Excelling in your money mindset doesn't mean a big net worth. It means putting yourself in a position to make life most enjoyable to you, however you define that.

• The goal for today is really just for you to walk away from tonight with a better understanding of your current money mindset, and what you can change to better excel when it comes to that mindset. (03:23)
• I would say a lot of the finance stuff that's the loudest like if somebody is shouting at you through the TV and hitting a buzzer, they're probably not the person you want to be taking advice from. (13:56)
• So if you're wanting to be in a good place down the road, you're probably wanting to save, I would say at least 10% of your gross income. (29:59)

Quote for the event. "So excelling in your money mindset doesn't mean a big net worth. Excelling in your money mindset means putting yourself in a position to make life most enjoyable to you. However, you may individually define that." (19:32)

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Welcome to the EnjoyMore30s Family Finance

podcast. The only podcast dedicated to making life more

enjoyable for young families by hitting on the financial topics

that tend to weigh on us, stress us out, and distract our focus

from simply enjoying life.

Hello, and welcome to the EnjoyMore30s Family

Finance podcast. Today we have a special live recording that

we're going to share with you called How To Excel In Your

Financial Mindset, which was broadcast live across the

Fishbowl app. So instead of a normal episode today, you can

hear this recording. It has a great Q&A, a lot of back and

forth. So I thought it would have a lot of valuable

information in it that I wanted to share. I must apologize a

little bit for the audio, with the back and forth between both

of the co-hosts, myself, and Jade Rose, it does get a little

choppy at times, but I tried to smooth it out as much as

possible. So without further ado, enjoy, and I hope you very

much get something out of this episode.

Great. So we've got a good crowd here. So I think

let's get started. So thank you, everyone for joining us this

evening for the How To Excel In Your Financial Mindset Live. My

name is Jade Rose, and I run the financial advisor Fishbowl all

the way from the other side of the pond. And we're very lucky

to have Joe Okaly with us this evening. So Joe is a financial

advisor, CFP holder, podcaster, and father of two children. As I

said, we'll be opening up the floor to questions in the second

half of the Live, which will run for 60 minutes. And if you'd

like to ask any questions, use the button in the bottom right.

So Joe, thank you so much for joining us this

evening before we jump into the topics, could you just tell us a

bit more about yourself? Yeah, absolutely Jade, thank you so

much for being here. First off, for taking the time to to be

involved in this event today. I have a lot of faith in in

spreading this message. And I really appreciate you being a

part of it. And as I kind of mentioned to you before

everybody here jumped on, you just have the most beautiful

accent I've ever heard. And unfortunately, they're gonna

have to listen to my North Jersey coffee accent for the

majority of today. But I definitely appreciate everything

that that you're contributing. Like Jade said, my name is Joe

Okaly, I'm a certified financial planner CFP. For those of you

out here who may have heard of a CPA designation, that's, that's

more well known for accountants. This is kind of like the highest

equivalent designation that I can receive in my own personal

field. I'm 35 years old. I've been an advisor, though, for 14

years already. So basically my entire adult life. I run the

wealth management firm that I'm associated with. And I also have

a podcast trying to help young families specifically with their

money. And that's called EnjoyMore30s Family Finance. So

this is by far my biggest professional passion is getting

this message out there to people out like you that can help, you

know be helped by this. And, you know, so that's really where I

focus more most of my professional energy. I've been a

guest on a number of other podcasts, a couple in the UK, a

number of other ones here in the US. As Jade did mention, I am

married. And I have two just fantastic kids. My wife, Lauren

was a teacher. She changed careers, to focus more on her

passion. So we're gonna definitely talk more about that

later on today. And yeah, so like Jade said that the goal for

today is really just to, you know, for you to walk away from

tonight with a better understanding of your current

money mindset, and what you can change to better excel when it

comes to that mindset. And it may sound weird, like we have a

relationship with money, but money really greatly affects so

many aspects of our lives. We literally have this weird

relationship with it that just kind of forms. And for some

people money can mean freedom, but to most people really the

vast majority of people that I come across and it's really even

the people that have money, which is the funniest thing, it

can mean anxiety. It affects what job you decide to take,

what goals you set for yourself, so you know in many ways, the

way you're you live your life and the happiness that you're

ultimately able to derive from it. So needless to say this

money mindset is, is super, super important. So Jade, if you

wouldn't mind if you could run through kind of how we're set up

to do this for today, the sections that we kind of have

organized tonight's session into?

Yeah, absolutely. So while there are so many things

that that I have just picked out from, from your introduction

that I'll definitely touch on later. Such an interesting

background. So how this is gonna work. We have three main topics

we're going to discuss with you tonight. It's how your money

mindset got you to where you are. It's where your mindset can

take you. And then three questions that our audience can

use to start excelling in their own money mindset. Before we

jump into the first one, there's something I wanted to ask you so

something I've seen on your socials on your website is

"making life more enjoyable". And I think it'd be quite

interesting to explain what you mean by that, before we dive

into the practical steps of building a healthy mindset.

Sure, yeah, absolutely. And this is really

the the focus of how we try to, you know, put our all of our

energies when we're working with people, as advisors. And a lot

of this we're actually going to touch on touch on as, as the

conversation goes. But essentially, you know, money is

something that a lot of people focus on the specific

investments or the specific insurance, all these very

specific details, but the whole point of all of that is for us

to really, if all that's where it needs to be, then we don't

have to worry about that anymore. And we can just focus

on making life as enjoyable as possible. So you know, I think

that leads perfectly into kind of how we got our mindset here

to where it is today. And for me, the fact that I know

anything when it comes to finances was completely just

dumb luck. A professor in college brought in this person

called a financial planner, which I had never heard of, to

any extent before. And I became interested and wound up pursuing

that kind of a career. And because of that these financial

planning methods and resources that we're going to talk to you

tonight about, were always accessible to me. What I used

for other people in their planning, their retirement,

their investments, their insurance, whatever, whatever it

may have been, I just naturally did that for myself. And when I

spoke to, you know, other people, especially young

families out there, I became readily conscious of this

complete dumb luck that I had received and started to value it

a lot more highly, because I didn't feel anxiety around money

or anything, because my job literally trained me to handle

it myself. And without that, I would have just been lost. So

when I when I saw that, and you know, when everybody's growing

up or going through school, and I'm guessing nobody out there

had a comprehensive financial literacy coursework in school.

