You got problems that you ought to be concerned with. You don't know how you're supposed to earn it or what to do with it or how to keep it. You're a freak with a dark, shameful secret. But you're not the only one featured in financial fears with a blast of sun. Now your healing has begun. It's bad with running with Gabe S. Dunn. Welcome to Bad With Money with Gabe Dunn, a show about finances and feelings where we don't talk down to you. Guys,
Hold on to your butts because we have a guest that has come up in our mailbag a bunch and people have been requesting because she did the boring episode. I think it was called a listener asked to come on the show. So go and find that one. Stephanie Lee, do you want to tell the people who you are and what's happened?
Since we did the boring episode. Oh sure. So I have a business called frequently text questions where I help people learn things that they want to know about money like how to self-repair their taxes or to better understand retirement saving options things like that and
Since I came on the show last year, I was very inspired by it. So I started a weekly newsletter called the Boring newsletter. And so if you're interested in signing up, you could do that at my website frequently text questions.com. And every week I write about something that I think most people would find maybe boring, but I think is secretly awesome.
I think of you every time I see those TurboTax commercials that are like, don't do your own taxes. I'm like, I bet this drives Stephanie up a wall. Yeah, I think most people probably could do it themselves if they want to. Not everyone wants to. And that's totally fine. But I think if you're interested, it's
I would say don't feel intimidated, you can do it, you can learn. And it's a wonderful entry point to learning about other aspects of managing money as well. So that's actually to me, the best reason to do it yourself is because it helps you start to feel empowered and get on top of your own money issues.
So I brought you on because I want to talk about debt. So welcome to the boring episode part two. So I have a lot of like shame around debt. I know debt is like a huge trigger for a lot of people. And on your website, one of the third things on the list of what you talk about is debt. So can you explain like what you do for people there and what people are looking for?
Yeah, so I think primarily people, I totally understand what you mean about feeling shame around it. I'm actually in the middle reading this book about the history of death. And one of the things that the author David Grayber writes about is how
In all different cultures over the last multiple thousands of years around the world, there have been these kind of moral ideas around debt, which are kind of in conflict with each other simultaneously. This idea that if you borrow money, it's immoral to not pay it back. But then at the same time, people who lend money are immoral.
Right? And so we have these kind of conflicting ideas around it. I think that it's not.
a very helpful way to think about it when it comes to day to day. How do I manage my personal finances? I guess that's, I have a kind of a practical approach. And so if someone is in debt and does not want to be, you know, step one is making that decision and then step two would be making a plan, right? And so, you know, sitting down and making a plan and kind of getting your arms around it, that's,
That would be the program there. What's the first step of making a plan? Right. Yeah. So I think step one is to make a list of all of your debts, right? And so that could be fairly quick to do or it could be more time consuming, just depending on where someone is starting from. So it would be, you know, what is the loan?
Where is it owed to? What is the outstanding balance today? What are the required monthly payments or required minimum payments? And what's the interest rate? Right. So just a list. I have, you know, this visa and it has a $2,000 balance.
I have this student loan and it's $3,000, right? Just what are they, right? Just to lay it all out. That is step one because if you don't know what you're trying to pay off, you can't really make a specific plan for it. I would say step one is cry.
Oh, it's a step one, cry. Step two, do that. Right. Right. Well, I mean, yeah, really step one, it's like deciding that you want to tackle it. Right. I mean, that's not something that has to happen on your own.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you have like a history of being in debt or like a background in that? I don't. My partner when we first met had student loan debt and I think had a lot of shame around it from starting a program that they didn't finish, you know, and
We had some discussions around kind of, well, OK, what's the plan? And it was, you know, so we made a plan and we did the plan. So OK, so I wanted to do this episode because I have fluctuated so wildly in terms of financial stability. When I left college, I didn't realize how much I had in student loans.
which was like around 40 to 50 K and I didn't look into it at all. I wasn't like aware of it. I didn't, I had it on auto pay and I like didn't want to do anything. And I just seemed like such an insurmountable number. And then I didn't get a credit card till I was like 25. And then I was so scared to use it. I just never had any cash really. And my income was fluctuating so much.
