Tools to Climb: Budgeting as a Couple hits Different Ep.2

[00:00:11] Welcome to CoastFI Couple, a podcast where love meets financial independence. I'm Matt.

[00:00:16] And I'm Jana. Join us every other week as we dive into the world of CoastFI and share smart money tips for couples.

[00:00:21] We're going to be talking all about how to strengthen your bond and your relationship and bringing closer to financial independence.

[00:00:26] One episode at a time.

[00:00:28] Welcome back to CoastFI Couple.

[00:00:29] Yeah, it's a bi-weekly podcast where we talk about relationships and money and...

[00:00:34] Love and cash.

[00:00:36] Yes.

[00:00:37] We're stuck with a coin term there.

[00:00:38] Yeah, we'll workshop it.

[00:00:40] Yeah, exactly.

[00:00:41] I'm Matt.

[00:00:42] I'm Jana.

[00:00:44] We're your hosts.

[00:00:45] And today we're going to, in this episode, we're going to talk about some tools that helped us reach CoastFI and just on our financial independence journey.

[00:00:56] Yeah, tools to climb is what I titled that.

[00:00:58] I think of it like climbing a mountain and if you're at the bottom of the mountain, what is it you're going to bring with you?

[00:01:05] Right? So if you're talking to professional climbers, what do they use?

[00:01:10] And we're at the top of this mountain and we want to share with you the stuff in our backpack.

[00:01:15] I think it'd be really fun, just as a side note, to keep track of all the little analogies that we...

[00:01:22] Great idea.

[00:01:24] I think I already have like six written down.

[00:01:27] Perfect.

[00:01:28] But yes, the mountain agreed.

[00:01:30] You know, if you're going to base camp one, you might need different things for when you're trying to reach base camp two.

[00:01:35] Right?

[00:01:36] Right.

[00:01:38] I think the most important thing when you're starting out on your financial independence journey is building a budget and understanding your numbers is the very first step, I would imagine.

[00:01:54] Yeah, I think if you can start with a strong foundation of knowing what you're bringing in and what you're spending, it's...

[00:02:03] You don't have to have as large of a boat or as large of a paycheck to have the life that you want.

[00:02:08] Right?

[00:02:09] So, you know, there's...

[00:02:11] I hear stories all the time about CEOs and with big paychecks who don't budget.

[00:02:17] It's because at that stage in their career, they make enough money to where they don't have to.

[00:02:34] They don't have to.

[00:02:37] They don't have to control and let that snowball.

[00:02:40] Yes.

[00:02:41] And I think one of the things, one of the misconceptions about budgeting, especially if you're just getting started on trying to build a budget, building a budget is not the same thing as changing your budget.

[00:02:56] Right?

[00:02:57] Yes.

[00:02:57] So in the beginning when you're just getting started, sometimes it's just about knowing what your current habits are.

[00:03:02] So that way, the next step from there is changing those habits because you've identified what some of the unhealthy financial habits are.

[00:03:11] You know, if you don't have an awareness of how many times you're eating out or how often you're leaning on credit cards or how much you're doing just sort of nonchalant, thoughtless spending, there's no way that you can sort of start to curb some of those things.

[00:03:25] That's a great point.

[00:03:26] Right.

[00:03:26] And so just simply tracking, just expense tracking, there are plenty of people in the fire movement who track their expenses, but they don't actually live on a budget, you know?

[00:03:37] Yeah.

[00:03:38] And again, you can do it successfully as long as you have roughly an idea of what your savings rate is.

[00:03:43] You want to get an understanding of what your income is and what your expenses are, because those are two very important level levers that you're going to be pulling along the way to financial independence.

[00:03:57] I almost use my boat analogy just then, but I'm going to save that one for you guys for later because it's one of my favorites.

[00:04:03] I love it.

[00:04:04] So, so I'm following this path with you and I totally agree that understanding what your expenses are is, is probably priority number one.

[00:04:15] Yes.

[00:04:15] But it's harder than you think, right?

[00:04:17] Right.

[00:04:17] So if we were to sit down and write down what we think we spend our money on, it will inevitably be different than what we actually spend our money on.

[00:04:26] Right.

[00:04:26] So the first tool that we recommend for everybody, if you're, if you don't want to be at a situation where, where we were at, which is exporting every transaction.

[00:04:38] Into Excel.

[00:04:39] Into Excel.

[00:04:40] And there's a lot of Excel nerds out there.

[00:04:42] Doing everything manually.

[00:04:42] And that's what we did for years.

[00:04:44] That's what I did for years.

[00:04:46] Yes.

[00:04:46] Even before we were married, it was every, every bank that we have, every credit card that we had, we would export it to Excel.

[00:04:54] At the end of the month.

[00:04:54] At the end of the month.

