Every year, people spend nearly $200 billion on video games: that's more than sports and movies combined.
Clearly, we're into having fun and playing games. But here's a question: What if we take games out of the fantasy world and put them in the real one? What if we could make doing things like managing our money more of a game and less of a chore? In short, what if we could make money management fun?
That's what we're going to talk about today. Stacy Johnson and financial journalist Miranda Marquit are joined by producer and novice investor Aaron Freeman. Today's special guest is Emily Guy Birken, co-author of Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management and End Financial Stress Now. She's going to take us through what we need to know about making money fun.
Remember, even though we sometimes talk about specific investments on this show, don't take them as recommendations because they're not. Before investing in anything, do your research, and make your own decisions.
Emily Guy Birken is a former educator, lifelong money nerd, and a Plutus Award-winning freelance writer who specializes in the scientific research behind irrational money behaviors. Her background in education allows her to make complex financial topics relatable and easily understood by the layperson.
Her work has appeared on The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Kiplinger's, MSN Money, and The Washington Post online.
She is the author of several books, including The 5 Years Before You Retire, End Financial Stress Now, and the brand new book Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management, written with Joe Saul-Sehy.
Emily lives in Milwaukee with her family.
How to make money management more fun
If you're hoping to get on top of your budget — or at least put together a spending plan, we've got tips for you in the second part of our podcast episode. We talk about what makes it fun. Or at least how to trick yourself into thinking it's fun.
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Miranda
Market. Erin's gonna say I'm Aaron Freeman. And then you're going to say your name. Okay,
okay. Sounds good.
You'll know what to do. Just don't get confused and say my name when it's actually your name.
You know, I do that all the time when I introduced myself. Hey, I'm Stacy. No, I'm sorry, I'm Emily Di Burkin.
It happens. It happens
if it does.
I'm not gonna tell you many times. I've said I was the only guy Birkin that
I hear people have that problem.
That's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm Emily Guy Birkin as usual. Wait, I'm Stacey johnson. That's why I have a written script in front of me just in case
you don't flub your lines.
Yeah.
Hey guys and welcome to the money podcast. This episode We're talking about making money management fun. You know, every year people spend nearly $200 billion dollars on video games. That's more than sports and movies combined. Clearly were into having fun and playing games. But here's a question. What if we take games out of the fantasy world and put them into the real one?
What if we could make doing things like managing our money more of a game and less of a chore and short. What if we could make money management a good time. That's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm Stacey johnson as usual. My co host will be financial journalist. Miranda Market Hello Miranda Market. Hello, Stacey johnson
listening in And sometimes contributing to our producer and novice investor. Aaron Freeman. Hello erin, can't wait to see how you're gonna make this fun, You know, this just sounds like crap to me. I'll tell you that I'm reading it, but I'm not sure I'm believing it. But you know what? Maybe our guest can help us because this week we have a special guest. It's Emily Guy Birkin,
co author of stacked your super serious guide to modern money management.
She's also written books about retirement and how to deal with financial stress. Emily, welcome to our show. Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
It is our pleasure. We're gonna get the ball rolling. But first, a very quick disclaimer, should we discuss specific investments in this show? Do not take them as recommendations why? Because they're not recommendations. Before you invest in anything, you've got to do your own research. You must make your own decisions. Okay, let's get back to the topic at hand. Before we do Emily
tell us a little bit about yourself what you do and how you got to be where you are today.
Uh so, well, I'm going to answer that last question first. I tripped and fell backwards into running about writing about money. This was I'm actually an english teacher by training and um because I have really terrible timing is how I ended up writing about money. Uh so I taught high school english for four years
that fourth year, my husband and I were expecting a baby
and that's when we decided it was a good idea to move to a new state. Uh and my husband got a new job and my baby was due at the beginning of the following school year. So because of that, excellent timing, I knew I wasn't going to be teaching for a year.
