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The Personal Finance Podcast
How to Master the Skill of Spending With Jen Smith
00:55:45
In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk to Jen Smith about
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- [00:02]
Andrew
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- [01:38]
Co-host
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- [01:41]
Andrew
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- [02:03]
Jen Smith
Personal Finance Podcast how to Master the Skill of Spending with Jen Smith. What's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master Money Co and today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking to Jen Smith about how to master.
- [02:40]
Co-host
The skill of spending.
- [02:41]
Jen Smith
If you guys have any questions, make sure to join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney Co newsletter and you can respond to any of those issues that come out every single week and be able to possibly even get your question answered on this show. And if you're getting value out of this podcast, consider following on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. And don't forget to leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. If you want to watch this podcast, you can also watch this on YouTube. Now today we're going to be talking to Jen Smith, who wrote a fantastic book called buy what you love without going broke. And what this book is about is this is one of the first books I've seen that actually talk through mastering the scale of spending. You guys hear us all the time on this podcast talk about you need to learn how to figure out what your value use r and then spend based on your values. That is the entire premise of this book. And Jen lays out a bunch of different research. She talks through a bunch of different ways to figure out what you actually value and even give some of the core principles that you need to think.
- [03:48]
Co-host
Through before you figure out what your values are.
- [03:49]
Jen Smith
So in this episode we're going to be talking through the concepts of value based spending. We're also going to be talking about some of the misconceptions with frugality and budgeting. We're going to be talking through some of the strategies for people who struggle with impulse spending and how you can actually conquer that. In addition, we're going to give you a ton of different tips of things like curating your environment, how to build up that spinning skill, and a ton of other action packed things. So this is going to be a really fun episode. Can't wait for you guys to hear it. So without further ado, let's welcome Jen Smith to the personal finance podcast. So Jen, welcome to the personal finance podcast.
- [04:25]
Thanks so much for having me.
- [04:26]
Co-host
Andrew, we are really excited to have you today because you wrote this really cool book called buy what you love without going broke. And I think there's a really, really, really cool undertone here which is you're teaching people how to spend, which I know this is something that we talk about a lot in this podcast as well is spending is a skill and most people don't realize this. This is a really valuable skill that most people need to understand when it comes to personal finance. So what kind of inspired you to write this book originally?
- [04:53]
Jen Smith
So when my husband and I were first married, this was almost 10 years ago, the first thing we did when we got married was we wanted to pay off our student loans and together with a car loan that was about $78,000 and he was on board before I was, I took a little bit of convincing because I didn't want to live the best years of my life living under a rock doing nothing. So we thought it would take us five years. It ended up taking us two years because we went so hard. We never made more than $88,000 in either of those years. So we just went really, really hard with deprivation. And coming out of that, I had, like, a kind of what I call a debt payoff hangover. Like, it did not feel good. I thought all my troubles would be solved, but they were not. So I started Frugal Friends a year later with one of my closest friends, Jill, and we wanted to help people save money. She's naturally frugal. And it was this debt payoff journey that kind of taught me how to be frugal. And we thought frugal was just being wise with your spending. And over the last six and a half years of having a podcast about frugality, we, the two hosts, have gone through this evolution of realizing that spending and saving are not synonymous. They're two separate things. You can save money into an investment account or a high yield savings account, but when we talk about saving a lot, it's how to get the lowest price. It's a race to the bottom of spending. And that just. It kept not feeling right the longer we talked about it. It didn't feel right for us. So why were we perpetuating this idea that to be quote, unquote good with money, you had to spend as little of it as possible? And as women, we're the primary spenders in our households. We do most of the grocery shopping, clothes shopping for kids, all of that. So if spending is, quote, unquote bad, but we're the ones doing most of it, that just leads to a lot of, like, guilt and shame around money. So we started thinking about spending as a skill, Basically, just how could we not feel bad about spending money, but also not go broke while doing it? And that was why we wanted to put everything we've learned and experienced in a book that we've been Talking about over 400, probably closer to 300 episodes of Frugal Friends.
- [07:24]
Co-host
That's amazing. And I think your story at the beginning kind of sounds similar to the way that I was thinking, too. So when I first graduated college, I didn't make much money. And so I was really tight with my money. I was reading, you know, blogs like Mr. Money Mustache or Early Retirement Extreme, and, like, really became extremely frugal. And I think I developed this mindset that, you know, is the race at the bottom, the same thing that you're talking about here where I was trying to save the most amount of money and I really wasn't happy when I was doing it. That was extremely frugal. And instead over time, same thing, I kind of developed this mindset of figuring out what my values are and figuring out how to spend based on that. And that's one thing that you guys talk about in this book is values based spending. So can you can explain that concept and kind of how it works?
- [08:05]
Jen Smith
Yeah. So when we wanted to spend money without guilt, we thought, okay, what are the things that we value most? And so we just went to Wikipedia and found a list of core values. And they were all these corporate like, courage, honesty, integrity. And we were like, okay, maybe that's how we should spend money in alignment with that. And it just wasn't working. We were talking to our listeners and being like, what do you value most? And they were all saying the same things to the point where I was like, okay, you guys can't say these things anymore. You can't all have the same core values. We're all very unique. Right? Until we started looking at different research on what makes life meaningful and what are human needs. And so we looked at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is at the base the physiological needs. And then you've got psychological needs and self actualization. And in personal finance, what we talk about most is just these basic needs, these needs, safety, food, water, shelter. And we don't see the psychological and the self fulfillment needs as needs. And so what we found is all of our listeners were saying, actually my core values are family, friends, fulfilling work and faith. And those were all things that were psychological and self fulfillment needs. And so that's kind of what we started focusing on. Everyone, you know, has a couple differences in their values, but we thought for the most part most people share these same four highest values. And so that's what we look at. We look at how can my spending and my time get me closer to these four things in however I define them. And why don't we start there? We start with getting creative. Maybe how can I meet these needs first without spending money? And then once we do that, then we go, how can I meet these needs? By spending just a little bit. And then beyond that, anything extra you can spend without guilt because you know it's aligned with your needs. And then just comes the nuance of all the things we have to spend on that don't align with that. But you can't fully get Rid of. But that's really how we focus it in the book.
- [10:17]
Co-host
I love focusing it and starting it there because you figure out kind of what those needs are. And that's the biggest question most people have is I don't even know where to start. So you have this great starting point of, you know, what do you actually need? And then you can kind of build it off of there. And so this is something that I really had to learn where early on I was just trying to focus on, you know, spending the least amount ever that I possibly could, especially when it came to budgeting. And I was looking through my budget and figuring out, hey, where can I slash more and more without even thinking about what my values actually were? So how does this actually differ, you know, from traditional budgeting when you use value based spending?
- [10:49]
Jen Smith
So we align it with kind of a values based budget and we call it a spending plan in the book. Because the beautiful thing about language is there's usually several terms for one concept, but a lot of people have negative relationships with the word budget. So we just use spending plan. And we'll still use it like when we're talking in the podcast budget, so people know what we're saying. But if something seems negative to you and you don't want to do it, you can just use a different word for it. That's fine. And so we'll use a values based spending plan that instead of having 100 categories for 100 things and really meticulously tracking every single purchase, they really just have those four categories. And then maybe a miscellaneous. But we look, we just have those four categories and then we can make sure that all of our purchases align within these values and we can really look at, okay, if it doesn't align with any of my values, should I really be spending on it? Or how can I spend less on it? And that's how we start to spend less on things and cut things out is by looking at that. And even before we make a budget or spending plan, we do a transaction inventory. And that's where we start to cut first. But we can talk about that later. But that's how we practice budgeting.
- [12:12]
Co-host
I love that. And I think that is a crucial thing is that piece of language. I laugh about this all the time. When we put the word budget in any episode title, it is our least downloaded episode that we ever have.
- [12:21]
Andrew
And it's true.
- [12:22]
Co-host
It's one of those things that I think most people are trying to shy away from budgets and they think it's a negative kind of Connotation towards just restriction, basically, is what they think about it as. Whereas you, if you come with a spending plan, which is really what it is, I think that is a really powerful way to kind of look at this. And so you talk kind of through that, and I love that part of that. So the book kind of talks through some things, like the dopamine effects of shopping. And I think that is something where you guys nail down the psychology. Psychology, when it comes to spending is super, super important. And I think for most people, the psychology is the most important part, you know, when it comes to personal finance. So how can someone kind of realize this is happening to them, that dopamine effect and mitigate some of this?
- [13:03]
Jen Smith
Yeah, well, it's happening to all of us. We all have this rush of dopamine, not just in the act of something that we deem like fun, but in the anticipation of it. There's a study we looked at in the book where rats were rewarded with something, but there were 10 bells leading up to that reward. And the scientists found that during those 10 bells, on the very last one, probably the last two, dopamine release was highest. And when they actually got the treat, it was probably like at lowest levels. So it wasn't so much the act of getting the treat or for us, the act of shopping, but it was the anticipation. It's that actually having that activity to scroll and shop, it's the anticipation of getting something in the mail, and then pretty much once we get it, we bring it home or we have it home, that's done. So instead of fighting against our body's natural tendencies, we want to kind of work with it, but also refine it and lead it in the right way. So for years, I have talked about no spend challenges, and I did them when I was paying off debt. I wrote a book called the no Spend Challenge Guide. I just. I self published it years ago, and it's. It's been bought over 20,000 times.
- [14:26]
Co-host
Amazing.
