Why Debt-Free People Still Feel Guilty Spending | Justin Bennett | Growing Money with Sean Trace

I sit down with Justin Bennett, owner of Strong Tower Consulting and author of Level Up Your Finances, to unpack why so many of us feel broke even when we're earning more than ever. 

We dig into the real reason budgets fail, why a budget is really just a glorified shopping list, and how tracking every small purchase reveals the death by a thousand cuts that quietly drains bank accounts. 

Justin also opens up about the shame so many people feel around money and why courage, not perfection, is what actually changes a financial trajectory. 

What's one small daily purchase you didn't realize was quietly adding up until you actually tracked it?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

We as humans can handle a big known problem better than a small unknown problem. In a different book I'm reading, if you can't tell, I like to read books, I can't remember the person who quoted the author was quoting somebody by saying, often the treasure we seek is in the cave we don't want to go in. And I coach coaches is one of part of one of the things I do, and I tell coaches, if a client says don't go there, you're probably going to have to go there at some point because that's the thing holding them back from financial freedom.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Welcome everybody back to the Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Yeah, thanks, Sean. My name is Justin Bennett, owner and founder of Strong Tower Consulting, where we help people with their finances with lot with one-on-one coaching. Uh, whether you're doing well with money or you're struggling with money, we love to help people with their finances. How did you get into working with people and money?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Like what was the thing that got you started down that path?

SPEAKER_03 1:06

You know, Sean, several different things. First off, um, it was interesting. Both my grandfather and my uncle were small-town rural Iowa bankers. And I just remember observing growing up how much fun they had helping people, whether they had no money, lots of money, average money, it didn't matter. And so just seeing that kind of sparked my interest. And then I went to a business college, and my first job, get this, my first job in my finance, banking career was I was a mortgage collector for a Fortune 100 company. So I'm making hundreds of calls a day, this young 18, 19 year old saying, hey, if you don't get current on your house, we're gonna come get it. Now that's an interesting job when you're 18, 19 years old. And even though I knew nothing about what a budget was or how life really works, I always loved this puzzle of how to get people current again, how to get people right side up again. And I'm like, well, how do I get broke people to pay? And again, I'm 18, 19 years old. So uh I didn't really pursue that. I kept pursuing my banking career that I wanted to go to. And then it was in 2007, 2008 when my wife and I kind of hit one of our financial rock bottoms, and we learned how to handle money better from that. And I said, hey, wait a minute. I remember that idea that I had way back when I was younger. And I found a training course. Uh, I took that, and then as they say, the rest is history.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

I love that. The rest is history, and it's it's a good history, man, uh, because you've done some amazing things and helped a lot of people. You've helped people pay off over $10 million in debt. What's the biggest mistake normal families make with money over and over again?

