Personal finance is personal, as the saying goes, and the only constant in life is change, to employ another saying. On that note, Jesse issues a challenge in today's episode: change your plan! Add a category, put some money in it, delete a category, shuffle some dollars around... just make a change. This is a reminder to yourself that the beauty of a plan is it's flexibility. As life changes, your plan can change along with it.

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Flying airplanes is serious business. Mistakes are costly, not just because of the cost of the aircraft; if you're flying people, their lives are on the line. Jesse knows this better than most, having two brothers who are pilots. One day he overheard them talking shop and narrowed in on a common occurence they had teaching student pilots to fly -- these pilots were afriad of "hooking," that is, making a mistake on a flight and having to redo the assignment.

Jesse realized that everyone, including people who work high stress, high stakes jobs, learns through making mistakes. He quotes his favorite definition of intelligence, which "error correction." We learn by making mistakes then fixing them. And this must happen even for the most critical jobs like flying airplanes.

The same applies to money. Can you afford to make mistakes? Of course! You will mistakes, it's all about how you error correct after the fact. That's what the Five Questions help you do. They help you clarify what you want your money to do for you, and when you make a mistake with money, they help you correct your path and get you back on track. So, ultimately, you can live spendfully, loving the way you spend.

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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Jesse has ranted about credit cards and their pernicious way of separating you from your money, both literally and metaphorically -- obfuscating the way you spend and distancing your priorities from the point of sale. Today he warns against the newest form of this pernicious spending: buy now, pay later programs. It's like a credit card you don't have to sign up -- just purchase an item, and via an app like Klarna or Affirm, you can split up the cost of that item over several smaller installments.

Of course, buy now pay later programs encourage spending you don't have, rather than finding the money first in YNAB. But even if you have the money, splitting a purchase into multiple installments is just putting off the decision to purchase into the future. YNAB's goal is to help you be spendful, to spend with joy and clarity about what it is you want your money to do for you. Buying something the YNAB way means you've given your dollars a job and you have money set aside in a category meant to cover that purchase. Or, you don't have money in a category for that purchase, but you pull money from other categories to find the money -- making a clear decision to forego something else to buy this thing now.

Putting off the payment for an item is ultimately just robbing you of clarity, because the money doesn't flow out of the category when you purchase. It sits there, unused while you have the item but earmarked for a future date when the installment comes due. A buy now pay later purchase adds a layer of complexity to your spending plan, while lacking the conviction to say "do I really want this right now?"

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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For some reason when the topic of money comes up, many people immediately want to jump into Excel and start exercising the so-called rational part of their brain. Money seems to demand sober, quantitative analysis, devoid of emotion which obfuscates the mathematical truth of the situation. Yet we rarely make decisions in a purely rational manner; emotion plays a large, if not bigger role, than rational thinking in how we choose to act. And if there's anything you've learned hanging around YNAB, it's that money is really just you -- it's a medium for translating your energy and effort in the world into things and experiences.

That's why YNAB came up with five questions, to help you make better decisions with your money while considering your whole self -- both your emotional needs and a rational analysis of your financial situation.

In today's episode Jesse shares the example of a conversation with a self-described highly rational friend, talking about whom he was going to marry. The conversation highlights how the biggest decisions often don't come down to rational analysis alone. Working the five questions, however, you end up at a reasonable place, considering your whole self, both rational and emotional. In a word, we call it spendfulness.

Resources mentioned in this show:

1. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

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Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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We talk about how YNAB is the ultimate weapon against money stressors -- as you gain control over your spending, learn to give every dollar a job, and bring your spending in line with your priorities, the stresses decrease and are replaced by a growing confidence. There are other psychological "costs" of money, such as the anxiety and mental overhead created by second guessing your choices.

Should I buy this? Can I even afford it? Should I have bought that? Is this what we should be doing right now? YNAB gives you the freedom to act, to spend your money confidently without second guessing every decision.

Like Jesse and his GE upright freezer, it doesn't mean you'll never regret your purchases, but you won't second guess the fact that you spent the money!

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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Jesse reflects on his interactions with YNAB'ers at the recent Fan Fest in Minneapolis, and how spendfulness manifested in many different ways. One important takeaway for Jesse was that while practicing spendfulness could mean taking a cool international vacation, or buying something fun and interesting (and those are totally valid things to spend money on!), it could also mean having the freedom and peace of mind to take risks and embark on new ventures.

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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In 2017 the Mecham family decided to live in Manhattan for three months to experience the city, soak up the food and culture, and just have fun doing something different. While they were there they chose to maximize their opportunity to eat out -- Jesse went back and counted over 140 different establishments during that 90 day stay!

After that experiment, Jesse and the family decided to try the complete opposite. No eating out for 90 days. The result? They didn't really care about it much, and now the family rarely eats out. What the experience in Manhattan taught them was that, for them, eating out is about the experience. They like big, "journal worthy" meals. Day to day eating out at average restaurants just doesn't hold much appeal.

They only know this because they have examined their priorities and tested things out. Jesse encourages you to do the same -- question why you do what you do, and try to live differently for a little while. You may find, like many, many YNAB'ers before you, that eating out is not as much of a priority as you were making it!

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

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It seems obvious that you should save money. It's the right thing to do, after all! But even the words that we use talk about saving money have problems -- should, ought --  loaded with moral baggage. Jesse reminds us that even money earmarked for savings is still spending, just spending that has been deferred to a later date, retirement for example. That money still needs to have a job, however. Saving for what in retirement? Utility bills? Travel? Presents for the grandkids?

Money for the future has a job just like money for the present, and when you view money through the lens of giving every dollar a job, you begin to see that money is only meant to be spent. There is no savings, only spending! 

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

[email protected]

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When you really want to buy something, what do you do? Do you wait for 48 hours to cool off a bit and think it over? Or perhaps do you create a category for it in YNAB and fund it with a few dollars, just to see how it feels? Having the urge to buy something is not a bad or shameful thing, but there should be a process for weighing that purchase against your other priorities. That's what YNAB does -- it makes money more real by giving you a framework to evaluate your spending against your priorities. That way when you buy something, you can feel really good about it -- no shame, no guilt, just joy!

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

[email protected]

Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Follow YNAB on social media:

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Tickets to YNAB Fan Fest 2025 are on sale now! Coming to Minneapolis and NYC:

YNAB.com/events

This week Jesse and the rest of the YNAB team are working hard prepping for the upcoming Fan Fest in Minneapolis, so today we are rebroadcasting an interview that originally appeared on Dr. Will Cole's Art of Being Well podcast. In this interview, Jesse talks about how money stress not only leads to poorer mental health, it has real physical impacts on the body as well.

We hope you enjoy this interview. If you'd like to follow Dr. Cole's podcast, check out the links below:

• Web: https://drwillcole.com/podcast/money-anxiety-is-ruining-your-health-heres-how-to-fix-it-jesse-mecham
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-being-well/id1539535133
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6z1lJ5dfKNHwGGQPOFTc7E?si=22d31749ba9142f7

Need last minute tickets to YNAB Fan Fest in Minneapolis? Get them here!

YNAB.com/events

Watch The Jesse Mecham Show on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/@jessemechamshow

Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:

[email protected]

Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

Follow YNAB on social media:

Facebook: @ynabofficial

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