- [14:28]
Jen Smith
Yeah. It's a concrete thing that people can do to kind of almost reset that dopamine release. And then in Dr. Ann Lemke's book Dopamine Nation, I found she was talking about the same exact thing, but she just didn't talk about shopping. So in the act of abstaining from something for four weeks, you can start to reset the release of dopamine in association with whatever that thing is. And Dr. Lemke found as soon as two weeks, her patients would start seeing a difference. So that's one way we can kind of guide our dopamine release is to abstain from all unnecessary or non essential shopping for four weeks or a month to start to retrain how we get our dopamine rushes because we can get them other places. But if we don't take the time to pause and get creative with how we're meeting our needs, how we're filling our values, how we're getting our dopamine, then there's no incentive for us to do so. So taking that one month pause, not only is it good for us psychologically, it's also good practically to give yourself a pause to think and plan differently so you can take different actions in the future.
- [15:48]
Co-host
And I always notice, and it's this is the psychology, even with someone who thinks about this stuff all the time, is that I almost start to, when I start to have these, you know, impulse spending things happen, I typically will start to do it and then it starts to happen more and more and more. And I think that reset is a great idea because you almost have to reset and start it right all over again. I'm the king of having 10Amazon boxes at my front door all the time. And so one thing I need to do is kind of, you know, stop. I pause and I think through, hey, am I actually valuing these purchases or am I just doing it because it's very easy to make this purchase and kind of go through that process? Or I'll be the type of person who kind of walks into a store and if I have no plan in place, you know, I'm going to buy all these various things that I did not plan on buying. And so I think this is something where a lot of people can fall into this trap as well. And most people probably fall into some of these traps when it comes to their spending. So do you have any suggestions for people who kind of struggle with impulse spending outside of obviously taking that pause? Do you have any other tips or hacks that you can think through there?
- [16:42]
Jen Smith
Absolutely. So the first thing I would say is do that 90 day transaction inventory. You can get your all of your transactions from your credit card, debit card, whatever, put them in a spreadsheet and sort them by the retailer or the place where the purchase was made. And you're going to be able to see kind of patterns from where you're making these, what time of day, what days of the week sort of things. So start to identify the patterns because that can get you into getting the cues. Like all of our spending habits have some kind of cue trigger, whatever you call It So when you can start to figure those out, then you can start to change and plan how you're making purchases in that. So like if I'm getting a Starbucks drive through drink anytime I'm on my way to see my mother in law, then I know that that's either a person or just a directional habit. So what I can do is I can plan to do differently. I can make my coffee before I leave or if it's a person thing, I can develop a healthier coping mechanism to reward myself or prepare myself for that meeting. So stuff like that is just planning in advance. But then there are some impulse purchases you can't plan for. Like that there are different root causes to impulse spending. Sometimes it's stressful, sometimes it's happiness, sometimes it's I shop for fun, it's an activity. So then figuring out what's the biggest source of impulse spending for you and that 90 day transaction inventory can help you with that sometimes too. And then planning different things so you can make different decisions when it comes down to it. So like if I stress shop a lot, like I get stressed, I can't control anything that's going on around me, my kids are being crazy and I just like go to Amazon. Then what's a different coping mechanism? Same size. So I'm not going to like if I'm going to go to Amazon when I'm stressed, I'm not going to get up and go for a run. That's like a different size activity. What's like a different same size activity I can do when I'm feeling stress that gets me the same result but does not result in me making like $50 worth of purchases. So for me I play solitaire. That's my thing. I'm an only child and I, I'm a solitaire girly. So stuff like that, I love that.
- [19:05]
Co-host
And I think it's really important to kind of think through, you know, hey, what are the things that I can do with the same size? Like you're saying, because that switching cost to go through and do you know, a massive run or something like that is going to be something that people won't be consistent with, but finding that avenue that you can kind of utilize, especially when you're feeling like you need to have that impulse shopping is going to be really, really important. Now one big thing a lot of people try to figure out and we can think through this in a bunch of different ways is figuring out how to balance spending money on the things they want or splurging or blow money, whatever you want to call it, figuring out how they can actually spend money on the things that they actually want and then balancing that with saving, investing, and all those different things. So do you have any tips on how people can think through that process?
- [19:44]
Jen Smith
So in real time, when you're trying to make these decisions between spending, saving, investing, it's not going to be one size fits all, even per individual. So we talk about a concept called honoring your season. Different people have different seasons. So after we paid off our debt and we had no children, we maxed out everything. 401ks, IRAs, HSAs. We were saving for real estate because we were able to do that. When I was 36 weeks pregnant, I lost my job and I was no longer able to work or have access to my 401k. And so that was a different season that I was entering into where there was not so much investing, but there was more saving. And then when my husband took a pay cut to have a job with, like, better hours, we switched up our investing. So paying attention to the season you're in, I know I felt a lot of guilt when I cut down on my investing because I lost my job and just had a baby, right? Which that's not right. We need to be looking at our seasons and really honoring like, yes, I want to save for the future. Yes, I want to save for big things, but I also want to live right now. And so when you're looking at your values, you can definitely maximize the living right now. And then in seasons, when you have more margin, then we can invest how it feels. Right. I know a lot of people will say 15, 20, 25% to retirement, and all of that is good based on what your goals are for the future. I don't think we can set a number goal. We can use the 25x rule and kind of plan. We can guesstimate. But doing what feels right for you and then also honoring your season in it will help you gauge how to balance the spending and the saving right now.
- [21:48]
Co-host
Exactly. And I think that is really important for a lot of people to note is you have seasons of life, and your life is going to change dramatically over time. And if you're, you know, in your early 20s or you're in your 30s and you haven't kind of hit some of these new seasons yet, it's going to change. You know, you get married, you know, there's season. Season of life is going to change. Your expenses, your bills, everything will shift. When you have kids, it drastically changes And a lot of things can happen right now. Anybody listening right now who has kids in daycare or anything like that, you know how expensive it can get. And so this is something where you have to understand what season of life you're in. You cannot beat yourself up. You only have so much money coming in. And so trying to understand how to handle this money is really, really important. So I love that and thinking through that process for sure.
- [22:29]
Andrew
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Andrew
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Co-host
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Andrew
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- [23:50]
Co-host
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- [23:51]
Andrew
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- [24:01]
Co-host
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- [24:03]
Andrew
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- [26:05]
Co-host
How do people kind of figure out what they actually value when it comes to spending? Do you have any tips on this and or how do they determine if it's just something that they are influenced by based on, you know, marketing or society or anything else like that? Is there any way that you can help people figure out what their core values are?
- [26:21]
Jen Smith
Yeah. So two things. First, I know we talk really like big picture values, spending for family, friends, all that. But it's a little different when you're in the drive thru of Starbucks or you're wanting Chipotle and like how does this align with my values? Right? So we definitely want to make sure like we're hitting those big goals first. Like we're honoring our season and we make sure that we've taken care of okay, this is what I can feasibly invest and save right now and maybe it's not as much as I was doing or maybe it's the most. Maybe I'm at a good season to do that. So we take care of that first kind of pay yourself first mentality. And then when it comes down to the little things, we want to make sure, we want to go back to that 90 day transaction inventory and make sure, is this something I'm doing habitually? Is this something I'm doing to cope? Like I'm just trying to treat myself with a burrito bowl because I feel good and if it fits in my spending right. So there's freedom to spend on the little things and they don't have to have this bigger meaning because when you're spending in alignment with your values, you're going to have fewer opportunities to make those stress buys and those impulse buys. And when you know the techniques and the boundaries to set to say no to a lot of these influence buys, you're going to be making less of them. So when you want to make something, a purchase out of freedom, like you have the freedom to do so. And influential, like social influence spending is something that we struggle with a lot. So the second part is we had to really establish early on in the book, but even before we like talked about any strategies that if you don't love yourself and if you're not content with who you are and where you're at, nothing you can buy is going to fulfill that. And a lot of people are going to try to sell you the solutions to things money can't buy. And that's a technique all the way back from the 1920s with this guy Edward Bernays, who manipulated the suffrage movement to get women to start smoking because he was working for the smoking companies. So he called them torches of freedom and related them to gender equality. So like companies, marketing companies and businesses have always been trying to sell solutions to things that can't be bought. So really being content with yourself. And then we have a whole chapter at the end too, just to like reiterate this fact, like being content with yourself, loving yourself, honoring your season. Like all these are going to make sure, like when the next refrigerator organization restock video comes up on your feed, you don't feel inadequate for not having 10,000 plastic containers in your fridge scape. So you really have to, and that's an extreme, you know, example, but you really have to be content with not having the aesthetic that you see everybody on social media have, because that's their job to have it. And it's not your job to have the aesthetic. You don't need it.
- [29:38]
Andrew
It's so true.
- [29:39]
Co-host
And I think everything we do right now, we are just being bombarded with marketing where you think you're even just casually watching, you know, scrolling your phone when you're trying to relax or something like that. Everything is marketing that's just coming at you at all points in time. And like you said, the great example of, you know, just having your fridge stocked completely with every plastic container you have the. The drink thing that has, like, the springs on it, that shoots the drink forward and everything's perfectly organized. There's so many different. Like, I've seen a million of those videos, and it's just, it's amazing how many different ways we get marketed to now. And if you don't have some of those securities of, you know, developing some of this stuff and really thinking through this, because you have to understand that you're just getting bombarded constantly. And I think the first time I was kind of introduced to this concept was the minimalist documentary on Netflix, which was like a, you know, years ago. And they really talked through this marketing. But it is way worse than even when that documentary came out and you guys hit on it in an amazing way in the book. And I think it's really important for just people to understand this even exists and how they're being marketed to in some of this process because it's happening so much more now. So is there any tips that you have where someone can kind of say no to unnecessary expenses without feeling deprived? Is there any, like, thought process you guys have for that that maybe is really important for people to understand?