And I didn't know anything about interest rates, anything like that. Then I, as I got better with, with money into my, I'm not even making more, like I was making more, but I was still bad with money. And then as I got more into learning about money, as I started this show, I was working on paying off my debts and
I paid off my student loans, luckily, with money that I was making from TV and different writing jobs and things like that. Then I thought I was in a place where I was doing really well and I bought a house with a partner. Then me and that partner split up.
So in November, so now there's some, you know, legal stuff with the house and the house is no longer like an investment for me. And I feel like I quote unquote backslid.
I feel like I went, now I went back and I had some more credit card debt, which was terrifying. I mean, and maybe there are people that will be screaming at me, I don't know, but I have like my little investments that I was like doing like my little Apple investment, whatever.
And now I have enough money to keep me going for a little while till I get paid again. But I was like, wow, I really fucked up. I'm really not as good as I thought I was. I can't believe I'm back in debt. I can't believe because I was like, well, I've learned everything.
I there's no way I could ever get back in debt. And I think the big thing is that I wanted to like have you on and I wanted to talk about this openly because I think they're all it's not linear. And there are so many ways and reasons that people get back into debt or are in debt and then not in debt or you know like I can you speak a little bit to like the reasons that people get into debt and like
why it's not all the same and stuff like that. I mean, it's almost like saying, well, is everyone's life the same? Obviously, no. It could be something that happens that is just an outside force, medical, debt,
super common, you know, any kind of a big life change, right? It could be splitting up from a partner, you know, you're living with other family and then you just can't any number of reasons, right? Job loss, you or if you share finances with someone in the household, baby, they're job loss, car accident. And so you need an emergency repair in your car because without your
Transportation you can't get to work right I mean it's just it like I could keep going and write anything that can happen in life because I mean money money kind of touches everything you know and so there's all kinds of things and you know it's like look that doesn't mean that you didn't
It doesn't mean you don't know things about money. It doesn't mean you did bad, right? It just means maybe you didn't have an emergency fund or, you know, I don't know, something else, right? Maybe you're working on it, but you just didn't build it up yet, right? I mean, it just, you know, so it's like,
You just make a plan and then just start working on the new plan, right? Something changed in my life. Okay. I need a new plan. Okay. This is the new plan. You know, I had sort of said, Oh, I don't want to experience with that. I have mortgage debt right now. Sometimes I forget. I don't think of it that way. But of course it is. Of course it's debt. We were in a different home previously and had made a certain amount of progress. We, you know, I have a goal of paying it off earlier than required. And then we moved to a different home and then I kind of had to reset that.
Right, and so I guess I could say, oh, it's backward progress, but I don't think of it that way because we move to a different area and we love it.
And so I'm like, look, I get all these benefits in my life from it. I made a choice. I just decided, OK, this is the new plan. Here's the new thing happening in life. OK. And so it has some financial implications. I went into, I understood it. OK, here it is. If you split up with a partner, what are you going to say? Oh, the only thing that matters in my life is financial implications of something? Of course not.
You have to make the right decisions for your life and then you'll figure out the money stuff that goes with it. Thank you. I'm just going to play that clip every time I feel.
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you know, it's funny. I get interviewed a lot, right? For this show. And I just did one where they were like, Gabe done like show bad with money, started bad with money. And now they're good with money. So tell us what's going on. And I like in the back of my head know that everything is real fucked up right now. And I'd so I was like, I have to be honest on this show. Like I can't because I can't have people thinking like, Oh, well, now, you know, everything's fine. Because
a big life change happened. And I had to move and I had to, like, I had, you know, all of these debts all of a sudden. So I also have read in my book, Bad With Money, I talked about this guy who wrote an article for The New York Times where he was like, I am simply defaulting on my student loans. I don't care. I will not, I will not be punished for pursuing education, fuck off.
