Ep.40 🚨 Breaking Bad: 10 Urgent Habits Keeping You Broke and How to Change Them this YEAR!!

[CFM COACH ASSISTANT AI ]: Welcome to the Money Solve your Problem podcast where every week we talk about how you can become good with money in your pocket and in your mind by using practical life coaching tools and simple and efficient ways to do money math. Are you ready to invest in yourself? Let's dive into this episode. Hello. Hello, welcome. Welcome to the Money's not yout Problem podcast. My name is Madeline. I'm your host and we're here the beginning of the year and we're ready to take on more challenges and have more opportunities and enjoy all the things that we have coming up this year. Some of you might not see anything different from having last year and still just the same. I don't know. I like the clean slate, I like the new beginnings. And even if you just start on a Monday, I like that too. Now, last year you might have not met your financial goals and we talked about that on our last episode. So if you haven't heard the last episode, look for episode 39. And we do a I share about a tool that I I use it often with whoever needs to reset their ear or their goals. It's a review, reflect and reset. And that's an exercise for you to write down what are the things that you did, things that you did well, things that did not go so well. And then reflect, see what you learned from those things. And then if there are things that you did not achieve goals that you still want to work, you slip up and didn't do what you're supposed to be doing to get yourself in a position that you want to be, then you do a reset. Now we might do I have planned for our next episode to be a full reset episode only. And why did I do that? Because people have been asking me. Sometimes they need a little help through this guided exercise. So I have a few ideas for you to reset and some questions and a way for you to look at your last year and how can you make it better if you want to make it better? And how to set your yourself up for the future so you end up with more opportunities. Sometimes when we're working just on today, we forget that what your past self did, so now you're just collecting what you did. So if you ate too much chocolate last December and you enjoy all the holiday parties, then your today self is a little mad because you have some extra weight. Same thing right now. You might have opened your credit card bill that came in the mail and you're like, this is not gonna happen again. So if you got to that point, then how do we Go from there on, set ourselves up. So the end of this year, 2025. In December 2025, you look back and you see all the great things that you accomplished and where you are towards your financial goals. Now, if you want to do that for your weight, you can do that too for your health. You can use that system for anything. But of course, we're going to do that in terms of our money. So look for that new episode coming up on Resetting Now. Today we are going to talk about 10 habits that are keeping you broke. And then we're going to talk about how you can break free from them. That's a figur illustration for someone who's in bondage. And when you're in bondage, the thing that you're missing is your freedom. So when you're doing things with your finances, they are not very wise and they're impulsive. You create a plan, but you don't follow it. You just do what you want to do at the moment and you don't worry about your future self. What happens is you lose freedom because you lose that opportunity to spend your money the way you want it and to take advantage of opportunities when they show up, when they appear. I. I don't think too much in luck, but I think that if you're prepared, when the opportunity comes, you are prepared to take advantage of it. And when all the things in your life are chaotic, you cannot even see the opportunity. Or you might just beat yourself down because you cannot take the opportunity and you're going to be lamenting. Or you might say that you're a victim, that good things like that never happen to you. Well, you need to put yourself in a situation where you can recognize those opportunities. So let's talk about the 10 habits that are keeping you away from your freedom, your financial freedom. You might not do all 10 of them, but you're probably going to recognize yourself in a couple of them. And that's great, because then you can see where you are and you can decide, what are you going to do next? What is the next right step? And you can set plans to do that. Fine. You don't believe in New Year's resolution, That's okay. You can just decide to change something and go from where you are. I love the analogy of the gps. When you get in your car and you put, I don't know, I like to use Waze. So when I put on Waze and I put that, I want to get to, I don't know, maybe a place in Salt Lake City. I live in Utah. So if I want to get to a place in Salt Lake City and I put the address, then the GPS doesn't ask me where I was coming from. The GPS doesn't chastise me because I didn't take the other route. The GPS does not care where I'm at. It's going to go from there forward. That's the same thing with our goals. That's how we need to look at. Okay, fine, we got here. There's no use to fight with the past. It's already done. And I rather think that it happened the way it was supposed to happen. Why? Because it happened. If it wasn't supposed to happen that way, it would have not. So you might say, oh, that's. That's lame. That's not true. And I could have done this. I should have done that. There's no use for you to discuss and to complain about that now. You're just wasting your energy because there's nothing you can do about the past. So let's go from where we are, and we're gonna move forward. So take your gps, your financial gps, and let's get some awareness where we are so we can get where we want to be. Another thing that's important is figure out where you want to be. So if you just start doing habits, but you don't have a place they want to be, that's why we're talking about financial freedom and financial peace. Because if that's where you want to be, then I've done so many mistakes that I can tell you exactly what not to do. So let's go through our list of habits, and whatever you identify, make sure that you write it down or keep notes so you know exactly what you need to do to change it. Remember that habits are those things that we do mostly automatically. We learn how to do something, something we practice, and they just get better. The problem is it happens for good habits and bad habits. So if you want to learn how to ride a bicycle, you can go on a bicycle and practice every day, and you're gonna get better. Getting to a point that even if you want to do tricks with the bike or run really fast, go up the hill, you're gonna be able to do it. I have a brother, my brother Vlmir, that he loves to do bmx. So he's. All my life. I don't even remember when he was not doing BMX in my whole life. I always remember my bro bicycle, and he was always doing tricks and trying to do the coolest moves. And he has the scars to prove it. As a matter of fact, he takes care of himself in a way that he's still able to do it. He's still participating in competitions, which is kind of fun. Now that's a good example of a habit. It becomes second nature. You do it automatically. He doesn't need to sit on the bicycle and think how he's going to pedal the bicycle because it's very automatic for him. Now let's look at the other way. If you have a habit that you're doing that's almost automatically that, let's say you go by the kitchen and you grab something to eat or you open your phone as soon as you wake up. Those are habits that you're created, that you create. At some point you start doing them and then you just kept repeating. So you're better at those habits, but not necessarily they're not better for your life if they're not giving you the results that you want. So if you don't want to have access to your phone in the morning as the first thing that you do, sure, you have the alarm, fine, turn off the alarm, but don't start scrolling or looking at their emails and such, then you're gonna have to do something different to break the habit. So the first financial habit that's keeping you away from your financial freedom is the living the YOLO life trap. YOLO means you only live once. You know that voice in your head that said, well, I'm just gonna be at this state or at this country, or I'm just gonna be here at this park, or I'm only gonna be here at the mall. I'm only gonna be just this once. So I'm going to buy myself the $50 T shirt or I'm gonna buy myself this thing, or you see a sale like this, I need to have this thing. I only live once, I gotta enjoy my life. Well, that's a habit that if you do it constantly, you're always spending money that you don't have, or you always go over your budget or simply you're not gonna have the money to do the things, the other things that you need to do. If you keep that in your mind, this is gonna encourage you to spend more and more, no matter where going to find a way to, to justify why you're buying that because you only live once. So you're not worried about tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to come at some point. But you're like, no, I, I don't know if I'm going to live tomorrow. So then you just go and spend it. Not a good. Not a good strategy. And you can tell why this is going to keep you broke. You're always attached to the purchasing habit. Just buying out of the habit of buying something. And the thought that's going to lead you to buy something is, I only live once. And you might not say yolo because you know YOLO is not good, but you might just say, I'm never going to be back here. And then in our minds, we justify why we're doing what we're doing, find a reason why you're doing that, and something that's going to make you feel, oh, that's okay, there's not a problem. I don't worry about tomorrow. I think it's interesting how we do that with our brains. We know the truth, but then we don't say the truth, even to ourselves. I understand when you feel concerned about telling the truth to other people, but when we know the truth and we don't want to see it, then it's not only a habit, it's also lack of awareness of what we're doing. And all of us have in some area of another, we all have it in one area or another. One time or another, we already lied to ourselves and did something that didn't bring a good result. So the YOLO life, not a good strategy for you with your money. I remember one time where I did that for a little bit. I did like three or four times and then started getting too cumbersome and I'm like, this is too complicated. It was heavy. What was it? Well, I would take stuff from the United States to sell in Brazil and I would take the not very expensive things. I would sell the things that people would like from here, but they're really simple things that people would pay so much money in Brazil to have the same thing like shampoo, conditioner, hair products. What else? I would take makeup shirts and specific brands of clothing and I would fill up my bags and at that point, at that time, you still could take two bags to two suitcases to travel internationally. So I would go with three. It would be my daughters and I night. So then I would have six packs and I would fill it up, weight them to make sure that they were all okay. And it was always that fear of getting to the counter and they would say, it's too full, or this or that or in a couple times that happened. The car that I purchased the ticket was not the card. I didn't take that card with me. And so a couple times, they almost did not let us go into the plane. One time, I must say, it was a traumatic experience for my daughters because I started crying. I had all that stuff ordered. And probably if I didn't have a bunch of ganga to go with me, then I would probably not feel that bad. I would be disappointed, of course, and I would probably get the airline to change my tickets. But for me, at that point was a disastrous. Because I had spent a lot of money that I did not have. Of course, I would justify to myself that I was buying things that I was gonna make two, three, four times more than what I paid for. Because of course I know how to buy. I used coupons, I used deals. I did all sorts of things to get the best price. I didn't know how to price it right. I didn't put the stuff on paper. And I only hoping and hope only is not a good plan. But I always thought, this is the last time I'm doing this. I need to take this stuff with me. And it was not. It just brought me so much anxiety. And probably I traumatized my girls because of that. Then I would get to Brazil, sell a bunch of stuff. Not. I would not sell everything because some things were not very popular and I didn't know. And then we'll get stuck with a bunch of stuff over there, my mom's house. And sure, I would sell a bunch of stuff and make a lot of money. But then I had to cover the expenses for the trip for all of us, all three of us. And I had to. To get that money back to pay off that stupid credit card that I used to buy the things that I was taking to sell. Needless to say that either I have the money to pay for the trip or pay for the card, but I didn't have. I didn't make enough money to cover the credit card and the expenses because I thought, I only live once. I need to go see my family. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. So I'm going this opportunity, and I'm gonna take everything that I can with me. So horrible business plan, I can tell you right now. And of course I can look back and just be really ma disappointed and all that. But there were lessons that I learned. I got closer to one side of my family because they will let me go over there and sell things for their friends. And so I can see lots of good things. But the most important is I learned that even if I only live once, I am not going to use that as a habit for spending my money. And I encourage you to see where you're using this mentality so it doesn't affect your finances or your life for what it matters. This is interesting because we act based on what we think and what we feel. If you think that I only live once, you're going to feel deprived and with deprivation you are going to spend more money because you're going to try to fulfill that need that you're lacking something. That's how the brain works. And then what are you going to do? You're going to spend the money and with every action we get a result. Unfortunately, the result here is to keep you broke and you're not going to have the result that you really looking for, which would be the fulfillment of that deprivation, that lack of something that you're missing. Usually we think that something physical or something material will resolve the feeling that you have inside of lacking. But that's not how you solve the problem. You're trying to solve an internal problem with an external solution. To take control of your money and to take control of your life, take some time reflecting what's the need that you have that's not being fulfilled. If you want to take control of your money, you got to do this work and figure it out what is the need that you have. Otherwise you're going to continue spending money. You're not going to solve one problem and you're going to create another, another habit. Number two, budget. What budget? Yes. Several of you that are listening to me right now have your income and your check going straight into the bank account. But you don't sit down and plan how are you going to use that money? So then you just keep going and you tell yourself that you don't have time to sit down and make your plan. You keep spending the money. Eventually you get to a point where there is no more money left in the checking account and you're using the credit card to cover those things. And, and when you don't make your dollars behave, they're not going to behave. They can escape everywhere. When you don't sit down, you don't see those little expenses that you have throughout the day or the things that the kids need that you just end up buying because you're at the store. So I know they need this, so might as well just buy that and this and get that. Oh, but they also need this. Without a plan and without following your plan, you don't get your money to do the things that you need. Especially let's say you want to Be debt free. If you don't have a plan, of course there's going to be money left for you to throw at that of course money is going everywhere where it's supposed to be going. And sometimes even when you get a little bit more that you control with your money and you stop doing things that are working before then, the chances are you're going to have to go back to those habits. You get out of the habit and then you need to put yourself back. Sometimes it seems so much easier to go back into the habit of doing what is not helpful instead of staying stuck to the just staying focused on the habits that do help. Have you noticed how when you go on vacation and you stop going to the gym because you're on vacation, right? So you're at the beach or you go somewhere else, you're someone else's house and you don't go to the gym for a few days. When you come back, it takes a little bit of more work for you to get back and to go into the gym, get back to going on walks. It was a great habit and you had it down. But it's easier to break the ones that require less effort. Having a budget is really important. And of course some people don't like the word budget. They say this and that, it's restrictive. You create your budget, you put the numbers where you want them to be. Of course it gets a little complicated when you work with your spouse, but it's something that's part of learning how to live with, with your spouse is learning how to handle money together. You reach more goals and you have more buying power and saving power. When you work together instead of having the accounts all separate and you pay this and you pay that and then you, you try to make a, a balance of what the other person is paying. There's always someone that's always going to feel that they are paying too much more than the other person. That's not fair. Problem. You don't need that. Create your budget before the month begins, before the money comes in. Take in consideration different things that happens, different months and follow the budget. And I think this is the hardest part is to follow the plan that you set yourself. This habit of saying you're going to do something and actually following through. It's gold. Especially with your money. No pun intended. It's gold. Right? And you can use that habit and transfer that to other areas of your life. You will be like a superpower. You're going to get so many more results and achievements. Habit number three Debt denial syndrome. A lot of people, they avoid looking at their bank account. They don't want to know what's there because if they look, they see there's no money, or if they went over, they have to pay those fees because you went overdraft. Or sometimes you even get overdraft protection from the bank. And you don't realize that overdraft protection here in the United States, that counts on your credit score. So if you are trying to get a good credit score, then that might be hurting you. Once I found out that that was kind of like a loan that the bank is giving you, oh, I removed that right away. I don't want anything to do with that. In Brazil, they have that too as the, they have an extension. So if you go spend over, it has a limit that the bank will cover that for you. I think it's really funny. That's called overdraft protection. The only thing that is protecting is the bank's ability to make more money out of you. Now with the debt, it's the same thing. Awareness is key. You need to know how much money you owe and to whom, how much you ow credit cards, how much you owe on student loans, how much you owe to other people. That is very important if you want to get out of debt. If you don't know how much you owe, how are you going to create a plan to pay it off? And just because you don't know how much debt you have, it doesn't mean that the balances are going to get smaller. I don't know who was the smart person that said ignorance is bliss. At one point you're going to find out and it's not going to be the most appropriate time for you. Might as well just face the reality. Open your credit card bills, list down all your debts, see how much you owe, and if you want to become debt free, you have to start attacking that. And actually, some people don't want to become debt free. They want to continue using debt. And that's okay if it works for you. What doesn't work for sure is you spending more money and getting more debt while trying to pay it off. Decide what you want to do and use your budget as your blueprint to achieve your financial goals. Habit number four is spend to save. This is the habit that you have that you see things on sale and you end up buying because you're saving 50% even though you don't need the item or you don't even use that item item. But because it's on sale you're going to get it. It's a great deal. This one was a difficult one for me to break through once in a while. I still catch myself thinking, oh, I should buy that. And I'm like, no, I don't need it. Why am I going to buy that? Because it's on sale. So I have to catch myself from time to time. Back in 2008, when we had the house marketing crash and the big recession, I started couponing. I love that show from tlc. Extreme couponing. I have my direct connection with someone that used to deliver newspapers for his. My husband's cousin. He would just bring me the coupons on Sunday and I would spend two days just going through everything and cutting the coupons. I tried all sorts of different methods just to be able to use the coupons and save money. We got get. We started getting to an extreme where I was getting things that I did not need. I end up with a bunch of things in the garage. And a couple times when I did garage sales to sell different things, I ended up selling the things that I had purchased on sale. Never recoup the money, even though I might have say, hey, those are free now. I'm a much better shopper. I still use coupons, but I don't spend hours cutting coupons. And actually I had. Iris was a toddler. She was very little. She was a baby and a toddler while I was doing this, spent so much time cutting the coupons and doing all that and all that math. And it was fun, but it took a long time. And a lot of times I end up not using many of the coupons that I cut it. And so it was just a waste of my time. But it through a process where now if I decide I'm gonna buy something, I see if it's on sale or not. I see if I have a coupon on my phone or if I have one that I have in a little folder that keeps. That I keep in my car and then I go and buy it. I had to select a couple stores where I was okay buying and taking my time doing the coupons because in the beginning, I would go to every single drugstore. I would hit Rite Aid, Walgreens and cvs. Each one of them had their own reward program. And I would do all three of them. Then I would do grocery shopping. I would go to two different groc course to make sure that I would use the coupon that would go with the sale of the week. I printed so many coupons on the computer and it was just crazy. It took me a long time. And I remember listening to my life coach, Jodi Moore, and she said that she would not waste time with coupons. And I almost fainted. I was like, no, that's sacrilegious. But then I understood what she was saying. And now it's kind of the approach that I have right now. I keep the coupons, I look for deals, but I don't spend that much time. I don't let that consume me, my life. And I do not buy things that I'm not gonna use or my family's gonna consume. I felt prompt, almost prompt. The last. When was it? A couple days ago. I went to Walgreens, and they had all the Christmas Items for sale, 80% off. And I saw a box of chocolate from Godiva that usually cost. I don't know, it was costing$10.80 off, that would be $2. I grabbed four of them. That would be a super deal. But then I thought, I'll bring the chocolate home. Nobody will eat the chocolate. Chocolate either. I'm gonna end up eating the chocolate, which gives me headaches, so I shouldn't do that, or I'll take to the office. And I don't know. So then I was able to just take them out and said, I don't need this, even though it was on sale. And I put it back, and there you go. So I learned how to control that on me. But if you are in the middle of this, I understand. You see something that you use or something that you like, perfume, or if you see something, maybe if it's a play or an experience that you want to have, and you have by three days to get one more free. And. But having three days wasn't your plan. Your plan was two days and you spend more. If that's not on your budget, then this is gonna be a habit that would be good for you to take control of it. Understanding when you need something and buy things when it's the right time. So now I know if I want to buy something, I wait until they are on sale. And those principles are still valid. Wait until they're on sale even though you don't need them, and see if you have a coupon. Those are. Are the way that you can save money and have the items you need on time. Because we all notice that, especially during COVID where things were not anywhere you would pay whatever for the item because you didn't have, or you're afraid that was going to run out at your house. And when you buy Items at that point when you really need, you end up paying much more than when you just have it at home. One good rule of thumb for you to buy those things when you see a sale is that if you use an item that you have in your house, house, let's say laundry detergent. I tried those sheets of laundry detergents, but they're not good. I try for a little bit. They're probably helpful if you're going to travel and you want to take the laundry with you. Laundry detergent. But anyway, when I see the laundry detergent that we use a whole bottle already because there's three of us here doing laundry, then once I throw one away, I know it's time for me to buy another one. So then I wait. As soon as I see a sale, I buy a couple more and replace in the house. That way I always have. And I did not pay the super high price if I run out of laundry. So then I have to go get it at the price they have at the store because I need to wash my clothes. So there. Control your habit of saving to spit. All right, number five, fomo. We talked about yolo. Now we're going to talk about fomo. That's another way for you to, to not use your money wisely. And if you have that as a habit, it's not going to help you get to the financial freedom that you want. FOMO is the fear of missing out. So either is a sale that you think, oh, no, this is never going to be on sale sale again. If it's a grocery store, be prepared. They always have cycles where the stuff is going to go on sale again, the item is going to go on sale. So you do not have to worry. You might just have to wait a couple weeks, two, three weeks, and then the item is on sale again. I see this a lot when people want to go somewhere that they don't have the money for. You watch your neighbor get a new car, or you see people on social media, friends of yours, they're doing different things and you don't know their finances. But you, you think that you should be able to do the same things that they are, or going to the same vacations or buying the same items, having the same experiences. Living in Southern California was everybody was going to Disneyland, you must get a Disney pass. And in reality, you don't. You didn't have to get a Disney pass. But that's what people think. They're missing out on the experience. Sometimes you don't even like what they're doing or you like what they're having. You're content with the things that you have, but you see and you feel that you're like, left out, that you're missing on the opportunity, that you're missing those things. And you don't know other people's finances. You don't know where they stand. So this might be just a really, a misjudgment and a facade. People might portray something on the outside, but inside they might not be having those finances. They might actually have financial troubles. Many Studies show that 7.8 people are living paycheck to paycheck, whatever 7.8 person is, and if they miss one paycheck, they are in trouble. Another statistic that's really scary is only 63% of people in America can cover an expense, an emergency of $400 or more. You're making yourself too vulnerable if you don't have any money, separated for emergencies. And you know how it is when you don't have any money saved. It looks like everything that could go wrong will go wrong. But when you have savings, an emergency becomes only an inconvenience. Another problem that happen when you have FOMO is you end up dipping into, let's say you have a savings account, your emergency fund, when things are not actual emergencies. Because you don't want to miss that one opportunity. You don't want to miss that one sale. You don't want to miss that one fill in the blanks. Anything that you want to, you don't want to miss. Now I had to take control of that one too. It was really hard for me to have. I had the emergency fund. Sinking funds were gone. So sinking funds are the money that, that I save. We save to pay annual bills and maintenance of the cars and things like that. And we didn't have extra money to just say, I want to go to Brazil. So when I would see a ticket on sale, that I would look for it, and I know how to look for good prices, then I would say, oh, I'll take from my emergency fund, and then next month I'll put it back. Well, that's an easy way for you to deplete your emergency fund. And we have this thing in our brain that we can justify again, if you're thinking that I need to go, I'm going to miss seeing my people. I'm going to see, I'm going to miss this one thing. You're going to find a way to justify. And I used to do it all the time, and sometimes I still catch myself. But when we create good habits into our lives, it's easier to avoid the bad ones to come back in. Just like when you're trying to build muscle in your body, you need to exercise to make it stronger. Do not use your emergency fund to purchase items or use it in a way that's not for real. It will emergencies. Pay attention what you do and leave your emergency fund alone. I know it is easier said than done. I've been there. I understand. Especially if you're a mom, there's so many things that you see out there, so many opportunity for your kids that you end up thinking and justify in your head that those are emergencies, that it's okay, I'll just take it this month from the emergency fund. Don't do it. Maybe you could try something different. Maybe you could try to save the money first and then pay for the item or for the experience for. For your kid. Another thing that you could do is actually talk to the kid and explain that the family has different priorities and you're choosing to spend the money in another way. This is one of those conversations that's easier to have if you have been talking about money with your kids. If all of a sudden you spring this kind of conversation, you're gonna freak out the kids. And in their minds, they might make the situation 10 times worse. This past year in December, was my youngest daughter 15th birthday. And in Brazil, we also have a party, a debutante party, kind of like quinceanera. And my daughter really wanted a party. She really wanted the party. So we had already planned that my husband was gonna work teach his last class in California, and that money was gonna be for the party. So we had already decided. So we informed everybody that Christmas was gonna be really simple this year because we invested and we. We spend more money on the party. That was really important. Rite of passage. Our Christmas tree was one of those Grinch Christmas trees they sell at Trader Joe's. No kidding. And I really like the nativity set. But notice I did not. I want to excuse myself. It was not my idea. I offered the girls to put the Christmas tree up after the party. That would be like the 10th, I think. But they didn't want to do it because in two weeks we would have to take it down. So. So I just got that little treat and we still had a great time. There was not a whole lot of presents. And it was great. It was simple, it was meaningful. We didn't. I didn't resent anybody because I already knew that was not that much Money. So nobody had high expectations what they wanted to get for Christmas. It was great. And so I did not dip into our savings to justify me buying stuff for Christmas. I used some of the sinking fund that we already separated for that, but not in. Into the emergency fund. Okay. A habit number six, living beyond your means, getting into debt just to show other people that you have money that you actually dealt. You want to fit in. We all want to be part of the tribe. That's part of our brain. Our brain has those. Those three necessities keeping us alive, looking for pleasure, and conserving energy. At one point, it really did mean survival. If you would stay by yourself, the wild beast would come and eat you. But when you are with the tribe, it was a lot easier to protect yourself and defend others. Nowadays, being part of the tribe is not much for physical safety, but it's for emotional safety. Being part of the tribe is important to us, and a lot of times we do not have the finances to do whatever they're going to do. And we don't say to other people, no, I'm not going to go out because I don't have money to go out to dinner at this place. Or we feel. Feel bad. We think that they're gonna think less of us because we will tell the truth. It is uncomfortable to tell someone that you cannot go out with them because you don't have the budget for it. It's a matter of priority. You have to decide what's important to you. Your financial goal is to get out of debt. You're choosing that over spending money on things that are not as important right now. It's not that you're never gonna eat in a nice restaurant ever again. You can do it. But first, hit your goals. So take care of your family and create margin in your life where you can do the things that you want to do without putting a strain on your family finances. And if they cannot take the truth that you cannot go out because you don't have the budget right now, it might be a hint that you need to find different friends because a real friend would say, yes, we don't want to put any strain on you. If you're working towards a goal, we support you. We actually had that happen to us this past year and it was great. It was a relief for both parties. Both of us had extra expenses this past year, so it was just easier to let everybody know what was happening this year. All of us were a little tighter, so we were very clear and transparent about how we were going to spend Christmas and what would be our gift exchange and our celebration arrangements. It was actually pretty nice to not have that pressure on our shoulders and in our pocket. And just because it was simple, it didn't mean that we was less special. So it's different when you can tell someone, hey, this year it's going to be simple. When you try to pretend that things are well, that you're wealthy, that you have this money to spend, or you decide you go out to dinner and you end up paying for everybody, but you don't have the funds. You just create more stress for yourself. If you're a mother and you're listening to me, sometimes we'll go out. I remember just ordering the appetizer because it was the cheapest thing in the menu to reduce the bill of duty. The dinner, because I had volunteers to pay for everybody. Because going out to eat is one of those habits that is not cheap. You end up spending a lot of money. And a lot of times I would get myself in such a situation, financial strain just because I couldn't say no even to my family. I used to think, no, they deserve it. Or I was so tired, I'm like, no, I don't want to cook. And there you go, we'll go out to eat and. But we didn't have the money. So if you don't have have the money, don't be the person that always picks up the tab. Do not go and offer the most expensive place. Do not offer something that you cannot afford. And when people invite you to do things and you don't have the finances, don't do it. That's a habit that's going to be very beneficial for your life if you drop it. Because throughout the rest of your life, you always going to have someone that's better financially than you and someone who is in the worst situation. Financial, financial venue. But we always compare ourselves with those that are doing better or we think they're doing better because they're doing the same thing. They might be broke, but then they're spending the money. They have a life that looks like they're very well set up. Habit number seven, increasing the amount of fun money. Instead of having a goal, sometimes we get a raise at work and we adjust our lifestyle to the race instead of just keeping the expenses low and living within the same amount amount and using that difference of the race and put it into, let's say our emergency fund or putting into retirement or working towards changing your car, replacing your car. So you need to save that money to make the difference. Well, we end up getting that money just put towards fun stuff or extra treats because you deserve it. Why not, right? I remember sitting in a master's degree class where the professor, he was a statistic professor, he was talking to us, we're all teachers and he was explaining that if we always get our raise and never change our standard of living, we will be millionaires within I think it was 10 years that he was. And I thought, wow, that's an interesting position to be in. I had a student loan debt, I had credit card, I had no idea how to take care of my money. But that always kept, you know, I always kept thinking about that. And he was right. Keeping our living standards and our expenses about the same and not changing our lifestyle would have been very beneficial. We would have probably got out of debt much faster. We probably wouldn't get into a lot of debt. But we didn't. And that's okay. That's normal. Normal stinks things. But once we figured it out and we stay within our means, much more peace came into our life. I highly recommend that you resist the temptation to when you get a raise to go spend, spend the money and increase your lifestyle. The problem with financing for me is always this. You are counting on everything always going right with your employment. You're always counting that you're going to have that job and you're always going to have that income. And no, that's not guarantee. Something could happen and they fire you tomorrow. Company could go broke. Company could, I don't know, have a merge and they get rid of your department or you get sick or someone you're family gets sick and you have to stay home taking care of them. Life is very unpredictable and predictable at the same time. Predictable because something always going to happen and that's how we grow. It's not going to be everything going well otherwise there's no growth there. And we are here to grow. A lot of times we put ourselves in the situation where we create our own growth opportunity or experience. But if we can get the ones that are given to us and we're more prepared for that, that will take other learning opportunities. So have priorities for your money, live within your means and don't count that something's not going to happen to your employment or even your business. If you have your own business, you know how that is. You have peaks and valleys. You have to make sure that you have the money to cover those months that you're not selling as much or you're not producing as much. And having more business. Just like real estate agents, they make money, they sell one big, big house, and then maybe for another two, three weeks, they don't sell. So then that income is irregular. So you got to be prepared for that. Having your priorities in order. It's very important. All right, habit number eight, Money talks. But you ghosted. Nowadays, it's so easy for you to get information. I can name right now five financial podcasts that you can listen to. From the most fun to the boring one to mine right here in the middle where you, you could learn about Money. There are YouTube channels. There's so much information. And of course, information overload just makes us more confused. And our brain just gets so confused with so many options. So you have to narrow it down. This will make it easier for you to make decisions and what to listen to and what to learn. If you don't know how to do anything about money, you gotta start learning. And I'm grateful that you're listening to this podcast because that shows what one step that you want to learn and you want to improve your finances and you want to improve your mindset. Because believing that you don't need to learn about money or that you're never good with math, those thoughts are always going to keep you away from learning what you could do. There are so many things are simple. I do not do anything complicated. I don't do anything that I don't understand. And I can teach you that. I can teach you the basics. You just need the basics. It's simple. It's in the Bible. How we handle our money is in the Bible. What you cannot do is just avoid the conversation completely. You can put yourself in situations where you can learn. And I know sometimes you might think that you cannot be part of a circle that talking about circle of people that are talking about circle of people that's talking about money because you don't understand anything. Well, that might not be the circle for you, or you might just go to the circle and learn with them. I love this example from Professor Calabres. He's a Brazilian neuro, brain science behavior person psychologist. And he talks about how when he was little, he was in youth, he was taking swim lessons. Brazil, that's very common. You go take swim lessons at a athletic center just for swimming. And he was swimming and they put him in a lane that had just people that were really just beginners. The next lane over they had more advanced all the way into the professionals on the last lane. And eventually from this group that was on the first lane, the instructor came to him and