All About The Joy
All About The Joy is a weekly hang-out with friends in the neighborhood! We share insight, advice, funny-isms and we choose to always try and find the positive, the silver lining, the "light" in all of it. AATJ comes from the simple concept that at the end of the day we all want to have more JOY than not. So, this is a cool place to unwind, have a laugh and share some time with friends!
All About The Joy
Rewriting the Rules: Money on Your Own Terms - A Conversation with Dana Miranda
What if you could redefine your relationship with money and approach personal finance as a tailored journey rather than a rigid set of rules? Join us as we chat with Dana Miranda, an acclaimed writer who's shifting paradigms in the world of finance. Her new book, "You Don't Need a Budget," challenges traditional financial advice, offering a fresh take that's both relatable and empowering. Dana shares her evolution from avoiding financial conversations to becoming a voice that resonates with readers worldwide, contributing to publications like Forbes and Business Insider.
Together, we explore the complexities of financial privilege and the societal metrics that influence our money mindsets, like credit scores. By sharing personal experiences, we question these arbitrary standards and emphasize the importance of crafting a financial landscape that is fair for everyone. The conversation highlights how societal norms often influence financial decisions and reinforce biases, urging listeners to rethink their approach to wealth-building opportunities and financial education.
We also delve into the emotional aspects of financial struggles, focusing on debt and the shame that often accompanies it. We discuss the empowerment that comes from informed decision-making and the need to view debt as a neutral tool rather than a moral failing. From navigating credit card strategies to understanding the importance of financial education, we aim to offer insights that encourage a holistic view of financial well-being. Embrace a mindset that balances personal priorities with societal expectations, and join us for a conversation that might just transform your financial outlook.
Dana Miranda's websites:
https://www.youdontneedabudget.com/
https://www.healthyrich.co/
Check out the livestream hang out with Dana:
https://youtube.com/live/z4HscwxHg6k
Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.
Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth
DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.
Hey everybody, hi, welcome to All About the Joy, hi Cynthia, hi Rick, and welcome Dana to the show. Yay, hello, thank you for having me. I'm so happy to have you here and let me just put up our little ticker so people know. Oh my God, I'm so organized and now I messed up where it is Captions.
Rick Costa:Just got my LinkedIn notification. All about the joy is broadcasting.
Carmen Lezeth:Right, that's how we do. Okay, that's the first thing. So, dana, I always like to tell people how I know you, if I do or don't, whenever we have a guest on the show. Last time, we had what was his name Hayden on the show. Hayden, yeah, show. Last time, we had what was his name, Hayden on the show, and I felt like I'd known him forever. But I had never known him at all. But you hired me. I believe you hired me or I entered a contest or something you paid me, that's all.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I know you sis paid me, paid me to write an article. That's why we're still talking. We had a writing contest when I was first starting Healthy Rich and you yeah, you had one of the winning essays, so you got paid and published for that.
Carmen Lezeth:Right. Thank you for that experience. By the way, it was how do I say this respectfully? It was an honor, but it also felt, um, it was so genuine and that's not like like the way in which you did. It is not the way it's done in other places. And I know you you know that because you are a writer and you write, uh, content all the time for big time magazines like forbes and, um, all of them, you know what I mean like I think you've done a lore forbes. You've done all of them right you've done all um.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of big names. Business insider fortune yeah, business insiders, I'm sorry, but you did forbes.
Carmen Lezeth:I thought I saw, yes, okay, yeah, so, um, you've now written a book. Yeah, you don't need a budget, which I'm gonna say a little. Look at, cynthia and Rick are going to take over the show. We're going to try that. Hi, alma, hey Alma, hey Amelia, hope you're doing well. I'm going to say a few things and then I'm going to let them ask you questions after you say what you want to say and we'll just be a simple kind of hanging out in the neighborhood kind of thing. But a couple of things.
Carmen Lezeth:I've been in the financial industry since I was 17 years old. Before I went to college, I was working for a whole bunch of men and they were men in the financial district in Boston and if you read my book, at the end of my book you realize that's how I ended up going to college. That's kind of the end of the book, and I love them, adore them, think the world of them. But I have never enjoyed talking about money. I've never enjoyed listening to people talk about money. I've never had a good experience listening to people talk to me about money in any, in any avenue. But the way in which you approach money and I say this full on, without reading your entire book.
Carmen Lezeth:I read the chapter that you have free online, not only at your website at youdontneedabudgetcom, but you can also see it on amazoncom. There's a free, entire, full, in-depth, great chapter as an introduction to her book. Please go read that Also. Go to her website. There's so many resources. Every chapter is lined out with resources. She's smiling because she's like she did all this. Yes, I did, sis.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:And I'm not a reader, and I read it. It's accurate.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Oh, thank you.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:And there's a lot on it nothing.
Carmen Lezeth:And here's what I'm saying. I am going to read the book the minute it comes out and nothing. And here's what I'm saying. I am going to read the book the minute it comes out. I'm going to do my pre-order today after the show. Here's the thing. The way in which you approach money and finances and the way in which you talk to people is on motherfucking point. I love it. I'm happy to have you here. Thank you for asking to be on the show, or your representative. I was like thrown and yeah, oh, I'm so happy to be here.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I, you know, I never liked talking about money either. I got into freelancing just as a writer. I just wanted a creative career. I was making no money as a freelancer and this was in like 2010s, you know that kind of era where blogging was kind of taking off and people were learning how to make money blogging, and so everything I was reading was about like being an entrepreneur and building a six-figure business and making money online and that, and none of it appealed to me. I hated that everything had to be about money.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :When I just wanted to be a writer and I had an opportunity to apply for a full-time job because there was just an editor that I really liked and it just happened to be with a personal finance site and I thought, oh, this is going to be really boring, but it's a writing job, I'll get experience, I love the people that I'll work with, and I thought I'll just like do it for a year. I'll commit to that. See what it's like to be a full-time, have a real full-time career. And I just really fell in love with it because we were trying to talk about money in a different way. We were trying to kind of have that friendly, casual conversation with people and meet people where they were at, rather than like stock advice and a lot of investment stuff and a lot of you know and and admonishments, telling everybody what they were doing wrong kind of thing. So I started to really like it.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I liked what I was learning, but even then over time over the years about five years or so in I left that job. I was freelancing and I started to see still, the way people were talking about money was like everyone was still kind of saying the same thing. There was still a lot of like here's the set of rules that you need to follow to be good with money and to do the right things with your money. And it still just wasn't sitting with me Right.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :So I think I felt a lot like you did, carmen, like I didn't like talking about money because I didn't like the way that people were talking about money most of the time. So I started Healthy Rich to have that a different kind of conversation that you're talking about and that's why I had those writing contests early on was to invite a bunch of different voices that weren't just my own, that weren't just someone who had experience in the personal finance industry. I wanted people to just tell their stories of what their relationship with money was like, and I learned so much from it. I was so grateful for stories like yours and perspectives like yours, to just hear different voices that we weren't hearing in the personal finance industry and just that I wasn't learning from.