So can you think like, and then sometimes I think for me, like, okay, it's, it's, it's like having a credit score. And then it's also like the psychological component. But like you were talking about the history of debt. Like why, why do people think, oh, I need to pay it off? Is there a real tangible reason? You mean like why people sometimes think about it as a moral issue specifically? Yeah. Like, I mean, or why are the moral, what moral reasons? And then is there really a reason? What happens to you if you don't pay it?
Right. Well, so, yeah, I mean, why do people think that it's a moral issue? I don't know, that's a big question. Like, I'm not sure. It's just psychological. Like, I think, I guess not moral, but I guess, like, psychologically, we're taught to feel, oh, my God, I'm less than. I'm tired, totally. I'm on a minute. It kind of goes with other parts of dominant culture where people with more money are viewed as better.
in all kinds of ways, you know? I mean, this, I think there's also that like you touched on this very practical question of, okay, what's going to happen to me if I don't pay. Yeah, tell me what's going to happen to me. Yeah, so the answer to that, it depends on what kind of debt you're talking about, right? So if you're talking about a mortgage for a home,
If you wait long enough, at some point, a sheriff can come and evict you from your house when you get foreclosed on. That's your worst case scenario. What about if you're credit card debt? You're just a person like me living in an apartment.
Right. And then credit cards can get sent to collections. You can start having an unbelievable number of phone calls at your personal phone number, phone calls to your work maybe. Sometimes there are stories you'll hear about where someone's colleagues boss is hearing from collectors.
Threatening things sometimes they say things that are not legal that they're not allowed to say but they do it anyway Right, you know just trying to get you to reach an agreement to pay You know something on credit cards, right? I mean, but the first thing that happens is when you stop paying is you start accruing additional interest charges
Right. And so, I mean, that's true for, I think, pretty much every kind of debt. You know, one thing to know about student loans is that those are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. So that means if you decide to file bankruptcy, you go to the court and you say, look, I can't pay my debts, right? And there's a very long
from what I understand unpleasant process where you have to pay fees to the court and they get information, all kinds of paperwork from you, your tax returns, every scrap of paper they need to figure out what kind of debts you have, what your income is, what kind of assets you have. And if the court reaches a conclusion, indeed you cannot pay your debts, they will wipe your debts clean for you.
but only for the types of debt that are considered, quote, dischargeable in bankruptcy. So that would be like credit cards are dischargeable in bankruptcy, but student loans are not. And so what that means is those student loans, you're still gonna, oh, even if you decide you're gonna declare bankruptcy, which is gonna screw up your credit for the next 10 years,
you still owe on the student loans. And the federal government can garnish part of your wages if you're not paying them. And if you get old enough, they can garnish part of your social security. I once helped prepare taxes for a client who was having her social security garnished because of student loans. So,
It's pretty serious. Yeah, it could be up to 10%. I think it's up to 10% of your wages that they can garnish. What happens when you declare bankruptcy? Well, I mean, other than that kind of general description that I gave, that's about as much detail as I'm familiar with. But they put your name in the newspaper?
Oh yes, it does become a matter of public record. And so I think the details of that probably vary depending on exactly where you live in the country. But yeah, it becomes a matter of public record. It's something that goes on your credit report. You know, if you have a, let's say you're applying for a job and they do a background check, it could come up. If you're applying for any credit in the future, like a mortgage or a credit card or even sometimes certain utilities, you know, that run a credit check.
Or if you're signing up for a new cell phone plan, sometimes they run a credit check. You know, there are a lot of situations where it can come up. And so that would show up in all of those different scenarios. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people who have gone through the process often compare it to like losing a loved one, a divorce, you know, some like a very big traumatic life event that is extremely unpleasant that they hope no one else has to go through.
What would you say is the second step of the getting out of debt plan right so if if if if kind of after you've decided if step one is making a list of all your debts step two would be making a plan for your money that would include some debt payoff right so at
It's kind of core level. I think it's pretty straightforward. It's like you have a job, so you have a certain amount of money that's incoming, and that could be if it's a steady paycheck every month, then it's steady. If it's variable income, fine, it's variable. But you've got your incoming, and then you have your outgoing.
