Category: Money Mindset

Why we all need to think and talk about money as part of a healthy life. Focusing on continuously getting our mindset right.

Strong Motivation to Talk Money with Friends

My favorite teachers share a common gift of using analogies to make a teaching point more clear. My mentor and moot court coach in law school (he preferred we call him Sensei) was an expert at analogies.

Back in law school, after working for months on a brief for a moot court competition, my team messed up and submitted a brief with a bad formatting error on the cover page.

We knew we were going to get penalized, but after months of working on it, we still felt proud of our work. And, it felt good to be done.

We called Sensei in celebration that we were finished. When we told him about the formatting error, he was… not pleased.

“You fumbled the ball on the one yard line!”

I told you he was good with analogies.

Analogies can help us internalize key money concepts.

I’ve found that analogies work well when trying to implement key money wellness habits into our lives. Like the idea of generating fuel for our ultimate life goals through our budgeting choices.

I’m always on the lookout for new analogies to help make money concepts more relatable. It probably has to do with the common misconception that being good with money means knowing the ins-and-outs of the stock market.

That just isn’t true.

I want to help people realize that being good with money has little to do with understanding the stock market and more to do with generating money to invest in the first place.

Relating money concepts to other familiar areas of life can help with that.

This is one of the things I like best about teaching personal finance. Money touches all aspects of our lives, whether we like it or not. So, talking about money is really just talking about life. Sometimes that means using analogies.

Which leads us to Peloton.

See you on the leaderboard.

My wife and I bought a Peloton bike during the pandemic, probably like a lot of you. I’m still a big fan, especially because of the flexibility an at-home workout provides when juggling life with kids.

If you’re also a Peloton fan, who are your favorite instructors? For me, it’s Alex Toussaint and Matt Wilpers. And recently, Selena Samuela, because she loves Fourth Wing.

It occurred to me the other day that my friends and I talk about Peloton a fair amount. I pretty much know who all their favorite instructors are and what type of music they ride to. I’ve been accused of having a hot bike that juices my score, which I continue to deny.

There’s nothing better than doing a Peloton ride at home and seeing that your friend is doing the same ride. It gives you a jolt of energy to know your friend, in that exact moment, is doing the same thing as you.

You know where I’m going with this Peloton analogy.

It’s long been normal to talk about and motivate each other to exercise. But, it’s still considered taboo to talk about money.

Why can’t we talk about money the same way we talk about exercising?

I’m guessing that you know exactly what your closest friends and family members do for exercise. Weights? Yoga? Jogging? You also know which people do nothing at all.

I’m also guessing you have no clue what motivates each of these people to work 2,000 plus hours per year to make money.

Or, what their strategies are for using that money they make to fuel their life goals.

Exercising has long been made better with a personal trainer or a friend to keep you on track. Those days when you don’t feel like working out, having someone to push you is a great advantage.

Why shouldn’t we seek out that same great advantage when it comes to our money, something that touches every aspect of our lives?

This idea extends well beyond exercise habits. I’m sure you know your friends’ current favorite travel destinations, books, and food?

For me, it’s Colorado, Fourth Wing, and Italian beef, obviously.

Do you know your friends’ current money goals?

For me, it’s paying down mortgage debt on our rental properties.

What are you waiting for?

When we moved to our new neighborhood, the first people we met at the playground were a lovely couple that own a local fitness center. They’re also real estate investors and have young kids, like us.

We’ve become friends and have had some amazing talks about life and money. In one such talk, I mentioned that I was thinking about starting Think and Talk Money.

My friend heard me out and didn’t say a word until I finished. He then looked me square in the eyes, like only a coach could do, and said, “What are you waiting for?”

He was absolutely right. A few months later, I launched Think and Talk Money and sent him a message thanking him. I was grateful for our talk about life. He was happy to have motivated me.

Our friends can help with money just like they can help with exercise.

Lately, I’ve thought about how much my friends and I can help each other if we talked about money concepts just like we talk about Peloton.

One thing to mention, I don’t want to give you the idea that we’re constantly talking about exercise. It comes up from time to time, every once in a while. That’s enough of a reminder to pay attention to our fitness. Talking money is the same thing.

You don’t have to bring up money with your friends every week or even every month. How about just every once in a while when it’s on your mind? I think you’ll find your friends are the best people to help you stop worrying about money.

I think you’ll also find that you can be the one helping and motivating your friends. You don’t have to be an expert. Sharing any ideas can help jumpstart the thought process for your friends. That’s a really good feeling.

Always remember, the amount of money we have doesn’t matter anymore than our scores on the bike. There’s no reason to talk about numbers unless the people in your life are comfortable with that.

One caveat, I encourage you to talk specifics with certain people who are impacted by your money choices, like a spouse or partner.

The point of talking money is not to compare yourself to others.

Fitness instructors know that it’s not helpful to tell people to compare themselves to each other. We’re all built physically different and emotionally different. Instead, they encourage us to seek personal improvement, consistently over time.

That’s how we should be talking money with our friends.

We all basically agree with this concept, right? That it’s not helpful to compare ourselves to others. That’s a lesson that’s been drilled into our brains since we were kids.

Let’s remember that lesson when we start approaching our friends to talk money. It’s not how much money any of us have, it’s what we’re doing with that money to fuel our goals that matters.

Do you talk to your friends about paying for college?

Many of my friends have young kids like me and saving for college is a common goal we share.

In news that’s not news to anyone, college is expensive.

Wouldn’t it be beneficial for us to talk about how we’re planning to pay for it?

By talking about paying for kids’ college educations with your friends, you may learn about education-specific investment accounts, like 529 plans, which is a common strategy we’ll soon discuss.

You may also learn less common, but potentially more appealing, strategies for your situation. An example is buying an investment property when your kids are young with the intention of selling it years later to pay for college. This is what Brandon Turner did, and he’s a very smart guy.

The idea is you may learn something that makes it more likely to achieve your goals, whether that’s paying for college or anything else, like saving up for a wedding or paying off student loans.

Is there a stronger motivation than helping your friends and loved ones?

You don’t have to talk numbers. Talk about the strategy and help each other stay consistent. You both will benefit.

Is there any stronger motivation in life than helping our friends and loved ones? On the same note, what better people to learn from than your friends, people you know and trust.

That’s what talking money is all about.

Leave a comment below if you’ve talked money with any of your friends lately.

How did it go?

Did you learn anything that you’d recommend when approaching the topic of money?

January 24, 2025
Better at Making or Keeping Money?
When people learn that I’ve been teaching money wellness to law students, I usually get a reaction like, “I need that class! I know nothing about investments and the stock market.”

It’s a fair reaction. Investing in the stock market can be complicated. Most of us never learn basic stock market principles, let alone how to manage an investment portfolio.

It’s also a reaction that has always fascinated me. Yes, wanting to learn about investing is important. But, it’s not where money wellness begins.

I often wonder, why do people automatically assume that money wellness means investing? There are so many things that we need to get right before we can focus on investing.

Learning about the stock market wasn’t going to help me when I was struggling with debt. I needed to first figure out how to make better spending choices and get out of debt. I needed to play defense before I could go on offense.

Yes, investing is important.

No, it shouldn’t be the first thing we think of when we hear money wellness.

We’ve hardly mentioned investing so far in this blog.

Have you noticed that so far in the Think and Talk Money blog we have hardly even mentioned the word “invest”?

That’s because in order to invest, we first need available money.

To have available money, we need a budget that actually works.

To have a budget that actually works, we need honest, powerful life goals.

Are you starting to see why we first talk about money mindset? Then we moved on to budgeting?

We will talk about investing once we have a plan to continuously generate money to invest.

We will soon talk about investing. A lot. Don’t worry. In my money wellness class, we discuss in depth the importance of investing to create wealth.

Here at Think and Talk Money, we will also talk extensively about investing, including in the stock market and in my preferred asset class, real estate.

Investing is not as hard as generating money to invest.

For now, our goal is to establish sound habits so we have real money to consistently invest over time. It doesn’t make sense to learn how to invest until we have a strong foundation in place.

I think you’ll also find that investing is really not that hard. If learning how to do it on your own doesn’t sound like something you want to do, there are professionals that can do it for you. Whether it’s a good idea to go that route is something we’ll discuss so you can make an informed decision.

If you do hire a professional to invest your money, you still need to know enough so you can talk to this person.

Plus, this person will likely tell you that your ongoing mission is to generate more cash to fuel investments. That’s what we’re focusing on now.

The fun part is once you’ve discovered your motivations and established strong habits, you will consistently have money available so you can invest month after month for the rest of your life.

You could be a terrific investor. If you only have $1,000 to invest a single time, your upside will be limited. If you continuously generate $1,000/month of Later Money to invest, your options (and your wealth) will grow exponentially.

My wife and I would not own five properties today if we didn’t first learn personal money wellness.

My wife and I would not own five properties (11 rental units) today if we had not first learned money wellness fundamentals. I don’t just mean we wouldn’t have had money available to invest, although that is certainly true.

I also mean we wouldn’t have the skills and knowledge to successfully run our real estate business. If you’ve ever wanted to be a business owner or investor, working on personal finance skills now is critical.

Maybe that’s not your path. Still, these skills are critical whether you are a consultant, a writer, or a teacher. Would you agree that having money issues and stress at home can distract you from performing your job at the highest level?

How many hours per year do you work to make money?

Lately, when people ask me why I’m so passionate about money wellness, I respond with a question of my own that goes something like this:

“Let’s say we work 2,000 hours per year to make money (40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year).

We won’t even count all the hours we spend getting dressed and commuting to our jobs.

We also will pretend we’re not looking at our emails in the evening and on weekends.

We definitely won’t count the hours we’re staring at the ceiling fan because we can’t sleep.

OK, so that’s 2,000 hours (plus) per year, to make money.

How many hours per year do we think about what to do with that money?”

Let that sink in for a moment.

How many hours do you work every year to make money? 2,000? 3,000? I’m guessing a lot of those hours are stressful.

Now, how many hours do you think about what to do with that money?

Do you spend any hours at all talking about what to do with that money?

This is why I am passionate about money wellness. Most people spend the vast majority of their lives worried about making money and practically no time at all thinking about what to do with that money.

No, I’m not suggesting that you need to think about money for 2,000 hours per year.

What I am suggesting is that even that little bit of time each week spent thinking and talking about money is just as important as the time you spent earning it.

Think and Talk Money is about encouraging each other to make purposeful money choices.

Robert Kiyosaki put it best in Rich Dad Poor Dad, “It’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you keep.”

If you knew someone that made $1,000,000 per year, and at the end of the year, had only invested $20,000, what would your reaction be?

What if you knew someone who made $100,000 per year and invested $20,000? Did your reaction change?

Think and Talk Money is all about actively thinking and talking about money so we can help each other make informed choices with our hard earned money.

Whether you make a lot of money or a little money, it doesn’t matter. What you choose to do with that money is up to. It’s your life.

All I want is for you to make those choices from a position of informed confidence.
One response to “Better at Making or Keeping Money?”
1. Kevin
  
  January 22, 2025
  
  Great insight! The foundation is so important!
  
  Reply
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January 22, 2025
You Should Want to be Good with Money
So far, we’ve talked about why we need to think about money, why we need to talk about money, and Italian beef. Before we dive deep into budgeting, saving, paying off debt, and investing, we need to make sure our money mindset is locked in.

I hope you’ve started thinking about why you want to be good with money. This will be personal for all of us and may change with time. The more you think and talk about why you want to be good with money, the clearer your motivations will become.

Three powerful reasons why I want to be good with money:
1. Money can give you choices.
2. Money can give you personal power.
3. Money can give you time.
1. Money can give you choices.

This may seem obvious, but when you have money, you have choices. You can choose where to live. You can choose who you work for, or can work for yourself. You can choose how you eat, exercise, relax, and travel.

This holds true whether you make $50,000 or $250,000. Of course, your options may be different. The point is that when you’ve made good money choices, you’ll at least have options.

2. Money can give you personal power.

This is another way to say that money gives you control of your life situation. If you are in a bad relationship, a bad job, or just need a change, money gives you the personal power to do something about it.

3. Money can give you time.

When you have enough money to be truly financially independent, you have earned the freedom to do whatever you want with your time. You can spend your working hours at a job that is meaningful to you. You can spend more time with people who are meaningful to you.

It’s been said many times, “time is our most precious resource.” When you have money, you can buy your time back.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

The most important part of talking is listening.

From the time we’re in diapers, we start learning by observing people older than us. As my family prepares to leave the house, my son has recently started chanting “Let’s roll! Let’s roll! Let’s roll!” Yup, that one’s on me.

The same idea applies when it comes to life and money. I’ve mentioned before how much I’ve learned about life from listening to my clients suffering with mesothelioma. I’ve learned even more by listening to my family, friends, and mentors.

When you listen to enough people with more years behind them than you, certain themes continue to surface, like the importance of family. You’ll hear about creating experiences and memories, usually involving vacations or time with friends.

One thing I’ve never heard? Someone saying “I wish I spent less money on doing the things I loved.”

You don’t have to agree with everything you hear, but the act of listening will start turning the wheels in your own mind. And when your wheels start turning, you can’t be afraid to spend money on the things that make you happy.

Why do we need to actively think about the things that make us happy?

A sneak peak of how I look at budgeting.

I said we weren’t going to discuss budgeting yet, and we won’t. “Budgeting” is kind of a nasty word. Nobody likes to say it out loud, let alone aggressively do it each month. This is why we spend so much time in the beginning talking about our money mindset.

A budget is worthless if you are not motivated to stick to it. Sure, you may stick to your budget plan for a month or two, but you’ll fall back into old habits if you haven’t prioritized what matters most to you.

We’ll save the particulars for another day. A sneak peak at how I teach my students:

Like it or not, everyone needs a budget… for a little while. Once we’ve identified what we spend money on and made some thoughtful choices, most of us don’t need a rigid budget.

If you’ve thought and talked enough about your true motivations, you won’t need a budget either. Each month, you will take care of your obligations, grow your net worth, and use the rest of your money to buy things you love and to create experiences.

Talking money should be emotional.

If you’re being honest with yourself, talking money should be emotional. Remember, most of us exert mental energy pretending we’re not worried about money. My challenge to you is to exert that same energy into figuring out why we behave in certain ways when it comes to money.

The reason it matters is because we’re soon going to be talking in detail about budgeting, which is just the process of making thoughtful choices about how we spend our money. If we don’t know why we choose to spend in certain ways, we won’t be able to make lasting adjustments to our budget.

Have you ever thought about why you dine out?

Photo by Kevin Curtis on Unsplash

Let’s look at an example to start prepping ourselves for the budgeting process. This is a good time to revisit one of the main principles when talking money with your people: no judgments allowed. We’re not looking to shame ourselves or each other. We are aiming for understanding so we can make thoughtful decisions.

Say you’ve looked at your monthly spending and realize that you’re spending a lot of money dining out. The key to creating a budget you will actually stick to is actively thinking about why you spend so much money dining out. You might learn that dining out is an essential part of your best life. You might learn it’s really not.

Ask yourself these questions:

Is there an emotional reason you dine out frequently, like it makes you feel successful? Or, you like spending time with friends? Do you get joy out of trying new dishes?

Maybe it’s something else entirely and unrelated to your emotions. Maybe you don’t have time to cook at home because of your work schedule? Maybe it’s just laziness?

It might have nothing to do with how often you eat out, but where you choose to eat and what you choose to order. Do you order a bottle of wine with dinner? Could you have drinks at home beforehand instead?

When you honestly think about and answer these questions for yourself, you can start to make thoughtful decisions on whether that spending matches your priorities. If it doesn’t, then it’s an area for adjustment.

And, that’s really all that budgeting is. Not so nasty, right?
January 6, 2025
How to Think About Money and Italian Beef
Too many of us are really good at pretending not to worry about money.

“Credit card debt?” Everyone has it.

“Emergency savings?” My job is secure.

“Retirement?” I have so much time.

Accept money for the tool that it is.

Instead of honestly assessing our relationship with money, we actively ignore it. Yes, actively ignore. We don’t passively hide from our credit card bills. We all have the credit card apps on our phones and receive multiple emails about our bills. We know what the numbers are, and we bury that knowledge. We exert mental energy to not think about our money.

Let’s stop doing that and re-frame how we think about money. Instead of convincing ourselves that we’re not worried about money, let’s accept money for the tool that it is. Let’s get energized thinking about what money can do for us.

Thinking about money does not make you a bad person.

Thinking about money does not make you a bad person. Always remember what money is: a tool. You are not a bad person for wanting to use that tool to build the best life for you and your family.

Remember, the goal is not to fall in love with or obsess over the dollars in your bank account. The goal is to think about how you can use those dollars to maximize your life experiences. When you start thinking like that, money is energizing.

A higher income won’t cure your money worries.

You are not immune from worrying about money just because you have a high income. Ask people further along in their careers if earning more money magically solved all their money worries. A lot of times, the opposite is true.

The more we earn usually means the more we spend. We tell ourselves that we deserve to spend more. Or, we need to spend more to match our neighbors or colleagues. You can see this through the clothes people wear, the vacations they take, the restaurants they eat at. This habit of spending more, even as we earn more, explains why credit card debt in America continues to surge.

The other thing about earning more? It also usually means we’re working more. If you were worried about money when you had more available time to think about it, what’s going to happen now that you’re working longer, harder hours?

Vicki Robin, often credited for laying the groundwork for the FIRE movement, has a lot to say about the relationship between money, work, and time. Her book Your Money or Your Life is a must read.

“Sushi Rice” by Skitter Photo/ CC0 1.0

I could go for an Italian beef.

Years ago, my friend came to Chicago to visit. He loves good food and treated me to one of the premier restaurants in the city. Very fancy, Japanese menu. 12 courses. Sake pairings. At one point, my friend spilled some sauce on his shirt. Having noticed his predicament, the waiter walked over and discreetly handed him a stain removal pen folded in a napkin. Classy, right?

It was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had, but it had nothing to do with the food. I loved being there with my friend, and he knows it wasn’t about the food.

Towards the end of the meal, I got up and went to the bathroom. I returned to my friend and the couple at the table next to us gushing about the meal. Turning to me, one of them asked, “Did you absolutely love the food, too?” He choked on his Unagi when I responded, truthfully, “I could really go for an Italian beef.”

I want you to spend your money.

OK, so what’s the point? I am in no way saying we should all stop spending money. Or, that we shouldn’t use our money to enjoy what we want in life. Quite the opposite, actually. I want you to prosper. What I really want is for you to define for yourself what a prosperous life means.

If that means you want to use your money to eat Japanese delicacies instead of Italian beef, please do! Just do it because you put some intentional thought into how spending your money that way fits into your overall life experience.

Get energized thinking about money.

If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming that you’re tired of pretending not to worry about money. You’re tired of treating money just like everyone else. You’re tired of fooling yourself that if you just made more money, everything would be fine. You want the worrying to stop.

Now, you want to feel like you’re moving forward. You’re ready to be energized about using money as a tool to reach your hand selected goals, regardless of how much you make.

To start moving forward, we need to change how we exert our mental energy when it comes to money. In the beginning, many of us exert mental energy into making excuses about our money. Or maybe worse, we actively ignore our money. We convince ourselves that we’re just like everyone else. We pretend not to worry.

Let’s flip that around. Instead of exerting mental energy to ignore our money worries, let’s get energized thinking about how we can use money as a tool to build our lives. It starts with discovering what truly motivates us. Only then can we talk about strong personal finance habits. Without the motivation, we’ll slip back into that existence of pretending not to worry.

There’s no dress rehearsal in life.