said, hey, you're really good. You can stay here or you can move on to the next lane. So he started thinking, and he was talking with his uncle. His uncle was kind of like giving him directions, like his dad. His dad wasn't doing well at that time. And so he asked him, well, if you stay on the first lane, that means you might be the best of the worst. And moving on to the next lane, you are the. The worst of the better ones. Now, what happens when you're in a situation like that? You end up acting like the group. So he was gonna. If he would stay with the group that was not as advanced, he would be good, but he wouldn't have anything else to push himself towards because he already was the best there. But when he moved to a different group, that was the next lane, he was able to see other strategies. He was able to learn and push himself to become. Become as good as the people on that lane. Same thing with money. If you want to learn, you can start with the slowest part of the money and simple, basic financial literacy items, and then move forward. But you need to participate in the conversation. I know that people don't want to talk about money, but you have to put yourself in those situations. In Utah, there's a group of women, they're promoting women equality in business and finances. And they teach. Teach women from the beginning, all the way to investing what to do with money. You need to learn what to do with money. Money is always going to be in your life and the way you handle your finances. It doesn't matter if you're a single mom, if you're just a single woman, if you have kids, if you have just one kid, that example you're gonna set about learning about money is really important, and you're gonna promote that learning for the next generation. I came from a generation where we didn't talk about money. My parents didn't talk to me about money. I didn't bother to go ask. And so I did a lot of mistakes. And it's not their fault, it's my fault, because I didn't learn and I had misconceptions and I didn't talk now with my girls. I talked about money all the time. We sit, we do budget, and they hate it, but they have an understanding. We actually. I have actually a clause on my will that if they don't, when they turn starting 15, they have to take Financial Peace University, which is the Dave Ramsey course on money every other year. So they can get the money from that we're going to leave for them. They don't like that. My oldest one is out of the. The cutout because it was 21. From 15 to 21, they had to do every other year. And she's already 22. So she's like, yes, she wasn't even one of the years that she was the happiest to have a birthday. So go talk about money. Start talking with the some people around you. You. And that's what I create in my program, the CFM Academy. It's to create that community where people are learning together. And when we do the coaching calls, My coaching calls are all in a webinar format where if you don't want, nobody can see you, you're there. I know who's there, just like the names. But anybody else, they won't see who's there. If you want to participate and be coached, then you're open yourself up. And we learned so much from. From other people when they're getting coached and we're talking about money, their situation, we think our situation is unique and nobody else is going through that. But I can assert you that I can assure you that what you're going through, a lot of people are going through too. There is so many people in this world that of course we're all special. But the problems that we're facing, even though we think they're unique to us, someone else already passed through the same problem or they're facing the same thing and some of the else already solved that problem. So we can work together to increase our knowledge. You gotta be in the talk. Habit number nine, Finance 101. I never took that class. It really is just an extension of the habit that we just talked about, about talking about money. It doesn't matter if you had a financial literacy class that you had to take in high school and you didn't learn anything. Many teachers who teach the financial literacy class are not prepared to teach that class. They take the math test or whatever for the state, but they don't have a financial literacy test for you to teach at the school. I know because that's when I started. I had no idea. Luckily, the book that they gave me to teach the class was a book that was pretty. Didn't have an opinion. It was a very math book. So this taught. Just taught how to do the math calculations of the items like calculate, I don't know, interest in how change to budget and how to use the money from the budget, subtracting and adding things and it was very math based, which was great because as I was broke and I was just making lots of mistakes, I didn't feel judged by the class that I was taking. Eventually I started learning and going on the other direction where I was trying to. I taught a lot with the reality and I had all those cards to show my students and they were really fresh, but they were still two already scarce. And I was able to talk to them and show them reality. And seriously, my intention was not to convert everybody to Dave Ramsey, even though that would be great. And it wasn't to get everybody to think like me. But I know they were young, they're youth. I want them to have a reference point where if they made those mistakes, they could go back and know where to find the answers, how to solve that problem, how to get out of that one problem. And that's, that's what my goal was once I figured it out. That having no debt, of course we still have the mortgage, but having no debt, other debt that was taken away from our income and from our goals. Once I learned that, then I start, you know, being able to direct them in a better position. But for years I was not the best teacher for that. And so we don't get trained to be a financial literacy. If we have a good program, that's great. Dave Ramsey has a foundation and personal finance, that's incredible course. But you know, there's always a problem, funding and all that. If you took a class and you didn't understand anything or you didn't learn anything or you did not take a class because it wasn't offer where you were, well, you need to learn the basics. And when you skip learning on money basics because math isn't your thing or that you cannot understand, it's too complicated. When you put that in your, in your mind, you know you're not going to be able to learn. And you need to learn. Money is always going to be in your life and the lack of it makes it very difficult for you to provide for your kids for your life and have a great future. You have to be thinking about your future self. Even if it's just thinking about that time when you cannot work anymore or you don't want to work anymore. You have to think about that today. You need to learn. That's important. Okay, we got two. Our last one, I'll do a later syndrome. Well, my mother in law unfortunately just passed this week and I cannot tell you the peace that it is to know that my mother in law, my