Right. And so your outgoing money, you're going to probably want to divide into your absolute required things and then everything else. Right. So the absolute required things that would be your housing, your food, utilities, transportation to work. Right. And then everything else, you know, it's probably up for grabs. To me, it's so, it was so easy to get there.
And so hard to get out of that the number just seems insurmountable. Like with interest rates, like, is that the order? So I'm looking at like the order in which you pay off various debts. Like the right order is like whatever has the highest interest rate or is the right order like medical credit card, then student loans, you know, like what or is it just looking at the interest rate? Because I went by interest rate.
Right. So yeah, so that people call that the debt avalanche method. Yeah, so there's kind of two common approaches. When someone is making a plan, what is the order that I should work on paying off my debts? And I'll just say up top,
The most important thing is that whatever plan you pick that it has kind of resonates with you and you like it, because if you don't stick with the plan, it's not going to work. So pick a plan that you think works for you, right? But the two common approaches, one would be to list out your debts and you could rank them.
Highest interest rate first and then lowest interest rate last and so you would start out by saying okay I have a credit card loan it has a 20% interest rate everything out I mean which would be that's not a that's not a crazy number right You know it has a 20% interest rate and then my next one is you know my student loan and it has a 6% interest rate and then you know everything else is you know maybe less than that or whatever is in between right so start with that highest one and then
You're going to pay the minimums or just whatever is required on everything else. And then all your extra money will go to that first one, right? So let's say you do your budget. It's, you know, X amount for my rent and for food and for everything else. And you have, I'm going to just use round numbers to make it simple. Let's say you have $1,000 a month that you could put to debt.
And the required minimum on, you know, let's say you have four loans and loans two through three and four, the required minimums add up to like $400. Then 600 would go on loan number one, right? And assuming that, you know, let's say the minimum or the required payment on loan number one is like,
300, then you would be paying an extra 300 on top of that each month. And you would just keep doing that until loan number one is totally paid off. Then you would take that 600 that had been going to loan number one. You would start throwing that at loan number two and keep paying in loan three and four. You're just doing still the monthly required amounts, right? And then everything on two. You don't want to realize that you're only paying the interest rate. Right. Right.
Yeah, yeah, you need to do extra to pay down that principle, right? And so once, you know, you just can't a rinse and repeat, right? And so all the extra that you can, you're throwing at whatever is top of your list, right? And so that could be based on highest interest rate. Like you said, that's debt avalanche method. And then the other method that a lot of people like is called debt snowball. And that's where you start out with whatever has the smallest balance, the amount outstanding on the loan.
And then you get that one done first and then you go to the next largest, next largest, you do them in that order. And even though from a strictly mathematical sense, you'll pay more in interest.
It has a psychological effect on people. You take your littlest loan and you get it paid off. And it's like, oh my God, I did it. I got one paid off. And it provides this motivation and a feeling of excitement. And so then you want to keep going with the next one. Because what if your highest interest loan is going to take you a really long time? You don't have as much of a feeling of progress. I think that feeling of progress
is really helpful for keeping up the motivation to get it done. Just one thing, that phrase, debt snowball, you're going to hate this. But you know who coined that term? Is it Dave Ramsey? Yeah, it's Dave Ramsey. No, he's like the boogeyman.
I know. Oh my gosh. He stays there five times and he shows up. Candyman. Yeah. Well, wow. Make sure that you're not just paying the interest rate because you can look and be like, oh, wow, I'm really paying this off every month. And it's like, no, you're just paying the interest rate. The loan is exactly the same. Yeah. I mean, in that case, then if you're thinking about your budget, the copious situation where you would say, look,
Given what I really need to have to cover my most basic expenses and to make progress on paying the debt, maybe you need to look at the income side of the equation, right? And to say, I mean, because, you know, look, it's like there's money that comes in, there's money that goes out, and you've got different levers for each of those, right? And so if you look at your income and you say, okay, you know, maybe I need to try to make more money.
What would that look like for me? You know, does it mean trying to get a raise at my current job? Does it mean taking on a side job? You know, I mean, that's going to be different for everyone. But, you know, just kind of knowing like, look, here's something that I want to do. You know, you don't have to become an entrepreneur or something. It could just be, you know, a part-time job that you're going to do just for a short period of time while you're trying to accomplish this goal, you know?