Life doesn’t come with a dress rehearsal. There’s no practice game to test out new plays. We need to think about our motivations now and continue to think about those motivations as we go.

You’ll soon hear all about my Tiara Goals, my made-up name for what truly motivates me. At this point, I’ll share the simple recognition that we each only get one life. I don’t say that to be morbid or depressing. I don’t say it to be inspirational, either. I’m saying it simply because it’s true.

Bill Perkins, author of Die with Zero, makes a very convincing argument that most of us wait too long to start using money to create life-changing experiences. You should read Die with Zero and talk about it with your people. This book has led to more money conversations with my friends and family than any other book I’ve read.

This truth is a powerful reminder for me to use money as a tool to accomplish my Tiara Goals. That truth helps explain why I work hard for my clients with mesothelioma, own rental properties, teach law students, and now write this blog.

I encourage each of you to start thinking about what truly matters to you. Not in a theoretical sense. Not what you expect other people would say should matter to you. What you, after deliberate thought, believe truly matters. You won’t have all the answers right away, but you need to start somewhere.

For now, let’s start by helping each other. Let’s stop pretending that we aren’t worried about money, so we can do something about it.

“Credit card debt?” Yup, and I’m attacking it.

“Emergency savings?” Growing each month.

“Retirement?” Not a problem.

“Unagi?” Eh, I’ll have the Italian beef. Dipped, hot peppers.
4 responses to “How to Think About Money and Italian Beef”
1. Kevin
  
  January 11, 2025
  
  This really hit home for me! I read the book Die With Zero, and loved it.
  
  Reply
  
  Matthew Adair
  
  January 12, 2025
  
  Glad you enjoyed the post! And thank you for being a consistent reader of Think and Talk Money!
  
  Reply
2. SA Bandoni
  
  January 12, 2025
  
  So, is the Italian beef like a ‘steak & cheese sub’ in Boston?…if so, then , hell yes… Italian beef over Unagi every time. It is great to see you tackle the topic and attempt to make money a candid discussion. I suspect your teachings, and this blog will inspire more people to do the same.
  
  Reply
  
  Matthew Adair
  
  January 12, 2025
  
  I appreciate those kind words, SA. It’s all about starting the conversation. And, Italian beef is probably like a steak & cheese sub… only better!
  
  Reply
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January 4, 2025
A New Financial Freedom Blog
I named my financial freedom blog “Think and Talk Money” because most of us don’t do enough of either.

I believe we can make it easier on ourselves to make consistent, good money choices if we just spent a little time each week thinking and talking about money.

Wouldn’t most of us agree that doing new things, and especially doing hard things, is easier when we have a partner? Someone to bounce ideas off. Someone to keep us accountable. Someone to pick us up when we aren’t at our best.

Have you ever talked about money or read a financial freedom blog?

Who is the person that knows the most about you?

Your best friend? Significant other? Brother or sister?

This person knows your most embarrassing stories. This person has seen you cry. This person has been there for you through thick and thin.

But, have you ever talked to this person about money?

Have you ever shared what drives you to wake up at 6 a.m. for work? Have you mentioned that you’re worried about how you’re going to pay off debt? Have you ever talked about how you’d like to use money as a tool build your life on your terms?

You might be surprised how powerful these conversations can be. It’s likely the person you’re talking to will be relieved you started the conversation.

If you don’t know where to begin with conversations like this, a financial freedom blog is a good place to start.

I didn’t read a financial freedom blog or talk about money in 2010.

I certainly didn’t think to have conversations about money in 2010 when I fell deeper and deeper into debt. I still remember the day when I realized I was financially heading in the wrong direction.

It was an ordinary Monday. I had grabbed my mail on the way out the door as I headed to my job at the courthouse. When I got to my desk, I opened my credit card statement and was stunned by what I saw. $20,000 owed ($30,000 in today’s dollars) one year into my career.

I was ashamed. I was supposed to be smart. Responsible. Trustworthy. How could I be so foolish?

Looking back, I wonder if I would have had these feelings for so long if I had read a financial freedom blog. Or, what if I was more willing to discuss my money choices with the people I trusted?