[00:04:55] And we put it into a pivot table and we would.

[00:04:58] Sit down.

[00:04:59] Separate by categories.

[00:05:00] But we'd sit down at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and charcuterie.

[00:05:05] Right.

[00:05:05] So you started making this.

[00:05:07] I love you.

[00:05:08] So you started making this fun or we tried to make it fun.

[00:05:12] I wanted to trick myself into believing that budgeting could be fun and romantic and just, you know, a thing.

[00:05:19] Look at us being an adult married couple doing this thing together.

[00:05:23] You know, I like to think that there, there's a point in most relationships that people will try to do this.

[00:05:30] Yes.

[00:05:30] Or they'll try to make budgeting fun.

[00:05:32] Yes.

[00:05:32] The problem is budgeting is not fun budgeting.

[00:05:36] And yeah, for most people budgeting is not.

[00:05:38] At least the way that we were doing it, especially early on was in.

[00:05:43] It was not fun.

[00:05:43] I would say it's not fun unless you have a big shovel, unless you have a lot of extra income.

[00:05:49] Right.

[00:05:49] It's not fun because what would happen is after we would export all of these transactions and we'd put it into our buckets and we say, this is how much you spend on groceries.

[00:05:57] And this is how much we spend on going out to eat and the kids.

[00:06:00] Right. To your point, I always found that building a budget for the next month was really fun.

[00:06:05] I really liked that part.

[00:06:07] And I just wanted to do that part.

[00:06:08] Right. But you can't build a budget for the next month until you have reconciled the previous month.

[00:06:13] Right.

[00:06:14] Reconciliation.

[00:06:14] So say we're, you know, we're in that in the end of August now, right now, as we are recording this episode, 2024.

[00:06:22] And, you know, pretend that we're about to sit down and do the budget the old way.

[00:06:26] Oh my gosh. Can you imagine?

[00:06:27] But if we did, we wouldn't be able to start by building the budget for September.

[00:06:31] We would have had to start by reconciling the budget for August that we had built at the end of July. Right.

[00:06:38] And so we had to go back through all of their transactions.

[00:06:41] Yes.

[00:06:41] The Excel and and put them into the line items and see what we actually spend versus what we had decided at the top of the month that we were going to spend, which is kind of an abstraction. Right.

[00:06:52] Like our budget lives in this Excel document somewhere on a on a computer, but we're living and spending day to day.

[00:06:59] It's really hard to connect the concept of your budget into the real world daily spending habits, which is, I think, was a really helpful thing that we learned through Dave Ramsey with the envelope system. Right.

[00:07:11] Yes.

[00:07:12] And we could talk about that a little bit later. But so doing this, this idea of the date night budget, I really wanted it to be fun.

[00:07:20] But it always started off by having to reconcile all of our spending.

[00:07:25] It takes so long.

[00:07:25] It takes so long.

[00:07:26] Hours.

[00:07:26] And like most of the time we'd be in the red, even if it was just like we were in the red by ten dollars or a hundred bucks.

[00:07:32] Like it was just like, oh, man.

[00:07:33] That's the part I want to focus on.

[00:07:35] So it's it can be fun if you have a lot of extra cash.

[00:07:39] And there were times when we did.

[00:07:41] It was like, look at us.

[00:07:42] It's green.

[00:07:43] There were some months, yes, where we have like an extra paycheck or a bonus or something.

[00:07:45] And we're like, yeah, look at this.

[00:07:48] We've got, you know, a couple extra a hundred dollars or whatever that can be put to a vacation cruise or something.

[00:07:54] That part was fun.

[00:07:56] But more often than not, at the end of the month, we get to the point where we overspent.

[00:08:00] Yes.

[00:08:01] And we'd sit there and the best thing that we could do was.

[00:08:05] Oops.

[00:08:06] We got to we got to suck it in next month, you know, and so it was always this this feeling of defeat.

[00:08:11] It was not fun.

[00:08:12] So.

[00:08:13] Right.

[00:08:13] It was reactionary.

[00:08:14] Right.

[00:08:14] It was reactionary.

[00:08:15] Right.

[00:08:16] So.

[00:08:16] So before we go on to the like some of the other tools, let's start and clarify this one.

[00:08:20] So tool number one is essentially documenting all of your actual expenses.

[00:08:27] Yes.

[00:08:28] And there's different ways to do that.

[00:08:30] Right.

[00:08:30] So we just mentioned Excel and some people do this very successfully.

[00:08:33] We know several of them and they're amazing.

[00:08:36] But, you know, there there's only so much you want to do this as a couple.

[00:08:40] I found you did a pretty good job of building our Excel.

[00:08:42] I did it fine by myself.

[00:08:43] It was harder when it was a couple because only one person sitting at the building, only one person sitting in front of the computer.

[00:08:49] Right.

[00:08:50] Actually building it.

[00:08:51] And it's easy to have your attention, Wayne, and honestly, just be bored because I'm sitting there trying to, you know, pretty it up.

[00:08:57] Yeah.

[00:08:58] Whatever.

[00:08:58] You get me for about 20 or 30 minutes, which just wasn't enough time.

[00:09:02] It just wasn't enough time.

[00:09:02] So as great as you were at making this be with, you know, two glasses of wine and candles and a charcuterie board over a laptop, it was the best way to do it.

[00:09:12] Nor Jones in the background.

[00:09:13] We really try to set the mood for our budget.

[00:09:16] And it worked for a long time.

[00:09:18] It did.

[00:09:18] It did.

[00:09:19] It did the job.

[00:09:20] But there are better tools out there that we want to explain and kind of give you guys a heads out start so that we don't have to do this.

[00:09:27] But so first thing, controlling your expenses.

[00:09:30] Any way you know how to do that, just document them.

[00:09:34] Budgeting on a spreadsheet is one way to do that.

[00:09:36] The other thing that I think really helped and we still use it today is Personal Capital's free app.

[00:09:43] And it's now, it changed its name.

[00:09:45] So it's no longer Personal Capital.

[00:09:46] It's now Empower.

[00:09:47] And there are other ones out there.

[00:09:49] Monarch is one that we hear a lot about.

[00:09:51] But that's the one, those two.

[00:09:55] But the one that we use is Personal Capital's Empower app.

[00:09:58] And what that does, it's a free tool and it simply links to each account that we set up.

[00:10:05] And it extracts the transactions and categorizes them in a basic way and monitors your net worth.

[00:10:14] And you don't have to do anything.

[00:10:16] There's nothing more than just linking the accounts.

[00:10:18] And you can go onto the website and see that it's as safe as you can imagine it could be because it's not, there's no way to access those accounts or move money around.

[00:10:26] It's just a view.

[00:10:27] It's a really good snapshot of where all of your investments stand, where all of your regular banking accounts stand.

[00:10:35] So that way you can see where you've been and where you're at.

[00:10:39] And it can help you sort of build projections for where you're going.

[00:10:42] Yeah.

[00:10:43] Because I know, you know, when you have a 401k account here or maybe a, you know, a Roth IRA account here, they're all in these different accounts.

[00:10:51] It's kind of hard to see the overall picture of what you're trying to build.

[00:10:55] So if you're trying to build something, you really want to have a visual representation of what you've got going on.

[00:11:00] And personal capital is really helpful for that.

[00:11:02] Exactly.

[00:11:03] And there are certain banks and things that will do this by themselves.

[00:11:07] But most people, I feel, have their money in lots of different buckets out there.

[00:11:12] So you've got your, you know, 401k could be through your work at like Fidelity and Fidelity has its own view, but it's not linking to your personal bank, which could be a credit union or something.

[00:11:23] So there's, there's just this gap.

[00:11:24] So personal capital takes all of that, excuse me, power now takes all of that and, and lets you have one view.

[00:11:30] And that was really helpful for us because then if, and if we don't look at it for a couple of months, we can pull back a year's worth of data in literally five seconds and figure out what we are actually spending.

[00:11:43] Now the categories might not be a hundred percent perfect.

[00:11:46] I would say that for, for personal capital, I don't really, is it personal capital or it's in power now?

[00:11:52] Okay. So empower, I don't really use empower as a way for my, to, to track our daily budget or weekly budget.

[00:11:59] Not anymore.

[00:11:59] We know better tools now.

[00:12:01] Right.

[00:12:01] It's, it's more of a, a zoomed out snapshot of, of all of your account accounts across the board.

[00:12:10] So that's what we use it for.

[00:12:12] But when it comes to actual budgeting tools, there's some really popular ones.

[00:12:18] There's, I know YNAB is super popular.

[00:12:20] We tried YNAB for a while at the time.

[00:12:22] I just, it felt too granular and really overwhelming for me.

[00:12:26] We still lift and we still had to do a lot of retroactive categorizing.

[00:12:30] Yeah.

[00:12:31] Um, Monarch is really popular.

[00:12:34] Uh, our friend Maggie, she's got her own podcast inside out money.

[00:12:38] She loves Monarch.

[00:12:40] Um, I know that there are always called out inside out money podcast, great podcast.

[00:12:44] Listen to it all the time.

[00:12:44] Hey Maggie.

[00:12:45] Um, but I, I heard her talk a lot about Monarch and we looked into that too.

[00:12:51] But I think around the time that we're looking at Monarch, we found cube and it was just, it was perfect for us.

[00:12:58] And I think we, we found cube before I'd gotten.

