Bringing Fun to Finance with Emily Guy Birken

Are you ready to create riches in your work and life? It's time for Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches in life you deserve. So let's welcome your ball of fire host, Bernadette Boas.

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and welcome to our latest episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. I'm Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, and what we try to accomplish here is to really bring you the guests and the topics that would really help you shed your bitches, um, in order to really create riches in your work and your life. And so I'll be introducing a, um, rich question to you in just a minute But what we want you to do is get ready to be grounded in this conversation. We're going to bring fun to finance. Who doesn't think finance is fun? Money management, budgeting, restricting yourself. And who has some hang-ups? Who has some bitches of fear, insecurity, doubts, negativity around money? Well, we're going to take care of all of it today, and we're going to bring fun to finance. So the prevailing attitude among many in the financial world seems to be money only works if you take it seriously. But treating money as only slightly less fun than a colonoscopy means avoiding the important work of taking care of your finances. According to our guest, Emily Guy Birkin brings some much-needed humor and lightheartedness to the topic of money management. So what we're going to get into and discuss is how to make money much less stressful, which will also lead to better financial outcomes. As well how to figure out your why, which makes financial decisions easier. And lastly, how gamification can help even the most reluctant budgeter. Now we're going to talk probably a lot more, but those are going to be the 3 things that I want you to be focused on. So your rich question, which again helps you to ground yourself in the conversation that we're about to have, and then maybe you're, you know, all of a sudden thinking of the questions that you have, you can pose them. Um, to— in any of the, uh, posts that you see this streaming on our podcast streaming services as well as on our Shedding the Bits YouTube channel. And at the same time, you can kind of listen for intentionally the advice and the tips that our guests will provide. All right, so let me introduce you to Emily and then bring her in. Emily Guy Birkin is a former educator, lifelong, lifelong money nerd, and a Plutus Award-winning freelance writer who specializes in the scientific research behind irrational money behavior. Years. Her background in education allows her to make complex financial topics relatable and easily understood by the layperson. Her work has appeared on the Huffington Post, Business Insider, Kiplinger's, MSN Money, and the Washington Post Online. She is the author of several books including The 5 Years Before You Retire and Financial Stress Now, and the brand new book Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management, written with Joe Saul-Sehy. Emily lives in Milwaukee with her spouse, two sons, a retired racing greyhound, and a cat who doubles as a throw pillow. How are you, Emily?

I'm doing great. And speaking of, uh, my, my, my retired racing greyhound, he is, uh, taking his retirement very seriously behind me. Yes, yes, sleep on the, the couch in my office.

And he's beautiful. He almost like, you know, for those of you who are just listening, you have to go over to our, uh, Shining the Bitch YouTube channel and check out this video. Beautiful. He, you know, she or he, he, he almost looks like, like a, a statue, like a, just a, like he's not, he hasn't moved since I've seen him. Uh, so that's fabulous. And we were talking, everybody, both audio and video that I too have 3 dogs in my studio with me, and I have hardwood floors. Clitter clatter, clitter clatter. So don't adjust your laptop audio. It's not you. It is the lovely, lovely claw steps of pets, and we absolutely love that here. Well, I am excited about having this conversation, one, because the fun of it, you know, and, you know, we probably can find many or very few people who raise their hand going, yeah, financing, budgeting, money management fun. But yes, you bring the humor and the fun to it. Let me ask you though, based on your background, how did you all of a sudden want to take this spin when it comes to money management?

Well, so I have two, two major life goals. I like to tell people this. One has very little to do with my career, and that's to have shiny hair.

Okay.

My second major life goal is to be funny. And I say that and people will be like, you're funnier than you think you are. I was like, no, no, no, no, it's— I'm working towards it. This is a constant working towards goal. And so that's always been true when I was a teacher, you know, prior to that when I was job hopping and now that I'm a writer in the finance space. Now, the thing is, when you write about money, many of your clients edit out even the most gentle of humor.

Isn't that the truth?

Isn't that the thing? And it's understandable. They want to just the facts kind of sentiments in what I'm writing. So with this book, I really wanted to kind of lean into the idea that you can have a much better outcome with your money if you are lighthearted, if you look at it from a humorous point of view, And if you really focus on the joy and the fun that you can have, because when you are, when everything is dry and deadly serious, you're gonna turn off the people who most need to read money books.

Right.

So I had an experience. My most recent book prior to this one was End Financial Stress Now. And I wrote that book because I had for many years been wanting to help people recognize that a lot of the financial stress that we carry is completely unnecessary. Now, that's not to say that you can live without financial stress. Everyone is going to feel some financial stress, but a lot of the stress that we carry comes from things that aren't about the money because money doesn't actually exist in the real world. It's a delusion we all share. That doesn't make it any less real, but it doesn't really exist. It's, you know, You know, it doesn't exist in nature. You can't eat it. You can't build shelter out of it. You can't wear it. You can't even spend it outside of where it's accepted as legal tender. So because it's this kind of delusion we all share, we all put our own belief systems onto money and we put our morality, our neuroses, our childhood trauma onto money. And so a lot of times when we're feeling stressed about money, what we're feeling stressed about is this meaning we've put on money rather than the money itself. So I wrote End Financial Stress Now, and a friend of mine from college was super excited for me. And she told me she bought the book, but she was afraid to read it. And I was like, oh my goodness, why are you afraid to read it? And she said, I'm afraid it's going to tell me I'm doing everything wrong. And of course I reassured my friend, but that made me realize, you know, like the people who are, you know, I most want to help. And, you know, with a book that I intended to be reassuring, are going to have this big limiting belief that keeps them from picking up their book, that book. And so getting a chance to work with my friend Joe, who's a podcaster, he, he podcasts with, it's called Stacking Benjamins, and he focuses on being funny and lighthearted and getting a chance to do something that is going to be a book that you can enjoy reading even if you don't like reading about money. That was going to allow us to help a lot of people who are being left behind by normal financial books.

That's awesome. All right, but that was loaded. You might not know that, but that was a loaded response, which is awesome, awesome, awesome. But you have to— I need you to break it down a couple of things. The first is when you were talking about the fact that money is an illusion, that money is not natural, it's not part of the, you know, of the existence. You need to help our listeners and our viewers understand what you mean by that.

So the thing, uh, about money is, um, as I said, it doesn't exist in nature. So, um, if you even see like animals that, um, you know, in nature do some sort of, you know, trading or bartering or something like that, there is no currency that is universally accepted. This is something that human beings created. And, uh, you know, if you spend any time thinking about it, um, it does get a little weird. You know, you're like, okay, so there's this green piece of paper and it's got a dead guy on it and it's got a number on it and I can exchange it for goods or services. And if it's taken from me, I can't get it back. Um, and the numbers on a screen represent the dollar bills So all of that is, if you just spend any time thinking about it, it's just like, how did we come up with this? This is a very weird system.

No, I mean, this was explained to me several years back, and I'll be honest with you, Emily, I just sat there like, I was like, what in the hell are you talking about? I have a dollar bill in my hand, I have coins in my pocket. It allowed me to have food in my refrigerator. What are you talking about? And yet, just like you just explained it, the minute I really started thinking to myself, oh my God, I can rip up this piece of paper, you know, but yet I'm so like tied to it because I'm like, no.

Well, and the thing that I like to think about— well, not like to think about, but one of the ways that it helped me kind of come up with this thought process was thinking about like the zombie or alien or robot apocalypse.

Yes.

And so if the zombie apocalypse comes, the graves are opened and the undead are walking the streets and everyone's like putting plywood over their windows to protect themselves. No one's going to care about the Dow Jones. No one's going to care about the banks. The dollar bills, the money that you have in your wallet are going to be meaningless. You know, the fact that you have a BMW will be meaningless unless it's, you know, reliable source of transportation. But that's only until the gas pumps run dry.

Right.

So, and that's where, you know, once you start recognizing how fragile the system is and when I say fragile, I don't want to scare people to be like, oh, everything's going to fall. That's not what I mean. What I mean is it works for the particular way that we live now. It's the system that we live under now, but that doesn't mean it's always been the same system or will always be the same system. And kind of recognizing that, I find to be very freeing. I know some people might find that terrifying, like, well, okay, but I understand how to balance my checkbook now. I understand how to do this.

It took me 48 years, Emily, and now you're going to tell me something else?

Well, and the thing that, you know, speaking of bringing fun to finance, the thing that got me to realize how freeing this is was reading a graphic novel about the Holocaust. Okay. There's a book called Maus by Art Spiegelman. It is about his father's experience in the Holocaust. His father was a man named— a Polish man named Wladek. He was Jewish, and he was incredibly talented as a businessman. And so even though his business was taken away from him and all his money was taken away from him, and he was in the ghetto for at first with his wife, he managed to find ways to like make trades and barter and things like that and get better treatment for himself and his wife and even make some money when he wasn't allowed to, um, in the ghetto because he had that innate ability. And then even when he went to the, um, concentration camp, the same thing happened. And so for me, I find it very freeing to have that realization like, oh, okay, so money isn't really real, but what is real is what I can do. My skills are real, so I will be able to apply them to whatever situation comes up.

Yeah.

So whether that's a, like, a likely situation, like, you know, job loss or something like that, I can use the skills that I have honed that I'm very good at to deal with job loss or something completely unlikely, like, you know, zombie apocalypse or something slightly more likely than that.

Pandemic. You see it with a lot of natural disasters, right? You know, like towns are like destroyed.

Destroyed.

The people lose everything, and yet they find a way to survive. Yeah. And not even just survive, but even to thrive. Um, so that kind of— that helped me. And I— is your goal to kind of help people to let go of that tight grasp that they have on something that they consider as materialistic and is like a, you know, like a must-have, and yet let go of it because you would just, you would be fine even if you didn't have it.

Exactly. Yeah. The thing I like to remind people is when you are looking for some financial stability, which I don't think actually like truly exists because, you know, should the alien apocalypse come, you know, Warren Buffett's going to be, you know, just in the same boat as the rest of us. Yeah. But people are looking for that. And they have this idea that once they have enough money, the money will take care of them. And that is like putting a pile of money behind the driver's seat and turning the car, letting it go. You're behind the driver's seat. The money will certainly help. It's a tool.

I love that.

But it's not it's not something that you want to be driving. You want to recognize what you bring to the table, what skills you have, and then also recognize where you do need money to help you with things so that you can focus on the things that you're good at and rely on money for the things that you need a little help with and recognize just how many skills you bring to the table.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love it, especially that car analogy because it's so true. So, okay, so let's bring some fun to finance. What would you say, or why— what is so important for people, um, to possess a playful attitude about money, especially when they are in a state of anxiety or stress, even panic and desperation around it? How can— why is it important to have a playful attitude, and how can they get there?

Yeah. So when you are looking at money as life or death, every decision feels much more fraught. So every decision, it feels like, oh my goodness, if I mess up this decision, I'm going to ruin my life. And so one thing that I remind people of, a lot of times when I talk to people and they're really, really anxious about money, I'll ask them, do you cook? And they'll be like, yeah, yeah, I cook. I'm like, do you cook chicken? Yeah, yeah, I cook chicken. What's the worst thing that happens if you cook chicken incorrectly? You could make someone sick or they could die. What's the worst that happens if you do money incorrectly? Now, unless you're embezzling or knocking over banks or anything like that, the worst that happens is you have less money. Now, that's not to say that's not a terrible thing, right? But nobody will die, right?

Nobody will die.

And yet people feel a lot more comfortable trying out the new chicken recipe where if they get the wrong chicken or if they cook it incorrectly or not quite enough, you know, that, that could give someone salmonella. They could get seriously ill or die. So that's one of the things that I want people to, to kind of keep in perspective is it's serious, but it's not as serious as you think it is. Then the other aspect of it is when I was first out of college, I worked at Barnes Noble. I was making $8.25 an hour, which this was back in 2001. So it went farther than it does now, but it still wasn't a whole heck of a lot of money. And I, it was a struggle. It was a struggle to make sure that I could pay my rent, my student loans, you know, groceries, all the things that I needed. And, but the way that I was able to do it was I started looking at my money like a Tetris game. So if you've ever played Tetris, you know, it's like it's the blocks are falling constantly. They, they're weird shapes, and so sometimes they don't fit in a nice way, so it looks a little bit ugly. But you're— once you're able to fill in a line, it disappears. And so I realized that my bills were a little bit like Tetris. They kept coming, like with Tetris, they never stopped coming. If you mess up one on one turn, that makes the next turn harder. Mm-hmm. Um, but if I started thinking about it like Tetris, where like in, in Tetris you can move things around and change directions and, um, uh, find a place where it can fit, that gave me the freedom to, instead of being like, oh my goodness, I don't know how I'm gonna pay my car insurance bill, uh, I've got rent due and blah, blah, blah. I started thinking about it more strategically, like it was a game like Tetris. Like, oh, okay, well if I I plan on doing this and then do that, you know, if I change my due date with my credit card, 'cause they'll let me do that, then maybe I could use the money that I was gonna do that to go to my auto insurance. And so all of a sudden, because I brought a spirit of play to my very, very constrained budget, I was much better able to look at it in a way that allowed me to make decisions that weren't based on, anxiety or fear or concern.

Right, right. Well, and I love that because what you're also saying, saying— and I know I mentioned at the beginning we're going to talk about gamification, um, because again, what you were just describing too, because I'm very visual, just brought up for me that, you know, I would look at it as like kind of, um, like, like a competition. It's like, how can I beat myself at figuring out that If I can't pay this, but I can pay this, and what if I called up and said to my, you know, said to my cable company, hey, look, you know, I need a cheaper rate, uh, you know, and I would kind of make it a game to challenge myself that if it looks like this right now, my, you know, my monthly expenditure, I'm gonna try to get it down 10% by the end. Is that also part of like making this fun and playful?

Absolutely. Yeah. There's, depending on what resonates with you, finding a way to make finance decisions fun and playful can make a big difference. So I've always been a money nerd, as you mentioned. My husband is not necessarily. When we first got married, He owned a house and he had a home equity line of credit on it that was not paid off. And I was like, I am not comfortable with that not being paid off. So when we first got married, we lived on his income and we used mine to pay off his HELOC. Now the thing is, he was like, whatever, you know, it is. And I was like, no, no, no, this will be fun. And he's like, sure, sure it'll be fun.

Sure it will be.

We had a dry erase board in our kitchen and we just made a very simple debt payoff thermometer where we put the— I think it was about $32,000 and we like, we broke it up, you know, to like into $8,000 quarters and then down into like 1,000 pieces and $1,000 pieces in there. And so we said, okay, once we've paid off $8,000, we're going to go get Indian food at our favorite restaurant. Once we pay off $16,000, And so we were sending my income there and then we were finding extra income. And this was long enough ago that we were still getting statements in the mail. And on the day that we knew the statement would come, like we'd both race home because we wanted to be the one filling the thermometer because it got to be fun. As I, as I suggested, it got to be like, oh, yay, we can color in another block on the thermometer. There's $1,000 gone.

Yes.

And so something that's a long slog. I mean, debt payoff is not a great day at the beach.

Right.

We made— we found a way to make it fun. And then because we have this spirit of competition, we were like seeing who could be the one to get home first to color it in the debt thermometer. We'd see who could find a little extra to send in addition to what we were already sending. And so we got that competition going, we got the fun going, and then that made this long process that could have taken a really long time and been boring and just awful. And we got it done in about 15 months and we had a good time with it.

Yeah, I've done things where I— if I— if I— when I needed to be focused, this was about 5 years ago. Really needed to be focused on my budgeting and my spending, more so my spending. And I looked at it every day. For every day, I would look at it and make sure I look at every transaction and understand where I'm spending. I'd give myself— I'd put in an envelope $5 and I would put the date that I did it today. $5, $5, $5. And, and at the end of the month, I'd have like, you know, that's only $150. But it was so gratifying. Where then I continued it for the entire year. And the next thing you know, don't make me do math, but the next thing you know, at the end of the year, I did something with the $1,000 or $1,500 that it was.

Yeah.

So you're right, it kind of— and it takes the stress out of it.

Absolutely.

And so for your— to your point, you were talking about how when you are stressed about things, and you're all in your head about it, you just can't— you can't just work. You can't— I don't want to put words in your mouth. You can't work through things. I mean, you know, so your objective too is to get rid of the stress so then you can be more creative, you could be more, you know, playful.

Yeah.

And you can enjoy it more, right?

Yes. Well, and it's kind of like how it can be really easy to give a friend advice. About a situation. You can see like, oh, oh yeah, if you did this and then this, I think that would make things a lot easier for you. But it can be so hard to be in the same situation and take your own advice. And so one of the things, and it's because you feel the anxiety and the stress of your own situation, whereas, you know, what you're feeling for, you know, a friend is empathy and, and, and wanting to help. So one of the things about making things more playful and gamifying is that it allows you to have a little distance between the situation and how you feel about it. And with that distance, you get a little bit more clarity on options. And this happens to all of us. I mean, we all have situations where we're so close to it, we just can't see the solution.

Right. And we are just swirling and swirling and just causing more and more anxiety and stress for ourselves.

Yes. And we can also not even realize we're in the midst of that. We think we're thinking rationally. We think that we're doing everything right and it'll take a third party or, you know, like something, you know, even if you— I've had situations where like I'm stressing about something and I go watch a movie and I like am with someone else. I am someone else for 2.5 hours and come back. I can think about it better.

Right.

It's true. And so, so just, just recognizing when you're too close to something and how that spirit of play, or even thinking about one of the things I like to do is, especially when you're really stressed, how would you tell this story 10 years from now once it's funny and think about it that way. That can also help you get that distance um, you know, and help you find the humor in it. Because there's— in most things, there's, there's, there's some humor in it.

Yeah.

And finding that humor and being able to laugh at, at yourself, laugh at the situation. Um, and that's not to say I don't take financial stress and find, um, you know, serious financial situations seriously, right? But, uh, in the same way that, um, you know, when you're dealing with health scare or, you know, you've lost a parent or anything like that, there will be moments where you're telling kind of dark jokes. And because that makes it a lot easier for you to handle what comes next. And so recognizing that money is like that as well, you know, it's, you know, if necessary, it can be like telling funny jokes at a funeral because that helps break the tension and helps everyone get together.

Yeah.

So, and that's, that's something that I think a lot of us forget about when it comes to money, because money is a taboo subject in our culture. We just don't talk about it. So we don't have a chance to tell those dark jokes or make that funny, funny story about money that helps you get a little bit more clarity.

Do you also, because I love your playful side, right? But at the same time, from a logical perspective, Do you ever look at your client and, you know, pretty much— because this is what I have to do to myself— I have to, you know, so in your case, remind them you've been through shit before and you've gotten through it. And you've, you know, spent hours, days, months, years totally stressed out and anxious about something, but you've gone— gotten to the other side. And therefore consider that because any time, any moment of time you're expending in stress and anxiety is just losing that time. Like, so do you— I mean, I love the playful side, but call your clients out to kind of remember that as well.

Absolutely. I often— several of my clients have been in situations where they're getting out of a difficult marriage, they're dealing with job loss or something like that. And just in the establishing call where they tell me where they are right now, I'll say, "Look at how far you've come. You're badass. I mean, you have done X, Y, and Z. You've left an abusive marriage. You have gotten custody of your kids. You have done the really hard stuff. What we're doing now is going to be a lot easier." And it feels hard because for whatever reason, you've got a limiting belief about money But recognize what a badass you are and start from there.

Well, I have to admit, I wish I had— have had you in my corner for the last like 30 years because, you know, I was in college and I got audited by the IRS because I was making too much money as a student. Oh my God. You know, and then, you know, I, you know, I lost $150,000 in a business that I was only with for 6 months. And then, you know, so Yes, I can laugh about it now, you know, to your point, but boy, but at the same time, I look at it and I say, I've gotten through that, I can get through other things. So now a little bit serious though. So a lot of people are in their head and they're scared to death about what's going on in the world and this looming— well, we have inflation, but looming possible recession that could be upon us again. And, you know, and as opposed to— I don't think you want them starting to grab at, you know, at, you know, everything that they've got. How— what would you say to them? And you wrote in your book about planning for an inflation, planning for bad times. Well, those are my words, not yours. So what would you— what, what do you say about that? What does that mean? And what does that look like for someone?

So recession is one of those things that it's this, you know, boogeyman that we like. It's the economic boogeyman. And then you've got economists who, you know, you get two economists, three opinions. And so they say, like, we're headed for an inflation and like the thing— or excuse me, headed for recession because of inflation, because of gas prices, housing prices, grocery prices. It's very clear. And then you have another person saying like, nobody knows, who can tell? And, you know, so that's helpful. Thank you.

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

So the truth is no one has a crystal ball. So there's no way of knowing for sure. But there is, there are patterns and sorry, that's my cat's You just saw through this.

You do not need to apologize. Love it. Love it. Love it.

So there are patterns that people, that economists notice. And the thing is, the economy does go through cycles where it expands and contracts, expands and contracts. And we are overdue for it to contract some. So with that said, what that means is, you know, if you know that that's coming and what I think is we need to be planning for it always. You know, even when things are going gangbuster, plan for what will I do if the, if the economy contracts. And so some of those things are all the things we talk about, you know, that I call them the greatest hits of financial writers. It's, you know, the, that old favorite, make sure you have an emergency fund of at least 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses.

Right, right.

So, and then there's other stuff like know what your minimum budget is just to keep the lights on, you know, what's it going to cost for mortgage, utilities, groceries, childcare? And then what can you cut out if you need to?

Right.

And then being cognizant about how you spend your money is really, really helpful. If you're someone who's never paid attention to how you spend your money, I think like what you suggested, just checking your, your, uh, um, your transactions on a weekly or twice weekly basis can be great because all that does is it gives you information. But that information will be in your head the next time you're like, oh, you know what, I'll just run to Starbucks and get a couple of coffees. I want to buy one for my friend too, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you think, you know what, I spent $50 at Starbucks last week, maybe I'll just call my friend and say hi.

You shock yourself when you start looking at stuff.

Yes. Yeah. Um, and so having that information, and a lot of people are afraid to have that information. Um, it's of the, uh, I had a friend who once told me like, I don't go to the doctor because I only get bad news. I was like, you only get bad news because you don't go to the doctor.

So true.

Um, and so people are like, I feel like, uh, you know, checking my transactions is always awful. And it's like, well, you feel that way because you only check it when there's an emergency, right? When, when, you know, something bad has happened, and so you gotta check it and, and work it out. So just having that information can, um, can give you an opportunity to, um, uh, to make changes to how you spend money. And that can also help you, um, kind of take a look at, like, what were you spending on groceries before? What are you spending now? You're buying generally the same things, you know, and you're realizing, wow, ground beef is really expensive. Okay, maybe, maybe we'll be doing a little more chicken, or maybe we're just going to try more vegetarian options. Right. So having that, that information empowers you to make the best choices for your finances, no matter what is happening in the economy.

And I would say, I mean, you know, do your clients also experience not only empowerment, but control. And control can keep you sane. Yeah, control can keep you off the edge of, of like desperation. I've been there. I, I mean, I— you and I could probably have a whole series of a podcast, you just talking to me about my money stuff over the last like, you know, 40 years, uh, because I've had them. And but to everything that you're saying. I also can laugh about it now because I've been through it and there are solutions to those situations. But I just wish I'd met you many years ago. So you and Joe— and, um, uh, forgive me, Joe Saul Sehy? Okay, so, uh, oh, Sehy, I'm sorry. So co-author of your stack Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management. Well, you guys are very open and upfront, which I love, about your mistakes. Share. You must share. You must help us realize that we're not alone. What were your mistakes and why did you decide to share them?

So I'll start with the second question first. We wanted to share our mistakes because we didn't want people to feel like we were, you know, these gurus up on the mountain that you come for the enlightenment. We are just as human as everyone else and we make just as many mistakes as everyone else in finance. Even for like a lifelong money nerd like myself, I have made my share of financial mistakes. And what's funny is Joe's financial mistakes that he talks about are a little more typical financial mistakes. Mine, I think, is more permanent. Yes, that is because I have a very ill-advised tattoo.

Um, okay.

Yeah, uh, so when I was 22 or 23, I was dating this complete jabroni who was not worthy of me. Um, we broke up and I, I shed a few tears over this jabroni, and then 2 weeks later my grandmother died. And my grandmother and I were very close. I really, I just thought the world of her. She was amazing. And I was so mad at myself for having shed those tears over Mr. Gibroni Face. So I was like, you know what, I need to remind myself to save my tears for things that matter. So I went—

I love that.

Yeah, well, thank you. So I decided that I needed to get a teardrop tattoo on my, on my back right shoulder, and I needed it right then. And so I was in my early 20s. It was $150. I went in without having thought about it for more than, I don't know, 20 minutes. It took less than 10 after leaving the tattoo parlor. Well, for one thing, that the $150 came from my grocery budget, so I was going to be like peanut butter and ramen the rest of the month.

Yes, yes, yes.

And for another, I was like, I just put permanent body modification.

No judgment here. I don't have any, but no judgment.

Um, and so, and then it gets worse. Several months later, I learned that, uh, among, uh, certain gangs, a teardrop tattoo represents every person the, uh, the inked individual has killed. So my tattoo seems to say that I offed my own grandma.

Mercy. So the moral of that story is do your research on tattoos before you get one. You're going to make sure you do some research.

So, uh, financially, the, the mistake was, you know, was relatively big. But, um, because as, as I said, I've always been a money nerd, I knew where the money was coming from. I, I was able to, you know, make that work, right? But I made a permanent decision because, uh, there's a couple of reasons why that, that decision was there. Um, one was I, uh, felt like I needed to, um, honor my grandmother in a way. And I was very much raised with the idea that a way to honor someone is to kind of give something up, you know, to make a sacrifice for that person. And so the idea of spending $150 to like show the whole world how much I loved my grandmother, right? And, you know, having to subsist on ramen and peanut butter for a month was going to be a way of showing my grandmother how much I cared. The thing is, my grandmother would have been horrified.

I was gonna say, your grandmother probably would have been like, what are you doing?

Yes, absolutely horrified.

Yes.

Um, and so, so that was one of those, um, like pivotal moments for me, recognizing how irrational my own brain could be, um, in convincing me to do things that were not in my best interest. Right.

And it helped me— when you're in a vulnerable state, when you're in a vulnerable emotional state.

Yes, absolutely. And that's when you often will see people make the strangest or least thought-out decisions about their money is when they are vulnerable. So the other time when I have spent money in ways where I'm like, what was I thinking? Was right after I had a baby. Because in those moments, I'm just like, I need to make sure this child is protected from everything.

So what'd you buy?

I spent way too much on car seats. My husband is an automotive engineer, and he was just like, look, I understand crash tests and all of that. I understand this. I was like, I don't know. I don't trust you.

Yeah, we need a seat with 5 seat belts attached to it. Yeah. Oh, that's hysterical. Well, you know, I think anyone listening or watching can, you know, is sitting there like I am, like, yeah, yeah, nodding their head going, oh yeah, I've been there, done that. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, so that's awesome. Now, what would you tell someone What would you tell someone who right now is listening? They saw that, you know, they saw the subject of bringing fun to finance because they're just totally stressed out. And, uh, what would you share with them as far as the, you know, even one thing they could do or take away from, from this conversation and, and from all of your expertise?

So, um, something that I think is really helpful is figuring out your why, your north star. Like what is most important to you? Because once you know what's most important, then it's a lot easier to get rid of the things that are less important. So, and that's, you know, for instance, with the car seat thing that I thought I was doing that. I was like, what's most important is the child safety. But so it can, you know, there are ways where that can be difficult. But when it comes to financial decisions, a lot of times we make financial decisions because they're convenient or because we've always done them or because of tradition or because our parents are guilting us or, you know, whatever it is. And so if we come at it from like, okay, you know what, what's most important to me is that I get to spend quality time with my kids. What's most important to me is that I get to spend time doing my writing or my quilting or, you know, whatever is, is, you know, my artwork. What's most important to me is being able to rescue animals. Once you've got that, that moment, that why of what is behind the decisions you make, then you can start thinking through any financial decision with Does this serve my why? So if you most want to be able to like foster rescue animals and you've got a financial decision like, okay, you know, you're thinking about buying a new car. Well, does this serve your ability to foster rescue animals? You know, maybe it does. Maybe you need a larger car to be able to transport them. Maybe it doesn't because the car payment is going to cut into the budget that you have for dealing with animals. And so you can actually kind of just start comparing things and it gives you a sense of clarity rather than just following along in a decision without giving it the full thought that is going to be helpful to you.

