Money Problems: If this is You, You’re in Trouble

george grombacher 0:01
It brings me zero joy to make videos like this. It brings me little joy, no joy at all, when I see that the majority of us are struggling with money and struggling with weight and health, in virtually every aspect of of our lives, just was having a conversation. And it came up that Dr. Mark Hyman was talking about how 93% of Americans are unhealthy in some form or fashion metabolically, that’s, that’s that. That was the measure that currently 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, which is a crazy thing. And that means that we don’t feel good, we’re not doing well. And then I saw this on Twitter, which is really what I wanted to talk about today, not necessarily healthy diet and exercise and stuff like that. It was from Investopedia, which is an organization that I have a strong affinity for. They are the leader in financial literacy, education and content and all that good stuff. Anyway, they were talking about how in February of this year to two trends converged. And it was that consumer debt, revolving credit card debt had surpassed the amount of excess savings of Americans. So when the pandemic hit, we started saving money and saving money and saving money. And so our excess savings as a whole went up and surpassed the total amount of credit card debt as a whole. Unfortunately, those two trends have now inverted, and personal savings, excess savings is now going down, and credit card debt is going up. And now those two things have flipped flopped. So what does that mean? Well, that means that we are moving 100% in the wrong direction, I talk a lot about how the only way to become financially successful is to be able to save money. And this is telling us the exact opposite of that. That’s one of the big markers of financially successful people is our ability to save. And if you really wanted to boil it down, what is the key to become financially successful? It’s that can you save money, if you can’t save money, you’re not going to be financially successful? If you can, then you have a chance at becoming financially successful. So, but you probably intellectually knew that. So there’s not a lot of value in me, railing on about that. So what do you do, if you find yourself in that position where you’re living paycheck to paycheck, or even worse, you are literally going into debt a little bit more every month. So you’re not only spending all the money that you’re earning, you’re spending more money than you’re actually earning, you need to get in front of that thing about money is that it’s very time sensitive. So the longer we wait to pursue our financial goals and objectives, the harder they become to reach. So how do we, how do we get in front of this, I think that there are a handful of things that we can do to stem that tide. And I totally get it, I totally get it. Our individual circumstances are just that they are individual, and they are your circumstances. So there’s probably extenuating circumstances and details and reasons and this that another thing for why it is that you are not getting exactly where you want to be with your money. And, and I appreciate that. And I want you to break free of it. Because I know how it is I’ve made a lot of great financial decisions over the course of my life. I’ve made a lot of terrible financial decisions over the course of my life. So wherever you are, I’ve been there. I’ve been in credit card debt, I live paycheck to paycheck, I’ve done all the stupid things with money. So I know how bad it feels, feels like you’re helpless and you’re spiraling out of control. And the anxiety can follow you around throughout your day. And it negatively impacts your family and your work and your overall enjoyment and everything else. And it’s probably one of the reasons that we are unhealthy, and we’re not eating well. And we’re not exercising, all these things sort of lead together. But what I want you to do is to be on the proper side of this tribe, to have your savings going up to get positioned for financial success and prosperity and all of that. And not to be on the wrong side of this trend and not to get trapped in credit card debt that’s really hard to get out. So handful of things that I would like to talk with you about what can you actually start doing immediately to start positioning yourself for success. And here’s here’s here’s a couple of things. I mean, fundamentally, if you are in a spot where you are not getting where you want to go financially, I appreciate that money is finite, and I’m not independently well theory. So it’s hard to make money. But you have a choice, you can either figure out how to earn more money. Or you can figure out how to live on less. So are there opportunities for you to make more money? Can you go out and get more a new certification or a new skill that will allow you to earn more money in your current job, I don’t know the answer to that to you. Or you can find a side hustle, take on some additional outside works, gig work, whatever it might be, there’s plenty of opportunities for doing that kind of a thing. Or you can figure out how to live on less, you can figure out how to cut expenses, you can figure out how to get out of debt. And I think that maybe a combination of those two things is potentially the way forward for you. It’s really hard for us to do that. It’s hard for us to make sacrifices and to make changes to lifestyle. Okay, I totally get it. We have egos, I have an ego, everybody’s got an ego. And so the thought of taking a step backwards. And reducing lifestyle, driving a different car living in a different house, you don’t go out to the same kinds of restaurants or the same sort of stuff, you change your lifestyle. That’s a tough pill for us to swallow. And frankly, it’s probably an impossible pill an impossible pill for many of us to swallow. And that pill, if we’re not able to swallow it is exactly what’s going to keep us stuck. And the question there is, you know, are you working? Are you trying to appear to be a certain way to people that are outside of you in your life? Well, I would rather be wealthy than appear to be wealthy. And I don’t know if that’s the same belief that you have about this. But changes need to happen. And I want you to think about it like this. Think about it as this is not a permanent step backwards, it is a momentary step backwards, that will put me in position and will allow me to take many, many steps forwards in the future, I gotta get my act together, I need to get my head right, I need to get my behaviors, right, I need to get in front of all of these things. And that will position me to move on find financial security, move on to financial prosperity, all the things. So how do we actually do that? How do I do these things? Well, I think that we must create a compelling vision for our futures. I can white knuckle it, and I can groom I grit my teeth and run through walls. But that’s not sustainable. I want you to find sustainable success, sustainable habits. And that starts with creating a compelling vision that pulls you towards it, versus you trying to push yourself through uncomfortable stuff, just for the sake of doing it, that’s not gonna last, you’ll do it for a short amount of time. And then you’ll go back to what you were doing before. So we need to create that compelling vision for our future. And we do that by thinking about what it is that we want, goals equal what we want, talk a lot about this superpower, you can literally, imagine the future that you want, you can make plans for getting there, and then you can execute on those plans, that is a superpower. So if you’ve not set goals, if you’ve not actually getting a pen and paper and write your goals down, you haven’t really set goals, you’ve just got hope. And hope is definitely not a strategy, particularly when we’re trying to solve big problems, like getting your financial act together, you can access our goals course for free, you can find it in the in the, in the in the notes, or whatever it’s called, below the video thing.

