Maximize Joy with SMART Financial Choices! Featuring Cara Macksoud

On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Cara Macksoud, CEO of Money Habitudes about changing the way we think about money and financial behavior.

In this episode we discussed:

• Maximizing your joy with you what you to have.
• Money decisions under pressure can be more expensive.
• Take the time to commit to learning something about money. 
• Have money conversations openly and non-judgmentally.
• Money decisions under pressure can be more expensive. 

Cara Macksoud, FBS® is the CEO of Money Habitudes. After a 15-year career as a trader on Wall Street and serving as the Chief Financial Officer for a nonprofit organization in New York City, Cara transitioned into the behavioral finance space. She earned a Graduate Certificate in Financial Therapy from Kansas State University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business. She is a Certified Financial Behavior Specialist® and a member of the Financial Therapy Association, where she serves on the board as the Chair of Student Engagement. Additionally, she is a member of the Association of Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE) and is an Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC) candidate.

Connect with Cara Macksoud:

Website: www.moneyhabitudes.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caramacksoud/

Mentioned this episode:

The Tony Steuer Podcast with Ben Miller: Money Equals Time (here).

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dr. Dan Ariely (Amazon)

Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter by Dr. Dan Ariely (Amazon) 

Chapters

• 0:04 Transforming Financial Behavior With Money Habitudes
• 12:27 Importance of Financial Preparedness
• 16:08 Exploring Money Mindsets and Financial Opportunities
• 21:38 Understanding Your Personal Money Habits
• 24:52 Personal Money Habits and Conversations
• 29:48 Scenario Planning for Financial Mindfulness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work, Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Kara Maxud. Kara is the CEO of Money Habitudes. In this episode, we'll be discussing Kara's insights on how we change the way we think about money and financial behavior. Kara, welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 1:08

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Fantastic. Well, you know, let's jump in. You know, let's find out a little bit about you. What is your origin story?

Speaker 3: 1:19

So I always say it was a long, windy road. I think I am relating to the Grateful Dead these days as this long, strange trip. I spent my early career on Wall Street and I went at a very young age, at 17. And after, you know, just a couple of years of being there and not having grown up on Wall Street meaning I didn't have an uncle or a family member who was, you know, working there I did have a distant family member and that's how I got there, but I wasn't, you know, it wasn't a life that I was part of every day. And I got there and I saw these crazy indulgences and this. I mean I don't think there's any place other than Wall Street where you see that level of greed and what I've now coined, the genie in the lamp, where you actually see people who have access to so much, have created so much wealth, and actually cross the line into greed and wind up imprisoning themselves because they actually get in trouble with the law, right, and so you know what, what is that about somebody that takes them there, right? And you know what is that about somebody that takes them there, right? And then, so you know, I didn't realize I was doing some research during that job, but I quickly, you know, started to have a family and so I left Wall Street. Wall Street doesn't keep you when you have a bunch of kids.

Speaker 3: 2:40

So I went off to have five kids and then moved into the nonprofit sector, more because of flexibility, but my job when I was working at the nonprofit was to bank unbanked participants. So it was about 860 students in a workforce development program and my job was to bank them. And the only instruction I was given was we have to give them financial education, because they're financially uneducated. And I was like I don't know if I buy that, because they show up with stuff and they seem to have things and they seem to move around the city of New York City that's not free, so they have access to something, whether it's bartering, whether it's robbing, whether it's. There's some version of money here that's happening.

Speaker 3: 3:29

And so that's really what started to put me down, this barrel of like what really is financial education? And then, what are the behaviors that correlate to financial education to make it valuable or useful, because either one alone, right, doesn't solve the problem. I know that was a long-winded answer, but that was kind of how I wound up where I am. In 2020, I decided to go back for a degree in behavioral finance, got to use the Money Habitude suite of products. In 2022, you know, took over at the helm of the company just to bring more technology support and training to the users of our products.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Well, fantastic, that's great, and I love the Grateful Dead quote. For listeners of the show they know I'm a deadhead, so anytime we can sneak in a Grateful Dead quote it's a good show and I think for all of us it's a long, strange trip. But I think what you said here is a question we need that we don't ask enough, and that's how behavior correlates to financial education, that we talk about financial education and also people who listen to the show all the time have heard me say this is you know what people know they need to save more money than they spend, and some of these other things that we keep saying. Well, we need to educate them on it, and that's not really the problem. People know these things, but it's the how and the why that are the more important questions. So you know. So let's go a little bit deeper on. You know. Let's find. You know. Let's talk a little bit deeper on. Let's talk a little bit about what Money Habitudes is. What are you currently working on?

Speaker 3: 5:09

So Money Habitudes. The proprietary assessment that we offer, which is our main product, is a 54 statement money personality assessment. It's meant to be done very quickly, think along the lines of like a Myers-Briggs or some sort of other personality type assessment. It's meant to be done very quickly, think along the lines of like a Myers-Briggs or some sort of other personality type assessment. The beauty of our assessment is that it's not meant to put you in a quadrant or say, hey, tony, you're a spender or you're a worshiper or you're an avoider. It's meant to say here's the habitudes that we've identified, say, here's the habitudes that we've identified govern money, beliefs and behaviors. And you have a relationship with every single one of these habits and attitudes. Where are you in level of dominance on each of these? What we call a spectrum? Right, and so you're either under utilizing, over utilizing, or falling somewhere in the middle with each of the habitudes. It's how it's showing up. And then it's not just how those individual ones are showing up, but just like how a supporting actor and a main actor in a movie, your supporting habitudes support your main habitude and vice versa. And we know that money is so relational and it's in every aspect of our life, so the way we show up at work might be different than the way we show up with our family or our spouse or our children, and so being aware of how we're utilizing certain habits and behaviors in certain settings to really tell our money story, the big things we're working on currently is just bringing not just our assessment tool with greater technology around it so we can support our practitioners better, but really trying to understand what our practitioners need to be able to do their jobs more efficiently, whether it's more training, more support, understanding different cultural systems, family systems, community systems, what represents money in these places?

Speaker 3: 7:10

Because the textbooks and the actual cashflow analysis or budget sheet you know they're numbers and they're on paper what somebody lives in in their lived life experience may never match the balance sheet. You may never. I mean you and I could sit here and probably name 10 people off the top of our head who have died, you know by tremendous means. You know where they've taken their own lives or they've been severely depressed and they had a lot of money and access to it. So if money solved all problems or if money alone could do jobs, then that wouldn't be the case. We would just make that go away. But we can't do that. So how do we get people to maximize their joy with what they do have, whether it's a lot or a little, and understand that the money doesn't solve the problem? You use the money to solve the problem.

Speaker 2: 8:15

But if you don't understand utilization, you can't get there. Yeah, I love that. And well, one of the things you said that I think gets overlooked a lot in the financial planning circles is the impact of culture.

Speaker 2: 8:24

I think that is really missed. You know the values that people have on money and how they used it, but I think the other thing and I've heard this from a lot of guests is that you know money itself doesn't solve the problem. Money is a tool that can be helpful, and I love what you said maximize your joy with what you have. I think that is so important because there's so many people who you can think of in your lives who don't have a lot of money but they're super happy, you know. And so it's clear that you know money can buy things that may make you happy, but it's not necessary.

Speaker 3: 9:02

but it's not necessary. And listen, I get a lot of heat for saying this a lot, but I've been in more cases where more abundance of money, of stuff, has gotten people in more trouble than when you don't have an abundance and you just have to utilize what you have in front of you. So think about that when we talk about tools. If I've got to fix something and I've got three tools in my toolbox and I have no idea which tool to use, I can try all three and one of them is going to work. But if I have 150 tools in my toolbox, the amount of time it's going to take me to get through all of them to figure out which one works. Maybe I get lucky and it's in the first 10, right, but that overwhelming feeling of where do I even start? Right? And so we don't talk about that enough that having more can actually be a disservice at times if you don't truly understand how to utilize things properly.

