593: The 30 Day Money Cleanse: A Step-by-Step Detox Program for Your Financial Health

22:48I just want to spend time with you because I don't know about you, but in this holiday season, my husband and I are like, it's just spending money and we have everything we need. And if we want something, we just buy it ourselves. Right. I feel like the gift giving is better for the kiddos than for adults. Yeah. There was some meme that was going around. It was like, well, how do you shop for somebody who is an adult with a real job who just gets the things that they want? There was an article, this was a few years ago. And, you know, somebody had added up like all their bar tabs for the last five years or 10 years, they're like, I spent$100 ,000 drinking, basically, like chasing this temporary feeling.

23:25And yeah, if that is a 10 out of 10 for you, like to be hanging out with friends and making memories, absolutely. But like, it can really add up. And so that's the point here. Take a look at those discretionary items and just see like, is that worth it? And Ramit Sethi calls it like, live your rich life, cut ruthlessly on the things that don't bring you any value and spend lavishly on the things that do. And just being honest with those or start to take stock of those day 10 is your emergency fund checkup. And this is going to be some people say as little as three months living expenses in your emergency fund.

24:00Others will go as high as 12. So I think six is probably a good, happy medium as business owners. We tend to keep a little bit more cash runway in the emergency fund. But just after paying down your high interest debt, this is probably step number two. Make sure you have a little bit of a savings cushion because you don't want to be stressed out when there's an unexpected car repair or the dog has to go to the vet or even somebody, your neighbor comes to the door and asks you to buy Girl Scout cookies. You want to be able to say yes to that stuff without stressing about it. So having that little emergency fund is super helpful.

24:38Absolutely. Day number 11 would be to check your savings, the interest that you're getting on your savings accounts. So if you have a big bank like Chase or Bank of America or something like that, you're probably getting like 0.01 % and it's literally pennies on the dollar. Online banking accounts have high interest rates, especially now because interest rates in general are so high. So you can pretty easily get a four to 5 % interest rate and investing, it fluctuates where a savings account, it's going to be a fixed rate and you can access that cash much more easily. So within a couple of days, you can have access to it.

25:11So a quick Google search, I'm sure you'll have some links, Nick, for a high yield savings account. That's also a quick Google search for high yield savings accounts. And you can make sure that the banks have good reviews and pick the one with the highest interest and go sign up for it. Yeah. I don't know if I have any direct affiliate links for those, but Capital One, Betterment, even like Fidelity, money market stuff, like four to 5 % risk-free, most cases FDIC insured versus having that emergency fund sitting around in a checking account, which we've been guilty of too. It's like, I don't want to take the time to transfer it.

25:44Like, what if we need it for something? Like, don't take a ton of time to get it back. Like it's a low risk with just kind of like free money, if the money is just going to be sitting there anyways. That brings me to day 12, which is deploying idle cash. If you're in that fortunate enough position to have excess cash, maybe more than 12 months in that emergency fund, you might as well put it to use because the long-term market returns are a lot stronger than even four or 5 % interest on a savings account. So that's something that has been sometimes challenging to do. Like I'm always like the pessimistic person, like, ah, the market's about to crash.

26:17I don't want to go and buy. So really setting up the automated dollar cost averaging just every month. Don't even think about it. It just goes into these like low cost index funds. And that's been helpful for me. And the other thing on that front was like looking at dividend aristocrat type of stocks, like it's super boring, probably not the most tax efficient strategy, but like, okay, even if it tanks, at least I've still like getting the cashflow from this in the form of dividends. But the caveat I would put there, like if you foresee yourself needing that cash in two to five years on the chance that the market is about to crash, like don't put it in, like if you're saving for a house or something, but otherwise put that cash to use.

26:54Yeah, absolutely. And I want to tell a quick story for people if they're on the fence about investing a little bit afraid. I think definitely this is an investing device, right? This is just for educational and entertainment purposes. And listen to Nick that you need three to five years. We don't want you to have to access this cash immediately. But my husband and I are on the financial independence journey and we've been saving. And during COVID, the market crashed for like a month or two. And we lost in air quotes because we didn't take the money out. So it's all just a number that changes. But we saw it go down a considerable amount.

27:24And it was scary. But then right within a couple of months, it was booming. And we've seen some great gains since then, since 2020. And I also had a friend that unfortunately was close to retirement, and got scared. And I think after the crash, took his money out, and was sitting on the sidelines. And so one, he locked in all of those losses. And two, he didn't get to be in the market when everything came back up. You do you, it's personal finance, but I just want to let you know that the market does go up and down. But if you don't need the money right away, usually over 100 years, it's been okay.

27:58On average, it gets about 7%. So you have to do what feels best for you and your family. But in my experience, I've learned that in the long run, things are okay. The challenge is having that long-term view when it feels like the world is falling apart around you. But now having lived through several recession's a little bit better at it and to say like, yeah, write it out and actually trying to buy more, like buy the dip is what I try to do. Like on big market down days, like, all right, let's dump a little extra in there. Everything's on sale. It's a fire sale. Well, I think I mentioned that we use YNAB.

28:29So I think being able to see that it gives you perspective. So now 2020 is behind us and I can look back and I see this little dip and then this big boom. And it's almost like exponential growth, the way the curve goes. And if I take, again, And looking back in that bigger picture, you can average it and the line just kind of looks more linear. If you take a bigger picture view or I mean, it's still exponential, but it's kind of a softer exponential when you kind of round out those sharp ups and downs. And you can look at just market trends in general if you don't have you haven't been investing that long.

28:59And you can see like in general, it kind of goes up into the right. So it's hard to believe when you're hearing it from someone else and you haven't experienced and stayed in. but even if you just do a little bit of investing or saving over time and you kind of track it, I think it will start to build your confidence and you'll see that change over time. Yeah. It's hard to wrap your head around compound interest if you're like in your early twenties and you say, well, okay, great. If I invest a thousand dollars and make 10%, like at the end of the year, I've got a thousand and$100. Like it's not that exciting, but like you zoom out over the course of decades and now having now 20 years of investing under my belt, like, oh, There are a lot of days where the money makes more money than we do.

29:40And it's like, that's really, it's weird. It's interesting. It's still, I think even now with 20 years under your belt, it's probably still kind of mind boggling. My husband and I do the same thing. We like, we know it and we understand it and we see it, but it's still just like, how is this possible? This is so weird. Yeah. Very good. Day number 13 is to have a look at your memberships or your subscriptions. These are kind of in that discretionary column, the recurring stuff that hits your credit card or hits your statement every month. It could be personal stuff for me, like Dollar Shave Club, cell phone bill, Netflix, some of these things.

30:13And on the business side, lots of software tools, lead pages, Ahrefs, Genius Links, like this Amazon Geo link locator type of service, Riverside, which we're recording the podcast on. Kind of these recurring services. It's like, okay. And last year, the year before, I was going through kind of like this substitution game, which may be another point on this list. That's number 14, but you go. Okay, I'll keep going. And that's like, okay, is there a better, faster, cheaper alternative to what you're using? So like swapping on the business side, like from domain registration at GoDaddy to domain registration at PorkBun, from Dropbox to Google Drive, or like on the cell phone plan from Verizon to Mint Mobile, or like there's different substitutions that you can make for similar or better quality of service for less money.

31:01Like you can evaluate those after you have itemized out those recurring subscriptions or it's like, hey, do we really watch Apple TV plus that much? Is it worth continuing to pay for that? Or, you know, satellite radio or Disney plus or something like, you know, take, evaluate those different subscriptions that you're paying. And some of this stuff you might find is negotiable too, where it's like a call up Comcast or call up the internet provider and say, hey, what are the best deals you got going on right now? I noticed this rate just jumped or we're trying to save some money. We're thinking about switching.

31:30What else can you do for me? Yeah, I think that's a great tip. I was going to mention something similar. And then also you could always cancel it. And then if you realize, oh, actually I want it. I need it back. You go get it again. And then sometimes if you do cancel it and then come back, either in the process of canceling, they'll try to keep you as a customer and give you a discount. Or if you cancel and then come back a month later, sometimes now you can get that new user bonus because you're a new user again. So there's ways that you can play the game. I hate those companies. Just like, just give me the best deal.

32:00Like, don't make me jump through these hoops. But yeah, it's all part of the game. It is. More with Rachel in just a moment, including a couple sources of free money you might have overlooked. As a business owner, you worked hard to make that phone ring, but missing a business call? It's like watching money fly right out the window. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O. It's the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one business phone system built for 2025, not 1995. In fact, it's rated the top choice for customer satisfaction with over 3 ,000 reviews on G2.

32:38Quo works right from an app on your phone or computer, and it means your team can share one number and collaborate on calls and texts, just like a shared inbox. And here is what is really cool, because if you can't answer the phone, Quo's AI agent can. It can qualify leads, it can route calls to the right person, and it's going to make sure no customer is ever left hanging. Think of it like having 24-7 support without the 24-7 payroll. More than 90 ,000 businesses are already running on Quo, from solo operators to growing teams. Try it free when you go to quo.com slash side hustle. that's q u o.com slash side hustle you can even keep your existing number quo no missed calls no missed customers so day number 15 is to max out your 401k so if you're working a w-2 job or maybe you have a 401k through your own business you can try to max it out so in 2024 the max is going to be 23 000 a year so you can get some great tax benefits if you are maxing out that benefit.

33:40And I always, when the government gives a limit to something, to me, that's always a clue that there's probably some kind of benefit to that. If they're only allowing you to save $23 ,000, it's probably because if you did more, that would give you too much of a benefit and they want to hold you back. So you want to take as much of that benefit as possible. The same with like a Roth IRA. It's like when the store says like limit three and you're like, oh, yeah, you know, it's a good deal. Right. Exactly. So those are clues from the government that It's something you might want to take advantage of.

34:10But if you can't afford that at the moment, work towards that. And then the other thing to be sure of is if your company offers a match, you want to make sure that you are at the very least getting to that match. So for sure, my dad, for example, he would always mentor the young guys at his work and say, we have a 3 % match, like you need to save at least 3%. And they're like, no, no, some of them, I can't even afford to save 3 % into my retirement. But he was would just be like, that's free money that you're giving. You don't understand. This is free money. It's free money. So come hell or high water, try to at least save the top of your company match at the very least, because otherwise you're literally leaving money on the table.

34:44And where it gets really interesting is as a business owner, and there may be some S-corp elections that has to happen, I don't know, like consult your tax professional for this, but you can defer up to$69 ,000 in 2024 in a combination of that$23 ,000 on the employee side, and then make up the balance in retirement contributions from the company, company match. And so I think that's up to 25 % of your salary or your income from the business can also be deferred up to that$69 ,000 max. So that's where it gets really, really interesting to kind of front load that retirement savings in a tax deferred way.

35:23So definitely make sure you're getting up to that company match, free money. And really the only exception to that rule is if you have a cash intensive business where like, I know I can get a better return if I invest it into the business today rather than waiting until retirement. So I'll put that out there for everybody's like, but what if I have a plan for that money now? Day 16 is to find something to sell, declutter and make some money. Find something to sell in your garage. Find something to sell in your attic. For us, it has been bikes, even appliances during our remodel, books, furniture, electronics.

35:56We sold like a car seat carrying backpack that we used for a few trips when the kids were littler. people even bought like the leftover flooring that we had from the remodel project. It's like, I don't know what you're going to do with whatever it was 80 square feet of flooring. Like maybe somebody had a tiny little project that they needed it for, but somebody came and got it. So I think it's really good for mostly your mental health rather than like, Oh, I'm going to make some money doing this. Cause like, well, you already bought it, but if it's sitting around collecting dust, I'm going to declutter.

36:24I'm going to feel better about that. I'm going to get something out of the house and I'm going to get a little bit of money here too. And especially if you're trading up, like I think of it as a way to offset the cost of the new thing. Like, oh, if I want to get a new bike, I'm gonna sell the old bike. And now all of a sudden I reduced the cost of the new one mentally in my mind. Yeah, I love that. And I think too, it's green. I see all the time people will have, especially kids stuff, like little kids stuff. They have all those big, like medium sized slides and things like that that are plastic and take up a lot of space and people will just get rid of them and put them by the dumpster and literally sell it.

36:54It might be$5. You make a little bit of money, you help another family that can benefit from that and it keeps it out of the landfill. So remember that too. You can always save the environment a little bit. One sell at a time. Day number 17 is going to be a gift card roundup. So especially right now, holidays, if you're listening to this in January, you might have received a bunch of gift cards. And so maybe you do a no spend month and you use all those gift cards that you got, but find all those gift cards. You might have some laying around from gifts, birthdays and Christmas and things like that from the years in the past and go use them.

37:27I will say I was a hoarder of gift cards for a long time. And then many years went by and I was with inflation the way it's been lately. I'm like, inflation has just been eating away at these gift cards. What have I been doing? I should have just been using them. And the same goes, I heard somebody say this and I was like, Oh, that's so true. I'm a hoarder of airline miles. And yes, you need to use those too, because inflation prices are just going up like Yeah, they keep devaluing that rewards currency. They do. So use your miles, use those points, use your gift cards, enjoy your life now. And it's free stuff anyways.

37:56So you might as well use it. And then you're protecting too, if you just lost it or it got stolen or something like that. And worst case scenario, we've seen companies like, is it Bed Bath and Beyond go out of business and things like that. And so you could be sitting on gift cards and maybe those companies go out of business and then you lose out on your money. So make sure you use them. Yeah. This is the modern equivalent of finding coins in the couch cushions or something like just it's found money. It's hopefully in some case, it's like stuff that we forgot we had. We're like, hey, we got Home Depot here.

38:26Let's go get some Christmas lights or yeah, just random stuff. And then making a plan. I don't expect you to necessarily like, well, Nick and Rachel said like, go book a trip with these miles. Like, you don't necessarily have to do that, but like make a plan for them. Make sure they have them earmarked for something rather than just accumulating them for that sake. Cause we've got a large bank of travel miles at this point or travel points. It's like, well, that's what they're there for. Make sure you use those to offset the cost of some upcoming trip. Day 18 is to consider getting some free money from a bank in the form of a credit card signup bonus.

38:59Now, of course, you got to promise to use this strategy responsibly. Don't spend money you don't have. Treat it like a debit card, basically. But lots of credit cards have signup bonuses ranging from$200 to$1 ,000 worth of travel and cash back and benefits for sometimes no annual fee. Like, okay, free money. I'll take it if you're going to meet that minimum spend, which is sometimes as low as$500 in the next three months up to some of the business ones have like pretty high minimum spends. But if you know you're going to spend that money anyways, you'd be hard pressed to not take advantage of this stuff.

39:32So something that we definitely do somewhat intentionally opening, I don't know, probably a couple new cards a year at this point to take advantage of those signup bonuses. Absolutely. And I use this when I was getting married. I was we're at the top of our budget for a wedding and I wanted a little bit more expensive of a dress. And I was like, Oh, I can do a credit card hack and get that little bit of extra money that I need. And it all worked out. So yeah, but you definitely need to be careful and don't go into debt over this strategy. Yeah. This was Brynn, like just upgrading some of her camera equipment.

40:02It's like, okay, for her photography business, like, hey, this is pretty big one-off expense. So before I do it, well, I might as well get a thousand bucks worth of points back for doing this credit, just opening a new account. I was going to spend the money anyways. Like, it's just, I wouldn't stress about hurting your credit over this. Cause like, there's lots of different factors, but available credit is one of those. Like if you're worried about a number of inquiries or a number of new accounts, like maybe tread carefully, but we've been doing this for years and still have really strong credit scores.

40:33So don't let that be a deterrent. A lot of times when you open a new credit card, if you have good credit and things like that, you get a huge amount, your credit line gets a lot bigger. Yeah. So your utilization goes down. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it can be a really powerful tool in actually creating better credit. So day number 19 is waste money to improve your life. Waste is in air quotes. So waste it intentionally. We were talking earlier about vacations and things like that. Like, is it going on an epic vacation with your family and creating a memory that will last a lifetime? I think it goes back and forth with the fire.

41:06Fire movement is always like, you know, keep things, don't have lifestyle creep. And so I like when you consider wasting money, what is like a one-time expense that you can waste money on? And maybe it's a one-time expense that you do every year, like a family vacation or something like that. But I think Nick, you have mentioned before, like upgrading your kitchen. Is there something in your house that it will make it nicer, better, more efficient, just make you enjoy it more? Is it a family vacation that you can take? Is it little things? Like I think I read on your blog earlier, somebody had recommended like buying really fancy socks.

41:36And so maybe it feels like a waste because you're spending$20 on socks or something like that, but it actually Could it upgrade your life and make something that you do on a daily basis feel that much better? And things like a family vacation, if you do it once a year, upgrading your kitchen, you're not going to do that every single year. So it's not a major lifestyle creep. It might be one big expense that happens once every 10 years, every 20 years or something like that. But if it has a big impact on your life, then that's what our money's for. Yeah, it could be small stuff too. It could be, okay, I'm going to spend the 100 bucks on global entry or TSA pre-check.

42:10Even if I only fly five or 10 times a year, not taking my laptop out, not taking my shoes off. Like I feel like that's well spent for 20 bucks a year. Like those little upgrades, it's a waste. Everybody on this plane is going to get to the destination at the same time. Like I understand like it is not making any material difference to the goal of that flight, but it's like just made it a little more comfortable along the way there or spending an extra 50 bucks to get the direct flight versus the one with the stopover or the times that made a little bit different. Yeah, we're 10 or 15 years ago, Nick, probably would have gone for the cheaper option to save that money.

42:45It's like now, okay, yes, I'm going to recognize that it's a waste. I'm going to own that. But it does make my life better in some meaningful way. So like, okay, I'm still going to spend that money or like come to terms with spending that. I would even push back a little bit on your definition of that when you say that it's waste, because I don't see that as a waste. Those examples like clear or with flying and getting a direct flight because you're saving your time. And I think especially as you get older and your skills advance, your time becomes more valuable. And even just your peace of mind as a busy parent to have an extra 30 minutes of clarity or make something a little bit easier.

43:19If you're rolling through the airport with two little kids and you can like sit down somewhere and like get a seat and relax for a second and just like settle yourself to me. That's very valuable. So I think part of it, too, is just understanding what your values are, what is important to you and investing in the things that are important. Yeah, justifying that, recognizing like not every penny has to be pinched. Like, how can I improve my life? It's kind of a question that we ask probably every quarter. Like, okay, we have this much breathing room in our budget. How can we improve our lives? Like, what should we spend the surplus on?