Ugh, so unfortunate. Does it make sense to consolidate loans? People always ask about that. It can be expensive. You know, there can be fees associated with that. I think it probably the answer depends on someone's exact debt situation, some of the specifics there. I think that one thing to keep in mind with that would be to not fall into a trap
of feeling like, OK, I did a consolidation. I've made progress on paying off my debt because you're not actually changing the amount of loans outstanding. If you do a consolidation, you're just reducing the number of loans that you have and maybe changing the interest rate. But the amount outstanding would be the same. And so keeping that kind of psychological component in mind, I think that's really important.
Yeah, can you explain sorry I said that but like can you explain what consolidating means and and the way is that it's like what the companies are and like how it how it happens.
Yeah, so let's say that you have, you know, two different credit cards that have a balance each $2,000, right? And you want to have, you could consolidate those into one loan that has a balance of $4,000.
Right? And so, but that's not going to come for free. You're going to pay some fees to make that happen, right? And maybe you're going to get a lower interest rate in the process, right? On the new fourth, you know, you're basically saying, I'm going to have a new $4,000 loan and it's going to replace each of those prior existing $2,000 loans.
Right. So I'm going to take my new loan, the proceeds of my new loan, they're going to pay off the old existing loans. And then I'm going to have to pay down the new loan instead. Right. So it's kind of like you're just moving pieces around on a board, maybe, but you're not eliminating the debt. Right. But does it matter if the interest rate is better? It's a good thing to get a better interest rate.
I would say you might want to think about, well, what's it going to cost me to do a consolidation loan? And how does that compare to the interest that I might save? What would it cost you? Fees from doing a consolidation loan, right? I mean, it's just like if you, for example, refinance a mortgage, you have to pay a transaction fee to do that. And so it only makes sense.
to go ahead with a refinancing transaction, if the interest you will save while the loan is outstanding would outweigh the fee. It's kind of like that. And so it's kind of a math question. And it takes effort to do it as well. And so depending on someone's debt situation, they might want to just focus on, how can I pay it all?
Right? How can I take all my effort and energy and think about how can I just pay this off? So here's, here's maybe a thing that I thought of that is, is you're going to tell me is bad. What if you have a credit card that has like a 14% interest rate and then you open another credit card that has zero and then you pay, use that credit card to pay the other credit card?
And then you have like a balanced transfer. Yeah. What about that? Yeah. So that, that's fine. You and, and if, if you say, look, scenario one, I have a 14% credit card, I'm going to pay it off over the next year. I'm going to pay, you know, X amount per month to get it paid off.
And then I take scenario two, I do the balance transfer. You have to know if there are fees to do that, right? And then I'm going to do that exact same plan of paying X amount a month to pay it all off. If the interest you would save,
In scenario number two is more than whatever the balance transfer cost. Then great, that's a good plan. But don't trick yourself into thinking, I did the balance transfer and therefore my work is done. No, your work is not done. The work is actually paying down the balance.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's not a terrible idea. It's a fine idea. Just don't trick yourself like, okay, now I'm done. Right, right, right. I was thinking about like, I was like, well, you could do a balance transfer. Then you have a year. It's a new credit card. So you have a year of like free, not free, you have a year of no interest rates.
And then, but I guess that's just sort of running from the initial. Yeah, I mean, look, if I think it can, it can be a good part of a plan, right? But it's not the whole plan. Does that affect your credit score at all to close the one and then open the other one? It can. That might be fine.
And then also keep in mind there is a difference between paying off the balance on a credit card versus closing the account entirely. You could have a credit card where you pay it off, you could even cut up the plastic piece of plastic and the account is still open.