SPEAKER_03 2:53

You know, I think it really is the lack of awareness. In fact, in my book that came out a year ago, Level Up Your Finances, we have five levels, how to go from paycheck to paycheck to financial freedom. And Sean, if you Google financial freedom, there's a bazillion different answers. So I define financial freedom as if you had no debt but a house, a fully funded emergency fund, and you have margin in your finances, that is financial freedom. And so when I was writing a book, I'm like, okay, what can I write that's different out there that can give people some hope? And the thing that I realize the most when I look back at over the thousand clients I've served, other conversations I've had, it all comes down to a lack of awareness and simply just winging it. In fact, that's part of my subtitle is say goodbye to winging it with money. Uh, when I do my free consultations, I'll ask, I'll go, hey, um, what are you using for a budget? And often it's, uh, I'm not. And what people tell me all the time, Sean, you probably know where I'm going with this, they go, I don't drive a Maserati, I don't go to the mall, I haven't been to the Maldives, uh, I don't have a second home. I've made more money now than I ever have, but I feel more broke now than I was when I was in college. And that very first month I work with my clients, it's all about awareness. How much are you really spending? Because if you spend $30 a day, and in 2026, $30 will buy you maybe two pieces, two pizzas. Um, $30 a day is $11,000 a year. Right. And whenever I say that to someone, they're like, oh my gosh. And everyone says, I'm not a big spender eating out, I'm not a big spender on premium coffee, I'm not a big spender on online purchases, and then they begin to track their expenses, even within the first week, they go, oh wow. Because it's they're $5 here, $200 here, $2 here, $72 there, and it all adds up. So the biggest mistake I see people making is just not being 100% aware of what they're actually spending.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I think that's one of the things too.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Like I uh I remember working with um people, and uh I was in school studying medicine for a time. I stopped. I had a weird diverse path in my career that I was studying medicine and I just wasn't happy. So I stepped away from it. But there was a time where I was doing a clinical shift and um we had a person who wanted to lose weight, and they came in and they spoke with us, and we're like, What are you eating? And they're like, I'm eating healthy, I'm eating good. Uh and so we're like, okay, well, that's weird because you know, we've been working with you, we've got a plan in place, but you still keep gaining weight. What can we do? And so finally we said, my my supervisor was like, Well, let's put together a meal, like uh a diary. We're not tracking, we're not telling you what to eat. We just want you to write down every single last thing that you eat, whatever you're putting in your body, put it on this paper. We're gonna do it for a week. Just see what you do. Person came back and they were like blown away uh by how much they were eating. And, you know, it was wild because it was the little things that were doing the most damage. It wasn't the regular meals, it was in between the meals, those moments where they were like, they just reached for something and they're like, this isn't a meal. I'm not eating something, but it was consumed. And that consumption eat pulled up. And I think that's where, you know, those little, I think so many people have death by a thousand cuts when it comes to finance. And um, you know, uh it's dangerous if you don't figure out where it's going.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Absolutely. And it's interesting you mentioned food. So years ago, my wife and I hired a personal trainer, and I sounded like my clients because the first thing I had to do was track my eating. And I'm going, well, I don't overeat like those people over there. Well, first day I tracked was a Monday. It was a bad day at work. I get home, I'm feeling miserable, and how do I console myself? Before going to bed, I eat a bunch of food. I tracked that down. The next day was a Tuesday. I'll never forget it. It was one of the best days in business. I got new clients, my clients were winning, everything was great. And I got home, I wanted to celebrate a great day. How did I celebrate a great day? You're probably guessing it. More food. By Thursday, I went, oh no, exactly the same thing. Death by a thousand cuts. It wasn't the meal, although I'm known to, you know, add put more on my plate than I should, but it was all the extras in between that was really causing me the problem when it came to my weight and where I wanted to be. That's wild. That's wild.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

And it's like the same thing we're talking about. Those little things add up. You know, and I think that's where a budget is like a superpower for that, because you can start looking at where it's going, you know, it's just aware of what's being spent in a different place, you know. But I want to ask you like, why are people so scared of budgeting? And is budgeting actually as miserable as people think it is, you know?

SPEAKER_03 8:26

That's a great question because obviously a lot of people, when they hear the word budget, they cringe. Is it there's certain words in our vernacular when you hear this, like for dentists. And if you're a dentist listening, I'm not mad at dentists, but you know, dentists, you know, oh my gosh, I got to go in there, right? And I think budgeting is the same, where it's like, because we have a misunderstanding of a budget. That's one of my favorite things to do with clients, or when I'm speaking on in my book, we talk about a budget is nothing more than a glorified shopping list. But we've looked at budgeting as a list of I can't do this and I can't do this and I can't do that. And there's some of that in there, obviously. But you get to be proactive and choose what am I gonna give, what am I gonna save, what am I gonna spend, what am I gonna invest? And oftentimes, just like I did when we were deep in debt, my wife and I ourselves, we were trying to do everything at once. We're trying to invest, at the same time, get out of debt, at the same time be generous, at the same time enjoy life, bless our kids. I don't make that kind of money. Most people don't make that kind of money where you can do everything all at once. And so what happens is when you do a budget, it forces you to force rank what do I value the most? And if you value, hey, my families are going on a nice vacation period at the end of every year, okay, you're going on a nice vacation. If you value, hey, we shouldn't be in debt right now, we're gonna go whole hog and getting out of debt, you're you're gonna work a get out of debt plan, right? And so what I love about a budget, it helps you define what your values and what your principles are.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And so I have just found when we know what those are, it actually gives you freedom. Yeah. Right? I love that.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