43:51Like, there's like you mentioned, like the lifestyle creep and the pushback against that in the fire community. But isn't a better lifestyle kind of the whole point? Like, I understand you don't want to make any decision that's like irreversible and you grow accustomed to a certain comforts. I don't know. But if you earned it, enjoy it. Absolutely. So day number 20 is to have a worst case scenario binder. You're doing all this work anyways, you're putting together and from step number one, you're figuring out where all your money is. So you might as well document that you can make your own binder, or you can purchase one that lists out all the different accounts you have, it can list out the passwords.

44:26And this can be a digital template, something that is password protected, or something that you can save on a computer that you can share with people. Or maybe it's a physical thing that you print out and you keep it in a safe or something like that. The Murphy's Law is if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. I almost feel like having this is insurance because if something can go wrong, then it will go wrong. Then if I am prepared, then maybe that bad thing won't happen because why would it happen if I'm prepared if it does? And then if it does happen, something that does happen and you're incapacitated for some reason, you have peace of mind that you've taken care of your family.

44:56They can access all of your accounts. They know where everything is and everything is all in a convenient little bundle for people to get access to. Yeah. Do you have this like for a medical power of attorney or beneficiaries on your accounts or just like kind of like even the keys to the online business? Like here's how it works. Like if I'm not able to do this, like here's what you're going to need to do. Like, do you have anything like that? I do. Yeah. And my husband and I use, we use LastPass. And so like for passwords specifically, you can do a family account and share those. And I've even heard of some families, like at least once a year do kind of like whoever manages the money or you can do it like for a week or for a month, have the other person manage.

45:33So pretend that that person is incapacitated. That will come up with any glitches because you aren't incapacitated. So if they're like, uh-oh, I don't know how to pay the mortgage. Like where's the password? Then you can walk them through the steps and be like, okay, well, we need to create some kind of device so that it's sitting right here where you need it. But if you don't remember it, then that's a problem. Or maybe you have all the accounts in there except for that one that they really need. You do that fire drill once a year to just make sure that everything's good to go and find any glitches.

45:59Yeah, that's a good point. We each have our own LastPass accounts, but there's still some stuff that hasn't been fully shared across. So this is definitely on my list of something to create, especially on the business side. Business side is really important. Here's how this works. Here's who I would trust to help you sell this thing if I'm not around anymore. Yep. And even just having the discussion of what is it worth? Because someone else might see a widow or something like that and be like, oh, fresh meat. Like, yeah, we'll give you 20 grand for this thing. And you're like, no, it's worth way more than that.

46:31But if she doesn't know, or if a spouse doesn't know and has no clue and they're stressed and grieving, they might take it. Right. Yeah, for sure. So that was day number 20 is like this worst case scenario binder. Like if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, are people going to know what to do and where to go and how to access your stuff? Day 21 is to subscribe to the side hustle show. Shameless plug here. but you can substitute this for whatever kind of content you're interested in or curious about, or you're trying to consume and learn more about, because we were talking a lot about kind of building that financial foundation.

47:07And at a certain point, you're going to come to the realization if you haven't already, maybe you have since you're listening is, well, I got to address the income side. Like how do I make more money? And that's what the side hustle show really is all about over the course of almost 600 episodes at this point. So make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button in your podcast app, which leads me to day 22, which is find some accountability along this journey. Find a fire friend. There's maybe an overused Jim Rohn line about you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, but there's some truth to it too.

47:40If your buddies are all just free spenders and they don't have this like financial vision that you do, it's going to be really difficult to kind of buck that trend and go your own path. So you can find at least one other person who is willing to walk this path with you. And I'm really grateful to have lots of friends in the FIRE community. But even like for my wife, who's not as closely tied to it, she still has a couple of friends that she feels really comfortable talking about money, talking about future goals with, and it just makes it more real. And it doesn't seem like as weird or as far-fetched.

48:15Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. And I really like, there's a lot of really great subreddits. So there's fat fire. If you want to be financially independent with a ton of money, there's just normal fire. There's chubby fire. There's lean fire, far east of fire. There's fiery fims for the women out there. Chubby fire is a new one. Chubby fire is a new one. Yeah. But there's all kinds of, and then there's just like personal finance, which is more generic and there's all kinds of people, but there's some really good subreddits. And I think it is helpful to have community. Money can be really taboo.

48:41As I've grown in this journey, I feel like having these types of conversations, even with my mom or my friends and family, sometimes it starts to get a little awkward when you start to kind of go off more of the beaten path and your finances look different than the average person and people start complaining about debt maybe. And you're just like, all your friends are complaining and you're kind of like quiet and they're like, well, aren't you in debt? And it's like, no, not really. And so you want to find the people. I still love those friends that are in debt and we have things in common in other areas, but money might not be one of them.

49:12Sometimes it is helpful to find different groups of friends for different parts of your life. And it's helpful to not feel so isolated and have people that you can talk to about your money. Yeah. I remember early on a friend of ours was like, Oh, this credit card has like a really low interest rate or something. We're like, okay, all credit cards have a 0 % interest rate if you just pay them. Exactly. But I will plug the choose if I community. There's lots of like local branches or local meetups that happen through there. In addition to like the main giant Facebook group that they don't still do meetup groups too.

49:45not as much i need to do more of them yeah all right well when they happen they're really fun join the side hustle they should email list i'll let you know when the next meetup is for sure and the facebook group too so we'll move on to day number 23 so day number 23 is to delete your personal info from the internet i think you know more about this nick so why don't you tell us some of the companies that you recommend and have you done some of these and what has your experience been yeah the first one that i used ended up shutting down so the new one that i'm with is It's called Optory, Optory.com.

50:15But Delete Me is a popular one. They all kind of function basically the same way where there's all these yellow pages or white pages types of sites that scrape your personal information. They show you your name, address, phone number, family members, like all this stuff. Like I share a lot online, like pretty transparent, but like there's some stuff where like, I don't know if I need this like all over the internet, especially with kids. And almost all of these sites for full disclosure, like they have a remove my information button down at the bottom. And they'll do it if you request it, but it's tedious to go through the hundreds of different sites out there.

50:47So hiring a service probably makes sense to do that. Are these paid services? Yeah, I think it's like 10 bucks a month or something. Okay, that's not bad. Day number 24 is to shop smarter. So use Rakuten for cashback. And I use this almost religiously and I love it. So it's basically what you do with Rakuten and they have a$30 signup bonus if people haven't started using it yet, but you sign up for it. And then basically you go to Rakuten first. And then like, let's say you wanted to shop at Macy's, you would click on the Macy's link and it will direct you to Macy's. But then there's basically like a cookie or something on it.

51:19And then you will get cash back for every dollar that you spend at Macy's. And then another hack is on top of that, find a coupon code because you're going to get the cash back through Rakuten. You can use a coupon code when you check out. And then have you ever heard of Fluz, Nick? Fluz? Fluz? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. F-L-U-Z. So it does take a little, it's like one extra step. And if the, basically you're purchasing a online gift card through Flues, and I really like this. It does take a little, it's an extra step. It can take a little bit of extra time. So the cashback is like 1 % and you're going to spend$10, probably not worth your time, but sometimes they have like a 10 % cashback and maybe you're going to buy$200 worth of clothes.

51:57Well, it's 20 bucks, right? And then on top of that, you're, maybe you're getting two to 10 % off Rakuten and you have a 50 % off coupon. You can save quite a bit on just an everyday purchase. and let's say you're using that credit card that you signed up for and you're getting your credit card bonus too. Like you can mix all of these things together and shop a lot smarter and save some money on things that you were going to spend on anyways. That's right. Stack them all up. Rakuten has been around for, it was previously called Ebates. Like they've been around since like the mid nineties and it's affiliate marketing.

52:25It's like, hey, we're going to make this commission on the sale because you went through our site and we're just going to share part of it with you. I think it's really interesting. And sometimes it's significant. Like normally computer hardware is like really low affiliate commissions, but like on Cyber Monday or something like Dell spiked to 15 % or something. It's like 160 bucks or something off my laptop. Like, Oh, this is cool. There you go. Love it. On top of that, like I still do like the fetch and the Ibotta's and like all these other little savings apps and stuff. Like they all add up.

52:52Is it a lifestyle changer? No, but I don't know. It's free money. I'll take it. So that's day 24. Make sure you're maximizing your cash back when you're shopping. We'll link those up in the show notes. Day 25 is to automate. Automate as much as you can. There was a few years ago where it was kind of embarrassing. Actually, I had like my first ever late fee and interest charge on a credit card. It was like, oh, shoot, like that's totally my bad. That's egg on my face. And thankfully, the bank, I was like, hey, I'm a first time offender. Would you waive this fee? They said yes. But ever since then, it's like, dude, why don't I just set this up as automatic?

53:28And I was hesitant to do it because I want to review the transactions, like make sure there's nothing fishy on there. So now it's just automatic. Same thing goes for investing. Same things go for like, like utility billing, like anything that's going to happen every month, mortgage payments, insurance payments, anything that's going to have to happen. Like it's just set up on automatic, like just save yourself that time of having to remember to go in and do it. Absolutely. And you bring up a good point that sometimes little sneaky expenses, life gets busy and you get used to that automatic. So I think it is helpful.

53:58You should still be reviewing your expenses and maybe just do it once a month. Once a month, you put it on your calendar for 30 minutes or something, 15 minutes to go in your phone and scroll through your credit card through the expenses and everything to make sure there wasn't fraud or anything like that. Because that is still part of being financially savvy and managing your money well, but it is so nice to have everything automatic. Yeah, we have joked that if somebody wanted to steal our card and shop exclusively at Target, Trader Joe's and Costco, it might be months before we ever notice.

54:27Yep, same. Agreed. Absolutely. Day 26 is to take inventory of your skills and your salary. So I think this is really important. I think people don't notice. We're constantly learning and growing. And if you're listening to podcasts like this one, your skills are changing and evolving all of the time. And it's easy to take that for granted and not really realize it. and not bill your company for it, but you should be. So write down those skills that you're developing and even write down the skills that you want to develop and start working on growing those. And you can review it in a year to see like, oh, what did I want to develop?

55:01What did I not know last year? And wow, I actually learned all those skills that can help you be more aware of the skills that you are developing. And then look at your salary, go look at PayScale or Glassdoor or something like that. And I've even seen a good best practice is to apply for jobs, whether or not you're looking for a new job, go apply for other ones just to see how hard or easy would it be for you to find a new job in this market? Would it be a higher salary? Is it something that requires advanced skills? At the very least, it can give you confidence. We talk about FU money in the fire world, but sometimes it can just give you that confidence of if I wanted to move, I could, whether or not you want to do this.

55:39But a strategy is to, if you get another offer and you don't want to leave your company, go back to your company with that offer and say, hey, this other company is interested in me, can I get a raise? And you can use that as leverage. Be careful how you do this strategy. Don't just, you don't want to give them an ultimatum, especially if you don't want to leave, but it gives you data and information to know that how valuable your skills are out in the marketplace. And at the very least, it can give you confidence that if you wanted or needed another job, you could go get one. Yeah. You want to make sure since you're spending a good chunk of your waking hours at this day job, in a lot of cases, you make sure you're being fairly compensated.

56:14So just do a little bit of research. And if you find out that you're not like put a plan into place to get you to what would be a fair compensation level. All right. Day 27 is to brainstorm business ideas. Like we're getting into some side hustle related stuff at this point. This could be based on the inventory of skills that you did on day 26. This could be based on something you heard on the podcast. This could be based on an exercise that I call what sucks. This is like the pains and problems finding exercise of everything that you find annoying going through your day, going through your week, everything your spouse or partner complains to you about everything, your peers or coworkers are kind of griping about like people pay money to make problems go away.

56:56And so if you kind of attune your ear to paying attention to those pains and problems, like you start to see business ideas everywhere. And another one that I like is just looking at the work trucks that are going around your town where you had the mobile bike repair guy come by. He actually fixed a couple of my bikes. We see like the mobile pet grooming type of thing. And every now and again, you just see the name or the business name on the side of these trucks or vans. You're like, huh, that's a business. I don't know, like a cookie delivery or something. There's all sorts of random ones that come around.

57:25So day 27 is to write down a handful of these business ideas, like start to get those creative juices flowing. If I were to start my own thing, what am I going to go out and do? And there's hundreds of episodes on this topic. So I encourage you to go check out some of the archives on that. Yeah, I love that. And I think one thing too, if you're thinking about business ideas is some people, I've heard this, the excuse of, I don't have time or don't have money when they think about starting a business. But I think from an engineering perspective, forced constraints are actually a good thing. If you don't have money, then you need to find a business that doesn't require a lot of capital.

57:58And if you don't have time, then you need to try to create something that maybe is more passive, right? Or that you can manage other people or something like that. Whatever your excuses, like there's an opportunity there and leverage that as a forced constraint. And the other thing too, is our minds are so powerful. And if you frame a question for your mind, as opposed to giving it an excuse, it will help come up with a solution. So you can say like, oh brain, it's okay. We can't start a business because we don't have money. And so your brain like, okay, cool, noted. And then it won't work on that problem.

58:27But if you say, you know, we don't have money, but I really want to start a business. How could we start a business without any money? You can just ask that question. Let your subconscious work on it when you're dreaming at night or whatever, but you'll start to come up with solutions. So just be careful how you frame your questions. And you'd be surprised when you frame positive, unique, interesting questions, what your brain can come up with. Yeah, I like that constraint tends to breed creativity rather than just being super open ended. What's a business idea? Maybe instead you flip that script to say, if I had to make a thousand bucks in the next seven days, what would I do?

58:59Now it's like real and like, okay, well, I'd probably go start a service-based business and here's how I would go get customers. And this is my plan. And you can start going on it. Day 28 is to start your side hustle snowball rolling. So we have a whole episode on the side hustle snowball. Since you've already outlined your expenses in this 30 day money cleanse, this is going to be really easy. So the snowball says you got to list out those expenses from smallest to largest, starting with the Netflix or the Dollar Shave Club or the life insurance or the cell phone bill or gym membership, right?

59:31And now I'm going to look for side hustles to erase that expense. Like how can I make my cost of living free thanks to side hustle? Maybe it's selling stuff out of the garage. Maybe it's doing some freelance work. Maybe it's selling printables on Etsy, maybe, you know, whatever it is, but like you could start thinking about that. And the reason for that is everybody wants to replace their day job salary. I want to be able to pay the rent or the mortgage with this side business income. The snowball lets you celebrate the small wins along the way. Like, Hey, we got free Netflix. Cause I sold this thing or we got free car insurance because I took on this extra client or whatever, like just little wins along the way.

1:00:05So that's day 28. I love it. And I think it helps too, from having a growth mindset perspective. I know so many people that are like, I want to quit my job and make$10 ,000 a month. And then they try something, maybe they start a blog or something. It doesn't work. And then they give up. And it just like, so it's either all or nothing kind of thing. And so I think it helps to build the skills slowly over time and build your confidence as well. I give the example of like going and lifting weights. And if you go and you go all the way to the free weights of like 200 pounds or something, you're not even going to be able to lift it up.

1:00:33Well, you got to start small and build your way up. So I think that's exactly what you do with that. Day number 29 is to set monthly and quarterly check-ins. So we mentioned that a little bit earlier. I think that's a great time to look at your expenses. If you have everything on auto pay, check your expenses, make sure there's no fraud in there. If you have investments, you can rebalance those. Check your net worth. Are you on track? What was your goal from the very beginning when we first started this episode? Step number two, what was your goal? And are you on track for completing that? And if not, change.

1:01:02I think New Year's resolutions are great because it feels like a fresh start, but you can have a fresh start every Monday. You can have a fresh start at the beginning of every month. You can have a fresh start every single day. If yesterday you overspent a little bit, Tomorrow's a brand new day. Let's start again. Let's revisit what's going on with your finances and get back on track. Yeah, we do this fairly regularly on the business side. Like, hey, how did last month shake out? How was the revenue? How was the expenses? We do it much less frequently on the household income statement, if there was such a thing.

1:01:31Like, how do we do? What do we spend? But do update that net worth tracker at least every quarter. And the tools like Monarch and other things will do it automatically for you every month. It's worth that conversation just to see how do we do? Or are we on track for those goals? Day number 30 is to make a donation to charity. So we're talking about money. And as much as it's great to have money in your own bake, it also feels great to give money back. One thing I'll say, because I've been there and sometimes you don't feel like you have enough money to give back. There are some great groups that I found.

1:02:02There's buy nothing groups on Facebook. And then there's also, they call them blessings groups, but people give away their own stuff. So if you're in need, you can go on there and you can make a request for something that you need. Or if somebody is giving away kids' toys and you need kids' toys, you can say that you need it. But also you can give back there. So if you don't feel like you have the ability to give money away, if you're cleaning out the garage, maybe instead of selling the items, you can give some of that stuff away. And you give it to Goodwill or something like that, that's great.

1:02:29You get a tax write-off for the donation, but you don't necessarily get to see the people's faces when they get this item. Whereas with these, you can have people pick them up. And I've given things to grandmas that wanted stuff for their grandkids to play with. They were so grateful to get the kids toys and things like that. It gives you such a feeling of joy to be able to give back and to help the community. So make a donation or give something away to someone else to make their life a little bit better. Yeah, sometimes those dollars can be hard to part with. Like I've worked really hard to earn this, but I think it's an important habit to get into because you recognize there's always gonna be people less fortunate than you and living well is about being able to give back.

1:03:07and especially with kids, like showing them like an attitude of abundance and generosity, like something that at least we're trying to instill. So that's day 30, make that donation bonus points if you set it up on recurring. And then day 31, you made it to the end of the cleanse. It's time to treat yourself. Congratulations, you built yourself a solid financial foundation and I think you'll be better off for it. So Rachel, we covered a lot. Really appreciate you joining me in this one to make it easier to implement all of the steps. I did create that printable 30-day checklist version of the Money Cleanse.

1:03:41You can download that for free at sidehustlenation.com slash cleanse or through the link in the episode description. Moneyhackingmama.com, M-A-M-A is where you can find Rachel. Make sure to check out the ultimate passive income startup checklist that she's got as her email opt-in over there. If you want to learn more about her printables business, be sure to go check out that episode 449, I think it was. It's a classic. Like I said, one of the most popular episodes of all time in the archives. And as always, I want to say thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. You can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.

1:04:19That's it for me. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.