Right, you take a credit card, you can put it in a drawer, you could cut the card in half if you want to make sure you're not going to use it again, but the account could still be open. You can always call them they'll mail you a new one right away. They'll be happy to mail you one if you want. But so if you want to leave the account open and not use the card, that is definitely fine. Also, if you want to close it, that's fine too. Right. I, you know, I think
People worry about credit scores a lot, and sometimes when they don't need to, it's almost like if you just live your life and try to work on having good finance practices, the credit score, usually it's going to just take care of itself. If you're worried, if the thing that's on your mind is, I want to get out of credit card debt,
Well, are you going to be applying for more credit cards right now? Maybe, maybe not too much, you know, in so much case, does your credit score really matter? No, you just do the one and then balance transfer. And then next year, do it again. And then next year, do it again. That's galaxy brain, baby. Yeah. Yeah.
So what are trade lines? Oh, trade lines? Yeah. So that's, have you ever heard of someone where they are an authorized user on a credit card? Like there's a, maybe it's like a married couple and one of them has a credit card because the credit card can only be in one person's name, right? Unlike a bank account where you could have like
a joint account credit card is just in one person's name. So let's say I want my partner to be an authorized user on the account. That means they get a physical credit card in the mail with their name on it. But it's still this, it would be my credit card that they're using, right? The one account. And I would still be responsible for paying it. I could give my child, I could make my child an authorized user on the account. I could make you an authorized user on my account if I wanted to, right?
It doesn't have to be someone that's related to you in some way. You could just decide, oh, I want to do that. This stems from a time when my understanding is in the US from a time when a married woman was not allowed
to have a credit card account of her own. And so they came up with this way where she could be an authorized user on her husband's credit card. So I remember when I was in high school, I had a teacher who told me about this. So after she got married, she wasn't allowed to continue having her credit card. I was like, what?
Yeah, so that's the origin of, I think, of this whole authorized user thing. And that is just a different way of saying a trade line. So if I made you an authorized user on my account,
Let's say I've had that credit card open for 10 years, right? One of the factors that goes into someone's credit score is the length of their credit history. And so let's say you only had credit cards that had been open an average or credit accounts open an average of like two years.
Having a longer term account like 10 years that would be helpful for you for including that in your average And so if I make you an authorized user then that history would get kind of imported into your credit history So that's why sometimes a parent will make their child an authorized user because it helps the child build a credit history
This term, trade lines, refers to it. It's actually something people sometimes even sell their trade lines. Other people will buy them. So if someone is looking to buy a quick solution to improving credit, if they're going to apply for credit and they want a fix like that, you can actually pay money to have someone
you know, add you as an author, as user, and get the trade line. Who? What? How do you do? Who? Who? Well, let's see. Like, I think there's a Craigslist of trade lines. No, like, so like there's a firm trade line supply company is one that I'm familiar with. And who is the person selling it? And how much are they selling it for? And how does that not bite you in the ass? So the person who
purchases the trade line, they don't actually get a credit card in the mail necessarily, right? Like the whoever is selling it could make that decision. And they could also say, okay, this person is an authorized user on the account, but their spending limit is $0.
Like you could do it. Yeah. Like you could do it that way. Oh my God. This is news to me. Yeah. No, this is actually you kind of hit on something that's kind of obscure. I think a lot of people aren't familiar with it, but it exists. It does exist. That is so wild. And God, I hate our country. That is so wild. So man, is that how much are they selling them for? Is that a source of income for me? How much are they selling them for? Well, so you, you,
the person who's buying it would only be interested in buying it if your credit is superb? Mine's great, I think. Yeah, so that would be one thing. And then typically you would want a credit card that's been open for like probably minimum of two years, but the more, the better. And so yeah, it might be like, oh gosh, I don't know, something like,
three or $400 something in that range. I thought you were going to say thousand. No, I think typically no. How many people can you have on a trade line? You know, so the credit card companies don't like this. Oh, you think? Right. Yeah, they, they frown on this because
it kind of is messing with the whole premise of like, what is it? What does someone's credit report show? What does it mean? You know, that kind of thing. And so it's one of these activities where it's not illegal. It's kind of like counting cards. It's like, it's not illegal, but the casino is hated and they're going to try to stop it, right? And if if a casino thinks you're counting cards, they're just going to kick you out, right? I think that's how trade lines are with credit cards, where, you know, if you're, if you're,
having maybe one authorized user, maybe two at a time, and then you keep them on the account for, I don't know, six, nine months, whatever it is that they need to build that history, then you can remove them, and then maybe at that point, wait a month or two, do it again, that kind of a thing.
