F*** Money Resolutions [Podcast]

Show Notes

This one is not for the Dave Ramsey fans, sorry. Let’s talk about why hustling your life away to get out of debt is maybe not the most supportive and compassionate way for you to live your life. K? K. Love you. 

We’re talking about debt, and how it’s not actually morally bad! We’re talking about common money resolutions and why they’ll fall apart if you don’t have a deep emotional connection to the RESULT of your goal. We’re talking about the fact that you deserve nice things, right now. Put down the rice and beans. 

Get the workbook at bit.ly/fnyr and reach me on Instagram @caitlinlizfisher. 

Episode Transcript

Caitlin  0:02  

Episode Three, fuck money resolutions. So this one’s so much fun because I’m going to bitch about Dave Ramsey.

Okay, so if you’re a Dave Ramsey aficionado, I’m so sorry, I’m gonna make you upset. And I don’t really want to hear about it because I’m right. So, common money resolutions are things like, pay off X amount of debt, get a higher paying job, save up six months of expenses in savings, stop buying takeout, so that I save more money, contribute XYZ to my 401k or whatever. And like these on their face, like great goals, I love them.

But again, I want you to examine why you are doing it. Because you might be assigning morality to your money goals. And I don’t want you to assign morality to money. Money is neutral debt, actually pretty neutral. We talk big shit about debt. But debt is just another form of money. I’m just gonna go in hard on debt. Okay, why do you want to pay off debt? So sometimes that can be like, because I want to be able to spend like what I’m putting toward my credit cards every month on like saving up for a fun vacation, right? Like, that’s a good reason to pay off debt because then you have more cash flow going on. Or I want to be student loan free because I’m so fucking sick of paying the student loan. Like that’s fair. I see you you are seen and heard by me.

But sometimes we just want to pay off debt because we read the Dave Ramsey book and we’re like, oh, Dave Ramsey says that debt is a fucking sin and makes you a slave. And I’m like, okay, Dave. Okay. You’re a wealthy, white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian man. Like literally, the ideal in the society like he is the closest to untouchable. And the fact that his story is like, I did it wrong, I did it with debt, and the rug got pulled out from under me and I had to start back from scratch. So many people would not have been able to start back from scratch. And the fact that he was, is privileged, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t fall flat on his ass. But it does mean that he had a much easier time bouncing back. Because he’s a safe bet. Because he is cishet, white, Christian man. Okay, so like, let’s just address that.

He would love to tell you that like, no, he’s the same as like anybody else. But he’s not and now he’s super fucking wealthy. And fuck him. Dave Ramsey operates based on shame and perfectionism. His financial program is like religious abuse, turned into a budgeting system. He takes mainstream Christian fear mongering and turns that into a financial strategy. So he’s all he’s anti-credit, right. And for a minute I was too. If I had not followed Dave Ramsey, and canceled all of my credit cards and cut them all up and everything, I would have like an unbelievable credit score right now. Whatever we live, and we learn, it’s fine.

Credit scores actually started in 1989. So they’re new, they’re pretty new there. I was born in 1988. I’m one year older than credit scores. Okay. So credit scores are garbage, whatever, but it’s the game that we’re playing within, okay. And of course, they’re racist. And of course, mortgages are racist, and like, there’s so much oppression built into how financial systems in this country operate. So just starting with that, of course, Dave Ramsey tells you none of that, he just tells you that if you’re working the Debt Snowball, you better not see the inside of a restaurant unless you’re working in it. As in if you are in debt, and poor, and broke, you don’t deserve nice fucking things until you earn them by suffering. And I don’t stand for it.

So debt? Neutral, right? I don’t want to go so far into the Dave Ramsey ranting I’m trying to keep these light and short and snack sized. Also, I’m hungry and I would like a snack. You’re fine. I changed it to the neurodivergent creative podcast. So now I can just go on little ADHD rants while I talk and it’s fine. And you love it and I’ve hashtag relatable. Okay, awesome. Our society also does not pay a living wage. Right like we’re, we are begging for $15 when really the minimum wage right now that would support like any normal family at the current cost of living is more like $24 or something. Like we’ve got to do better, as to society. But in the meantime, because we fucking suck as a society and we don’t want to pay people, debt allows you to do things such as buy a home or a car without a giant pile of money. And that’s actually a net good, because having access to homes and transportation is a net good.

