This lesson is an important one: the one where we move from talking about all this personal finance stuff to figuring out how do we actually do it? FF1 alumni Rachel Whaley comes in and talks about setting up systems to do the work for us. She reminds us, "We don't rise to the level of our intentions, but fall to the level of our systems." Rachel talks about the systems she built: simple budgeting, automated investing, etc, and how to do the things you should do but don't really want to.

This is a great episode! Rachel is a great guest. You'll enjoy listening to this one. She tells a great personal finance joke at the end.

As one FF student said, "any debt based financial transaction is a poor person giving a rich person money." It's also Present You asking Future You to pay for current consumption. If you are in debt, you literally owe life hours to someone else. It restricts choices, agency, and ties you to a system extracts more from you that it gives.

In this episode, we talk with Cedric Justice, who took Financial Freedom in 2010 and has since eliminated $70,000 worth of debt. We'll talk about where that journey has taken him: moving from Portland to open up a goth romantic literary bar in Buffalo, NY, and now spending most of his year in Spain. He'll explain the debt snowball technique and give new perspectives on living the life you want, even during your financial freedom journey.

“You must combine optimism with brutal honesty and a willingness to take action.” - Admiral James Stockdale

Many people don't pay attention to their personal finances because they don't want to participate in capitalism. But there is no not-participating. In this Rachel Shadoan talks about the idea that you don't have any excuse for being bad at money.

Ignoring your finances doesn't hurt anyone but you and the people who care about you. So much of financial freedom is being honest with the facts of your life, and then having the vision, desire, and plan to get to what you want. To put it another way, Jungian therapist James Hollis describes becoming an adult as (1) knowing what you want and (2) knowing how to do it. Easy to say, very few will do it.

Spending is not only about personal finance, but also environmental destruction. FF1 alumni Kurt talks about the connection between personal consumption and climate change. People who believe in climate change have higher carbon footprints than those who don't believe in believe change because, simply, they have higher incomes, and spend it. But the planet doesn't care what you believe, only what you do.

“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.” — Gus Speth

“Knowing what you want is the ultimate life skill. It is worth more than talent or hard work. It is almost worth as much as luck. Have it, and disappointment is still probable, but on your own terms. Lack it, and you will be done to and acted upon.” Financial Times writer Janan Ganesh

In this episode, artist and FF alumni Jon Marro talks about the importance of imagination and vision of the person you want to become in personal finance. The desire to live to our full potential, to develop into our full selves creates the energy needed to enact the habits, attitudes, and behaviors of personal finance.

When you gain financial freedom, you have the opportunity to be the best, most energetic, loving, and generous version of You that you can possibly be. Claiming that vision of yourself, and believing that it is possible, is the first step.

“The future is in your mouth. You have to articulate the future before you can live it… Our job is to create a life worth of our breath.” - Ocean Vuong

“You’re never ready for what you have to do. You just do it. That makes you ready.” - Flora Rheta Schreiber

Commitment is an act, not a word. Further, I would argue that commitment eventually becomes not even an act, but a state of being. It’s not a thing you do; it’s who you are. To be fully committed is to allow yourself to be shaped by what you are committed to and, eventually, to become one with it. - Patricia Albere

Here’s the thing I worry about: people get a strong framework of financial literacy after taking this course and have the best intentions to act towards their new financial goals but they inevitably slide.

My real goal is to help people DO financial freedom. In this charming interview, FF1 grad Ivelisse Morales talks about starting her business, Bombilla, a creative agency for social change without realizing that she needed to carve out profit for herself. She talks about the necessity and difficulty of paying herself an entrepreneurial margin to support her own life. She talks about the idea of Profit First, giving herself permission to experience delight, and letting go of taking care of everyone else when she wasn't meeting her own needs.

Financial Freedom is really a path to personal and spiritual growth, it requires you to grow in ways you need. As Ivelisse puts it, "It is a journey and I'm only a few years in and have made a really great progress. You know it all compounds and there'll be some snowball in the future. With knowledge it makes it more accessible, approachable and less intimidating, and then with practice it becomes easier easier."

The “Millionaire Next Door” is a national study of the 3.5 million households in America with a net worth of over $1 million. 80% are first-generation wealthy, i.e. they did not inherit it. A significant percentage of them are “blue-collar wealthy,” people who own businesses that “could be classified as dull-normal…welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile home parks, pest controllers, stamp and coin dealers, and paving contractors.” The book describes at length the habits and attitudes of people who are wealthy. One important distinction the book makes: there’s a difference between making a lot of income (which is yearly gross revenue) and becoming financially wealthy (which is accumulated long-term profit in your bank account). 

In this episode, Barbara talks about her attitudes and decisions she made for her family after this lesson. In particular, she talks about forming a community of neighbors to talk about finances openly, and "the biggest lie in personal finance": that budgeting is the key to financial freedom. You need to play "great offense" and "great defense" and most people don't pay enough attention to earning more in their careers.

The intersection of race, status, and consumption is sensitive and complex. Because I teach personal finance, I’ve wrestling with what I think of all this for years. In this episode, I bring in Jessie Dunley Jr., a Black alumni of SOFF, to talk about how growing up Black and poor in Texas affected his consumption and savings habits when he became an adult.

In this episode, Jessie talks with wisdom and sensitivity about the need to buy status items for both identity and safety, the balance between taking care of family and taking care of yourself, and the hopes and dreams he has for HIS children. We'll talk about the differences in intergenerational wealth between Black, white, and Asian families, the money scripts of different people of color, and how consumption "codes" us for how people perceive us and how we want to be seen.

This is a special episode.

Emma Dotta is the youngest person to have ever taken FF1, which means that she was able to pick up financial ideas and habits very early on in her life. In this episode she talks about how she reduced the major slices of a personal budget: housing, transportation, and groceries and in that creativity, lives in nature, surrounded by community, eating the best food in the world.

Emma talks about spending in ways that make her happy: choosing high quality items that continue to give her happiness. She talks about right-sizing her farming business, not trying to grow more in order to meet other people's sense of success. This is a great episode for anyone in their 20s trying to find a sense of contentment and enoughness in their own lives.

“It is not the one who has too little, but the one who craves more, that is poor.”
― Seneca the Younger

"What is enough?" is the animating question of the entire Financial Freedom 1 course. I explore the idea of lagom, the Swedish word meaning "just the right amount with Danielle LaSusa, PhD in philosophy, coach, and writer of a book on the meaning of motherhood.

We explore the perpetual state of dissatisfaction we have under capitalism. Or is the hedonic treadmill simply the First Noble Truth, that life is suffering as we're caught on this endless cycle samsara?

We touch on the tragedy of always getting more: the bigger house, the higher paying job, the great recognition and ask: could it be any different? Is enoughness possible?