Why Employers Need to Care About Their Employees’ Financial Health

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[00:01:20] Hey, this is William Tincup and Ryan Leary. Hopefully you are listening and watching the You Should Know

[00:01:25] podcast. Today we have a wonderful guest on and we're going to learn a lot. Hopefully you learn a

[00:01:31] lot as well. We got Pete down on and our topic today that we're going to be discussing and learning

[00:01:36] from Pete actually is the hidden cost of ignoring employees' financial health. So let's just get right

[00:01:45] into it. Pete has his own podcast, by the way, which is fantastic. Ryan and I have both listened to shows.

[00:01:51] So we'll talk a little bit about that as well. I feel like I want Pete to interview me.

[00:01:57] Hey, yeah. See, we can flip this around. Although I don't have much to say on this topic. I have a lot

[00:02:02] to say. I don't have expertise on this topic, I should say. I have zero. I would fail so bad.

[00:02:08] Pete, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself? Excellent. Well, William, Ryan,

[00:02:12] I'm glad to be with you. I'm Peter Dunn. I'm the CEO of Your Moneyline. And as you mentioned,

[00:02:18] I have a bit of a media background as well. I've written for USA Today for a number of years and

[00:02:24] have a syndicated radio show and podcast and written some books. So I'm obsessed with other

[00:02:29] people's financial lives, not in like a peeper sort of sense, but more of like, hey, how can I help?

[00:02:35] So when you just recently, your company just recently got a Series A, got some funding, right?

[00:02:40] That's right. We had a seed round a couple of years ago, grew significantly over those eight

[00:02:46] quarters and was able to go back and hook up with some great investment groups and announced

[00:02:52] our Series A just a few weeks ago. That's fantastic. In any market, but especially in this market. So

[00:02:58] congratulations to you and your team. Thanks, William. Where do we start with this particular

[00:03:04] topic about employees' financial health, but ignoring that? Where would you like to start?

[00:03:12] I'd like to start in 1951, if that's far back enough.

[00:03:15] 100%. Let's go. Right after the war.

[00:03:17] Here we go.

[00:03:17] Got it.

[00:03:18] You know what, William? And you hit on it because in 1951, when my grandfather came back from the war,

[00:03:24] he started working for General Motors, right? And to me, this is where the story begins.

[00:03:29] Yeah. Starts working for General Motors and worked there for 32 years.

[00:03:33] Yep. Got a pension. You know, those were, you remember those things?

[00:03:38] Yeah. We've been talking about this forever. Yeah.

[00:03:41] Yeah. So he retired in 1983. I was at his retirement party. I remember there was cake. I was six. So I

[00:03:47] remember. And he had a pension. And the strangest part of this story is that in the early 1970s,

[00:03:55] grandpa done didn't work for two years because of what we now call PTSD. Right. Right. And so in the

[00:04:04] 1970s, it was a shell shock. They didn't know what to call it. That's right. And so guys,

[00:04:11] what he had with a pension was financial certainty. Right. No matter what happened,

[00:04:18] General Motors was going to take care of them. And you know, he was retired before passing away for

[00:04:24] 31 years. So 63 years, General Motors paid him and eight more years to my grandma after he passed away.

[00:04:32] 70 years. Right. And so to me, that's where this starts, because back in the day, in the 1970s,

[00:04:41] 88% of people had a pension. That means when they retired, they kept getting paid until they died.

[00:04:46] Today, it's about 10%. And this is problematic because there's always uncertainty in a financial life,

[00:04:53] and it is no longer being equaled out with a pension. Right. Right. Right.

[00:04:58] This is an interesting, an interesting place to start, Peter, because we, William and I have had

[00:05:03] this conversation with many people around the relationship between the employee and the employer,

[00:05:09] and how that's changed over the last 30, 40, 50 years. And I keep coming back personally to this

[00:05:17] very point. I never had the chance, unless I go into a government job, I've really never had the chance,

[00:05:23] to have a pension. It just wasn't in the cards for me, or really, I guess, for you, William.

[00:05:30] So the relationship for me has never been there with the employer, because none of my employers

[00:05:36] actually cared about what I was doing other than getting the work done.

[00:05:39] Well, companies now, instead of calling it a pension, they call it a 401k, where they contribute,

[00:05:45] you contribute. It's not the same. I know. I get that. I'm just saying from their perspective,

[00:05:53] they, that's obviously a huge cost item, a huge liability for them. And so from their perspective,

[00:06:01] it's like, let's get rid of that liability. And then we'll set them up. They want to invest.

[00:06:06] They can invest. We can invest. They manage their own investments or whatever we have there.

[00:06:10] And it's a 401k and it's, you can take it with you when you go.

[00:06:14] Well, very astutely, you just hit the second part of the story, which was

[00:06:18] 1978, a retired benefits consultant in Philadelphia by the name of Ted Benna,

[00:06:24] which there's always funny when there's a guy in the benefits space with the last name of Benna.

