Category: Money

I consider gratitude and contentment to be super powers. In a way they are such simple things. We teach kids from an early age to say thank you, and we encourage them to play with and enjoy the toys that they have rather than always wanting more. Gratitude and contentment are practices. They require intentionality. They require practice.

If I’m going to become a grateful person, I must practice gratitude. How do I do this? One exercise is to take a couple of minutes and write down 10 possessions that you enjoy, that bring you happiness, and that you are in turn grateful for. So often we take things for granted. I remember when we bought our current house almost ten years ago. After we moved in, there were so many things that Mandy and I were grateful for. Our previous home was on a corner lot and therefore didn’t have a driveway. A driveway is not a huge thing, and it was something that we got used to not having. But now we had one, and it was great. It meant we could get a basketball goal. And it meant at least one of us didn’t have to park on the street. We found ourselves rehearsing together all of the awesome things with our new house. We were grateful for it, and we were going to enjoy it.

We bought a hot tub a few years ago. I’ve always heard that the majority of people who buy hot tubs end up not using them that often. They often leave them sitting, and they therefore end up having to continue to put money into the hot tub for repairs. At some point they try to sell or even give away the hot tub. I resolved early on that if we were going to have a hot tub, we were going to enjoy it. And we were going to take care of it. We have weekly chores with the hot tub, and my primary chore is the quarterly draining, cleaning and refilling. Taking care of this expensive purchase brings greater appreciation for it. I want what I’ve spent my hard earned money on to last. We take greater pride in the things that we take care of.

Are there purchases I’ve made that I’ve regretted? Absolutely. When the pandemic began in the spring of 2020, we recognized that we were most likely going to be spending a lot of time at home for the next few months. So we decided to buy an above ground pool. I got a killer deal on a pool, and we spent a day putting it together. It took up most of the backyard. We then had to fill it up, and then it took quite awhile before the water was warm enough to swim in. We spent a fair amount of time that summer in it, but it was difficult to keep clean. We kept the water in it through the next fall and winter. And during that winter we had some very cold days. I had bad dreams about waking up to find that the liner had burst and our yard (and my office) had flooded. That thankfully didn’t happen, but it was something I worried about. When we opened it back up that spring, it was even more difficult to clean. We rarely used it that summer, and by the end we had had enough and were ready to get rid of it. We drained it, allowed it to dry, and then took it apart. Mandy posted it on the Buy Nothing Facebook Group, and we gave it away to a nice family.

Soon after getting rid of the pool we decided that we needed to do some work in our backyard. It obviously was in way worse shape than it had been prior to having the pool. We ended up hiring a landscaper, who planted trees and other plants, added hardscape, and planted fescue grass. I enjoy my backyard so much more now. Every time I sit in the Adirondack chairs listening to the fountain, I’m grateful. The pool purchase wasn’t the best one, but it led to this.

Here’s something I’ve learned: Consumerism fights against gratitude and contentment. Why? Because it’s all about getting more. It kills contentment, but it also kills enjoyment. Here’s a question to ask yourself: Do you enjoy the things you have, or do you focus more on what you don’t have?

I experienced this recently. I had decided that perhaps it was time to purchase a new (to me) vehicle. For about a week I took a deep dive on researching vehicles. I had been looking at trucks, but then decided that perhaps I’d get a small SUV. I found a RAV4 Hybrid with really low miles. The dealer was offering me more on my current car than I had thought. The hook was in.

Mandy and I are committed to making large purchase decisions together. She didn’t feel great about it, and if I’m honest, I think I was looking for that because even though the hook was in, I was fighting it. I didn’t really need it, at least not right now. So I said no.

Consumerism is a vicious cycle. We buy something believing that it will satisfy us. And it does for a few days. But then the shine wears off, and we think we need something new. So we push that first purchase to the side and search for the next thing that will bring satisfaction. This cycle continues until you say enough.

We instead intentionally choose to actually enjoy what we have purchased. We are grateful for it. This leads to contentment, which leads to more gratitude, which then leads to greater contentment. It’s a powerful thing.

The day I said no to the new vehicle, I decided that I would practice gratitude and contentment with the car I currently have. It’s a really nice car. The way I practiced this was that I spent two hours washing, waxing, cleaning out and vacuuming it. It looked so nice after I had finished. I was taking pride in what I owned. I was going to enjoy it.

Last week I listened to the Ramit Sethi podcast episode where he interviews Carl & Mindy Jensen. Mindy is the host of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, and Carl writes at 1500 Days to Freedom.

Before sharing my thoughts on this podcast episode, I should say that one of the things I’ve always appreciated about Dave Ramsey is how caring he is when people are in a rough situation. The conversations are very therapeutic. He speaks truth in a sometimes harsh way, but you can also tell that he cares deeply and wants to help them. Ramit understands the psychology of money in a way that few others do. He’s great at asking questions, and most of the time they make people feel very uncomfortable. This interview was definitely the case.

The tagline of the episode is “We achieved FIRE with $4.3M. Why can’t we enjoy it?” Even though the Jensen’s are financially independent and only work because they want to, they are honest about the fact that money still has a strong grasp on their lives. At one point in the interview Ramit asked Mindy to share about a recent trip to Germany. Her initial response was a negative one, and this was due to how much they spent on airfare. And the reason this was her first response is that she felt bad because she didn’t use points. She paid full price. She’s supposed to be the money expert. How would those in the FIRE community feel about her? As Ramit pressed for more about the trip, she shared about all of the great experiences they had. But this lack of optimizing still loomed over everything.

I’ve listened to several of Ramit’s interviews. There’s often one partner who holds so tightly to the money, which is frustrating to the other partner. That partner wishes his or her partner would stop being so cheap, especially when the amount of money they have in the bank tells them that they don’t have to be cheap. In the case of Carl and Mindy, it seems like both have been called cheap.

I have mixed feelings about this interview. I on many occasions have been labeled as cheap. And while others might have scoffed, I looked at it as a badge of honor. I remember in college even redefining it. Cheap was a negative word. I preferred the word “simplicity”. It’s been 25 years since that revelation, and in the time since I have continued to wrestle with the role of money in my life. I want to continue to listen to Ramit because it doesn’t seem like he struggles with a scarcity mentality when it comes to money. At the root that’s what I struggle with, and it seems to be what Carl and Mindy struggle with as well. There is a fear that our money could run out. It’s not a rational fear, but it’s a fear nonetheless.

At the same time, I often feel like Ramit doesn’t give enough space to allowing people to spend their money on what makes them happy. When I spend money on something that I think isn’t worth it, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At this point in my life I know what makes me happy, and I have absolutely no problem spending money on those things. Here are some examples…

I enjoy cooking. I actually prefer cooking to going out to eat. Therefore I am ok spending a higher amount of money on good food to cook at home.

I enjoy traveling. While I love optimizing travel through credit card rewards, we still spend a good chunk of money each year on travel. We don’t feel bad about that.

We spend a lot of time at home. Mandy works from home a couple of days a week, and I work from home every day of the week. We enjoy our evenings at home, and therefore have spent money on making this a restful and enjoyable place. Over the years we’ve invested in a screened in back porch, a hot tube, and a pretty backyard.

As important as knowing what it is that makes me happy, it’s perhaps even more important to know what doesn’t make me happy. Here’s a few of those things…

• New cars
• Fancy meals
• Going out every night
• Nice clothes

My list isn’t important. What is important is to come up with your own list. Be bold in spending money on the things that make you happy. And be equally bold about saying no to those things that don’t.

There are two exercises that I encourage anyone who desires to begin mastering their money to do.

The first is to track your spending for a month. This should lead to you becoming more pro-active in spending your money on the things that matter most. Here is a worksheet you can download. There are also lots of Google Sheet or Excel templates you can download if you prefer a digital option. After going through the exercise you may decide that one month isn’t enough. I still track mine. It’s something that I’ve done for a long time.

The second is to calculate your net worth. How do you do this? You write down all of your assets in one column, and then you write down all of your liabilities in another column. Add up both columns, and then subtract your liabilities from your assets. The number you come up with is your net worth. Here’s a worksheet you can download.

I’ve discovered in my own life and in the lives of friends that there is one primary reason that we don’t take the time to know our numbers. It’s not busyness. It’s fear. We’re afraid that we won’t like what we see, so we choose to remain ignorant. Yet we know that awareness is the first step of any vision. And that’s why it’s important that we know and understand our numbers, even if at the beginning we don’t like what we see. Once we have awareness, we can now make goals.

I first became familiar with Derek Sivers in 2015 after hearing him on the Tim Ferris podcast. Shortly after I read his first book, Anything You Want, which was recently re-released with additional chapters.

Today I listened to his latest interview on Tim’s podcast. It’s a great episode, and clocks in at a strong three hours. The entire interview is great, but I want to share one thing I learned. If you’d like to listen to it, this part begins around the 2:11:00 mark.

Derek is talking about video games. He shared about how there is the temptation to continue playing even after you’ve beaten the game; even after there are no additional rewards. Then he said, “Isn’t that the definition of addiction?” He then defines addiction as “Continuing a behavior even though it’s not rewarding you anymore.”

Then he made the jump to how he thinks about making money. He said, “It’s a game I decided to stop playing because I had enough.” Understanding what you need, and then making the intentional decision to stop once you get there, is something I’ve been thinking about for awhile now.

Sivers shares two examples of people who have done this. Gotye wrote the song “Somebody that I Used to Know” in 2011. It was a huge hit, and could have carried him for years. Yet a couple of years later he retired. He decided that he didn’t want to be singing that song for the rest of his life.

Cameron Diaz was the 5th highest grossing actress, and yet she too decided to quit. She wanted something different from life.

Sivers then referenced Felix Dennis, the author of How to Get Rich. He said that he read that right after selling CD Baby and had a lot of money. He made the decision to put the company in a trust before the sale, which meant that he never touched any of the $22 million it sold for. I believe I read that he receives a small percentage every year, which pays all of his expenses. He knew that he didn’t need $22 million.

Here’s the quote he shared from Felix Dennis that impacted him: “If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably, as quickly as I could, by the time I was 35. I would then cash out and retire to write poetry and plant trees.”

Sivers decided to heed this advice. He quit the game of making money. And it seems to me that he continues to bear fruit as a result of this intentional and counter-cultural decision.

So why do we continue to make money when we have enough? It seems like a simple thing, yet it is very normal. I don’t know if it’s the case for everyone, but I see two primary reasons for why we do this.

First, we continue to play the game because we fear that the money will run out. It’s just human nature, and the amount of money that we have in the bank is the not the primary indicator. We can live with a scarcity mentality, or we can live with an abundance mentality. It takes discipline, but it’s our choice.

The second reason we continue to play the game of making money is that it makes us feel better about ourselves. I believe that we were created to be creators and cultivators. This is part of our core identity. Yet it’s so easy for it to be taken to an extreme and become corrupted.

It’s important to understand your motives for making money. It’s important to understand your motives of why you want to do a certain deal. Sometimes we make money because we need to eat. That’s where things start. But as we get older and grow in our careers, our motives change.

Our identity is tied up in our work. When we are producing, we feel better about ourselves. Ego can be a good thing, but it can also lead us into dangerous territory.

In a future post I plan to share how I’ve been working through this issue in my own life and business.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by money. I remember a time growing up when I was aware of the fact that we didn’t have much money. And I remember times when I was aware that we were very comfortable. I don’t believe there was a time in my life where I ever felt that my parents didn’t have the financial resources to take care of me. We always had enough. Though “need” and “want” often get confused, I don’t really remember times when my parents said no to something I needed.