[00:13:02] Yeah.

[00:13:02] So bug to like, we did start doing coast fire.

[00:13:06] Exactly.

[00:13:06] So the more that YNAB and I simplify and automate our finances, the happier we became.

[00:13:13] And this is the single greatest finance budgeting tool that's come out in recent times.

[00:13:18] It's called cube money.

[00:13:20] And it's changing the way couples implement financial health.

[00:13:25] We're investors in this company.

[00:13:27] We have exclusively been using cube money to do our own personal budgets since 2020.

[00:13:33] And it's so simple that even our kids are now using it.

[00:13:37] Cube has developed and patented a technology they call default zero.

[00:13:41] And it requires a category to be open from your personal budget before you can spend with the card.

[00:13:49] And then once you spend, it deducts it all in real time.

[00:13:52] This single feature has made cube the safest card in the world to use.

[00:13:59] If you drop it, it always has a zero balance on it.

[00:14:01] Unless you open the budgeting app.

[00:14:04] It's been extremely handy for us and it saved us actually several instances of fraud.

[00:14:09] And we're never going to go back.

[00:14:11] Cube is perfect for families too, because they've got shared spending categories that allow you to spend in real time from them.

[00:14:19] And everyone else in the family can see the updated balance.

[00:14:22] It's essentially making it a hundred percent foolproof to always stick to our budget.

[00:14:27] And that has actually been the case.

[00:14:29] We have not overspent from our budget since we started cube.

[00:14:33] And it's amazing.

[00:14:34] This is the tool that helped us get a handle on our family spending and made our journey to coastify so much easier.

[00:14:42] So if you're ready to take your budget to the next level where you truly can automate it, you truly set it and forget it, then you're in luck because cube money is offering an exclusive deal just for our listeners.

[00:14:54] You go to cube money.com.

[00:14:56] And at checkout, use the code coast.

[00:15:01] You can try the premium or the family membership for free.

[00:15:05] And again, we highly recommend it.

[00:15:08] It's a personal endorsement.

[00:15:09] We know that if you use the program, it'll work for you.

[00:15:13] Enjoy.

[00:15:13] So cube money, it's Q U B E money.

[00:15:17] Yeah.

[00:15:18] And, you know, at the time that I found it, it was actually a FinCon conference, which is a financial expo for finance nerds.

[00:15:26] And hey, that's, you know, welcome to the show.

[00:15:28] When was that?

[00:15:29] 2020.

[00:15:30] Okay.

[00:15:30] I found it in 2020.

[00:15:32] Uh, I would say I wanted to actually go in person to FinCon, but because of the pandemic I couldn't.

[00:15:37] And so they sent us digital logins.

[00:15:40] That's right.

[00:15:40] I forgot about that.

[00:15:41] And so I was sitting at a computer in the evening after work, uh, at this personal finance expo.

[00:15:47] You were such a nerd.

[00:15:48] I'm such a nerd.

[00:15:49] Uh, but, but I found them because they were one of the lower tier sponsors and I'm always looking for new tips and tricks and tools, right?

[00:15:56] They're always trying to find a way to improve.

[00:15:58] And so when I found them, what cube money does so well is it takes, it takes the budget that you set up and it ties it to a card.

[00:16:08] Yeah.

[00:16:08] And so we'll talk about cube money on the show a lot because we use it every single day.

[00:16:13] I love it.

[00:16:14] Yeah.

[00:16:14] But this, this, this budget that you now have tied to a card, it's, it's a $0 balance on the card.

[00:16:20] So if you were to drop it, you can't ever, you know, no one can ever pick any money out of it unless you approve the transaction.

[00:16:25] Right.

[00:16:25] In advance.

[00:16:27] And so, you know, what you'll do is if you have, you know, say a couple hundred dollars in groceries, you press your grocery cube and it will automatically transfer that amount to your debit card.

[00:16:37] Right.

[00:16:38] And then you can use it at any vendor and it will deduct it in real time.

[00:16:42] And so that concept of living by your budget in real time was very attractive.

[00:16:48] And it's, and so when I found that I was like, Hey, this, this actually could work for us.

[00:16:53] I'm not typically the one that, that was the spender that I would go to the grocery store.

[00:16:57] It was, it was you because I was working late hours and traveling a lot.

[00:17:00] Right.

[00:17:00] And so I said, Hey, why don't you look into this and see if it's something that you think you'd use.

[00:17:04] At first I was like, Oh, he's got me using some budgeting tool, you know?

[00:17:08] Yeah.

[00:17:09] But I started trying it and what I really loved about it is the budget that we built together lived in the app and was accessible in real time, a living, breathing representation of our budget that I could use the card for.

[00:17:24] Yeah.

[00:17:24] So I could swipe the card at the grocery store and those funds would directly come out of that line item, that one cube.