Speaker 2: 10:09

Exactly, and so you know, that's exactly what I'm trying to do with the Get Ready Blueprint and my Get Ready Money Club is provide people with those clear, simple action items, because, like you're talking about, it's like so I'm thinking. You know, as you were talking about, I'm thinking about people who want to pick individual stocks. I mean, there's thousands of individual securities. Or are you better off getting an S&P 500 index, which we can't comment on because we're not investment advisors on this show, but an S&P 500 index? You're going to get the majority of the big stocks and you're going to benefit from that, and then you don't have to think about buying which individual securities you have to buy.

Speaker 3: 10:51

And I have to say, just to comment on that, I say to people all the time, unless your ego wants you to be the smartest person in the room or you have a direct, because I do recommend individual stocks often when I work with young adults, and the reason why is because, before I go down this long jargon of financial education and why they should save for retirement, I try to keep it real basic and I say things like, especially in some of these student groups that I've done work with, where every kid that walks in the room has a pair of Nike Air Force Ones on and I know how much those sneakers are, and I'll say to them I'm not here to knock your Air Force Ones, but what I am here to say is I know that all of you standing here only have two feet. Like there's no. No human comes unless you have a terrible birth defect. No human comes with more than two feet. Like there's no, no human comes unless you have a terrible birth defect. No human comes with more than two feet.

Speaker 3: 11:49

If you have more than two pairs of these Nike Air Force ones, in my opinion you have more than you really need because you can never go out. I mean, let's say you're creative and you want one shoe in each color Great, so the two pairs are going to suffice. Outside of that, they're sitting in the closet. If we took one pair of those shoes and bought you one share of stock in Nike, now, when all your friends come in the room, you own a piece of the company that they bought those shoes from right, and so in cases like that, I try to make that connection. So I will go after an individual stock.

Speaker 3: 12:27

But in the big picture of investing, I'm like why are you trying to do? Why are we reinventing the wheel? Why are you trying to do something else? There are people paid to put those index funds together or to put those ETFs together. Let them do their jobs. You can spend your time doing something else, so don't try to outsmart what they've already. They've got algorithms and spreadsheets and years of education and an ego to go with it. Let them do the job.

Speaker 2: 12:56

And they're professionals. That's what they do all day. But I think what you're saying is wise, and that's kind of more of the Peter Lynch theory is invest in what you know is like you know. With something like Nike stocks, people know for the most part what Nike does Right and what their product is, so it's a little bit, and like you said is that they can identify with it, so you know.

Speaker 3: 13:24

The next, question is and you should feel proud, right? I mean sorry to interrupt you, but like that ownership in Nike stock is going to have a level of connection. If you're buying a stock just to buy it because someone told you and it's a get rich quick, you know, I don't know like we've got a lot of ways. That's the biggest misconception I think I see in the world is people don't know like we've got a lot of ways. That's the biggest misconception I think I see in the world is people don't realize how many ways you can access money. Like you can cut hair, you can pick corn, you can, you know, shine shoes, you can be a firefighter All of these jobs end in money.

Speaker 3: 14:09

You could sell ice pops on the street. You can sell your clothes back to consignment shops, like there's so many ways for you to turn something into money that that's actually not hard to solve, right? It's what you then, once you get this money and you want to go utilize it, that you need to put your blinders on and not look to the left and to the right of what Billy or what Johnny's doing with their money, because then you accidentally do with your money what they are doing with their money and now it doesn't maximize its benefit to you.

Speaker 2: 14:50

Yeah, no, that's an awesome point. So you know, just you know. To get back to the next question, I was going to ask it's like we could talk about all this stuff. I mean it's fascinating Is why do you think financial preparedness is important?

Speaker 3: 15:07

So I think it's important for a lot of reasons. But the biggest thing is so you don't get nervous, right Like financial preparedness. Really you're running a gamut, right. What is being financially prepared? Is it if I'm at a low, low income level? Is it just understanding my housing benefit, my food benefit? Is financial preparedness at a high level? You know I'm I'm I'm at risk of having a heart attack. I've got three little kids and I've got a wife and I'm the breadwinner, right, so I need to understand insurance policies or right Like it's so large gamut, whatever situation you're in, understanding the things that are surrounding you. So when you have to make a decision or something comes into your line of sight, you're not nervous. You can calmly, without being super emotional, make a decision or understand the information that's being given to you around your financial situation.

