EP09 Money Stories: Carol Kissinger Was "Bad At Money," Until She Found YNAB
Release Date: 07/05/2021
Face Reality, Get Good with Money
The Jesse Mecham Show
Reality can be a scary thing. When we're bad with money (and most of us start that way), money feels, well... we'd rather just not look. Maybe if we don't look, that thing we're worrying about -- not having enough for looming bills, going into debt -- well maybe it will just go away. But we don't have to live in fear. Getting good with money means that you can face reality, and not only face it but embrace it. Make decisions with clear vision, and understand exactly what you're money is doing for you, where you want to go, and most importantly, how you're going to get there. How do you...
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Writing A Letter from Your Future Self
The Jesse Mecham Show
Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube: Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at: Follow YNAB on social media: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter/X: Tik Tok:
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Writing a Letter to Your Past Self
The Jesse Mecham Show
Jesse offers a thought experiment (or a real experiment if you choose to actually do it, which you should!): write a letter to your past self -- you get to decide how long ago -- teaching him or her about money. Tell them about the things you've learned, some of the mistakes you've made, and what kinds of things they have to look forward to as they learn to get good with money. Jesse actually did write a letter to his past self, and he shares it on the podcast. Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube: Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: Sign up for a free 34-day...
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The Moment You Realize You're Good With Money
The Jesse Mecham Show
Jesse recalls his experience as a young missionary in Germany struggling to learn the language. Every day he would take notes of words or phrases he didn't know, and every evening he would study those words. Then one day, he had a conversation with a man in Stuttgart, and he answered completely in German, without thinking or translating. It just clicked. Money is a skill, like language, and it can just click too. But often that comes after many days and weeks and months of following the plan, giving every dollar a job, and answering the about what your money needs to do for you. Then...
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The Unfair Advantage of Being Good with Money
The Jesse Mecham Show
At YNAB we often talk about how getting good with money can help you reduce stress, improve your confidence, improve your relationships, and generally bring you a sense of peace and security -- which is true! There are also some hard mathematical advantages to getting good with money. Jesse points out how getting good with money, learning to set money aside for future expenses can net you great deals. In today's age of ubiquitous consumer credit, paying for things upfront becauase you already have the money can save you anywhere from a few percent to a large chunk (Jesse references a medical...
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What My Kids Think About Money After 21 Years of YNAB
The Jesse Mecham Show
For a lot of people, money carries a lot of negative connotations and emotional baggage. But when you ask kids about money, before they have had a chance to develop negative associations with it, you can hear a different story. Jesse asked his kids what they thought about money and shares some of their answers. He also discusses how the Mecham family has introduced the concept of money to their kids and helped guide them to developing good habits and skills with it. Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube: Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: Sign up for a...
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Who Could You Become If You Weren't Worried About Money?
The Jesse Mecham Show
It's an interesting question, isn't it? Imagine for a second... your credit cards are paid off, you have cash in the bank, your bills are on autopay and you don't even know when they will hit because you already have the money in your account. In fact, you get to the first day of the month and all your bills for that month are already paid for. What would this do to your stress? Your relationships with your friends and family? How would it affect the way you look at your life, your goals and desires? This could be you... and you could become something more when you learn to get good...
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You're Not You When You Are Worried About Money
The Jesse Mecham Show
Remember those Snickers commercials about people acting out because they were "hangry?" We could say the same thing happens to people who are stressed about money. Maybe you're shorter with your kids, maybe you feel pressure to work more hours, to move faster, maybe you argue with your spouse more -- however your money stress manifests, it still... manifests. There's another way. You can learn to become good with money, to gain control over it rather than feeling like it controls you, and to get rid of your money stress forever. It's called YNAB. You can check it out and try it free for...
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Money Destroys Relationships... But It Doesn't Have To
The Jesse Mecham Show
Money is the source of many relationship conflicts. It's the number one reason cited for divorce, for one. Money can, frankly, destroy relationships, but it doesn't have to. You can claim ownership of your money, and rid yourself of money stress -- and by extension, reduce your relationships stress too. Jesse urges you to embrace curiosity — curiosity about what you can do and create with your money. You can incorporate a vision exercise into your daily routine with questions as small as “what do we want today to look like?” to big questions like “what do we want our kids’...
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Start Where You Are, Not Where You "Should Be"
The Jesse Mecham Show
Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube: Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email: Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at: Follow YNAB on social media: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter/X: Tik Tok:
info_outlineIn today's money story, Carol Kissinger tells her story of discovering YNAB after moving from America to Berlin. She had never been good with money, was indebted to her parents for years, and frequently argued with her husband about money. Moving to Berlin put new stress on her bank account, until she discovered YNAB. The Four Rules helped her put a simple framework around money and clarify what it was she was spending on.
As it turns out, impulse purchasing was a recurring theme in Carol's budget. She and her husband would see money in the bank account after pay day and start buying things... without first reserving money for rent, utilities, and the various unplanned expenses that inevitably come up during the year. With an ADHD diagnosis, Carol found it particularly difficult to stop impulse purchasing without having a solid plan of what to do with her money after pay day. YNAB provided a framework for her to budget her dollars and give them jobs before they got spent. She found initially she had to "roll with the punches" frequently as she would forget about irregular expenses, but as she made it through the first several months of budgeting it became easier to predict those and her budget became more stable.
Most importantly, Carol discovered in the process of budgeting with YNAB that some of her long-held preconceptions were really just not true. She believed for a long time she was simply bad at money, and nothing would change that -- it was just a part of who she was. After paying off every dollar of debt to her parents and building an emergency fund, she could no longer say that about herself, and her personal narrative changed. She wasn't just not bad at money anymore, she was good with money. This transformation has extended outside her budget too. Carol and her husband were always very messy housekeepers, she says, to the point where they didn't want to have company over. After going through the budgeting transformation with YNAB, they now have a much cleaner home!
Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com