[00:17:30] And you have to think about it.

[00:17:32] We didn't have, and then when we had date night, date night budgeting night, we didn't have to go back and do a retroactive of our budget.

[00:17:39] And we also weren't overspending because all of the funds that we were sending to the cube bank that lives behind the card was what we had earmarked for spending.

[00:17:47] Yeah.

[00:17:47] So if I moved money around from the cubes, like say, Hey, we've got $20 left over in our clothing cube, but I want to spend that money on, you know, flowers for my grandma, but we're out of grocery, whatever.

[00:17:58] I could just move the money around.

[00:18:00] I felt like I had more control, more flexibility, and I didn't have to worry about accidentally overspending from a category.

[00:18:06] So it just absolutely was a game changer, a gamified budgeting for me almost immediately.

[00:18:14] It took a little while for us to really perfect the budget within it, but I really do attribute the nerd in me to cube money in a big way because I never thought that I would say this, but I love to budget now.

[00:18:30] I love it.

[00:18:31] I never thought that.

[00:18:32] Because we only do the fun part of it now.

[00:18:33] Now it's just the fun part.

[00:18:34] Now it's always the fun part.

[00:18:35] Now it's just, it's today onward.

[00:18:37] I don't have to worry about where, and you can export the data.

[00:18:40] I don't think we've ever had to though.

[00:18:42] And maybe we did when we were doing our, we were trying to figure out what our annual spend was for the year.

[00:18:48] So we've done it.

[00:18:49] You have the ability to do reports on it too.

[00:18:51] Yeah.

[00:18:52] But huge fan of cube money.

[00:18:53] We will definitely share some links.

[00:18:56] I, and maybe a referral code or something for them if we have one, but I, I highly, highly recommend cube money.

[00:19:01] Please check them out.

[00:19:03] So I just want to add one point to this because I think it's important for everyone out there who's still budgeting and reconciling at the end of the month on a spreadsheet or using some other tool, you no longer have to do that.

[00:19:14] So I think what really helped us out is cube money, the app it's automatic.

[00:19:21] You live by it in real time.

[00:19:22] So if you have X amount that you can spend and you're living on a tight budget or you just don't want to overspend, you can easily now do that.

[00:19:32] And with a spouse and with a family, like it's, it works so easy that our kids use it.

[00:19:36] And it's just, it's the way to do budgeting.

[00:19:40] And it, it no longer have to, at the end of the month, sit down and spend hours trying to go back through all of the receipts and all through the junk and see like, what is it?

[00:19:48] What did I actually spend on?

[00:19:49] And Oh, shoot.

[00:19:50] I overspend.

[00:19:50] You no longer have to do that anymore.

[00:19:52] So check it out.

[00:19:53] I think you guys will really appreciate it.

[00:19:54] Yeah.

[00:19:54] All right.

[00:19:55] So we got budgeting now taken care of.

[00:19:58] Yes.

[00:19:58] So controlling your expenses is really helpful.

[00:20:02] And that's where cube money for us really helped out.

[00:20:04] You've got now monitoring your net worth, which you want to do a quick definition of what network.

[00:20:10] So net worth is basically, it depends on, uh, there's a couple of different types, right?

[00:20:16] There's your investable net worth.

[00:20:17] What assets are actually currently invested in, uh, whether it be the market or real estate or what have you.

[00:20:25] Right.

[00:20:25] All assets minus all liabilities.

[00:20:28] Right.

[00:20:28] Is what your net worth is.

[00:20:30] And every financial guru out there will tell you to monitor that over time, just so that way, you know, if you're making progress or not.

[00:20:37] Right.

[00:20:37] Right.

[00:20:38] Yeah.

[00:20:38] So what we use for monitoring net worth is the empower app because it's hands off once you get it set up.

[00:20:45] Right.

[00:20:45] And those, I think are the only two tools that we use today on a regular basis that I can think of off the top.

[00:20:52] Yeah.

[00:20:52] And we use those daily, right?

[00:20:53] Like you have two sides of the coin for building a financial independence empire.

[00:20:58] And the one side of it is budgeting.

[00:21:02] Your daily budget, your weekly budget.

[00:21:03] Exactly.

[00:21:04] So you're controlling what's coming in and you're, you know, doing that with intention.

[00:21:08] You have visibility and you're moving forward with purpose.

[00:21:11] Exactly.

[00:21:12] And then the other side of this coin is the investment side of it, right?

[00:21:16] Because you can't build generational wealth without both sides.

[00:21:21] You need to control what you're bringing in well and you need to monitor and invest well to make sure that it's growing in this right direction.

[00:21:28] And it's easy to see when you're not doing something right, if you're on, if you have the ability to monitor it regularly.

