0:05

Hello YNABers, my name is Jesse Meakin

0:07

with another episode of the YNAB podcast,

0:10

and I'm here each week to obsess

0:12

out loud to you all about spending

0:14

purposefully, saving aspirationally, and even giving joyfully.

0:18

It all comes down to just four simple habits.

0:22

And I want to talk about extremes today.

0:25

On one hand, you have the extreme of someone

0:27

saying, you know, I

0:29

just don't want to look at my money. I

0:33

know it's bad, right? Like things are tight and

0:35

I'm just going to kind of

0:37

wince, squeeze my eyes shut,

0:40

hope everything works out, just kind of keep

0:42

the faith, cross my fingers,

0:46

cross my heart, hope to die, all those things. And

0:50

you're just kind of distancing yourself from

0:53

the money. And that

0:57

does not create any kind of good outcome.

0:59

It's just you're, you're turtling, you know, you're

1:01

just kind of like, I, I'm just, I'm

1:05

running away. I'm just

1:07

running for cover. So there's

1:09

that when things are tight, we

1:11

just, we don't want to look at it like, give

1:13

me some distance between me and this money. And

1:16

then on the other side of it,

1:19

you might even have that person be like, man, wouldn't

1:21

it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice

1:23

if I just didn't have to worry about money? And

1:26

they're imagining someone that makes plenty of money, their

1:29

expenses are low, maybe they don't carry a lot

1:31

of debt. They don't have a lot of obligations

1:34

and they just have a lot more money

1:36

coming in than money going out. They're living

1:38

well within their means. And

1:42

you would, the person that, you know, has

1:44

experienced this, this very tight financial situation as

1:47

probably most of us have, I would imagine,

1:49

they just kind of say, man, wouldn't it be nice?

1:52

I just wouldn't have to worry about money if I

1:54

were just kind of living flush. And

1:57

then if you get inside the head of the person. and

2:00

that is making good money. You know, they're

2:02

finally making like an adult wage, whatever that

2:04

is. And they're

2:06

just like, this is like things are going well. I

2:09

just don't really have to worry about money. So

2:12

because they don't quote, have to worry

2:14

about it, they distance themselves from

2:17

money. So whether the money

2:19

is tight or the money

2:21

is loose, I guess, both

2:24

players in totally different

2:27

financial situations are doing

2:29

the exact same thing. They're just

2:31

kind of like, ah, I don't want

2:33

to worry about this. So

2:35

the person that needs to for

2:38

specifically like just financial

2:41

reasons, they're living right on

2:43

the razor's edge paycheck to paycheck, they're

2:45

telling themselves, I don't

2:47

want to deal with this. I don't want to

2:49

worry about this. I just, I just don't want to worry about

2:51

it. I don't want to think about it. I'm done. The

2:54

person that's not living on the financial edge

2:56

that has room to maneuver, they're

2:59

living within their means. They also tell themselves, I don't

3:01

want to have to deal with this. Finally,

3:04

finally, I'm making enough money. I don't have to worry

3:07

about every penny. And that's it,

3:09

by the way, that's such a phrase. I

3:11

just, I don't want to have to worry about every penny. No

3:13

one's saying every penny. Okay. So

3:16

don't, don't do that. But both in

3:19

a tight financial situation or an abundant

3:21

financial situation, both are doing the same

3:23

thing. They're just kind of saying, I

3:25

want to keep some good distance between

3:27

me and my money. And

3:30

both are inappropriate and

3:33

poor subpar responses

3:36

to how we do money. How we

3:38

do money is how we do ourselves. It's you, you

3:40

know? So that was

3:42

my thought today, only because I would

3:45

like to warn you if you think, you know,

3:47

just when I get, when I land this next

3:49

job, when I get the next raise, when I

3:51

get this bonus, when I finally sell these two

3:53

houses, whatever it may be, then I won't

3:55

have to worry about money. Well,

3:58

not worrying about money. in

4:00

the sense that it's like this unproductive worry, okay, no one wants

4:02

to do that. But think about it. Are

4:04

you kind of saying, well, then I want to, then

4:06

I'll be able to have distance from my money. Yeah,

4:10

we don't really want that. So

4:12

whether things are tight or whether things are

4:14

just fine, we do

4:16

not want you to distance yourself from

4:18

money. Quite the opposite. We want

4:21

you to run toward it. So

4:24

isn't it funny how on those extremes, both

4:27

are basically doing the

4:29

same thing, they're trying to avoid

4:31

something until next time.

4:34

Remember, it's just these four

4:36

little.