[00:06:28] It's like, it sort of benefits. He came up with the modern 401k, right? He said, you know,

[00:06:38] guys, listen to what the purpose of it was to take highly compensated people and compensate them more.

[00:06:45] That was the point, right? It wasn't for the every man or every woman's retirement. It was

[00:06:52] extra compensation. And so by the early 1980s, companies saw this and said, you know, if we

[00:06:59] bastardize this a little bit, it would work. It would work. Well, it would pass the sniff test.

[00:07:06] We got to get rid of this liability. Yeah. And so then here's the financial relationship between

[00:07:14] an employer starting in about 1983. It was, we're going to pay you a paycheck. And then later,

[00:07:21] later, decades from now, if you put enough money into this thing, you'll be fine. And,

[00:07:28] and that was the reality until their early 20 teens when financial wellness became a thing.

[00:07:35] So, so there's a couple of things I took from this, this part here. One,

[00:07:39] I'm from Philadelphia. So we screwed it all up as we normally do. And I was born in 78. So I never had a

[00:07:46] shot. Nope, never. Nope. Never. No, no, he created, I, I think Fidelity, if I don't,

[00:07:54] if I remember correctly, Fidelity got into the 401k business in a big way at one point,

[00:08:00] it might've been the late eighties. Like that was one of their, that was one of their bits as they got in,

[00:08:07] but he'd have always said, and please tear this apart. I've always said that the relationship

[00:08:12] between employer, employee, and vice versa changed at about the same time that free agency and sports

[00:08:20] changed. So I've drawn the parallel of basically when it, let's just take baseball as the, for example,

[00:08:27] when you could have, when free agency entered the market, then that, that bond, whatever that bond

[00:08:33] was that bond between owner and player was, was now everybody's a free agent. The baseball team's free

[00:08:42] agents and the players are free agents. And so they don't have a long-term commitment to anybody. It

[00:08:49] was, you, you have a contract, you're here for the contract and then that's it. Now tear that apart.

[00:08:55] Cause I've, I've just, that's just in my head. I've not read that anywhere. I don't know.

[00:08:59] I have no evidence to prove that by the way. I, I like it. I like it a lot because I think

[00:09:05] about, you know, your favorite sports star leaves town to go somewhere else. And then there's an

[00:09:10] argument amongst the fan base of like, are we supposed to be mad at this person for pursuing

[00:09:14] their own financial interest or not? I'd say, William, I juxtapose that with the creation of

[00:09:22] employee engagement culture. And here's why I say that to me, employee engagement is when a

[00:09:28] company says, Hey, employee care deeply about our goals here. They care about our goals.

[00:09:37] Right. And, and what wasn't said during that time is company cares about your personal financial

[00:09:45] roles. And so if you, if you put those two things together, you get this nastiness of,

[00:09:51] Hey, you're, you're on your own. And by the way, we're, we're not going to suffer if you suffer when I,

[00:09:56] when in fact, I think the opposite is true. I think what we've come to learn in this business,

[00:10:00] I've been at for 25 years now is like when a person struggles financially, while it may not be the

[00:10:07] employer's problem, it is certainly their problem to solve. And, and that's the crux of the matter.

[00:10:14] Let's maybe unpack that a little bit. It's their problem to stop. It's definitely not their problem.

[00:10:18] Got it. Makes sense. Before we move on, I need to let you know about my friend, Mark Pfeffer and his

[00:10:24] show people tech. If you're looking for the latest on product development, marketing, funding, big deals

[00:10:32] happening in talent acquisition, HR, HCM, that's the show you need to listen to go to the work to find

[00:10:40] network, search up people tech, Mark Pfeffer, you can find them anywhere. And I agree with you

[00:10:49] personally that it is their problem to solve because it benefits them. It's in their best

[00:10:54] interest if I'm financially sound as their employee, but maybe unpack that a little bit

[00:10:59] for the audience. What is your view on this? Yeah. I mean, the best way to do it is to, uh,

[00:11:03] certainly not endear myself with everyone listening to this right now by asking everyone

[00:11:08] to think about the worst moment of your financial life. Like I'm seven minutes into my friendship with

[00:11:13] your listeners and I've just ruined it. All right. So, so think about it's good. It's good.

[00:11:20] It is cathartic. Uh, we may need some cocktails or something, but think, uh, think about the worst

[00:11:26] moment of your financial life. And then I want you to think about how your brain went about

[00:11:32] parsing through it and solving it. How, how susceptible was that same brain to doing good work

[00:11:39] in that moment? The answer is it's not like, it's not, it's not even close. You guys, I had a

[00:11:45] situation in the last couple of years, a family financial situation, uh, uh, outside of my household,

[00:11:51] but within my family that was assuming consuming. Arguably I'm one of the world's foremost experts on

[00:11:59] this topic and it was consuming me. And I, I was so stressed. I couldn't sleep. I had anxiety and,

[00:12:07] like, I wasn't at my best. And so the argument here is in these strange four and a half, five years,

[00:12:15] we've all just lived together post COVID or whatever. It's been a dynamic time, which you've got quiet

[00:12:20] quitting. You've got all these different, you know, things within HR or these cultural events.