[00:21:34] And we do it now, not because we have to, because it's really set it and forget it for us.

[00:21:37] We don't really have to think about it.

[00:21:39] We do it now because it's fun and it's easy.

[00:21:42] So, yeah.

[00:21:43] There's a, there, I do at some point in the podcast want to talk about the boring middle.

[00:21:48] Yes.

[00:21:48] You know, there's a time, there's a lot of excitement that kind of happens when you get started on the financial independence journey,

[00:21:53] whether you're, you're reaching for full fire or you're reaching for coast fire or barista fire,

[00:22:00] which are all different kinds of versions of financial independence that, you know, you're excited.

[00:22:07] You're having conversations with your partner, you're utilizing new tools, you're learning.

[00:22:11] And there's a lot of fresh and exciting energy that happens during that space.

[00:22:15] And then there's sort of this boring middle where you've, you've got all the tools set up and you're doing it and you're doing it and you're doing it.

[00:22:22] And it takes time.

[00:22:23] It's a marathon, not a race, right?

[00:22:25] It, it can take five to 10 years, depending on the levers that you're pulling and how consistent you are to start really feeling like you are getting to a point where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, right?

[00:22:36] It can take, it can take the time.

[00:22:38] And so the, the boring middle is something that you'll hear a lot of people in the fire community talk about.

[00:22:44] And, and then once you start reaching some of these financial goals, you can get a little bit more invigorated.

[00:22:50] And I think one of the things that you and I discovered during our financial independence journey was that you weren't interested in celebrating along the way, right?

[00:23:02] You, we would have a goal, like say, Hey, we want to have X, Y, Z amount saved in our emergency fund.

[00:23:09] And we would hit that goal.

[00:23:11] And he was like, great, we've got six other goals we're going to hit.

[00:23:13] So we better get busy.

[00:23:14] And I'm like, wait, but we should, we should celebrate.

[00:23:17] We should do something.

[00:23:18] And so I think that balance really helped us because for me to stay on track and for me to feel motivated, I need to be, I need to be rewarded.

[00:23:26] Right.

[00:23:26] Somehow I need to have something that I'm looking forward to, whether it's just like, we're going to go have a date night to celebrate, you know, we're going to get a ball of champagne and sit on the back porch and, and really take a moment to congratulate ourselves for hitting this goal.

[00:23:40] Cause it can be, it can be hard, you know, being dedicated and consistent takes time and it can be hard.

[00:23:46] So having that balance, I think really helped us because you helped me stay on track with the long-term goals, which is the point.

[00:23:55] But I kind of help us check things off along the way.

[00:23:58] That's like, Hey, we did this, we did this, we did this.

[00:24:00] Absolutely.

[00:24:00] I'd like to add a point onto this.

[00:24:02] So I totally agree that we make a really good team for the people out there who feel like they might be doing this alone or have a lot more pressure on them because maybe their, their, their significant other hasn't quite drunk the Kool-Aid on fire yet.

[00:24:18] It will happen.

[00:24:19] It takes time to build that.

[00:24:21] But the, the ability to understand what the other person in the relationship wants and finds valuable to get them excited about the journey is something that I didn't understand until much later in our relationship.

[00:24:36] For me, I knew what the end goal was, which was retire as early as we could, because that's when I felt like our life and our happiness could really start.

[00:24:45] And that's not correct.

[00:24:47] Right.

[00:24:47] And so keeping in mind what your other partner in this journey wants is really, really helpful.

[00:24:55] And for me, and honestly, it goes back to prioritizing vacations or even something as small as flowers.

[00:25:04] Right.

[00:25:05] So one thing that I love about cube, again, this cube money tool that we use is it allows me to prioritize gifts and date nights.

[00:25:15] Travel.

[00:25:15] And travel in a way that I can put it in a budget and it reminds me to do it.

[00:25:20] Right.

[00:25:20] So I've got a tool for clothing, for example.

[00:25:25] Right.

[00:25:25] So we have, this is a perfect story.

[00:25:27] I just want to like kind of deviate for a moment.

[00:25:28] So if, if in the beginning of our relationship, Jan would come home with, you know, a bunch of grocery shopping bags for like new dresses and jewelry and things.

[00:25:39] And she's, you know, she looks glowing.

[00:25:41] She's got, you know.

[00:25:42] I love dresses.

[00:25:43] She loves, she loves dresses.

[00:25:45] She looks great.

[00:25:46] And I, and I, at the time would, would want to celebrate with her.

[00:25:50] But in the back of my mind, before we were aligned, I always felt like, oh shoot, we didn't budget at all for this many shopping bags.

[00:25:58] And I felt like she wasn't on board with the plan.