I have always been frugal. I’ve always loved getting a good deal. Even when my parents were buying things for me, I never wanted to pay full price.

When I was in college I opened my first mutual fund after reading a book by Larry Burkett. And then after college I moved to Nashville. My first job had me sitting at a desk doing accounts receivable all day, but my manager allowed me to listen to the radio through headphones. It was there that I discovered The Dave Ramsey Show, and I listened to it everyday.

It was from listening to Dave Ramsey that I began budgeting and investing. I didn’t make much money, but my expenses were very low. In a notebook I wrote down every expense I had on a daily basis. Through Dave Ramsey I was also introduced to compound interest, which taught me that the earlier I got started investing, the better. So that’s what I did. I opened a Roth IRA, contributing $166/month.

Mandy and I were dating at the time and were seriously contemplating getting married. We had some conversations about money, but not that many. I’ve come to believe in the years since that every person has a relationship with money. Some relationships are good, while others are not so good. And we’re often unaware of how that relationship impacts our daily decisions. And then when we get married, we bring that relationship with money into our new marriage.

We’ve all heard the stats that say that money is often at the center of strife within a marriage, and this was true with us as well. Because we hadn’t taken the time as individuals to understand the role that money played in our own lives, we had no idea how to bring it into our marriage. It’s human nature to assume that everyone thinks like we do. This can get us into trouble on a lot of things, but it’s definitely true with money. Often one spouse is a spender at heart, while another is a saver. We found early on that we’re both spenders, but what we spend money on is different.

Mandy and I have been married for almost 24 years. There were a few years in which we both wondered if our conflicts over money might do us in. I imagine I’ll share some of that in future posts. But for now let me just say that we met the conflicts head on and over time learned how to talk about money. We developed some habits that have not only allowed us to survive but actually to thrive. We still come at money differently, but we’ve learned how to value and learn from those differences.

So money has impacted my individual life as well as my marriage. I’ve also seen how it impacts the lives of others, in both positive and negative ways. When I was a young pastor, money was one of those things that I tended to avoid talking about. I knew it was a taboo topic, and I really just didn’t know how to talk about it. But over time I began to understand what a central and critical role it played in people’s lives, so I began to learn how to talk about it.

In November, 2022 I taught my first Mastering Money workshop at my church. Over the previous six months I had spent countless hours going back over my favorite resources and then writing the curriculum. That Saturday morning in November I spent three hours with a group of about 20 people from my church. There was great discussion amongst the group, and I think we all took things from the morning that will continue to impact the way we handle our finances.

I remember being exhausted when I got home that Saturday, but I also remember feeling very grateful and satisfied. I had spent many hours preparing for this, but I felt like it was totally worth it. I had helped to meet a real felt need, and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. Over the coming weeks I decided that I wanted to help people learn how to master their money. This was a clarity that I normally do not have, but I had it with this. I didn’t know exactly what that would look like, but I wanted to begin to try to figure it out.

I just finished listening to JD Roth’s Audible Original How to Achieve Financial Independence and Retire Early. There wasn’t a ton of new material for me, but I still found it a great resource, and one that I would recommend if you’d like to learn more about the subject.

There was one part, though, that, while simple, was something I had never given any thought to before. He said that most folks don’t get that excited about talking about saving money. He thinks it would be better if we treated this topic like businesses do. They don’t call it savings. They call it profit. Income minus expenses in a business is profit. Profit allows you to grow and expand. It’s actually tied to growth.

Why don’t we feel the same about our personal finances? Income minus expenses equals savings, but it’s normally haphazard: If there’s any money left at the end of the month, I guess it’s savings! But what would a shift in our thinking produce? If we saw it as profit, would we be more excited about it? Would we see it as a sign of growth? As something to be celebrated? Something to think about.