[00:12:27] And so you've got people just confused and, and not knowing what to do and, and, and how to deal with

[00:12:33] massive housing increases and interest rate fluctuations and promises of student loan

[00:12:39] forgiveness that then get shot down. It's a confusing time. Do you think, uh, you start as a

[00:12:44] company? I mean, first of all, a hundred percent agree with you. There's no way to, unless you're a

[00:12:51] sociopath, there's no way to do to divorce what's going on in your life outside of work and work.

[00:12:58] It's just, those things bleed over to each other. And sometimes companies like that. They like,

[00:13:03] in fact, during COVID it was celebrated that your personal life and your professional life are kind

[00:13:08] of bushed together. Saw cats on kids walking in, like you talked about, you know, not being able to

[00:13:14] buy toilet paper. Like it was just, it was celebrated in a way where do companies start? Like if they do

[00:13:22] care and they, they kind of connect the dots as, as you, you've already have for them, where did they

[00:13:29] start? Do they, do they start with financial literacy? Do they start by opening up a door? Do

[00:13:34] they start by solving some of the problems? Like where, if they wanted to get into this business

[00:13:39] and help, even if it was just for productivity sake, like say there's nothing else philanthropic

[00:13:47] about the endeavor and it's just, we want them to be operating at a higher gear. So we'll care

[00:13:52] about this. Where do they start? Well, in order to help answer that question, I'm going to need to

[00:13:58] speak quite frankly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, please do you're in good company. So there's a couple,

[00:14:03] couple ways to think this through. First off is like, let's understand if a person,

[00:14:07] if an organization has a problem and you look at retirement plan contribution levels,

[00:14:12] you look at how many people in the organization have outstanding 401k loans, you look at wage

[00:14:19] garnishments, you look at those sorts of things. Now here's the, here's the, the, the little grosser

[00:14:24] way to look at it. Look in the parking lot. What are you seeing? Are you seeing $70,000 pickup trucks

[00:14:31] at a manufacturing facility where that doesn't add up, right? Are you, are you seeing things that just

[00:14:38] simply don't make sense? And that's the rub of, of American financial culture is that a person is

[00:14:47] deemed to be doing well when they buy things they can't functionally afford. And they're viewed to not

[00:14:53] be doing well when they don't buy those things that would make them unstable, you know? And so what we

[00:14:58] see is we see like a manufacturing company, 2000 employees in a small town of somewhere. And the

[00:15:04] parking lot is just filled with unbelievably expensive vehicles. And if I'm the owner of

[00:15:09] that company, I can either say we pay our people well, and that's why they have it. Or you can say,

[00:15:16] this does not seem sustainable. These people are not going to retire on time. These people are going

[00:15:22] to go down the street for $1 50 more an hour to our biggest competitors. And if you're honest with

[00:15:28] yourself and that's the way you view it, then you can go about solving the problem.

[00:15:32] This is Peter. This is timely. We, we just released an episode with the global head of talent at

[00:15:38] Southwest. And one of the, the key points of the, of the conversation with him was,

[00:15:46] and William, you, you, if I say this wrong, correct me. He said, everybody, his baggage handlers,

[00:15:53] if they stay with Southwest will retire multimillionaires because of the way they work with them

[00:16:00] financially. That's a provocative statement. I mean, I, um, I got that. Did I get that right?

[00:16:07] Yeah, you did. Okay. What is, what is bit was, uh, where it started, Pete is it started in,

[00:16:13] in the work that they do in grade schools, you know, elementary schools, grade schools,

[00:16:19] high schools, they go deep into those schools, teach them about aviation in general, not about Southwest.

[00:16:26] So instead of, you can be a banker or you can be a lawyer or you can be a doctor. It's like,

[00:16:30] hey, there's so many other things that you could be. And it's a broad kind of umbrella of aviation.

[00:16:36] And they, and his bit was, and I'll, we'll find the clip and send it to you. Because what he said is,

[00:16:44] you give me seven kids and, uh, out of 10 that don't go to college for whatever reason,

[00:16:52] they're not going to go to college. You give me them, I can put them anywhere in Southwest.

[00:16:56] And if they stay for, I can't remember the number of years, 25 years or 30 years, if they stay for,

[00:17:03] they will retire. So, you know, the other kids in college are going to kind of come out of college

[00:17:10] and maybe they might have an, an earning wage that's higher, but over the course of time,

[00:17:15] because of the way Southwest invest in them financially and otherwise, and they stay.

[00:17:21] So it's kind of like going back to, you know, you, you know, uh, your, your grandfather and in a sense

[00:17:27] of like, okay, if you stay, we'll take care of you. I, yeah, that's, this is so interesting.