[00:26:02] And that was hard because I wanted to celebrate you and I wanted to, to, you know, be there in that moment with you when you found like, even if it was a deal and you did, you found lots of deals and on sales, but I wasn't able to really enjoy that moment until we budgeted.

[00:26:17] Right.

[00:26:18] It takes the pressure off.

[00:26:19] I think before we were using the right tools, there was this level of anytime I would spend something that wasn't perfectly within the budget, I think a part of me would be worried that you would be worried about the budget, you know, and, and it's true.

[00:26:36] And, and that, that layer, you know, even though we were aligned and we were building the budget together, it's still isn't, it's really just an unnecessary layer of stress.

[00:26:47] Yeah.

[00:26:48] You know?

[00:26:49] So, you know, if, if an analogy is the envelope system.

[00:26:53] Right.

[00:26:54] Right.

[00:26:54] So Dave Ramsey has, if you know anything about financial piece of university or if you've done it, you'll know what the envelope system is.

[00:27:01] But for people who don't know, it's basically, you know, you identify what your spending is for the month, whether that's groceries, gas, date night, all of those things.

[00:27:09] And you take cash out and you put it in a physical envelope and you have a, uh, basically a little notes section within the envelope too.

[00:27:20] So you can write down, this is what I spent at the grocery store.

[00:27:22] I took out this cash.

[00:27:22] This is what I have left in each envelope.

[00:27:24] I'm cringing at the idea of reliving this because we did this for what?

[00:27:28] Six to eight months.

[00:27:29] Yeah.

[00:27:30] We did cash everything for six to eight months during that program.

[00:27:33] I hated it.

[00:27:33] Oh, it was so hard, but what a foolproof way to, you're not going to overspend because you're not going to accidentally swipe more.

[00:27:41] Right.

[00:27:41] Yeah.

[00:27:41] So what I love about cube money is it's basically that, but it's digital.

[00:27:45] And I know, I think Dave Ramsey has something that's, they have every dollar, right.

[00:27:50] But it's not as fun, it's not as, as, um, functional as easy to use.

[00:27:54] And it doesn't do it in real time, which you still have to do a retroactive reconciliation.

[00:27:59] Exactly.

[00:27:59] So, so get back to my point.

[00:28:01] Like now I'm really excited when you come home.

[00:28:04] Let's get back to my point.

[00:28:05] Um, now I'm really excited when you come home with like a new dress because I know that it came out of our clothing fund or there's not, there's not like extra money that we now have to make up somewhere else during the month.

[00:28:16] It's like, Hey, pull it from someplace else.

[00:28:17] Exactly.

[00:28:18] And at any moment I can look and see that we've got, you know, uh, maybe a hundred dollars in our date night fund.

[00:28:24] And I can say, Hey, great.

[00:28:25] You know, I really don't feel like us trying to come up with something to cook tonight.

[00:28:29] I can just surprise her with going out to eat because we've already budgeted for it.

[00:28:34] And so it makes life a lot more fun.

[00:28:37] Prioritizing the things that your partner finds important because for me, for a long time, I didn't spend money on anything.

[00:28:44] To this day, I have a hard time.

[00:28:46] Like I hate shopping with a fiery passion, but I recognize that it's important to look nice for my spouse.

[00:28:52] It's important to get a new shirt or new underwear and out again.

[00:28:54] I get it.

[00:28:55] So, so it's important to live life and be happy while you're doing it.

[00:28:59] And you've helped me realize this, but I think, you know, these tools have helped us build a life that can be.

[00:29:06] We've met each other in the middle and the tools and the strategies have really, really helped.

[00:29:12] You've, you've been so great at being patient with me as I've learned about financial independence and you've given me space and room to get excited about it, you know?

[00:29:22] And now that I am excited, like I'm the one that won't shut up about it.

[00:29:27] So it's such a flip-flop.

[00:29:28] But, um, I think one of the things that really helped me, I'm going to, I'm going to talk about an analogy.

[00:29:34] One of my 16 analogies.

[00:29:35] I love your analogies.

[00:29:36] Bring them on.

[00:29:37] Uh, I think that we were talking about this a few nights ago, this concept of, you know, trying to get your expenses down and investing for tomorrow and making sure that you're securing your future for when you're in your fifties and sixties.

[00:29:51] For me, for a long time, I felt really unconnected to the future version of myself.

[00:29:57] Who's going to need to be retired, right?

[00:29:59] I didn't prioritize it.

[00:30:00] It wasn't top of mind.

[00:30:01] It was hard for me to connect to my wants and needs and desires beyond two to five years or five to 10 years.

[00:30:08] And then something just clicked.

[00:30:09] And I think having more visibility and having more control and understanding that we could have a fulfilling life without overspending and even being quite frugal in a lot of ways to make sure that we could have a comfortable savings rate.

[00:30:22] Right.