I'm guessing that no one even had an in comprehensive

financial literacy coursework in school. And, you know, that's

the norm from everyone. I've spoken to Jade, I don't know

about you over over in the UK. But certainly in the US, there's

there's almost no financial literacy that's taught in any of

the schools.

Yeah, it's the same over here. It's non existent.

Yeah, I mean, the line I always say is, you know,

Shakespeare is well and good, but to be or, you know, not to

be doesn't really help to buy or not to pay or to spend or not to

spend, or to save or not to save. And, you know, the truth

of it all is that you were everybody listening here was

probably unprepared coming out of school when it came to your

money mindset. I was unprepared coming out of school when it

came to my money mindset. You know, essentially everybody out

there is unprepared when it comes to the money mindset. And

society for some reason says we can't talk about money, it's too

taboo. So I can go online and go on Facebook and for some reason,

posting pictures of yourself in your bathing suit on the beach

is perfectly acceptable all the time. But asking someone

publicly on social media, "hey, I got a raise, what should I do

with this money? Or I just had a second kid, how do I know if I

have enough life insurance?", that seems to be you know, too

taboo, that has to be, you know, kept behind locked doors. And so

we're in a position where we're not really educated at all, we

can't really publicly ask about it. And so the last resource

resource is going to the industry that specializes it so,

you know, Jade and myself, you know, we're in this industry,

that is, you know, somewhat confusing, intimidating. We seem

to like to build these jargon walls to make it as

uncomfortable as possible for people, you know, like wealth

management, for instance, is the easy one. Wealth Management

implies you already have wealth, to manage, which most people

don't, and people who actually do have wealth probably had

someone help them get that wealth at some point in their

lives. So you know, more appropriate titling would be,

you know, I want to have wealth management, or I don't want to

be poor management. Unfortunately, I don't have the

power to change those social norms. But that seems to be the

case. So you know, most people come out of school with 1, not

having likely said any financial education, and 2, feeling like

they really have no comfortable resources, at least to reach out

to. And despite all that, though, we all stumble into our

own mindsets about money. We come out of school, and we have

you know, some form of relationship with it at this

point. We weren't taught it but it just kind of subconsciously

developed and maybe some of that we pick up from looking at our

parents we either say "hey, wow their mom and dad pretty smart.

I'm going to do that too". Or maybe like "Oh, mom and dad

seemed like they're really struggling. I'm gonna do the

opposite of what they're doing here". Or even you know, music

videos with you know, Bentleys, gold chains, and making it rain

dollar bills, all really not great resources for for

developing a great money mindset. So what I'd like

everyone to do to kind of finish off this first section, I guess,

is let's all visualize if you close your eyes and you think of

all your kind of close family and friends. So you know, 10-15

people, something like that. Visualize them in your head. And

below that, I want you to put three different boxes below

them. So first, let's think about those people that you're

that you're visualizing right now that have a mindset of a

spender. So we all know spenders, every time we see

them, they seem to have something new or cool to show

you. So grab all those people that you're visualizing right

now that are spenders, and let's put them in that first box. Now,

let's move on to the second mindset, a saver. So you know,

everybody knows people that are good at saving, you don't really

see them save, you kind of you know that they seem to be

putting away enough. They seem to always have money for what

they need to have money for. So all those people that you're

visualizing that are savers, grab them, and let's visually

put them into that second box. Now, there's the last box here,

which I'm guessing should be most of the other people that

that you have left, I find to be just the people that that hate

spending. They don't, they don't spend money, they don't really

seem to have it when they need it either. So you kind of you

know, the people were that when the bill comes out at dinner,

they kind of cringe thinking about having to put anything

into the pot there. But let's grab the rest of those people

and put them into that last box. So you visualize all these

family and friends. And we have them in these three different

boxes now. So let's say now that those people that you just put

into those three boxes, were doing this same exact exercise

and you were one of the people that they visualized. What which

one of those three boxes do you think that they would be placing

you in right now? Where do you think they put you from your

money mindset standpoint, right now.

And the point of going through kind of this visualization, what

I find this to be helpful to do is 1, show like everybody that

you visualized, you could put them in some box, they all have

some kind of a money mindset that they all develop despite

having no education, despite maybe having no resources to

talk to other people. And the second part that I find really

interesting about this exercise is that when we think about what

other people would think about our money mindset, what what

box, they would put us and it kind of quickly brings anxiety,

it shows like, you know what other people think of how we

handle money is kind of stressful for us. It's kind of,

you know, important to us that they think of us in a certain

way. And what I want to kind of start off here with is, you

know, the there is no blame, there's no shame or anything for

where everyone is at this point in time. Again, we didn't get

the education, you didn't get the resources but now that we

start building up this mindset, we're aware that we do have a

mindset, we do have a relationship with money at this

point in time, that now allows us a starting point that we can

make decisions on from where that mindset goes from here and

how much it excels from here. So Jade anything from I guess that

first section that you know, any reflections that you had, or

anything that you kind of connected with?

Yeah, first of all, I'd like to know if I want wealth

management as trademarks, because if it isn't, I'll be

using that for myself. It's so true. I think the jargon is an

unnecessary barrier to entry. So if anyone has been considering

seeking financial advice or embarking on their own journey,

but feel they're not wealthy enough, or they don't have

enough knowledge, please do reach out and ask for help and

support because it's there for you if you need it. The other

thing I wanted to ask you to share with us is where can

people go then but as you mentioned, it's not taught on a

curriculum, you were very lucky to come across good financial

advice and support. What resources do you suggest people

can go to be it YouTubers, books, any other resources?

Sure. Yeah. So there's a lot of finance stuff

out there. And I would say a lot of the finance stuff that's the

loudest like if somebody is shouting at you through the TV

and hitting a buzzer, they're probably not the person you want

to be taking advice from. When it comes to to real you know

financial planning to try to get you on a path and a journey if

you picture kind of a point you know, a dot of where you are now

and a second dot you know, further on you know, down on a

piece of paper. We wanted to have like the smoothest

straightest line to get you from from where you are here to where

you are down there. So when you go through a lot of that

financial stuff that you see out there, if any that has like a

feeling of like get rich quick, I would definitely tell you to

really look at that closely. Really look at that with a with

a cautious eye and financial resources that you come across

that kind of say, you know, save, save more than you spend.

You know, here's some smart stuff to protect yourself.

Anything like that. There's a lot of podcasts out there.

There's you know, there's a lot of different books out there.

The Millionaire Next Door is one that I thought was fantastic for

you don't have To be flashy to accumulate wealth. So that would

be the overarching kind of theme that I would say to look for and

to avoid. I don't know, Jade, if you've had personal experience

in any of those kind of areas for you meeting, people looking

at things that they shouldn't necessarily be focusing on to,

to try to gain some of that financial knowledge.

Yeah, I completely agree. There are a lot of

questionable resources out there. But like you said, the

obvious ones that scream, paid course or get rich quick, I, I

would steer clear from another question on your mindset, then.

So you graduated college in well, when when the financial

crisis was happening, which is quite a pivotal point in your

life and your career. And now you said you never had anxiety

around money because of the education that you'd received?

To have how did that play out during 2008? When you're just

embarking on your own career?

Yeah, so I mean, one of the coaching programs

Yeah, I love that. That's such a great attitude to

that I use, I don't know if anybody out there has heard of

Strategic Coach before. But that's a phenomenal resource, a

phenomenal program, and one of the things that they teach is,

you know, there's no, there's no real negative, there's no,

there's always opportunity within there. So, you know, in

2008, everything's dropping, that also means a lot of people

are looking for financial advice, because the things that

they've been doing probably aren't working. It also

corresponded with mortgage rates here dropping down, and people

needing to refinance, to be able to still keep their bills the

way they were. So refinancing was a big part of what I did in

2008. You know, even in COVID, this last year, it gave us the

opportunity to really greatly expand our resources with

jumping into zoom, like so many other companies did, focusing

more on making videos and media content that a lot of people out

have. So for anyone who's just joined us, we are chatting with

there could consume. So, you know, it there's, there's always

hurdles no matter where, where you are, and, you know, even in

our industry, when everything is, is going up, you know,

convincing someone to to work with you, instead of someone

else I would say is probably even harder, because

everything's just going straight up. It's the times that are

difficult, that, that I think, have way more opportunity in

them for you to shine if you're willing to do it and, you know,

Joe Okaly, financial advisor and podcaster. Joe is discussing how

n a unique way. Like 2008, the dvisors that just put their

ead in the sand and tried to ide from their clients, because

hey were so afraid of what they ight say, those are the ones

hat probably lost more clients t an they gain as opposed to the

dvisors that really stepped up he opportunity and tried to

ngage even more with their lients, I think did a lot

etter. And that was at least my ersonal experience back when I

tarted in 2008.

to excel in your financial mindset and is answering any

questions you guys may have. If you'd like to ask a question,

please use the button in the bottom right hand corner, and

then you can join the stage there. So our next section, then

we're going to discuss where your mindset can take

Yeah, thank you so much Jade. So we kind of set

that stage through this early part of the conversation to

hopefully get everybody on the same page of you do have a

mindset when it comes to money already, you have a relationship

with money already and you know, despite any conscious effort,

perhaps or any intentional schooling, we all kind of wound

up in this spot. So this next section, my daughter, Avery,

she's almost five, she's a huge fan of the Frozen movies,

obviously being Elsa for Halloween. So this is kind of

like the Into The Unknown section of the presentation, if

you will. So going back to that visualization exercise that we

did before where we're picturing all of our family and our

friends and you know the mindsets they might have as

spenders or savers or anything else. You know, one of the

things that you'll notice is that there really is there's no

inherent right or wrong that I at least intentionally tried to

point out, you know, because the default that you may think that

a lot of people think or like, you know savers are good and

spenders are bad. And the goal in life though and is not to

accumulate as much money as possible, not to have a really

large number on a piece of paper, which is what you would

expect an advisor to tell you like save, save, save, just get

this this investment value as big as it possibly can be. But

certainly to me, that's not the case. It's to make life most

enjoyable to you, however you may define it. So that's

something that Jade brought up kind of earlier in the

presentation. And this is really the heart of what I'm hoping to

get across to everybody today. So excelling in your money

mindset doesn't mean a big net worth. Excelling in your money

mindset means putting yourself in a position to make life most

enjoyable to you. However, you may individually define that. So

if you're a saver mindset, let's say and you're not experiencing

life as much as you could be, because you're just trying to

save every penny, you're afraid of what the future may be

because it's unknown. To me, that's a huge problem as an

advisor. You're missing out on those trips to Disney World.

You're missing out on maybe that nicer house that you could enjoy

more with your kids or whatever else it might be. If you're a

spender mindset, you're obviously not putting away, you

know enough money for the future, you have other goals,

probably long term that are really important, you know, down

the road. So that's obviously a problem as well. But either one

of these can be a problem. So neither one of those I would

define as really excelling in their financial mindset. And the

trick here with all of this really is having some idea of

where you're going. Having that plan so that you're freer to

spend whatever is excess on living and not have that guilt,

that that tends to kind of tack along with the process. So like,

you know, if you're going to the ice cream shop to buy an ice

cream cone, and you don't know how much money is in your

pocket, that's a problem. You walk up to the register, and

maybe I don't know how much I have on the order of the small

ice cream cone. And then you pull $100 bill out of your

pocket, you're gonna be kicking yourself! Who wants a small ice

cream cone? And the complete reverse of that if you walk up

to the counter, and you order the large and then you pull out

a $1 bill, and you have to ask the guy to scrape a scoop off

the top, you look like a fool. So we don't want that either.

The mindset shift, though, that this allows us to make is

everybody seems to work off of educated guesses. And we want to

get that closer at, you know, as close as we can to making that

educated decisions instead. Because people that again, excel

in their financial mindset are those that see money as a tool,

instead of a goal in of itself. The money is not the goal, the

ice cream is the goal. The vacations are the goal. The

happiness is the goal. So people that excel in their financial

mindset are the people who really recognize that end goal.

And it may seem like a no brainer, you know, we all want

to be happy. But there's really a huge mindset difference here

when you look at possible actions that you can make and

what seemingly could be very easy scenarios that could be

overlooked.

So like as an example, let's say that you're working right now,

someone comes to you, and they offer you a job for $25,000 or

more per year. The conventional wisdom automatically is that you

take it. More money equals better, you know? When you have

a mindset of money, though, as a tool, we can reframe that whole

scenario. We can instead say, what can more of this tool allow

me to do that I can't already do to make my life happier. So if

this new job comes a longer commute, seeing my family less,

and you're not clear on how you can use this extra tool from a

happiness standpoint, then I'd have to kind of ask you, you

know, why are you doing this? Do you need more of this tool for

what you have to give up? And if your answer is like, well, you

know, I have relatives overseas, more of this tool, will allow me

to now give my kids that experience to connect more with

family. That's fantastic. Your your mindset now is in a place

where it's allowing you to make an educated decision. Or maybe

you know, you want a house with a really big backyard, because

you always pictured yourself playing, you know, back there on

weekends with your kids. You know, again, that mindset is

allowing you to make an educated decision. You know, specifically

what more of this tool will allow you to do.

So I had brought up my wife, Lauren, earlier in this

presentation. Why she is so awesome, is she used to be a

teacher. And now she's a social media marketer for a competitive

cheerleading gym. And this whole money as a tool was was a real

life thing that we that we went through that we had to evaluate.

And cheerleading, competitive cheerleading is her passion. I

need to definitely define competitive cheerleading, it is

not the pom poms on the side of the football game, but rather

the giant pyramids of human beings that are flipping on each

other heads. So that that's the competitive cheerleading that

she loves. Now, when you when you're a teacher here in New

Jersey, you go from having a pension, this very secure

position. And now the pensions gone, the salary gets cut, but

overall for our family, it was an exponential leap in

happiness. And so I don't want this to turn into you know,

willy nilly follow your dreams, chase rainbows, not telling you

not to like money. I very much like money. I'm saying that when

we looked at where we wanted to go, and how many tools we needed

to do that, actually, we still had enough tools for our

adjusted plan. We didn't follow the plan that would allow us to

accumulate the most tools. Our money mindset actually allowed

us to pick the one that would allow us to have the most

happiness. So excelling in this financial mindset, to me really

means understanding this as a goal. So does any of that

connect with you Jade or any reflections that you have kind

of bouncing that back off of you?

Yeah, for sure. I think what's really interesting

is this great resignation that we're going through off the back

of COVID. Just in August this year, over 4 million Americans

quit their jobs. And I wonder if that is due to a shift in maybe

if people don't recognize it as money mindset but more of the

happiness mindset and COVID really got people thinking about

their priorities. I mean, have you? Is that being reflected in

your clients people's change of priorities?

I think that's a fantastic point to bring up.

Because you're right, they're probably not doing it because

they think, Oh, my money mindset has changed. So now I'm going

about it this way. But money is part of it. They're saying, you

know, I don't want to go back to work, and commute and spend you

know, two hours and on the train going into New York City

anymore. I don't want to do that anymore because that didn't make

me happy. I see how much happier I am not doing that. So I think

that's just a fantastic example, Jade of maybe that being

reflected and seen publicly without maybe being directly

connected to money mindset, as you said.

Yeah, for sure. And I just want to share a very quick

story. Just to back up Joe's points. I had a conversation

with a young client, she's only 23, who outright said to me,

Jade, I don't want to buy a house. That is not something

that is in my life plan. And I really commended her for that.

Because a lot of people think property is the right thing for

them. Or, you know, there's a certain prescriptive way to live

your life. But like Joe said, if that doesn't make sense for you,

and your life and your family, then you know, wealth and

success is really subjective. So really drill down on what it is

that you guys want, and not what society says that you should

want. We had a question, I can't remember who it was from, but it

will let me add you to the stage. If that was you do raise

your hand again and I will invite you up to ask your

question to Joe. Okay, so the next section, we're going to

talk about three questions that people can ask themselves to

start excelling in their mindset.

Great, yeah. Thank you, Jade. Yeah, so I'm a big

visualization kind of a person. So let's do another exercise

here. So visually, picture a blank map in your mind. And in

the middle of this map, I want you to put a You Are Here

sticker. So my map always seems to come out like a pirate map.

But maybe yours is more like the one you see on the subway or

what you pull out of your your glove compartment. But that

sticker that You Are Here sticker in the blank map is

where you are today. So as with any map, the whole purpose of

maps is to help you get to where you're actually wanting to go.

Blank maps are not helpful to anyone. So you know, the first

question is, it sounds crazy. But the first question is

literally asking yourself, what would make you happy. And if you

have a spouse or significant other, what jointly would make

you happy. And I thought that this was crazy the first time I

did it 100%. Before I was taught to stop and be more intentional

about this so you know, I was really just going day to day,

week to week, month to month, you know, even from a young age,

you know, you want to get good grades, get into a good school,

get a good job, make a lot of money, get married, etc, etc.

And when I actually stopped with this intentionality of my

mindset, and Lauren and I sat down and kind of went over what

would actually make us happy, I was surprised with what came

out. I was surprised that by far what I valued more than

anything, were more vacations and experiences. Taking my kids

to Disney World, visiting new states around the US. I hadn't

seen most of the states, that wasn't something that we did as

a kid. Staying in interesting and unique Airbnb, you know, we

went to like a upstate New York old school kind of place for

Thanksgiving last year. For my wife, she wanted a pool, that

was pretty straightforward. She grew up with one, she wanted to

give that same experience to our kids. And for us, at least we

both love our jobs. So retiring early, like that's a goal for

someone that some people that would make people happy. For us

that's not really on the top of our list, but it helped us

organize this list. So it's really whatever would make you

happy. You need to know this first because those are the

destinations you're now putting on that blank map. Any map

around the edges is where you're putting these destinations. And

to Jade's point for her story with the young lady that she was

working with. It doesn't have to be you know, buying a house that

seems like it should be on your map but it doesn't have to be.

It should be whoever whatever you want to put on your map,

what would actually make you happy. So that's really the the

first the first question that I always try to help people answer

because you'd be surprised how often if you really stopped to

think about it, you come up with this scale that's completely

different than what you might, you know, just willy nilly kind

of pull out of your pocket. If somebody asks you if you really

give it the intentionality of your thought.

The next question is, how much am I saving now? So you may have

heard the phrase, you know, pay yourself first. And essentially

everybody out here works really hard for their money. And then

you take that money and you give it to the mortgage company. You

take that money you give it to the grocery store or the car

dealership or whatever else. But many people don't know how much

they pay themselves first, every month. And from all the clients

that we work with the ones that are the wealthiest and the

happiest, it's not really about how much you make many times but

how much you keep. So if you're wanting to be in a good place

down the road, you're probably wanting to save, I would say at

least 10% of your gross income. So if I make $100,000 a year,

that'd be $10,000. A year that I'm saving, at least, if not

more. So really, everybody out here should be looking to see

how much am I saving now, because that's what leads to

filling in these roads. So we have you here, you are here

sticker in the middle, we now start building out some of these

destinations on the outskirts of the map, but how far are our

roads going out there. So if you haven't saved anything to this

point, that that's fine. But your roads aren't very far right

now we need to work on building those up. If you have been an

avid saver for most of your life, up into this point, your

roads might be like really well developed and might be really

close to where those destinations are, if you stop

and look at them, which then can free you up to live more in the

present today.

The last question is involving rituals or habits. Conversations

like this are all well and good. You know, you watch that

inspirational TED talk, you read that book that leaves you, you

know, feeling on on a whole different level for a week or

two. But all of this stuff tends to kind of fade if it's not

right in front of you, if it's not top of mind. So the rituals

or habits that I find to help it stay more top of mind, is the

first thing is always asking myself why I'm doing something,

especially when it comes to money. Is it because it would

make me happy or because I'm supposed to do that. So again,

the you know, am I wanting to buy a house because everyone in

America is supposed to own their own house, or am I wanting to

buy a house because it would actually make me happy. You

know, again, to Jade's point buying houses, not for anyone,

for everyone. It's your know, renting has a lot of really good

perks to it, you know. And if that's what makes you happy, no

maintenance or anything like that, then renting could be a

great option.

The second is what I'll call is money blocking, or what I call

money blocking. So money blocking is basically setting

blocks of your money to decide ahead of time, so that you free

up everything else to not feel guilty about. So for example,

let's say that you get a bonus every year. Ahead of time

saying, I'm going to save half and spend half every year on a

great vacation. That's cool, you're you're putting away half

of your bonus towards yourself, and the remaining half you're

actually using to live life. And now you could do a guilt free

because you know, hey, I save this huge amount, now I get to

spend this big amount. And it could be the same thing when you

like get a raise. So we tell clients, okay, you know, if

there's a let's, let's see, next time around, you want a little

bit nicer car lease, that's fine. But let's save the other

75% of that so you keep advancing towards those long

term goals. Or, you know, take the first two paychecks and go

on a nice vacation but blocking these these money items to the

side and now that you could see what's left "I blocked away my

savings. Now here's what's left, and I am freer in, you know, to

use it for those things without feeling guilty". And you know, I

encourage people to use this on a smaller level too. If you buy

a $50 gift card every month for Starbucks, then every time you

want an extra shot of espresso, great go for it, you don't have

to feel guilty about that. Buy a package of you know, 4 massages

after every bonus. So you know, every year I have one massage a

quarter, whatever it might be. But when you block these things

away, you know, to the side, then you don't get into like,

"Oh, I really feel like I could use a massage. But you know, I

just spent money on this over here" that it's like, "I already

bought that massage, I can use it, it's I haven't used any of

this quarter, I'm going to go for it". And that frees you up

again to just make life as enjoyable as possible. That's

really what we're trying to help, you know, reframing things

to get you to that end goal. So you know, Jade, how do those

three questions I guess hit you? Are those any you know that

you've asked yourself before that you kind of work on and

directly or another way with the clients that you have?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I do this with my clients

but equally, I do my own visualizations, my own mind

mapping. And I think the biggest takeaway from you, Joe, is to

really set a goal because, you know, if you don't know where

you're aiming, then you're never going to get to it. What I

wanted to say to the audience is if any of you are struggling

with your money mindset, or perhaps you're not struggling,

but you just feel a bit stuck, do come up to the stage and chat

with Joe. And we'll see what we can do what we can help and

maybe talk through some blocks that you may have yourself. So I

wanted to ask Joe, they say you are the average of the five

people closest to you. Do you think that applies for money

habits as well?

Wow, that's a really interesting question. So

yeah, I would say that probably is more true than not. I would

find it very surprising to, you know, get along well with you

know, 4 people that go on lavish vacations and you never go on

them at all, it'd be hard to kind of to be in that that

social, that social group if they're going all over the place

and you're not so I would say that that definitely has a fair

amount of validity to it not that it's every time across the

board. But yeah, I mean, if you have people, you know, I've

heard that there are different types of mentors. So you can

have a specific area kind of mentor, or you could have kind

of a soul or a spiritual mentor. So for people that you know,

that have somebody that when we're going through these

exercises, they're like, you know, what, my father in law,

you know, I feel like he really excels in his money mindset, or,

you know, my cousin Johnny, like, he really excels in his

money mindset based on what we went through today. You know,

look for why you think that is like, why did they jump into

your mind in that way? And maybe now, you know, relate to them a

little bit more to see kind of what what are they doing that

maybe I could reflect for myself, and kind of use, like

you said, maybe they're not, you know, the five people you spend

the most time with, but we all are around a lot of people and

you know, some people just kind of give that vibe that they

really seem happy, they really seem to have it together, and

pay attention to that, again, be intentional of trying to look to

see, you know, what are the some of the things that they might be

doing, that I can emulate? Or what are some of the things that

they might be willing to share with me? That might help me

along in my own journey?

Hmm, yeah. Awesome. So thinking about emulating good

habits? And what can you tell us about the differences between

regular people and wealthy people in terms of their money

mindsets, and that?

Yeah, so I mean, for me, the word wealth, I feel

like always just ties directly in with money. And to me, wealth

is really just like, a freedom to work on the things that you

want to work on. And almost equally as important not have to

work on things that you don't want to work on. So you know, we

have people that that have, you know, huge net worths that we

work with, and yet they like, can't wait to retire, because

they just, they just don't like their day to day. So I would

really try, you know, for the people that are not wealthy,

those are usually the people that have I would say, have a

poor mindset about it, not, you know, people that have a small

net worth kind of a thing. So wealth, I really, I think it

should be tied more much more into again, like I said, the,

you know, are you free to spend time in the things you want to

spend time on, and also not having to spend time on the

things that you really don't want to spend time on?

Yeah, so so wealth isn't necessarily the finer

lifestyle and saving 60% of your income, but actually being

miserable. Okay, so what are some of the common money mindset

blocks that you come across, then?

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest things for

people especially that don't want that feel afraid to ask for

help, is, you know, we have a lot of, especially young people

that come in, and they say, you know, well, here's what we have,

you know, I'm sorry, and it's not a lot, it's, you know, it's

probably not as much as what a lot of your other clients have.

And, and that mentality really holds so many people back from,

from getting help and advice. Like, I know, for us, like, even

if it's not a good fit for someone that we can work with,

maybe you know, they're not at a phase in their life, where we

really are able to jump in and help them in all the ways that

we help some of our other people. But we always leave them

with advice, we always say, you know, here work on ABC and D,

and here's why. And then when these are completed, like, then

you probably wouldn't be a fit, and they can come back to us. So

even if you reach out to somebody, and it doesn't seem

like a long term relationship for the next 30 years is in the

cards, you're probably going to leave with some good piece of

information. I mean, anybody that's just a nice human being,

is going to try to help you. I mean, like, think of your own

jobs, if somebody called you up in your own job, and they they

had a question for you. And it wasn't really, you know, a good

fit for someone you could work with but they had a question

that you could give them some advice for, you'd probably give

it to them. So the same thing goes with, you know, with that

kind of stuff, you know. I really would encourage people

to, to reach out to somebody and just get, you know, one or two

pieces of information or advice, any of that goes a really long

way, especially if you're young. And these decisions have time to

compound and grow on each other. It can really just mean you

know, all the difference in the world. So that's the biggest

thing that just jumped out for me that that I wanted to touch

on from that part, Jade.

Great, thank you. We've just had a great question

come in from an audience member. They said, "How do I set money

boundaries when I have friends earning a lot more and a lot

less than me?"

Yeah, so I think the best way to set the money

boundaries would be as long as you're always paying yourself

that percent first, right? So like, if you're already putting

away let's say, 10% every month, and you've looked at it enough

where that seems like it's going to get you on the on the path

that you want to be in, then that frees you up to know what's

left. So you could say like, you know, for my friends that spend

more well, you know, I don't have that. I don't have that

piece. You know, I put away the money towards myself. This is

what I have left. And that's just not going to work. So I'll

connect with you guys next time. And the same thing for the

people that maybe you know, aren't at that position where

you are, you know, you're putting away what you can put

away. And then the rest of it is just that guilt free thing that

you want to want to do something with. So, you know, it's not

trying to like match somebody's level. But once you get the

paying yourself first part out of it, then you really can see

okay, this is what's left to be free in and really, you know,

guilt free anxiety free to go out and spend in the way that

you want to spend it.

But were you always guilt free around money, Joe? Or

did was that something you had to work towards?

Oh, absolutely. When I remember when I first got

out of college, it was something that I really had to strive for.

So my, my I remember my mom and sister laughing at me, because I

got out of college, I was living at home at first as I was trying

to kick start as an advisor. And there was like a super Friday

sale or something like that on the you know, at the day after

Thanksgiving here is a big, you know, holiday where you go out

and you like, buy a lot of stuff Black Friday, and I spent like,

I don't $500 on a TV, and I want to like throw up because I never

spent money on anything. And you know, I just in high school, I

would work I was a waiter. And you know, I had enough money to

do some things. But like, I was definitely the type that did not

want to spend my money. Like I cringed at the thought of

spending money. So when I first went and just like, bought a TV

with money I could fully afford I was paying no rent or anything

living at home, that $500 I like wanted to throw up over. So

it's, it's something that is learned, whatever money mindset

you are at today, like anything else, you're you're still

learning, I'm still learning, I'm sure you're still learning

Jade. So it's something that's constantly changing and

evolving. Nobody's just born with this perfect money mindset.

They have to go out and they have to make mistakes. And you

know, I wouldn't throw up if I had to buy a new TV anymore. But

that is definitely something that you have to work your way

into. And that's a you know, kind of a muscle that you have

to flex. And you know, you don't want to overdo it and strain it.

But you have to find that happy medium. So it's definitely

something that you have to work on to get to the right spot.

Wow, that's a great story. Joe, thanks for sharing

that with us. Harry, I'm not sure if I'm able to allow you to

speak but

Let me see if I can do it here Jade, I pressed

the button. I don't know if they're coming through.

If not Harry dm your question, and I'll read it out

for you. Okay, so another question I wanted to ask then.

You said you have two children. I'm interested to know what

lessons you try to teach them? And how can parents teach their

children about money in an engaging way?

Yeah, so the first thing about parents with their

kids is my kids are a little too young for this right now. But I

would really, really encourage parents to just be open about

some some degree of money or finances like that they, they

hiding it kind of like after the kids go to bed kind of thing,

paying the bills when they're not around. I think that really

is handicapping the kid, your children more than anything. The

story that I always bring up is my grandfather, my Grandpa Joe,

he used to make envelopes every month. So he would have 10

envelopes. You know, one was electric one was groceries one

was, you know, whatever else, and he put the cash in each

individual envelope. And that was the money that he had for

that month. So you know, the grocery envelope is empty, you

know, they're eating very meagerly through the end of the

month. And so his daughters all five of them, they remember that

system. They remember him doing that. And now like with Excel,

and online payments, like kids kind of don't get to see that.

But when it's out there, and it's open, and it's visual for

them to see to some degree, they can really learn from that. I

mean, like when I you know, when you have young kids, you don't

say any swear words at all, because you know, they're gonna

repeat them kind of a thing they pick up on all those things. The

same thing is true with money. And you know, when you have it

out to some degree, like, Oh, this is why I you know, I use a

credit card at the grocery store instead of cash or, you know,

vice versa, or, you know, oh, yeah, I just, you know, I got a

raise and so you know, part of that, you know, we're going to

go on vacation, and I'm also putting away some more to your

college education, but just have it out there. Don't have it be

taboo in your house, because you are literally the only resource

that they can go to. They're not going to learn it in school

unless things drastically changed from where they are

today. They're, they're just going to pick up this mindset on

their own naturally. And so you are the best resource that they

could have. You don't have to like show them your pay stubs,

but just anything that you could do around money to just be open

a little bit about it will allow them to pick up on more than you

realize and learn more than you realize. When you have really

really little kids like I do I've a five and two year old.

Just simple stuff like you know we have a grocery store, kind of

a a game that we play Oh, how much is this? How much is this?

Oh, I only have this much, oh, I have to put this back. And just

little things like this, they at least learn the concept when

they're really young, that money is this intangible thing that it

can run out. It's not infinite. And if they can learn just that,

when they're really little, that money exists one, and that two,

it has limits, then they're going to be much more advanced

when it comes to money than most every other young kid out there.

Yeah, that I completely agree. I think the

culture is a little different in the States, but in the UK

talking about money is a huge no, no. But what I'm hearing is

actually we should be getting children involved in the

conversation as soon as we can. Like you said, not showing them

the pay stubs, but teaching them the concepts of what it is. So

if anyone is just joins, we are chatting with Joe Okaly,

financial advisor, I'm podcaster. We're discussing how

to excel in your financial mindset. And you can DM any

questions you have to me, and I'll read them out for you.

I hope you don't mind me asking, is there. Do you

have any background like in the UK? How it's such a no, no. Is

there anything more that you could share that I find that

really interesting?

It's just you know, I don't have an answer for you.

It's, it's just uncouth. It's just not the British way. We

would rather talk about the weather and the commute, then

then talk about money. And the thing I say to people is, that

doesn't benefit anyone but the system. It doesn't benefit you

when you're negotiating salary to not know what your peers are

earning. It doesn't benefit you to know that actually your

neighbor with the Bentley and a lot of debt. You know, I think

transparency is the way forward. So yeah, it's it's just not the

British way. It's just a cultural thing. Yeah. So I also

a lot of people say to me, you know, you're telling me to dream

big and to make vision boards and these things, but I don't

know what I can have. So what what would you say to someone

who says they don't know what they can aim for?

Yeah, I mean, when we work with clients, we're

doing a lot of planning. So we can say like, if you save, you

know what you're saving now and you already have what you have

now, we can say okay, so this is what it looks like in 10 years,

or this is what it looks like in 20 years. And that's the one

thing that that's it's more difficult to kind of do on your

own, because you can't build in like inflation rates and you

know, compounding interest easily, online yourself from

what I've seen at least. So that's the part that's a little

bit more difficult. But when you when we're able to show people

that, then it really just kind of it opens them up to what's

possible. And when we tell people to dream big, we don't

tell them that it's definitely going to happen. We say like,

like you start with what you would ideally like to do. And I

promise you, if you can't do that, we'll back it down to what

you can do. But start with tell me your ideal situation first,

because that's what I'd love to hit. And then if we have to move

down from that, I'm not going to bankrupt you in the process, I'm

definitely going to tell you, Hey, let's step this down a

couple notches. But you know, starting there, and again, I

mean, I'm completely biased. And I don't want to pretend I'm not

being an advisor. But that's why I see such value in going and

talking to someone and working with someone, because you can

see more more clearly where you're going, that that map that

we visualized before, it has more definitive roads in it. And

that way it frees you have to make those decisions. So like,

like, I've had young clients who they were great, great savers,

excuse me. And when I showed them like, Hey, you're already

on a path to like retire, and probably a little bit early, not

even including, like salary raises and stuff like that, that

you're going to get. Because if you if you think about if you're

30 years old, and you have already saved, let's say, you

know, $200,000, you know, every 10 years, there's this thing

called the rule of 72. So if you assume a 7% return every 10

years, that would double in that case, so you know, $200,000 at

30 is $400,000 at 40 is $800,000 at 50 and is $1.6 million at 60.

So when you start extrapolating out, you can see like, oh, wow,

I may not have a million dollars now, but I'm already on that

path based on what I've put away. And that frees you up to

do things like that, that couples instance, they decided

like I want to put in a pool in my backyard, because I want my

kids to have that experience and we only get 18 summers with our

kids. I want to make the most of those 18 summers. So yeah, I

mean having some path or some direction and then just working

with someone that wants you to dream big but will tell you you

know, this is what you have to do to get to those dreams are

like we're gonna have to back it down a little bit. But you know,

absolutely start at the top to me my opinion and then let's

work our way back down to anything that we have to but

let's start at the top for sure.

Yeah, I agree. And just to add to that, a lot of

people think financial goals are material, tangible goals, cars,

homes, the rest of it. What I would say to that is, it's also

about lifestyle, you know, what type of life do you want to

live? Is that staying home with the children? Is that working

part time? Is it relocation? You know, it doesn't have to be

material things. So just something to bear in mind. We've

had another audience question. And that is, do you have any

tips for people that want to save up for the holidays and not

get into debt?

Yeah, so saving up for the holidays, the holidays

are always a more difficult time, what we tend to, you know,

you're going to spend more on the holidays. So if you back off

your savings a little bit leading up to the holidays, when

you're dealing with credit cards, and things of that

nature, you know, might be 10, 15, 20% interest rates, that if

you're not able to pay that off, that's a lot worse than saving

money into your retirement account as well in December. So

you know, what we have some people do is they actually time

in the US, you have limits on how much you can put in your

401k. So they'll max out their 401k, or they'll do all their

contributions that they're planning on doing to their 401k

and have them end in like November. And then that way,

December, they have a little extra money to do whatever they

they need to do in the holiday. So they adjust their savings a

little bit in that month. The other thing that some people do

is, again, with bonuses, bonuses are great, because it's this one

time, you know, lump sum kind of a thing. And you can use it in a

completely separate way than how you handle the rest of your

income. So what a lot of people do with their bonuses, when we

help them be intentional about it is I mentioned before, like,

Okay, you save half you go on vacation for half, we have some

people that say like, I want to save, you know, 10% of every

bonus and use it during the holidays. So you could do that,

too. So it's, you know, be intentional about it. But

there's no investment out there that I would recommend to, you

know, to keep investing into at the expense of having debt build

up on a you know, on a credit card during the holidays.

Hmm, yeah, absolutely. But we've had

another question, which is, what can I start doing tomorrow to

make better money decisions?

I mean, for me, I would say start with those those

three questions. I mean, being you know, what would actually

make you happy like Jade said to me, as well, it's much more of a

lifestyle thing than a material kind of thing. I don't know

anybody that is like on their deathbed that saying I'm really

happy that I got that, you know, X series car lease kind of a

thing. So yeah, what you could start doing tomorrow is just

being more intentional about what would make you happy, and

start asking yourself as you go through the day, like does this

make me happy? Or does this not make me happy? What my would I

be happier if I was working from home still, would I be happier,

you start questioning things and start kind of figuring out what

make you happy. It's not a lot of times an overnight exercise.

It's it's hard to think about some of that stuff. So, you

know, being more intentional and definitely, you know, looking at

what you're paying yourself right now. You know, I think

most people if I asked them like, oh, what percent of your

of your monthly income do you pay to yourself? Most people

wouldn't be able to answer that question. So that's an easy one

that like by tomorrow, you could say like, Okay, here's how much

I get, and here's how much I'm saving. So right now I'm paying

you know, 4.2% towards myself, and you know, what, Hey, that

sounds a little bit low from from the conversation last

night. You know, maybe I should look for ways to increase that a

little bit more. So I would say those are the two two things

that jumped in my mind.

That's great. And I'm wondering if you have an opinion

on manifestations, affirmations, the kind of spiritual side of

money mindset, do you have any, any opinions?

I mean, when you talk about money itself, like,

or more of just like, like to me because like when money I when I

start looking at money as a tool, that kind of like frees me

up into like the, the spiritual kind of thing. Like if I'm going

to be freeing myself up lifestyle wise to do the things

that I really enjoy doing, as opposed to wasting all my time

on things that I really don't like doing it all. To me that

it's like, if you get past money sometimes, then that frees you

up to kind of live in what I would define more as that space

but I'm not sure if that's if that was the exact direction

that you were going with that Jade.

Well, that was a great answer. But I'm thinking

more of along the lines of generational trauma around money

that's been inherited and people who genuinely feel stuck and

blocked using things like affirmations to to enhance their

money mindset and get out of that space. Do you believe those

works, morning affirmations?

I mean, honestly, I have not dealt with those

specifically around money mindsets before if I'm being

perfectly honest. I meditate every night. So I'm a big, I'm a

big being the right mindset, being thankful for where you are

today kind of a person. But I've never honestly used those tools

specifically to try to help somebody get out of a poor money

mindset into a better one. Do you have any experience that

you'd be able to share with that though?

I don't in my professional life with clients,

but I do personally. So I was just intrigued if you did, you

know, telling myself, you know, particular goals that I want to

achieve or particular milestones. Yeah, I did the

modules enough off off the record question that I was

interested in asking you. So just to wrap up for the last few

minutes, going back to making life more enjoyable, I'm

wondering what that means for you and what plans you have for

the future?

Sure, yeah. So for me, I want I feel incredibly

blessed and fortunate that I wound up in the situation that

I'm in. We didn't get into too much today. But you know, I have

not one but two fathers that are like fathers to me, neither one

of them are my biological father. But they both, you know,

have been guiding me for the last 10 years. And so you know,

having the opportunity to be in the position that I am to have

this kind of awareness at a younger age, when it comes to

money, like I just want to share that with with everybody,

really. I feel blessed that we live in an age where we have

podcasts and Fishbowl and, and everything else. So I mean, I'm

just so excited to to be able to share this with everybody out

there and just think of new ways that I could do that. You know,

one of those Strategic Coach things, again, the coaching

program that they go through is, is you know, when you're an

entrepreneur, one of the things that you could free yourself up

for is purpose. And I had the hardest time coming up with

like, what is my, what is my purpose? What is my purpose?

What should I do? You know, I'm helping these people with money.

And then for me, it just clicked when I thought about young

people, because we help, you know, most wealth management

firms, I'm assuming this is similar over there, Jade as

well, we work with mostly an older demographic, because they

have more money built up, they're closer to retirement,

they're asking for help now. But these younger people, younger

families, if they could just do like, you know, anything like

10% of the best advice out there, they would be in such an

exponentially better position long term. So that was what just

like kind of clicked in for me like, this is my purpose. I'm

going to get the word out to as many young families as I

possibly can in this world, because if I can help them with

one thing or two things, like their life could be

exponentially just that much greater the time they spend with

their kids could be just that much greater exponentially. So

I'm just happy. I feel like I found my purpose of what I

should keep shouting at everybody about and I'm just

gonna keep going with that.

Joe that's awesome and your enthusiasm is

infectious. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. I

think it'd be great if we could get you back and talk more about

that purpose, both yours and how people can really drill down

into their own as well. Joe, can people reach out to you if they

have any questions or would like financial advice? And if so,

where can they find you?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. If anybody has

questions on anything, you can find me on all the you know,

normal social media places here Fishbowl, LinkedIn, anything

that I could do to help anybody out there. I put out different

new episodes every week for my podcast, EnjoyMore30s Family

Finance. So if anything out there is something that can help

anybody that's that's just fantastic. That's what I'm

trying to do. So those are the great ways to connect with me.

Jade you were fantastic tonight, I want to thank you again, so

much for for being here. And all those thoughtful questions that

you put together to contribute to tonight. It was it was really

just wonderful.

Thank you. Well it was great to have you. Thanks

again. And thank you all for joining us this evening. If you

have any questions for Joe do reach out and if there are any

finance topics you'd like us to discuss in the future, do reach

out to myself or the Fishbowl team and we'll try and make that

happen for you guys. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you

everyone and have a wonderful evening.

The conversations on this show are

Joe's opinions are provided for general information purposes

only. They do not constitute accounting, legal, tax, or other

professional advice for your specific situation. You should

always seek appropriate advice from a financial advisor,

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any content or information found here first. Joe is affiliated

with New Horizons Wealth Management LLC, a branch office

of TFS Securities, Inc., and TFS Advisory Services an SEC

Registered Investment Advisor Member FINRA/SIPC.