Carmen Lezeth:I don't know if I warned you of this, but we have people who'll come in the chat. There's a lot of people watching this show and I think, because it's a little bit more of a serious, we go have fun, though. We go have fun with you, we go try, but Brian is in the house. Hi, brian, thank you for stopping by, and Brian reached out earlier today because he was watching last week's episode as well and he made a note on YouTube. So thank you for that, brian. I saw you. Thank you.
Carmen Lezeth:I think the thing that's more important for me is not only that you brought in a lot of people with different voices, from different perspectives, whether they be Black and Latino, or LGBTQ or whatever.
Carmen Lezeth:It wasn't even just that. It was the I'll say it lower income people that grew up in the hood, that grew up poor. You let us come in and talk about our perspectives on money, because usually, when you hear the financial gurus talk about money, they're always talking like over your head, and I'm not even saying using big words, I'm just saying that they're not getting it. You know, like they're not getting the simple thing, and I love one of the things about Healthy Rich where you talk about and I'm totally paraphrasing because I apologize, but you have an avocado as your logo and I just remember that kind of idea like the way in which we're going to save money is if we don't buy Starbucks and if you don't get your $4 or you don't eat expensive avocado toast, if you take that money and put it in a saving, and all that is just bullshit. Okay, I'm going to shut up now.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I swear to God, yeah, no, that's absolutely true, and that's so much what I saw in my experience too, and part of why I wanted to invite a lot of voices like queer voices and trans voices and Black and Latino people and disabled people and people with experiences that I didn't have, was just to to have that broader perspective.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But I also knew that I brought a voice to the personal finance industry that we weren't seeing much Like. Everyone around me had kind of grown up middle class, lower middle class, and I grew up in a white working class rural town in the Midwest and that perspective was just not being seen and it felt like we were often talking to those people or about them but never actually listening, you know, or letting letting them have a voice, because there's kind of an assumption that you don't know it. If you don't have money, it's because you don't know anything about money. You don't have anything to say about it. But when I hear from those people, I'm like this is you know? I know that we understand what's going on with money, we understand how these things work. We just don't have money.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:It's like you said. You know wealth brings in wealth. You know it's like if you don't have it to start off with, how are you going to keep growing? You know, how are you going to save money, how are you going to even provide for your family?
Rick Costa:Yeah, yeah, because people say all the time you got to spend money to make money. Well, what if I don't have money to spend?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Right, exactly, and that's kind of where all the advice starts is well, here's how much you should be saving. Here's how much you should be saving, here's how much you should be investing, here's how much you can spend. But it kind of skips Like what if you just have to pay the bills, what do you do?
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, Hi, melanie. Thank you for visiting us.
Rick Costa:Hey, melanie, but go ahead, rick, I thought you were going to say something before I interrupted. Yeah, something I was also thinking about is what do you think about the whole concept of the american dream? Is it just a dream? Is it achievable? Or should people like calm down with that idea or like, what do you think?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I don't know I think there's a lot, a lot of things to say about it, like I think that we shouldn't just promote a single dream.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Everybody needs to live the life that they are trying to live, and that might mean running a business or owning a house or amassing a certain amount of wealth, but it might, you know, it might mean something completely different, but also it largely has been a dream.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :It hasn't been achievable for a lot of people for for most of the time in our country and it really has only existed for about half a century as what we consider to be the goal of life in America and wealth in America, and for almost all of that time it's not been available to most of us. So it kind of feels like something that keeps people working toward that dream, as something that just kind of keeps people in line and like working the way that we want them to work, you know, in investing the way we want them to invest, saving the way we want them to save, sort of following these rules of money and really taking everything on individually and not thinking about the sort of larger changes we could make in our society to make something like that actually available to people.
Carmen Lezeth:Can we talk about what some of those changes are? Because that's what I think is the crux of why your book and your vision is so different is changing some of the terminologies, changing the way in which we envision what Rick just called the American dream. Can you talk a little bit about that part?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, in the book I talk a lot about your personal relationship with money, and I think that's a really important place to start is kind of reframing how you think of money and how you feel about money, how you think about work, also the ways that you bring in money and the resources that you use, but-.
Carmen Lezeth:Hey Charlie, charlie is actually giving you-. Thank you, charlie, very nice compliment. Yeah, very appreciated.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I love that Everyone has been so nice. I think I'm going to spend more time here. I love that everyone has been so nice I think I'm going to spend more time here.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But in addition to that individual, it's essentially a mindset shift, a change in your relationship with money, that we also need to be working on these broader cultural and societal changes, because there's only so much you can do with your own mindset if you don't have access to money or wealth or home ownership or starting a business. Those are things that aren't available to people because of specific policies that make them harder to achieve or make them easier to achieve for some people. So those need you know we need to change that stuff at a at a policy level, at a higher level, in order to make it easier to have that better relationship with money.
Carmen Lezeth:Can I give an example of something that happens every time I work for a client, and it just happened again two weeks ago. This is the difference is he got. This is somebody who's a multimillionaire. This is not somebody who doesn't have a lot of money, but because he has like a two point something million dollar loan out right, they are constantly looking and pulling his credit report, they're constantly doing it Right, and this is just one of many loans he has out. Okay, it's a revolving credit line.
Carmen Lezeth:So the banker sends an email to him. He forwards it to me because his credit report, his credit score, has gone down for some reason. There was some late payment or whatever. So it went down from like 825 to like 783 or something you know what mean. And he was like we need you, carmen, I need you and you guys need to work on this. I need my credit score up or whatever. And I'm like, if he you know what I mean like of course, we had to go find out what happened. And basically what happened was there was a payment that was made late, like a year ago, and it dinged his whatever. But he has not just a team of people looking for his to figure out what happened. And then all they had to do is make a phone call by the way, make a phone call to the mortgage company that the payment was late and they're working on fixing that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :So it's changing the reporting somehow. I didn't even know that was an option.
Carmen Lezeth:You have money, it is because you have a team, because you know I didn't do it. I then gave it to the next person in line to handle, but the banker is looking at his credit report to let him. Most people don't even know what's on their credit report. So it's this idea like when you have money, you can then also fix things that you can't do now fix things that you can't do now, Right, yeah, I've seen a 700 credit score.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Most people have not seen that. No, when I first started working in personal finance, I had been working as a freelancer and earning max like $12,000 a year trying to do that. I was just really not getting by as a freelancer. But I had a credit score like in the five hundreds and which is considered bad yeah, which is considered poor and I didn't even look at my credit report. I hadn't thought about it cause there was nothing I could do about it anyway, so it didn't really matter. I was.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I know I was getting calls from collection agencies, probably, but and so I just wasn't answering my phone, but for the most part no one was even trying to collect on the debt because I didn't have any money coming in.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But once I had a job, I was able to put down $200 for a secured credit card and take that out and with just that tiny, just that balance of $200. And then, but just because I had that extra $200 that I could put down for years before that that was not even an option and it was so quick I started doing some other things after that, but so quickly, after just having a credit card, my credit score went up like a hundred points in a few months just because I was able to show that I could be the kind of consumer that a credit card. My credit score went up like 100 points in a few months just because I was able to show that I could be the kind of consumer that a credit card company wants to work with. And that was just because I was making an income. So, yeah, I, credit scores are the. I find I just I find them very vexing because we kind of treat them like they measure your responsibility.
Carmen Lezeth:I really want to swear for you, because I know you're not going to swear for me.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I couldn't even think of the right word, but yeah, I see credit scores, like people see BMIs with weight.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:It's kind of like that number you just hate because it just makes you sound really bad, but you're not and it's just like something that can change your whole life and your whole way of looking at money.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Right, and the way people treat you. Bmi is the same thing. It's an arbitrary number that's created with a formula that doesn't actually show whether or not you're healthy, but then people use it to make decisions about what kind of healthcare to give you. And it's exactly the same with credit scores. You can be responsible quote unquote with money, but if you're not doing the right things that credit card companies want to see, you'll have a low credit score.
Carmen Lezeth:I want to say hi to. I always forget listening. Hi, anthony, I'm so sorry, so sorry. Hi Tony, how are you? Sorry, sorry. We always want to say hi to our regular people who say hi to us. But you talk about the whole diet culture and how it relates to how we deal with financial stuffage, and that's kind of what Cynthia is talking about. Is like only being thin and only being a certain weight is you know, and you have to go on a diet, because if you don't weigh 110 pounds, then something's wrong with you and so you are a bad and horrible person. Is kind of the underlying theory and it's kind of the same thing if you don't have millions of dollars by the time you're 30, or you don't have a house by the time you're a certain age, or whatever it is, if you don't have a credit score then you're just poor and you're looked at a certain way yeah, it's true.
Rick Costa:Yeah, it's true, and it's wrong. One thing I wanted to bring up too is like and I got some of this from your book too, by the way I love your writing style.
Rick Costa:I love how you you simplify it, you know, break it down for people that may not get it like we were saying I'm not me, I hate numbers, mean numbers, we hate each other. But, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm a writer, yeah, yeah, all day over numbers. But I remember always trying to get into my son, like, even if we don't have a lot of money which never really did I was like I'm not going to sacrifice, being happy. You know, if I want to buy something that bad, then I'm going to do whatever it takes.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I'm not going to be like, but I can't, I don't save every penny, I'm like, but I'm not going to sacrifice, being happy, like I think a lot of people miss that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, absolutely Well, and we're told not to. You know, we are trained to shame other people if they're doing things that we think that they shouldn't be able to afford for whatever reason, and so then we feel that shame ourselves. I, I I don't remember the numbers, but I shared one study in the book that asked people about credit card debt and their perceptions of people with credit card debt, and people responded overwhelmingly that they used credit cards to um, for things that they needed in life. So it was like medical debt or just to pay bills, that kind of thing, um, but when they were looking at other people, they assume that other people use credit cards to live beyond their means, like they're using it for things that they don't need. So we have this perception like, well, I need credit card debt, but when I look at other people, I'm shaming them for the way that they're using debt. Actually, most people are actually using debt just to get by day to day, because life is too expensive and we don't earn enough money.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, and even wealthy people. I mean, here's the thing, and I have worked for wealthy people now I can't believe I'm going to say this for like 30 years. Oh my God, what am I doing with my life? Your?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :experience is amazing. We have to have coffee, I need to have a whole other, different life.
Carmen Lezeth:We're going to have another episode where I'm like we need to change my life because I can't. I just said that and it made me feel ill. Here's the thing None of the clients I've ever worked for before, or even now, are debt free. They're all mortgage to the hill. They have credit lines. They borrow from Peter to PayPal Because they have credit lines they have, and they, they like, borrow from peter to pay, like they, because they have so much credit worthiness.
Carmen Lezeth:They just keep taking out money and passing it along and it's like now do they have a lot of collapse? Sure, they have a lot of property, but they bought that property with the loan they took out. You know what I mean. Like it's weird. I'm not saying they weren't wealthy to begin with or when they started, but it's a weird system where I'm like because I keep telling one of my clients you need to sell like five of those cars, three of those houses, and you'd be chill, you'd be fine, but instead he likes to run around with his head cut off. Like how am I going to make payroll? I'm like sell the Ferrari. I'm not going to run around with my head cut off because you can sell something. That's not like back in the day when I couldn't pay the utility bill and I was worried they would like. That's when you get panicked, but they don't see that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:Can I get your opinion on something? So my husband has a tendency of if we go out anywhere, he wants me to always use this one credit card because we get points on it, and I tend not to do that. I like to. Either if I have the cash, I'll pay cash, or use my debit card because I don't want to pay away or things like that or pay it off in full. What is your advice on that? Should you use a credit card? Should you pay cash if you have?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :it, something like that. I think this is why I talk about your relationship with money and try to generally stay away from the prescriptive advice. The very simple, generally stay away from the prescriptive advice. Like the very simple answer that people would give is like if, if getting the points gives you more value than you lose, you know, in interest, then it's worth it. There's like you can just do a calculation. People also say just like use your credit card and pay it off by the end of the month, but it sounds like for you like that doesn't feel possible, or maybe like you just don't feel certain that that's going to be possible. You don't trust yourself necessarily to do that, and so if it's just causing anxiety for you, like I don't know how much the points are worth it at that point, right, I don't want to cause a rift.