Speaker 2: 16:08

I love that definition Is you know, do it calmly, understand your resources and what you're trying to do. I think people don't. You know they they think about their money, but they don't really think about what the ramifications are and what it actually is, you know. So I love that advice and keep calm. I know it's on T-shirts and mics and everything, but there's a reason why and it really applies to your money Don't make money decisions when you're under pressure.

Speaker 3: 16:41

I mean right, because money decisions under pressure can actually be more costly than anything, more costly than anything. And that's what then sits with you after you even get yourself out of that situation. There's shame, there's the guilt, there's the I did bad right, Like that's what breaks your confidence, that's what doesn't have you prepared for the next thing that comes down the pipeline A hundred percent, a hundred, 100%.

Speaker 2: 17:09

So, kara, what basic money concept do you wish people knew?

Speaker 3: 17:14

So, as I said before, I think the big concept that I wish people understood was how many money lines there are, and when I say money lines is ways to access money and ways to you know to get money into, like a cash flow into your you know being right. And so, whether that's, you know, a government assisted system, or whether that's actually a job or a second job or a side hustle, or giving somebody your time with the investment of like, if this takes off, I'm going to have an oh. I always think of the kid who did the graffiti on the first Facebook office, right Like there were kids back then. He did some graffiti to make the office look cool. I forget what the dollar amount was, but in the end that was worth real money, you know.

Speaker 3: 18:09

So I just wish people understood, like I hear so many like just commentary about, like it's so hard, everything's so expensive, like the narratives, inflation, bad interest rates, like and I just wish the narratives were around. You're in the driver's seat. There's all these places that end in money. You can actually take a stroll down some of these lanes, you can actually choose the one you like and if you spend five minutes there, you actually know how much money is going to be at the end of that lane. So you don't have to be so frustrated that you picked a job that didn't pay what you thought it would pay.

Speaker 2: 18:50

I love that advice and I've heard that from picked a job that didn't pay what you thought it would pay. I love that advice and I've heard that from quite a few guests is you know that you know that you do have options and that you need to consider and sometimes, like you're saying, is something that that's a little bit different, but but there are options. You know you can drive Uber different, but there are options. You can drive Uber. You can do so many different things that nothing has to be the final answer, but it's changing the perspective. It's yeah, inflation is a pain, but when you look at inflation over 30 years, inflation is just a part of life and we've experienced high inflation, but we've experienced low inflation for a long period.

Speaker 3: 19:31

And Tony, let's be honest. The inflation that we've got right now is as bad as it might be, and, yes, there's high interest rates on mortgages, but for the first time in 20 something years, you're getting 5% risk-free in the bank. With no, you're not, even you don't have to chase markets.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Yeah, and that's the flip side is. You know that there's, you know the good and the bad. And then the other thing, just to put inflation in perspective if you go back to the 1970s, our inflation rate is nothing compared to what it was for a long period of time.

Speaker 3: 20:07

Yep.

Speaker 2: 20:08

Absolutely what it was for a long period of time. Yep, absolutely, yeah. So, kara, what is one simple thing people can do each year to set themselves up for financial success?

Speaker 3: 20:17

So I mean, of course, there's your average advice of you know, invest in yourself first or put the money in your IRA. But I think for me, it's more about taking the time to not just have a conversation with someone in your household about money, but commit to learning something new about money that you didn't know and maybe it's. You know something about the history of money. Maybe it's something about what a job pays, what your same job would pay, and you live in New York City. If I did the exact same job in Kansas City, right, like it could be something silly, something small. Again, it could just be a conversation about money. Just go through an old memory about money, that something that once brought you joy and you couldn't believe that you could buy it and then reflect back on where you are now to that. I just think it allows it to become more in our everyday life.

Speaker 3: 21:16

Right, I'm not a believer in money as just this in this bubble by itself. Right To me, money needs to be integrated into your life every single day, because there's no, we don't open our if we wake up in a home or an apartment or in a bedroom, unless we're homeless and we've opened our eyes and there's a roof over our head. It has cost us money to be there. So for us not to be aware of what it costs every single day to open our eyes with that roof over our head, we're doing ourselves a disservice. Day to open our eyes with that roof over our head, we're doing ourselves a disservice and that's my biggest gripe these days with our younger generation because they open their eyes and they access the charger on their phone and wherever they're going to go off for that day, and maybe the food in their lunchbox, and they have no idea what it's cost to do all of that.