And then again, because we've got, you know, impeccable timing, we put our house for sale, this was in 2010, I believe it was like three weeks after the first time home buyer credit expired. And so it took us 11 months to sell our house in columbus. So we went from two incomes to 12 people, 23 and one mortgage to two,
wow,
you mean columbus? Ohio
columbus. Ohio, yes,
yeah, I used to live in Cincinnati anyway,
Okay. Yeah, so um and we uh when I was in that first year, we were in Lafayette indiana
and I was like, well I should probably figure out a way to bring a little money in while I'm staying home with the baby. And I've always been a writer, and I thought I'll see if I can find some freelance writing gigs. And in my head I was thinking I'll write about education, you know, parenting, travel, food, you know, all that kind of normal stuff you think of when you think of freelance writing, never occurred to me that I'd start writing about money,
but one of the first writing gigs that I landed was for a financial website. and um before you think, like, wait a minute english, teacher finance, where does that come from? My dad was a financial planner, so I did grow up in the industry and I was a money nerd even as a small child. Um so like, I would hang on every word of my father's opinions about money um which I I didn't realize until later that my my sister and my cousins eyes rolling back in their heads while I was like, yeah, tell me more dad. So, so I I did have a little bit of background in it, um but I learned on the job very much um that first clients loved my work past my name along to his friends um invited me to the first Fin Con
And uh I found that writing about money fit like a glove. I really enjoyed finding ways to make money interesting and relatable to people who don't necessarily think or or want to talk about money, and it was very similar to um dragging a class of 15 year olds through midsummer night's
Dream. There's a
Similar skill set in making something um work for someone who's decided that they're not interested ahead of time. And so, and that's been 12 years ago now
and I've been, I've been doing this ever since and have now five books under my belt, which blows my mind, I don't know how that
it
is. A lot of books,
Well, I'm glad you're here with us today because, you know, I was thinking of when you when you said like 15 year olds to middle of the summer night's dream, I was actually thinking of my wife, I can talk about her because she doesn't listen to the podcast. Right? So anyway, she's a person who, you know, my wife is a brilliant person, she's a nurse practitioner. Uh and when you want to talk about medicine, she's all about it.
But when I tried to tell her because she's way younger than me, so, I mean, I could die before this podcast is over. Um so I'm trying to tell her, you know, I've got all this money, the stock market, you really need to understand it, and it's like, right over her head, doesn't care eyes glaze over, you know, and I've been doing this by the way for 40 years, trying to teach people about money, literally my motto is without making their eyes glaze over. I mean, this is literally what I tried to do
and yet for some, for some, for some reason, I cannot do that with some
people.
So
anyway, Emily, when this, when this podcast is over, I want you to be able to tell me how to make my wife pay attention to money and more importantly, I want to, I want you to fulfill all the promises I made at the intro to the show, which is you're going to make money management fun, you and Miranda actually are both going to
when we leave this, it's going to be like this, we manage money, we like riding a roller coaster. Okay, so so lead us down this path, how do we do this?
Oh wow, okay. So
when it
comes to things like trying to teach other people how to, how to embrace things like money management, um uh one of the reasons why I'm very glad that my career has been as weird and varied as it has been, is because teaching, you know, 15 year olds how to appreciate Midsummer Night's dream has a direct influence on how I teach people how to um care about their money in that when my kids are reading Romeo and Juliet a Midsummer Night's Dream and they're going like this has nothing to do with me, you want to find something that's going to make it
work for them. So one example is when I did Romeo and Juliet with my freshman,
I would have them choose a section to rewrite as text messages back and forth.
And so that, you know, all of a sudden that's kind of getting their, their, their minds going like, oh, okay, this is cool, can I use emojis and you know, those sorts of things and there there's, that gets them to care about what the words are saying rather than just going like this is hard, I don't understand these, this english
and so it's the same thing with money when you are um starting with something that people are averse to for some reason find the way in that's going to be interesting to them.
So um an example I like to give is uh my husband's good with money but he's not like a deep diver like I am like I I want to like really get into the nitty gritty, I am the person who you know when it's time for me to balance my checkbook, which I mean that that dates me showing my age, but when it's time for me to update my spreadsheets or something like that, I'll light a candle and pour a glass of wine and you know just really enjoy myself um most people are not like that.
So uh and if you say
my wife is like that though, she would definitely pour a glass of wine and do almost anything you want well
and that is honestly, that is like if you pair your money management with something you enjoy in the same way that I will watch trash tv while I fold laundry,
gets the laundry folding done. So you know something that you compare with your money management, gets the money management done. But the other aspect of it is start with something fun
so to get my husband on the same page as me and this was not intentional, it it it just kind of organically happened, we were on a road trip and this was back in the early two thousand's and so you know we didn't have um like we didn't have our our binder full of C. D. S. You remember those?
Oh
my god.
And uh and so and we're on long enough road trip that you know we're having trouble finding any radio stations and like that's it gets super boring, this is you know pre podcast, pre everyone having audible and all of that
and so you know to kind of you know keep ourselves entertained. We asked and I can't remember who posed the question like top 10 vacation destinations go and so you know back and forth like I wanna go to Machu Picchu, I want to go to Hawaii someday you know I'd love to see the pyramids in Egypt and uh my husband's number one
um vacation destination is to go to the 24 hour automotive racing. Lamont France. Um He is an automotive engineer and quite the monkey wrench geek. Um And and so I am not super interested in a 24 hour automotive race like you get me from about
two hours I think I got it but I'm like I am very interested in France so um and and cheese and wine and all of that good stuff. So um it was a week later
I said to him you know after that trip was like I've been thinking about what you were saying about Lamont like let's start saving for it, you know like let's just put 100 bucks a month aside and you know and he's like what's that going to do? I'm like well you know just we'll start saving for it. So um we set up an automatic savings of $100 a month to go into a high yield ish savings account.
And um slowly over time we started to get kind of a significant amount of money in there. Um Which got my husband thinking like oh what are some other ways we could use this strategy.
Um And so because we started with this vacation that he really wants to do uh we were able to get on the same page to start thinking about stuff that's a little less fun like you know we're going to need to replace the roof sometime in the next five years, let's start saving for that. And so um that is one of the best ways to kind of bring people on board is start with the joyful stuff rather than the like we're gonna have to replace the roof stuff
so it's kind of like playing a game, you're getting a reward. Exactly
yes. Uh There's
did you get a lot of money management that completed while drinking wine and
I have to admit we have not yet been and however it's not because we didn't we didn't save um sufficiently because we had Children so
we had Children and at first it was just like we are not traveling and traveling internationally with small Children there now old enough that they would be good travelers except for the fact that I have the two pickiest eaters
in the world. Like I mean I know every parent says their Children are picky. I have one who rather than eat something, he doesn't want to try, he will projectile vomit like he, he can, he can do that and has done so in public on multiple occasions and so he's getting better now but they still will not eat anything and we're like, we're not dragging to like, can we get chicken nuggets and french fries through France so that we put that one on the back burner. We've been to Hawaii though.
So I'm going to the next week. Yeah. So the thing I like about what you're talking about Emily is that you guys are connecting it. You said like you said to something fun, something that matters to you, right?
Something that they may matter. It may matter to you for different reasons. Like he wants to go watch a race and you're just like, that's cool. I'm just gonna sit here by the sun.
But I enjoy my wine. But but no, I think that that's one of the most important things and one of the reasons why we dread money management so much is we always think of it as a chore, we always think of it as cutbacks and restrictions and so what are some of the other reasons why like instead of making it like instead of seeing it as fun, we do see it as just like this horrible thing that we're all scared of. Nobody wants to look at their bills. Nobody wants to do anything. So,
so why are we in this place where nobody wants to do money management?
Well, so
people tend to think of money management is only slightly less fun than a colonoscopy. And so when you have that, that sense about money, you're going to avoid it. And a lot of it comes from um we avoid bad news. So um we've all known someone who's like, I don't go to the doctor because I only hear bad news or someone who said like, you know after, you know, the the the the holidays that they'll be like, I'm just gonna get rid of my scale. So, and um it's very understandable because it feels like it's more manageable if you don't know. Uh and so we kind of like hide our heads in the sand
and act like, you know, just dealing with it on a day to day basis is going to be easier and feel less stressful than actually diving into it and seeing just how bad things are
the thing with
all of those is that the the truth is there, whether, you know it or not and it is pretty much always better to know. Um You know, I I
there are some medical diagnoses like alright yeah, I probably don't want to know and just, you know, keel over without having any idea of. But for the most part, most of these like this kind of bad news, it's better to know so that you can do something about it.
That's interesting Emily because you know, I was just telling my wife's a nurse practitioner and she's continually telling me stories about how people will come into her office. She'll tell them what they need to do. For example, take blood pressure medication.
Um And then they won't take
it.
And I'm like, well what why wouldn't they take it? I mean it's literally it's not keeping you alive, it's keeping them
alive and
it's like, oh I just don't feel like I need it, you know, and and they won't commit for visits and they won't confront because you know, as long as you don't know until and you know when they come in when it's too late when they literally are, it's so hard to explain that
this day and age of amazon. I mean that's like instant gratification. I mean for us, people like me who are shoppers,
I mean it's so fun to be like, oh yeah, you know by this little thing and it comes in the door and it's like a little present and how do you switch that, that gratification over to saying, oh, I saved 20 bucks this week, that's really gratifying. I mean
it's how do you switch
that? That's actually, that's something that's really interesting because it, you can you can make that switch because they're, they don't call it retail therapy for nothing. Like you do get a boost. There's, there's, there's a definite psychological boost to making a new purchase. And particularly I'm thinking with amazon during the pandemic,
you know, with every day the same and you'd see like, oh, that's a cute mug, I need it. And you know, it would come in the mail and you're like, yeah, this day is different
after having, you know, watched all of Tiger King. You know, you you've seen the same four walls over and over again. So uh, what I think is really helpful is um when you start doing money management,
um, and this kind of gets to what you're talking about Stacey where if you are, um, you don't see yourself as someone who needs blood pressure medication and you don't see yourself as someone who needs to keep an eye on your money or someone who cares about money, you're not going to do it.
So, you know, not wanting to be the type of person needs blood pressure medication because that's an old person or that's an unhealthy person, you know, whatever, you're not going to do it even though it's not in your best interest.
So when it comes to money kind of switching it to like I am the sort of person who checks on my money once a week, that's, that's tough to do. It's a tough switch to make, but making that switch and then once you start seeing some gains
from making that switch, you do start feeling more pleasure from the,
hey, my savings account is now over 1000 bucks than you do from the new amazon purchase that comes in. And so it's you, this is a fake it till you make it thing and why, you know, pair your, the, the activity of money management with something that you do enjoy. And so that's the extrinsic motivation, like the, you know, okay, I'm going to do this because
I only banana pudding when I'm doing when I'm working on my money, you know, or whatever it is that like indulgence that you do to, to kind of get pair with the money management Yeah, rewards. Um, to eventually, because you're going to start seeing some gains, you'll have the intrinsic motivation of like, oh, I want to keep doing this because it feels good.
So when my husband and I got married, he had bought his house before we got married, we were together but weren't weren't living together yet.
And uh, this was in 2000 and five when they were throwing bags of money at anyone with a pulse. So he had, he put down like a $4000 down payment and then the rest of the down payment was a home equity line of credit. Um and so when we got married I said I am not comfortable with that home equity line of credit just still being there, it had a minimum payment of, I don't know it's like 100 and $45 a month. It was never gonna get paid off that way. And so I was like can we please focus on on getting that paid off because I I personally am uncomfortable with that kind of debt. So we lived on his income and we sent the majority of mine uh to to get that paid off
and we created a like on a dry erase board in our kitchen we created a debt payoff thermometer and like at the quarter um level we said okay we're gonna go get indian food at this really nice and indian restaurant the half level we had something else and that the full level we had like our our big prize which I can't remember what it was. I think we were gonna go away for a weekend um you know something not super expensive but you know still a nice a nice prize and it got to be where I had to talk him into this. But once we got like to the halfway point he and I and this this will tell you how long ago it was. We were getting the statements in the mail, we would race home on the day that we knew the statement was coming
because we wanted to be the one to color it in. Like we will like wrestle each other the other over the middle box
and that's Gamification. I mean that's, that's, that's making something fun. Okay. Now we have to make a really quick break because we have bills and we need to pay them. But when we come back, we're gonna do, we're gonna say specific things and I've done some homework so I can do some of these now
specific things on how to make managing your money, more fun, specific things do not move a muscle. We'll be right back.
Okay. We are back. Now. I was gonna mention something to, I was reading about this, you know, because I knew you were coming on Emily and and um, I, I thought about this.
My wife has literally gotten out of bed. I've mentioned three times and we'll just call her by her name. Sarah Sarah has literally gotten out of bed and
I'm going where you going? I've almost closed my circle. All I need is 10 more
steps,
you know, because she's wearing an apple watch. And so she, and she's doing, I don't know what it is, 10,000 steps a day and she's, she's a huge dancer. Uh, we like to go to techno concerts anyway, she dances like and she'll do 35,000 steps in a day,
but she is keeping track of them,
You know, you know what else is like that Facebook, you go to a restaurant and you won't believe this 100 15 people like that were at this restaurant. I mean this is like gaming, right? It's like winning a contest.
And I'm like, well these people don't care whether we live or die. I don't even remember who they are, but still it's 100 and
15.
And so how do we introduce these sorts of concepts, the things that make us go for rewards into managing our money?
So you see Gamification all over the place, like you're talking about with the with the steps um one that I recently experienced was with noon, which is a like a diet
Miranda uses it, right?
And what you're using new,
uh we're not hearing you Miranda
because I'm on because when I go to take a drink, I like don't want to like have y'all listening to my ice clinking around. Um you know, so, so I was, I was using new mom but I actually was gaining weight and part of it is because for me apparently
um
It was still like a like I've actually lost £5 since I stopped using new and I think part of it is because this is not one of our sponsors, but I think part of the reason I was struggling with it was because like for me it was very stressful to have to like count all the things and like count these and it's a calorie restriction you're supposed to stay within certain calories
and you know there you know and anyway it was stressing me out and I find that when I start
which is funny because when you're talking about money, one of the big things you're supposed to do is pay attention to where you're spending, pay attention to that stuff.
Um
And so one of the things I found was that was stressing me out and so then I anyway it wasn't working.
I quit with new does that use Emily you're about to mention and I cut you off, what are you going to say? Well
with Newman um what they do for a lot of it is there's a lot of behavioral and psychological stuff which I know quite a bit about because of what I write about.
And so the first time I tried noon I did the like yeah I'm too smart for this and it didn't work. Uh and then I decided to try it again and this time I was like I'm going to let go of any assumptions and just like just go with the process and the Gamification actually worked really well because the way that noone is set up is you can earn one full coin each day and there are three pieces to it. One you get from reading the articles, one you get from weighing yourself and when you get from um right tracking what you eat. I hate tracking what I eat. I hate it so much. But because the other two were easy and like I want that coin, I want that coin
just like
nothing. But I like the fact that I I didn't quite have it would bother me.
And so that's something that uh thinking about what motivates you. Uh So
yeah
and and I don't know I couldn't tell you why that motivates me but I'm also the sort of person who like you know in elementary school the gold star everyday of the calendar really worked for me.
And so figuring out what kind of ridiculous little thing is gonna motivate you and and go for it. But it's also the flip side of that
is um figure out if there are apps or things like that that are using Gamification, what are they motivating you to do? So um There's a certain investing app, I don't know if I should mention it that
Robin
Hood I feel like is
kind of irresponsible and how it gamified things. Um And
it's encouraging people to gamble.
Exactly,
it certainly has been accused of that.
Um And so so that's that's the sort of thing where like it's encouraging behavior and think about what behavior is encouraging and is it for your benefit or not or is it for their benefit. So thinking through like what will encourage you? Um when you're trying to put things in place for yourself and also thinking through like when you you encounter Gamification elsewhere, like is this encouraging something that's actually going to, you know, improve your life or is this encouraging? Something that's just going to, you know, empty your wallet.
