In this episode, we discuss the need to have control over your finances so you can have more control over your life.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the need to have F U money. A big reason why I do this podcast is one to put my thoughts out in the world so people can have more control over their lives.
I’m the son of two blue-collar workers and reflecting back on my childhood, I could times where my parents didn’t have control of the situation. This is a big reason why I joined the Marines, so I could get an education without having to take on a lot of student loan debt, and gain some valuable life skills.
Then once I graduated from college and left the Marines and got a regular 9-5 job, I realized that this lifestyle was not meant for me. I was miserable. I had no control over my life, I didn’t have the creativity to implement new ideas, and I had no autonomy. So decided to quit my job and start a business as a financial planner.
At my last firm, it was like a franchise. They trained me on how to sell their financial products and then I had to follow their rules. You could make a nice living but it was so hard to get started and it was very expensive. Plus I was tired of living in an expensive area like DC and I decided that I wanted to take more control over my life by starting my own business and living in Colombia.
One of the valuable lessons that I learned at my last company is whoever bread I eat, is who song I will sing. Since my last company was paying me, I had to follow their own rules and I didn’t like them. I get it but I’m too ambitious and I saw a better way of doing business.
Many people work at their jobs because it funds their lifestyle. So you might have to compromise your integrity to get paid. This happened to me while I was in the Marines, a Federal Employee, and working for other people. A big reason why I started my own financial planning company was to have the ability to say no to things I don’t want to do.
If I don’t like this person, I want to be able to make sure that person is not going to be in my life to annoy me. Life is too short to deal with crap you don’t have to, and if you have enough F U money, then you will have more freedom to choose your lifestyle.
Now you don’t need a million dollars to have F U money, you just need enough to maintain your lifestyle. Right now, I’m in Medellin, Colombia and it’s pretty amazing here. The food is good, the people are nice, the weather is amazing, and it’s very cheap to live here. Right now if you make about $1500/mo, you can live a great lifestyle.
I would say in Washington, DC, you would need to make about 6 times this amount to live the same way I’m living now. Since it’s so cheap to live here, my number is $1500/mo. I have bigger goals than this where I want to start my own financial planning agency where I’m hiring associate financial planners but I’m working towards that.
But for the majority of my days, I work on stuff that I love to do. I don’t have meetings I have to go to that are worthless, I can implement ideas without having to go through someone else, and I choose my schedule. I love my life because I’m at my F U money level.
You could chase too much money and still fall into the traps of not having control over your life. But figure out what your number is, and then start to design your life in a way that will give you that lifestyle.
I hear on a Tony Robbins YouTube video where he says that people want a million dollars just to have a million dollars, but when he asked the person what they wanted, it was like $100k a year. To go on two vacations a year, and be okay with a car that is five years old, you don’t need a million dollars.
So figure out what your dream life would look like and figure out what is the F U money number to get that life. It might take a while to reach that level but there are so many ways that you can. With the internet, I can work from anywhere and use my skills to make leveraged income. I’m working towards my goal and I love it and you can too.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, strive to have F U money so you can have more control over your life. This also might mean you have enough money in the bank to quit your job if you don’t like it. You could have options to work somewhere else because you have the social capital to land another job. You don’t need to start your own business to have F U money, but the key thing is that you have assets to give you control over your life.
So in your journal, ask yourself, how much money do you need to take a year to have control over your life? How much money do you need in the bank to give you control over your life? Are you living beyond your means? A tactic that businesses use to motivate their employees to upgrade their tastes. Eating at nicer restaurants, going to sporting events, and driving nice cars. If you want these things, that’s fine, just know the deal before you accept the deal. The key thing from today’s podcast is to have control over your life and not to be stuck in a miserable situation that you can’t get out of.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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