← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
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- [00:00]
Farnoosh Torabi
Hey friends, if you've been sitting on a book idea and wondering could this actually become something? This is your moment. Join me in New York City on October 9th for book to brand. This is my intimate full day immersive designed to help you turn your idea into a clear, compelling pitch ready book concept. You will meet the insiders, agents, publishers and recent authors who can help bring your book to life. Spots are limited and early bird tickets are on sale now. Head to booktobrand co to reserve your spot. So money episode 2017 the one question that can change your financial life.
- [00:37]
Jesse Mecham
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to SO money. They say money, money can't buy happiness, but it can steal it. And we see a lot of people making enough, making enough, where they are just carrying an unnecessary level of worry around with them purely as it relates to their money. And that's what we're trying to get rid of. We can't change wages. We can't get it to match inflation. We can't get rid of inflation. There's so much in the world we have zero control over and that's all just life. And it will remain that way forever and ever. But what we can control in that little circle, we can control how much we unnecessarily necessarily worry about money. And that's what the book I hope achieves.
- [01:40]
Farnoosh Torabi
Hey everybody. Welcome to SO money. That's Jesse Mecham, the founder of you need a Budget. We just heard he joined this show earlier this year where we talked about a deceptively simple question that has shaped millions of people's financial lives. And it's this. What is your money for? Jesse's back because that question has become the foundation of his new book. It's called Never Worry about Money again. It arrives later this summer and we're going to get a sneak peek into it. Jesse's the founder, as I said, of you need a Budget or ynab, the budgeting system that's helped people rethink not just how they spend, but how they think about money altogether. And while the title of his book sounds bold, this isn't another promise that you'll become wealthy overnight. It's an invitation to replace financial anxiety. With clarity in our conversation, Jesse and I talk about why making more money doesn't necessarily make you feel more secure, the surprising spending habit that trips up even high earners, and what Jesse teaches his own children about money and why revisiting your financial plan, even when it feels uncomfortable, is often the fastest path to peace of mind. Here's Jesse Mecham. Jesse Mecham, welcome back to Sew Money a twofer. In 2026, you were kicked off our year and now you're giving us a mid year check in. Let's just say with quite the check in. Welcome.
- [03:04]
Jesse Mecham
Happy to be here. Happy to be here. Yeah. Glad that I can do a twofer.
- [03:07]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well, you were kind of sneaky in January when I interviewed you because you gave no preview or I don't think you said this was on the 2026 bingo card for Ynab, but here we have it. A book, Never Worry About Money Again by Jesse Mecham.
- [03:23]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah, that was, I was probably full of, or I had a total lack of confidence at that point because we had originally wanted to get a book out kind of the re. Something better articulated and something I could really be proud of, you know, in 2025. And it did not happen. We, I, I wrote it and even I didn't like it. You know, usually authors tend to kind of like what they write and it's just, yeah, some of it I liked. A lot of it I didn't. And we literally just scrapped it and started again. And I'm so glad we did. But I, it was, you know, it was a ride.
- [03:56]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well, they're supposed to take the time they're supposed to take. And I have never met an author, myself included, who, who said, oh, the book came together so quickly, so easily. Straight line from point A to point B. Like whether it's. You get stuck in the beginning, the middle, or towards the end, we all get stuck or just not even stuck, just like rethinking because they take time and your life changes and your thoughts change and it's natural. So. But we're so grateful for this book. And you know what I love about it? It's not 300 pages.
- [04:24]
Jesse Mecham
That is a bonus of being your own publisher. I realized we got to kind of say, well, we get to do what we want to do. Where most publishers kind of have, well, you know, this furnish. They kind of have a spot they want you to land, you know, and they, they're probably right. There's probably some analysis that's been done or whatever. But I was so glad that I just didn't feel like there was an extra wording there that was. It was fun to do.
- [04:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well, I look at this book, and I read most of it by now. You know what I think really differentiates it? Speaking of kind of finding its place on the personal finance shelf, I think where it really shines as a category, if you will, is like philosophical book about money. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's just full of a lot of great wisdom. This is not a book where you're gonna learn how to pay off your car loan, you know, step by step by step. There are other books for that. But I think what you really deliver masterfully is you give us things to really think about. And we talked about this when you were here in January, which is that Level one Foundation is just kind of understanding your relationship to money. And let's get into it. Your first question, your only question, really one question that you want us to answer is, what is it for Ye.
- [05:31]
Jesse Mecham
That is. And it is an easy question to say out loud, and it is a hard question to answer. It really, really is.
- [05:37]
Farnoosh Torabi
So the question of, what is your money for? There are a lot of ways you can answer that. You can answer it very tactfully, like, well, it's for paying my bills. It's for keeping a roof on my head. But I think what I'm sensing is that you really want to push people to think even deeper about it. What's the way to kind of approach this question? And so your budget suddenly becomes, you know, the budget of your dreams, if you will.
- [06:01]
Jesse Mecham
Yes. Yeah. It reflects back at you. That's what we always are trying to say. Is your money reflecting you back? What we're hoping to do is one. You mentioned changing your relationship with money and that it really is that. We want people first to see money differently than they perhaps do. Most people, if they're doing pretty well, they see it as a chore worth doing something worth spending a little time on. They see it as a task, a necessity. And all of those are fine. But I say fine is always the lying word. When someone says they're fine, that's the beginning of the lie. So I want to get people to a spot where money is meaningful, and I want them to see it as a precious resource. And the way we do that is walking them pretty quickly in the book through just realizing, recognizing what you give up for that money. And when you look at all the time, effort, energy, you know, away from family, the calories, the Network the education your whole life leading up to, like Farnoosh in the moment, what she's capable of, what she brings to the market. It's like, that is you. And so we do a shorthand with money. You know, they say money is a medium of exchange and yada, yada, yada, but really, I'm just trying to say money is you like what you have there. That's. That's your offering to the market, and the market rewards you with some money. And if you recognize that that is quite the sacrifice, spending 50, 60 hours a week trying to get this thing, then why not maybe really be clear on what this really important, precious thing is for?
- [07:28]
Farnoosh Torabi
You have an exclusive access to people through ynab. You need a budget. You. You really get to see more than anybody else because of this. Again, this access to folks with their money and spending and how they're spending. And have you found that more people are surprised to find out that they don't actually need to make more, that what they have is enough? Because I read that in your book, like, you actually may not need to make more. It's you. It's managing what you have properly. Although that's a debate. I think some people would say, like, I'm not making enough salaries haven't kept up with inflation.
- [08:05]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah. There are two separate, separate ideas, and they're both true. One is if someone to say, jesse, I want to make more money, I would say, oh, me too. Sure, absolutely. Who doesn't? Right. But then they say, because that will help me not worry about money, I would hit a big pause button there. We want to really, really dig in. Money can't. You know, they say money can't buy happiness, but it can steal it. And we see a lot of people making enough, making where they are just carrying an unnecessary level of worry around with them purely as it relates to their money. And that's what we're trying to get rid of. We can't change wages. We can't get it to match inflation. We can't get rid of inflation. There's so much in the world we have zero control over. And that's all just life. And it is. It will remain that way forever and ever. But what we can control in that little circle, we can control how much we unnecessarily worry about money. And that's what the book I, I hope achieves.
- [09:01]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, you bring up and rightfully that so much why we become the worrywarts around money as adults is because we didn't have the literacy growing up as kids or the exposure to feel like it's okay to be curious, it's okay to ask questions and be thoughtful about money. And so you're a dad now. If there's something we can teach young people about money, I know throwing a textbook at them about accounting principles, like that's kind of useless. But again, going back to philosophical things and mindful mindset, changing things. What's so important for young people to grasp about money? Money.
- [09:36]
Jesse Mecham
I want them to appreciate it. I, I want them to see it as a, as a good, as a positive, as something that is, is good in their life. It is good to get some. It is good to go after it, and it is good to care about it. I think the lessons that we're taught is even invisibly unspoken in households is that is a source of friction between maybe my parents. That is a source of concern as I'm reading the body language, not even knowing how to read body language, but picking up signals from my mom or dad sitting at the, you know, cashier, buying groceries, watching them open mail, because some places still send things in the mail and seeing anxiety there, seeing fights erupt, asking, mom, can we get this? Dad, can we buy this? Or whatever. And it being a visible source of stress and we pick, we pick up on those things. Yeah, I would love, I would love for there to be positive messaging around money. It's right to want it, it's right to earn. It's plenty okay to earn a lot of it. But what are you going to do with this big pile of money you have? And it is, I'll be honest, the best money class you could do with little kids would be like, just get them to dream because they have no inhibitions. I had my, my 10 year old, she's like, dad, I want to be a millionaire. And I was like, aim higher, kid. I'm not sure what inflation is going to do to those millionaires by the time you're, you know, it matters. And, and so I said, what about a billionaire? And, and then she's like, what's a billionaire? And so we started talking about what you could buy with a billion. And that was where her gears started going. Cause I was like, well, what would you buy? And she's like, well, I would definitely buy some sweaters. And I was like, okay, you know, some nice sweaters. Yeah, those are great sweaters. I hope they have like gold, you know, little weaving in there, something. But we talked about like, okay, well, sweaters, like you'll still have all of your Money left, basically. What else? And then we got into horses that helped a little to like start to maybe put a little dent into this billion. But that kind of thing where you're just like, look what you could do. That was just this positive creative moment for us where the curriculum that Visa and MasterCard and the banks put out, it's just kind of like, here's how your debit card works. And by the way, this lines our pockets every time you use it. They don't say that part, but all of their incentives are like, please use our system, please use our system. You know, that's it. So they, they have, I mean yes, spend your money as much as you can, they tell you. But the idea of like money being a positive, it's, it's non existent there.
- [12:03]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well, a follow up question with kids because I also have kids in the same age group. I have a 9 year old and a 12 year old and they've been asking me, especially the older one more and more, well, how much do you make? And my daughter who's nine, she said, mom, do you make like $50 a day?
- [12:19]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah, I hope not.
- [12:21]
Farnoosh Torabi
I said yes, I do. And so my husband's approach is to just say to them, this is not an appropriate question and I will stop. And we have like a little tip about it. I'm like, well actually kids, it's not that it's inappropriate. It's just that some people, when you ask that question to other people, they may not be prepared. It can put, it can be off putting. Not everybody has like curiosity around money. So you just be careful when you ask like personal questions about other people's money. It's not a bad question. It's just you have to read the room. I will tell them at a later date, but at this age I just feel like it's gonna become playground gossip.
- [12:56]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah, yeah. They just don't know what the boundary is for letting the information out. If you knew that they could kind of hold it and the family could that private, that would work. Okay, I, I will talk to my kids a lot about what things cost.
- [13:09]
Farnoosh Torabi
Right.
- [13:09]
Jesse Mecham
So and then they can kind of start to back into it. But at that point you're like, well this house costs this much and it, you know, mortgage would look like this and they can kind of look around and be like, wow, all of my friends parents are paying right around. I mean we're all in, you know, basically the same suburbia type thing. And it's just kind of like, okay. And then that what blew their Mind was groceries. I told my kids, I said, you know, what we spent on groceries and we, we feed a lot of mouths. And they were like, what, you know, is going on? Like, it really shocked him. So sometimes giving him the costs will start to get there. Like, you'll start to tune them to like, you know, things are more than 50 bucks kind of situation.
- [13:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, yeah, I enjoy it. You know, I, I'm, I'm all like, bring it on. You know, maybe I don't have the right answer for it right now, but I, I, I admire the curiosity going back to what you were saying about, you know, figuring out what your money is for. I think it's important to have you speak to this other point in your book about it, which is that you can change. Yeah, it's not a finite thing. And, you know, is this, is this. Do you find that a lot of people presume that it has to be a one and done decision?
- [14:15]
Jesse Mecham
They do. It's weirdly so. Weirdly so. Like, if I were to play chess with the person, they'd be like, here's my plan, you know, and then I would do something probably kind of dumb, and they'd be like, oh, I'm dealing with an amateur. I'll do, I'll do this plan instead. They would be very flexible, right? But for some reason, when someone, I think when they're kind of amped up around fixing their money, getting good at money, eliminating this money worry, something happens in their life just recently where they're like, enough is enough. Let's get going. And in that energetic, positive thing, they have kind of this I'm all in binary view that is not real. But they hold onto that for a bit because there's some positive, like, there's some positive vibes around it. So for some reason, they just bring that along and they say, okay, I've set my plan like I am in it. It would be like someone starting a running program and, you know, they miss a day in the second week, they're like, oh, I'm the worst. And you're like, no, you're not. You just started like, go tomor. So we just try and teach them, like, listen, this is you. That's your plan. Like, you're like a coach just making halftime adjustments. That's part of the deal. So in the booth, we had to call out, like, you know, one of the answers for what money is for is for change. And that's the thing that people have a hard time dealing with. They set up their perfect plan. They're now supposedly good at money because they've been doing this for 18 minutes, and then something happens, and they're like, oh, this can't. And we're like, no, no, no. Some of the money is just for change that comes at you.
