EPISODE 4: Financial “Quick Fixes” Won’t Save You

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THE LOWDOWN

Welcome back to Sex and Money w/ Jess, let's dive into today's topic: quick fixes. I often find myself having conversations with people facing financial challenges or laying the foundation for their future. Quick fixes like selling possessions or making impulsive decisions may seem tempting, but there's more to consider.

Before jumping into a quick fix, take a moment to analyze all angles. Consider scenarios like selling your car to buy a bike for commuting. While it sounds eco-friendly and healthy, factors like weather, terrain, and unexpected situations need attention.

Financially, selling items or making quick changes can bring in income, but have you thought about what you'll do with that money? Are you pausing to decide if it goes into savings, investments, or paying off debts?

The issue arises when people revert to old spending habits after a quick financial boost. The key is to align the newfound income with your financial goals. Enjoying money is essential, but when you have specific financial objectives, a quick fix might not be the best approach.

When considering a quick fix, pause and discuss it with someone you trust. Seek a second opinion and talk through the pros and cons. Write down the numerical value of the quick fix and create a financial scenario, looking ahead to months or even years. The goal is to make a decision aligned with your financial future.

Don't rush into quick fixes without assessing the impact. Sleep on it, and physically act out scenarios. Ask yourself if it feels right and if it aligns with your goals. Quick fixes aren't always bad, but taking the time to pause and assess leads to more informed decisions.

I've learned from experience that impulsive decisions without a financial foundation can lead to regrets. Whether it takes days or hours, create a routine of understanding your finances. It'll benefit you more in the long run.

If you're in the midst of contemplating a quick fix and need an opinion, feel free to shoot me an email. I'm here to help.

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, I hope that your day is going swell. Today, while I am currently [00:01:00] recording this podcast, I am packing to head to Texas. I'm very excited. In 2023, I took a yoga teacher training. And I was paired up with three wonderful ladies. One of them decided to open a yoga studio in Hico, Texas. So this coming weekend is her grand opening.

They're cutting the ribbon. Having some, um, parties, all that fun stuff. So I'm currently getting packed to do that while I'm recording this. And I'm so excited. So if you're ever driving through Hico, Texas, be sure to check out the rooted soul. Yoga. And Kristi is a fabulous human being. She will treat you with so much love.

Her heart is the biggest heart I have ever met. So, check it out if you're ever in Chico. Today I want to talk about quick [00:02:00] fixes. Why we may do them. Why we shouldn't do them. Um, and what we can do instead.

I often have conversations. With people who are in financial hardships or are in the beginning process of figuring out how to create a foundation that they can build off of. And one of the biggest things that comes up is people

I'll just start selling my stuff, or my car is my biggest expense, so I'm going to sell it and then use that money to do X, Y, and Z,

or I'm going to sell my car, get a bike, and start commuting to work. Whatever your quick fix might be. Sometimes. These might be great ideas. Um, I'm not saying a quick fix isn't [00:03:00] necessarily bad, but what happens is, you do a quick fix, and you get this lump sum of money, or if you start to sell stuff on eBay, wherever you can sell stuff, Facebook market, there's a lot of different places out there.

You start to get money coming in. But you haven't sat down and figured out what you're going to do, A, with the money that you have coming in, or B, what you're going to do with the alternative. Take into consideration the idea of sell your car, buy a bike, and start commuting to work on a bike.

Theoretically, that's a great idea. You get money from the sale of your car, you start exercising more, you are eco friendly. So there's a lot of benefits to that approach, but then sometimes the alternatives aren't thought of where,

what kind of a [00:04:00] state do you live in, do you live in a state that has all four seasons, or are you someplace like Florida or California, where 95 percent of the year, it's warm, it's pretty mild weather. And you can go and commute via a bike without any issues. Other things that some people don't take into consideration are the terrain that they're going to be biking on

or. If they had to go in early or stay late at work and then they had a bike home at night in the dark, what does that bring up? Do you need to get a bus pass? Do you need to tag along with a friend to give you a ride home on those moments? So there's things that,

before you do a quick fix, you should look at all angles of things. Now, if we look at it from a financial perspective, selling your car or selling things on eBay or whatever market you choose,

it does bring in a [00:05:00] stream of income and that income feels good. But are you pausing to figure out what you're going to do with that money before you even approach it? Are you going to put that money into savings? Are you going to automatically put that money into Fidelity or Vanguard or one of the investment websites?

Are you going to use that money to pay off a credit card?

And then, once you decide what you're going to do with that money,

the next step is actively doing that. And sometimes what happens Is people get that stream of income and then they go back to their old spending habits and they go, Oh my gosh, I just sold like five jackets or I sold my bookcase and I was able to get 500. I know I said I was going to pay off a credit card.

I know I said I was [00:06:00] going to put this into savings. But my friend Rachel just invited me on a cruise or just invited me to this concert or whatever the scenario is. And then they end up spending the money in that place instead of towards what their actual financial goal was.

I'm always somebody who tells people to enjoy their money because I do think that you should enjoy your money. I don't think that we should all sit here and grind and hustle.

And that not enjoy things in our lives, but . We'll talk about that another day.

My but is when we have financial goals. Whether it's getting out of debt, purchasing something big, investing, setting up our future, etc.

A quick fix doesn't get us into the mindset of that goal [00:07:00] because it's quick. It's like when you're in a supermarket and you're standing in the checkout line. and you see your favorite Snickers bar and you're just like, I don't need that. But then you stand there longer and you stand there longer and you stand there longer and then all of a sudden you're like, No, I do need that.

And so you grab it, and then you go home and you eat it, and you're like, shoot, I shouldn't have done that.

Now I feel sluggish, or whatever the reason might be. You were quickly tempted while you were standing in the checkout line,

and then down the road, you weren't any closer to whatever your goal was. So you're quickly tempted to sell things, to give up a car, or to sell some of your clothes, or do any sort of quick fix.

And then two, three, four months later, you realize you're not actually where you want to be.[00:08:00] 

When you get into the mindset of, let me do this quick fix, I want you to pause.

A few things you could do is

talk to a trusted friend or confidant. Say, hey, does it make sense if I were to do X, Y, and Z? What are your thoughts?

If I were to

get a 0 percent APR credit card, do a transfer balance, balance transfer,

I would get these sort of points from the credit card, airline miles, hotel vouchers, whatever, and I would have 0 percent interest for 18 months. Does that sound good?

And your friend or your confidant, whoever, will give you their opinion. They'll tell you yes or no. That way you have a out loud sounding board. You don't have to listen to their decision, their opinion, but you're talking it through. You're talking it out loud with somebody [00:09:00] and getting feedback.

Another thing I suggest doing,

write down the quick fix, write down the numerical value of what it is that you want to do, and

create a spreadsheet or use a calculator or write it down to see what impact that would have on your finances, not just today, but two, three, four, five, six months down the road. I do this sometimes. In general, when I'm making financial decisions, I sit down and I go, okay, if I want to pay for this, or if I want to stop paying for this, what am I going to be able to do with my finances by April, by June?

And sometimes I go through December, sometimes I even go two, three years out, depending upon what it is, and I come up with different scenarios. I will give myself two or three different scenarios. If I sell my car today. For [00:10:00] 10, 000, I can pay off these three credit cards,

and then I have to buy a bike, so that's going to be an immediate expense. I have to

ask friends for rides on nights that I work late. I have to buy a bus pass. What happens if I change my job? Then I have to buy another car, which might result in a car payment. So I lay all of these different scenarios out. Also in that scenario, I would write down, I don't have car insurance, so I'd save money there.

I don't have gas expense, I'd save money there. I'd lay all of these things out, and I'd weigh the benefits against what could possibly go wrong. And I'd ask myself, which scenario seems better to me? The

other thing I'm going to suggest that you do, If you sleep on it, and I don't just mean for 24 hours, maybe what you do one day, [00:11:00] if you have like a bike in your garage and you want to sell your car, you test out the biking to work, or when you're driving to work, you drive the route that you'd have to take while you're biking

and visually see you. What that would require. Or if you're wanting to sell clothes, or Pokemon cards. What does that look like? Does that require loading things online? Check out the websites. Go visit the stores that you'd sell them to. Physically act it out in your current life. And then as you're doing that, sleep on it.

Ask yourself, did that feel good in my body? Did that make sense to me? What the conversations I had with the salespeople or the route that I would take? Did it feel like I'd be protected from cars? Were there a lot of inclines? where [00:12:00] there are a lot of blind spots, potholes, whatever. Think through all of those little things.

Now, not all quick fixes are going to require a lot of in depth thought processes like those extreme examples I'm giving, but when we physically sit down and we pause, And we think through the pros, the cons. If I give this up, what is the alternative gonna be? What am I going to be left with? When we think through all of that, it gives us more of a realistic point to then make the decision as to whether or not this decision we're doing is right for us.

It leads us in the direction of our goals. It saves me in the short term and in the long term. It's a good investment into what [00:13:00] I see my future being. So quick fixes aren't always bad.

They require us to pause though because when you make a decision Based off of

lack of information or lack of

truth,

then you may regret it down the road.

I've been there, but I've learned to pause, to talk about it with other people, to think through all the different scenarios, and to spell out a true financial timeline so I can see the bigger picture.

Sometimes that could take days or weeks. Other times it takes three hours. Sometimes it takes three hours. I remember back in 2018,

my yoga instructor was like, I'm hosting my first ever retreat in Costa [00:14:00] Rica.

And I thought, okay, signups are open. I have a few days. No, less than 24 hours later, there were like three spots left. I had to make a quick decision.

I didn't know how I was going to pay for it,

threw down my credit card and said, okay.

And then I got to work to figuring out how I was going to pay for it.

Sometimes quick decisions are needed.

But at that time, I also had a foundation of what my money looked like. I wasn't going in blind. I may not have known true costs yet because I didn't know how much my flight was going to cost. But I also knew what my income for the next six months were going to be. I knew what my expenses were going to be.

And I had a rough idea

of how long it was going to take me to pay that off.

That's why choosing to do a [00:15:00] quick fix and Not having a foundation of what your finances look like can be detrimental choosing to go to Costa Rica. I know it was not a fix, but it was a quick decision is a quick financial decision. So, when you spend time getting intimate with your finances. In these examples of quick fixes, you spell things out for the next 6 months.

It starts to create a. Routine in your brain. So when moments like my Costa Rica trip come up, you can quickly do it on the spot. It may not be 100%, but you can sit there and go. Okay, if I take this and divide it out over 6 months or whatever it is. You can quickly do it in your head, have a decent picture of it, and then make that quick decision if you need to.

But if you have the time, pause, look through all the scenarios, talk to somebody else about it, talk to your partner, talk to your best friend,[00:16:00] talk to somebody that you trust, whose opinion you trust, write things down, plan it out.

At the end of the day, it will benefit you more not to do a quick fix than to do the quick fix.

because you'll have a plan in place.

I hope that the rest of your day, the rest of your week, everything goes well. And if you're in the middle of trying to figure out a quick fix and need an opinion from somebody and you don't have a sounding board, shoot me an email. We'll hop on a call. We'll talk through it. That's what I'm here for.

Talk to you later. [00:17:00]