I think that that's one of the things that people talk about a lot, and that people who talk about real finance, like really empowered finance, talk about more than anything else is financial freedom. And financial freedom is the ability to say, no, no, you know, I don't agree with that. I don't want to work here anymore. I want to change jobs, and I have enough of a float to do that. You know, I have enough of a of a groundedness to sit there and go, uh that's not what I where I need to be going. That's not what I need to be doing. And the ability to walk, the ability to pivot, the ability to buy something that you want to buy, the ability to sell something that you want to sell, and not have that level of anxiety um just eating at you. You know, and that's one of the things. I just did a video before we we jumped on this call, and the topic of the video was literally this. Um what was it? Money stress never sleeps. That was the topic of the video. Money stress never sleeps. Because, you know, if you are doing all these things wrong, it's gonna, you're gonna have that anxiety falling you. But if you can make the changes to create that financial freedom, that stress will will lower.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And you can sleep with peace.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

And honestly, Sean, you know this as well as I do. The number one thing people are looking with and for their money is peace. When they drill it down to the simplest denominator, it is peace. And so when I do my free consultations, one of the questions I ask is when you think about where you are right now today financially, what thoughts and emotions do you go through? And normally they're all the negatives you can imagine, and I hear a lot of anxiety, I don't get good sleep, et cetera, et cetera. And the last story in my book and the last chapter I share of a couple who they talk about when they went to Jamaica 30 years ago, they borrowed money to go and they had a lot of debt. While in Jamaica, she's like, I couldn't enjoy it. It was not enjoyable in the least because every time I kept thinking, I got to go back to work to pay for the trip. I got to go back to work to pay for the trip, I gotta go back to work to pay for the trip. 30 years later, fast forward, they're debt-free on house and everything, have an emergency fund. They have money and investments. And they went to Jamaica for 14 days. And she said, Justin, it was so relaxing. Every day was just slow and peaceful. And about day 12, it's like, you know, I think it's time to go home. And I'm like, this the way I wish everyone could have been on that call that I was on because it was like the picture perfect. This is what we envisioned vacation to be, and they actually got it. It wasn't the social media, look at our fun vacation when actually it was a nightmare. Um, it was actually a pleasant, enjoyable experience. And then I'll just it just sat well in me when she's like, and now it's time to go home. We're just gonna go home. We did what we wanted to do, it fulfilled what we wanted it to fulfill. Okay, we're going home. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I love it because it's that, you know, I wanted to find um one of the things after school, I wanted to study overseas, but I didn't have the money. I didn't have the money. So I decided to teach English. And then once I did that, one thing led to another and different doors opened to me. But why I'm bringing that up is that there is more than one way to do something. And if you can look at different ways to make something possible and start thinking outside of the box, you're gonna be happy you did. But you know, I I'm curious this about this because I have a I have a 10-year-old daughter and it was one of the motivating factors for creating this podcast, you know. And if a 10-year-old asked you, what's the smartest thing I can do with money? Well, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_03 14:20

The smartest thing is a 10-year-old. Ooh, that's a great question. And I got five kids, and they're all older than 10 now, so I should know this answer off the top of my head. Um, you know, you mentioned something very powerful, is your why, and for you is your daughter. Um, but the most powerful, dare I use, secret is to live on less than you make. Yeah. And in fact, I'll never forget one of the first uh millionaires I met um in person, and and and he's kind of a playful guy, you know, and he looks at me and he goes, Justin, do you know what the secret is? And he retired early and did all the right things. And he's like, Do you know what the secret is to do what I did? And and he's just having fun with it. He's not bragging or anything. Live on less than you make. And when you read all the books that studied actual millionaires, you'll find that's how they did it. Yeah. And so learning to consume less doesn't mean you can't consume, doesn't mean you can't enjoy, but learning to go, hey, if my income is X, my expenses need to be less. So there's margin. We talk about that in business. I do business coaching as well, and it's all about getting bit margin. 84% of America businesses in America are not profitable. They have no margin. That's why they don't make it. Same is true with our personal finance. We don't have the margin. And so if I had a 10-year-old, I'd be like, okay, if you got $10 for an allowance or commission, or you got $5 from on the lawn or $20 from on the lawn, how much could you set aside and not touch?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah. Right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

I think that there's so much of that that we are in this consumer world and we're told that we need to have more and more and more and more and more. But the reality is that most all of us will be plenty happy with less. I um bought a very cool thing this other week that um it was a lucky buy because it was so nice for what I was getting. Uh, I wanted to have a party for my workers, but I also wanted to be like price conscious. And so for my team, one of the things I decided was I wanted to turn, I have these like backdrops that we used to film, and one of them's white, and I wanted to lower the backdrop down. And I said, we're gonna turn our chairs around. We got some nice chairs in my office and got a bunch of pillows. We had movie night. We ordered some pizza, and it was, you know, very cost effective. But the hard thing was I was looking at these projectors, and these projectors can get really expensive, you know, and renting one of them was about 45 bucks. And so I started doing my research, and I found out that there was a new one that was uh actually it was linked up with Android, it was like a droid um um like software, and it was only 75 bucks. And I was like, this can't be that good. And then I did all the research on it, and it was phenomenal. And it rotates and it autofocuses for you. It's not like the old days where you have to like tilt this. It just like you put it on a surface and it and then boom, it gets a correct layout. And I I figured out that I could aim it up at my ceiling, connected it to a Bluetooth speaker, and now my wife and my daughter and I, every night we're doing movie night on the roof. And my daughter's like, Dad, do you have podcasts tonight? I said, Yes, I do, but Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, I have none. And we're doing movie nights. And she's like, Yes, we're gonna have movie nights. It was a simple pleasure, it was affordable, and it has been, it just keeps on giving. And I think that if you can realize I've saved now so much money. We have this movie experience in our house. I don't have to pay, you know, $20 a person plus parking to go out to a movie theater. And one day, one trip to the movie theater, I, you know, this device that I bought is like a trip to the movie theater of my family with popcorn. And we're doing it at home every single night, you know, and I think that that's the shift that you have to make is what can you do that is still fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive, you know?

SPEAKER_03 18:38

No, it doesn't. And, you know, going back to the budget real quick, one of the things I've discovered is when a person or a couple, if they're married, go, okay, this is what's important to us, whether it's fun or whatever, you enjoy it more. I watched my clients enjoy their purchases more, small or large or in the middle. Um, I'm reminded by a couple that they had two home homes. One was kind of a getaway home that they also Airbnb'd, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, number one, they were crippled with lots of debt. But number two, they almost never went to their cabin because they're too busy living life. And on top of that, all the work of they got to clean the Airbnb, they got to collect the deposits and all the, I mean, it was a lot of work going into owning those things. And just in talking with them in the first meeting, I'm like, guys, you got this for enjoyment. You're not really enjoying it, and it's sucking the life out of not just you, but your money. I go, what if you sold it? Well, we can't sell that. I go, uh fine. But then you're saying you like the stress enough to keep it because you're not enjoying it. I'll never forget when they gave me the call and said, you know what, Justin, we did a lot of thinking. We're selling the second home. Because you're right. We almost never go over. Yeah, when we do go over, it's fun, but we we don't go over that much. It's a pain in the rear, and they sold it. And I wish people could have seen the transformation I saw from when I first met them and the stress and the ugh. You could just see the stress go all the way gone just by getting rid of that one thing. And again, as you're what you mentioned earlier, it doesn't have to be very expensive. So when my wife and I, when we were really broke and still trying to get this business off the ground, um, I'm like, man, we have no money for vacation. We we we can't even afford a Motel 6 right now. Uh and so I invented some goofball game with dollar store water balloons and a garden hose. I don't remember what it was. I just came up with some kind of fun game that we played in the yard, and I called it vacation. Now, deep down I'm embarrassed. Here I can't take my family even to the zoo. Um, but we're making up this, I probably spent more on water in the water bill than I did anything else. Fast forward years later, we're taking our first vacation as a family, actually going out of state, doing the things. I pick up my daughter, one of my daughters at the time she was 15 from work. I picked her up and I said, honey, I am so sorry. You're just now getting to experience a vacation. Here were her words. I'm not kidding. Oh, dad, my favorite thing was that game you made up with the water balloons and the garden hose. That's one of my favorite experiences ever. And I'm like, wow, that only cost a couple bucks. And here I was, all freaked out that I wasn't giving my family good experiences when in reality some of our favorite memories, even to this day, if we're all around the table together and we're talking about memories, almost all of them are memories that didn't cost a lot. Lawn darts were a thing, man. Lawn darts were a thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Especially the old school lawn darts. Dude, right? The big steel plight thing. I don't know how more people didn't die from those things. But like when I kind of tell my daughter, like, so we You have this circle and it's this thing with these, like the it's like a giant like dart, arrow dart with a giant metal spike, and you throw it in the air and try to hit it in the inside. My daughter's like, Did people die? I'm like, I think some did. I think some did. Um, you know, but the the irony is trying not to get macabre, but like that plus a slip and slide. Dude, a slip and slide was a piece of plastic. And you had wahoes down it, and you ran out on a lawn and you slid. But I will tell you this that I had more joy from a slip and slide than I have had from almost anything else that I can remember as a kid. You know, so many memories of that. Um, probably a separated shoulder as well, but still, you know, it's still amazingly fun. You know, it doesn't have to be fancy, you know, but it's wild because my daughter, she's sitting there going, Dad, I want the iPhone 17 Pro Max. And I was like, there's no way that that's ever happening. Like, no, no, ma'am. You know, I'm like, I don't even have the 17 Pro Max. And like, and I have I use what I have for work because I do video creation. And the wild part is, is it's like society has shown kids like this level of lifestyle inflation that parents aren't even dealing with, you know? It's wild like that. But you talk a lot about lifestyle creep. Why do people still feel broke even after they're getting raises? And what's going on there, man? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