And intention.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Well, I have to— excuse me. I have to ask you a question because it came up for me a couple of times. Based on what you were just saying. So someone establishes their why, and yet they still can't kind of push through and overcome because maybe— because this was me for a long time— maybe they felt shame if they, if they made it appear as if they wanted abundance and they wanted prosperity and they wanted to get out of their money situation, or they wanted to make a lot of money or, you know, and so they're, you know, so they're just dealing with a lot of shame, a lot of guilt. You mentioned the word guilt. What can they do? Because having the why is one thing, but then what can they do, or what do you help people do to then push through that kind of— that's deeper than, you know, some of the other things that we've talked about. Um, you know, how do you help in that situation?

So, um, shame is, is so corrosive, and it can be so difficult to root out. I mean, it's so, so deeply embedded. And so I'll tell you the— my, my tattoo story. I felt ashamed for a long time, um, and being able to laugh about it was helpful. So, um, and that, that's something that I, I, I— one of the reasons why I suggest thinking about how will you tell the story in 10 years when it's funny is because you can can help think of yourself on the other side of the shame.

Yeah.

Um, that's one aspect of it. Um, the other is, um, kind of stepping outside of yourself, um, whether that's imagining you're talking to your, uh, your best friend, um, who is telling you the same story as what you're telling. What would you say to your best friend? And, um, you know, you would not say like, oh, you're terribly shame on you to your best friend. You would be like, oh my goodness, you're human. These things happen. And so that's something that is really helpful. And actually, the psychologists have found that if you talk to yourself in the third person, instead of saying, oh, I'm such an idiot, you go, you say to yourself, or I would say to myself, Emily, you're human. That gives you that kind of distance to kind of let shame have space away from you rather than eating you up.

Oh, I love that.

And then the third thing I love to recommend to people is imagine you woke up with amnesia. Just imagine you just woke up and this is your circumstance.

What would you do? Ah, well, you didn't have all that baggage.

Yeah. And then you don't have all that memory and that belief system. Yeah. And that, so like that third person talking and then that imagining, like, well, let's just say I just woke up to this. I've never been here before. I don't know anything about this. I don't know the background. What would I do? That can create this amazing clarity because like, well, this is what I want to do. And okay, well, then do it. There's no rules. I mean, there's some rules. Don't rob a bank. But— Right.

I love that. I love that because again, I'm visual. And I like to roleplay. That's going to come across really bad to some people, and I mean it too. But I love that because I can immediately put myself into that going, okay, just forget about everything in the past. And I love that. Love that. Well, this has been absolutely awesome. Time flies when you're having fun. Fun with finance. When you're having fun with finance with Emily Guy Birkin. So everybody, especially those of you listening, um, because we've been putting up the links when— if you're on our Shitting the Bitch YouTube channel, uh, emilyguyburken.com is where you want to go to learn all about Emily. You can also pick up her book there and/or Amazon, um, called Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management. Um, and then be sure to follow her on Twitter. She's got to be a blast on Twitter, um, at Emily Guy Burke. And Emily, thank you so much. This has been fabulous.

Thank you so much for having me. I've had a wonderful time.

Yeah, and you're, you know, you've helped me reconcile some things from a— oh, that's so good to hear— having fun. Yes, thank you for the reminders. It's, it's tremendous. Absolutely tremendous. Um, and for everybody else, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. Be sure to download us on any one of your podcast streaming services or go to our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Leave comments, ratings, subscriptions, follow us, and let us know what topics and guests you want to hear about. So please join us next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch. Thank you very much, everybody.

Bye! Thank you for taking part in Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV with Bernadette Boas. We would love to know what your biggest takeaway was. Go to Shedding the Bitch on Facebook or YouTube and leave a comment. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts and YouTube so you don't miss a single episode of the show. And with your input, we can help other powerhouse women just like you find the show and decide if it's right for them. Learn more about Bernadette at balloffirecoaching.com. See you next week.