[00:17:32] This is me choosing my words, by the way, this pause is me really thinking through,

[00:17:39] do I want to say what I want to say? However, here's what I'm willing to say in a vacuum. That's

[00:17:45] a so true, right? I love people getting into trades and I love people not necessarily going to college

[00:17:51] to, to get their career going. And yes, we see it all the time. There are people who do that,

[00:17:57] who become financially stable. They become millionaires because that's just the way the math

[00:18:02] ends up working. However, um, that doesn't solve the underlying financial cultural issues that most

[00:18:09] Americans have in the year 2024, which is that if you're making good money and you're 19 years old,

[00:18:16] you don't all of the sudden go, and that's why I'm going to be a millionaire. It's why,

[00:18:21] that's why I'm going to drive my $70,000 pickup truck to go throw bags for Southwest. That's what

[00:18:28] ends up happening. And then that's, that's what we try. I don't want to say it's what we try to fix

[00:18:33] because to say that that is broken is a little on the nose. It's to say that's where we try to educate

[00:18:38] and contextualize that a person's let's go back to your free agency. Second, William, right?

[00:18:44] People don't think enough about their career earnings. We think about athletes career earnings

[00:18:49] all the time. Oh yeah. But you never think of like, Hey, well, uh, Ryan's career earnings are

[00:18:56] X and within that he must pay for his financial past. If he made mistakes, he must pay for his

[00:19:01] lifestyle now. Oh, and by the way, he must put money away for the future all with his career earnings.

[00:19:07] And so that's the lens of what we must look at. So let me ask the question about living beyond

[00:19:12] your means because everywhere we look, it seems from cities that go bankrupt from our own, you know,

[00:19:22] politics aside, our own government, not really operating within a budget companies, not really

[00:19:27] living within their means and employees not living within their means. So like, where do they get,

[00:19:33] specifically, I'm thinking about people coming out of college, younger people,

[00:19:37] where do they get a sense of how to live within their means? Well, this has a lot to do

[00:19:42] with how they were raised. And let's, let's think about a two parent household for a second. Okay. And

[00:19:50] I'm not going to get into like the geopolitics of parenting or thing, but two parent household,

[00:19:55] both of those parents were raised by different sets of parents. And so they're socialized around

[00:20:02] money in a certain way. And then when they form their own household, they either do or don't come

[00:20:07] to some understanding of this is the way this household does it. Now, so there's the functional

[00:20:13] abilities there that come with debt and savings. But then there's also a mentality of, are we a

[00:20:18] scarcity household? Are we abundance household? And if, and whether you have money or not, you can either

[00:20:25] have a scarcity or abundance mentality. Right. And so when you are a byproduct of that, and you create your own

[00:20:32] household and maybe you have a romantic relationship with someone that you share finances with and they

[00:20:38] have their own, that's where this formula just goes off the rails so fast. And I'll say guys,

[00:20:45] I think this is a byproduct of the last 30 years of popular culture is most young workers try to emulate

[00:20:56] their late adolescent lifestyle as quickly as they can. But that lifestyle was created by their parents

[00:21:04] who were likely in their prime earning careers. Right.

[00:21:08] And so then they, they were like, Hey, I'm 25. I want to have what I had seven years ago.

[00:21:14] Yeah. And that's where it goes off the rails.

[00:21:17] That's interesting.

[00:21:18] And this is just the parents wanting to do great for their children.

[00:21:24] Right. Right. That's like the best point of all of this. They're just, they're just loving their

[00:21:29] kids, trying to get an opportunity, you know? Yeah. So they, they get out of college and they're

[00:21:34] thinking, you know, I want a lake house. I want a boat. I want to, I want to, I want to all of these

[00:21:39] things when their parents had to work for all that stuff for all those years, just to get to a place

[00:21:44] and have those. And they just want it faster.

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[00:21:53] monitoring solution helps HR professionals stay informed of any criminal activity post-hire,

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[00:22:03] or finance, our continuous monitoring ensures you have real-time data you need to respond to risk

[00:22:10] immediately. Protect your organization with SISIV's continuous criminal monitoring because workplace

[00:22:15] safety doesn't stop after hiring. Oh my goodness. Bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud,

[00:22:26] threats, all things that could have been avoided if you had FAMA. Stop hiring dangerous people.

[00:22:37] Call FAMA.io. Now I'm, I'm first of all, as people listen to this, please understand that I'm

[00:22:45] trying to, to lay context down as opposed to blame, which is very different, right? 100%.

[00:22:50] Because the other side of this too is healthcare prices are more expensive than ever. College

[00:22:55] price is more expensive than ever. Housing price is more expensive than ever. And wage growth has not

[00:22:59] kept up. Right, right, right. So we didn't get here overnight and we didn't get here for no reason. So

[00:23:06] Ryan, did you have a question? I'm sorry, brother. I just want to know how to fix it.

[00:23:10] Yeah. I know that's a paintbrush broad question. Where do we start? Like, how do we get there?

[00:23:18] Yeah. All right. So now you get to one of my core beliefs and it's that the average American has a

[00:23:22] 60 day black box around their finance. That there's all this data, transactional data even, about a person's

[00:23:30] reality, what they do, how they act. Yet most Americans go, Hey, we'll see what happens or

[00:23:38] fingers crossed, or I hope we have a good month. It's like, no brother, it's all right there.