- [15:41]
Farnoosh Torabi
I don't think I've ever asked you this question, which seems weird, but can you walk me through ynab? Like, actually the experience, because and how this all is folded into getting you to the finish line of creating a budget that is actually meaningful and tracks with your definition of what's important.
- [15:58]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah, you mean walk you through the app a little bit, like what someone would experience? Or do you think.
- [16:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
Do the ideas however you would explain it to a friend, you know, kind of not knowing what it's about, how it can serve, you know, Because I'm also thinking, imagine you're using it, and you know that you have to assign every dollar to something like a job. But what if. I'm sure there are people that are like, I don't have any more dollars left, and I have five more jobs.
- [16:21]
Jesse Mecham
Yes, that's a great moment. That's a teaching moment there. That's. That's the beginning of them thinking differently about money. Because their norm, their normal pattern would be when that happens in real life, not in planning, but in real life, they're out of money. They would put it on a card and then just be like, oh, next month, I'll take care of it. So when we have walk, we call that walking up to zero, where you just are staring at zero. You got nothing else. This. This moment of it's. It's sometimes the first time in a long time that someone has been able to feel reality. Like, you're out of money. That's the real thing. Like, we are so conditioned to just not want to deal with that. So when you start with ynab, we want you to get to that teaching but tough spot where you run out of money. And you've given every dollar a job and known, okay, all these dollars that I have, I know what they are for. And so we'll take you with just the money you have on hand. We'll look hist through your bank transactions once you connect some accounts, so we can give you an idea of, like, here's the norm of what you do and stuff, because, you know, they're starting fresh. So you will get a little bit of historical context. And then we just have that pile of money, and the person just has to say, I want A, I want B, I want C. And then it's like, oh my gosh, I can't have D unless I give up B and the trade offs begin. And Thomas Sowell is the one of my favorite economists and he's just like, we all make trade. I'm paraphrasing him. We all make trade offs all the time.
- [17:39]
Farnoosh Torabi
Time.
- [17:39]
Jesse Mecham
We just aren't aware of them. And what YNAB does is make you aware of the trade offs. And once you're aware, you get to start making decisions. And it turns out, farnish, this is the crazy thing. No personal finance books are necessary. When someone becomes aware of these trade offs, like people without exception make good decisions, they don't say, oh, I'll go ahead and put this on a card and do this and charge this and you know, overspend here and there. They just don't do it. They, they really act. I don't know what we would say. I don't want to say responsibly. I hate that word. But they may make good, like objectively good decisions with their money. When those trade offs are presented to them as either or, which the entire market wants you to believe. You can have the genes. If you just do it in five payments. You can do this too. Apple's gonna be doing their little favorite bing noise. When you use Apple pay, all the dopamine's flowing. All that is supposed to kind of lessen your awareness of these trade offs.
- [18:33]
Farnoosh Torabi
What does the data say about the trade offs we're willing to make that actually don't hurt as much as we think they will aren't as painful as we think they will be.
- [18:43]
Jesse Mecham
I wonder if I've told you about this before, maybe even offline. I've told you the trade off that people make without exception, that seems to be quite easy for them once they realize they're doing it is eating out. They literally cut it to the bone. I wish that I didn't feel like my last 20 years of career was basically teaching people to eat out less. I feel like that's sometimes what it ends up being. It's the funniest thing. But yeah, they're just like, oh my word, I can't believe I'm spending all this money over here. And they've got debt they want to pay off. They have other things they would rather be doing. They just start moving the money over there and pay off tens of thousands of dollars of debt so fast and they eliminate so much worry. And every once in a while there'll be the person that's like Jesse, but I love Eating out. And you can hear in their voice they mean it. And then I just have them tell me, where's your favor, Favorite place you've ever eaten. And they light up like a Christmas tree. And then at that point you're like, yeah, that your money should be for that. You love this thing. But the people that are eliminating it without really giving it a second thought, it's the habit stuff, it's the drive by, it's that we're out of time, we don't have any food. You know, instead of looking at leftovers and all that stuff, it's, I can't believe I'm saying this. And I, I, I want everyone to know I'm not saying don't eat out. I'm just saying that we found with like almost every single case study that when people become aware of it, they dramatically cut.
