The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: clarkfan1979 on August 30, 2022, 10:22:02 AM
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Link to Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/title/81312877
Youtube link on needs, love, like and want
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFkGb79aOYc
I absolutely love the advice of focusing on needs & love, mostly because that is what I do. Because "loves" are typically more expensive, the average consumer goes for "wants" and "likes" because they are cheaper. The problem then becomes those costs prevent them from achieving "loves"
This past summer, I spent two months (May 14 - July 14) at my vacation/rental home on Kauai with my wife and son. We loved it. We had some visitors and they loved it too.
Now I'm back at my day job and I'm bringing my own lunch to work and driving a $2500 car. The two extremes don't seem to co-exist, but they do. If I upgrade my car or my lunch options, I might not have enough money to do the summer trip to Kauai. Knowing that I traded a fancy sandwich for a two month trip to Kauai would psychologically kill me.
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That's good that this is going to be included in a netflix show, but as you sort of hinted at, this is common sense when living below your means. The problem stems from a majority (I assume) of the population live above their means. If you can buy affordable housing, vehicles, and food, you are setting yourself up for success. That along with practicing self discipline.
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That's good that this is going to be included in a netflix show, but as you sort of hinted at, this is common sense when living below your means. The problem stems from a majority (I assume) of the population live above their means. If you can buy affordable housing, vehicles, and food, you are setting yourself up for success. That along with practicing self discipline.
I think the "Love over Want" dynamic is something most people miss. A majority of people know they need to pay their mortgage and buy food. And while the average retirement savings rate is too low (5%-9% into 401k), people at least have some vague idea that they should save for that.
I think it's incredibly easy to put impulse buys that don't really move the happiness meter above saving for longer term stuff that really makes a difference, like travel, education, more flexible work arrangements, etc.
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That's an interesting way to think about it. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset where they feel wasteful buying one really expensive thing that they would love because how much it could afford otherwise. I'm not saying that's the best way to see it, only that it feels very unnatural to focus strongly on saving money in other areas, only to let loose in one.
The hard part is knowing the difference between what you love and what you like. I think I would love to fly first class internationally someday, but the price is hard to swallow for something that might only be marginally better than the standard economy class. I'd have to pay first to find out. Some people think they would love to own a gigantic house, but they may come to hate it when they realize how much maintenance and cleaning it requires.
If you KNOW what you love and it happens to be expensive, I think that makes things a lot easier, though.
I wonder if some of that boils down to experiences vs. things. Some people could easily afford to fly out to see family more often and would love to, but are being held back by their excessive purchases. But that's the thing, if you have the capacity to buy what you love and are otherwise being wasteful with money, that's where you have the most room for improvement, but if you don't have that capacity at all, you're kind of SOL. And if you've never had the capacity at all, how can you be sure it's really what you love?
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It will be interesting to see if the show accurately reflects how nuanced the conversation needs to be. I need housing. As a single person, this need could be satisfied by a run down studio apartment, renting a room from a stranger, my own apartment or my own single family house (and the cost of that house can vary by a lot). I must buy groceries, but how much an individual spends on groceries could be anywhere from $100 to $500+/ mo. I would love to on a guided hike/bike/whitewater raft trip in Central America- but I'd also love to go backpacking in Colorado with a couple friends for a week.
I kind of feel like most of us here are "experts" at this thing that we think should be obvious to everyone- how to spend (or save) your money in a way that brings the most satisfaction, but it's far from obvious to most people.
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I saw that Paula Pant is one of the financial advisors in this series! Thats probably a good sign that this will be interesting.
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I saw that Paula Pant is one of the financial advisors in this series! Thats probably a good sign that this will be interesting.
Watch it again. There is a total of four coaches. Anyone else that looks familiar?
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I saw that Paula Pant is one of the financial advisors in this series! Thats probably a good sign that this will be interesting.
Watch it again. There is a total of four coaches. Anyone else that looks familiar?
How did I miss it - I just saw Mr Money Mustache himself :-)
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Anyone know a way to watch this without subscribing to Netflix?
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Thanks for the recommendation @clarkfan1979! Just put it on my watchlist, looking forward. "Post financial broke syndrome" LOL!
