9 Micro Habits to Completely Change Your Finances

0:00Brian Preston:So good, so good, so good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60 % off. Stock up and save on Rag & Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we rack? For the hottest deals. Just so many good brands. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. 5 a.m. I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink. Running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work.

0:37Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius, no slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius. Live, fit, go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. If you've already given up on your New Year's resolutions, don't feel bad. resolutions come and go. It's much better to focus on your habits.

1:03Brian Preston:Brian, I am so excited because today we're going to talk about nine micro habits to help you better with money in 2026. And not only are these habits easy, some of them are actually even fun. With that, let's jump right in.

1:23Brian Preston:So, Brian, before we can actually talk about the habits themselves, let's define what a micro habit is. It's a small, consistent action built into your everyday routine to help you reach some longstanding goal. It's not a big thing. It's a micro, a little thing. Well, I think because we wanted to do this show because I think a lot of times people just don't get out of the starting gates because they're so worried about how big of a lift is it going to be. So we're like, well, let's reverse engineer. Let's give something so simple that people can do, but it will still have a significant impact on their financial life.

2:00Brian Preston:And so some of these, this is kind of all across the board from reaching big goals to maybe even reaching smaller goals. Like how do I control the two levers inside of my financial lexicon? How do I think about increasing income? Or how do I think about decreasing expenses? And this very first micro habit, Brian, is one that if ever there were someone who had a mutant ability to do this, it's Brian Preston. It is question the price. This is almost like a lifestyle decision for me. And let me tell you how this goes down. I really do believe, and this is where financial mutant, I do believe every dollar that comes into our possessions as mutants should go 3 % to 5 % better than our peers.

2:43and I live that life when I'm out and about. I mean, even, I mean, if you like, y 'all know, I go to Disney all the time. Every restaurant I go into, I say, hey, what's the discounts here? Is it annual pass? Is it, what is it? Is it the right credit card? Tell me what it is. And then when I go to like any type of like clothing place, I'm even like, hey, do y 'all have a cool guy discount? And they're like, what is that? I'm like, you know, y 'all have probably a button over there that you can push. It'll cut 5 % off. And 90 % of the time it does not work. but every now and then I'll get enough affirmation that says, okay, this still works.

3:18Brian Preston:So one of the ways that you pay less is you literally ask for a deal. I do the same thing. Whenever I go to a restaurant, I always, without fail, always ask, is it still happy hour? What are the happy hour specials? Can I get a cheaper app, a cheaper drink or whatever? So obviously asking for a deal, asking for the cool guy discount that you called it is a way to pay less. I should say the money guy discount is what we should do if we were going to brand this thing. But that's not the only way that you can pay less. Another thing that you can do is that you can negotiate. A lot of people don't recognize that when there are prices for goods and services, they're often not set in stone.

3:52Brian Preston:Many times, there is some wiggle room where you could get a better deal than listed. Well, we've talked about this for years is the ungrateful service providers. I mean, you think about any of your insurance providers, your utilities, all the subscriptions, those things, a lot of times, they have some element of negotiation that you can do if you're willing to vote with your feet. You just have to figure out how to make it a win-win. When it's medical bills, you can call and say, hey, I've got this medical bill and I really want to pay it off and I have enough cash so I could pay this much today.

4:19Brian Preston:But if I have to pay the full amount and I need to stretch it out and do payments, if you can figure out how to create a win-win scenario for your negotiation, you're much likely to set yourself up for success to get a better deal. And that's one of the ways that you have to get creative. You have to figure out, okay, what are some ways if I can't get a deal necessarily, or maybe I can't negotiate a lower price, what are some things I can do to actually get the cost of this good or of this service lower? Well, that's what we came up with a few ideas. You can buy in bulk. Also, it's not uncommon to find out that some things are price controlled.

4:56I mean, a lot of the, you wear fancy workout clothes. A lot of that stuff is price controlled. So maybe it's where you need to buy. I've given the example where I've bought price controlled things at REI for some of my active wear because they always are running discounts. They have rewards and other things. And then when I'm buying speakers or other things, if I know Sonos is going to be price-controlled. I can go to Crutchfield and use my reward points to get a 20%. Essentially, they'll trade in. I can buy for$40. I can get a$50 gift certificate with my credit card reward points, and I'll use that on price-controlled stuff.

5:36All this stuff works.

5:38Brian Preston:Another thing I've seen you do, Brian, is you can also look for price matching. If you're at a retailer, if you're at a store, you can very quickly go on your phone and say, hey, I can buy this from this online retailer for this price, would you be willing to sell it to me for this, for X, Y, Z? Or maybe you're just looking for strategic timing. I know for me, I wear tons of collars and coat dress shirts. I wear tons of legends. I know that both those brands are going to have significant deals throughout the year. So I always wait until there's some big deal period going on before I place my orders.

6:10Brian Preston:And I love doing that because then I can get the goods that I want, but I'm not paying full retail. I'm not paying full market for that. And there are seasonality trends to when you can buy certain things at a discount, a little bit less expensive than normal. And that's why if you use this coupon code right now for those, see how this stuff would write itself? These brands just need to get on board and make this stuff happen. But bringing it back to the show though, is that there really is a best time to buy. Look at the seasonality of some key purchases. Now, when we were talking about this in show prep, some of this stuff, you're like, this doesn't seem like this ought to be when it's the cheapest, but it is because, like, think about back-to-school supplies.

6:53You think about August. How are the back-to-school supplies so much cheaper? It's because a lot of retailers will use this to get you in the door to sell you other stuff, so you're getting great deals, so you should take advantage of that.

7:04Brian Preston:So it's just like most other things. If you're willing to put in a little bit of extra time, a little bit of extra effort, you can get a deal. But we've talked a lot about consumption. How do I consume, consume, consume? Another way that you might be able to keep more dollars in your back pocket, and this is a little bit of a bonus habit, pause your purchase. Even if you want something, or maybe you're walking to the store and you see an item, rather than buying it right there on the spot in the moment, perhaps you give yourself a 12-hour, 24-hour, 36-hour cooling off period to make sure that it's a purchase you actually want to make and not some impulsive purchase that you're going to regret in the future.

7:41Well, there's a lot of things in life. It's just like, sleep on it. This is the reality of the situation. Sometimes when you get all fired up and you write up an email that you're like, no, I'm going to sleep on it. You could do the same thing with your purchasing power too. That way you can make sure that it's not the passion of the moment that's causing you to buy this thing. It's actually the need for your life. So giving it a little bit of time to kind of differentiate the emotional side versus the need is really helpful.

8:07Brian Preston:All right, let's talk about micro habit number two. Now, this one might not seem micro because we talk about it all the time. Like it is a huge deal, and it is, but you can do it infrequently, meaning you can do it once a year, and it doesn't have to be incredibly difficult, and that's do a net worth statement. If you've not done one, if you've never written down a net worth statement, you should do it right now today. Well, this is one in this show meeting where we're like, man, that seems like that's got a little bit of extra. Because a lot of these are micro choices that it's basically getting the pebble rolling down the hill.

8:42This one has a little bit more of a lift, but that's how much we believe in it. Guys, don't sleep on this because if you need to understand, you need to know what you own, what you owe. That way you can have a decision with your net worth of how to best make financial decisions to navigate this crazy world and wonderful world of personal finance.

9:02Brian Preston:Yeah, how can you know where you're going or if you're on track if you don't know where you are today? So you already said this. You list out the things that you own. In your circumstance, this may be the value of your checking accounts, savings accounts, money markets. It might be your investment accounts, your 401ks, your Roth IRAs. It could be business interests. It could be the value of your real estate, whether that be your primary residence or maybe your investment properties. You want to list all the things out that you own. That goes on one side of the net worth statement. Then on the other side, you want to list out all the things that you owe.

9:37Brian Preston:So these are consumer debts like credit card balances, personal loans, car loans, maybe it's student loans or home equity lines of credit. It's everything that you don't own just yet, but you're making payments on. And if you can list those two things out, you subtract what you owe from what you own, that tells you exactly what your net worth is. And here's what I love about when you do a net worth, it actually leads to, and it also gives us a chance to kind of share what we do with our own, is I want you to go to learn.moneyguy.com. This is actually our net worth tool, and this is the payoff.

10:10Not only do you now know what we talked about, what you own, what you owe, but you get to actually have a dashboard now to see, hey, how much of my money is in Roth money? How much of it is in tax deferred? How much is after tax? How is my assets or my net worth, especially my investments, compared to my income? It also lets me see how much of this is replacing what I make. If you look at how these assets are building up in the background, all these things are very important when you're on your journey to paying off debt, to build financial independence. You need to have some type of navigation ability so that you know you're going in the right direction.

10:48Brian Preston:All right, Brian, we're talking about micro habits that can change and improve your financial life. And micro habit number three is a big one, and it's pay yourself first. I think this is counter to what most people think. Most people think, okay, I'm going to budget and budget and budget, whatever's left over at the end of the month, I'm just going to save that. I'm just going to put that to work. But oftentimes when we get to the end of the month, there's no money left over. There's nothing left to pay ourselves, and so we get squeezed out of the equation. Hey, don't take our word for it. If you're just waiting for money to be left over and you think you're going to have success, the stats don't show that either.

11:23Because look at this, 75 % of millionaires said regular, consistent investing over a long period of time leads to success. And this is why you got to make it automatic for the people with the fact that if you can automate the process, it really does make it all so much easier because it shows that it's also a priority in your life versus it just letting it be something that just happens. Because we know if that's what you're waiting on, it just will not happen. And you're going to find yourself being like the typical American.

11:51Brian Preston:So what are some ways that we pay ourselves first? Well, maybe it's just electing to participate in our 401k or our 403b or an employer sponsored plan. Maybe it's knowing, okay, the Roth IRA limits this year,$7 ,500. I'm going to take 7 ,500 and I'm going to distribution automatically flow out of my account. And if you can automate, if you can set this up early on, it's amazing how much easier the journey can be if you figure this out sooner rather than later. Well, and this is because it ties into automation is also my favorite way to say it is always be buying. It's because if you can set up your process to start buying a monthly amount every month, especially if you do this early and often, you start young, take this into consideration.

12:38For a 20-year-old compared to a 30-year-old, the 20-year-old's money is four times more powerful. How can we say that? To build a million dollars by retirement, a 20-year-old only needs to save$95 a month. A 30-year-old needs to save$340 a month. Four times as hard. Think about a 20-year-old compared to a 40-year-old. It is now 10 times harder. Instead of saving$95 a month, you have to save over$1 ,000 a month. Do y 'all see how if we just could teach everybody in high school the power of starting early and doing this often, how much better the entire world would be for American finances?

13:20Brian Preston:And what you want to do is you want to remove friction. That's what paying yourself allows you to do. It prevents things from getting in the way of you and your savings goal. So if you can set that up early on. It's going to set you up for success. And another thing that you can do, another habit that you can implement, and the earlier you implement it, the likely higher probability of success you will have is habit number four, write it down. And you may be wondering, when you guys say, write it down, write what down? Well, we think that when it comes to accomplishing goals, you have a higher likelihood of success if you actually put pen to paper, or I guess maybe thumb to screen or finger to keyboard and you actually document what your goals are, there's a good chance you're gonna be more likely to stick with it to achieve those goals.

14:11Well, I know. And the sub-point we put here is intentions into actions, but it's really you're turning the daydreams into actual plans. That's the big takeaway for me is that you're really daydreaming if you're not writing this stuff down.

14:25Brian Preston:So you, and there's any way you can do this. Obviously, you can physically write it, You can use a journal or you can use a notes app. Just some way you want to actually document, this is what I want in the future. This is the direction I want to move. This is the thing that I want to achieve. And by writing it down, you immediately create an environment where you begin to hold yourself accountable to that goal. It's one of the reasons why we love doing net worth statements. A net worth statement is basically writing down your goal that I am at this point today and when I do this next year, I want to be in a better position.

14:58Brian Preston:So if you're not writing down your goals, you should, but goals aren't the only things you should write down. Yeah. And this one's near and dear to my heart. I actually do a daily gratitude journal at night. I write down the three big things from the day that just I'm thankful for. And this is, guys, we've talked about this many times. If you're good with a little, you're going to be great with a lot and something you can focus on a skillset. So it's just like exercising a muscle. You get better and better at it is if you actually will write down the things that bring you happiness. And here's the other thing.

15:27In addition, put the why did this make you happy? Like sometimes I'll say, hey, I went to the gym, had a great workout and I'll put the why's because health is wealth for me. And then I'll put another one. I'll put like I had a great meal with the family. Why is that important? It's because my oldest daughter was there and I don't take for granted that I'm always going to be able to have these memories. That's the stuff that will connect with something. And if you can do this, it's going to shift your perspective. It's going to create and tie into something that's deeper in you that will also probably tie into your happiness, fulfillment.

16:02A lot of powerful stuff is going on under the surface if you can get into this habit.

16:05Brian Preston:Yeah, and you don't have to make it complicated. You can keep it simple. It could literally be, just like Brian said, every night a list of three things. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this. And what it does is it shifts your perspective to now not focus on the things that you do not have, but rather focus on the things that you do have. And what's going to happen is if you do this, you are not only going to be able to remind yourself of what you're grateful for, there's a really good chance that you're going to want to start communicating to others. Man, thank you for that great meal that we had.

16:38Brian Preston:Thank you for that opportunity. Thank you for the fill in the blank. And then your gratitude, your thankfulness, your gratefulness becomes contagious to the world around you, and that is good for everyone. So if you're not writing down your goals and you're not writing down the things that you're thankful for, you're missing a huge opportunity to impact the world around you. Well, I mean, I know we put it on here as the note, and I'll say this is how powerful it still is. Thank you notes don't get enough love. That's right. But like traditional thank you notes. And what's funny is at the end of the year, one of my gratitude entries was I got two thank you notes, one from a cousin of mine who came to our place in Florida on Thanksgiving, and then another one from a dear friend that I sent his mother-in-law, one of our millionaire missions, personalized, and she wrote me the nicest thank you note.

17:28That stuff, I mean, there's something about the tactile feeling of thank you note, reading it, knowing somebody actually sent this and did this for you. Guys, writing it down, doing these extra steps is really powerful micro steps.

17:42Brian Preston:All right, we're talking about micro habits that you can develop to improve your financial life. This next one, again, is sort of an interesting, but we say you ought to consider batching your bill payments. One of the things happen is life gets busy and things start happening. And all of a sudden, the more complicated your financial life, the easier it is for things to just begin to fall through the cracks. So one of the ways that I personally prevent this from happening is I pay all of my credit card bills on the exact same day every single month. I don't try to think about when the payment cycle is.

18:14Brian Preston:I've already switched it so they all are due on the same day. So at the very end of the month, every single month, I just go in and pay all my bills. So it's one less thing. It's muscle memory. It's something I don't have to think about. And by doing that, it prevents me from getting into the bad spot of, oh, no, no, I missed paying that one bill. Well, now I've got to pay an interest charge. Now I'm carrying debt from one month to the next. If you can remove friction, remove your opportunity to make mistakes, you're likely going to set yourself up. I love that. You bet. You're so much more organized than I am because I'm I'm just a knucklehead that actually every week I'm like paying off credit cards.

18:51But I will say another honorable mention on this one, I know we have some additional details to share, is turn on the auto pay for at least the minimum, especially with credit cards and other just reoccurring debts. Because people, sometimes things happen, and if I can save you from paying a penalty or an underpayment, you want to set up some type of minimum automatic payment. But then I do like the idea of paying it off, because this ties into what do we say about credit card use is credit card use is a-okay, but credit card debt, no way. I mean, this is all over the public discussion point right now is credit card interest rates being 20 and 30%.

19:30And I know there's legislation that was proposed last year. The president has talked about this. Guys, if the banks are making two to three times what you are hoping to make in the financial markets, you'll never get ahead. And then it breaks my heart when you see that 46 % of credit card owners say they carry a balance at least once during the last 12 months. This should not be that hard. Maybe you're not a credit card person if you can't pay it off every month.

19:59Brian Preston:And if you are a credit card person, because all of us make mistakes, set up systems, put things in place so that you don't fall into this trap, so that you're not one of those 46 % of people carrying a balance because it is so difficult to get ahead if you're paying interest to someone else. All right, Brian, we're talking about micro habits here. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate C. According to Indeed data, Sponsored jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs.

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