[00:23:44] You're just choosing to keep it in the black box. And so to us here at your money line,

[00:23:52] surfacing data. So people can make data driven decisions around their finances is what this is

[00:23:58] all about. I mean, money is the intersection of math and behavior, math and behavior. The math is

[00:24:05] what we ignore so we can feel better about the behavior. And so by surfacing data and then also

[00:24:11] taking into account a person's, what we call a money vibe, which is to say, when I look at my bank account,

[00:24:18] I feel better. Or when I look at my bank account, I feel worse. And everyone's different. Like Ryan,

[00:24:24] if, if, when you look at your finances, you, you take comfort because now, you know, and maybe your

[00:24:30] partner in life looks and when they see it, they feel restricted and they feel worse and it scares

[00:24:36] them. That is important, especially as we surface that data. And again, this is the, you know,

[00:24:43] at your money line, we have a series of coaches, but we also have software that, that takes this into

[00:24:48] account so we can get a person making better decisions. It's fascinating because better decisions

[00:24:53] can be something as micro as not eating out versus buying groceries. Yeah. You know, it's,

[00:24:59] uh, so one of the, William, this is interesting because I saw this online yesterday. Everyone likes to

[00:25:05] arrive at this stop going to Starbucks point, right? Like this is like the last 15 years of personal

[00:25:11] easy way. It's just been like, stop going to Starbucks. I would argue that that's just not,

[00:25:18] I don't want to say it's not realistic advice. I would say it's not helpful advice, right? Like,

[00:25:22] let's say I'm a single parent with three kids and I make $65,000 a year and I want to go to Starbucks

[00:25:30] and have a $4 pink drink or whatever, uh, because it makes me feel like a human for 10 minutes.

[00:25:39] And I'm going to go, don't do that. That's, that's stupid. That could equal $20,000 someday.

[00:25:45] Like I just find that the most insincere thing and it's so common.

[00:25:49] And it's, it's hard to live that way. It's hard to live that way. Yeah. Yeah. So, so how do we,

[00:25:56] okay. So this is, this might be slightly off topic, but I think it's important.

[00:26:01] There's a lot of gurus online, whether they're entrepreneurial gurus or money gurus, people,

[00:26:08] you know, the type there, you know, you're scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, and they're telling you

[00:26:12] do this, do that. Don't do that. How do we discern what is good advice versus bad advice for the

[00:26:19] average worker, for the average parent who's in your example, $65,000 a year, three children,

[00:26:27] single or, or two income household. Doesn't matter. How do they discern what is good, trustful,

[00:26:33] credible information? That's an amazing question. That's an amazing question. And again,

[00:26:36] I would never call myself a guru, but I live in this world, right? Like the people that choose to

[00:26:43] follow what I say, why do they decide that? Now I'm a Midwesterner. Okay. I'm in Indiana. So my

[00:26:50] values are, I'm never going to let wealth be the beacon, right? Like I don't, I don't think the way

[00:26:57] I get someone to pay attention to me is to dangle millions of dollars in front of them. I think it's to,

[00:27:03] to, to have contentment and purpose become part of their, their life. And so Ryan, to your question,

[00:27:11] I would say number one, uh, just like any diet, probably stick with one. I mean, that's the thing.

[00:27:18] If you can't do the Atkins diet and then you can't then do some other thing combined and then it kind

[00:27:23] of doesn't work. So you do have to find one and kind of stick to it. Have you ever been to a webinar

[00:27:28] where the topic was great, but there wasn't enough time to ask questions or have a dialogue to learn more?

[00:27:33] Well, welcome to HR and payroll 2.0 the podcast where those post webinar questions become episodes.

[00:27:38] We feature HR practitioners, leaders, and founders of HR payroll and workplace innovation

[00:27:44] and transformation, sharing their insights and lessons learned from the trenches. We dig in to share

[00:27:48] the knowledge and tips that can help modern HR and payroll leaders navigate the challenges and

[00:27:52] opportunities ahead. So join us for highly authentic unscripted conversations and let's learn together.

[00:27:59] And number two, you have to understand that it is mass advice from mass audience in your own story

[00:28:06] problem. That is your financial life likely needs some alternate version of the base plan. And so

[00:28:13] look, I wait without name and names of these gurus, they're all pretty reasonable. I mean, yeah,

[00:28:20] I disagree functionally with a few things here and there, but in the end, it's not, it's not going to

[00:28:25] kill, kill you enough to follow these folks. I think, I think some of it is that, that, uh,

[00:28:31] we as Americans, we're looking for the quick fix and, uh, this is why, you know, people play the

[00:28:36] lottery. And I think that the next big satchel of money is going to be right around the corner. Right.

[00:28:42] And it's, I think what you've described so far is it's a grind. First of all, you have to take

[00:28:48] inventory. You have to understand where you're at. You got to go, if you're working with your wife or

[00:28:52] your partner or whatever, you've got to kind of get on the same page, whatever that is and figure out

[00:28:58] the behaviors and also how you feel about money and kind of put the home run or the, we're going to

[00:29:06] have one financial windfall. Like I, I know people in my own life that they're thinking about when

[00:29:12] their grandmother's going to die and how it's going to be a windfall. And I'm like, um, well,

[00:29:18] first of all, that's really dark, but I understand it. I understand. I understand people playing the

[00:29:24] lottery on some level. Like I've actually played the lottery and I always tell people, because when

[00:29:29] I went to business school, I took prior to business school, I had to do, Oh, not. I had to

[00:29:33] with that did stats camp. And, uh, yeah, anyhow, uh, Dr. Thomas love, I'll never forget this. He

[00:29:41] just says, who plays the lottery? Like, you know, it gets up to so-and-so who plays a lottery. He's

[00:29:45] like, yeah, that's impossible. Statistically speaking, you will never win the lottery. And he

[00:29:50] broke on all. I mean, literally took a whole wipe off board, just wrote it all out and showed us how

[00:29:55] it won't happen. But yet there's the belief, especially in America, the belief that a windfall is

[00:30:02] just right around the corner. How do we, how do we dissuade that? Or how do we get people to think

[00:30:08] differently about the windfall? I think I've got a reasonable answer for you that then I'm going to

[00:30:13] take our conversation to a very uncomfortable. Okay. So, so, so, so, so this, this statement is

[00:30:21] so true. And I just need people to listen for a second. Most Americans believe they will be able

[00:30:27] to retire successfully because somehow, some way to your point, William, they will have a lot of money.

[00:30:34] They don't know how, but that's the thing. I would argue most Americans will be able to retire

[00:30:42] because they don't need a lot of money. That is to say, I can take a household of two educators

[00:30:50] and because they're not too dependent on their income, they will have a path to financial

[00:30:57] independence. Whereas we've worked with a household of two partners at a law firm, but because they live

[00:31:03] on so much of that income, they're so dependent on it. They need so much money. They can never actually

[00:31:11] become independent. Now let's get uncomfortable. I am about, these next statements are not judgmental.

[00:31:16] They're observational. Right. We live in a culture right now where first off money and nutrition

[00:31:23] are essentially the same thing. The behaviors, there's, there's more chemical stuff, obviously

[00:31:28] with nutrition, but I want you to think of what the biggest craze in fitness and nutrition is in the

[00:31:35] year 2024. And that's things like Ozempic. Right. And so here we have this age old problem of

[00:31:43] having calorie math issues. Again, I'm not a doctor and I'm not judging. And there is a solution that

[00:31:49] is miraculous and people are locking to it. There is no financial Ozempic. There is no financial

[00:31:58] Ozempic. Yet it's the same type of challenges. My biggest challenges in my life, guys, are not

[00:32:06] financially related. They're nutrition. I make terrible food choices. And I will probably in like an

[00:32:12] hour and a half, I'm going to put something in my face. It's a bad idea. I know I'm going to do it.

[00:32:16] Right. Taco Bell.

[00:32:19] I can so relate to this.

[00:32:21] Yeah. And so it's like, so think about your get out again. I, I like talking about this,

[00:32:25] but I just don't want anyone to feel like hurt, honestly. Like, so Ozempic is this amazing solution

[00:32:32] and I'm thankful for those that it's helping. Right.

[00:32:35] I've not personally chosen to go that route, although I know it would help me.

[00:32:39] But financially, as we go, well, what's the version of that? Is it credit card usage that

[00:32:46] gets forgiven? Like, what is it? And it doesn't exist. And I think that's where some of these

[00:32:51] challenges get interesting. Is it, oh, well, that's why I have to invest in crypto. Or is

[00:32:56] that why I have become an online influencer? It's, and so you try to see people solving the

[00:33:01] same problem and it just doesn't work.

[00:33:02] I will forever take this, this away between the finance and nutrition, money and nutrition

[00:33:09] and how they run parallel. I will, I'll, I'll go to my grave with that information because

[00:33:15] I see myself making poor decisions on both fronts.

[00:33:19] Yeah. Here's the thing though. Like for me, I'm just speaking the truth of my own truth. Like

[00:33:28] arguably terrible drink decisions. But, but the thing with money is when I get paid, I think I

[00:33:33] get, what's, I don't even know what today. The 15th, I think is the next time I get paid.

[00:33:37] I know that I will take care of business before anything else happens. Right. I will fund what

[00:33:43] I need to fund. I will pay off what I need to pay off. And then whatever money's left over

[00:33:47] because I don't really use the credit cards. I'm not going to get in trouble. Like I can actually

[00:33:53] solve for that food wise. I'm always going to eat. I'm going to the buffet.

[00:33:58] Does that enable that behavior because you've done all the, you've taken care of the business

[00:34:03] and you've got this little pool of money left over. And it's like, this is discretionary income.

