Saving vs spending... there's no question which one is more fun, right? Obviously, spending! By comparison, saving feels like a chore, something you ought to do, the responsible thing to do, but is definitely less fun. After all, you get something when you spend -- an item, an experience, a service. With saving you get, well, just more money in a pile somewhere.

As Jesse points out, no one says "I have a saving problem" but you hear "I have a spending problem" all the time. It's because spending is concrete. It has weight to it. Spending has a clear line to the value of the money being spent and what you value in the spending of it.

Saving money is actually a misnomer. All money exists to be spent, whether it's now or in the future. Savings is really just spending that will take place in the future. When you follow the YNAB method and give every dollar a job, including your "savings" dollars, you are planning for how you will spend that money in the future. You're making your savings concrete, putting a vision behind those dollars.

When you reframe the idea of saving like that, all of a sudden it becomes much easier to do!

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You've probably heard the term "moving the goalposts," that is, a deceptive argument strategy in which you change the question, the criteria, or the standard by which you are evaluating something. The metaphor comes from sports, and it's a good metaphor for personal finance. Early in our adult lives we make a lot choices because money is scarce -- you choose to live with roommates instead of your own apartment, you skip buying something you want to prioritize schooling or training, for instance -- but as we get older and accumulate more financial resources our standards change and our choices change along with that. The goalposts move, so to speak.

Some call that lifestyle inflation or lifestyle creep, but Jesse doesn't like the term. It connotes something bad, something you shouldn't indulge in, but as Jesse points out, it's perfectly reasonable to want more things and different living conditions when you're older. That moldy apartment might have been fine as a college student, but with a family of five you probably want cleaner, more spacious accomodations.

So instead think of living a more expansive life as the goalposts shifting over time, and that's ok.  Just take some time to reflect back on where those goalposts started, and appreciate how well your spending aligns with your priorities.

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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.

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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?"

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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

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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! 

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