- [30:50]
Jen Smith
So you definitely have to have internal motivators in order to do this. Like the external motivators that we use in personal finance, like, to reach goals are not going to be as effective when you're in real time in Target, trying to decide if you're going to buy that fourth planner or not. And I speak from personal experience on that. So there has to be some kind of internal motivator that's immediate, not bigger picture, like, oh, I want to go on vacation with my family, so I'm not going to buy this. That's great. That can be an internal motivator, but it's not, like, as effective as maybe something with a little saucier intent. So for me, I have spent years looking at marketing. So, like, I know I was like, I'm not going to fall prey to this marketing, all these, like, pretty planning, you know, videos. I'm not going to fall prey to it. But also I know that when I don't buy something from Target or Amazon, I'm not funding the next CEO's yacht or spaceship. So internally and it sounds funny, but like, for me it works. It's like, do I want this enough to buy Jeff Bezos another spaceship? And for me, that works a lot also. I feel strongly that you can't buy your way to green. And so all these sustainability like efforts that we are working toward, they can't be purchased. You can't buy something to negate your carbon footprint. The only thing that does that is not consuming, not buying. So I also want to make sure that when I'm buying something that it's really worth buying because I know at the end of its life it's going to end up in a landfill. Whether I put it in a thrift store or, you know, it makes a pit stop in a thrift store or not, eventually it ends up in a landfill. Do I want this bad enough to see it end up in a landfill one day? And so that's something that also really works for me. If the spaceship thing doesn't work, really wanting to care for the world and the future for my kids of making sure they're, you know, we're not going at the pace that we have been. That's an internal motivator for me. So you're going to have to figure out your own internal motivators that work for you because that's what's going to be most effective. Like in a real time decision.
- [33:23]
Co-host
Exactly. And I think it's one that for most people, once they figure that out, it's going to help you so much more and just making, you know, logical decisions based on what you value. And even, you know, we talked about seasons of life earlier in the show. Even when you have these new seasons of life where you think that you're going to need specific items right now, I told you, Jen, off air that I'm having our third baby coming up in October. The amount of like baby marketing that I get just on, you know, TikTok or whatever else, because they know what season of life you're in based on what you're watching, is absolutely amazing. Where you think you need all these additional things and it's unbelievable how much you can get marketed to you. So it's just kind of thinking through that process, understanding this is happening and then making your spending decisions based on that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with, you know, consuming some of these items, but it's just, do you value some of this stuff? Does it fit into your core values? That's what we're trying to land on here. And I think that's so important. So what role does simplicity play with all of this? When we come into value based spending, when we want to simplify our finances, how important is that when it comes to making sure that we can figure out our values?
- [34:22]
Jen Smith
Yeah, so it's kind of the bedrock is as human beings with brains, we have this complexity bias. It's one of our many biases that helps our brain think faster. And it's great when you're like about to be attacked by a bear. It's not so great when you're trying to make good spending decisions. So we always want to add, add, add to solve our problems. Whether that is buying another kitchen gadget or buying another service or whatever. We always want to add instead of take away to solve problems. But time and time again we see that when you take away, you solve a problem much faster, typically depending on the problem. So simplicity plays this pivotal role in sustaining this lifestyle. Because I think we talk a lot about how to make changes with our habits, but not so much about how to make those changes stick. Because it takes way more than three weeks to change a habit. It takes sometimes up to 188 days. I think the last study it was. So it takes a long time. And in order to stick with changes we got to make them sustainable. And we found that when we simplify, it makes our brains more easily think about the changes we're making versus all the other stuff we have going on in our lives. So that's simplicity in our physical surroundings, our physical spaces, simplicity in our schedules, simplicity in the things that we're thinking about, our mental like cognitive load. So anywhere that you can kind of like cut things out is going to help you focus because anytime you're making changes it takes more brain power. So we want to ease some of the brain power of other things so that we can more better focus on the changes we're making.
- [36:21]
Co-host
So yeah, each time that we kind of go through this process, I've noticed the more I simplify my life, the more it just makes life so much easier. I've made purchases of specific things where now I got to maintain this specific thing and all of a sudden it creates this burden, this cognitive load on me that really I did not want. So I noticed sometimes the more I consume, especially on some bigger purchases, it really does make life a little more difficult each time you add one of these different things to your life. So really important to kind of think through that process too. Now you mentioned curating your environment and I think that's really important for Most people to understand. So how does one kind of start this process to curate their environment?
