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I'm thinking about finances this morning and how important it is to have control of your finances because the economy is crazy right now. Uh having a budget is a huge thing. Not not being into debt. When you have these two factors under control, I think you're less apt to get worried about the situation. Knowing that we're stewards of money and not owners of it I think can help with the anxiety that comes with uh a shifting economy. Instead of blaming blaming others, instead of blaming ourselves or uh other people, whatever we and we when we have control of that those variables, I think it's it's better. It's better so being out of debt staying out of debt, living below your means you worry less about about things, about you worry less about things, right? And you're you're more worried about not worried about, but you're more conscious of the things that you do have already. And I can say this because I'm out of debt. We're out of debt, my wife and I, my family. We don't owe any money to anybody, and that that is that took a long process to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Uh now looking back, we used to be wanting to go shopping every weekend. Every time we got had some money, we wanted to go spend all of it. And then eventually we would run out, and then we wouldn't have money for groceries. And my wife and I would be stressed out, we'd be uh fighting with each other about it. That's when we decided uh like five, it's like seven years ago, I can't remember when we started, but it's been some years now, probably like seven plus years. We decided to we we didn't want to live like that no more. We don't want to live stressed out because of money, because it was affecting our marriage. I think we when we came to a a mutual decision, like this is what we gotta do. So we decided to get out of debt, pay off our pay off my student loans, pay off our credit cards. We didn't have any car notes, we didn't have a mortgage, we just had like it was like combined like 50,000 worth of worth of debt. The huge chunk of it being my student loans, which was like 46,000, and we'd paid that particular loan, those particular loans off in less than two years. Working like crazy, crazy amounts of overtime. We had free childcare. My mother was watching my uh our our children for while we were both at work all the time. We stopped spending, we got rid of a bunch of subscriptions, we sold a lot of we sold TV, we sold uh a bunch of my instruments just to pay off debt. We went crazy. We went ham. We just we were just like, we're gonna get out of debt. So we got out of debt. Along with that, during that particular journey of paying off debt and staying out of debt, we got on, we created, we created a budget, right? We had we decided where our money was going. We got a spreadsheet, we got a piece of paper. This is look, this is how much we make every week, every month. These are the things that are coming out every week and every month. And when we were looking at each of those line items, we were like, damn, do we need this? Let's get rid of this subscription, let's get rid of this subscription, let's take our phone bills down to $100 a month. Like all that we started looking at. Look, we can scrounge a little bit extra money from this, from this, from this. All that to say that getting on that discipline of uh arranging where our money goes in in the form of a budget, that was a game changer. That was huge. One, because we my wife and I were communicating a lot more often about money. Um, like we never actually considered having separate bank accounts uh because we understood what marriage was was whenever to whenever we got married that we were gonna have everything as ours together. Um so that was huge, and and I hear a lot of marriages have separate bank accounts, which other to us we were like, why? Like that if you're married, it's both of y'all's your money is is our our both of our incomes is our money together. Uh so that's how we that's another way that we looked at it. Once we got out of consumer debt, it what it didn't hit me un it hit me that it was paid off, but it didn't really hit me like wow, we have this money left over that doesn't go anywhere but our pockets. It that didn't hit me until like a few months to a year after, like because I was uh I guess because I'm that type of person where I'm in I'm a saver. Like I want to just save money. Like I I don't care about having an older car. My my clothes can be older, I'm fine with that. You know what I mean? My wife's on the other end of the spectrum where she likes to spend, which is that's that's fine. We balance it out together. We still make a budget, we still have a budget. Um we know that that I know that money is coming in uh in there. Uh I noticed that I kind of let go of looking at the budget with my wife because I was like, we're good, we're out of debt, we have a lot of money, the bills are gonna get paid, and I left that obligation up to my wife, and I'm just like, man, um maybe I should continue to do that with her, because that was a huge form of communication. Um yeah, that was just a little side note about about me. Um what else can I say? Yeah, I'm bringing this up because I'm thinking about how our economy is just everything's rising, everything's rising, everybody's stressed out about money. And in my mind, I'm kind of like, if we get uh if we get out of debt and have a budget, just those two simple things can help us to not be stressed out about it. Um and we can live with the economy fluctuating and things like that. And it allows me to continue to be creative, I want to say. I want for people to be happy with their situation, with their financial situation, and not run out of money. And I think that our society would be less anxious and less uh mean to each other if we had more responsibility with our money, uh uh our income, where we put our money. Saving for saving money for a rainy day, right? What is it like stu there? I think there's studies or even stuff that says that some people don't have enough emergency money for a thousand dollars for a thousand dollars. Something like that. People are negative in the bank account. And man, I I don't like to go negative in the bank account. Um because once once we once you let go of a budget, and I know this from