Saver or Spender

Episode Transcript

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The Mom Training Podcast with Diana Ballard

 

Diana:   Hey ladies, we’re going to talk about finances today, which I’m super excited about. This is one of my favorite subjects to talk about and to do, and live on my own regular life. I absolutely love doing my finances. I love doing the taxes, which just last year, with business stuff… Anyway, I handed it over to an accountant and I was so sad. This tax season, darn it, it’s gotten too complicated for me now, that we got to pass it on.

 

  But finances are one of the best things we can learn; like an increased skill set in. Because a majority of fights, and stress, and marital problems, I mean just so many issues can come when we suck at money. Let’s just be real, we suck at money if we don't control our spending, if we don't have good habits with money management, we’re going to feel some pain.

 

  Whether it be now, whether it be later, whether it be last year with 2020, and that really kicking your butt, however that did in that way. Or maybe you're really good at it. Maybe your butt was saved that time. You lost a job, you’re like, “Cool, we got savings” or “We're going to be good for a while”. If there's an emergency, we can cover car repairs or whatever.

 

  Maybe you're at that point, which congratulations, that you're not running around like a chicken with its head cut off with your finances, which is, unfortunately, where a lot of people are. Meaning that their money doesn't have a place to go. There's no form of organization or structure, and so it's literally, living paycheck to paycheck. There's money in their account, they got to spend it. But then when those hard times come, then they go further into debt. And they get a little bit of money, they all get so excited and they spend it. Then an emergency comes - a car repair, then they got to use debt. It just is like this cycle that goes over and over and over again.

 

  So, I want to challenge you to think about your finances and where you're at in that spectrum. Are you more prepared? Are you a better planner? Or is money just like, “Oh, money comes in, we have money we spend it, and we've been perfectly fine… Yeah, we've got a good amount of debt but, hey, we're still living okay. We're able to make our payments.”

 

  Okay, well, all I know is last year, in 2020, a lot of people got hit with, “Oh crap, now I can't make the payments. I got to return my car… I got to sell this, my house... I have to get rid of these habits, all these subscriptions…” I mean just man… The amount of stress that came with that, you have no idea. Of the people that I talked to and interviewed, holy moly, like never ever, ever again do they want to go through what they did last year.

 

  That was a complete surprise. I mean, the COVID thing happening, I mean, we didn't plan for that. Like that was a complete surprise that affected the entire world. Now, we want to be optimistic that life is going to be very, you know… Everything's going to flow well. It's going to be amazing, hopeful of the future. Totally. Yeah, we totally need to have that mindset, live that way, but we also have to prepare on the other side, for surprises and things that might come up that we didn't expect. And again, every single one of us was affected in some way last year, with the pandemic that came through.

 

  So, we just never know. We just never know when we're going to need an extra buck. When we're going to wish that we had financial security with things paid off, no car payments or a smaller house so we have better interest rate or lower mortgage payment, or rent payment. Right? So, the reason why we're talking about this today is because two things that most of us have been blessed with is we have a stimulus check that everybody got. And we, most of us, are getting some form of a refund from taxes.

 

  And my question for you is, what are you doing with that money? Is that money being put aside and saying, “Man, I'm never going back to the stress that I had before. Am I putting that away?” Or have I already forgotten the pain that I felt when there was no money coming in, or when, when I wasn't able to pay...? See, the thing that is crazy about humans is, we forget things so quickly, and resort back to our old habits just as fast as the trauma happened. A lot of times, we resort back to our same habits of spending, or the way that we've lived, and “Oh my gosh, I just got all this money so, what can I buy?” It's just…

 

  Here's the thing, and I don't know if you've heard this before, like if all the money was split up evenly between everyone in the world, then in two years, all the money would be right back in the same pockets that have tons of money now, because of the habits of the people. So, who are you in that spectrum? Are you the people that have money in your pockets, maybe you're not a millionaire but, like, do you have 20,000 saved up? Do you have 10,000, even 5,000? Do you have three or one?... Get what I'm saying?

 

  Do you have any money set aside, or are you the one filling the rich people's pockets? Are you the one that's like, “Oh my gosh, I've just been given all this money, I'm going to just go off and I'm going to buy myself all these different things that like… Oh, what else can I buy? Oh my gosh, let's just drop a couple of $100 on as many things as I can think of because, hey, we have the money. Oh my gosh, it's like we won the lottery.” Especially, people that have lots of kids, with the stimulus thing, you got a good chunk. So, what are you doing with it? What are you doing with this money that you're receiving?