Now, I've got a few apps, uh none of which I've used and I'm sorry, I don't even know how much they cost, but I'll throw these out here and for those of you who are listening and might want to use an app. These are specifically designed to help you do things like save more money and stuff. Their personal finance Gamification apps.
one is called Blast. Have you heard of
that one
either. The three of you, one is called Fortune City,
one is called Bright money and one is called Long Game.
I've heard of it again. I have not, you've heard of it. So these are, these are ways that people out there who are interested in game of find interested in trying to make their personal finances more fun. Might try again. I don't know what they cost noon was expensive. As I recall from what Miranda said. I doubt these things are going to be very expensive and they may even be free. I don't know.
But that's four things and we'll put those in our show notes to, but for for those of you out there who don't want to do an app
um who aren't gamers but but do you want your money management to be more fun? I've got a few tips but Emily I want you to stop me and and add in whatever you've got to, but I wrote start
before you go. Um One of the things that I find is so Gamification, like Emily was saying you have to figure out what motivates you. Gamification doesn't necessarily motivate me. I get I get bored of the game that I get, you know, I get stressed and bored of the game and move on with my life. But the only the only one that's working for me with right now is duo lingo because I just like
seeing the little fire pop up. It's a it's a language learning app and so like I've got 100 day street going so that I like um
so so yeah, but um but I found that what I like is setting up automatic these automatic transfers and then I like the surprise of checking it and seeing how much money and so acorns for me has actually been one of my favorite apps to use to make me feel good about like money because I use it for like my spontaneous planning. So like
um my roundup so every time I have like I have a credit card and I have a debit card um connected to accords and so every time I use these things like
just like my pocket change goes in and I have it set on like a three times round up so that it rounds it up and then triples it and so about once a month I go in to look and see where are we at, what can I do? And so it's like, do I get an extra spa day, do I get a weekend? Like a little fun weekend in an Airbnb? And for me, like,
that kind of helps
helps me, like, I love that kind of surprise and like, let's see how we have done and I think that works. You just said you didn't like Gamification and you're doing that to yourself. Yeah, it's kind of a different kind. Yeah, and I like the automatic transfers because it's like, I look at my travel fund, I look at my retirement fund and like, I think part of the fun is just like seeing how are things growing and how is that helping me
reach my goals and enjoy my life more
that, that feels like kind of the,
the
Intentional way of of like kind of recreating that finding a 20 in a jacket you haven't worn in six months, you know, like you're, you're, you've made an intentional way of surprising yourself with money right
now, if we haven't heard from erin erin, how do you make managing your money more fun and I know what you're gonna say,
sonya, your wife manages all the money and you don't have any fun. Yes, that's basically it. That's basically it. No, I I find saving money the worst kind of fun ever is so boring. I've watched my bank account grow and it's boring watching it grow.
Um But I mean it's what you have to do, it's it's it's better than being poor, it is better than being poor. Yeah. You know how I've helped my wife understand money more is using negative reinforcement.
So I was like I said like you don't have to pay attention to what's going on in the stock market or know what our savings are doing, but when I die, if you don't, I'm going to leave everything to the humane society.
And
and that seems to work. No, actually that doesn't work because she knows I'm lying, she doesn't want to do that.
But anyway, okay, so I had automation which you just suggested
Miranda. I also have start with quick wins.
Uh So you know, if you've got, you know the old debt payoff thing, you know, do you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first or lowest balance first. And you know, for even though the highest interest rate certainly makes the most mass sense. Um focusing on the smallest debt first gives you an immediate win and you know keeps you in the game. So depending on what kind of a person you are,
That could be a good idea. But starting with any quick win, having $50 in your savings account, $5, I mean, you know anything and then when you get $50, you get a smoothie, you know when you get $100, you know, you, you get to download porn or whatever doesn't float your boat. I mean you've got to do what works for you. Yes. Yes.
And I didn't mean to blurt that out because I do not download part,
you keep it on the cloud
like everyone else, everybody else does. You don't want to cluttering up your
not want it on your computer for like in case you do die and you know,
don't worry, we'll edit that out.
Aaron is going to be one.
Okay, so anyway, um but you know, whatever it is, you'd like to do, give yourself reward. You know, when, when I used to lift weights way back in the day, we'll even okay, let me make it more current. I ride a bicycle almost every day. And so I say, if I write 100 miles this week, I get to buy a new phone holder or some accessories for my bicycle
and I did that, I was going to say when I used to lift weights back in the day, which if you could see me, even though it was way back in the day,
um I would say like I'm not until I've until I've gone to gym three times a week for a month, I'm not buying new workout clothes like that, so I'm giving myself rewards like that, so that's that's always worked really well for me.
Um Okay, so anyway we're doing what works for you, is everything on my list, which we obviously just talked about
and uh and obviously you can't know if you're ahead or behind without tracking your money so you could give yourself reward just for paying attention, you know, by using met or something of that sort
and knowing what's going on and I like to do, oh sorry, I was gonna say like making yeah, so like making a budget and like tracking it like right now, so it sort of depends on where you're at, right, Like I have an overall spending plan and like this much goes into retirement, this much has to go to like rent, this much goes to insurance, like all that stuff and it's all automated, like we kind of talked about earlier
um but I do every now and again, probably about every three months I go back through and I use one of those um
I use one of those apps and that that like
categorizes stuff for you and so it's kind of fun, it's it's a fun thing for me to sit down, make sure like okay does this does, is the spending I've been doing, has it been aligning with my values recently, is it helping me move forward with my goals And if it's not, then I can be like, okay, let's make some changes,
but being able to like visualize it and see it there and then compare it to like
my life map and my vision board is also very helpful to me because then it helps me like
bring it back and keep everything on track because for me counting like dollars and, and and pennies and making sure I'm in the right budget category just is very stressful.
Do you really have a vision board? Because I'd like to see that it's not really a vision board so much as it is a kind of a life map that just has like the things I like to do and want to be physical. It's physical.
But it's also because that sounds like something I can tease you unmercifully about. I would like to say, okay, well I'll show you my life map at some point. Let me see if I can find some point. Actually. Unfortunately we're almost out of time, but I really do want to say one more thing. We should dedicate a whole podcast to her life map though. We could do that
Emily, you wrote a cool, cool little blog on teaching your kids about buying stocks and it was a game,
you basically, you know, said, hey, list your favorite uh you know, things that you love your toys or whatever, video games, whatever, naming all these things
and then we'll find out what companies sell these things and we'll buy the stock.
Um, so what can you say to people, you know, obviously we're adults and we're all bent and we're all sideways now. They were old,
but you can start their young teaching your kids these games and that, that has a lot of benefits.
So what can you say around that?
So, uh, I like
how you tell your kids teaching
my kids about investing that started because my older son, it takes after me in a lot of ways. He's, he's kind of a natural saver. Um, and, uh, and you know, like I have my kids track their income and spending in a ledger,
but when we started talking to him about like, hey, you know, because you're, you're, you've got quite quite a bit in your checking account. Like let's start talking about investing. And he just shut down. He's like, I don't know, I don't understand anything about this. And so I was like, all right, let's bring it back to something. You do understand what are your favorite things. Uh, and so
adults can do the same thing because when you start talking about the stock market, most of most people who are not in the financial space like that. That's like greek to me. I don't, I don't understand a thing about it, but the thing is you do, So I give the example of my husband, he is an automotive engineer and he also just, he consumes like blogs about cars and um he reads magazine articles and you know all kinds of stuff. So he knows things about um cars that the average person doesn't because he's interested in them and so he has a sense of, you know, if there's a news story about the automotive industry or about fuel or something like that, he has kind of a bit of a sense of what that's gonna do to the industry or two stocks in that industry. So kids are the same way adults are the same way. You know, if you are like super into marvel movies then you have kind of some knowledge that would be helpful in you know choosing some things to invest in now.