experience, once you just stop thinking about that, like like you could you can overspend, you can get you can be like, okay, we're good, we got all this money, we're out of debt. You can get to the point where you let that go and you think you're so so free in it that you get back to the point where you start going into the negative because you're starting to spend more, right? And so you it no matter how much money you have, how much how little money you have, there's always gonna be that trap of irresponsibility with money. So we're talking ratios, like person that makes 50,000, the person that makes 500,000, the ratio at 50,000 is the same as the type of ratio at 500,000 as far as being irresponsible with money, because the level of debt at 500,000 percentage could be the same as the person as 50,000. They're still broke in a sense that they don't have any money after they've paid all their bills and all their debt. They're still without money. You can have $500,000 and still be without money because the boats are bigger, of course. You know what I mean? You got more vehicles, you've got more whatever, whatever, physical, physical things, as opposed to the person with $50,000, but they're still on the same level of being irresponsible with money. So we can think like, oh, if we make more money, then we'll be good. In a sense, kinda, yeah. If you'll be good if you stay on that means of the $50,000 income, you move to $500,000, you stay living at that $50,000, yeah. You'll have more money. But that's the problem, right? We get more money and we spend more money, and then if there's no budget, there's no responsibility with money to begin with, then you start to spend more money at that $500,000 level, then eventually it's uh it's out the window. And that's and I think that's why a lot of people, when they win the lottery, they get so much money, there's no responsibility with money at the onset. That's why we that's why they lose it. That's why they end up what bankrupt or whatever these stories are of these people that win the lottery. Uh so depending on it, your budget and responsibility with money doesn't depend on how much money you make. You can be responsible. It reminds me of the story of that lady that gave like like two pennies or something, which was like all of her income to the temple or something like that. And I think Jesus is like uh this lady has this much faith or whatever. And another passage, too, what was it talk about? Um I think it's a parable of Jesus where, or something where it's like somebody started building without counting the cost. Somebody started building a building or whatever without saying without thinking about how much money that they need. And then somebody's gonna look at it and be like, Well, this guy started up had started building without understanding how much money he had. You know what I mean? That's I and then it gets to the level of actual you know, council city council members, local authorities, state authorities, federal authorities, where they've got trillions of dollars to handle, talking about ratios 500,000 to 50,000 to 500,000 to 500 million to 500 trillion. Imagine if there's no responsibility at any of those levels, the level of of money that is in our economy is being like squandered, I guess you can say, or you know, people are stealing money, like it's there's just a whole stuff around money, you know, and it reminds me of that that the love of money is the root of all evil. So it's like money, that's how I understand like that money being a steward of money, meaning being responsible with money, is more important or is to be thought of rather than an owner of money. Because when you die, you don't own it. It's it's it's a physical thing here on earth, right? It's monetary, it's a currency. So when we I think when we shift from that money being like something to be owned to something that we need to be responsible with, that causes a mindset shift. Um therefore, like learn how to be responsible with money so that you can enjoy life enjoy life less stressful, less like wanting to take out your troubles out on other people, type of stuff. Um makes me think about material things also. So going into another topic, the topic of materialism and having things. I think whenever we're irresponsible with money, I think we want more things. It's just like this spending habits. Like we get a dopamine hit whenever we go to the store to buy something, right? If we know that that's a dopamine hit, plan the dopamine hit. Like be like, okay, you know, plan the dopamine hit to be something that you're purchasing that you want to purchase. Like, I I purchased this microphone, I purchased the camera because this is what I'm doing, vlogging, whatever you want to call this, talking head videos, and I just wanted better equipment. You know what I mean? Um if you're a spender, set aside some money, like set aside some cash every paycheck for spend, like spending money. Take out the cash, put it in your wallet. I've got this much money to spend for this week. When you run out, you run out, wait till next week. And that's hard for us. It's hard for me still, like because like stuff is getting pricey and expensive, and you get to the point where you're like, okay, well, maybe I can't eat out every day. Maybe I should take a lunch twice a week, three times a week, whatever. And then four to five uh three uh two other times a week, I can afford to go buy lunch or dinner or whatever, you know. And if you imagine when you're out of debt, you have more opportunities to spend that, to just more money to spend, right? So buying things that you want to buy is fine, like there's there's nothing wrong with buying stuff, right? You you want to buy stuff. And me, I'm the type of spender, like, I'm not gonna buy something unless I need it, unless I really I'm like, and some people that like it's which is fine. Some people want to just buy just whatever, just just to just to have the opportunity to spend the money, uh, and then eventually we forget about it the next week or whatever. Like, I think being that that type of per well, I've always been the type of person like, do I need this? I need a new pair of pair of shoes. Okay, I'm gonna go get some shoes. Uh, and it's never from like hardly ever, I want to say not never, do I just go spend to spend. It's like more stuff that I