 

  Now, some may argue well this is a stimulus check, we're supposed to be stimulating the economy. I'm going to tell you right now there are enough people right now that are using their stimulus check to blow it on stuff that are stimulating the economy. Could you be that one to 2% that actually saves that money, so that your butt is covered later on when there's a hard time? There are plenty… Grateful, if people want to drop that money and help stimulate the economy but man, I don't want their stress. I don't want their house filled with crap, I don't.

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  We've continued spending normally with groceries and taking care of things around the house. Like we've been stimulating the economy in other ways other than just buying stuff all the time. We've been going on trips to different places, and gas. I mean there's different ways you can stimulate the economy without buying more crap and wasting every ounce of money that you have.

 

  You would be shocked at the amount of people that have been given large sums of money. And I know a good handful of them that have been given large sums of money and have nothing to show for it just three years later. I mean huge sums of money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars of money, and they have nothing to show for it. They are renting an apartment still, still making payments on their car and on their trucks, and still now, just living paycheck to paycheck. Why? Because their habits drain everything that they have.

 

  I'll tell you, that I don't want their stress, and I don't want their crap that's bombarding their entire house. Their storage unit full of stuff. Their garages that are packed. Their bedrooms that are so, full of things that it's just… Their closets, you can barely fit in another shirt or a pair of pants. I personally do not want that, because that is not the type of emotion that I want to be having years down the road when I turn and look at all that stuff and be like, “Crap, look how much money that is in my closet. Look how much money that is in that storage unit that I'm now like holding on to and paying a buttload a month for to keep it safe and locked up”, and I'm never going to look at it ever again. Then years later, someone's going to die and it's like a storage unit sale.

 

  Have you heard of those? Like people will come and just… They'll just sell whatever's in the storage unit; like someone else does it, not even the family. Because it sat there for so many years and how many hundreds of dollars have been spent, keeping that crap safe cost them lots of money. Then they have problems in their marriages, they have financial stress, they're living paycheck to paycheck, they're in major debt, living off the government like, “Whoa, ouch man.”

 

  So, I just wanted to paint you a little picture of the reality of the results of always being a spender, and never being a saver. So, please, please, please you guys, change your habits to be savers. Put money aside, budget your money, know where it’s going, and stop buying so much stuff. Because man, the rich people in this world are grateful for the people that spend tons of money; that are impulse buyers, that are addicted to spending. Like, “Thanks for making them a millionaire”, they say.

 

  That makes me kind of mad to think about - that they can be so good at marketing. They can be so good at knowing targeting exactly what each of us needs, that like impulsively, we’ll be buying things, or, “Oh my gosh, I need that… Oh wow, that's so cool… Oh, man.” Just filling this need, over and over and over again, and draining your bank account in the meantime, and filling theirs one penny, $1, $100, $1,000 at a time… Man, no, thank you.

 

  So, what are you doing with your stimulus money and your tax return? Do you have some left that you could put aside? Can we curb the spending habits and not feel like we're millionaires, or we just won the lottery? Because there's a lot of people that are still in the rat race of life, just going from one paycheck to the next. One thing to the next, and then they get hit with a big sum of money, and they're like, “Oh my gosh, freedom!”

 

  No, freedom comes when you're good with your money. Freedom comes when you practice restricting your spending. And it may not feel like it, in that very moment, but man, the things you can do in the future, the life you can create by changing those habits - your life will never be the same. And it will be so much better for you. So, be smart. Be wise. Be skilled be strategic with any money you were given, and put it aside.

 

  I'll tell you; I have a new goal. We had a pretty good, pretty good amount of savings before my husband lost his job. And that money went fast. I was like, “holy baloney!”, that money, I just watched it just dwindle, each month that we weren't employed. Even with unemployment, that we were getting, dude, it was shocking. Shocking…

 

  I have some new goals, a lot more bigger numbers of savings than we ever had before. Because, I am not going back to that either like we had plenty of money to pay for our bills. And that still was stressful, because we never knew when we were going to get another job. Right? There's things that we can't control.

 

  So, take care of what you have. Be wise, with the resources that you've been given, and you will enjoy life so much more, and be able to create and design your life, way more, than if you don't. So, have a great rest of your week and we'll see you next Tuesday on The Mom Training Podcast.

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