Would you, would you do me a favor and
complete that circle for me? What do you, okay I'm interested in batman,
you know, how are you going to turn that into making me want to like buy marvel stock? So
so with um so my my younger son loves batman and so we actually were invested in, it was um batman is owned by D. C. Which was owned by a TNT at the time that I wrote the blog and then that was actually purchased by discover uh and so so we, we own stock in that
um just one. Uh but and that was something like we, we could look and see like with the new robert, Pattinson batman movie coming out. Does that make any difference now because it is owned, you know, so so much like parent companies above it.
Uh It's not nearly as clear as if you're, you're buying stock in something that's, you know, like google or, or facebook or something along those lines,
but that's the sort of thing where like that can get you in because you'll be like, I do know a lot about that, so um apologies. Um and so that's something that I can be really, really helpful for recognizing like you do know more than you think you do.
Alright, so you can easily, could you, could you say that those people that have kids,
you know, if you're, you're stumped is trying to figure out how to uh game your finances, maybe helping your kids game your finances
absolutely. Uh
we'll teach you is the best
way to learn, is to teach. Um That is like that because you have to understand it to be able to teach it. And so by, by teaching, you are going to make sure that you
really completely understand what you're doing.
I've been teaching personal finance to people for four decades and I'm still dumb as a second here,
but now it's multiple hairs rather than just
one, we're almost done. You guys have anything you want, I want to, I just want to make one more quick point. I know this has been made over and over, but I'll make it one more time
if you're listening out there and you and you have a hesitancy to take care of your own personal financial stuff. Like for example, let's say shopping for insurance. Just do this tonight during commercial breaks,
you can go online and you can compare your current insurance policy to four other ones, car insurance, home insurance, whatever you haven't missed a thing if you're watching sports.
Well, I feel bad for you, but if you are, I'm not a sports fan. But if you are there are hours of commercials in a football game or in any in any game.
So you just, just do that just while the commercials run, just compare with an insurance policy or two. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about. And when you're done with that, then you can switch over to Cinemax after dark a reward or whatever or have a piece of pie, whatever your reward is that works for you. Just do something simple and do it soon and then keep doing it.
Uh That's my final thought Emily, What do you got?
I love that. Small actions done consistently are going to do a lot better than saying like I'm changing everything about everything right now. So yeah, small actions done consistently and finding a way to enjoy them in the same way that, you know, if you find a way to enjoy doing your laundry, you're going to do better at, you know, keeping up with your laundry.
Uh So think of money management as a chore like that, that's never going to be done
and now we're really going to extremes and you're gonna make laundry fun, crazy up in this business hey, by the way, colonoscopies are not that bad. You ever had propofol, That's awesome stuff. The beginning and the end or not so fun, but in the middle,
Not so
bad, randy. You got anything else you had before? I get kicked off the air? Not really, just once again, as always, just kind of think about what works for you and then think about how you can connect what you're doing with your money to your values in your life because a lot of the time that disconnect
makes it harder to want to get involved. So if you can connect your money to being, that means to an end, that helps you do what you want to do. Uh then it suddenly becomes more, well, I think it suddenly becomes more fun,
well spoken. And now Aaron, is there anything more erudite you can add than that?
No, everything on here is absolutely no fun whatsoever. Okay, we're going to go buy stuff right now, I'm going to shop on amazon right now. Wait, I have to find my script. Hold on
guys, we are out of time, but you know what, We're never out of topic. Never. So you gotta dig a little deeper, you're gonna find links to lots more info on our show notes. And remember if your goal is to make more to spend less or to retire Rich, Your online home is money talks news dot com. And don't forget to check out Miranda's online home as well. That is Miranda market,
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I'm Stacey johnson.
I'm Miranda. Mark quit
and everybody gets a badge and a token for this podcast.
You know what I'm talking about.
And I'm Emily Di Burkin.
See you fucked her up because you didn't say your name. Let's do that one more time, isn't it? In stack, isn't in the books stacked?
Yeah, but
I was waiting for you to say your name. I
don't know. Tripping up our guest. Okay, let's do it one more time. We'll keep doing this all day. If we have 232 and one. I think it's fine.
Is it OK? Yeah, I'll just leave it. Yeah, it's all good. We're done.