father in law already have their. Their trust put together. They already decided who gets what. Their kids know what they decided to do. They already have everything planned out, decided who's going to get what. Even personal items. I think they added some of those personal items there. I know that we did. My husband has a collection of guns and coins and different things. And he already has a sign. Who's gonna get what. Everybody who's older than 18 years old need to have a will. Even if it is just to tell them, oh, you want to leave your. I don't know if you have a collection of something or if you have a favorite T shirt, anything you have to put in there. Sometimes you have your own car, and you can put that. That you want to give that car to someone. It's very important to have that. And the most important part, eventually, as you get out of debt and build wealth, then if you don't have a will and you die, then the state will decide what to do with that. And they will take a big chunk of the money. They don't care who's gonna get what. They're just gonna do whatever. Is the procedure, the normal procedure. So if you didn't want to leave any money for one kid that's into drugs, so you don't kill that kid, help him die, or her, then you have to tell them, tell them, paper, write on paper that you do not want that kid to get money. Or someone is going to oversee the money, or the money has to be used for specific things. You can tell whatever you want on the will, and that's going to be great. But don't die without a will. I already talked about Aretha Franklin. She had so much money, did not have a will or a trust or anything like that. And half of her money was gone because the stake took over. And they find fees for everything. You have to put those things in place. Another thing that was important, of course we're talking about money. That's why I'm telling you to get a will or get a trust. Right now you can go to different places on the Internet. I know legal Zoom does that. Or Mama Bear. They do very simple wills, and it cost almost nothing. It's very simple. And remember that the wills have to be made on the state and the state that you're living. If you move to another state, you have. Have to redo it, which is kind of good, actually, because it forces you to update your. Your bill or your trust. The trust situation is you put everything into this trust. It's like an account and you put everything in there so it's out of your name. So if you have a lot of wealth and you don't want, let's say you have a business and you in a car accident and people recognize you, then they're going to try to say that they're hurting because of this, because they want the money. Some people do, would do things like that. If they're not in your name, they're in the trust, then nothing's going to happen because the trust was not in the car accident. Everything was in the trust. So you don't own anything anymore. The trust does. And that it's easier because you're going to have someone who's going to manage the trust after you pass and they're going to do what you want them to do with that money. It is very important. Don't think about, oh, I'll do it later. Oh, I need to get to it. You have, have to do it. While some people, we see them passing, other people will have car accident or whatever. And that's the saddest thing. Some of the calls and some of the clients that I've seen, that their spouse passed away and doesn't have life insurance or doesn't have a will and then what are you gonna do? The worst, if you have kids and both you and your spouse were in travel and you guys die at the same time, who's gonna take care of your kids as you create, create your will, you can determine who's going to take care of your kids. And always before you do that, make sure you talk to the person and see if they are willing to do. We had some friends when we created our will the first time. Our kids were, I don't know, My youngest was 7, so my oldest one was 14. And we asked this couple, they were really good friends of my husband. They actually. His. The, the wife introduced me to my husband. They were great people. They're super friends of ours, but they have kids with special needs. I didn't, it didn't even occur to me, but I wanted to give them, you know, because I thought that was an honor or something noble to ask them to be the guardians of our kids if both of us would pass away. And, and I was, I was glad that they told me no. The Cynthia, my friend Cynthia, she's like no, because she knows her situation. And I was so grateful that she said no instead of saying yes and them resenting us. So I went to talk to another friend and her, her and her husband, they are incredible people. They Love my girls and they were super happy for being thought so. It is really important that you create your will. Do not wait another week and not do your will. If you have a lot, then you start putting your things together and on another show we'll talk about another episode. We'll talk about how you organize your paperwork and all your things, your finances all in one place. But for now, just know you need to do a will. There you have it. Our 10 habits that are keeping you broke. But you can break free. The first thing is believing that you can. If you have the self efficacy, knowing that you can't do hard things. That's half of the battle actually. No, the first part of the battle is awareness. Second one is believing that you can. The rest is just steps. And I'll give you those steps to you throughout the year. I hope this was helpful. I hope, hope that brought some awareness and most of all that you're going to take action. You don't need to change all the habits all at once. Pick one habit and work on that. Thank you so much for listening today. If you have a minute, would you do me a favor? Can you comment, subscribe or share this episode with someone? If you think it's helpful, that would be awesome. I'll see you guys next time. Remember, money's not your problem. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I want to take a moment to extend a special invitation to all of our listeners. If you're ready to finally become good with money both in your pocket and in your mind, then I want to introduce you to a transformative opportunity. The Chief Financial Mom Academy. Our program is designed specifically for working moms of faith who are tired of feeling overwhelmed by their finances, constantly juggling priorities and feeling like they're all always broke. You will learn how to manage your money effectively, build wealth and achieve your long term goals through practical lessons, personalized guidance and a supportive community. If you're ready to say goodbye to financial stress and hello to financial freedom, I encourage you to join us@strasbourgcoaching.com join CFM again, it's strasbergcoaching.com J O I N C CFM. Take the first step towards a brighter future for yourself and for your family today. Thank you again for listening and remember, the future you who is good with money is in your hands. We'll see you on the Chief Financial Mom Academy. Ate Brevi Obrigada.