In short
Jesse Mecham (YNAB founder, author of Never Worry About Money Again) argues that saving isn’t inherently virtuous; every saved dollar is money planned to spend later. The real skill is spending well—especially for financial independence “savers” who must transition into “spend laters.” He frames money as “for” something specific (freedom/options, ease/breathing room, and everyday “Tuesday” life) and says labeling spending categories reduces stress and worry.
Guest backgrounds
Jesse Mecham founded YNAB and wrote Never Worry About Money Again. He built YNAB from a personal spreadsheet started around 2004, later marketing it (including early AdWords and email), and iterating through tech and teaching changes.
Key claims
Most money problems stem from being bad at spending, not saving. Enough is relatively small (health, safety, comfort). Paycheck-to-paycheck stress is “asymmetric stress” that can be eliminated by timing buffers (e.g., saving for future bills).
Notable examples
the “50 cent donut” that made him realize frugality had suffocated him; retooling budgets with small “spend” allowances; a car repair as a test of whether inconveniences are emergencies; naming money for nieces/nephews’ college, bougie travel, or gardening for neighbors; “Tuesday project” for remarkable everyday life.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Purpose of Money: What's It For?
0:45 to 1:46
Jesse challenges listeners to consider what their savings are truly for.
“And ultimately, we come back to the question at the heart of Jesse's book, and maybe one worth asking about every dollar you have, what is this money for?”
The Skills of Spending and the 50 Cent Donut
1:46 to 4:53
Exploring the concept of spending well, illustrated by Jesse's personal donut story.
“Thanks for having me back after a couple, six, seven years.”
Learning What Money Is For: A Personal Journey
4:53 to 9:46
Jesse reflects on his financial journey and the importance of clarity in spending.
“It's a little circular there, but we'll take it.”
The Evolution of YNAB and Money Management
9:46 to 13:24
Jesse shares the story of YNAB's creation and its impact on personal finance.
“Talk me through the last 20, 25 years, were there inflection points for you?”
The Danger of Over-Saving
13:24 to 14:00
Examining whether it's possible to be too good at saving and its implications.
“I count myself lucky that I get to have a foot in all these different worlds.”
The Challenge of Spending Money
14:00 to 16:41
Exploring the psychological barriers savers face when transitioning to spending.
“I actually don't care for the advice that you see everywhere.”
Naming Money's Purpose
16:41 to 19:21
Discussing how to give meaning to money by identifying what it's for.
“Like, you know, who knows, but right now everyone's like, I am way more flush than even my best simulations told me I would be.”
Creating a Remarkable Tuesday
19:21 to 22:04
How to build joy into everyday life and the significance of living intentionally.
“And I think we just need to go through that.”
Taking Control of Your Spending
22:04 to 26:27
Understanding personal agency in financial decisions and breaking free from autopilot.
“topics, you'll think about like, um, you know, money that's for you.”
Transforming Inconveniences into Ease
26:27 to 28:00
How financial stability alters the perception of emergencies and inconveniences.
“And somewhere along the way, people, people lose that.”
Show all 23 chapters
The Mechanics of Money Management
28:00 to 28:35
Learn how inconveniences and emergencies are perceived differently by those who manage money well versus those who don't.
“So I tell Julie, and then the next day she's driving it and she's like, I didn't notice it, but now coming home, it is shaking.”
Breathing Room in Budgets
28:35 to 29:52
Understand the concept of providing breathing room in budgeting to alleviate financial stress.
“One of the things that money's for in the book, we call it for ease.”
The Weight of Financial Stress
29:52 to 31:05
Explore how financial stress can be an invisible burden affecting daily life and relationships.
“So if you go to your spouse and you're like, oh, how much did we spend on blah?”
Transforming Financial Perspectives
31:05 to 32:18
Realize how changing perceptions around money can shift it from a source of stress to one of ease and freedom.
“People carry this, I'll call it asymmetric stress.”
Defining 'Enough' in Finances
32:18 to 33:07
Discover what constitutes 'enough' money and how it relates to family, health, and happiness.
“And then you wonder why kids associate all this negative with money.”
Minimalism and Happiness
33:07 to 35:17
Learn about the connection between minimalism, happiness, and the importance of health and relationships.
“But if you're like, okay, your kids are still healthy.”
Curiosity and Simplification
35:17 to 36:56
Explore the concept of curiosity in life decisions and the journey towards a simpler, more fulfilling existence.
“And it's people who are, have just cut all their possessions.”
Community and Purposeful Spending
36:56 to 37:56
Delve into communities that emphasize purposeful spending and the philosophy behind owning quality items.
“I'm going to explore and just see, again, it's that Tuesday.”
The Balance of Extravagance and Necessity
37:56 to 39:44
Understand the balance between extravagance and necessity in spending, particularly in home projects.
“Speaking of subreddits that I love, one bag sounds very fun.”
Creating Beautiful Spaces
39:44 to 42:00
Learn about the joy and satisfaction of investing in beauty and functionality in home environments.
“It's a separate building and above the woodshop is my office.”
Reflecting on Spending and Parenting
42:00 to 46:00
Discussing the balance of spending money on experiences and parenting advice for younger selves.
“and then put them in vases in the house.”
Managing Financial Worries
46:00 to 48:00
Exploring the process of managing financial worries and how to find purpose in spending.
“And your final definition of being good at money isn't never experiencing worry.”
What is Money For?
48:00 to 48:25
A powerful question to reflect on the purpose of money in our lives.
“That's a call to action to everybody is to go back and go through your life.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Jonathan Mendonsa:Hello and welcome to Chooseify. Today on the show, I'm joined by Jesse Mecham, the founder of YNAB and the author of the new book, Never Worry About Money Again. Jesse starts with a premise that might make longtime Chooseify listeners a little bit uncomfortable. Saving money isn't inherently virtuous. It isn't. Because ultimately, every dollar you save is simply money you're planning to spend later, which raises a much more interesting question. What's it for? For those of us who have spent years learning to save and invest, that question gets surprisingly difficult. At some point, you have to make the transition from accumulating money to actually using it to build the life you wanted in the first place.
0:39Jonathan Mendonsa:Jesse argues that spending well is a skill and one that many great savers have never actually learned. We talk about the 50 cent donut that helped Jesse realize he had taken frugality too far, why financial independence exists on a continuum, what enough really means, and how something as simple as a car repair can reveal whether money is controlling your life or if it's serving it. And ultimately, we come back to the question at the heart of Jesse's book, and maybe one worth asking about every dollar you have, what is this money for? I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. And with that, welcome to Choose That Buy.
1:17Jonathan Mendonsa:Before we get started, I keep this podcast entirely ad-free for two reasons. First, this is a five podcast and I don't want to promote products that I don't want you to buy in the first place. And second, I really like the clean listening experience of a show where you don't have to fast forward ads. To keep it ad free, all I ask of you as a listener is the next time you open a travel rewards credit card, go to choosefi.com slash cards. And with that, onto the show.
1:46Jonathan Mendonsa:Jesse, welcome back to Choose Fi. It's good to see you. It's good to see you, Brad. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me back after a couple, six, seven years. I cannot believe it's almost been seven years. Yeah, a little bit's happened since that time. That was right on the eve of the pandemic, actually. It was. Little did we know. Yeah, yeah, goodness. All right, well, you just put out a book. Yes. I'm really excited about this one. Never worry about money again by answering one question. So I think the obvious, obvious logical starting spot is, what the heck is this one question? Yeah, the one question is, what's it for?
2:20What's this money for? This money that we work so terribly hard for, give up so much of our time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, tears, network, family, all of it. And then you get this thing called money. we fail miserably at really being certain on what our money's for. I'm actually glad to be here because this audience is like, my money's for investing. So much of my money's for investing. And that's the easy answer. The harder answer comes later, but we'll dive into that. But people give so much of their effort to earn this thing that they then don't know truly at its core what it's for. That is the tragedy that we're trying to avert.
2:59Jonathan Mendonsa:Oh, totally. I mean, let's dive into that right now because I don't think that's a sufficient answer at all. Neither do you, obviously. It's for investing. In my opinion, it's for buying your freedom. It's the JL Collins answer, which is, what are you doing saving money? I'm not doing it to save for some nebulous retirement or something that I can't quantify. I'm literally buying my freedom with every single one of those dollars. I think on the front side, that's pretty fantastic. I think on the backside of the skill of spending, that's a much harder thing still. Yeah, the book comes out pretty hard.
3:34I say that most people are bad at money and your listeners are probably like, yeah, they are. They'll look around and be like, yeah, I know I'm not like everybody else and we get that. Most people are bad at money and specifically, at its core, the money problem stems from being bad at spending. People know the advice, they know that they should save, although I take issue with that advice on its own. But yeah, they're bad at spending it. They spend it on things they don't really care about. they spend it when they shouldn't have, or they spend it and feel bad when they don't need to feel bad about it, when they can spend it and feel great.
4:05So it's just the one thing money is meant to do at the end of the day is to be spent. And we're really bad at, at doing the one thing money is meant to do.
4:14Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah. Why do you think that is? Oh man, it's, it's, it's kind of like, uh, if you were to go to someone and say, Hey, you know, how do you want to use your time? And they're like, man, tomorrow I'm going to get up. I'm going to do this, this, this, and this, but we're kind of wired to, I don't know, be lazy, I think, and conserve and preserve and find homeostasis. And when you're doing the work of figuring out what you really want to spend your precious money on, you're swimming against a tide that pushes you, right? I mean, it is not, you can't do this kind of laissez-faire, like this takes concerted effort.
4:52And so in that way, being effortful is not easy. It's effortful. Yeah. By its very definition, it's effortful. It's a little circular there, but we'll take it. No, it's true.
5:02Jonathan Mendonsa:It's true. And yeah, I mean, I think the human brain is wired to look for the path of least resistance. So something that is effortful. This is something I tell my daughters all the time. It's like nothing good in life comes from the easy path. It's almost invariable, right? That like you have to have a little bit of effort. You have to have a little bit of hardship, a little bit, even hormesis, right? It's like that little thing that might be a little difficult, but it's really darn good for you. It makes a big difference. Todd, our Wine App CEO, he says, we want to take the harder path that compounds.
5:34And that's, we talk about that a lot.
5:36Jonathan Mendonsa:I love that. So let's talk about your path in terms of spending, because I know in the book, you talked about the 50 cent donut that you had an issue with. You're kind of shaking your head sheepishly. Listen, man, we've all been there in some way. It might not be the 50 cent donut, but it's something. It's something identical, especially for a lot of people listening to this podcast, our savers. It's a continuum and we're all working on ourselves. I think that's part of the fun of being human is, all right, we know some stuff today, but man, if we ever stop learning, if we ever stop trying to get better, I find that hard to imagine as a life well lived.
6:15Jonathan Mendonsa:So talk me through this 50 cent donut thing. And then, and then we'll talk about where you are today. Julie and I married young. I mean, we were, let's see, I just turned 22 and had three years of school left, was going to get a master's degree in accounting, ended up doing that. I always took to the personal finance topics. I read the millionaire next door when I was 14 and like enjoyed it, you know, like that's a little odd. I read the richest man in Babylon. Uh, I remember rich dad, poor dad, and kind of being like, okay, I can see which way you want to go with this. I just remember taking to the topic.
6:50And so when Julie and I first married, we sat down and being newlyweds, you don't have all this baggage of like how you do money because you're so poor and you have no history. So we were just like, we're going to nail this. We're going to save for a car. We didn't own one. We're going to save up for a computer. I needed one for school. We're going to just eek by, and we're going to just check all these boxes, all the stuff that these books have been saying, you do this, this, this, avoid debt. Absolutely. We built this plan for our money that when I was walking past that little display case of old fashioned donuts, if you microwave them for 10 seconds, they are perfect.
7:27And I wanted one. I was on the way to class and I was 22. I could eat eight donuts. It didn't even matter. I'm sitting there and I'm like, that's 50 cents. There was no sales tax, I think because you're buying it on campus and there was some exemption. So we're talking about 50 cents flat. And I have this existential weight that was just like, you can't have that. You can't afford it. Money's already gone. It's already taken. And it felt like the very plan that Julie and I had crafted was encroaching on us. I come home that, I didn't buy the donut, come home and I'm telling Julie and Julie, Julie grew up in a much poor situation, single mom, school teacher.
8:07So she was used to something I wasn't used to. I grew up middle-class, maybe upper middle-class, but my parents were so frugal, they pushed us down to middle-class, I think. So that was how I grew up. Never worried about food in the fridge. Julie, a little different story. So when I come back to her and I'm like, I can't do this, you got the feeling from her that she could have done this for five, 10 years. Like, this is what we do. She had done it already in college, eeked by on nothing. But I was like, I feel suffocated. so we just kind of retooled the plan and the weird thing brad we took out minuscule amounts of money we were like okay both of us will get five bucks a month that we can do whatever we want with and i was like oh that's 10 donuts okay now we're talking and then it was like we're going to do some gym money like we're going to be able to go to the gym that was something we prioritized and a date once a week but like little caesar's pizza type date you know but still we were like claiming some of the money.
9:01And it was this weird realization where I was like, I should be good at money. I'm majoring in accounting. I've read the books and I felt bad at it because I wasn't clear on what my money was for, for me. And I had just let every book, every piece of advice kind of be mine or pretend to be mine. It was a bit of a crisis for me. And so it was the beginning of my learning around what money's for specifically for me. And then being able to say, wait a minute, this is, this is important. Like this is kind of the end all be all for people.
9:31Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah, it is important because it affects every single day of our lives. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's easy to say like, Oh, this is a money scarcity thing. Yada, yada, yada. Sometimes we get, and I'm sure there's some, some aspect of that, but like you said, this is a learning, there's a learning thing, right? So it's a lifelong evolution. Talk me through the last 20, 25 years, were there inflection points for you? Yeah. One was we had built this little spreadsheet for the two of us and then we get pregnant and we're going to have our first baby. We got pregnant on purpose. This is all part of the plan.
10:06Part of the plan was that Julie would be able to step out of the workforce. She was making 12 bucks an hour as a social worker for the state of Utah. And I was still just looking at school. I think, I think I was making 14 as like a audit, like an internal audit intern at this company. We were getting by and people were like 14 bucks an hour. You're like, yeah, but our rent was three 50. Like we were eking by people like, Oh, three 50 rent. Wouldn't that be something, you know, although it, the, the basement had mold in it. There was, there were problems, but you know, you took what you could get.
10:33So we're doing that. And then our first is coming along. And that's when I was looking at our situation being like, we still can't get through this. We'd been saving some money, trying to be able to write out tuition payments. I had a small scholarship that was helpful and we, we weren't going to be able to make it through my master's degree without borrowing money. And I was mad again, because I'm like, we're doing everything right. I don't want to borrow money. That was where the idea came for YNAB in the sense that I thought maybe other people will want this spreadsheet that I've built. So we literally start selling a spreadsheet.
11:07This is back before phones. Like people got to kind of like go back in time a little. This is before phones. Early 2000s. Yeah. Early. It was literally 2004. Okay. And so you're like, okay, this would work. So, and other people were selling spreadsheets for various things. So I put it on there for ten dollars. Nobody buys it Then my friend tells me it's too cheap. No one buys cheap things. So I put a one in front of it I sell it for 19.95 instead of 9.95. I started getting a few sales Adwords was five cents a click So i'm able to I went to julian was like 63 Is what we have is like seed money And we can use it to buy visitors off of this new thing called adwords and she was like, okay That's 63 bucks was half of our grocery money.
11:46So it wasn't nothing to us, right? So we get that going. And it was just enough to realize like, oh, people kind of like the spreadsheet, very few people. But in February of 05, I revisited my marketing copy in the website and I realized that the spreadsheet was enforcing a way of thinking about money. that was the first inflection point for me was like oh wait it's a forcing function for someone dealing with scarcity and considering all of their trade-offs and that was the beginning of what we still i mean even today we'll talk for the next while we're all we're going to be talking about is becoming aware of your trade-offs making a decision given the fact that your resources are finite.
12:31That's the end of it. That realization that the spreadsheet enforced this better decision making environment was the first. The next one was me learning that you should market to people through email back then. That also really helped. I was a year later, I was like, oh, this email thing's pretty useful. And then you just go from there and there. You start learning how like blogs came out. You know, you remember this, it's like this word called blogs and you're like, what's a blog. And then that comes out. Everyone started doing that. And then the phones came out And I was the first to be like, who wants to manage their money on a tiny screen?
13:04Well, apparently now basically almost everybody and on and on we go. So it's been a technological path that we've taken and also a methodological path and then a path on like how we teach it as well. So there's kind of three different, and they've all been interesting to me. They've all been fun. I count myself lucky that I get to have a foot in all these different worlds. The tech is crazy. the teaching so fun and we get to keep iterating on how we do it i love that so let's talk about
13:35Jonathan Mendonsa:teaching you're talking to the financial independence community these are people who whether originally or by virtue of finding us they are now savers yeah and i think that's a wonderful thing to an extent yeah but then i guess the ultimate question to you as as a teacher is, is it possible to get too good at saving? Yeah. I actually don't care for the advice that you see everywhere. That's, um, you know, people will often say like, I need to save more. That's kind of their, when they're feeling a little bad, they'll come to me. They probably do this to you too. They kind of want to confess to you a little bit.
14:14Be like, Hey, Brad, like, I need to save more. I'm doing this. Aw shucks. And you're just kind of like, it's cool. You know, but people will come to me like, I need to save more. I'm just, yeah, I spend too much. And I'm just like, this is so interesting. Like how much is too much and how much more should you be saving? And what do you, what do you mean when people do the analysis where they'll look back at their spending, not your listeners, but maybe people that are first getting a glimpse of like, I need to do something different. They do this analysis of their spending. And I, I would bet you a thousand dollars, not one person sees what they spent and, and thinks, Oh, I did pretty well.
14:48They will all say, oh my gosh, I can't believe I spent this much here. And I don't think they're necessarily spending too much. All they do is see a number and think it should have been less. And I worry that savers think it should be more and spenders think it should be less. So I would call your community spend laters. It doesn't roll off the tongue, but that money, it must, it can only be spent. When you save money, you're just deferring the spending of the money. You got to think spending only. Then it does two things that I think are useful. One, it removes this special pedestal we have for saving.
15:33Like, oh, how good of you. Like objectively good, period. It's a virtuous thing. Yeah. It's a virtuous thing. We do it with frugality too. And they're close cousins, right? The other thing that it's good is it, it lets you know that because money can only be spent, that that is the skill where you should, you, you should work on honing that skill of spending because it is the only skill really that matters with money. Now people will be like, Oh, Jesse, you mean like spend it? Of course I don't. I spend later all the time. We're going to go to Disney world at some point in the future. I know it.