Carmen Lezeth:But one is listening, yeah, I don't want to cause a rift.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Bringing up in the conversation like this is what I see in the personal finance space is always this like credit card hacking, like how can you have the most optimized financial life? And I think we really need to move away from that, because it's just not how humans operate. Like there's so much more involved. Like you're not really optimized if you have a perfect bank account but you're filled with anxiety constantly because you're trying to pay the bills by the end of the month or you're racking up credit card debt or something. So all of those things also have value that are just harder to put numbers to. So you have to be just a little bit more mindful, kind of, about it. That's definitely what he's saying.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :To use a certain credit card because of the points you get especially, a lot of them give you higher points if you eat at restaurants or something. There are rewards you can get for that, that and it can be very worth it. He might also be saying that because maybe you're paying like an annual fee to have that credit card and you want to make it worth it. There's a lot of reasons that that makes sense, but all of those things have to be taken into consideration for sure, and that's where then we take like a step up and look at the greater system too and understand that credit card companies offer those rewards because they want you to be spending money, because if you can carry that balance then they can make money on interest and they make money on just every time you swipe the card on the fees. So it's in their interest to encourage you to spend money. So just always kind of think about how that all fits together, and that's a lot to think about when you're just like trying to go out to dinner.
Carmen Lezeth:Juan is wrong. That's what I heard. I'm not talking to Juan I'll be on this team. I mean, we can replay it a little.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:I'm going to put it on repeat for him.
Carmen Lezeth:She said it nicely, but I'm going to just cut that shit down. Juan is wrong. Brian just said I have one credit card for gas, one credit card for date, date night, one credit card for emergencies and one credit card for Amazon. Yeah, listen, I I think that what you you're, I mean, I I'll get, I'm gonna read the book book, but just my gut and how I know you, you know it really is about what works for you. You know, it's kind of this, um, not being crazy about it, but what works for you is going to be what's in your best interest, and if you're a couple, you guys got to figure that out, um, but I do believe that we live in a capitalist society, and that's part of what you talk about as well.
Carmen Lezeth:And it's all of these rules and all of these things are also set up to make us feel bad, to make us feel like we have to do something in order to be rich or to use the points. Like I have a credit card to get points too, but I never use the points except to pay back the credit card. You know what I mean? Like I don't use it for travel, because whenever I'm traveling for my clients, they pay for it. So it's like a weird. But if I don't pay that credit card all in full, I'm screwed. You know what I mean. Like I'm the one who just paid, you know, $200 on the interest payment or whatever, you know.
Rick Costa:I think they're banking on that too. It's just like with subscription services. They're like, yeah, and if you want to cancel, you cancel. But they know people are going to forget. That's why they have a whole thing now. What is it? Rocket Money or something? We're like we'll go in and we'll cancel everything for you. To me, I'm like I look at my bank account every day. I know what's going in and out. I ain't surprised by nothing. How do you not know? You've got subscriptions from years ago. To me that's like wow really. But yeah, that's how they get you.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, it's nice, those services exist, but the business model still exists, because you know that people just have that inertia.
Carmen Lezeth:I think it's funny because their bank I mean I that, that rocket company, whatever it's called. I don't want to give them any promotion here, but what they're doing is making money off of people who are spending money because they forgot to do a subscription. It's kind of a little slimy, but people need the service or whatever where you can just put it on account. Look at, I just had Hulu on for one month. I paid the $17.99 without ads, because I wanted to watch Parenthood. You know, I guess I watched Parenthood and I deleted. I just ended it Like. I have it on the calendar. It's 31 days, you know. So, but I think you have to be a little bit organized to do that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, that's something I do too. I do a lot of reminders.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:All the time, every month, just writing everything down.
Carmen Lezeth:Can I ask you a question? Let's say somebody has a phone from like 2005.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Is that someone in this room?
Carmen Lezeth:I'm not going to say who it is. Oh, this way Should we buy a new phone. Yeah, we should not buy a new phone because I don't know. I'm kind of worried. I'm just messing with you, dana Rick, do you have another question?
Rick Costa:No, I was just thinking how funny that is, because I think dating would be like listen, cynthia. If it's causing anxiety, just keep your phone, don't worry about it, don't listen to karma, no anxiety perfectly fine.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I feel like, if it is that old, it might be keeping you from additional anxiety because you can't get on social media and everything that is ruining all of our days.
Carmen Lezeth:Okay. Do you want me to interpret that for you, Cynthia, Because I'm going to say it in the ghetto language you're used to? You are wrong. She just said buy a damn new motherfucking phone. That's what.
Rick Costa:I'm saying Can.
Carmen Lezeth:I ask you a question that isn't actually about finance, but actually about what it's like to publish your first book. I know it's coming out in December, but what was that? So I knew you before you started the process of writing the book and then you went through the process of writing the book and now it's done. It's coming out in December. Give us some how you thought about doing it, yeah.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :It's I. I, yeah, I knew you before I even had had done the book proposal or it was even an idea. So, um, I was just doing the blog and trying to kind of figure out, like what is my contribution going to be? What is my contribution going to be? But I wrote a guest post for the Culture Study podcast, which is a pod or, sorry, the Substack, not podcast which has a pretty big following on Substack and that was pretty popular. And an agent and a publisher saw that post and reached out to see if I would want to write a book. So then I had to think about what I might actually put in a book and so I worked with that, with the agent, on that, and it was a really interesting process to go through creating the proposal and then spending the year that I spent writing the book.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Because through that entire process I was still like figuring out what is my contribution going to be, what is my perspective going to be? Like what? What exactly is this message? I was doing research to see like what do we actually know about budgeting? And kind of working out my thoughts as I was writing them, which is kind of how I process things. But also. It was like you know, do I know what I'm talking about? Like they, they said I could write a book, and and so yeah, as it was like you know, do I know what I'm talking about? Like they, they said I could write a book? And and so yeah, as it comes out like I'm an expert in this. But really it was like this process of me figuring these things out, and there's still a lot of questions in the book, too, that you know, because a lot of what I say is like this is something you have to figure out what works for you. So a lot of it is is questions that I that I ran into as I was writing the book.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, but the but, but, the but, the questions. See, I think that's the fresh perspective, and I haven't read the book yet. I've read the chapter that she has available. I'm just going off of everything else she's done. But it's kind of this thing where that's the fresh perspective, it's like it feels good to me to stay in a $500 a night hotel or an $800 a night hotel when I travel and I only fly first class. And can I actually afford that? Yes, I can, but it's not something I just do like, oh, I'm going to leave tomorrow, I will, you know what I mean. Like that's what works for me, that's where I spend my money, but then other people think that's crazy because they would never spend that kind of money. You know what I mean. Like, the way in which I like that you do things, is you empower us to feel okay about the things we need to feel okay about Now. Will I not pay my rent so that I could fly first class and stay at a bougie hotel? No, no, that's not.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Well, that wouldn't feel good, Right? So that you know that's something that that a lot of people wouldn't do. And I think that's the fear that comes up for people and and the feeling you know what people are saying like you shouldn't be doing that, carmen, like that's you can't afford that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :That it's probably coming from just their personal kind of fear, of like if I were in that situation it would make me anxious, but I think that's the feeling is thinking like, well, if you're making those decisions, what if you make that decision and then you're not able to pay your rent? And I just think people can trust themselves more. We can trust people to know that having a roof over their head is very important to them, or maybe it's not. I spent like almost a year with my partner where we didn't have a place to come home to, we were traveling and we weren't paying rent at any, like we didn't have any home base. I guess we were homeless, but I don't.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :It's not really the right, because it was my choice and we had, like a roof over our head, so I don't like to. But it's just so funny. I'm like kind of yeah, I was like we didn't have a home base, we we let ourselves be homeless because we wanted to travel and we couldn't pay to do both at the same time. So we made that decision, you know. So maybe some people would make that decision, but you can trust yourself that you're going to make the decision that's right for you and you're going to figure it out, and I think money just doesn't have to be that scary. I ate avocado toast when I was broke. I traveled when I was broke. You just kind of decide what is important to you.
Rick Costa:I was going to say you were residentially ambiguous for a little while.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :That's actually a really perfect ambiguous is a really perfect way of explaining that.
Carmen Lezeth:Rick, where did you come up with that?
Rick Costa:I just thought of it. Sometimes I have a good idea, believe it or not.
Carmen Lezeth:So Anthony just said Cynthia, if your phone ain't broke, don't fix it, anthony, he's on your side. No, bonnie said audio box, I had that phone from 1999. No, when I said audio box, I had that phone from 1999 to 2000. See, I think you don't want to get a new phone because you don't want to deal with all I mean. It is going to be a big change for you. It's a huge. It's actually 2008. Did we figure out it was 2008? No, I don't even know what year it is. It's something like that.
Carmen Lezeth:It's going to be a big change for you. It's pre-COVID, let's just put it that way. It's older than pre-COVID. Okay, it sounds like it?
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:yeah, 2008, I think. But anyways, whatever I think.
Rick Costa:something, too, that's important is everybody has their own ways of doing things, but it doesn't mean one is wrong or one is right. It's whatever works for you for you.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Am I right? Absolutely, that's my professional opinion.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Don't stand on that. Yeah, and that's the part that is tough writing in personal finance. As a freelancer, I found myself a lot of time being given assignments that were like, answer this question for people what is the right way to do a certain thing? Right? And I just constantly found myself being like, well, it depends on what your situation is and what you want and what your goals are. And I just started coming back often to like, if you just understand how certain financial products work, if you understand the consequences of certain financial decisions, then you can make those decisions for yourself. When it gets to be stressful and when it kind of feels like it gets out of control is when you don't really know how your credit card works, at what point you start accruing interest, how much that interest is going to be, how much the fees are going to be, that kind of thing. If you don't know what the consequences are, then it can be really stressful. But if you know exactly what those are, then you can just decide how to deal with them.
Carmen Lezeth:So Tony just asked a question what's the best way to describe living within your means from a financial perspective?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I love that question. I've been talking about that a lot with people lately because people talk about like, not spending money that you don't have or overspending. You know, like, if you don't have a budget, how do you make sure you're living within your means? And again, that's probably something that you can sort of define personally. But really in a broad way, I think of it as just like, if you are able to buy something, then you can afford it.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :If you have the credit card as a resource, I think of debt as a resource, even though it does eventually become a liability. I think of it as a way of expanding your resources so you don't only have to rely on money you can earn from working, because that's not always available to everybody. So if you have the cash or you have the credit or you can afford the debt to buy something, then you can afford it, and that's living within your means, living within the means that are available to you. That's kind of how I consider it. Kind of how I consider it. If you can't buy it like if you swipe the card and it's not accepted, if the or if the vendor for some reason doesn't accept whatever you're trying to offer, you don't have the money to give them, then you can't afford it because you don't have the. You know, you don't have the means. If you, if you can walk out the store with something in your hands or you can sign, sign the papers, then then it's within your means.
Carmen Lezeth:But there's, you know, there's a lot of gray area there, because you can get yourself into an uncomfortable situation um, so you really have to think about what that means for you.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Debt is not necessarily bad. Yeah, and that, and you know that from you know they don't know that, I don't know.
Carmen Lezeth:People realize that we've been told that debt is bad, but debt can be something you can use to expand your financial. I was going to say fortune, that's not the right word, whatever.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Resources, resources.
Carmen Lezeth:Thank you, yeah, sorry, yeah, I don't like the living within your means thing. I've never liked that and I could never pinpoint why I didn't like it, but it was like okay, so I'm poor so I can't have anything.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :That's how I interpreted that. Yeah Well, we only talk about it if you're poor. You don't tell rich people to live within their means. You can't take out debt. You have to live within your means, right? You're only told that if you're poor. So I think that's why it always rubs people the wrong way, because it's just a way of kind of keeping people in their place.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah. So, Tony, you'll stop calling me bougie now. He's always calling me bougie. You see, Melanie, I've heard that you should be able to pay off the credit, oh, the card within a month or two. If not, you shouldn't get it. What's your thoughts on that, Dana?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Well, if you pay it off within the month, then you're not going to be accruing interest, because credit cards don't start accruing interest on your balance until the next month. That was a terrible way of describing it.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, the spending that you do like within April, you'll start accruing interest on that in May. So that's why that's kind of a rule for people, because if you are paying interest on your credit card debt, then you're paying more than what the price of the thing was that you bought in the first place. So that's kind of what people are talking about, and credit cards accrue interest really fast because they have a really high interest rate. So it starts to really kind of stack up. So if you're doing that month after month, then it can start to get really hard to keep up with the payments, even the minimum payments, and then it becomes really tough to pay down the debt at all if that's your goal.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But again, that's kind of, I think, understanding the consequences. If you know, like right now, I'm in a period where, like I'm transitioning between jobs or I'm trying to do something, I'm trying to leave a relationship, like something that's going to reduce the amount of money that you have in income, and you know you're going to use credit cards for a while and six months from now you're going to just deal with the fallout of that, then that might be a resource that you need to use. It could be really valuable, so I try to be careful about just following rules like that.
Carmen Lezeth:Let me just read. So Brian said living within your means helps you become more financially disciplined. I mean sure, but we're kind of saying that that line living within your means is something that also keeps us suppressed from trying to live a life that is OK and feel good about, like you know, like you can actually have avocado, toast and Starbucks and not feel guilty about it. I was going to ask you a question. I forgot because I got distracted by them they're being funny because they're always talking about booze. They were going to come to California. They live out in East Oshkosh, wherever and wherever, Texas somewhere, and they were going to come visit California and they asked where they could stay and of course I told them I live in Santa Monica, on the beach. So I was like here are the hotels and they're like six, 50 at night, whatever, and I don't think anything of it because that's where you would stay if you came to visit me and that became the beginning of the end of our relationship.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:See, my thing, my thing is, you know you guys crack on me about the phone. I get it, but to me it's like my phone. Yes, you know, to get on social media, I can still get on it, do certain things, whatever, but I like to travel towards going somewhere that I absolutely enjoy bring joy to my life. Then paying a thousand dollars for a piece of technology that will change in the next couple of years, you know what I mean.
Carmen Lezeth:So, again, it's a good try with the guest. It's a good try, Cynthia, but we've had this conversation 19 times on 19 different shows.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :She's appealing to me, but, yeah, maybe I haven't heard the conversation before it's working on me.
Carmen Lezeth:No, it's you know what, and I've said this before that was a good choice.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:A for effort that was good.
Carmen Lezeth:That was good, but at some point I told you the problem is all the security things with technology, and that's where I have a problem. And also sometimes you can't see guests on the show because your phone is so old. Can you see dana? Yes, I can. How was my acting? I couldn't see him, you couldn't true story, true story yeah, I'm not even lying.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm concerned with the hacking, like I'm being serious. The reason why it's good for you to have an investment is not just because you're on the show. We need you to have it. But you know, anyways, the consequences. Consequences when I fire your ass because you can't do your job on the show.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :It is a good example, though, of like how money just weaves into other things. You know, like it sounds like that's not necessarily just a financial decision. There's so many other things that weigh into that, and I don't know if this is the case for you, but I've heard from other people don't upgrade phones because it's such a pain to get to know the new operating system every time and the new set of rules and the work that you have to go through. That's another big barrier that people are dealing with. That gets woven in then to also whatever your relationship with money is and it's kind of you know it's all part of it. So just talking about like well, if you upgrade, then it could be a beneficial to your job and you could make more money and then we're just getting into like how does it fit into these spreadsheets or whatever? Financially, there's just so much more.
Carmen Lezeth:But I love that you tried, I love it. To back your shit up. It was just so cute. It was so cute, Adorable, adorable. Okay, here's my question for you, Dana. Though what if you're someone who's drowning in debt, you're very stressed about it, you're pained, or whatever? What do you think might be beneficial for someone who's really just in that space and needs to get out of it and doesn't have a job they're not making enough money, whatever?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Right, yeah, the first thing I think is like get a lay of the land. I think a really big part, like when I had a lot of student loan debt, I wasn't touching on top of credit card debt, I wasn't touching. You're just not looking at it and a lot of times it's because you don't realize, even like you don't know how, you don't know how to get your credit report, you don't know how to see who you owe money to and who which debt collector has, like you know, bought your debt where, where you could even start. So start by kind of getting a lay of the land. Make a list of the debts you have, get that copy of your credit report. There's also websites where you can get that stuff for free, more often, a little easier than like freecreditreportcom or whatever, or sorry, annual credit report, I think.
Carmen Lezeth:It's annual credit report.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, to get the actual credit report. But there's apps like Credit Karma that can help you. They just show who you owe money to and what is being reported. So that gives you a place to start, so you can at least figure out what actually you're dealing with and that even just that step might help you kind of breathe easy, because it becomes less overwhelming when you actually have a list of what to tackle and then figure out again the consequences of it.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :So I am usually not I usually don't promote Dave Ramsey, but the one thing that I pull from his teachings is the idea of the debt snowball. So, yeah, he talks about paying off your smallest balance first. Usually, when you're dealing with credit card debt, pay off your smallest balance first because you get kind of a quick win and then that's one thing that you can check off your list. Essentially and it's not the most financially optimized way to tackle debt, but doing something like that so you can start to get some of that stuff off your list can be helpful. There's other ways to do it. You can also like consolidate debts into a single loan. If you have a credit score, that could help, that could get a loan and then you just have one payment, you can. It's maybe a smaller monthly payment that you're dealing with, like there are ways, kind of within the system like that, that you can start to make that debt less overwhelming, so you don't feel that feeling like you're drowning.
Rick Costa:I get constant letters from those consolidation things. I always get letters from those all the time.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, do you even have debt? I know, sometimes they just send them to people. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think if you're getting, if it's being advertised to you, it's probably not like the best deal. That should be something that you kind of like seek out and talk to a bank or talk to a lender to make sure that you're getting a good deal on it, because they can be really predatory, because they can be really predatory.
Carmen Lezeth:Your state, the state where you live go to their website and they actually have recommendations of places that I would call are more legit consolidation places, where you know at least they've been vetted or whatever. But there's that avenue too. But I want to go back to what you were saying about how you feel about money, because I think that's the more important thing, like once you embrace the fact that you have all this debt, that you're in trouble. The consequences of some of your actions are now A, b, c and D. It doesn't matter why it happened or whatever. Tackling it by getting the lay of the land, I love that.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But in that process, trying to not feel bad about being a human being, and you know, yeah, but that's so much of it is just dealing with that shame and, and that is so much of what kind of keeps you from even taking steps to make it more manageable in your life. You're just sort of you know you're out with friends and like you're getting calls from a debt collector and just trying to like hide it quickly. Or you know you're starting to get called at work or you get a you're you get your wages garnished, so now someone in HR, like at work, knows what you're dealing with, and all of that stuff can just feel, make everything feel even more overwhelming and even more serious than it is. And that, I think, is just, it's just a process to kind of work through, like and that's part of the conversation that I want to have with people is just starting to talk more about money, to understand, like, when you have debt, you're just dealing with financial decisions that you have to make.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :You're not dealing with a moral failing. You know you're not. You're not dealing with a moral failing. You're not a bad person because of any reason that you took out debt. You did what made sense for you at the time and now you're making decisions to deal with it that make sense for you now and letting go of that idea that it's some kind of moral failing or some kind of shame is a really important part of that. And I think getting that kind of lay of the land and understanding just steps that you can take to manage it can be helpful with that and really getting that perspective that it's just financial decisions, like it's just steps that you just have to decide, kind of what is the next step you're going to take? It's not going to determine whether or not you're a good or bad person or a worthy person, you know, or worthy of the next purchase that you want to make or anything. It's just. It's just decisions.
Carmen Lezeth:I'll tell Cynthia, we'll know who this is. When I first moved out to Los Angeles I didn't know anybody and I had a college degree and I was I didn't know anyone here I had $800 in my pocket and a round trip ticket back to the East coast. That cause I didn't know how it was going to work out. And I remember I had gotten a um free room and board for light housekeeping and I was working for a man named Mr Fred Nasher May he rest in peace because he did pass away but because he was old then. So he let people usually UCLA students he would let them stay at his in his guest house in Westwood and you just had to clean his house a little bit and then the, the mate, the housekeeper, housekeeper would come in two or three times a week or something, but you would do the light cleaning. And I remember, you know, I was here for like four months. I didn't know anybody. I was in debt after college. I had been in debt before I went into college but then I was in more debt. I didn't know anybody, I didn't have a job and this was the job I had, but it was really for free room and board.
Carmen Lezeth:You know and I remember talking to Teresa on the phone Cynthia knows who Teresa is and I was crying and I was so upset and I was like I have a college degree and I'm working as a housekeeper, like my mother had done, and I was devastated. I was just devastated because I was never going to be. You know, you do all that stuff. You talk to yourself and Teresa said to me something that I have never forgotten and she said you need to stop having an emotional attachment to money. You are not. How much is in your bank? Teresa said that almost 30 years ago, exactly 30 years ago to me, and I have to tell you it is one of the things that lifted me up because I was like you know what? I have just moved on my own, without knowing anybody, to California. I just got an apartment all on my own and I'm and it was like changing that perspective was so fascinating to like the same information. So fascinating to like the same information.
Carmen Lezeth:And that was the day that I stopped. I give her credit for this. It was the day I stopped feeling bad about debt and about where I was at and how I was born into no money and how, you know I thinking I would never have any money, and I think that's what I love about your book and your whole aura. Is the your feeling? How do you feel about the decision you're making? What are the consequences? I never thought about the consequences part. I like that part, the thing you talk about a lot, which is the consequences to whatever your choices are, and can you live with that?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Right and for me that's the part that makes me feel empowered in decisions and makes me feel more secure is understanding those consequences. And sometimes people say those words and they kind of use like what might the consequences be? As a way to like, encourage, restriction to keep you from doing something. But I think of it more like my partner helped his kid do taxes this year, who's 20. And so they submitted their taxes in the spring and then a few months later got a letter that there was some tax, some local tax they hadn't paid because they didn't realize they just filled out the paperwork wrong and didn't realize it was something they owed. And so it was like a couple hundred dollars owed.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :But they called my partner freaking out, just being like like, oh my God, this is a tax bill. Am I going to go to jail? Like what is going to happen? Right Cause, it's just that's how it feels and that's how we talk about taxes. And so he explained like it's just a tax bill, just contact them, figure out how you know, make a payment plan or pay it off. See, you know what it is. That's all it is. And his kid goes oh, so it's just like a bill that I have to pay, okay, and just all of that fear went away, but it was like to the level of I'm going to go to jail, which is how we feel a lot of times about debt too is just what's?
Rick Costa:are they just going to one?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :likes the IRS, either yeah, are they going to take everything I own? There's nothing. So just knowing those consequences created so much freedom in that moment for them to understand okay, this is just a bill I have to figure out to pay. So do I have the money or not? And then, if I don't, how can I work with them to make this happen?
Carmen Lezeth:It is weird, that feeling, that pain, that angst I can't like when collection people call you. Ooh, those days, ooh, when the collection people call you, and just the angst in your heart and the stressfulness. And even when you would try to blow them off or not, you would still think of it because you would know and you would have all this guilt to it. Them off or not, you would still think of it because you would know and you would have all this guilt to it. Yeah, there's guilt to it, but you have to be able to somehow figure out a way to not have that attachment. Because I have to say, even when you have money, like when you do start making your $100,000 or whatever it is, you know you start it's the same shit, it's just different. It's the same thing. It becomes a different concern. You know what I mean. Like oh, now I have to buy a house, or now I have to invest in this, or now I have to. Like it never ends Right.
Rick Costa:A lot of people, I think, don't. I don't know if they don't realize it or not, but you can call people and work with them Like I just lost my job, blah, blah, blah. Can you lower my payment? And they'll do it Like people don't realize, just give somebody a call, don't just be like, oh well, I'm screwed. Not necessarily.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, I think it's a lot of shame that keeps people from doing that, to just say I don't have the money. So what are we going to do about this? Like that's really usually all you have to do and someone is going to work with you because that's their only option. It's either that, that, or you don't pay if you don't have the money. So to you know, to just do that, then you can avoid digging kind of a deeper hole.
Carmen Lezeth:but there's, there's just so much I wish it was a different way, but we lived right.
Rick Costa:Money just sucks that just sums it up that's why we like star trek so much, because there's nobody spends money in star trek.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yes, always and they have universal translators so they can all just are you a turkey? Are you a turkey? I watched it back in the day. I wouldn't say it wouldn't be, but I sounded like a turkey perhaps I got excited I could, I could probably, I could probably go back and forth a little bit on it. That's the one that always excited me. I was like they can just talk to any aliens. That's amazing, oh yeah.
Carmen Lezeth:That is true, yeah, she's a Star Wars. Are you Star Wars?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :No. No that one not at all. I watched the first, the original series on the next generation of Star Trek oh, that's awesome. Probably 20 years ago, so that's as far as I've gotten, that's good, all right, you're in the club.
Rick Costa:You're okay there. Another thing I think is really sad and unfortunate is in school they'll teach you calculus which you'll never use, but the actual life skills, like paying your bills, understanding how credit cards work, we don't get taught.
Carmen Lezeth:I mean, when I went to school, anyway, I didn't get taught that and I'm like private schools. Why private? Oh that besides, besides the private schools no, I didn't go to. I'm not talking about catholic school, I'm talking about private schools that are my clients children go to. They do investment things. They do like pretending their investment investing in wall street or properties, they, they do all that. Again, it's all these classes. You know what I mean. It's all these different things. Uh, brian just said the needs of the many outweigh the needs of yes, great star trek quote yeah she knows personal finance.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :There's actually a movement to require personal finance in schools, high schools, a lot more. About half the states have passed mandates now. But the problem with them and that's it's good because it is giving more people access to that education A lot of times it's not great education because there's no funding to come along with it and so the teachers who are tasked with teaching it are not getting training that they need. They're you know, they're not getting materials they need. They're not bringing in a new teacher who actually has, you know, expertise in personal finance to teach. So it's a step we're like requiring it in public schools in a lot of places.