[00:34:09] I can use it any way that I want to. Does that enable the, the decisions that you make in nutrition

[00:34:16] and drink?

[00:34:17] Right. Well, that's interesting because, oh my gosh, that's super interesting because to me,

[00:34:21] look, look at, look at me learning about finance on your show, right? Because to me,

[00:34:26] I've always viewed this as, well, I'm not going to make a mistake financially because I've already

[00:34:30] taken care of whatever. So who really cares? But what that turns into is spending the money.

[00:34:34] That's right.

[00:34:35] On the chicken wings.

[00:34:36] Chicken wings can be healthy. Let's just.

[00:34:39] Okay.

[00:34:39] They don't have to be credit.

[00:34:47] A lot of Americans, they don't take care of the financial part first. They go and feed

[00:34:52] whatever things that they need to feed. And again, that $75,000 truck or whatever that

[00:34:58] is, they'll go feed that. And then do make, make decisions around nutrition and drink that

[00:35:07] aren't great for them. And, but they didn't, they never took care of business. So, I mean,

[00:35:12] at least you're taking care of business.

[00:35:14] Well, on pizza night, sometimes my wife will be like, do you want some salad? And then I'm

[00:35:18] like, is that taking care of business?

[00:35:20] Come on now.

[00:35:21] And I'm like, well, not unless there's a lot of blue cheese.

[00:35:24] It's just making you feel a little better.

[00:35:26] A little better, a little better. So Peter, I got a question here,

[00:35:30] just to bring it back a little bit to decisions. So what is that? And I know it's different for

[00:35:36] every person, but what is that point that you see or kind of a red flag might go up where

[00:35:43] the person's making the wrong decision. Let's use the truck, for example, or a car 70. I mean,

[00:35:49] you can't really find the truck for less than, you know, 50, $60,000. Do you, where's that red flag?

[00:35:57] Do you, do you say, okay, maybe you don't need a truck. You can get this type of car, or is it

[00:36:01] not the decision? If, is it more of the foundation of how they're building their,

[00:36:06] their family, their, their finances, what's your take there?

[00:36:10] Yeah. A couple of things. First off, in a very functional, pragmatic sense,

[00:36:14] that's why financial goals matter. Because if you don't have financial goals and then you go make

[00:36:19] a dumb decision, you're measuring that dumb decision against nothing. So therefore the dumb

[00:36:22] decision doesn't feel dumb. Right.

[00:36:24] If you're measuring the dumb decision about your inability to accomplish your goals, then,

[00:36:29] then that, that becomes a problem. But on a much more anecdotal level,

[00:36:34] if you've ever, and I, I'm guessing you guys have done this because I know I have,

[00:36:38] if you've ever said to yourself, you get in a jam and then you go never again. Well,

[00:36:42] I let this happen. And then you find yourself back in that jam. Like that is the ultimate red flag of

[00:36:50] like, maybe I should try a completely different methodology here. Yeah. You know, it's, it's,

[00:36:55] it's someone that drinks. I drink everything. So it's someone that drinks and then they get

[00:37:00] hammered. They wake up the next day and I don't like the way I feel.

[00:37:03] And then three weeks later there, they do the exact same thing. So I think there's some

[00:37:08] Pavlovian stuff in here that, that seems interesting to me is like, we need to find

[00:37:15] reward differently in both finance and in nutrition. We need to find something rewarding about

[00:37:22] looking at our bank, our bank account. So it's almost like a rewiring of our brains to say,

[00:37:28] you know what, have goals check. Cause if you don't have goals, you're rudderless. You don't

[00:37:33] really know where you are in the, in the process. So having goals is one, but, but also in small

[00:37:39] victories, taking pride in making good decisions along the way to your journeys. So it's like

[00:37:47] that endorphins and stuff that kick in in your brain when you make a good decision, if true,

[00:37:53] how do we, how do we get people to do that? So I think we can all say, and I, I, again,

[00:37:59] I don't want to be the person that uses the word addiction incorrectly, but I think we can all

[00:38:05] become enamored with spending. Like, I think we've all been there, right? It's like, Oh,

[00:38:10] that felt good. Yeah.

[00:38:11] Everybody tell me that the day that when you collect things, if you're a collector of anything,

[00:38:15] like whether bourbon or watches or paintings or whatever, right. I collect bourbon to then

[00:38:21] leave bourbon. Exactly. Yeah. So the dopamine hit comes with the acquisition of whatever it is. And so

[00:38:31] let's say bourbon is a great example. Let's say you've been looking for a $50 bourbon and you find

[00:38:36] it. And so you get the dopamine hit of that $50 bourbon, but let's say you start hunting for $150

[00:38:41] bourbon. You find it. Then that dopamine hit is associated with that price level. And now you're

[00:38:46] not going to feel as good as when you find the $50 bourbon. So that's a thing. And I would say

[00:38:53] you can actually get addicted to saving. You really can get addicted to saving. Whereas,

[00:38:59] you know, you might just look at your savings account all the time to see it going up.