Speaker 3: 22:08

There's a run rate and we should understand and you know to talk to your expertise, right that run rate is going to start to dictate how much insurance do I need if I have a family and I've got to protect them, how much? You know how many hours or how many days or how many years do I need to work this job to maintain this lifestyle, right? And so if you understand your basic everyday run rate, it's really easy math then to figure out what it costs to be you and to be happily you, because maybe you're being you right now, but you're miserable. You've got the roof over your head, but it leaks every time it rains and you're like I don't want to be under the leak anymore. But it leaks every time it rains and you're like I don't want to be under the leak anymore, right so?

Speaker 2: 22:53

what is that extra to get the leak to go away? Yeah, no, that is awesome. And just to go back to what you first started out with, is taking the time to commit to learn something new about money. But when you talk about time is money, it makes me think about Ben Miller and I'm trying to remember the name of his company. I had him on the podcast, but that's the concept of the company is that it takes down the value in time of everything that we spent. Is that's a concept of the app? So for people who are watching and listening, I'll put a link in there so you can check out Ben's episode as well as company. But if you're into that concept of time is money and how much time, how much time do you have left to be you?

Speaker 3: 23:36

Right.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:37

Exactly. I mean, you know it's silly when I do talk to kids and I bring this whole thing up about time and money. I use like the Cinderella analogy. Right, clock was going to strike midnight and she could no longer be Cinderella. It's no different with our money. If we're running at some rate and we've got X amount of money, how long can we do that until we turn into a pumpkin?

Speaker 2: 24:01

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent, and that's what his app takes care of is well, it translates that for people. So, Kara, what is one habit that people can change when it comes to their money?

Speaker 3: 24:15

You know it's not. It's so interesting. I always say to people just like you and I can both go sit at a table and have two hamburgers in front of us each, and both of those hamburgers are going to affect us differently. You may be a runner, you can eat both. You won't see a pound, it's fine. I'm gluten intolerant. One bite of the bun, my stomach hurts. And somebody sits at a desk all day. The minute I eat that burger I'm going to gain a pound.

Speaker 3: 24:40

Right, habits are the same. There's no you should do this or you shouldn't do this. It's about who are you on a personal level, that what you can handle. I have five kids. One of my kids has to literally categorize every single transaction that goes into their budget, every single one. My other kid keeps the same great budget but is very big, broad stroke, like if she had to look at every single transaction it would drive her bananas. But she does it in broad strokes. She's happy to go through it at the end of the month. So everybody's habits are differently and as long as we find what works for us, tony, yeah, let's go out for burgers. You're going to eat two. I'm going to order a half a one, no bun, right. As long as you understand what works for you, that's the habit, right? It's when I say oh, tony ordered two, I want two too, so I'm going to get two. Now I'm on a different now. I start doing that all the time. I've created this habit. That's not serving me.

Speaker 2: 25:56

I love that. I love that because I don't. I think you're right. We don't really think about the habits that are right for you, and habits are not one size fits all. Maybe something like learning something is a good habit, but you know after that it's how much do you want to learn? Because for some people, the detail is just going to bore the heck out of them and for other people, like you said, the details are what's going to make it work for them.

Speaker 3: 26:16

And sometimes the details. For some, that learning can feel like a struggle, can feel overwhelming, right, and so it can make you actually have an aversion against it, whereas for some people, the more details right, like might feel like wow, I could really get into this. I mean, there's a reason why some people go off to become financial professionals and some opt to be acrylic painters. We don't all choose the same path, but here's the newsflash Whether you're a financial professional or you're an acrylic painter, both jobs get paid in money. So we don't have a choice. We have to understand this tool right.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Yeah, yeah, makes perfect sense, makes perfect sense. So what money myth are you trying to break?

Speaker 3: 27:04

That more money means, you know, more happiness, or just because something's more expensive, it's better. I absolutely don't agree with that and it's like the bane of my existence and I go so far out of my way to debunk that for everyone.

Speaker 2: 27:23

I love it. Just because something is more expensive doesn't mean it's better.

Speaker 3: 27:27

Nope, and sometimes quite the contrary.

Speaker 2: 27:31

Yeah, so how can we improve the money conversation?

Speaker 3: 27:37

Just have them. Have them even if they feel uncomfortable. Just have them, and not judgmentally having them. If you hear somebody say I can't afford that, you know, instead of maybe and it's going to feel weird at the beginning, but you're not crying. It's like, well, what do you do with your money? And maybe you preface it with I'm not putting you on the stand.

Speaker 3: 27:59

I'd love to understand I like the way you do this, or I like the way you do that. I'd love to understand how you do the things you do with your money. Or I like the lifestyle you live. How do you afford that? And look, for some people, the answer might be I've got seven credit cards and six of them are maxed out and I've got another 18 days to live like this, and then it's game over. For other people, it might be like, well, I saved this or I did that. Everybody's story is going to be different and it's understanding. Again, there's not one way to get it done. I couldn't sleep at night with credit card debt, but I know quite a few people that have no issue with it. Now credit cards are offered. They're not illegal. So who am I to tell you that's the wrong way to do it. I personally don't. That's not my way of doing it, but funny enough, right, like I'm in a relationship where my husband is a, he's a.

Speaker 3: 29:02

I always say he's the best insurance purchaser ever, like he's your number one client. And the other day we had we were in Florida, we had a roof leak and we had all these issues. And I said to him okay, I'm going to call the insurance. And he was like oh well, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 3: 29:16

And I'm like why are you so afraid of the insurance company? Like we've owned multiple homes, we've never put a claim in. Why are like there's real damage here, we've got water in two rooms. Why would you? And he was like I'd rather just pay out of pocket, I don't want to get dropped. And I'm like so you live in fear of the insurance company. And it's probably because, tony, he's too educated, right? Because if he was uneducated he would think, oh, I bought insurance, I have a leak, I should go right. And so that's one of those situations where I think too much education forces someone to become paralyzed in making the right call yeah, yeah, because the point of insurance is you're able to file a claim, otherwise what are you paying premiums for Exactly?

Speaker 2: 30:07

You know, and that's the thing where sorry not to go down this road, but you know, property and casualty is not necessarily my field of expertise, but it's not necessarily true that the insurance companies are going to drop you right away for filing a claim. You know, filing excessive claims is something that they don't like, but, yeah, just filing a claim is not going to get you dropped because otherwise, what would be the point of writing insurance policies? Insurance companies do have to pay out a certain amount of premiums in claims dollars, and that's regulated Anyway. So, dr Dwell, not one too much, since I went off on that tangent is, you know, let's get out the time machine, kara, what advice would you give your younger self if you could go back in time knowing what you know now about money?

Speaker 3: 31:02

What advice. This is a hard one for me, specifically because somewhere along the lines at like 16 or 17, an old lady in a walker in a bingo hall and I'm not making this story up I loved bingo and I went to a catholic school so you used to volunteer and help the ladies at bingo. So you know, it was my dream to play bingo at 18, when I was finally going to be old, and this old lady came walking in when her Walker with her dabbers and her little trolls I don't know if you're familiar at all with Brooklyn ladies play bingo, but she, she was a little fabulous and she had her Walker and she, as she was buying her bingo cards, she said to me honey, you want to make sure you always have enough money that you could come to bingo and your husband can't tell you there's no money for it. And I literally took that to heart. Like, I literally took that to heart and I was like, okay, like you could want a lot of things at now, but there's going to be this moment in time and I don't know how I had the foresight to know this, but I was like, when you're older, there's less, I guess say less to look forward to. But there seems like there's more time and so the things you enjoy if you can't afford them, then you get stuck like in this loop.

Speaker 3: 32:23

And so I was very adamant from 17, 18 years old about saving for my old lady fund and I knew her and I wanted to like buy her a fancy walker with like spinny wheels and the fancy bingo bag with the sequence on it, like I wanted these things for this old lady who wasn't here yet.

Speaker 3: 32:43

And my younger self really said to her like that's all right, like if you don't have something now, it's okay, cause it's going to be so much more fun when you're old. So maybe with my younger self maybe I wouldn't have been as obsessed with my old lady self, because I do think there was a good 15 years where I really didn't enjoy Not that I didn't enjoy, but I was definitely really concerned about keeping it very tight In the last 10 years. I'm 47, 46. I feel like in the last 10 years I've gotten a bit more willing to recognize, because I've had a lot of friends that passed in the last like five years or so young, 50 years old, late 40s, and I think it became apparent to me that if I don't make it to that old lady self, I should buy some spinny wheels now.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a balance that everybody needs to find is, you know, yeah, you want to save for your older, but there's no guarantee that you will be older. So denying yourself everything is not good either.

Speaker 3: 33:47

Right.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Enjoy life while you can, because sometimes it's way too short.

Speaker 3: 33:52

So we don't know.

Speaker 2: 33:53

Yeah, we don't know, unfortunately. So, to start to wrap up, is what is your favorite money resource, whether it's a book, a podcast, a newsletter, an app, a website, what is that one resource you would love to give a shout out to?

Speaker 3: 34:10

So I always love. It's probably somewhere either one of two of Dan Arelli's books, either Predictably Irrational, or Dollars and Cents, and just because some of the things he talks about are just so basic, like basic, basic. I mean, morgan Housel does a great job of it, you know, nudge the book, nudge does a great job of it. But I love that basic stuff. I don't want the big heavy, you know financial jargon. I want the basic, basic stuff of like you know how to like live every single day with the decisions we're making and how to know they're right or wrong.

Speaker 2: 34:51

That's cool. I love that because I think that's what I believe for people too is it's more that bigger picture stuff is going to be much more helpful, and you know, and that's what you've been talking about throughout the podcast. So, to wrap up, what is your number one tip on changing the way we think about money?

Speaker 3: 35:10

You're not wrong. So whatever you think about it is actually what you think about it, and I think Morgan Housel uses the quote you're not crazy right, like everybody's doing things. But I guess the thing is is I would try to get you to run some scenarios with what you think is right. So if you think more is better, if you think buying this better dress is going to get your friends to like you better, if I would just say, run the scenarios. What happens if I buy the dress and I put it on and nobody likes me in it? How does that make me feel Right?

Speaker 3: 35:46

Or, you know, if I think I'm saving to retirement and I'm not going to, you know, you know those people that go into those 25 or 30 year jobs where they're like I'm not going to take one vacation, I'm going to save everything and I'm going to work, work, work and then I'm going to retire at 65 and go live in Royal Caribbean on a cruise. What happens if, god forbid, you don't make it to 65? What happens if the marriage falls apart? This person you thought you were retiring with? What happens if a kid passes? Can you even experience joy anymore? I'm a big believer in think through scenarios, especially the uncomfortable ones, the ones that you think could never happen to you.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Yeah, I love that. Ask yourself what if, especially and I think that's good before making any financial decision, because you know that also gets to mindful spending and you know considering each purchase. That's you know what I'm getting from your response. I think that's awesome advice. So, cara, where can people find out more about you and Money Habitudes?

Speaker 3: 36:55

Absolutely so. Of course, you can always find me on LinkedIn, cara Maxud. You can come to our website, wwwmoneyhabitudescom our LinkedIn page for Money Habitudes as well, or email us at Kara or info at moneyhabitudescom.

Speaker 2: 37:15

Fantastic and for everybody watching and listening. As always, I will have links to Kara's websites and social media profiles. I would recommend taking the I can't think of the right word exam.

Speaker 3: 37:29

It's not really an exam.

Speaker 2: 37:30

No, the assessment yeah, yeah yeah, the assessment, and it's pretty cool, so I would definitely recommend checking it out. So, kara, thanks for joining us today on the Get Ready Money podcast.

Speaker 3: 37:43

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Yeah, it's been a pleasure and thank you, as always, everyone, for tuning in to this episode of the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and to tell a friend. Until next time, let's change the way we think about money.