[00:30:23] And, and having a deeper understanding of that, I started getting more excited about saving for tomorrow and, and, and building a future for ourselves when we are upon our retirement golden years.

[00:30:34] And this analogy that I came up with was the desert analogy.

[00:30:38] Yeah.

[00:30:39] Right.

[00:30:39] So this desert analogy is, is basically say that, you know, you're going to go into the desert for two weeks and you're given two canteens of water and it's the only water that you have for the full two, two weeks.

[00:30:51] And yeah, you're thirsty now and you've got two full canteens of water, but you don't drink all of the water right now or in the first week because in the second week you're going to die.

[00:31:02] Right.

[00:31:03] Right.

[00:31:03] Well, it's a great analogy.

[00:31:04] Like you have to really ration it out because at the end, you know, by the end of the two weeks, like you're not getting any more water anymore.

[00:31:11] So that's kind of how I, I started to think about our, our income and our money.

[00:31:16] Like it, it, it's not just about sustaining our lifestyle right now.

[00:31:20] We have to make our income, especially our high income years work for us and stretch it and ration it out until, you know, our projected retirement.

[00:31:32] And, and then some, so that's how I think about it.

[00:31:36] Like, yeah, we might be high earners now or, or have been before Coast Fi, but it's not, it doesn't mean that I'm going to go buy a brand new house just because I can, or buy a brand new car just because I can.

[00:31:48] And you don't do it just because you can, should you do it?

[00:31:51] Should, do we really need to do that?

[00:31:53] Is that really going to provide me some more peace and fulfillment?

[00:31:58] I feel like I'm, I know we're on there, but I feel like I'm falling in love with you all over again because like, this is so funny because we really changed.

[00:32:05] We changed, we changed positions.

[00:32:07] Yes.

[00:32:08] You know, when we first started, I was completely in your shoes here.

[00:32:13] And now I feel like you've taught me so much about slowing down and appreciating what we have and enjoying today.

[00:32:19] And, and it's okay to spend a little bit on that extra vacation now because the kids are young.

[00:32:23] Right.

[00:32:24] Which is part of the reason why we found Coast Fi.

[00:32:26] And I, I think in the next episode, we should probably talk a little bit more about that specifically about how we clicked over from the goal being fire to now the goal being Coast Fi and what that has meant, how that's changed our dynamic for the better, how that's changed you specifically your relationship with work and productivity in a really interesting way.

[00:32:50] Yeah.

[00:32:51] So I definitely want to, want to cover that.

[00:32:53] Yeah.

[00:32:53] I love that.

[00:32:54] So in quick summary of, of today's very elaborate and detailed episode, right?

[00:32:59] The tools and tricks that we use, we use Empower's personal dashboard for monitoring net worth.

[00:33:06] We use Cube Money for our budget and staying on track.

[00:33:09] And a psychological tip is trying to make budgeting fun by putting on Nora Jones and making it a date night.

[00:33:16] Make it a date night for sure.

[00:33:17] Yeah.

[00:33:18] But, but try and streamline it too.

[00:33:20] So it doesn't have to take as much mind share as, as it could.

[00:33:23] Right.

[00:33:23] It doesn't have to be a big task.

[00:33:25] It doesn't have to be a big task.

[00:33:26] You can make it simple to start with.

[00:33:27] It can be a touch base.

[00:33:28] Exactly.

[00:33:29] Yeah.

[00:33:29] And then the wallet burst calculator for anyone who's still awake after midnight.

[00:33:34] That could be a good.

[00:33:35] I highly recommend wallet burst coast by calculator at two 37 in the morning.

[00:33:40] There's just something about that magical time.

[00:33:41] On a, on a Sunday evening, right before work starts.

[00:33:44] Right before work.

[00:33:44] Yes.

[00:33:45] Yeah.

[00:33:45] It's a way to dream about if you're having a hard time at work and we will talk about that

[00:33:50] in this show, um, having the dream and the confidence that you have a future where you

[00:33:57] don't have to be stressed out at work is such an amazing, uh, aid and crutch to keep going

[00:34:06] if you need to, or almost as an awareness to, to stop.

[00:34:11] Yeah.

[00:34:11] And, and so maybe next episode we can talk about, um, maybe the, how financial independence

[00:34:17] gives you the freedom to lean on a W2 or not.

[00:34:22] Yeah.

[00:34:23] And, and this, this, you know, coast five lifestyle might not be for everybody.

[00:34:26] Right.

[00:34:27] Uh, it certainly is for us, but I didn't know it at the time.

[00:34:31] So join us next episode, right.

[00:34:33] For, for us reviewing a little bit about why this might or might not work for you.

[00:34:38] We definitely should get you a top hat.

[00:34:39] I want a monocle.

[00:34:41] Thanks everyone.