy a railroad company all by myself. But Cody is introducing you to buying businesses that you can afford, businesses that are, there’s no moat around them. We’re talking about the laundromat. There’s lots of competition for a laundromat, but there’s also lots of need for the laundromat, the electrician shop, the plumber, you know, the liquor store. There’s all sorts of these businesses all over every city in America. There’s all sorts of these businesses for sale at all different price points. And she’s giving you the framework for how to identify and evaluate the business and see if it’s worth your time and worth your investment. And it’s like you said, it’s another way to reach financial independence.
Guest: Absolutely. and I think something that always really stuck with me about this particular episode was how earlier in the episode Cody talks about buying businesses that align with her values and the current thing she’s trying to create. So she owns part of her arm is she owns a media business, so she acquired a video production company, which could she which could help her with the things that she’s already working on. And I think that that’s really important for our audience is to sit, evaluate your life, what businesses can you buy or opportunities can you create to leverage what you’re already doing. Um the other thing that really stuck with me about this episode and why Cody is just a master at what she does is it’s not always about the exact business she’s buying but about the operation she’s bringing to better the business and that becomes like the whole infrastructure in and of itself of why she can go to scale with it. So I think for our real estate investors, for our business owners, for our folks interested in getting to FI, I think that this episode to me was always just a very good lesson in know your systems, know your wants and and know your value proposition of what you’re trying to do uh with on your journey.
Mindy: Absolutely. I really got a lot out of this episode. Next up is episode 243. For our listeners who keep track, this is the episode that features Ramit Sethi talking about couple’s finance, living a rich life together.
Guest: We have um, we have a worry-free number. That’s what I call it. And I encourage everybody to develop a worry-free number. It’s called a worry-free number because below that number, you do not worry about it. I’m frankly sick of hearing about people who uh have $800,000 in the bank and they go to the grocery store and they agonize over whether to get pre-cut broccoli or not. It’s a complete waste of time. It’s a waste of limited cognitive resources and it’s playing small. I always say, stop focusing on $3 questions. You should be asking $30,000 or in their case, $300,000 questions. So set a worry-free number. Uh for a lot of people, you know, when we grow up, it’s like, oh okay, pack a gum. Whatever, pack a gum. It’s a buck, buck 50, no big deal. No, no problem. Here’s the problem. As you become more financially successful, you rarely adjust your worry free number. So you have these people who have lots of money, a huge investment portfolio and they’re sitting there agonizing over $1.75. Stop it. You need to update your worry free number. And so for I feel seen. for people it, you know, $5. Okay, when I was starting out in my early career, okay, five bucks, fine. But at a certain point your worry free number might be 100. It might be 1000. I know couples for whom it is 10,000. They don’t even talk about anything below $10,000. okay? Now that’s a multi-millionaire couple. But I interview a lot of those on my podcast as well. Multi multi-millionaires who one of them goes out to a restaurant and tells his wife, I really want the steak tonight, but you know what, I’m going to get the chicken because it’s $5 cheaper. I just think about that. Is that the kind of life that you’re working for? You build your investment portfolio, you sit there, you’re running your simulations. and you’re not even ordering the meat you want when you go out to eat? No.
Mindy: Okay, Mindy. So we didn’t totally show this in the clip, but Ramit made you cry during this episode if you watch all the way to the end. Uh and I just like, I promise this is tangential for a reason, but I have to tell the audience a quick story. one of the first episodes I produced with you, it was like episode like two or three. Um we’re doing this intro and Mindy just starts sobbing like crying on this intro. and I this is like I’ve known Mindy for for like quite some time at this point, but it was my first one of my first times producing her and I just like froze. I just like did not know like what to do. I think I like wrote in you in the chat. I was like, you good, mama? Like like, you’re groovy, we’re doing this need to stop. So, uh I had seen this at this particular episode before I had produced you crying. But uh this is an episode that very much shows like the the softer side of Mindy and tearing up and Ramit calls her out uh in this episode uh after this clip. But, um, it was just, yeah, this episode is is one of my favorite episodes. It’s an episode that I looked to when I started producing this show because it’s such a powerhouse of an episode. And what he says here, your worry-free number really stuck with me in my own personal life. Like I think there’s like emotional weight to agonizing over money. I think a lot of people put so much emotional weight on $5 or $3 when in reality like you can enjoy your life better if you order the steak instead of the chicken like he’s he says in this example and it’s really not going to hurt you long term uh, to to enjoy the moment.
Guest: This is a lesson that I am continuing to struggle to learn. Uh I have a very uh very loving relationship with Ramit. Um I really admire what he’s doing on his podcast, on his, you know, his whole I will teach you to be rich network uh because he wants you to understand the power of the money that you have and how it can enrich your life. And this is something that I struggle with from childhood. I am a frugal person. I believe he called me cheap. um but this worry-free number, he’s talking right to me when he says all of these things and I feel, I don’t know if you heard my voice in there. I said, oh, I feel seen. I feel seen every time he talks. He is speaking directly to me and my husband and I went on an episode of his podcast and he continued to share with us way, like continue to push us to learn how to spend money, to, you know, figure out what our blocks are for not spending money. and this worry free number is, you know, hearing it again, that’s just another like I need to listen to this thing like five more times. Um I do need to find my worry free number and I don’t know that I have a worry free number right now. I know I don’t have a worry for your number right now. It’s like $0. as soon as it’s a dollar, I’m going to worry about it. And why should I? That’s so stupid. I have absolutely been the person who got the chicken instead of the steak because it’s $5 cheaper. and is $5 going to change my financial situation? Not now.