- [20:05]
Farnoosh Torabi
And what are we talking about? Like thousands a month on average.
- [20:08]
Jesse Mecham
Wow.
- [20:09]
Farnoosh Torabi
Wow.
- [20:09]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah. Yeah. Now people that use ynab, traditionally you're dealing with usually a dual income, six figure situation. So people that are already living well below that, they aren't doing what I'm talking about. They, they know that it's, that money's not for that. But in our, where we kind of land in the software world and where people thinking we could help them, that's usually the spot. And it, it can sometimes be thousand, $2,000 a month. Now I'm speaking generally here, everyone's going to be different.
- [20:38]
Farnoosh Torabi
But, but it may, I mean, look, look, you go out, let's say 10 times a month, which is not crazy. That's a couple times a week. If you go to a sit down restaurant where you're getting table service and then maybe some drinks and then you know, like that's easily three figures in the low. Three figures for a couple or even you know, party of four. Why Family, Forget it. It's like.
- [20:59]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah.
- [21:00]
Farnoosh Torabi
And anyway, yeah, I mean that's definitely, that rings true in our household. Does YNAB encourage certain financial steps as you're determining how to assign your money to jobs? For example, we Recommend you save 10% of your income up to a certain number of months spending. Or here's what we think you should invest for retirement. Anything like that. Any recommendations?
- [21:28]
Jesse Mecham
No, not at all. I mean, I have them. Right. Like personally. Well, Jesse, what do you think? You know, but I will just, I would just tell you what I would do in your shoes, you know, so whatever that's worth, like, that's worth like what an AI would say probably, maybe not that Much, but we do not. We get people good at spending and we really try and get them to recognize that saving money is just spending money later. I really try and knock down saving a little bit in the book. Not a ton, but it's like, like there's this moral superiority that just gets attached to the, to the saving idea. It's like you should save money and then someone saves the money and then their laptop breaks and then they need to spend that savings on a laptop and they feel bad about it and you're just like, what is going on here? That money was saved only to only be spent later. And retirement is the same way. I mean, you put it in fancy investment vehicles or whatever, but had you worked with people farnouche that where they're going into retirement and now you have to convince them to switch into spending mode instead of saving mode. And it is a whole, whole other can of worms for people.
- [22:30]
Farnoosh Torabi
We just did an episode on this. Gene Chatsky did a study in partnership with a financial institution and they looked at there is this epidemic with retirees where they are afraid to spend, they're afraid of running out of money. Now these are people that have saved quote unquote enough on paper, but they're just worried of outliving their savings. And it's irrational, but it's just wearing. It's where they're at.
- [22:57]
Jesse Mecham
So I pre ordered Jean's book to give to my parents because I can't say anything that would move the needle. But Gene might be able to. Yeah, so we'll see.
- [23:07]
Farnoosh Torabi
No, but it's, it's. I mean, we don't really think about that. We're just worried about getting to retirement with quote unquote enough, then we don't think, then if we are, we're like, okay, happy cruising or whatever. You know, your, your thing is.
- [23:20]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah. So why not just to bring it back to that question. Why not specifically? Just like let's, let's get you loving spending, loving your spending. Seeing more and more of yourself in that spending and people. It doesn't, I mean, you read a couple more books and you'll be like, oh, I should save some money, I should do this much. I mean, they're like investing. There's so many great books around. Here's how to invest, here's how to think about it, you know, And I just, I feel like spending is the, like when we have financial advisors that come to us and they're like, can we work together? Their problem is they have clients that make enough money to where they could invest and really change their trajectory. But they have a spending problem. And so if we can fix the spending issue, then they can start to invest and build that nest egg. And maybe by the time they get to retirement, they won't have this 30 years long built up aversion to using the money they worked so hard for.
- [24:12]
Farnoosh Torabi
In the book, you conclude with a worry of your own that you experience. Can you walk us through that and how you reconciled with it?
- [24:19]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah. So this worry will pop back up, up when big changes happen. So if everything stays the same, you know, get the stasis, you won't see it again. If you know what all your money is for, you won't see it. But as life goes, new things happen, things change. And for us, we're building a new home. And we were well into it, like, well committed, designed, doing the whole thing. It's right where we live already. We know the area. It's like checking all these like, rational boxes. Check, check, check. And yet I'm sitting there because this, this home build, I think, was the kind of the moving event. I suddenly just felt it kind of pop up. And I was like, what is this? You know, I'm a little concerned, hadn't felt it for a little while. And so I, I went through the question and just kind of said like, well, hold on, let me make sure I'm comfortable with what we've said our money is for. And we walked through it. And some of it's just for now, some of it's for later. We have a pool of money that's to make the system easier. We call that four E's. And we have some. That's for you. For me, that means woodworking. As everyone, you know, everybody knows that. And then we have for change and change that happens to us that I mentioned earlier, or change that we want to have happen that we want to make happen in the world. And as you're walking through, as I was walking through it, I was looking at like, kids, dance lessons, you know, golf stuff for one of our kids, just like the normal electricity bill. And you're like, yeah, we're good. And I like, the worry just kind of of went away. So this is not a thing where it would be like someone saying, hey, I taught you how to be mindful, and you will always be mindful. It's like, no, no, no, no. We can fall out of mindfulness and we can fall out of that state that we're in where we aren't worrying just because life happens or Whatever. We stop doing the practice of asking ourself what money is for. But just come back to it. Come back to the question. You'll get there again.
- [26:08]
Farnoosh Torabi
And I think what that story proves is that reviewing your numbers is as scary as it may feel in the beginning, and it ends up being, like, the most relieving thing you can go through.
- [26:16]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah. It's reality. The story you're telling yourself isn't reality. Right. What was I worried about? I don't even know. But I got my arms around reality, got comfortable with that again, and. And it went.
- [26:26]
Farnoosh Torabi
Was it just the enormity of the project and feeling like it had been a minute since you had really gone through this? Yeah.
- [26:32]
Jesse Mecham
Is exactly that. You're looking at it. You're kind of projecting. And of course, if you're building a house, they're always like, it'll cost this much. And then you're like, yeah, right. This is going to. There's. There. This feels a lot like software where it takes twice as long, cost twice as much. Like, that's the VI vibe you get. So I was aware of all that, and it was. But it has also been a project. It's been a lot of work, and it's been very creative for me, and I've enjoyed it immensely. But there's this financial side of me that always needs to know, like, are we good? Are we good? Is this little family good? That kind of thing.
- [27:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah.
- [27:02]
Jesse Mecham
And that was. That was the part where it pops up. So I just had to check in with reality again.
- [27:06]
Farnoosh Torabi
Jesse Ynab is over two decades old. Right. Or young, however you look at it, when you started it, compared to where it has gone on to today, where it has landed. What's something that surprises you?
- [27:17]
Jesse Mecham
Oh, sheesh. I mean, one. I'm surprised we've lasted this long. Sometimes just with how. I mean, when we started, the phones had come out, you know.
- [27:26]
Farnoosh Torabi
The smartphones.
- [27:27]
Jesse Mecham
Yeah, the smartphones. Yeah. We had other phones. Right. Like the Graham Bell type of phones.
- [27:30]
Farnoosh Torabi
But.
- [27:32]
Jesse Mecham
But we. Yeah. So you think about that, and then you think about the Internet itself. Like, social media didn't exist back then. Like, that meant. I don't know what it meant back then. Going to a bowling alley. I'm not even sure. But. But, like, it was not that. So we. We navigated all that, and now this AI stuff's here, and we're totally trying to figure that out and see where it's going to take the world. Hopefully, it takes us to a beautiful, wonderful place.
- [27:55]
Farnoosh Torabi
But what has AI taught you about the business of personal finance, if anything, I mean, we see ChatGPT is partnered with Intuit. They realize so many people are asking about money on these chat websites, these chatbot websites. Yeah. Know from where you stand, what's the best use of it and how are you thinking about weaving it into the. To the business model, if at all.
- [28:18]
Jesse Mecham
For the engineering side where we're developing, it can sometimes be terribly useful and then other times terribly frustrating for production. I mean, we have experienced engineers that are looking at this closely. On the advice side, it's so interesting, but I think, think this is a little bit of a prediction. If you want kind of the average of the Internet answer, ask it, ask away. It's a good. It's like a good Google. All right? If you want it to treat you one way or the other, frame it up that way in your prompt and it'll. It'll pretend to care that way. It won't even pretend it doesn't know what pretending is. It will probabilistically determine that the next word should be X. That will make. Maybe make you think this thing or that I've found. Found it to be very useful in making me think harder about something because it's. And I'll. I'll end sometimes the day if I worked with it somewhat intensely. Like, man, I thought really hard. But you have to tell it to think, to make you think really hard, or it'll. It'll kind of cave. It'll agree with you too easily.
- [29:21]
Farnoosh Torabi
It'll.
- [29:21]
Jesse Mecham
It's a.
- [29:21]
Farnoosh Torabi
It placates such an agreeable. I hate the agreement, you know? Yeah.
- [29:25]
Jesse Mecham
And so it gets kind of like you just have to feel like this, this layer. Layer of like, I don't know, it's very. It's very thin, it's very shallow. Where I feel like if you and I were just to be like, I don't know, having dinner somewhere, I'd be like, furnoosh, what do you think of this? And you would tell me, and I would get so much more information from one question face to face with someone than I would from just, you know, pinging an AI, you know, getting an LLM to give me a. A stat or whatever. So it's. I'm learning like everybody else how it's useful, how it's frustrating, how it's scary and yeah, we just gotta figure it out. I mean, when phones first came out, I was like, no one's ever gonna wanna manage their money on that tiny little screen. Like, give me a break. I was so Wrong, like so wrong. So I, I reserve the right to be totally wrong about what this will do. And we'll just see, you know, see what happens. We're never first to the party on tech. We don't have enough money at YNAB to do that because we're bootstrapped. We have to be pretty darn thoughtful. But if we see where we could really make something happen and help people know what for and if it means that we're using an LLM to somehow help people know what their money's for, yeah, we're going to do it. If we can use it to remove tedium in the money management process, like the, just the tedious nature of it sometimes, we're going to do it. We want to get people feeling those trade offs and making those good decisions. That's the key.
- [30:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
Jesse Mecham, I fail to mention that I have the great, great honor of being mentioned on the back of your book.
- [30:51]
Jesse Mecham
Yes, you do.
- [30:52]
Farnoosh Torabi
And I meant every word. I'm going to read it now. I said most people think making more money would cure their financial anx. Jesse Mecham knows the truth. Peace comes from having a plan. Never Worry About Money Again offers a simple, refreshingly human solution that works for every stage of life and income level. Congratulations.
- [31:11]
Jesse Mecham
Thank you very much.
- [31:12]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well done, my friend. I love it. I love this book. And congrats to you and your team on the launch and good luck with the home build.
- [31:19]
Jesse Mecham
Thank you very much. We're on the home stretch. I will never do it again.
- [31:23]
Farnoosh Torabi
You gotta have. What is it? Architectural dye. Yeah.
- [31:28]
Jesse Mecham
Hello, me.
- [31:29]
Farnoosh Torabi
You opening the door.
- [31:30]
Jesse Mecham
So see, no, it's so the opposite of that. It's like I want everyone out of my life. I don't want anyone, I don't want to see anyone else. I want to hide in that place and just be in my life.
- [31:39]
Farnoosh Torabi
Oh my gosh. Well, you've earned it. You've earned it. Thanks so much.
- [31:42]
Jesse Mecham
Thanks for having me farnish.
- [31:46]
Farnoosh Torabi
Thanks again to Jesse Mecham for joining us. His book is called Never Worry about Money Again by answering one question.
- [31:53]
Jesse Mecham
Question.
- [31:53]
Farnoosh Torabi
So what is your money for? For me, I think it's options. I've said it before, I'll say it a thousand times again. Money affords you options in life. When you're stuck, when you want out, when you just want options. Who doesn't like choices on your terms, right? Anyway, I'll see you back here on Friday for a fresh episode of Ask Farnooche. And reminder, check us out on YouTube, my channel. There is called so money with Farnoosh. I hope your day is so money.