Carmen Lezeth:So it's a step we're requiring it in public schools in a lot of places, but we need to put a lot more resources behind it to get that education like you're talking about Less of just memorizing historical facts that we could be Googling now, and calculus that you can do on a calculator and learning a little bit more about how to be a person in the world. Yeah, I just think it's kind of hard to, because I feel like it's not just schools that need to learn about money, it's.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I think that's why you're, I'm sorry, I'm like really promoting your book, but you don't have to apologize for that I'm totally fine with it.
Carmen Lezeth:I swear to God I'm not getting commissioned or anything, but I think that's why your book is great. It's coming out. Why is it coming out on Christmas, child?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :It's coming out December 24th because we want to promote it in January and there was a thing with bookstores having access to it early enough.
Carmen Lezeth:So you're going to come back in January on the show and hang out.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :If you'll have me, I'd love to.
Carmen Lezeth:We'd love to, no, no we'd love to have you, because then we'll get to read the book.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Like you're buying the book right, and I'm going to buy the book.
Carmen Lezeth:Cynthia, let's buy the book and then we'll have you, and then we can come and we can talk questions on every chapter and be like what did you mean by this?
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:Wow.
Carmen Lezeth:And then we have a whole chapter on Cynthia buying a new phone. So we're excited.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:Maybe I'll have a new phone by then.
Rick Costa:Oh, merry, christmas.
Carmen Lezeth:Oh, really Might be a Christmas gift. Maybe Is there anything else you want to say. I agree, toni. Oh, toni just said must come back. Great episode conversation oh thank you, toni.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I love talking about this stuff, and y'all have been great too.
Carmen Lezeth:No, is there anything else you want to say before I do my little last push?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :I don't think so. This is this conversation has been great. I really appreciate. You know you were talking about liking my approach to how I talk about money, but I I feel like you're the same and that's why we've connected and stayed connected over these last couple of years and I'm slowly kind of gathering those people Like we are out there, we're doing it differently and I'm trying to just kind of broaden that conversation, get that conversation out to more people.
Carmen Lezeth:So I want to encourage people to go to the website. It's scrolling at the bottom. It's youdontneedabudgetcom. Here's the thing yes, pre-order the book please, please, support someone who is doing really good stuff in the world. We always say we want to support people that are doing good things. Not only are you supporting her and what she's trying to do, but you're also doing yourself a favor, because it's a really easy read. She's a great writer and it's beneficial information for all of us. I'm going to read it because, even though I know a lot about money, I always can improve and get better at and understand things differently from a different point of view. And also, I'm not perfect. I mean I'm kind of perfect, but no, I mean I don't. You know, people think I have so much money. I don't. If, god forbid, I lost my job, I'd be, you know, three to six months out. I'd be done. I'd be at Cynthia's house.
Carmen Lezeth:One would be out, I'd be at Cynthia's house. It's not even a question, right, cynthia? That's right I. But I mean, you know, because I'm not a wealthy person. But I live my life in a lot of joy and happiness and I actually I'm not in major debt. I was in a lot of debt. I had collection calls too. I was by myself. I was making, I think, $12 an hour at one point and working as a little housekeeper for like the first year when I was in LA. So I've been there and now I'm here and it is possible for everyone to get to that place. So, please, please, please, support, but also do yourself a favor and buy yourself the book. You don't need a budgetcom. Also, you have the chapters. I thought that was really great. You have every chapter of the book you can click on and there are resources there, right, is that for?
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, yeah, there's it's, I think, ydnab online on the website. There are resources that I reference in the book reference in the book.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, so you can go and even get an idea of what every chapter might be about, because you can see she links references on there and there's so many resources, so I really want you to do that Also. Go check out now. I always mess up this website. It's healthyrichco, right.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :That's right. Yeah, that's my sub. If you, if you're on sub, stack too right for healthy rich and hey, do the newsletter.
Carmen Lezeth:The newsletter is in there. You can just put in your email and you'll get. Is it monthly or weekly? Uh, weekly, yeah. So I, I did a bad thing. I'm gonna change it. I did, I did a bad thing. I had your, I had like 17, okay, so I have a. I have a different email address where I get newsletters and I don't read them Because it's like 17 of them or something, and so I deleted them all. But I'm going to add yours back because you know I got to be supportive, so I apologize, take no offense, I'm in and out of newsletters too.
Carmen Lezeth:And then I'm just like delete, delete, delete. I'm deleting them Can.
Rick Costa:I say too that I think the type the you don't need a budget is kind of genius, because automatically people would be like clutching your pearls, what do you mean? I don't need a budget. I got to see what this is about and boom, you just hooked them in because they're like it's an outrageous statement in our minds because we've been taught you better have a budget.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :We constantly have that pumped in our minds. So I think that's a great title Credit to my agent for that. I had a bunch of terrible title ideas and he suggested that one and I was like that's going to be it, that has to be it.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:It is a great one.
Carmen Lezeth:So thank you for coming on the show. We appreciate it so much. It was fun, it was easy, I was worried. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, rick and Cynthia, it was great to meet you and everyone in the audience, and a list of questions I didn't even look at.
Cynthia Ruiz Lopez:That's good, that's good. I had a couple things I asked. Did you?
Carmen Lezeth:ask your question. Cynthia, I did, I have one. I'm just saying, it was just easy flow.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Yeah, You've got my email too. If you need to talk money, it sounds like everybody's got things they need to work through, so we can.
Carmen Lezeth:Yeah, people can contact you through your website as well, but don't inundate her by the book. That's all I'm saying by the book.
Dana Miranda, Author of You Don't Need A Budget :Start there, yep, see if it answers your questions.
Carmen Lezeth:Thank you so much for coming on the show. Everyone, I appreciate you hanging out. We hope we'll see you next week as well. Please go to allaboutthejoycom and buy some motherfucking swag bitches.
Carmen Lezeth:I'm so mean Buy swag if you want to. No, I don't have any Christmas things available. I'm so sorry, I just haven't gotten to it. Next year I'll be hooking that stuff up for real. So everyone remember, it really is all about the joy. We appreciate you all and we'll see you soon. Bye everybody, Bye, Thanks for stopping by. All about the joy. Be better and stay beautiful folks, have a sweet day.