How You Spend Your Days: Recent Episodes
Colin Loretz
Candid conversations about debt, the stigma around money and follow Colin's journey toward debt freedom. Hosted by Colin Loretz.
In this episode, I'm joined by Tawnya Schultz, The Money Life Coach, to discuss our mindsets around money and why zero-based budgeting is the best thing you can be doing right now, especially during the current pandemic.
Recommendations from Tawnya
- You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
- Money, A Love Story by Kate Northrup
Follow Tawnya Online
- Get her free budgeting spreadsheet at The Money Life Coach
- Follow @tawnyaschultz on Instagram
- The Money Life Coach on Youtube
- The Money Life Coach on Facebook
My Numbers in Episode 2
- Credit Cards: $27,293.00
- IRS Back Taxes: $16,000.00
In Between Episode 2 and Episode 45:
- +$10,037 added to IRS Back Taxes
- New IRS Back Tax Total: $26,037
- Adjusted my payment plan with the IRS in light of covid-19 and accelerate my pay down of consumer debt
My Numbers in Episode 45:
- Credit card balance remaining: $27,443
- IRS Back Taxes remaining: $12,147
Next up for me will be to set milestone goal dates for my first credit card.
Have any questions, comments, or feedback? Want to share your own #debtfreejourney?
Get in touch!
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Facebook: How You Spend Your Days
- Email me at howyouspend@gmail.com
This week I talk to Christian Zimmerman, CEO and co-founder of Qoins. We get to talk about the motivations behind Qoins, how it helps its users to pay off debt, and the importance of personal finance during the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are some of the links and apps that we mentioned during the show:
- Qoins - Pay off debt faster and save money without even thinking about it
- Follow along with Qoins' Tuesday Tips on the Qoins Instagram
- Plaidis a great tool for software developers building apps on top of financial institutions
- Catch - My go-to for automatically saving withholding taxes
Thanks, Christian!
- Income
- Unemployment
- Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program
- Spending
- Taking stock in where your money is going
- Tackling Debt
- Negotiate your debts
- Saving
- Emergency Fund
- How to Build an Emergency Fund during an Emergency from Paula Pant, Afford Anything
- Life Happens Fund from Tanja Hester, Our Next Life
- Investing
- Tips from Tanja Hester, @our_nextlife
- Don't try to time the market
- Invest consistently over time, no matter what the markets are doing
- Avoid making panicked decisions with regards to the market
- Think Long-Term
- Individual Stimulus
- Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)
- Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP)
This is a little bit of a different episode since we've been on hiatus but I'm excited about the launch of Year 2! You can think of this as a Season 2 of HY$YD and I'll be documenting my continued journey of getting out of debt and investigating the habits that influence our decisions to save, get out of debt and live a healthy life - physically, emotionally and financially.
This episode is a little fast-paced as a lot happened since October. Buckle up and enjoy! Future episodes will have more structure and slower pacing ;)
Montage of October 2019 - April 2020
- October 30, 2019
- One year anniversary episode
- November and December 2019
- Holidays & heads down on work
- January 2020
- I accepted a new job (we'll talk about this more next episode!)
- February 2020
- I started my new job at Panty Drop
- Chanelle and I went to the Dominican Republic (we'll also talk more about this later)
- March 2020
- March 8th we had a retreat for Reno Collective and we talked about our plans for renovations, our anniversary party, etc.
- We started seeing the signs of the virus in other parts of the world over the next few days
- Articles starting coming out about flattening the curve
- Reno Collective decided to stop meetups and other large gatherings on March 12
- 4 days later we announced we were closing our doors
- "Non-essential" businesses have closed, restaurants are now only doing takeout or delivery, some have shut down completely
- March 25th, The $2 trillion Stimulus was passed for pandemic unemployment, paycheck protection program (PPP) and funding for economic injury disaster loans (EIDL)
- A couple of us at Reno Collective started researching DIY mask and PPE prototypes
- April 2020
- We are holding more online events than ever before
- I'm working at my job and enjoying being able to focus on a single product and mission right now, especially given all that is happening
- April 14, 2020
- Date of this recording
- Tomorrow would normally be the 2019 tax deadline, but that has been moved to July 15
- After 4 weeks of shelter in place, "How You Spend Your Days" is more relevant than ever
- There is SO MUCH to unpack in upcoming episodes
- Things I'm Enjoying
- Staying in with Emily & Kumail
- Morning Brew email newsletter
- Morning Brew's Business Casual Podcast
- This Week in Startups
- Alton Brown has a Quarantine series on Youtube
- The Daily Podcast from NYT
- New York Times Coronavirus Briefing
Reposting this as this episode appears to have disappeared from our feed!
Ep41: Holy cow! We’ve hit one year of How You Spend Your Days!
In this episode, I look back on some of the conversations we’ve had since October 2018.
- Overview of how Atomic Habits has changed how I approach money
- One year update on my numbers and progress toward getting out of debt
- On track for being debt-free in December 2020.
- Radical Personal Finance
- Avilla Theory: Finances & Groceries
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep40: We’re mixing it up a little bit this week with a meditation on money and life from philosopher and thinker, Alan Watts.
Next week we’ll be back to our regular episodes for episode 41, which marks exactly ONE YEAR of this show. I’ll be providing an update and talking about what has happened in the last year.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep39: This week we talk to Monica Thompson about hitting one of her financial milestones and learn more about how she has taught herself what she knows about financial literacy today. We touch on buying cars, mortgages, credit cards and feeling financially secure. Congrats on paying off the adventure wagon, Monica!
Our Guest This Week
Monica Thompson
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep38: In this episode, we talk about subscriptions. Today we have access to more subscriptions than ever. We have subscriptions for movies and television (Netflix, Hulu), toothbrushes (Quip), meal prep (HelloFresh), underwear (MeUndies), and even pet food (The Farmer’s Dog).
Now there is no judgment on this next part but how many subscriptions do you have? How many of those do you really use? Are they materially contributing to your life in some way or is it like a gym membership that you keep “hoping to get to someday?”
In this episode, I break down my own subscriptions. I actually don’t have very many thanks to my expense inventory from episode 4.
My Personal Subscriptions – $100/month
- Phone Bill – $22/month
- Planet Fitness – $10/month
- Spotify – $9.99/month
- PlayStation Network – $89/year – $7.5/month
- Bridgewire – Makerspace $50/month
My Freelance Subscriptions – $220/month
- Google Apps – $5/month
- Microsoft – !? $9.90 and I don’t know for what or how to cancel it
- Domains – Ranges from $10-$30/month
- AWS hosting – $1-2/month
- Digital Ocean Hosting – $22/month
- Adobe Creative Cloud – $52/month
- Ngrok $5/month
- Bonsai – $19/month
- Quickbooks / Bookkeeping – $70/month
- Pingdom – $15/month
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
37: This week I’m talking about money in relationships and put my girlfriend, Chanelle Bessette, in the hot-seat. We walk through a list of questions to see how each of us manage money individually and how we approach discussing money in our relationship.
Our Guest This Week
Chanelle Bessette, Personal Finance Writer
Instagram: @crbessette
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
36: This week we talk about identifying financial fatigue and how to combat it and avoid it altogether.
Identifying Financial Fatigue
Some of the feelings that come along with financial fatigue include:
- The feeling that managing your finances is tedious
- The end doesn’t seem to be in sight
- Your efforts seem hopeless
These feelings can cause a cycle of anxiety that can be difficult to break out of:
- Your mind feels always on
- You constantly worry about finances
- You feel overwhelmed to the point of avoiding action
- Your inaction and doubt creates anxiety
- Your anxiety cause loss of sleep, lowering of morale, confidence, or self-worth
Combatting Financial Fatigue
- Know where you stand
- Put it down on paper and get it out of your head (Bullet Journal)
- Find a support system or accountability buddy
- Automate as much as you can so you can get it out of your head
- Try budgeting (envelope system)
- Limit the number of systems you have so you don’t have to track them all
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep35: This week I sat down and reevaluated my finances and refactored my “Numbers” spreadsheet.
This is a little bit of update episode since it has been a minute since the last one. This is also a good reminder for you to sit down and take a look at how you are doing financially and course-correct as necessary!
The newly revamped HY$YD website will be available shortly with new resources for your money goals.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep34: This week we get very tactical and jump into how to make the numbers work around freelancing or being an independent worker.
- Come up with a number
- Align your expectations
- Timebox your work
- Reduce and automate the meta work
- *Track Your Time*
- Automate Invoicing, Proposals, and Contracts
- Automate Withholding Taxes & Retirement
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” – Parkinson’s Law
Tools to automate your freelancing or side hustle
- Harvest – time tracking, invoicing
- Bonsai – time tracking, invoices, proposals and contracts (what I like to use)
- Timeular – time tracking (what I like to use)
- Freshbooks – invoicing
- Use Catch.co to automate tax savings and retirement (referral link)
- Set up a retirement account with your preferred institution
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep 33: This week we dive into seven things you should do to make sure you stay financially fit.
- Check your Credit score
- Nerd Wallet
- Credit Karma
- Mint
- Set a savings goal and create a named virtual savings account for that goal
- Take inventory of your recurring expenses
- Evaluate how you can make more money
- If you have a salary, ask for a raise
- If you’re a freelancer, can you charge more or change your pricing structure?
- Fall in love with cooking
- Calculate your net worth (assets minus liabilities)
- Personal Capital
- Invest in developing healthy habits
- Creating healthy habits in any area of your life will have cascading effects on other parts of your life
- Must read: Atomic Habits by James Clear
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
– Atomic Habits by James Clear
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
– Archilochus
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Ep 32: This week is a fun update! HY$YD is hosting a screening of the documentary Playing with Fire. You can listen to my interview with Scott Reickens in Episode 10 if you’d like to hear more about Scott’s background and why he set out to make this documentary.
Get tickets for the Reno screening: https://www.tugg.com/events/playing-with-fire-tdrl
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Financial-Independence-Retire-Early/dp/1608685802
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Send me an email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
31: In this episode, we’re joined by Linsday Barrett who conquered $37,000 in student loan debt in 3 years after graduating from college and investing in herself with a web developer bootcamp. I’m honored to have played a small part in her journey as I was the teacher for that bootcamp so it was a lot of fun to bring this full circle and hear how far she has come in her own financial journey since learning web development.
We are constantly hearing that everyone should learn to code. While I don’t agree that everyone should learn how to code, it was very much a powerful option and lever for Lindsay to increase her income and pay off her student loan debt.
Lindsay’s story shows how it is possible to go from being an outsider to the tech community to make your way up the tech career ladder with impressive results. Congrats, Lindsay!
Some of the tactics that she talks about in this episode include:
- Prioritizing your debt payments over discretionary spending
- Increasing your income by learning a new skill
- Find a community to help hold you accountable and motivated
- Come up with a way to track your progress (hat tip to Atomic Habits)
- Make sure you know where your money is going when paying off your debts
Our Guest This Week
Lindsay Barrett
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week, I chat with Lara Cattlin, friend and freelance copywriter, about the ins and outs of freelance finance. Freelancers have a gauntlet of tasks that they have to do in addition to doing the work that they specialize in. We talk about cash flow management, the pros/cons of freelancing and how to set boundaries for your time.
- Finding clients
- Scoping out projects
- Getting the projects
- Doing the project
- Getting paid for the project
- From that, we have to pay taxes, any other expenses for running our businesses
- Rinse & repeat
*Our Guest This Week*
Lara Cattlin, Freelance Copywriter
Website: http://laracattlin.com and http://freelancelifehacks.com/
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week, I sit down and calculate my official debt free date and discuss why it’s important to have a clear and defined date. This date allows you to make informed decisions on where you spend your time and money and increases the likelihood of you hitting your goal.
- Essentialism by Greg McKeown (Essentialism episode coming soon)
- Calculate your debt pay off date: Undebt.it – Debt Calculator *
*This is my Undebt.it affiliate link which does help me out if you end up signing up for a paid account.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week, I called my credit card companies to confirm my interest rates and attempt to negotiate down my interest rates with each card. My results were mixed as you will hear in this episode but getting your credit card companies on the phone is a good idea, even if it’s just to confirm the status and health of your accounts.
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- Credit Karma
- The 7 best Balance Transfer and 0% APR Credit Cards from Nerdwallet
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I’m joined by Todd Clary of Clarity Financial Coaching to discuss the stigmas around talking about money and why he decided to become a financial coach to help others accomplish their financial goals.
Some of the articles and resources we discuss in this episode:
- Dave Ramsay Financial Coach Mastery Training
- Shop Twice, Spend Once
*Our Guest This Week*
Todd Clary, Clarity Financial Coaching
- Clarity Financial Coaching
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week, I’m joined by a friend and colleague, CJ Avilla. We discuss his philosophies around money, how his family tracks money, how they spend money and how CJ and his wife have been teaching their kids about money.
Some of the articles and resources we discuss in this episode:
- Americans Spend $18k a year on nonessentials
- Other accountability podcasts (pretty focused on software)
- Art of Product with Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer
- Build Your SaaS with Justin Jackson and Jon Buda
- Zen Founder Podcast Episode 100: How To Teach Your Kids About Money
*Our Guest This Week*
CJ Avilla, Software Developer
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Episode 25! This week is a quick rant on recalibration. It’s a good time to bring back some awareness around how much I’m spending, on what, when and why. With the start of a new month (May), I’m looking to jump back into another frugality challenge and only allow myself to spend money dining out on weekends. Most of the weekend and weekdays will come from cooking at home and grocery shopping only.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week marks the point where I’ve been doing this show for 6 months. It also represents 6 months of me paying more attention to my financial health than I ever have. That attention has come in the form of:
- Doing a deep dive into where my money was going
- Greatly reducing my discretionary spending
- Took on a few challenges around frugality and cooking/eating at home
- Set up systems to make sure I can’t deviate from the plan
*New goals!*
3-month goal – July 2019
- Goal 1: Replenish my emergency fund to $1000
- Goal 2 is more of a challenge for myself: I’m going to call each of my credit card companies and ask them to lower my interest rate. I make my payments on time and think that the exercise would be a good one to do since the worse they can say is no.
6-month goal – October 2019
- Goal 1: To have at least $1000 paid off on my highest interest rate card
- Goal 2: Fund my emergency fund to $2000
Some of the tools that I’m using:
- Google Spreadsheets
- Catch – for squirreling away withholding taxes and paying into retirement (referral bonus!
- Referral bonus! “Every time someone creates a plan with your referral link and contributes $10 you’ll both receive a bonus toward Time Off.” If you’d like to try Catch, we both benefit! Sign up here
- Simple – the bank that I use for tracking and saving goals
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I explore the Resistance that one encounters when trying to complete creative endeavors, especially ones that take a great deal of time to see to fruition.
The idea of “Resistance” with a capital R is a big focus of Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”. I first read the book many years ago but it was nice to come back to the concepts now and map them to my financial goals.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Tanja Hester is back this week to join us for Episode 22. We spend this episode going through updates on what is going on in our lives. Check out the bulleted list of topics below.
- Cashflow as a Freelance
- Adding to the Emergency Fund with a “Life Happens” fund (idea from Suze Orman)
- Setting a new floor for your finances
- Tax Season & Business Entities
- Tanja’s life after releasing Work Optional
- Creating a Money Mission Statement
- Expectations vs Reality
- Uber Frugal Month Challenge with The Frugalwoods
*Our Guest This Week*
Tanja Hester, Our Next Life
- Twitter: @our_nextlife
- Website: Our Next Life
- Podcast: The Fairer Cents
- Tanja’s new book! Work Optional – Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
In this episode, I get a little introspective and talk about valuing your life energy, as talked about a lot in Vicki Robin’s book, Your Money or Your Life. Up until now, we’ve been largely focused on minimizing spending but another way to value your life energy is to free up more time by maximizing your income.
Life Energy Calculator
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I am checking in to discuss how I’m approaching travel, trips and “vacations” while continuing to prioritize getting out of debt.
Resources In This Episode
- Kayak
- Marriott Bonvoy
- Southwest Rapid Rewards
- Hotel Tonight
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
In this episode, I’m joined by Chanelle Bessette to talk about the “No Spend Month” challenge that we both undertook for February. We discuss what rules we set for ourselves, the challenges we ran into and the results from taking a financial detox period.
Links from this episode
- Frugalwoods
- Get Money by Kristin Wong
- NPR Life Kit: Getting out of Debt
*Our Guest This Week*
Chanelle Bessette, Personal Finance Writer
Instagram: @crbessette
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
In this episode, we’re joined by Nicole Rose Dion, who conquered over $80,000 in student loan debt in 6.5 years after graduating from college. I talk to her about the stigma around debt, the constant stress and anxiety she felt while she was paying minimum payments and how she was able to shift her mindset to focus on getting the debt gone as quickly as possible.
I put the final payment through on Wednesday as a birthday present to myself. It’s so, so sweet. – Nicole
You can read Nicole’s full proclamation of student debt freedom over on her Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/p/BpH1GNJFZSw/.
*Our Guest This Week*
Nicole Rose Dion
Instagram: @nicolerosedion
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
After four months of doing this show, I revisit the goals that I set in Episode 3. 17 weeks have gone by and while I am slowly chipping away at my overall financial goal, a lot has happened since I started paying better attention to my finances and cultivating a better relationship with money.
To recap, those goals were:
- Goal 1: Create a $1,000 emergency fund (small setback, but almost there)
- Goal 2: Establish a plan with the IRS (done)
- Goal 3: Choose a plan of attack for credit card payoff (in progress)
- Goal 4: Inventory my expenses (done)
- Goal 5: Smooth out my freelance income or get a job (in progress / always something to work on)
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week we jump into habit formation and how we can develop intrinsic motivation and develop lasting behavior change that help us to achieve our long term goals, like getting out of debt.
Check out more about James Clear and his many amazing articles at JamesClear.com or pick up his book, Atomic Habits, to continue learning about the topics we touched on in this episode.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week is a little different. I jam on minimalism and how adopting minimalism in some areas of our life can help you to save money and energy so you can spend it on the things that you truly enjoy.
Resources from this Episode:
- Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I’m joined by a new friend, Dani Morris. In this episode, Dani shares with us how she and her husband were able to thrive on a $30/week food budget for nine months so that they could buy a house.
Each of us has been able to reconnect with food by focusing on our financial goals. Getting to $30/week requires diligence but in addition to saving money, it also has a great side effect for our health and being mindful of what we are putting into our bodies. TLDR: cook everything that you can from scratch.
I hope you enjoy our conversation and be sure to say hello to Dani on Instagram at @danigmorris!
*Our Guest This Week*
Dani G Morris, DaniGMorris.com
Dani has set out to help teach people “how to make every meal at home a celebration” through her own content over on Instagram, YouTube, and her website. All of which you can check out below.
- Dani’s Instagram: @danigmorris
- Dani’s YouTube
- Dani’s media empire at http://danigmorris.com
Resources from this episode
- Before & After Ingredients from Ryan Carter (@livevitae)
- Fit Men (& Women) Cook
- Dani’s Pantry Staples Video and Pantry Staple List
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I talk about frugality, places you can save money automatically and ideas for frugal substitutions for behaviors and expenses that you’ve become accustomed to (ahem, hedonic treadmill).
- News Flash! Your Debt is an Emergency! from Mr. Money Mustache
- Book: Get Money by Kristin Wong
Resources & Tools
- Honey – Automatically find promo codes at checkout
- Paribus – Find out if something you purchased goes on sale
- Cash App – An alternative to Venmo but also gets you immediate savings with Cash Boost! ($1 off coffee shops for instance)
- Simple – The bank that I use which I love for automatically moving money into organized savings goals
- Digit – Another option for automatic savings
- Acorns – An option for automatic savings/investing
- Wirecutter – In-depth reviews for anything you might want to buy
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I am checking in with an update on The Numbers and releasing the spreadsheet! Don’t worry this episode isn’t me reading a spreadsheet aloud. I also dive into lifestyle creep a little bit and share how I’ve observed the effects of hedonic adaptation at work in my own life.
- HY$YD “The Numbers” Spreadsheet
- Hedonic Treadmill
- Diderot Effect
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I have the pleasure of speaking with Katharine Schweitzer about how Dave Ramsey’s methods and books helped her move away from the stresses of living paycheck to paycheck.
- Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover
From a discretionary spending perspective, Katharine and I share the same largest expense category, food & drink. We discuss how she used Mint to reign in her spending and move to her own spreadsheet tracking system to track her discretionary spending on a monthly basis instead of on a category basis.
Finally, we touch on how money can affect relationships and how creating a system with your partner can help to share expectations, avoid conflict around money and save toward shared goals.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
*Our Guest This Week*
Katharine Schweitzer
- Instagram: @kjswiss
This week I’m joined by an old friend, Scott Rieckens. We first met after Scott was laid off from his job during the recession and he was looking for something that he could do that would allow him to take back control of his work. He started an online reputation company called Social Chorus and eventually got into video and film production.
Today, he’s focused on producing “Playing with FIRE“, a documentary that uncovers the growing the community of frugalists, mustachians and valueists choosing a path to financial independence and early retirement.
We’re looking forward to checking out “Playing with FIRE” when it hits theaters this year!
I hope you enjoy our conversation and be sure to say hello to Scott on Twitter at @playwithFIRECo!
*Our Guest This Week*
Scott Rieckens, Playing with FIRE
- Twitter: @playwithFIRECo
- Watch: Playing with Fire Documentary Trailer
- Learn more about Playing with Fire
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week is a quick update from Colin. We’d love to hear any personal finance questions or stories from your own harrowed journeys toward financial independence. You can send us questions, comments and feedback to @howyouspend on social networks or shoot us an email.
We have some new guests joining us for 2019 and we’ll start teasing those as soon as we have recordings in the can!
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Email: howyouspend@gmail.com
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
Thanks for listening.
This week, we review the goals that I set with Tanja in Episode 3 – Setting Goals. We discuss how and why people fail to achieve New Year’s resolutions and how we can avoid becoming part of that statistic while moving toward our results.
- Goal 1: Create a $1,000 emergency fund
- Goal 2: Establish a plan with the IRS Done!
- Goal 3: Choose a plan of attack for credit card payoff
- Goal 4: Inventory my expenses Done – check out Episode 4!
- Goal 5: Smooth out my freelance income or get a job
Revised goals going ahead:
- Goal 1: Continue toward $1,000 emergency fund, move some additional money at the start of the year to speed up the process in larger chunks.
- Goal 2: This is less of a goal and more of a new habit. I’m going to start using Catch.co to track and pay my withholding and save for “buffer” that is for vacation, getting sick or having gaps in work.
- Goal 3: Continue to focus on my freelance income. This is not really a good goal at the moment, needs to be more defined to be measurable.
- Goal/Habit 4: Continue to bullet journal to add a sense of structure to my days, morning and night. I don’t tend to hit my reflection but I usually double it up in the morning with reflecting on yesterday and charting out the new day.
Thanks for listening.
This week, we dive into the holidays. Calvin joins me again to discuss holiday spending and how our IRL spending habits tend to also bleed into virtual worlds like World of Warcraft.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
*Our Guest This Week*
Calvin Fung
- Twitter: @thecalvineffect
- Podcast: Coding with Calvin
Colin has a quick update this week with some resources to set the stage for the holidays.
Resources from this Episode:
- Bullet Journal
- Double Your Freelancing Podcast
- Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
- Listen Money Matters Podcast
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week I am checking in with a solo update and answering some questions from friends and listeners.
Thanks to Steve and John for your questions!
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
This week we discuss facing your consumption and expenses by building an expense inventory. I looked at every recurring expense and expense category (food, drinks, etc.) to see where my money has really been going.
This week I’m joined by a friend and fellow podcaster, Calvin Fung. We talk about the latte factor, our cocktail principle and how we both approach tracking (or not tracking) our expenses.
Follow HY$YD or send us questions/feedback
- Twitter: @howyouspend
- Instagram: @howyouspend
- Web: howyouspendyourdays.com
*Our Guest This Week*
Calvin Fung
- Twitter: @thecalvineffect
- Podcast: Coding with Calvin
This week I sit down with Tanja and talk about my upcoming goals for tackling my financial obstacles.
- Goal 1: Create a $1,000 emergency fund
- Goal 2: Establish a plan with the IRS
- Goal 3: Choose a plan of attack for credit card payoff
- Goal 4: Inventory my expenses
- Goal 5: Smooth out my freelance income or get a job
The audio in this one was captured poorly. Tanja was not actually recording in a fish tank and I was a little under the weather but we can only improve from here! Thanks for listening.
Today we talk about my debt, put actual numbers to it and draw a line in the sand.
These numbers will be available soon at http://howyouspendyourdays.com/numbers so you can follow along with my progress.
You can follow along with us on Twitter at @colinloretz and @our_nextlife.
In this first episode, we’re setting the stage with our backstories. Who we are, what we do and how we find ourselves talking about debt today.
You can follow along with us on Twitter at @colinloretz and @our_nextlife.
How You Spend Your Days: Candid conversations about debt, the stigma around money and follow Colin’s journey toward debt freedom. Hosted by Colin Loretz and Tanja Hester.
How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives
More to come in Episode 1!