The bank is like, just person keeps breaking up with people. Yeah. Well, I know the risk would be if you're doing this too much and the bank observes that activity, they might cancel your card. That would be the risk.
Right. You learn something new every day. Yeah. We don't, we don't endorse it, but we sure are talking about it. Final outgoing thoughts of like, if someone is in a lot of debt, I read too much true crime. And it's just like debt seems to be a thing that motivates a lot of murder.
And like, it just, because I think it's just so, it feels so insurmountable. Like, what, what can you do if you're listening to this and you're like, I have $60,000 in just credit card debt. Like, I don't fucking know, man. So the whole, the whole start out by making a list step, that's a really big step. Right. Cause what that saying is,
to look at it like kind of square on, right? I mean, I think a lot of people don't really even know what they have, right? So I think that's a step one. And if you've done it, you know, making a plan to start working on it, your plan is not going to stay the same.
for like two years, right? You're gonna make a plan, you're gonna see how it goes, and then you're probably gonna have adjustments that you make, right? You know, like if part of the plan needs to be, and it's not true for everyone, but it's usually true, if part of it needs to be
working on the expense side, working on the outgoing side, right, changing up, spending on things other than, you know, the district requirements. Well, you probably want to start tracking your spending a little bit. It's like financial mindfulness, right, and pay attention and say, you know, you could look back at a few months of bank statements, credit card bills, you know, to figure out like, where is it going?
Right? Because you might not know, you might have some surprises. Usually when people do that, they end up spending less money without really explicitly trying to, because all of a sudden they're just paying attention to it and thinking about it more. Right? Like usually, if you focus on something, you end up being more successful at it.
I mean, that's just natural, right? Like if you're really paying attention, you're going to get where you want to more quickly. So I think, you know, starting to pay attention to, okay, where is it going is really important. And then you're going to start making adjustments to your plan, which is that's another word for budget.
By the way, it's just plan, which it doesn't have to mean like, oh my God, austerity, right? You can, part of your plan can be spending money on some things that you enjoy, right? And you should have some enjoyment in a budget, right? You should have some, okay, I just paid off a thousand dollars.
I'm going to treat myself to, you know, whatever gives you joy, you know, a fancy latte, a manicure, a massage, you know, whatever it is, right? You get to have a, you get to have a treat, right? New sneakers. Yeah, some kind of a, something nice that's like affordable for you, but is still like
Nice and awesome, right? And so have the milestones built in to that. But I think having a plan, see how it goes, pay attention to where the money's going, and then make adjustments, right? And don't feel shame about making adjustments.
No, no, that's normal. Making adjustments is normal, right? It's, you know, I don't know. It's kind of unrelated, but I was hearing someone talk about like COVID safety and they were saying like, look, you know, maybe you were doing things before where you didn't take any safety precautions. And then now you realize like, oh, actually, maybe I should. You were like, it's okay. You know, just start doing it. It's fine.
Yeah. Yeah. I have to just stop looking at things as linear and being like, this is backsliding. This isn't backsliding, you know. Right. Yeah. Enlightening life's not life is just life. You know, that is true. It's hard. It's a hard thing to come to realize weirdly, but yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for returning. I really appreciate it. Where can the listeners find you and find out more about you?
Oh, sure. Yeah, so thank you so much for having me. Sorry, some of this discussion was kind of dour. No, this is what we like. This is what we like. OK, yeah, so yeah, people can find me at my website, which is frequentlytextquestions.com. Thank you. No, thank you.
Bad with Money with Gabriel S. Dunn is a production of Noted by Sexual, produced by Melissa D. Mott's and Diamond M. Print Productions, edited by Diane Kang, post-production sound by Coco Lorenz, production assistants by Melanie D. Watson, and music by Mike Kaplan, Zach Sherwin, and Jack Dolgens, sung by Sam Barbera. Thank you. Love you. Bye.