Mindy: Well I you know, Mindy you and I offline and in show planning, we’ve talked so much about this. like we’ve really talked this to death and you know, I’m just going to say it. I’m sure someone the audience is think like you’re an half millionaire. like it you can you can splurge on the things that that make your life more enjoyable like the steak and the cool thing in our relationship, our personal relationship, um talking through these shows is I’ve actually seen you and Carl start to do that. When I first met you, I think that there was a lot of emotion towards spending money or like you would you would come to me and feel like, oh my god, I spent money on this thing. I’d be like, yeah, girlfriend, like dope. and you’re like, no, but like I spent money on this thing. and I’m like, uh-huh. I’m like, you’re fine it’s fine. Um but like as as our relationship has evolved and we’ve talked through these things, like now I’m seeing you and you and Carl like joyful spend money. and I think you in some ways you I think rather than a worry-free number, you’ve made more worry-free purchases. So like Carl finally bought us Tesla. and since I met you three years ago, all you two have talked about is buying a freaking Tesla or you’ve gone on those vacations. You know what I mean? And it’s like you guys are you’re finally taking action on those purchases that that bring you a lot of joy and you’re really excited about. Um so that’s been that’s been really cool to to watch you evolve into that um after all these episodes with from me now.
Guest: Well thank you. I am really trying and now we are looking at the the uh time cost of things and trying to take that into consideration as much or more than the monetary cost of things because we have a very finite amount of time, but we have now accumulated a lot of money. So if I am going to be throwing 27 hours at something or $2,700, I’m gonna throw $2700 at it. I’m gonna get my 27 hours back. And it is uh something that we have learned through many conversations with Ramit. But the worry-free number, stop focusing on $3 questions. Focus on $30,000 questions or $300,000 questions. I’m probably gonna focus on like $300 questions as opposed to $3 questions. I don’t know that I can just jump into the 30,000 but baby steps.
Mindy: I think I want to point out to our audience too is like, I think that there is also like an inflection point for your worry free number. Like if you’re fresh and new on your journey to budgeting, like I was a number of years ago when I started at bigger pockets, like it I think it should be a $3 question. Like do I really need the Starbucks latte while I go to Target? Like the answer is probably no, unless it brings you the utmost joy, then I say 100% do it. But I think that there is this crossroads where you get to the point of like it does bring me joy, it doesn’t really matter. I’m making X amount of money, it’s within my budget and budget means what I can spend on and you just do it. But I think that there is there is this point of like you you do need to be frugal. You do need to real real things in like and maybe every dollar is a of a worry dollar. But then you get to this point where you’re at many where you do have you can’t have a worry free number. But I think the thing that is the bigger overarching question that’s really being discussed in this clip is I think something we try to answer on the show a lot, which is the emotional weight of money and how how impactful that is no matter if it’s $3, $3,000, $30,000, that’s different for everybody, but money money is super emotional. and what Ramit is trying to say in this is remove some of that emotion for when it doesn’t matter. If it’s a $3 thing and you’re a millionaire, stop putting so much of your excess energy into that decision.
Guest: Right there. Don’t put so much of your energy into one decision. That is that is one of the goals that Carl and I are working on this year. And if you are finding yourself in a similar situation, my dear listeners, I hope you are also going to make that one of your goals.
Mindy: And so Mindy, the thing I just really need to know coming out of this clip is how are you enjoying your Tesla?
Guest: It is a delight to drive. I hate putting gas in my car and I love having no gas to put in this car.
Mindy: Oh, good. See, you’re reducing a pain point in your life. Like well worth every penny. Like you you’ve earned it, you’re at that point. I I love it. Well, Mindy, before we end the show here, I think something that would be nice to I don’t know, dot our eyes, cross our Ts is I’d like to just spend a couple minutes and talk about, you know, we’re the money show in 2024, you know, and and the things that we’re looking at ahead, the things we’re excited about and and also, I guess putting out to our audience that we want to hear from you and we want to know the things you want to listen to this coming year.
Guest: Kaylin, what I am excited about going forward is continuing what we’ve done. This is we’re entering our seventh year of podcasting. 500 episodes in the bag, 500,000 to go like I said, uh at the beginning of the show. I love telling money stories. I love bringing people on to share how they reach financial independence or to share their story on the journey to financial independence. I love the finance Friday episodes where people call up and have very real problems that they need help solving. Sometimes you’re in the thick of it and you can’t think of anything else to do except what you’re doing. So Scott and I come in and have very different life experiences and just having people look at it from a different perspective can give you a a different direction to go that can help ease your cash flow problems or help encourage you to find a new job or help with whatever money problem that you’re having. And I’m super looking forward to continuing that in 2024 and beyond.
Mindy: Yeah, I think that that’s great. I think that the Money Show gives the average person a toolkit to financial awareness, financial independence if they choose that as their path. And what I’m really looking forward to in 2024 is continuing to give out that toolkit to our audience, to bring in more diverse money stories, to bring in different ways to earn income, to grow, different strategies to save and really just to to grow the the awareness of of the many tools that we have. Um one of the best things a mentor told me when I was in college is there’s a million ways to do things. all you have to do is find one that works for you. And I think that the money show is is really good at doing that. And so I’m excited to just helping uh continue bring all those different roads to wealth and abundance to our audience.
Guest: Well, thank you so very much for joining me today on this uh look back at some of my favorite episodes, some of our favorite episodes of the Money podcast.
Mindy: Oh, thank you, Mindy. I love you, lady.
Guest: I love you too. That wraps up this 500th episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. She is our wonderful senior producer Kaylin Bennett and I am Mindy Jenson and in honor of going all the way back to the beginning, I’m going to say see you later alligator.
Scott: If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our youtube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.
Speaker 2: Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jenson and Scott Trench, produced by Kaylin Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Winetraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible.