That said, sometimes debt can be like predatory, like student loans, I think are absolutely predatory. You should not be like betting an 18 year old the entire rest of their financial life, based on telling them like very little information about what the student loan actually entails. And that’s a time that’s a rant for another time. So there can definitely be predatory debt, like payday loans, those are very predatory, the interest rates are ridiculous on those. And also, let’s point out that those types of predatory lenders are mostly affecting disenfranchised people, the rich white people aren’t being affected by payday loans, they don’t really care that they’re predatory, because it’s not really affecting their demographic, if you know what I mean. Basically, everything’s racist. That’s what I mean.

But debt is also a useful tool. Debt is also a way to access money and make shit happen. I don’t have a problem with debt anymore. I used to, I used to really ascribe to the Dave Ramsey thing, the same way that my eating disorder was super focused on purity and following the rules of what was okay and not okay to eat. The morality of that. I fell right into the Dave Ramsey shit. Because I was like, oh, okay, yes. Thank you, financial daddy for telling me all of the ways I am bad punish me. Terrible. Why did I say that out loud. That’s Oh, god. Okay, it’s fine.

But Dave Ramsey’s plan is a hustle plan, like full stop, there’s no room for rest. They can, like, the baby steps can take years, years of your life. And he has literally been like, No, you should you should be working anytime that you are not sleeping. Like you should get 17 jobs, you should be delivering pizza. You should do this, you should do that. You don’t get to go out to eat. Okay, Dave, that’s fine. And yeah, people get debt free on his plan. But they’re miserable while they’re making it happen. And I think that perhaps it’s a both and not an either or, I think that you can get out of debt while you enjoy nice things. Okay, those are not mutually exclusive. Awesome.

So now that I have super duper bitched about Dave Ramsey, I ask you again, what’s beneath the goal? What do you want to do with your money? How does your financial goal support that desire? So check in with your long term vision, right? So if 10 years from now, you know, you want to be debt free, what habits lead to that? That could be things like being strategic with what you use debt to purchase, you know, like keeping your credit utilization under a certain amount. Budget, like just just budgeting and following a budget is a net financial gain because you have more control over your finances instead of just being like willy nilly, oops, you spent all the money. So just planning is a win. Maybe you started investing for retirement, maybe you got a higher paying job. Like there’s all sorts of reasons, you can become debt free, that do not involve hating yourself and passing these really shameful moral judgments on yourself constantly. Okay. You are so much more than your finances and you deserve nice things. Okay? Promise, you deserve nice things right now, no matter how broke you are, and nice things cost money, and it’s okay to spend money on yourself sometimes.

For instance, I actually really like getting manicures. I just found this out about myself. It keeps me from biting my nails. It reminds me that I am like, a boss bitch who is a professional because I look at my nails and I’m like, look how cute and hot pink they are. It’s just a nice visual cue of like what I’m working on. That might sound weird, but I really like it. I really like having my nails done. And it’s like, “oh, no! That’s $30! Whatever will I do?” Yeah, I’m spending $30 on my nails. Because it makes me feel good. And that’s underneath. That’s the intention. The intention is I want to feel financially free. I want to remember that I create money. I create my financial security. Be. And if that comes from a manicure every six weeks, like, That’s dope. I feel like I’m getting a little bit off track.

I do have a book recommendation for this and that book recommendation is “Broke Millennial”. And I also want to point out that in my book,”The Gaslighting of the Millennial Generation”, I was still on my Dave Ramsey bullshit, and I’m so sorry. It is a good book. And I think that you would enjoy it if you enjoy my particular brand of shenanigans. But I made some mistakes. And I forgive myself and I think that you’ll forgive me too.

So let’s shift so that we can wrap this up. Rather than Super morality based grrr all debt is bad, you should pay off all your debt kind of financial goals. Maybe you want to do some goals that are more supportive, like find a method of budgeting that works for you. Save up for a fun, nice thing that you want. If you want to pay off your debts, make it a little bit less fucking stressful than Dave Ramsey’s poverty plan, where he’s just like, you should eat nothing but rice and beans and be sad.

So for instance, like if you pay off your car, take what would have been that payment the following month and do something really fun and joyous with it. That is a great way to balance the discipline of like paying extra on those debts to pay them off with a reward afterward that’s built into it. And that you won’t “feel as much” because you were already used to making that payment. And then if you want to set some financial intentions that can look like I want to feel financially free. I want to not feel bad about buying the things that I need. I want to have enough money for my favorite groceries to invest in my art and to support my friends in need. I want to make a butt ton of money and have fun doing it.

So those are those are some fun intentions related to money. And if you want to argue about Dave Ramsey, you can come at me in my Instagram DMs. I am @CaitlinLizFisher and I look forward to hearing from you. Okay Love you. Bye bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai