Hey, Scott and Jeff here. Today we're going to be talking about how money is or
is not connected to happiness? Stay with us.
So, today we're talking about needless spending and debt and as it relates to
happiness and how those two rarely if ever jive. Yeah. Are you saying debt can
make me happy? I'm... No. I'm saying quite the opposite. Okay. Make sure there. If you
really want to be happy stay out of debt. You know, you want to go to bed each
night with just a nice clean conscience, you know, you're sleeping knowing full
well that there's not all these interests bearing accounts that are
continually gouging money out of you. And so, to be happy, have a little bit of self
control, a little bit of restraint. We'll call this one, "Save up or cinch up" the
purse strings. Which begs the question, why are we standing in front of a big
huge retail store that we have all set foot in? And we're not picking on this
store. No, not specifically. No. But it does sort of bear the burden of being
symbolic of our insatiable desire to have more and more and more. And the
latest and greatest and all the newest versions of everything, the biggest, the
strongest, the baddest, the loudest. We all got to have them. Yeah, yeah. Why? Why do we have
to have them? Stop spending so much money. Especially, and what would you think I
would say here? Stop spending so much money especially, when you're at stores
like this. Especially, money you don't have. Oh, man! Right? I'm telling you.
Yeah. Plastic. It's just, it's speaking of plastic, there's good plastic and there's bad
plastic. You know what makes me happy is when I use good plastic. I.e,
a gift card. I'm telling you Scott, the only time I buy clothes is when I get a
gift card to Walmart or to Brooks Brothers or something. Well, that explains a lot. Yeah, I know.
That's actually not a bad looking shirt. Thank you. Another good piece of plastic, probably at least in my
book, would be an ATM card or a bank card that actually represents real money... (How
you doing? Nice to see you.) that actually represents real money. So, this is my...
That's already in my bank account I'm not just needlessly flashing all of
these free credit cards that people are sending. Oh, yeah.
I'm making sure that I'd spend money that I have. But wait! We're going to give
you a 20% discount if you sign up for our in-store card. Pass. Pass, thank you so
much. Could you please give us your, your what is it? a zip code? P-A-S-S, oh I love that. Yeah. I
just want to make a transaction here. I don't want to join any clubs. No. You
know what I mean? Well, we need your phone number, your address, your passport number,
your blood type, could we get a urine sample?Would that be alright? Also, your umbilical cord would come
in handy. I'm just here to buy some Rayovac, double A batteries ma'am.
Remember when RadioShack used to give you a free batteries? Oh, yeah.
Battery card. Yeah. See, things were free back then. What has happened to our society. In
this day and age, if you're still spending $100 or more a month on cable
or satellite, what, where, are we not... Do we understand technology and how it works?
I mean, I don't want to slam the big telecommunications organizations that
are out there that have satellite dishes on people's homes or the big cable
companies. But, the fact of the matter is, is you can get an antenna at Best Buy
for $14.99 and hook it to your television and pick up for free. How
many stations do you get, free HD stations? Well, you got at least the major networks,
right? But then you got Fox, which I would also call a major Network these days but
yeah, there's plenty that you... You get the PBS, you got all that stuff. You got MeTv ,you
got all the little local HD stations all completely free, right off the
air. And then if you have to have your your steady diet of filmed the latest
and greatest Hollywood productions, you know, you've got Netflix,
they've got sling TV which we have. Which is like have like, 25 bucks a month. So, a fraction of
what we would pay for cable but we actually get the channels that we pretty
much want. Oh, yeah. All I ever want are sports channels. And that's the thing that I
love about this is because, what makes me happy when I'm watching TV is I don't
have to sit through the commercials. I get to pick and choose just like, you
know, Golden Corral buffet. Oh, yeah. I want that. Without all the hassle. Netflix, Hulu. Yeah. Some of those
still have commercials. But if you're wiling to pay the subscription, then you
give them without commercials. Which is nice. And again, that's not spending
too much money. You could probably subscribe to Netflix and Hulu
and Amazon Prime for still, a fraction of the cost that you would spend on your big dish
network or DirecTV package. You know, not to change the subject but I'm going to
anyway. Why don't you? Another thing that
makes me really happy is that I don't have to deal with sneezy pollen in the
air. Here's what I totally love. And this might be for some people
I'm going to... I rarely carry cash in my wallet. I might have a dollar. One
dollar bill in my wallet right now but that helps me just have more control and
not feel like I've got to go and, "Oh, yeah I got a 20 or a 50 or a 100 bucks
in my wallet." Keep the wallet empty. I think that how it makes me be happy,
you know? It's not that hard for some of us to keep our wallets empty.
Because even if we had cash in them our children know where to find our wallet. Yes, yes.
And sometimes our partners or spouses also do, too. And then the cash disappears.
And you're left wondering, "Has there been grand larceny, is there a crook, is there
a burglar on the premises? I had 25 dollars in my wallet and it's not there."
Every day. But you're right. Don't carry too much money with you.
And certainly, don't spend any more than you actually have. Consider certain
purchases. Now, our top 3 worst purchases we've ever made or things that
people are buying that they probably shouldn't. And we will each share our top
3. Let me pull out my list. I haven't heard Jeff's. I think I got mine. I'm just
going to go ahead and tell you. I'm going to make it a... Just give me your third.
Okay, the third, I invested in a Ponzi scheme. Okay. This was in my younger days,
you know, promises of "Oh, man you're going to make a million dollars in 2.4
seconds." You know? What was the... It was just... What are they selling or buying or
whatever. It is some little certificate that if you do this then the next person is
going to do that and you get all these people under you and it was just such... So
you want to be happy? Maybe don't focus on sheer money. Yeah. It's just... There's
more to happiness... get-rich-quick scheme. Not a good way to go. Number 3 for me. Dumbest
purchase is out there right now, at least and probably not from a personal
perspective but what I see, are all the smart phone upgrades and the new
versions. I don't know. It's usually younger people who don't have a lot of
the extra income that are basically saying, "The new 8, the new 9, the new
10." iPhone even released two new phones in the same marketing period. Like they
had commercials for both the 8 and the 10 running at the same time. Unbelievable.
One of my children wanted both of them. Because he must have the latest and
greatest. Folks, if your smartphone is smart enough, it has all the bells and
whistles it needs for now and when it breaks then go and get the latest and
greatest phone, in my opinion. Number 2 for you. Number 2 for me was I spent a nice
tidy sum of money on a back treatment that was all hocus-pocus. I mean, it was,
"Let me go ahead and take this little red light here and if we expose
your Lerebral... Whatever. Your L5-S1 joint, it should be feeling pretty good.
Then we're going to stretch you", you know, over a thirty period, thirty visits
is what I thought... So, light therapy on your spine. Yeah. This
was, you know. And the more I studied about it, the more I found out about the
doctor, it was involved, and you know, you see all these stories and uh... It was just...
So, be careful out there. When you're using your money towards getting well as
far as your health and your physical body goes, just do a lot of research, okay?
Talk to a lot of people. Network as much as you can before you just walk into an
office and somebody says, "Hey, here you go, it's going to make you feel great." And if you wake
up the next morning and you're not feeling any better and you're really low
on money. Happiness is difficult to attain. It just is. Money isn't the root
of all happiness. Yeah. But it certainly helps us find ways to be happy if we can
keep it. Yeah. My number 2 is boats. I've never bought a boat. I don't have a boat
and I don't... I don't mean to you know to rag on anybody that has a boat.
But just to me, in my own mind, that seems like a really stupid purchase. But only
because it's a lot of times it's people who I know are not
paying cash. Look, if you're a bajillionaire, buy 15 boats. What do I care? But if
you're buying big things like that, big toys on credit and on loans, they're
certainly it has its moments, it's great for the family, you get out, you have
reunions but everyone I've ever talked to that's owned a boat has said, "It's way
more trouble than it's worth." Yeah. And the expenses is insane. And they
end up trying to share it with 4 or 5 different families. Where do we
park it in the winter? It's just a really, really big possibly unnecessary purchase.
Especially, if you can rent one over the summer for just a couple of days for a
couple hundred dollars rather than a couple hundred thousand. Absolutely.
Number 1 for you. Worst, stupidest thing... Number 1 for me, it had to be a timeshare. Yeah, I know.
So, you get the email, right? "Hey, come down to
Vegas for two free nights and only have to do is listen to a one and a half hour
presentation." You know, first day, yeah, that's free night, whatever. And you go,
you know, and you sit there and the guy walks you through it and you sit down
and... Now, luckily I did not invest in this. Oh! you didn't yeah. Because I traveled so much.
Doing seminars and teaching people how to train like a rockstar, blah, blah, blah,
right? The last thing I want to do is go on vacation on my vacation. So, it was
really easy for me to say no to this guy. But, so that I didn't have to pay for two
nights hotel. I had to go through the presentation. But be careful of those.
Every resort around the world, especially the all-inclusive resorts, their whole
point is to try to do timeshares and to sell you on an actual unit. And they
always... Eventually, you end up feeling like a second-class citizen if you're
just a guest who's there renting someone else's place. But nonetheless, very
expensive and I've yet to talk to anyone who is limited on funds. Who has not
regretted that decision. Those who have limitless, empty-your-pockets, the deep
pockets. Rock and roll. Go crazy for it. You're going to wake up happy the next
morning. It's not that big of a regret. Yeah. But for most normal people, it's
tough to be happy when you're carrying that kind of debt and looking for people
to take your timeshare. What's your number 1? Number 1 for me are
McMansions. I just, you know, that this trend that
we're in where... Not only does everybody have to have
a brand new house but everybody has to have one that's 7,000 square feet or
more. Yeah. Nothing wrong with a big beautiful large and lovely home. If
you've been blessed to have that, great. But only if you have 11 kids.
Yeah. Even with those 11 kids, they grow up so fast that before you know it,
that empty nest is ten times emptier feeling than anyone else's. Or your
neighbor whose only living in 2,200 square feet. Trust me, you don't need
a lot of space. It's a lot of place to clean, it's a lot of upkeep. And really
the only thing you get out of it, generally speaking is, that initial sense
of pride of going, "Come look at my big beautiful new home."
Or if it's on a tour of homes for a week. You get a people walking through
going, "What a beautiful house you have." And after that, I'm telling you, as
beautiful as it may be, it's not going to bring you an awful lot of happiness. Yeah.
My wife would kill me if we upgraded. She has told me time and time again. "I don't
want to upgrade. I'm happy with our house that we have." You know?
We need more space than we have. Nein! This is stupid.
They understand happy. Yeah I know that sounds sort of counter intuitive to talk
about Germans and happiness. But they probably are happier. But I can, because I'm married
to one. So, that gives me license. That's right. You want to be happy
Square up, baby. Pay off your accounts. Save up your money
and cinch up those purse strings. What are some stupid things that you've
bought? We'd like to hear. In fact, if we hear about enough of them, we'll add them
to an upcoming episode. So, let us know. Like, subscribe, share.
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