- [36:58]
Jen Smith
Yeah, we don't live in a vacuum. Right. So we can make these best made plans and something outside of our control is going to mess them up. And that's not a hindrance. Sometimes we feel annoyed or upset by it. But that's life. Life is happening and that's great. We just want to be aware of it and know how to handle it. So simplifying is the first step to kind of curating your environment to make sure that you can stick with these changes. We also talk about curating your relationships. So making sure that the people you have in your life are where you are going in your future and not maybe like where you don't want to be. And with family you can as easily do that. So that's like a whole different topic. But really making sure you're creating the right boundaries, you're being vulnerable where it counts and not being, you know, too vulnerable without protection. So. And then also with co workers and acquaintances, even sometimes in the office, everyone's asking you to chip in for a present for a boss that you've never met and realizing, okay, how do we have those conversations about how, I'm not going to do that, but maybe I can wrap the gift or something. We're getting creative in how we meet these things that aren't aligned with our values but maybe we can't get out of it. Doesn't mean we have to spend money on it, just means we, we have to get creative with how we meet them. And then internally we want to have that air of gratitude. We want to be grateful like so at the very beginning we talk about contentment with like who you are. We also want to be having contentment for where you're at and what's around you. Because when we're grateful, it doesn't solve every problem. It's not the fail safe, but it is going to put you in the right headspace to not be as bitter or jealous when maybe other people are buying things that you have deemed not high enough on the priority list for what you're making and what you value, or bitterness when like other people are buying things and frugal people, we are the worst at judging people for what they value. So like when we can have this, I don't want to say attitude of gratitude, but that's the first thing that comes in my head. This, you know, this feeling of contentment and gratitude, then we don't have as many of those negative feelings because that's more cognitive load, that is complexity in our brains. And again, we're trying to simplify.
- [39:32]
Co-host
Exactly. And it's so important to kind of make sure that we are, we're thinking through this. And I think that is what I love. What you touch on the book is you kind of dive deeper into some of these strategies. And I think it's so important for people to understand that part for sure. In the book you also touch on the concept of big impact energy, which I think is something that, you know, when it comes to spending, we all need to kind of think through. So can you explain what this means and the concept behind it?
- [39:57]
Jen Smith
Yeah. So it really started with my dad was sick when I was in high school and he passed away a couple weeks before I graduated high school. Really. And so I don't have an adult relationship with him. But the biggest thing that I remember is that he was a convicted felon before I met him. I mean when my eyes born, but my whole life he was a super disciplined family man, like getting up at 5am before his job to ride the stationary bike and all of this. And he had habits that people growing up in, where he grew up with, in didn't have. And he took it on himself to change his habits without having really any mentorship or quote unquote permission. He gave himself permission to be different when it wasn't necessarily normal or accepted in the places that he was. And so that is something that has stuck with me a lot. And so I think about it in this changing the way you're spending doesn't just affect you, it affects people you'll never meet. Like the people who are making the fast fashion that you're refusing to buy or the farmers that are underpaid for the produce that you are choosing to buy and you are putting more money in their pockets. Like your decisions have impact outside of you. And by knowing the things that we talk about in this book, we've given kind of quote unquote permission for you to change maybe when people around you have it. But not everyone around you is going to read our book. And so it's up to you to give them this unspoken permission to change, to talk about what you're doing differently, talk about money, talk about the way you're making purchases or the way you're not making purchases and making this lifestyle more acceptable and more sought after. And that's a responsibility we all have. And if we can do that for five people and they do it for five more and five more, that's a huge impact. And not everybody has to read this book in order for that impact to happen. We would love everybody to read it, but it doesn't have to happen if you read it and you make the changes and you talk about it.
- [42:23]
Co-host
Exactly. And that's what I love so much about personal finance, is that it's going to make an impact. Most people see the impact directly on themselves or their family, but the impact is so much greater than even what they kind of understand. And making the conscious choices for your spending is the first place to kind of start with that. You can make a big difference just by understanding that and kind of sharing this information with other people. So I think that's so incredibly important. Now you guys talk about, and we talk about the top of the show as well, is that spending is a skill. So how can someone kind of start to improve or develop this skill? They're listening to you and I talk right now. They're like, I want to make a big change in the way that I spend my money. Money. What are some of the first steps that you would tell them to improve this skill so that they can actually kind of go forward and spend more on their values?
- [43:05]
Jen Smith
Yeah. So the first intangible thing to do is to figure out how to look at your spending with neutrality. And that comes with changing the way you ask yourself questions. When we feel guilty about our spending, it's always, why did I do this? Why can I not spend the way I budgeted? And why is a very judgmental way to ask a question because it automatically puts us on the defense. So instead start asking questions like, what was I doing when I made this purchase? What was I trying to get? How was I feeling? So anytime you ask yourself a question, make sure it doesn't start with why. Why? Questions are fine, but again, it's that language thing that puts us on the defense when we ask them. So once we go in with that mindset, then starting with the 90 day transaction inventory, that's the tangible action step. So going back through 90 days of your transactions and sorting them and just looking at the patterns and picking 1, 2, 3, whatever you feel capable of doing right now and just draw a line in the sand. Be like, I am not going to make any of these purchases anymore. Because sometimes before you realize what you value, it's easier to point out what you don't value. So pick a couple, draw that line in the sand, and then just keep working in small steps from there, making different coping mechanisms, different plans on how to feed yourself or make good decisions in the moment. Those decisions are all up to you. But it starts with knowing more and being not judgmental about that knowledge.
- [44:46]
Co-host
Exactly. I love that baseline to get started there. And then you can start to build up on those skills as time goes on. And that like we're talking about here, this skill is developed over time. It's something that you and I have both developed over time. It's something that, you know, when I started, I did this completely wrong. And now I, you know, I think this is really cool the way that you guys are kind of talking through this. So are there any tools or resources that you use in order to track your spinning so we can have an understanding of, hey, what does the spending plan look like each and every month? Or is there any tools that you use to maybe automate this process or how do you think through that?
- [45:15]
Jen Smith
Yeah, so it's great. Jill and I are different budgeters, so I'm not so much of a budget. She's a Google sheets spreadsheet girl. So we actually@frugalfriendspodcast.com book our book resources. We actually have a copy of the values based budget that we talk about in the book and it's very similar to the one Jill uses. I like to just keep a track of transactions to make sure I'm on the right track. I'm not seeing the same transaction too many times. So I use Monarch. They have a widget that you can just have and I have it on the second page of my phone screen. So it's not right when I open up, but it's on that second screen. So I just keep track, make sure all the transactions I'm making are made by me and not by someone else and I can keep track of. Okay, I made this decision. Do I not so much regret it? But is could I have made a different decision now that I'm looking back in hindsight, but like immediate hindsight. So it helps me kind of stay on track having those transactions right there for me to see even when I don't want to see them.
- [46:22]
Co-host
Exactly. And I use Monarch as well. I think it's great tool to utilize for that. And really if you're like us, it's a great tool to utilize. But we'll link the spending plan down below in the show. Notes for everybody check out as well, which is awesome that you guys have that. Thank you so much. Can value based spending help people that are in financial recovery or someone who is deep in debt or how does that help someone in that process? And how can they actually think through this process if somebody is in debt? I know you said you started off in debt. And so how can someone think through this if they are in debt?
- [46:50]
Jen Smith
Yes, that's who we wrote this book for because that was us. Jill and I both had lots of debt. She, I had about 60 grand, I had 78. And so we have built values based spending out of like, that is our credential. Like we don't have any letters or numbers, you know, behind our names. Like we speak from experience. And so knowing that yes, if you're trying to pay off debt fast, you're going to have like a different kind of spending lifestyle because your values are aligned with that goal, but to not take it so seriously that you're not recognizing that there's other good things out there. I think when we did it, we didn't invest, which we were so young that it wasn't, it didn't set us back too much, but we didn't even realize what else was out there to be working towards. And so realizing that yes, paying off debt is great, especially if it's a mental weight for us, it was that mental weight, like weighing down on us, but also knowing that you can spend money without guilt, you don't have to feel guilty about getting into debt. You don't have to feel guilty when you spend money instead of sending it to debt because you only get one life. Like, I don't like people that say anything you do to pay off debt is justified. The means justify the end because the means are all we have. Honestly, if you're thinking like, what's the actual end for people, it's not debt payoff, it's like the end. So the means are truly all we have. So we want to be responsible with them and really be thankful for them and live our lives fully. So but you can still pay off debt very quickly if you are focusing on the holy trinity of personal finance, spending, earning and investing.
- [48:41]
Co-host
Exactly. I could not agree more. And I think that is, that is the place to look at it because I think it's so powerful. And this is what I love about your book, is that people talk so much about the other areas of personal finance. Nobody really dives into the spending part and how much of a skill this is. And you guys have nailed it in this book. So that's why I absolutely love this for sure. Now I want to shift gears to some questions that we ask a lot of our guests here. And I want to kind of go through some of these because they're really interesting. Some of the responses we get out of these. So what are some of your favorite books that you have read?
- [49:10]
Jen Smith
Oh, just in general or personal finance.
- [49:13]
Andrew
But we'll do both.
- [49:14]
Co-host
Let's do one of them.
- [49:14]
Jen Smith
Okay, so personal finance. I'll start out. I think my two favorites are I will Teach you to be rich and the Simple Path to Wealth. And I'm sure you hear that nine times out of ten.
- [49:28]
Co-host
Yep, exactly. It's two that I recommend all the time on the show. So it's good.
- [49:32]
Jen Smith
Awesome. They just like are that good. They are the hype.
- [49:35]
Co-host
Exactly.
- [49:36]
Jen Smith
And then fiction. I really like Kristin Hannah. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books.
- [49:44]
Co-host
Awesome. That's the one thing I haven't dove into much is fiction. I read a book a week, but it's usually all like personal development. I need to like, dive into a little more fiction. A lot of my reader friends are all saying, you know, they're finding some even cool ideas out of fiction, which I think is really, really interesting. So that's a, that's amazing. What part of your work or life makes you come alive?