need. But all that to say, like, it's okay to want stuff, it's okay to buy purchase stuff, you know what I mean? Um, if you want something that's huge, you it's like, okay, so there's three things there's give, save, and spend, right? You you have money to give. You you buy lunch for somebody, you buy whatever, you give them money, you give them something that that attaches money to it. You give you give that money, right? You set some set aside some give money, you set aside some spend money every paycheck. Okay, this is the money that I'm gonna spend on a daily basis, not so much like thousands of dollars. Uh in in my case, maybe it's like a few hundred dollars to spend like at work or you know, whatever. Small trinkets, small things, and then there's your save category. This the save category is like saving for retirement, saving for a bigger purchase that may be thousands of dollars. That you're like, I really want to get this, it could help my business, whatever, whatever. It'll take three paychecks to save, whatever the case may be for you. Save for those three paychecks, and that's your save money. And then you go and uh spend, and then you go and use that save money for a bigger purchase. Say, you know, that's thousands of dollars, or say you're saving for a new, a newer car or whatever. That's your your save bucket. So in that save bucket, there's like two subcategories. One is like saving for retirement, saving, putting that in investments like like 401k or uh Roth IRA, uh index funds, whatever you how whatever your retirement vehicle is. And the other subcategory and save is saving for bigger purchases. Um could be a small car, could be a you know, a tele a TV or whatever these big amounts of thousands of dollars things are, like this microphone. Well, this microphone's not thousands, but equipment, equipment that can uh uh you know add up to a thousand dollars, whatever. But you get the point, right? Give, save, and spend. Those are the three main things that we do with money. Uh and the the material thing comes into plays into that in your spend category and your your your save category. Um, so just all that's and and I'm bringing it, like I said, stuff is increasing. If we had a better uh I guess understanding and more responsibility with money, then we would be less stressed out, we would have less anxiety, and we would have we would have more money in our pocket so that we don't feel like we're drowning in water, you know what I mean, or susceptible to drowning water, which is an analogy that I'm using. I'm trying to figure out how to word this, so that you're you're just less stressed out, less, less anxious about money. And whenever and whenever the economy rises, you're more I and I'm whenever the economy rises and you have these responsibilities and you have these understanding standings of money, the you're more comfortable. You're more like, okay, this increase is gonna happen, but we're still good. We're still living below our means, we still have a budget, we still have we're We're good, you know. You're you're comfortable in that with you're comfortable with the stewardship of money that you've had up until that point whenever you see the fluctuation of the economy. Um, and then of course, more with that, you can get into companies or businesses that use that on purpose that that use overcharging somebody on purpose. Because in that type of economy, people will overcharge just to overcharge just to make an extra dollar. And like being fair, that's that's a whole nother thing too. Like be fair with what you charge. And I'm not saying to like up your prices because you it's like you have to, as a business owner, you have to up your prices, right? Because things are getting expensive, your supplies are getting expensive, you know. But if you don't, if you're if you're if you don't have to like up your price, like then keep it fair. You know what I mean? If and I imagine if you're out of debt, it's easier to be fair. If you're in debt, it's harder to be fair because prices are going up, you have debt to pay, you're you're trying to pay it off faster, you're less anxious, you know what I mean? So in an economy that's unfair, you're not an uneconomy, but in an economy where businesses are susceptible to being unfair, when you're when you're a steward of your money, you have a budget, you're out of debt, you're like, all right, I see how it is. I still gotta buy groceries, I still need these things, you know, I still need clothes, I still need uh groceries, you know, I still need whatever, whatever. When the prices on that go up, you're out of debt. When you're out of debt, have stewardship with your money. You're like, okay, cool, I'm good. It's gonna go up, it's gonna rise. I've been with responsible with my money to where it's like, okay, I can gripe about it, I'm gonna gripe about it, but still, I still need I still need food. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to go buy groceries, whatever the case may be. So be it'll help you be less anxious and less stressful uh with money whenever the economy goes up, and you have you're a good steward of your money and you're responsible with money. Uh and when businesses be be unfair and charge you extra for stuff, you know, and that's the good thing about business is if it's not monopolized that particular business, if there's not only one business that does it, find a business that's cheaper. Go go somewhere. Find a business that's being fair, not cheaper. I'll say that. Find them find the business that's being fair with their money, you know they're being fair with it, fair with their prices, go with them. Because you can get that's why I said don't not not cheaper, but fair. A business that's fair and and not like price gouging. The business that's fair. Uh, because if you go with a business that's just cheaper, then it's the quality of the product it might be bad, the quality of the service might be bad, yada yada, whatever, so on and so forth. Um, yeah. So that's my spiel for today, you guys. Be responsible with money, be good stewards of money, get on a budget, live on less than you make, uh, save for a rainy day, and you'll be less stressed out, you'll be less anxious uh in your life with the growing economy and prices going up. So thanks a lot, you guys. I hope this helps. Y'all have a good one. Thank you. Bye.