[00:39:03] Like that is the thing. And we see people cross over into that.

[00:39:07] Right. It takes a lot of work, but that's where sacrifice turns into self-control.

[00:39:12] And that's what this is about of like, yes, you have to sacrifice to attempt to change the never

[00:39:19] again situation. And if you stick with it long enough, that self-control is such a wonderful

[00:39:25] feeling.

[00:39:26] That is really interesting, Peter, because I am the saver and it is a massive hit, dopamine hit,

[00:39:37] as you say, when I can go grocery shopping and not spend money. I don't like the coupon. I don't,

[00:39:44] I don't take time for all of that, but there's something in me walking through the grocery store

[00:39:49] and not buying it. Just getting a bare minimum. You're talking about shopping.

[00:39:54] Yeah.

[00:39:55] Shoplifting. Yeah. Okay.

[00:39:56] Well, this is great.

[00:39:56] It's like the bare minimum. And at some point or letting the refrigerator run out of food

[00:40:01] before we go empty the freezer. So I don't have frozen foods in there and the kids hate it.

[00:40:07] Why do you do this? And it's like, I, sometimes I stop and think, well, why, why did I do it?

[00:40:13] It's not a money thing. It's not, I don't want to eat the food thing. I'm just tired of seeing it in

[00:40:17] the refrigerator and nobody's eating it. I don't know, but it is, it is a hit. Like I feel it and

[00:40:23] it's a rush. It's interesting.

[00:40:26] Ryan, I think again, we're this whole, this, I don't, whatever you're going to name this episode,

[00:40:30] but food and money, I don't know, but I'll say this, that understanding the difference between

[00:40:36] satisfaction and pleasure is really important. You know, like food, if I'm going to go eat some

[00:40:42] garbage here in about an hour, uh, am I going to seek pleasure or am I going to seek satisfaction,

[00:40:48] which is to know I ate something that made sense. And then afterwards I can feel good about it.

[00:40:53] Money wise, uh, there's pleasure in spending money. There's pleasure of shopping online,

[00:40:59] but there's satisfaction in knowing you didn't buy something you shouldn't.

[00:41:02] And I think understanding that difference and what triggers and what you chase is so important.

[00:41:07] So I need to get your take on this. I've, I've told people that not to, not to believe that social,

[00:41:14] social security will be around when they need it.

[00:41:17] Please be wrong.

[00:41:18] So no, I, I, I, I think that in my, our generation, people of my age and younger, I'm like,

[00:41:25] it won't be there. That just won't be there. And if you think it's there, like you're building

[00:41:29] your life around, I'll get to a certain age, I'll retire and social security will take care of me for

[00:41:34] the rest of my life. I just don't buy it. I've never bought it. Like even when I was younger,

[00:41:39] I'm like, yeah, it's, that's a fantasy, you know, that's just not going to be there.

[00:41:45] The government's going to find a way to get out of that responsibility.

[00:41:49] It's a tough one. I mean, I could do two hours on this and no one has time for this,

[00:41:54] but I'll, I'll go as succinct as I can. The math supports you. Okay.

[00:41:59] The math supports you. Yeah. By the way, math is undefeated.

[00:42:02] But it turns out it's good to know math is undefeated as I tell my daughter time.

[00:42:06] Yeah. That is functionally true. Yeah. However, um, so many decisions are not being made around

[00:42:16] that topic that they just keep kicking the can down the road. Right. That it doesn't even make sense

[00:42:21] anymore. And so like the idea of like, well, once it gets so bad, you can't fix it. Then there's

[00:42:26] nothing you can do. I'm have this mindset now of like the decisions not being around. It makes

[00:42:32] no sense whatsoever right now, whatever I think is going to happen later probably won't happen

[00:42:38] because of the same level of thinking. Right. And so it's just like, I'm 46. Don't let the

[00:42:43] hairline fool you. I'm 46 years old. Um, I'm not counting on social security being around for me.

[00:42:49] Like I I'm accounting for, for something different, but given all the other challenges

[00:42:53] we just talked about today, people seeing their parents and grandparents retire with pensions,

[00:42:57] people not putting the random on their 401ks, those people who are struggling to make the good

[00:43:01] decisions in their current life right now, if you go to them and say, Oh, by the way,

[00:43:05] whatever retirement you thought was going to be there is not going to be there.

[00:43:08] Got a whole other massive, massive problem. That's much worse than how uplifting sounds like

[00:43:14] not a good way to end it, but I know it's exactly the way to enter. Well, because you know,

[00:43:20] this is the part of the, the whole thing about financial literacy is we can't dodge these things.

[00:43:27] These are, these are things that we should be actually running straight into not dodging.

[00:43:31] So we could talk to you forever. You're just a wonderful, wonderful guest. So thank you so much

[00:43:38] for carving out time for us and our audience. And, uh, that's it. Appreciate you.

[00:43:44] Thanks gentlemen. Absolutely. Thanks to the audience. Like do all that stuff that you do on podcasts,

[00:43:50] we appreciate you.