So let's talk about cell phones just as an example. Now, obviously, a cell phone's not going to completely destroy someone's finances, but if you get a brand new iPhone 17 Pro Max, I haven't looked, but the last time I looked at any brand new phone, $800 to $1,200, even $1,500 for a phone. Yeah. Now, you and I grew up old enough in the analog days, you know, so we're just like, whatever. But what did all the cell phone companies do, which won them a lot of business? Hey, for $32 a month, you can own a brand new phone. Oh. I can feel very confident. Most average middle income row, middle of the income row, you know, middle class Americans, they would not pay outright a brand new phone if the only way to pay for it is up front. Yeah. We they'd be going to some you know version of the old flip phone, uh, right? Just because I'm not paying $1,000 for a phone, but again, $32 a month, $26 a month, we'll do it all day long. In fact, um, I with my carrier that I use, I actually switched my phone and my wife's phone, who works for me in the business, to the a business plan. And that made us eligible for two free uh an upgrade of a brand new phone. Free of charge, no payments, no nothing. And I'm like, okay, what's the catch? Well, you gotta be on contract with us for two years. I go, okay. And if I find a better deal then what? Well, then you gotta pay the phone, you gotta pay us back the phone. Oh, so I'm still on the hook. Well, no, you just gotta pay for the phone. Sounds like on the hook to me. No, I think we'll just keep our phones. Thanks. And again, that creativity. So, like what I do with our phones, I didn't need I learned this several years ago. At least the carrier we use, they have certified pre-on. So I have an iPhone 13 and an iPhone 17 world, and I paid 305 bucks. Mm-hmm. Now that I will do because obviously I do way less talking and way more everything else on a phone than an actual phone. Um, but I'll pay $305 for everything the phone can do, but I won't pay $1,200. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Right? And I think that that's where you have to just teach people about being smart with money, about making what are the trade-offs that you can have. And like, that's one way to avoid the lifestyle creep because you're not letting everything else dictate to you. Like, and I that's what I was telling my daughter. I said, Well, she's like, Well, mom has an ice phone. I said, Your mom is a professional singer whose job is based upon going out and having videos of her singing, and she has to have the top quality stuff. Like, that's part of how she gets more work. But you are a 10-year-old kid who doesn't want, you know, he just wants to goof off and watch some YouTube videos. And I said, first of all, we don't want to be watching that much YouTube. Now, to be fair, my daughter does have a YouTube channel with 11,000 subscribers, and we do make content. So yeah, no, I mean, she has a legitimate YouTube channel. Um, it's it's my channel that I do with my kiddo. But the the reality is, is I could argue getting something better there. But even still, I'm not buying her a, you know, the craziest, most expensive thing because the ROI isn't great on it, you know. We have to look at being smart. And I think I did my MBA a couple of years ago, and the one concept that came out of that MBA that was actually helpful was the uh concept of ROI. And the rest of it was okay. I learned that I suck at accounting, but I like the uh I'm great at content marketing and great at marketing. All right. Now, coming back to that though, I think that um you have to figure out how to play it all correctly and try to combine all these things so that you can figure it out. But I want to ask you this because what's one thing people buy or do that quietly destroys their finances over time?

SPEAKER_03 27:38

You know, honestly, the thing I see the most typically is groceries, eating out the coffees. Um, you know, my grandfather used to drink, say I drink one cup of coffee a day, it never goes dry. Uh but he would never, I I my grandpa would cringe um if he ever saw, I mean, I get premium coffee once in a while. I don't I don't I'm not against it, uh, but he got the 20, you know, 24 cents back in the day refill that you could just refill all day, right? Um, but when I talk to most of my clients, um, they don't have a meal plan. And again, long day at work on a long bad week at work, long week at work, kids are screaming pizza, you get pizza and you don't have the money. And then on Saturday, you get the notification on your phone, this thing you've been wanting for a long time happens to be on Amazon today and today only for 30% off. And then you go buy that. And so again, it's not having a plan, then those little mini impulses is what get us. And going back to the kids thing, I'm gonna probably bring this in here. You know, when our youngest son right now is 15, and last year, 14 years old, we do him and I do this thing called hot tub with dad on Sunday mornings before church. So him and I just go and sometimes it's fun conversations, sometimes it's serious conversations. And you can't tell by my hair. I used to be in a rock band and a following of like three. I never had 11,000. I had three. Um, but you know, and my son's picking up guitar now. Three is awesome, man. Hey, three is more than some, so it's better than two. Um, but anyway, um he was working, earning some money, and he wanted to buy a guitar and he he did his research, all the things. I said, Okay, what else could you buy with the same amount of money? I want you to think of what we call opportunity cost. What else could you buy with that money? And he rattled off a couple of things. I said, Okay, you've only got enough money to buy one of the four or five things you've listed. Of the five, we'll call it five, I don't remember the exact number. Which would you rather have? And we came back to the guitar. I said, cool. So we drove down to the guitar store, I think the next week, and bought a guitar. And he plays it, loves it. And but with a teachable moment, just like I do with my clients, of money's finite. You can't do everything you want with money. And you mentioned the ROI too. I and I teach that because one of the things I do too now, more and more of my clients are getting out of debt. And when you're out of debt and have an emergency fund, you can have a little bit of permission to spend some more. But you've been saying no to a lot of things, so you're almost afraid to say yes. Yeah. So I tell people what happens in those situations, you're still gonna be frugal, but you're gonna choose the areas by which you're gonna go, I'm gonna splurge. So again, I like music, I like speakers. So I don't buy cheap, used. I'm with you. I buy now, is it the best ROI? No, it is for my enjoyment because I'm another when it comes to that. But because I said no to other things, I now can get that. Last year, um my wife and I are more and more into cycling. My wife, she actually rollerblades a marathon, that's a thing. Uh, I can't roller blade to my mailbox, so I stay on a bike. And the more I bike, um, I'm like, I want to get a nice bike. I spent more on a bike last year than I thought I'd ever spend in my life. But there's other things like the shirt, most of my shirts I wear that look very nice, goodwill. There are thrift stores I have found with a dude my size that just keeps parking nice clothes there for than goodwill or other thrift stores sell for five or six bucks. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

I'm with you, man. And I think that that's where the values come in, your money values. What's actually important to you? Because for me, in my family, we like to go to certain places, you know, but we I don't buy a ton of things. Like I have very basics. We we had a one of our biggest purchases of late was right here. But my daughter, we got her new piano. Now, you have to understand that for I there's a backstory to that. For the past four years, she's been learning on my wife's 20-year-old electric piano that her parents bought her, you know, that is like an electric piano that's 25 years old, is like working off of a 25-year-old computer. Like it was like it had a floppy disk for people to back up like like music that they were working on. Like it had an old floppy disk down there. And we actually got it repaired and got it back to working condition. So my nephews can use that. But we we got my daughter a you know, 50-year-old wooden uh Yamaha piano because she's been pregnant. She's playing Bach now. You know, when she had put in enough time to be able to learn Bach, it's kind of the time that you can get something. But I had to look at, okay, new digital pianos are about $1,000 to $1,500. And a wooden piano that's a little bit older, but still refurbished in an amazing mechanical condition, has been tuned and everything done right on it, was only $750. So my wife and I said, Do we buy the digital one that's going to last 10 years, or do we buy her a wooden piano that's going to last 40? Like she, this piano could last, she might not need another piano. And it's beautiful and it's stunning and it sounds amazing. And her teachers say it teaches her better finger strength. At that point in time, you know, we had to look at the ROI and figure out well, that's the better buy, you know, and it was just an informed purchase.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

You know, and if I could jump in on that, you know, we talked about awareness earlier and the importance of that. But here's the other thing, and it's really hard in 2026, and it's never, and it's only getting harder as we continue to advance in technology, is slowing down. Everything is go, go, go. We live in an Amazon Prime Chick-fil-A social media world where you can press a button and buy. I mean, I I mean, the other day, it was like, I don't remember, like eight o'clock at night. And by 4 a.m., I had something in my in my doorstep. I mean, it's just there's such instant now, now, now. And that's not instant's not wrong. There's there's benefits to that for sure. But often one of the things I have to teach my clients is slow down. Slow down. Now we don't need to take eight weeks to make a decision on are we gonna buy a $10 thingy? Um, I mean, right? But it's just learning to go, okay, wait a minute. And um, you know, you mentioned the ROI thing too. One other thing I again I teach my clients is yes, be frugal. But there's you can overdo this because I work with some clients now that were their early 20s, mid-20s, early 30s, where their parents were so frugal all the time on every little thing, they've rebelled and go, I can't do frugal because it was way overdone. So, for example, when my youngest son, when he learned how to ride a bike, we live next to in Iowa. Well, actually, more and more, we have a thing called Casey's, we we love the Casey's gas station, and they have ice cream there. And it's like five blocks from my house. The first day my son's riding without having to uh use training wheels. He's like, Dad, go get some ice cream. Now, the right thing ROI-wise is to go, no, go home to our Toyota Prius, drive to an Aldi's, buy it in like a 12-gallon pail with off-brand, and eat it a spoonful at a time. That would have been the best ROI. Yeah. But I had money in my pocket that said, no, we're gonna go get the ice cream cone that's gonna cost way more, and you're gonna get it one time, because that little memory there is gonna be worth it. And again, we're talking small dollars, but again, it's learning the values, learning the principles, and that's what it's about.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

And understanding the trade-off. Like, and I think that was one of the best things that I someone had said to me recently is like, you know, it's simply about once you're able to know your values and you figure out like, when we bought this piano, well, obviously, I'm not getting my daughter that iPhone 17 Pro Max. But my choice was, well, this is a much better developmental thing for her. And, you know, this is better for your long-term growth. And even if it wasn't like in like going to get the more delicious ice cream, you know, or the the more tasty ice cream, you know, well, maybe they're both tasty, but that experience it's hard not to right. That that experience of riding that bike down there is in and of itself something that's magical. And I think that if you can sit there, okay, we're spending here, and that means that we're not going to be able to spend somewhere else, but that's okay. That's okay if it aligns with what you want to do. And dude, the music you're preaching to the choir on that one. I love good music, good sound, you know, and you know, you can you can trade off some different things, but yeah, man, it's if you know what's important to you, and it's it, then it's just building your life around what you value. But you won't have anything to do that if you don't learn the basics of budgeting. You won't learn, you won't have any ability to do that if you're not putting everything into place in the right way. So, you know, it's that step, but you got to build the foundation first. But I want to ask you another question because um a lot of people feel ashamed or embarrassed talking about money. You know, why why do you think that is and how can we change that? So it becomes much less taboo for people to talk about money, and we can make people feel a little bit less intimidated by it.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