scription there it is, you can go to money, alignment, academy.com go to Courses, you could find a free golf course, the next thing is really want you to explore your beliefs about things. So goals, that’s what we want. Beliefs are who we are. So it’s imperative that you explore your current beliefs about money and success and those things because all too often we have limiting beliefs. And we have limiting beliefs, by very, very nature of what those are, is they limit our potential, they prevent us from getting to where we want to go. Think about it as like a glass cage around us that we can’t see it. But we keep running into it. But keep making the same mistakes over and over again, if you find yourself caught in that trap on that hamster wheel of never getting where you want to go and you’re still you keep dating the same kind of person, you keep making the same kind of money mistakes, it’s because you have limiting beliefs about whatever area you’re trying to get better at. So you need to work through those. And then values that’s the lens through which we see the world. And that is the filter through which we take in information and we make decisions about things. Life is all about making good choices and prioritizing how you are allocating your most valuable resources in this example, money, but also time and attention and energy. The clearer we can get in our values, the better off that we’re going to be. And we’re in better position to make good financial decisions about things that are aligned to our values and our goals. And we’re actually going to get to where we want to go. None of it’s a game of perfect but the closer we can get to With the better off we are. So get clear on your goals, what you want clear on your beliefs and your values, that’s who you are, you can access our values course, same place money, lemon Academy courses, it’s free, you can take advantage of that, do it. And then it’s habits. And habits are what you do. So, too often, we just focus on habits, we focus on life hacks, and business hacks and streamlining things or whatever. And that’s all fine and well, but we need to get our head right first. And it’s the goals, it’s the values, and then we can start creating rituals of success around doing the things that we need to do to get what it is that we want. All right. So starts create habits starts create rituals of success that will help you get to where you want to go. And then it is a function of do I know how much money I’m making? Do I know how much money I’m spending, most people have no idea. Most people do not know their cash flow, they don’t know how much money they earn, they don’t how much they spend, they don’t know the value of their assets, they do not know the amount of debt that they have, you need to know these things. When was the last time you reviewed your cash flow? And I mean, when was the last time you reviewed all of the transactions on the places you spend money? It’s easy not to it’s super easy to review these things. We have internet banking, and and everything else where you can easily log in and view all of your transactions. But I’m guilty of this even tilt even even today, where it’ll be a couple of months. And I log in and be like, What are these charges, because you’re gonna find some stuff, you’re gonna find stuff that shouldn’t be there. More importantly, you’re gonna find things that you no longer use that you’re still paying for. And odds are, you’re trying to figure out how to find more money, or how to make your existing money go further. You’re just trying to be better with the beat, be better with money. God bless you. This is a great place to start, review all your spending, figure out where you can make cuts, I can almost guarantee that you will find things you can cut out and stop spending money on so you can apply that money to more important financial priorities that you have. Next thing is you have to have a budget. And I know it’s not super fun. Budget can feel like it’s constricting, it can feel limiting and to a degree it is but all a budget is just a plan for your money. Okay. And what it also does, is it will help you to feel more confident it will help you to be more empowered financially, because you’ll know you’ll know if you’re on track, you’ll know if you are on track for retirement or to be able to buy a home or to get out of debt or can I go out for dinner tonight? Can I invest in Bitcoin? Can I buy a house without a budget, you can’t do any of those things, because you just don’t know. You can do those things. But you’re guessing you’re hoping that you don’t really know. We need to no need to take a good hard long look at all these things. So just do it rip off the band aid. And what I fundamentally want you to do is to get an emergency fund saved up as these two numbers are are inverting savings is going down credit card debt going up? Well, your if that’s you, you are absolutely compromised, you’re in bad shape. To be strong, to be independent, to be sovereign, to have control and autonomy over your life. You have to have control and autonomy with your money. And we do that. Following a handful of steps. I’ll just walk you through a quick step number one is get your initial emergency fund saved up, get $1,000 saved up and it should be in an account that’s separate from your everyday checking account. $1,000 is enough to cover most minor emergencies. So get that saved up as soon as you possibly can. Then start paying yourself first. paying yourself first the golden rule of personal finance. Because if you’re not in the habit of paying yourself first, you’re in the habit of paying everybody else first. And you will get to the end of the month and there will not be any money leftover for you. This is the wrong way to do things. You must put your needs and your family’s needs ahead of everybody else’s. This is a time where it’s not only smart to be selfish, it’s essential for you to be selfish. Put your family needs your family’s needs ahead of everybody else and start making contributions to a financial account for your benefit. Get 401k enrolling in your company’s 401k is a perfect way to pay yourself first because the money literally goes into your 401k before it hits your checking account. But you can also if you don’t have a 401 K or you want to be saving towards something else, you can open up an IRA or an individual retirement account. You can open up a brokerage account, you could just be transferring money into a savings account every month. These are all ways to do it. But the whole thing is you need to set up an automatic contribution at the first of the month to accomplish that. So that’s step two. Step number three is, let’s get one month’s worth of expenses saved up. So we need to know why we know our budget, we track our cash flow, how much you save up to have. One month’s worth of expenses is so get one month’s worth of expenses saved up however long that takes you. Once you have that, then it wants you to attack your credit card debt. Get mad at it credit card debt is the worst. It keeps us stuck. It is like a wet blanket that follows us around everywhere we go. It is a real bummer. One more resource for you. I talked about the goals course, which is free, I talked about the values course which is free, you can also access our third free course which is get out of debt. I’m exceptional at naming things. So you can access that money, alignment academy.com courses, get out of debt, it’s free, put your plan together for getting out of debt and make it happen. Once you do that, however long that takes you, then I want you to get two months of expenses saved up then three, then four, then five. Finally, six. I know that that’s not easy. It’s not like I just casually say that, Oh, just save six months worth of expenses. No big deal. I know how hard that is, I know it’s a lot of money. And it will take you a long time to get there. But here’s the thing, once you do it, once you have it saved up, you’ve got financial peace of mind, imagine how good you will feel when you are credit card debt, you’re out of credit card debt, you’ve got six months of cash sitting there. Finally, that that tension on your shoulders, relax, you can sit up. And what will have happened is you will have developed confidence, you will have shown yourself, I could do this, I’ve set a goal and I accomplished it. I feel great about myself, I’ve got confidence discipline have created some new habits. I’ve cut out a lot of crappy habits that I had, I stopped doing a bunch of BS, that’s keeping me stuck. That’s, that’s that’s the reality. So however long it takes you to do that, put the plan together, figure out you know, we’ve got my cash flow, I’ve got my budget, I understand how much is coming in how much is going out. And that will help you say okay, I can save X number of dollars every month. And that’s how you create your plan. She’s got $5,000 in credit card debt. And you could save, you know, $500 a month? Well, roughly speaking, it’s going to take you around 10 months to be able to save or pay off $5,000 credit card debt came. If your monthly expenses are $2,000 a month, well, you need to save up $12,000 To have a fully funded emergency fund. Okay? Well, at at $500 a month, once you’ve paid off your credit cards, however long that’s that’s that’s going to take you just sketch it out, write it out, and then stick to it. Really focus on that. And you will have your financial peace of mind. And that will put you in position to pursue financial prosperity, get rich, whatever you’re into, I’m here for you. I want to help you to be successful. And frankly, I need you to be financially successful, I need you to be autonomous, I need you to have your personal sovereignty so that you’re not dependent on anybody else, that your family is not dependent on anybody else for the things that you need. That’s where you can be. You’re somebody who is 100% worthy of being good with money of being financially secure of feeling good and confident and having the things that you want.

You’re deserving of it. But you’re not entitled to it. It’s going to require that you work it’s going to require you make sacrifices and do uncomfortable things, but doesn’t require you to do them forever. Or you can continue wallowing in mediocrity. And you will be there forever. Not to be harsh, but that’s kind of the reality of the situation. You can have what you want, but it has a price. But you can pay that price. There’s somebody who’s fully capable of doing this. Thanks for checking it out, get on the right side of that trend instead of the wrong side. Reach out happy to help however, I can check out the resources in the description of the show below. If you enjoyed what I had to say please do like subscribe, do all the things. Remember, do your part of doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai