EPISODE 33: Embracing the Joy of Money: Dream Big and Have Fun
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THE LOWDOWN
Hey there! In today's episode, I share my recent trip to Nashville and emphasize the importance of balancing practical financial management with big dreams and excitement. I'll dive into how I've been planning to buy a house, despite the logical challenges, and how I stay motivated by visualizing and embracing the fun aspects of money.
We also cover the importance of gratitude and imaginative planning, whether saving for a vacation, investing in stocks, or any other financial goals. Ultimately, it's all about dreaming big and letting our money mindset be driven by joy and excitement.
MENTIONED IN SHOW:
Website: www.lovealwaysjess.com/getstarted
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love.always.jess
SHOW NOTES:
Episode begins at [00:00:54]
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Hey there! Hope everything is going well. I [00:01:00] just submitted a forecast for work, which is boring. I don't need to bore you guys with those details. Um, but I also just returned from a trip to Nashville, which was a lot of fun. It was really great connecting with my co workers. Um, seeing our new buildings out there and just overall kind of getting away for a couple of days and being able to focus on myself and enjoy trying new foods, seeing new things.
It was my third time to Nashville. , but every single time I've gone, it's been a different experience, which has been really cool. So I'm excited to be back, but I also had a wonderful time. And if you've never been to Nashville, I highly recommend checking it out. It's a lot of fun. Um, it's, it's very upbeat [00:02:00] and , it kind of gives you small town vibes, but with like city feels to it, if that makes sense.
At least that's my perspective of it. So if you ever have the opportunity to go out there, I highly, highly recommend taking that chance, even if it's just for a couple of days. I had a two day event out there. So I was out there for No more than 72 hours. So it was fun today. We are going to continue our money mindset conversation and today I want to talk about part of our money mindset that is focused on dreaming and Having these like high expectations for ourselves And chasing after those exciting goals, because I think sometimes we can get locked in on the practicality and the logistics.
And maybe I'm just speaking for myself because [00:03:00] type A finance person here, very logical, very like, Hey, let's hone in on what is practical, what we can actually do.
But I do think it's important to also dream big, and set goals that might seem scary, and goals that might seem unachievable, because if you don't do it, then you will never have the opportunity to surprise yourself in reality. Next week we will talk about the logical aspect of like money mindset but I kind of want to talk about the free and the free flowing and the fun sides to it today because one it is more fun to dream like that and to have things that you can look forward to and things that you can strive for but two you Life, for me at least lately, [00:04:00] has felt very, like,
everything is happening at once in as far as the scary, the unknown, the shitty, if I'm being honest, We are seeing the cost of goods the cost of services and everything increasing and we are 100 percent feeling the impact.
And so it's so easy to want to go straight towards, how do I fix this? How do I make this work? How do I make sure that I stay within my budget, even though everything has increased tenfold, you know, I was going to lunch the other day. And I was like, thank goodness work is paying for this because What used to cost me less than 10 for myself for lunch now cost me close to 20.
And I remember, oh gosh, 10 years ago at this point, maybe a little bit longer, when [00:05:00] I was paying for me and my friend and her three children to go out to dinner. And it would cost 30, 40, 50 bucks, depending upon where we went. And. Now, if I were to take my friend and her three kids out, well, she's got four kids now, but like, if I were to take them out, it costs me over a hundred dollars and that's just ridiculous.
So it's really easy for us to try to focus on, the logical aspect of it. And when we're stuck in these, these processes and these situations within our lives where we're having to focus on the logical aspect, it is so easy to forget about the fun part. Because money is meant to be fun. Yes, 100%. Absolutely.
We should take it seriously. We should also have fun with our money. And I know I've talked about that on past [00:06:00] episodes, how it's important Transcribed To have fun. And I don't think that we shouldn't enjoy our money. So with that being said, how do we get our money mindset set up so that we can have the logical, but we can also have the big dreams and the goals in our head, always constantly thinking of and striving for, I know I've mentioned it multiple times on multiple past episodes, but one of.
My biggest dreams this year was purchasing a house. And
that was a big dream for me. I mean, I live in California, so housing prices are way, way, way up there too. I barely had anything saved for a down payment going into this year. And so my brain was like, how are we going to do this? That's a [00:07:00] huge goal. Logically, I don't know if it's going to be done, but I still wanted that.
At the precipice of my mind, at the forefront of my mind. Because, if I don't have that big goal, and if I don't have that, this is what I'm striving towards, this is what I'm headed towards, then I'm gonna constantly stay back, and I'm gonna constantly stay in the day to day, life that I had created for myself over the past few years.
And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't hate my life. I don't dislike my life. I'm not like uncomfortable where I'm like, Ugh, this sucks. I need to get out of here ASAP. I am getting annoyed with my upstairs neighbors, which you guys have heard about, um, but with that being said, it's not a distasteful life.
It's not something that I can't deal with for another [00:08:00] year or two, but there is this like itch of, I'm ready for something more. And my goal was my lease is up in January. So 12 months, let's go, let's rock it. Let's see what we can get to achieve buying a house by January. Now is it gonna happen? I don't know.
I still don't know at this point in time. I actually have a meeting tomorrow with my landlord to talk about, um, kind of how they can compensate me for what I've been having to deal with with my neighbor. And, um, So I have like options to think about which may or may not accelerate my home buying process or delay my home buying process based on the decision that I make.
And here's the thing, so I talked about on the last episode of We can't control everything. [00:09:00] So I've been waiting for a promotion from my boss for a little bit now. And I know it's going to happen, but when it's going to happen, I don't know. And so I sit here and I think about buying a house and I'm like, cool.
I want to do this by January. However, with the stuff I've been dealing with with the neighbor, maybe I move out tomorrow. But then with that thought process comes the fact of, okay, I don't have enough down payment right now, but if I were to get that promotion in the next month, what my timing realistically would be for getting a house?
Would it speed up that process? Do I want to deal with being here for another month? Or, you know, another thought process that I had was just stick to the January timeline and, um, Save as much as I can between now and December and then see what the housing [00:10:00] market looks like then. Just kind of keep things status quo. Or do I extend my lease another six months and talk to the landlord about not changing my rent to make up for the six months that I had to deal with the neighbors and kind of still I'm dealing with, but that would put me at six more months of payments that would increase my balance for my down payment and then make buying a house more feasible and more comfortable.
If that makes sense. So there's still a logical aspect to it, going through all these different scenarios that I could have, but the fun and exciting part is the idea of buying a house exists. And so I'm sitting here and I'm like, this is what I'm striving towards. Am I ready? At today, today, if I had to buy a house today, am I ready?
The answer is no. And I'm having [00:11:00] logical conversations with real estate friends of mine. But the other thing that I'm doing is I'm going on to websites like , Zillow, and , Redfin and stuff. And I'm looking at the houses that are out there. And as I'm driving around the neighborhoods I see for sales lines, and I look at the house and I go, Oh, is that something that I want?
Is this the neighborhood I want? All that kind of stuff. And I'm getting my brain shifted and focused on this dream coming true. Was I doing that six months ago? When I first had this goal in mind. No, but as I've gotten closer to this goal I'm starting to dive in more and finding the fun moments in the goal and that's kind of One of the best ways to shift your mindset from the logical aspect to the fun aspect because guess what?
[00:12:00] Money, I said it, gets to be fun And so me sitting here and being like, okay, do I move out now? Do I wait six months? Do I wait a year? What do I do?
That is all logical. And I don't want to drown in the logical. I want to have fun looking at these houses. I don't want to be stuck in the situation where I'm like, I'm just getting a house to get a house. Like what do I actually want? What does my partner want? What style of house? What city do we want to live in?
What kind of neighborhood? Do we want HOA fees or not HOA fees? Do I want a pool? Do I want a fixer upper? Do I want to live close to my friend or do I want to have a little bit of distance between where I currently live and where I'm going to live in the future?
What realistically do I want for You know, bedrooms and [00:13:00] bathrooms. And do I want my garage to be converted into a gym? These are fun things to think about. And am I going to get everything on my first home buying experience? No, but that's okay. I still get to have fun and think about it. And when the time comes and I'm starting to actively look at houses, like physically go out there and look at the houses.
I've thought about this. I've shifted my money mindset to the fun aspect. And so I can sit down with a bank, a lender, and be like, Hey, what's my budget? And then when they give me that number, I can be like, cool. Now let me go look at houses. Now let me go and have fun with my money. And so it's like, okay, if I get a fixer upper, then I get to dream and be like, okay, if I get a fixer upper and I do this much for my mortgage, then I'll have this much left over every single month.
And [00:14:00] I can make the bathroom the way that I want it or the living room the way that I want it. And obviously this is just an example because not everybody's trying to buy a house, but this is how I get to shift my money mindset to the fun aspect because. Yeah, my money's gonna go into a house, and yeah, it's gonna be a mortgage, but it's gonna be my place.
I can paint the walls. I can re tile the floor or put wood floors down instead of carpet, or you name it. My money gets to be fun, and I get to enjoy figuring out where it is that I want to put my money, and this can be said for anything. Say you want to plan a grand vacation, and Logically, you don't have the money for it right now, but you and your friends have been like, we're going to go on a two week vacation next year in [00:15:00] July.
We're going to take a summer break. So what does that look like? Do we want something filled with exploration and adventure, or do we want something poolside where we just go up to the cabana every single day and A hot pool boy brings us a drink. Or do you want something that's a mixture of both? Do you want to travel far?
Do you want to do a road trip? Like what does it look like? Have fun with it and be like, okay We have a year to save up. Realistically, I can save up this amount of money. This is my budget Or maybe you're like, you know what? I'm going to splurge. I'm going to spoil myself rotten because I deserve it And so we've set our budget to 5, 000 Which seems like a lot of money for me.
I never spent that much money on a vacation before. So I need to make sure that I have [00:16:00] that saved up. And what you do then is you figure out places you can cut back and you make those cuts. And then you spend the time focusing on what are you going to do with that 5, 000? Where does it take you? Does it pay for an airplane?
First class seat? Does it pay for an all inclusive resort? Does it pay for renting a sprinter van so that you can stay in your car and drive all over the United States? What is it doing? What is that 5, 000 paying for? And have fun with it. Come up with different ideas. I mean, if you have a year to plan, that's a year to, like, figure things out.
And I know time comes by quickly, but what does it look like? Bring the excitement and the joy out of it and pull all of it out. Even if it's something that's [00:17:00] not a vacation or not a home.
Maybe a year. You want to do a remodel or maybe you're wanting to learn about investing in stocks. So have fun with it. What stocks excite you? You know, are you like, Oh, I love target. I love Disney. I love Apple. Those are some big stocks, but if it's exciting to you, or if there's a company that you love and you know, they're on the stock exchange and you want to research them more than half fun with it and realize and recognize that
money is free flowing, it's. always coming, it's always going, it's energetic, and we get to say thank you to money for what it offers us and what it gives us and what it provides for us. So even in the logical points, we get to [00:18:00] say thank you for making this happen. Thank you for the paycheck.
Thank you for allowing me to pay for groceries. Thank you for giving me the freedom. to take my kids to McDonald's once a week. I know things have changed as far as like food. I hear from all of my friends who have children how their joy and excitement was going to McDonald's as a kid, but their kids joy and excitement is like sushi or steakhouses.
So things have changed in that realm. But when we were kids, I loved going to McDonald's because we never went. And so the one time a week we went. We got to play in the play place and all that.
So use that childlike joy that you got for going to McDonald's or Burger King or wherever it was and play with that in your money. What are you thankful for? You know, I'm doing ingredient prepping with a [00:19:00] friend and we're very like focused on sauces and then vegetables and stuff, fruits and veggies. And I just bought a couple of cookbooks today that are sauce specific because I want to explore different sauces that I can use in my food.
And that's exciting for me, like it's fun because I'm like, Oh, not only is my money going to my normal monthly grocery bills, but it's going to this experience with a friend. It's going to this experience of creating flavors and mixing them together and putting them on my food for myself for my enjoyment.
And when I shift my mindset from just, Oh, I'm paying for groceries to I'm paying for. fun with a friend and I'm paying for delicious food that I've made myself. It helps me get my mindset out of the food has increased in price [00:20:00] so much and this sucks.
It changes the way we look at things. It changes the way that we spend our money and the things we spend our money on and it also changes our feelings around money. Because it does suck. It does suck to be sitting here and watch gas increase and groceries increase and food increase and child care increase and everything around us increasing with no end in sight and then with also not having pay raises and promotions and all of that to match the cost of living that we're seeing.
That can be. burdensome and tiresome. So when we can look at the joy of how we get to spend our money, and when we look at the fun and creative things we can do with our money, even if we can't do it today, even if it's something like a year [00:21:00] from now, I'm going to go on that vacation or a year from now, I'm going to buy that house.
It might be more than a year. It might be a year and a half. It might be two years. But it's still fun to think of the future and it's still fun to think of the exciting things that will come once you get that place or come once you go on that vacation
and taking that joy and sending that joyful energy into our money and into our finances. Is how you shift the mindset from just like a logical thing to a fun thing I want you to have fun with your money, even if you can't spend it in a fun way right now Be thankful for your money be thankful for what it does because I think I see tiktoks and reels on this all the time where it's like Um, oh, I just got my paycheck [00:22:00] and then two seconds later my bills were paid and my money's dwindled That is reality Unfortunately, but instead of looking at it as I got my paycheck and then all the money went out the door for bills or all the money went out the door for paying for my children or whatever, look at it as, Oh, I just received money.
This is amazing. Oh my gosh. I was able to pay for my rent. Thank you. I was able to pay for my rent. I was able to take my kids to a nice restaurant for my son's birthday. Thank you. I was able to do that. Putting that thankfulness, that gratitude That joy, or even just being like, Oh my gosh, I have 50 extra dollars this month.
I'm going to buy myself that book that I've been wanting. Something as simple as that. Being able to change our mindset to being happy. To being joyful, and I get it. People are like, Ugh, toxic positivity sucks. And I'm not [00:23:00] saying, Be positive about it all the time because we're going to talk about next week the logical aspect and we talked about last week of like holding ourselves back and preventing ourselves from breaking that ceiling and creating that like limitation within ourselves.
We get to have all these different perspectives and these viewpoints when it comes to our money because without each of those perspectives we'd be a lost cause. You know if you, If you didn't have the joy for it, then you'd be sitting here and be like, Ugh, money sucks. My life sucks. Wah. Ugh. This is horrible. I don't care about money. I can, whatever. Like we'd have that kind of attitude. And if we didn't have the logical aspect, then we'd be spending frivolously and we would never know where our money is and all that crap.
And then if we, kept limitations. Like if we limited [00:24:00] ourselves to things, then we would never enjoy it. Or we'd never see growth, and we'd never see our true potential, and we'd never be able to go towards those dreams. So having these different perspectives, having these different mindsets, is healthy and important.
So the next time you go to pay for something, say thank you. You don't have to say it out loud. People might think you're weird. Whatever. But just say thank you. Or if You're planning a vacation with a friend or buying a house or saving up money for a new grill or whatever. Every single time you put that money into your savings or every single time that you see the money going towards whatever it is, just say, thank you.
I'm excited for when I can achieve this. I'm excited for when this happens. And then if it is something that requires planning, go batshit crazy on the [00:25:00] planning. Cause here's the thing, when you're planning, yes, realistically, this is what you can do. But what happens if you did this? Or you planned a full itinerary, where every single day you were going full out?
What would that look like? Oh my gosh, get yourself amped up, have so much fucking fun planning this and figuring out everything. And then scale it back and be realistic.
Do I want to do this? 5, 000 bedrooms and 7, 000 baths in my house? Okay, that's a little bit much. But, I want a big house. I want multiple bedrooms. I want multiple bathrooms. I want a gym. I want an office space. I want a craft room. I want, you know, my partner's office. Like, I want all these things. And I'm like, yeah, let's fucking go.
Let's get it. We can do it. You know, I'm watching Selling Manhattan and I'm like, yeah, I want that 30 million penthouse in New York, even though like, I never want to live in New [00:26:00] York, but you know what? I would live in New York if I had that 30 million penthouse. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to get that 30 million penthouse in the next year or two, maybe 10 years, you know, God willing, but you know what?
I'm going to dream big and I'm going to text my partner. I'm like, Hey, I'm doing this. We're doing this. We're gonna have a penthouse in New York. We're gonna have a house in LA. We're gonna have a house in France, in Italy, in, you know, like, will I get there? Maybe. Someday. Potentially. But you know what? I'm gonna dream lavishly.
Because why the fuck not? Why the hell not dream lavishly? Why the hell not dream to the biggest dream?
Because if we don't dream it, we don't go after it. And you know what? It's really fucking exciting to go after this shit, because if you're like, I'm going to own that 30 million penthouse in New York, cool. Go after it, chase it. If you don't get [00:27:00] it or your dreams change, that's great. Let it happen. Don't hold your breath.
Don't like set everything, hopes and dreams on that place. But why not go after it? Why not see what you're capable of? And the only way to truly see what you're capable of is a Not to limit yourself, which we talked about last week. And B, to dream fucking big.
And that's where we're gonna end the episode. Dream fucking big. Go after this shit that you want. Because A, you're worth it. And B, why the fuck not?
Bring that excitement and joy into your head. Bring that peace into your money mindset. And that your money surprise you and that your money work for you. And that the energy that you send into your money to make that happen, come back and surprise you over and over and over again. It [00:28:00] may not happen the way you expect it to.
It may not happen at all, but something big and better and greater will be more aligned with you and it will happen. So dream fucking big. I love you all. Get out there and dream. Get out there and be unstoppable when it comes to this energy. Love you all. [00:29:00]
