What Gets In The Way Of Financial Freedom? | Pillay Place Ep 23

Do you keep telling yourself, "I'll start saving when I make more money"? Rahul and Van Pillay are here to lovingly call that out — because it's not a financial strategy, it's a thought distortion.
In Episode 23 of the Pillay Place Podcast, Rahul and Van unpack the three biggest mental blocks that silently sabotage financial freedom — and they're not what most money podcasts talk about. From process resistance (why we want the goal but hate the journey) to shame-driven avoidance (why some of us literally won't open the budget spreadsheet), to societal pressure and keeping up with cultural expectations — this conversation is honest, practical, and rooted in faith.
Rahul draws from Romans 12:2 — renewing your mind — as the foundation for real financial transformation, while Van brings her mental health lens to explain why we resist change even when we know it's good for us. They even share their own story of saying no to dinner invites while saving for their first home — and how that discipline paid off.
Whether you're drowning in credit card debt, living paycheck to paycheck, or just can't figure out where your money goes — this episode will help you identify what's really in the way. And more importantly, what to do about it.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you are having a hard time saving ten dollars when you're making a hundred bucks, more than likely you will not save a hundred bucks when you're making ten thousand dollars. I'll start budgeting when I make more money. Or I'll start saving more once I have a better job. Or when I'm in a better position.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

It's a fortune telling thought you're not a fortune teller. A lot of points cost a lot of debt.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

They won't make any money if they gave you more points than the money that you're spending. We love lifestyle. We love the way things are. We don't want to change the way that things are.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Of course we all want the outcome, but the process of getting there is what people don't most people don't realize that they have to give up.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

We were saving for our first home when friends would go out to lunch or dinner, and we would get so many invites, and we would literally have to say no. Because it was not in the budget.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

It was a five-year plan, but we actually did it in two years.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Hi everybody, welcome back to the Pillay Place uh podcast. Today we're talking about what gets in the way of financial freedom. And um, and I don't have stats for this just yet. I have a few stats, but but simply said, you know, and I this is I'm guilty of it. We are both guilty of it. We constantly see a lot of folks do this. What happens uh in our finances majority of the time is there is these subliminal thoughts or belief systems, a way of life that we have developed in our habit system that prevents us from succeeding in our finances. And it's a big hindrance. And what Van and I will do today is talk about these, how to identify them is the most important piece because we're actually most of the time blind to it. And two is um, once you can identify it, you know how to kind of what to do to kind of get rid of it so that you can succeed with your finances. So um uh we we I wrote it down as a mental trap. Sometimes these are all mental trap, and it typically is in the mind. And um a scripture that comes up from the Bible is Romans 12.2. Romans 12.2 is simply states that when you actually change the way you think, you renew your belief system, your thought patterns is how you're able to find the perfect will of God. So, in order to find the perfect will of God, you need to actually change the way you think, it's a renewal process, and the Bible actually calls this a transformation. So before we get into this, did you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

No, I'm curious what you're gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, so um so there are I wrote down three thoughts that a lot of people have, and let's just get right into it. Um, one of the thoughts that constantly hinder us from succeeding in our finances is I'll start budgeting when I make more money. Or I'll start saving more once I have a better job. Okay, or when I'm in a better position. And reality is, statistically, I can show you how this happens, but you if you are having a hard time saving $10 when you're making $100, more than likely you will not save $100 when you're making $10,000. And here's why I say that. If you look at the Americ America's population, you look at income, uh, 75 to 80% of people that make less than $50,000 a year live paycheck to paycheck. Okay? So but budgeting is a little bit tighter for them, right? Wouldn't you say that? For those that make $50 to $100K, for them it's 65% of the people live paycheck to paycheck. The higher the income goes, the lower percentage of people that make paycheck to paycheck. But reality is if you're not saving at a lower income bracket, the statistics for you to actually save in a higher income bracket is way low. It's it's it's near impossible because you just haven't learned how to manage the little that you have to begin with. Does that make sense? Yep. So um any comments on that?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Well, I thought it's interesting that you say I'll start budgeting or I'll start blank when I make more money. Right? I'll start, I'll it's actually a a fortune-telling thought.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

You do tell. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Well, it's a it's a f it's a fortune-telling thought. You're not a fortune teller, right? It's it's a trick. It's a it's one of those very settled thought distortions.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, or in other words, it's a it's a lie that has entered our belief system.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah. It's like I'll start doing something.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

But once this happens, you actually put a condition on it. And and that's a hard condition. I think if you just start, you let the results come, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah. Um, yeah, it's just a thought, it's a thought distortion. It's a it's what you're trying to tell yourself that you will versus versus doing it right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah. Yeah. So so when we um when we have helped folks do their financial finances in the form of a budget, right? Or when we do our own, one of the things that Van and I do is we write down our income and expenses. And you can, if you can imagine an Excel spreadsheet, it's a long spreadsheet with each line item, like, okay, kids' books and utilities and all these things. But long story short, is one of the things that we constantly ask ourselves is how much are we spending on this? We look at the actuals, is what we call it. Uh, for those that are uh familiar with finances, you look at your actual expenses, and then the question that we ask ourselves is, is this appropriate? Right? Is it okay for us to be spending more than 500 bucks eating out? Right? Is it appropriate for us to be spending more than a thousand dollars eating out? And we don't compare ourselves to others, what are other families doing? We may talk about it, but what we actually do is we look at a logical thing. Like, what comes first? We obviously have to pay the mortgage first, right? We need a roof over our head, and then we need food, right? And then maybe would come dining out, we don't like we simply break it down into what comes first, what comes second, what comes third.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, I think some one of the the hard things that people struggle with is the outcome and process resistance. Like I mean, I was just talking to a friend and I just go, Well, have you done a budgeting? And then the friend would tell me, Well, it's not the budgeting, it's just we just need to make more money.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Well, that's the the first one that I mentioned, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And I go, okay, so what is outcome and and process resistance? It's the journey of getting to your goal. Yeah. Okay. So if we talk about, say, I want to save an X amount, like I don't know, an extra thousand dollars a month. Yeah. Right. The process of saving that ha gives me a lot of resistance. It's like I want the outcome. Of course, we all want the outcome. Yeah. You know, we want, we want, we we set that goal and we want the outcome, but the process of getting there is what people don't most people don't realize that they have to give up. Yeah. Right. So, okay, that means, gosh, I have to cut out my nails. Yeah, you too. You like talking about the nails, but it's a big one. Well, because lady like we get our nails done, right? Yeah. And so like we get our nails done, or like, oh, that means no more random trips to Starbucks or whatever it is. I can't just like something and and buy it out of my feelings, right? It's uh that means in the in that whole month, I have to constantly resist. It reminds me of the like resist the enemy in a shelfleep, right? You have I have to constantly resist. It's literally like those resistant bands. I don't like resistance, um, resistant band. I'd rather lift a lot heavier than those stupid resistant bands because it's pulling it's fighting against you. Yeah. And that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to resist that and you're trying to hold on to that. Yeah. It's the the resistant band is constantly pulling you back the other oppositional, right? Like on the other side, versus weights is just heavy. You know, you don't you're not fighting against your weight, right? You're just lifting the weight. But the resistant piece is like it's constantly pulling you, especially if it's, you know, in your head, like, oh, it's gonna feel really good. Oh, that's gonna look really pretty off on you, that's gonna make you feel really nice, and that's you know, those are the nagging, and that's what you are resisting.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, they it let me let me uh use another example just to kind of bring it home a little bit more. Uh we've constantly um heard, and I mean I've I've been guilty of this, is that where I make the excuse about, oh well, I gotta eat. So it's okay for me to spend, you know, excess money uh eating out when reality is I don't have to. But here's the resistance. When initially we were doing our budget, my resistance was really in because you said, well we can cook at home. And my idea was, well, no, there's not enough time. That's a resistance, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Another resistance is like the process of even if we're talking about well, let's stick with finance, but um like you won't say you want to save that thousand dollars a month, right? Right. The process means, oh, planning ahead of time, meal prepping ahead of time. Like those are all of the things that's like, oh, I don't want to do that. That's actually what you have to do, and you can be resistant towards that, or the I don't have the time to do this, that's a resistance.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yep, exactly. Or or and then at some point you just say keep saying whatever excuse you can come up with. It's like, but this, but that. You're hitting a wall, but this. You're hitting a wall, and and you come to a point you realize you just don't want to change. And the scripture literally says, renew your mind. There is a renewal needed in order for you to succeed at this, right? And um, and we see it, we see it quite often. I mean, even uh I remember that one time when we had all that credit card debt, and my my belief system was that I need the credit card points.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

That's a lot of people, actually.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, so we'll we'll just we'll just credit card because we need the credit card points. What about the credit card points? Right? And then you have a mounting debt, and you're like, uh-oh, how did this get here?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

A lot of points, but also a lot of debt.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

That's right. That's right. You'll never have more points than your debt. Like that is that is like a that's a credit card fallacy. That that does not they won't make any money. They won't make any money if they gave you more points than the money that you're spending. Yeah. So um, they may give you more points, but it's still lesser value than what you're spending.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Right? Like that's that's they need to make money. Um, so yeah, so that that is one of them. Here, here's another one. And and under behind this, the idea is um folks not taking responsibility. And what do I mean by that? Uh, have you ever ever heard of the phrase called, well, money is the root of all evil, right? And the truth is that's not what the Bible says. The Bible actually says that for the love of money, it's the love of money that's the root of all evil, right? We just talked about love and relationships. It's actually loving God and loving others is the commandment. We don't love object money, right? Money is a resource, just like a lot of things are resources. So, long story short is when folks make that comment, behind that sometimes is this idea that if I just can ignore the concept of money and the concept of saving and budgeting and doing all these things, right? AKA, I don't take responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, I agree. I think that when it especially when it comes to money though, like people have a lot of like shame. Like it somehow is their whole identity. Yeah. Like how I handle money speaks a lot about me. Right. How how much money I make says a lot about me, how what I do with my money says a lot about me, right? And the thing is, money is just a resource.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It is.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

It's just a resource. It doesn't say who you are.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

However, I think people feel like there's so much like if you have bad credit or or a lot of credit card debt or something like that, there's this like shame, and that's what they're trying to avoid. They're not trying to avoid the problem, they're trying to avoid the feeling of shame. If I have to face this Excel sheet, I'm gonna feel so much shame, and that just feels too bad. So I'm not gonna look at it and I'm not gonna worry about it. Yeah, I mean, I if I don't think about it, it might not be there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

I mean, reality is it's not very hardly ever do I see people out of curiosity open up a budget sheet. It's always like, all right, I gotta do this, and I wonder what it says.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Well, you were teaching a class at the Bible college. Yes, and you had them pull out their Excel sheet, and you had a lot of like married couples go up to you and said, I've been trying to tell my husband to do this for years.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Right? And it's because they don't want to see it. It's like they have to face the sh the the the shame. And so the reality. The reality of it. It's yeah, and it can feel overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

But if you take it, like if you kind of minimize what money really is, yeah, but it's not it it could really it's not that scary. It's just another life problem that we deal with.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

It's I mean, you make a really good point. The the the the point is money is just an object, it's just a resource. Right? And and doing a budget or following a budget is you don't have to be perfect at it. No. Right. The point is hopefully it reveals underlying behaviors that we have to correct. And once you correct and change it, that's it. You know what to work on.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

That's so we're talking about like outcome resistance.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yes. So tell me what outcome means. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

The outcome. So we talk about the process, like the steps to get there is a lot of resistance, right? A lot of things that we need to change and do. The outcome is do we really want the outcome?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Right. Is it worth it?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Uh kind of, yeah. But like, do we really want the outcome as in if we want to have all our finances, like everything, we would have to face some type of reality.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

We would have so um the cup the couple that came up to you and said, you know, I've been trying to tell my husband to do this for years. Yeah. Right. He did not want to face the outcome. If he goes and do all his budget, he would have to know exactly how much debt he's in.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And I don't want to he's he's probably thinking, I don't want to see that outcome.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Or I I don't want to wanna know that outcome.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Or I don't want to face what needs to change. A lot of us love our lifestyles. We love, we may not love money, but we love lifestyle. We love the way things are. We don't want to change the way that things are.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah. I'm sure we have an episode on change somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

I think we do, yeah. So we'll post the change episode here um in our in our comment uh somewhere in the video. Somewhere in the video, right where you can comment and give us feedback on this video. Um, but a final point that I wanted to make was the societal pressures, right? Keeping up with the Joneses is the old term. I don't know if the if people still use it, especially the newer generation.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Keeping up with the touche, touche. So keeping up with the Joneses is what we used to, what's old folks used to say that that the young ones, like my wife, don't say anymore. Um is where, well, you know, your neighbors have two cars each. So we must have two cars as well. You know? My my all my friends have a have a $1,500 stroller for their babies. So how can I have my $300 Great Go? Right?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

And nothing's wrong with Great Go.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Nothing's wrong with Greco. They did they did not not sponsor this, but they can if they want. But long story short is um long s long long story short is is that that is a real pressure.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Because it it's so why do you think that is? It actually, I mean, one thing I'm um I think I'm grateful for is I I hear that a lot. It's like so and so has this or so and so is doing this, and we and I am not one to compare myself. Yeah. Um I don't know, because I just want my own things. Like I don't want it because you have it or you want it. I want it because that's what I want. Yeah. And I think everything I want comes from God. And so I'm gonna have it.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, good for you. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

If there is a desire for a new designer back, guess what? That's from God. That's what you know. But anyways, what do you think about it?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

And we do check everything with God. We do, right, and with each other.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um I I think it's the culture. I actually think the American culture is somewhat that way. Because we live in a free society, we have had the opportunity for, you know, and I don't know how to answer this in one liner, but simplistically, there's so many cultural hierarchies, right? There's the executive Costco membership, and then there's the regular membership. There's a comparison, right? You could be top of class or you could be average. You know, my kids are doing all these things, right? Or they're not. Um, you could go to the top 20 schools in the country, you could work at the top 20 farms, like top 20, top this, top that. It's spoken since the beginning. I mean, even if you're not in this country, outside this country, I well, I was raised in Fiji Islands, and they would publish our scores. Literally, publish our scores for the whole school to see. And if I'm not in the top five, I have to go home and tell my parents. And when I wasn't, I remember I was 12th one time. I didn't tell them for like a week. Because even if I was an average student, it's got it gets hard once you do get it to the top, then you're like, okay, I'm no longer in the top. Like there's this societal pressure in comparison. Comparison just exists in the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

But you see, I think that's almost part of the the lie.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

It's part of the lie between. Of course it is. Then now you're listening to someone else who is defining who's how smart you are. Of course. Versus what the Lord and says about you.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Exactly. You know, like Well, about finances. Let's just go about finances, right? Yes. Like you and I, when we started saving, we did our first budget, right? One of the societal pressures you and I had was when friends would go out to lunch or dinner, and we would get so many invites, and we would literally have to say no because it was not in the budget.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

That's part of the process.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. We were like, we can only go out twice. This is their fourth time calling us. We can't go.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

We even told them.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

We told them this is not in our budget. Yeah. They wouldn't stop texting us. Their budget was fat. Ours wasn't. Like point being is for a home. We were saving for our first home, and it took a long time. It took three years, right, to buy our first home. But it was it was a process.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

It was a five-year plan, but we actually did it in two years.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Okay. Yeah. Well, she remembers. But yeah. Yeah. Um so so yeah, anything, anything else to add?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So so in order so let me just recap. The recap here is hopefully simple. There are underlying Thoughts and belief systems that ha hinders us from growing in our finances. The three that we really identified is ideas that like really just things that I'll start when I have a better job type. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah, well, I wanted to add one of the things that could be helpful for for that you guys want to try is say you write down a goal, right? Say the goal is I want to save an extra thousand dollars this month, right? Well, first of all, you want to check if this goal is you trying to be an overachiever, okay, or is it a realistic goal? Okay. Once we figure that part out, then you want to know, do a cost-benefit analysis. What are the advantages of this change? And what would be the disadvantages of this change? Like the disadvantage would mean I would have to say no to eating out X amount of time. I would have to, a disadvantage, I would have to start planning out my meals and meal prepping. I would have to, you know, those are all the disadvantages that people don't really think about. You know, they think about the outcome, they want, they want the goal, they want to achieve that, but there's a sacrifice that you have to give so that you can achieve that goal.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Well, very well said. Um please subscribe, hit the like button if you have any comments on this. I know we talk a lot about finance, finances, and financial freedom. Uh, please let us know. Um, and thank you for tuning in to the Pill A podcast.