It's a great question because the challenge about it is it's the last subject on earth anyone wants to talk about. And, you know, it's funny, even just this morning, my wife and I were part of a group of two other couples where we openly share, this is gonna freak some people out, our personal or our business budgets. They that we and we're not showing them here's our bank statement, as it were. But we have found such freedom in even that and going to that level of, and we've actually talked to other people. Would you want to join? That just sounds weird. Um, it's not because we actually, you know, because then you know you can do those kind of things. And so it always takes courage to get started. Too oftentimes people don't come see me until they're at rock bottom or close. And Sean, I wish people, I got a client right now that's not that. They're actually doing okay financially. They're not living check-to-check, as it were, but they know they could do better. And I keep applauding them, going, guys, I'm so glad you're here now, not waiting until you're a train wreck and hoping I can fix the problem. I can. Actually, you'll be learning fixing, and I'm the one that just shows you how. But there's so much shame and embarrassment. And that's one of the reasons why with but with coaching, with what I do, I actually do the budget with my clients the first several months. Not dictatively. I don't boss people around about it. But I know people with MBAs who can do better than me than on a spreadsheet. But they get so, I mean, I'll never forget years ago, one of my first clients, I coached a couple where the husband was a senior vice president of a Fortune 5 company. The guy was managing a $2.1 billion division. He could do that in spades. He was losing his million-dollar house to foreclosure. And he's like, Justin, what the heck? And so that's why I do the budget. I have some clients, and I say this no shame or judgment, but there's an increasing number of people who are so petrified of what they're gonna find out. I will sit down with them so they can open their bank account or their credit card. And these are normal, everyday people. They're not, there's nothing to shame them. They're just that freaked out of what I'm when I open that box, what's gonna pop? Yeah. And so I read in a book uh several years ago, 10x is easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan. It's a great book. And he talks about the difference between uh courage and being committed to that. Courage is when you do something when you're scared. Yeah, you don't know if it's gonna work out, but when you know you can, now it's where you can go do it. And oftentimes people just don't have that, and they need a second or a third party to walk them through uh just because it's a very scary thing. And you know what's interesting, Sean? Uh, if you're in my office, I got a big screen right here where they see the numbers. If I'm on virtual, we do it via Zoom. And it's not uncommon when I show people where they really are. Here's your actual income, here's all the expenses, here's where you actually are.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

The number of times I go, oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

And then that is encouraging. And sometimes it's just as bad as I thought, and sometimes it's worse than we thought. But I read this in a book just the other day. We as humans can handle a big known problem better than a small unknown problem. In a different book I'm reading, if you can't tell, I like to read books. Um, I can't remember the person who quoted the author was quoting somebody by saying, often the treasure we seek is in the cave we don't want to go in. And I coach coaches is one of part of one of the things I do, and I tell coaches, if a client says don't go there, you're probably gonna have to go there at some point because that's the thing holding them back from financial freedom.

unknown 41:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

One of my favorite stories to tell on that is I had a couple had over $200,000 in debt. Normal everyday couple. Husband was a pastor, wife's a teacher. And she told me out of the gate, Justin, I know you're gonna tell me to sell the car, but I'm not doing it. I'm just gonna tell you right up front, I will not sell the car. Okay. And we go through the coaching process. And at the time where I got everything down and I showed them where they were, I said, ma'am, I know you said you're not selling the car, but I'm telling you, this car is one of the major things holding you guys back to really start getting after this debt. Well, we met the next month and she said, Justin and I considered it. We really did consider selling the car, but we're just not gonna do it. And said, I'm curious, are you not selling the car for reliability reasons? Yes. So I'm on Zoom, I Google crap car and I share my screen so they can see all these cars that are like in the middle of a cornfield. You can't drive them. And I go, is this what you think I'm asking you to drive if you sell your car? And she's like, Yes. I'm like, no. Let me show you some of the cars I drove. No, I didn't drive these fancy automobiles. We drove very used cars, but I showed her which cars we drove while getting out of debt to give her some confidence. The next words out of her mouth, Sean, was so if we sold our car. Because the picture in her mind of selling that car to go into a used car was some jalopatated thing that doesn't even work. Yeah. Last year they paid off $200,000 in debt in five years while cash flowing and adoption. That's amazing, man.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

If someone is listening to this and going, you know what, I need help, how can they find out more about you and what you do?

SPEAKER_03 43:28

You bet. If you just go to levelupyourfinances.com, you can find out more about our book. And we have it in hardcover or soft cover audiobook. I read the book, and also in ebook form. There's also, if you want to do a free consultation, there's a link there. So just go to levelupyourfinances.com.