16:10I guarantee we are with little kids. we will save money for that and then spend it with reckless abandon when we're there it's just meant to be spent later julie and i are going to iceland next month we've been excited for this trip for almost a year that's just money that's going to be spent there's no special category of savings and i think this will help a lot of people in your community when they make the transition when they're like i've arrived my safe withdrawal rate is gosh two and a half maybe like they're sitting super pretty, especially right now. Like, you know, who knows, but right now everyone's like, I am way more flush than even my best simulations told me I would be.
16:48So we'll see. They have to make this switch from saver to spender and it's a trick. It's not easy. It's there's real work there. Yeah.
17:00Jonathan Mendonsa:So, I mean, that obviously begs the question, how do you hone this skill of spending? And it's all part and parcel of like this scarcity mindset, I feel like, right? For so many savers, it is either this virtuous thing or they're doing it because they feel bad. Like the people you're talking about, whether that's somebody who's just getting started or wherever they are in the continuum, when you've been saving your whole life, it becomes hard to spend, but it's necessary. It's like, to me, it's when people have hit fi and they had this 15, 20 year plan, they won, they've won the game. And then it's like grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.
17:35Jonathan Mendonsa:It's like, you won, just spend the money. This was literally the whole plan all along to have a withdrawal strategy. You've won, you've won. You get to do whatever you want for the rest of your life. Just spend the money. But that's a little more extreme than I normally actually say to them, but that's what I want to scream in their face. How do you argue that someone can help change that mindset? And then we'll get into the skill of spending. Yeah. I think you would want to start naming what the money's for. that question of what's it for you just have to start naming it give it meaning money money has meaning because money is options money is freedom money is power money is all those things we want meaning for you we want it to mean something to you so name the things the money is for then it becomes meaningful when you say some of this money all my nieces and nephews bachelor's degrees covered.
18:31Okay. I'm spitballing. Of course. You can literally take a picture of your niece, nephew, set it there and be like, that money's for, you know, my niece, this money's for my nephew. That is meaningful. And it's not just savings. It's like now it's going to do something. That's one thing. It could be unbelievably luxurious travel, just bougie beyond belief, far bougier than I would ever handle. Although I can handle some bougie, you know, like just try me, try me. I can handle it. You know? So like you could do that or you could be like, I love staying home. I hate traveling. I hate it so bad. I want to grow food in my yard and putter around and share food with my neighbors.
19:16Go for it. Do it. Spend to make that part of your life. Amazing. When you name things like gardening, garden for the street, garden for the neighborhood, when you name it like bougie travel, college funds for the, for these kids, or whatever it is, naming the thing gives the money some real juice, you know? And I think we just need to go through that. It's not, it doesn't take a long time, especially if you're sharing finances, you'll sit down with your spouse and you'll be like, so big old pile of money. Let's just take one year, pull out one year's worth of withdrawal. Let's start to name it.
19:52Some of it's super easy. Rent, rent, rent, Airbnbs when we go here, here, here, whatever, you know, health insurance, this or that like, that's pretty standard, but there'll be a good chunk where you're like, boy, what do we want to do? See, it's funny. Cause the, you know, these five answers to the questions that we have that are in the book, everyone on this podcast is already like into the, or they will be into like fourth and fifth. You know, they're like, basically you need to answer the question of what money is for, for you in, you know, specifically and what, what money is for change that you want to see.
20:25It's interesting to be on here versus other podcasts where people are like, how do they break the paycheck to paycheck cycle and things like that. But yeah, going back to your question and my very long answer, label the money with its purpose, give it meaning. And you, you will find that suddenly spending is exciting. You're looking forward to it. There's some joy there, that's a good signal.
20:48Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah, I think that's really important. And even the categories that we might gloss over, like you said, there's health insurance, obviously there's rent. And I think for five people who, again, they've been saving so diligently for so long, the struggle is to flip the switch to drawing down. In my estimation, that's been the plan all along, right? Like that's winning. I think everybody really should say like, hey, look, I've got my annual expenses. This is where I get to live. This is where I get to spend an average Tuesday. This is my new thing, Jesse, is the Tuesday project. How do you build a remarkable Tuesday?
21:27Jonathan Mendonsa:Yes. And what does that look like? Because it's wonderful to have two, three, five weeks of vacation where you're doing whatever. But what about the other 47 to 50 weeks? those are made up of unremarkable yet remarkable Tuesdays. I love that. It's about the food that you get to prepare lovingly for yourself. It's about the place you get to live in. It's about the community. Like you said, getting together with friends or having board game night. I would just take pictures of all those things. This is what it was for. Yeah. I love that you frame it as the everyday because sometimes when I work through some of the book topics, you'll think about like, um, you know, money that's for you.
22:10And it kind of goes grand for people. They're like, I've never been to Malaysia, you know, or something like that. And that's cool. It really is cool. We don't want to miss the joy in the, in what I'll call the mundane pause for a moment. And just, you know, you just paid your electricity bill. Mine was $242. I just saw it randomly. I'd very rarely know it, but I just thought, I was like, Oh, I wonder if that's a high or low, you know, it's on auto pay, but I was like 242 bucks for this magical thing that happens so reliably flipping switches, all these things come on lights, AC. I sleep and it's 75 degrees in my room, even though it's blistering hot outside, like the magic for 242 measly dollars or the board game night where you're like, Oh my gosh, Here we are playing this card game that's been around for 800 years, yet it's so fun and it's just so real.
Read the full transcript
23:08There's no AI involved. It's just us in the moment and we're not putting it on Instagram. It's just here for us. That mundane. I love what you're saying about the Tuesday. There's an exercise I saw someone do. Maybe you've seen this before, Brad, where they were like, envision your best day. Start with your feet hitting the floor. What is it like? And they walk you through detailed things like I walk out, I start getting ready. I do my routine, this or that. And then when you've walked through this very detailed, like, what does a good day look like? Then the exercise is, well, what can you do to make that happen?
23:43And I think that's kind of where you're going. It's like, you can have it be really great, you know, 47 weeks out of the year with a little, a little bit of intention. This whole episode is just us being like, be intentional, everybody, you know, be intentional with your money, be intentional with you. the design of your day with all of it.
24:00Jonathan Mendonsa:It's so true though, right? Like that is everything. I think so many people sleepwalk through life. Yeah. The people who listen to this podcast, people in your community, they've kind of stepped off that hamster wheel to go way back to the beginning of choose a pie, the hamster wheel. And it's like, and they woke up and they said, life can be great. I get, if I'm really lucky, 80 or 90 years in this planet, I don't want to spend more than I have to any one day more than I have to working when I can rest control of my life and build a great weekday. To me, that comes down to little micro things of like, I'm now in a walkable community, which as you know, in America is almost impossible to find, but we did that very purposely.
24:48Jonathan Mendonsa:I drive almost zero. Now we're going down to one car because we just don't drive at all. Like you said, that envisioning exercise of putting your feet on the ground, where are you going to have that morning coffee? Are you going to be cooped up? Are you going to be running around? Are you going to sit outside and enjoy morning sunlight? These little things, they matter a lot. And like being able to walk places and not be bounded by massive highways or other four lane roads. Again, it sounds micro, but the little things are the big things in life. They absolutely are. The little things hit you.
25:22I mean, it's a steady flow, right? It's a steady flow. No one ever envisions themselves getting up first thing, grabbing their phone, sticking it in their face and swiping. Nobody ever does that. Like they don't envision that, but it's amazing when you talk about the sleepwalking. And I mentioned kind of going against the current. What you're describing is that what I'm describing is that where you just say, okay, spending is on autopilot. Like I make enough money. Why can't I get ahead? A lot of people come to us because that's that feeling. They carry this worry around and they're making way more than they were 10 years ago.
25:58And their 10 year ago self would have been like, if I make that much money, I will never worry about money again. Then here they are on autopilot sleepwalking. And we can like use the word rest, which I love. Just you're resting control from, we'll just throw some tinfoil on and call it the system and you can just put whatever you want inside it, but you're resting control from that. You're, you're acting as an agent in your own life. Like I have agency, I get to choose. And I mean, choose FI is you're literally saying just choose it. It is a choice for you to make. And somewhere along the way, people, people lose that.
26:38I mean, it gets muted that they have choice. They have agency here. And they really can change their trajectory at any moment. The moment they choose, the trajectory changes.
26:49Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah, the elusive they. Yeah. Whatever here, like they are controlling me in some way. And in fairness, there are some aspects of that. It's not all tinfoil. It's okay. Well, if you're living paycheck to paycheck and your life would fall apart in 90 days if you lost your job, if you couldn't find another one. Yeah. All right. Well, the they who are my bosses or whoever it is, that actually matters. But what if you had a little bit of space? It's a continuum. It's not. And I know you talk about this specifically. Like we are on the exact same wavelength of what you have in your book and what we talk about here at Choose a Fiat.
27:26Jonathan Mendonsa:The first time you have$1 ,000,$2 ,000 saved up, are you at FI? No, obviously you're laughably far from FI. But do you have a whole hell of a lot more power than you did when you were living paycheck to paycheck? Without question. Without question. It's funny because you actually mentioned a Tuesday when you're talking about the random expense of your car breaking down or something. It's just like, that's not an emergency. That's just life. That's part of life. When you have zero dollars, it is an emergency. Yeah. Just yesterday. No, two days ago, I'm driving. We have an SUV because we got seven kids.
28:00And it starts shaking. I'm at like 35 miles an hour. and starts shuddering. And you're like, oh, geez. And then it stops. And I'm not a car guy. I'm like, okay, shaking bad. That's the extent of my diagnosis. So I tell Julie, and then the next day she's driving it and she's like, I didn't notice it, but now coming home, it is shaking. So there you are. You're like, oh, geez, we got to send it to the mechanic. It's transmission for sure. And it's going to be annoying. But we often talk when you're bad at money, inconveniences are emergencies. And when you're good at money, emergencies are inconveniences and you can get there a thousand, 2000,$3 ,000.
28:38It makes a world of difference. One of the things that money's for in the book, we call it for ease. That's the third category. And it doesn't mean martinis on the beach. It just means that the system itself is easy to run. It's easy to maintain. What it is, is you talking about getting that breathing room where someone says, okay, paycheck one is all for rent. That's their game. And then paycheck two is a little bit for rent. And then for these, this, this, and this bill. But what we get is users get to where they are going. Like, I have money now and I'll use that money next month for next month's bills.
29:18And then they earn money next month. They do it for the next month. And so what they start to do is set aside money for like rent two months from now. And it's like, it kind of breaks their brain at first, but in the best way where it's like, wait a minute, here I was just stressed being like right on the edge. It would be like if you and I were hiking Kilimanjaro and the whole time we're just on this razor's edge, like it would be an exhausting hike, let alone the fact that we're climbing. But the fact that we're so close to an edge is on its own an exhausting situation. And people live that way.
29:5180 % of people live that way all the time. So if you go to your spouse and you're like, oh, how much did we spend on blah? Suddenly it's not just this, you know, harmless question of like, I need some clarity on how much we spend. Suddenly it's like this, it's an attack. It's, it's loaded. It's emotional because you're walking on this razor's edge of paycheck to paycheck timing with bills and, and all that. So some of the money we assign, it's a pretty uniquely to YNAB thing where we just say, save up money where if all your bills per chance landed on the first of the month, you could still just pay them and keep going.
30:27And all we're doing is just drawing a line in the sand and breaking, giving them space between when they earn the money and when they spend the money. It just makes everything better in the sense that like you're at work now and you can just be at work being creative, adding value, killing it, right? The stress that people care, you know how the markets, they talk about asymmetric risk and then symmetric. If you have symmetric risk, it just means the market, all market risk. But if you have asymmetric risk, it's like, that's risk that you don't need to carry. You could get rid of that risk and still get the returns.
31:01So it's a little bit of almost a free lunch. People carry this, I'll call it asymmetric stress. It is stress that they could get rid of and it does not add anything. There's no extra clarity they get from it. There's no extra motivation they get from it. It is just a cost and they can just shed it and then go on about their day. They don't even, it kills me, right? Cause they don't even realize that they're carrying it around. You know, it's like if I stuck a big rock in your backpack when we were hiking Kilimanjaro and didn't tell you, then suddenly you'd be like, wait, I was carrying what? That's how people feel with this paycheck to paycheck trap they're in.
31:37I mean, now you have all this tech, we get pitched on it all the time where people are like, we'll pay you daily. We'll pay you daily. And sure, like have people not wait to get paid. I guess that's fine, but they're touting it as a way to solve the paycheck to paycheck issue when really it's just them being like, well, here's the money sooner that you're going to spend sooner. It doesn't give them any breathing room, you know, still. And anyway, it's, I'm, I'm gone on a tangent now with that, but 80 % of Americans walk around, they can't handle a$400 hit. And it just doesn't have to, just does not have to be that way.
32:14Now, the amount of stress, it's hard to even fathom that.
32:18Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah. And then you wonder why kids associate all this negative with money. They've been raised by parents that carried that stress and kids read the room. They don't have to know even the words you're saying. And they can be like, wait, the vibes here. I think kids say vibes now. It's like The vibes are off. They're raised with this negativity around money. Money is a source of stress instead of money being a source of optionality, joy, freedom, all those things. Yeah. Yeah. And removing, like you said, that paycheck to paycheck. I know last time it was funny because I listened to our first episode, episode 165.
32:53Jonathan Mendonsa:And I talked about how I keep an extra five grand in my checking account just for giggles basically. But it's really, it's stress mitigation. that's the whole thing because i never want to worry about timing of anything yeah if you ever were like oh i better check the bank before i do x you shouldn't there should be enough padding where it just is never a thing yeah totally agree jesse i'm curious what's your definition of enough when it comes oh geez man just just a light question for you yeah geez what what is enough enough is enough money i mean at the end of the day if you were really really to push me on it i'm going out on a limb here everybody okay this is in jesse practiced doing a lot of interviews where he knows how to answer this question this is this is from the hip i think enough money is actually very very little when push comes to shove okay i think uh you would take almost everything away.
33:54But if you're like, okay, your kids are still healthy. They're still being fed. You still have shelter that's comfortable, like protects you.
34:06Yeah. The kids are safe, healthy, pretty comfortable. We'd be all right. Yeah. That would be enough. I don't want to go so far as to say everything else above that is gravy, but I think enough is pretty small. you just got to peel that onion all the way down be like jesse how much money would you give up to make sure your kids were you know the if the alternative was they're not healthy they're not safe they're not comfortable what amount of money would you give up maybe like oh i'd give up all of it yeah i think that's how i figure out what enough is thanks for the question
34:39Jonathan Mendonsa:brad i appreciate that yeah you bet my friend that's uh it's something i've been thinking about lately too and it's an interesting one because i think so many people we all grow up we think that these external things somehow impact our happiness and i have yet to find one thing externally outside of my own brain and outside of the people that i love that brings me happiness and that's you know it's health and it's relationships you know that's not to say i don't enjoy experiences etc but for sure i need very very little like i've been experimenting with this lately i mean it's been a really interesting not only thought exercise but an actual an actual plan of getting rid of a lot of stuff i've moved a couple times recently i've had some things going on in my life that have led to some moves i just keep ruthlessly cutting no joke i've been exploring there's this reddit community called the one bag community and it's like, I already love it.
35:41I can already tell, dude, it's amazing.
35:43Jonathan Mendonsa:You got to check it out. It's our slash one bag. And it's people who are, have just cut all their possessions. They're at the point where they can travel around the world with one backpack. Not even like I'm down to one carry on suitcase. That's pretty much almost all of my possessions can fit in one carry on suitcase. And now it's okay. Can you go further still? And it's not to say this is virtuous. Like again, going back to like, what is and what isn't it? I'm not telling anybody to do this. I'm just saying this has been really clarifying for me. Yeah. Well, what I'm hearing in your voice is really positive.
36:15I can tell you're coming at it from a place of curiosity. You can't argue with curiosity, man. I mean, you're talking to a guy that's in the process of building a home with a separate woodshop. So like, I can't even fit all my tool. I have to cut my tools down to get in that woodshop, but we're, we're on different wavelengths at the moment on kind of what's exciting us, but I can tell that it's exciting to you. And so, yeah, more power to you, like learn more, figure it out, share what you learn. Keep going with it.
36:47Jonathan Mendonsa:That's so awesome. And that's the fun part about the skill of spending. I'm not saying I'm going to sit and stare at a wall for the rest of my life. That's not it at all. I'm going to travel. I'm going to explore and just see, again, it's that Tuesday. How can I find the best Tuesday somewhere in the world? and it might just frankly it might be here in richmond where we are currently because this place is phenomenal we've we've tried to curate that as much as we can that's not to say also this is a season of life my partner aaron is has had a wood shop at her house in cincinnati before she moved that was her thing and she had to call down a lot of her a lot of her you would have loved it but uh who's to say we don't build that back up someday yeah absolutely curiosity is my favorite word.
37:30I think it's my word of the year. I didn't, I didn't, I normally formally give myself a word of the year and I didn't for 26. I don't know why, but if I were to retroactively fit one, it's curiosity. I like it. You can be curious about what I'm saying. I can be curious about what you're saying and then both just gain, like we just gain from it. And we don't have to judge because we don't have to come to any, I don't even have to conclude on what you're doing. I can just maintain curiosity, open-ended and just let it come. Speaking of subreddits that I love, one bag sounds very fun. Just to scroll and read would be so entertaining.
38:06Another one that I love is the buy it for life, you know, biffle. Yes. I love that subreddit. That's like, if I were to start another company, I would want to build a toaster that lasts at least 50 years. Like I would call it the heirloom toaster and it's meant to be passed down. And I've talked about it so often. I hope someone else is like, well, that guy keeps talking about, but I'm actually going to do it. I hope they do. Those little, like the Biffle community. I love that. It's like anything where they're like, Oh, boots. Are we talking about boots? Oh, let me. And then you're like down a one hour rabbit hole on, you know, boots, right?
38:36It would merge nicely with that one bag community because you'd be like, well, wait a minute. If I am down to very little, this stuff needs to last. It needs to be reliable. It needs to be repairable. Love it.
38:47Jonathan Mendonsa:Oh, you need to be very purposeful. And I think this again is what you're talking about in the book, which is the skill of spending, regardless of whether it's for your woodshop or my one bag. Like years ago, if you had talked to me six years ago, literally the last time we chatted, most of my wardrobe would have been shirts that I got at FinCon or other conferences that I got for free. There's nothing wrong with that. They're great shirts. But now I'm buying Merino shirts that are probably 50 plus dollars a shirt or the ones I found are in the 40s. So they're pretty cheap for Merino, but they're fantastic and they last forever.
39:19Jonathan Mendonsa:I can wear them around the world out to a restaurant or hiking. And it's like, okay, well, that's pretty phenomenal. The secrets of wool, man. Don't underestimate wool. It's been around a long time. It's good stuff. Yeah. So I asked you on the answer to enough on the more minimalist side of truly, what is the minimum? And it is truly enough. But on the other side, what are things that are extravagances in your life? Oh, yeah. I think the woodshop. It's a separate building and above the woodshop is my office. So it's serving two purposes, but it's, come on, you know? It's a woodshop. Let's be clear.
39:55It's a woodshop. It only cost me$300, but I had, when they laid the foundation, I had them run six inch conduit in there for dust collection, which your partner would appreciate because then it's like you've got, everything's connected. There's no ducting coming down anywhere. And all that sawdust is getting sucked away into the perfect pool. Can I interrupt you?
40:14Jonathan Mendonsa:She literally sells, her business is selling dust collector bags on Amazon. Are you serious? Oh, I don't need to buy it from her then because that's, yeah. But guy farms, fine. It's just that one little nice to have. And like, I ran one to the center of the room where the, where the table saw will be. So yeah, that's just a little extravagance where I feel like because we're on the process of building home right next to our, our current home, I've been really enjoying spending money on things that are beautiful. they'll come to me and they'll say we're going to do this with the fireplace you know it's like kind of a standard i don't know what you call it even you guys are i'm totally showing how naive i am with all this but like the inset of a fireplace right the packing you know and they're like we can have this this kind of come standard or we can have a brick mason come in and lay this brick in this really nice pattern and you look at the picture you're like that's beautiful like that's just, that's a beautiful design done by a brick Mason here in Utah.
41:09And I'm like sold, you know, or some of the finished carpentry on it. I'm like, that is objectively beautiful. And I find myself really taking to that. Um, I'm a huge landscape guy, huge gardening guy. I've always loved the idea of having spaces, outdoor spaces that just feel like sanctuaries, like havens. And so this whole idea, I mean, we've been working on it for a long, long like years, but it's finally coming together. And I'm really enjoying being able to design like these outdoor like sanctuaries. It's quiet. It'll be beautiful for its own sake. There's even an area for a flower garden.
41:47I've always just grown food because it's functional and you eat it and it's calories and we need it. But this go around, I have this extra area carved out just for flowers. And I keep telling Julie, I said, we'll have arrived when we go out there and cut flowers and then put them in vases in the house. the end. You know, we aren't selling them, you know, we'll give them away or whatever. There's no Instagramming on this, this stuff. This is just us being like pretty flowers grown here by us, pretty flowers in the house, the end good enough, you know, for its own sake. So you're talking to a guy that's literally like in the throes of this project.
42:23So it's on my mind. And, um, that's where a lot of our money has been going lately. And it's been so much fun, So much fun to have this beauty kind of start to come. You're seeing it, you know, you're seeing it appear out of nowhere. My, my 25 year old self would have been so judgy of me, but I would have given him some advice as well. I've been like, Hey man, chill out a little bit, soak it up. Maybe just enjoy those little kids when they're so tiny and just maybe chill a little.
42:55Jonathan Mendonsa:Tell me more about that. I struggle with this because I think for a lot of us, the skill of spending and really the skill of saving at the beginning of your five journey, saving is really important. Yeah. I don't think there's any way to argue otherwise, but you can't wish it away. It's not about reaching a number in a spreadsheet. I think you and I both know that and we're trying to impart that on people, but what would you tell your 25 year old self? Because a lot of those habits really helped you in life, but some of them didn't serve you. Could you go back and like to really dial in, like what would you tell that former version of yourself?
43:37I'd say where, where he killed it. If I were to praise him first, where he killed it is he and Julie young, Julie sacrificed and just kept putting all the chips back on the table for the business for years, years and years. I mean, 2009, I remember going to Julie and being like, we have not launched our latest version yet. We need the money. We're going to take a salary cut. Her only question was, will it affect groceries? Okay. Literally the meat and potatoes situation.
44:07Jonathan Mendonsa:Yeah. So I'm like, no, no, no. It should be good on groceries, but everything else kind of needed to be cut. And then literally seven years, no, six years later, same thing. We were transitioning to a subscription model from the antiquated desktop license model. and I went to her, I was like, we have to do the same thing we did six years ago. We got to cut like 50 % salary at least. And so in that way, like the young Jesse, young Julie, they were willing and didn't even think much of it. It's like, of course we do this. So like my hat is off to him for just being like, way to go. You took risks.
44:39You kept putting money back on the table. I don't think I would have any money advice for him. I think I would just have parenting advice or I would just assure him, Hey, like the kids turn out as far as I can tell 20 years ahead of you, they turn out pretty great. Whatever you're doing, get mad a little less, but like you're doing okay. Um, I probably just give him assurance. I mean, what else would you want as a 25 year old? Right? Yeah. Yeah. You're doing okay. You're trying like he was trying. So that judgy comment was a little judgy on my side where he used to feel like if it didn't make money sense, It didn't make sense.
45:16And I've evolved from that. There's so much more to money than just the spreadsheet, the number, the compound interest rate, the safe withdrawal rate. You work so hard for your money. You got to make sure that it's doing what you and only you want it to do. Yeah.
45:35Jonathan Mendonsa:I think it's important to give ourselves grace. We're just trying to do a little better the next day. I think we call this just 1 % better. It's like the aggregation of marginal gains. It's compounding. Can I just try to do a little bit better? But yeah, that reassurance, it would be pretty nice. It would have been pretty nice at 25 to know, hey man, you're on the right path. You're killing it. Just keep on moving forward. I think a lot of us do have financial worries, even when maybe when we have enough? And your final definition of being good at money isn't never experiencing worry. Is there a process for responding when that worry comes up?
46:13Jonathan Mendonsa:I'd love for you as we close out to talk about that. Yeah. Well, I've mentioned the house that we were building and that the beginning of that house project where it was finally like moving dirt and it was becoming real and not just all on paper. That was the impetus for me suddenly feeling this worry pop in. And I was like, huh, I have not felt this. I, we weren't opening ourselves. I'm still very conservative and yeah, it surprised me. Uh, so we just went back to the question. It's like meditation, you know, just go back to your breath in, out, in, out, and, um, you just go back to the fundamentals and the fundamental question to remove worry, uh, around money is just to say, okay, what is my money for?
46:55And that's what I did. I just literally pulled open my phone, just looked at it and been like, this money's for this, this money's for this, dance, golf, all the kids' activities, the magic of electricity that was there, I'm sure. But yeah, just ask yourself the question, answer the question, say what your money is for, label it, give it meaning, and the worry, it went away again. So yeah, the book makes a bold promise, never worry about money again. But I hope in the conclusion, people allow me a little bit of, I mean, one, you got to allow me a little bit of marketing on that title.
47:30Jonathan Mendonsa:It's a good title. Come on. Yeah. But the conclusion is, you know, of course, that'd be like me saying like, hey, dunk a basketball. And then I have a bunch of 60 year olds, right? And be like, hey, this doesn't work. I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I meant it for the 20 year olds. You know, I apologize. But that the promise of never worry about money again, of course, money, worry can pop back in because life is changing. We're in this dynamic situation, but we can handle it. And that's how you just ask yourself what it's for. And you answer that question. I love it. What is money for? That's a call to action to everybody is to go back and go through your life.
48:06Jonathan Mendonsa:Do that envisioning exercise. Look at your budget. Look at what you spend every year and just figure out what is this money for? What am I doing this for? That is absolutely beautiful. Jesse, I love, love this book. And yeah, this is so much fun. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, nice. All right. So ynab.com is one place and we'll have a link to the book, Never Worry About Money Again, to Amazon or wherever else you want to send people. Is there anywhere else we should send people? I would make sure people get the book literally from neverworryaboutmoneyagain.com.
48:39Like with AI, the piracy and copycats, It's like an audible book came out that was supposedly me or not audible, but a Spotify like audio book. Make sure you just get it from that website because we've had, oh my gosh, it's just been, you know, this new age is going to be great, but we also have to figure out how to get, how to deal with some of this new stuff. So yeah, never worry about money again.com. Go through those links. Those are the official ones. Everything else is a fake. Even if you hear this, you know, sultry voice, it's might be an AI sultry voice. So be careful.
49:11Jonathan Mendonsa:It's not, I'm looking at him. All right, Jesse, we'll have that in the show notes. So yeah, for everybody, check it out. And of course, check out YNAB. Go back to episode 165, where we talk about that at length, but I'm sure if you're in the FI community, you've heard of YNAB. Jesse, thanks again. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, Brad. Before we go, I want to remind you that Chooseify has always been bigger than just this podcast. Chooseify is really four parts all working together. The podcast is where we explore ideas. The newsletter is where I get to write to you personally. It's a little more reflective and it's where I share ideas that I think are worth passing along as I'm thinking about them each and every week.
49:50Jonathan Mendonsa:Jonathan has been building and expanding our online community where the conversation continues, where you can ask questions, share what you're working on, and learn from thousands of other people walking this path right alongside you. And our local groups are where all of this becomes real life, where you can actually meet people making similar choices, build friendships, and build better Tuesdays together. There are more than 300 Chooseify local groups around the world with in-person meetups happening every month. If you're only listening to podcasts, you're really only experiencing one part of what we've built.
50:21Jonathan Mendonsa:You can join the newsletter, our online community, find your local group, or leave a comment on today's episode at choosefi.com. And we'd love to hear from you. You can always reach us at feedback at chooseapply.com. Until next time, keep asking better questions, keep taking action, and keep designing a life you don't need a vacation from.
From the publisher
Every dollar you save is just money you're planning to spend later—so why does no one talk about the skill of spending well? Jesse Mecham, founder of YNAB, couldn't justify buying a fifty-cent donut despite being objectively "good at money," and that moment of extreme frugality sparked a crisis that would reshape how he thinks about every financial decision. Key Topics Discussed What's Money For? 00:02:30 Jesse explains why the fundamental question "What is this money for?" is more important than any budgeting technique, and why "for investing" isn't a sufficient answer. The Fifty Cent Donut Story 00:08:45 The pivotal moment when Jesse couldn't justify buying a donut despite financial stability, revealing how extreme frugality becomes suffocating and leads to a financial crisis of meaning. The Evolution of YNAB 00:15:20 Twenty years from selling a spreadsheet for $9.95 to building a comprehensive budgeting philosophy, including key business decisions and inflection points. The Skill of Spending 00:25:00 Why spending is actually the core skill with money, not saving, and how to develop intentionality around spending decisions through naming what money is for. Breaking the Paycheck to Paycheck Cycle 00:35:15 The concept of asymmetric stress and how creating breathing room between earning and spending can eliminate the unnecessary financial anxiety that 80% of Americans carry. What Is Enough? 00:42:30 Brad and Jesse explore the definition of "enough" from both minimalist and abundance perspectives, discussing health, safety, comfort, and the role of external possessions in happiness. Extravagances and the Tuesday Project 00:48:00 Jesse shares his current extravagances including building a wood shop and creating outdoor sanctuaries, while Brad discusses his minimalist experiment and the concept of building a remarkable Tuesday. Advice to Your Younger Self 00:58:00 Jesse reflects on what he would tell his 25-year-old self, praising his willingness to take risks while offering grace around parenting and being less judgmental about money decisions. Processing Financial Worry 01:03:30 Jesse's process for responding to financial worry when it appears, even when you have enough, by returning to the fundamental question: what is this money for? Notable Quotes Jesse Mecham: "Saving money isn't inherently virtuous. It isn't, because ultimately every dollar you save is simply money you're planning to spend later." Jesse Mecham: "When you're bad at money, inconveniences are emergencies. And when you're good at money, emergencies are inconveniences." Brad Barrett: "It's for buying your freedom with every single one of those dollars." Jesse Mecham: "The one thing money is meant to do at the end of the day is to be spent, and we're really bad at doing the one thing money is meant to do." Brad Barrett: "Nothing good in life comes from the easy path. You have to have a little bit of effort, you have to have a little bit of hardship." Key Takeaways Ask yourself "What is this money for?" and label your savings with specific, meaningful purposes rather than generic categories Create breathing room between earning and spending by saving enough to cover all bills if they landed on the same day Design your ideal Tuesday—envision your perfect average day and identify what you can do to make it happen Review your spending without judgment, looking for alignment with your values rather than simply trying to spend less If you've reached financial independence, practice the skill of spending by naming specific ways you want to use your money Eliminate asymmetric stress by building a financial buffer so inconveniences don't become emergencies When financial worry appears, return to the fundamental question and review what your money is specifically for Resources and Links Never Worry About Money Again (book) YNAB (You Need A Budget) Reddit r/onebag community Reddit r/BuyItForLife community Buckeye Farms (Erin's dust collector bag business) The Millionaire Ne…