- [50:02]
Jen Smith
This honestly, talking on podcasts, I mean, I'm a podcaster, so it makes sense. But like talking about values based spending and how also frugality is not a spending race to the bottom, but it's good stewardship of all of our resources. So that's money, time, space, mental energy. It's just being a good steward with our limited resources. And that's what's really going to allow us to do the things that make us come alive, is if we're being good stewardship of our resources.
- [50:35]
Co-host
I love it. What is your biggest fear when it comes to money?
- [50:42]
Jen Smith
Not having enough. I think I've really been fighting that fear the last year because we dropped a lot of things in our business in order to write and market this book. My co host and I, we are 50 50. So we've taken definitely a pay cut in order to write and market the book. But we feel so strongly about it that it's been worth it. But it does have me on edge a little. And yeah, my biggest fear would be the bottom falling out.
- [51:12]
Co-host
It makes sense. I think a lot of us have that always, you know, as business owners and in the back of our head all the time. It's just one of those things that are kind of revolving over time. But I think the impact you guys are going to make on this book is, is going to be amazing. So how do you plan to level up your finances this year. Do you have any plans to level up your finances this year?
- [51:29]
Jen Smith
So we're actually investing a little bit less because of the pay cuts. Both my husband and I took pay cuts at the exact same time. It was really great. As soon as we had our second child, it was great. Oh man, the triple whammy, right? So we took a step back on our investing, but it was okay because we were working on our real estate investment as well. So I think I am leveling down. This is my year of leveling down. Next year I will level up again. But we just wrapped up a two year live in flip awesome and pay cut. So what we didn't put in monetarily to our IRAs. We put in sweat equity into this house that I'm sitting in.
- [52:12]
Co-host
I love living flip. So that, that's amazing. And this is just a great testament to the seasons that we're talking about here. This is a different season for you all and it'll change again in the next couple of years. So I think that's a huge testament to that. Overall, if you could tell your younger self one thing about money, what would it be?
- [52:29]
Jen Smith
That it is progress over perfection. I would make these perfect budgets when I was younger. When I was in college, I'd make these perfect budgets. They were exactly what I should be spending on. I even got a little bit of a coffee budget because I knew I needed to treat myself. I would either buy all the coffee right up front and then have like nothing left for the other three weeks or I would be too scared to spend on it at all. I would feel guilty spending it so I wouldn't spend it at all. And so I just had this like yo, yo relationship with budgeting. And I thought that meant overall in my finances, like I wasn't going to be successful because this one thing. And so I would just say it's not about executing perfectly. I don't even execute no spend challenges perfectly. And I wrote a book on them. Like, it's just about learning and making a different or better decision the next time.
- [53:27]
Co-host
I love that. And I say this all the time. I've never in my entire life, even when I was very strictly budgeting or now when I'm a little more loose with the way I do things. I have never had a perfect budget in my entire life in a single month. And it's just never been, you know, I've never nailed every single goal. I always have to move money around to different categories if I'm budgeting Trick, you know, so there's. That's the one thing a lot of people need to forgive themselves. Most people will make one mistake and they'll quit. And what you really need to be doing is forgiving yourself, rolling with the punches, as like Ynab would say, and then kind of moving on to the next step. So I think that's something that I think is really, really powerful as well. So the last one is my favorite one and it is. What does wealth mean to you?
- [54:06]
Jen Smith
Wealth means not being so obsessed with money. And I really, I feel like even with these pay cuts and stuff, I feel like I'm there because I know I have enough. I know I have defined what enough is, and I know I have enough. Are there things in life that I would like that I can't currently afford, that I would like to earn more to in the future afford? Absolutely. And I'm working on that. But I don't obsess over money and I'm not going broke. And that to me is wealth. And I have all these things that money can't buy too. So, yeah, that's the pinnacle.
- [54:46]
Co-host
I absolutely love that answer. So this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find more about you, your podcast, your book, everything?
- [54:54]
Jen Smith
Yeah, so you can listen to Frugal Friends podcast twice a week on whatever podcast player you're listening to. This even YouTube. And buywhatyoulovebook.com is where you can order the book. And if you preorder, there are some special pre order freebies that we give out because we're still frugal, we still love free things. Right. So there's some of those freebies. But yeah, we would love for. Even if you feel like this really resonated with you and you already have it down, if there's somebody in your life, you know, who could really benefit from this mindset shift about spending. Buy a copy. Buy 25 copies. Hand them out. We really think this mindset shift can change how people think about money and that in turn changes how they think about earning and investing in a snowballs.
- [55:44]
Co-host
Absolutely. And thank you so much again for coming on. This is absolutely amazing. We will link everything up in the show notes below so that you guys can all check it out. And Jen, thank you again so much for coming on.
- [55:54]
Jen Smith
Thank you so much for having me sa.