I likely would have saved myself a lot of worry, frustration, and time if I hadn’t struggled alone. Perhaps I would have learned that so many others were struggling with consumer debt like I was.

I made it harder on myself by not talking.

I unnecessarily did it the hard way, but I figured it out. I made it a priority to turn things around. I didn’t know the solution at that moment. But, I had been trained to do research so I could find answers to hard questions. So, that’s what I did.

Along the way, I realized that the fundamental and basic personal finance principles are, well, basic. George S. Clason wrote “The Richest Man in Babylon” nearly a century ago. His collection of parables set in ancient Babylon is legendary.

Everyone should read it. His advice is simple and excellent: spend less than you earn. Save. Invest. The same fundamentals are as true today as they were then.

Easy, right?

Money is about continuous choices.

Not exactly. Money is about continuous mindset and choices. The basic concepts are easy enough to understand. Consistently making good choices is hard.

Even as I was racking up credit card debt, I could have aced a quiz that asked, “Is it a good idea to spend more money than you earn every month and plummet deeper and deeper into debt?”

For some reason, though, most of us choose to deal with money on our own. I’d like to change that with my financial freedom blog. There’s a stigma that we shouldn’t talk about money. I’d like to change that, too.

Get comfortable talking about money.

I want us to get comfortable with the idea of going to our friends and loved ones to talk about money, just as we would talk about anything else. There should be no embarrassment or shame in it. We’re all dealing with the same challenges.

By talking about money, we can help each other turn those challenges into opportunities. If we can alleviate our money stress, perhaps we can reverse the trend of lower happiness levels among young people today.

Talking about money is not about numbers.

We’ll have plenty more to say about how to talk money in this financial freedom blog. For now, let’s agree that talking about money is not about prying into how many dollars we each have in the bank.

We can benefit by talking about our money mindset, habits, and strategies, while still keeping certain information private.

Let’s also agree that talking money is a “no judgment” endeavor.

We have all had different experiences that have shaped our relationship with money. It’s important not to pass judgment, especially when talking to our significant others. Your conversation won’t last very long if you ignore this advice.

Each session I’m with my students, I learn from their experiences and money mindset, same as they learn from mine. I encourage them to continue the conversation outside the classroom with their loves ones.

When my students report back, they tell me how empowered they felt after starting these conversations. The more we can talk money, the less we’ll feel alone. We’ll all make better choices because of it.

What topics will we cover in this financial freedom blog?

In this financial freedom blog, we’ll talk about the importance of money mindset and why you should want to be good with money. Money mindset touches every aspect of personal finance, so it’s a theme we’ll keep returning to.

I didn’t realize the power of money mindset until I wrote down my Tiara Goals for financial independence on a beach in 2017.

We’ll talk about personal finance fundamentals, like eliminating disappearing dollars with a Budget After Thinking.

While very few people enjoy the budgeting process, it’s a crucial first step to generate fuel for our savings and investments, which ultimately fund our major life goals.

In addition to budgeting, saving, and investing, we’ll learn how to responsibly use debt and why credit is important.

We’ll spend a lot of time discussing real estate investing, one of my favorite ways to achieve financial freedom.

Along the way, you’ll hear me regularly share one of my core beliefs:

Talking about money is not taboo.

There’s no reason to embark on your journey to financial freedom alone. Share your accomplishments and struggles with your friends and loved ones. You’ll only be better off for it.

I certainly will be doing that with my financial freedom blog.

Please share in the comments below if you’ve ever benefited from talking about money with a friend or loved one.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our email list for all the latest!
2 responses to “A New Financial Freedom Blog”
1. Kevin
  
  January 3, 2025
  
  I’ve been learning from Prof. Adair for the past decade. Not only that, I’ve followed his advice, and it is one of the reasons I am financially independent today. I could not be more excited for this website – there’s so much more left to learn!
  
  Reply
  
  Matthew Adair
  
  January 3, 2025
  
  Love our chats about life and money, Kev! I’m always looking forward to our next conversation!
  
  Reply
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January 2, 2025