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If we consider this the third of a trilogy of frugality docs, with the first two being Minimalism, and Playing with FIRE, I think this one has far and away, the most promise.
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If we consider this the third of a trilogy of frugality docs, with the first two being Minimalism, and Playing with FIRE, I think this one has far and away, the most promise.
My expectations are higher for this one as well. I'm really hoping that it doesn't suck.
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For the most part I do not want what I do not have.
I’m retired and spend far less than what the financial gurus would have me spend.
I do not budget.
I do not bother myself with flowery perspectives and philosophies regarding money.
I don’t think my way is better or worse than others.
For the most part…
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Anyone know a way to watch this without subscribing to Netflix?
Ask a friend who is a subscriber for their login credentials?
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Is this currently out? MMM just posted the trailer and I was thinking it might not be released yet. I just canceled netflix and am trying to hold out on immediately resubscribing!
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I think it debuts on Tuesday, 9/6.
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Is this currently out? MMM just posted the trailer and I was thinking it might not be released yet. I just canceled netflix and am trying to hold out on immediately resubscribing!
It's out this coming Tuesday (which would be 6-Sep). There's a trailer on Netflix that I watched. Too lazy to search YouTube for a trailer. :)
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Is this currently out? MMM just posted the trailer and I was thinking it might not be released yet. I just canceled netflix and am trying to hold out on immediately resubscribing!
I don't want to subscribe to Netflix just to see this one show, but it is tempting. Perhaps discussions of it on this forum will be good enough for me.
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Is this currently out? MMM just posted the trailer and I was thinking it might not be released yet. I just canceled netflix and am trying to hold out on immediately resubscribing!
I don't want to subscribe to Netflix just to see this one show, but it is tempting. Perhaps discussions of it on this forum will be good enough for me.
I'm thinking you will probably be able to boil it down to a few catchy financial ideas. Seems like most youtube, netflix, podcasts, etc are that way. Come up with one or two key points and then stretch it over 30-90 minutes of examples and repetition.
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That's an interesting way to think about it. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset where they feel wasteful buying one really expensive thing that they would love because how much it could afford otherwise. I'm not saying that's the best way to see it, only that it feels very unnatural to focus strongly on saving money in other areas, only to let loose in one.
The hard part is knowing the difference between what you love and what you like. I think I would love to fly first class internationally someday, but the price is hard to swallow for something that might only be marginally better than the standard economy class. I'd have to pay first to find out. Some people think they would love to own a gigantic house, but they may come to hate it when they realize how much maintenance and cleaning it requires.
If you KNOW what you love and it happens to be expensive, I think that makes things a lot easier, though.
I wonder if some of that boils down to experiences vs. things. Some people could easily afford to fly out to see family more often and would love to, but are being held back by their excessive purchases. But that's the thing, if you have the capacity to buy what you love and are otherwise being wasteful with money, that's where you have the most room for improvement, but if you don't have that capacity at all, you're kind of SOL. And if you've never had the capacity at all, how can you be sure it's really what you love?
Just a note about the bolded text above, first class is not worth it. Don't get me wrong, it's great: comfortable, good food, good drinks, easy to sleep well, but it only lasts for however many hours you fly (6, 8, 12 hours). The difference in price for economy vs. first class is so much that I just didn't feel it was worth it* for so short a time (and to be honest, not a truly special experience, you're still in a plane watch the same movies and eating better, but not special, food). Those thousands of dollars can pay for something a lot better than a nicer experience when flying. Just my two cents.
* I never paid for first class. Either with miles that were otherwise expiring or company paid (a total of about 2 or 3 time).
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That's an interesting way to think about it. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset where they feel wasteful buying one really expensive thing that they would love because how much it could afford otherwise. I'm not saying that's the best way to see it, only that it feels very unnatural to focus strongly on saving money in other areas, only to let loose in one.
The hard part is knowing the difference between what you love and what you like. I think I would love to fly first class internationally someday, but the price is hard to swallow for something that might only be marginally better than the standard economy class. I'd have to pay first to find out. Some people think they would love to own a gigantic house, but they may come to hate it when they realize how much maintenance and cleaning it requires.
If you KNOW what you love and it happens to be expensive, I think that makes things a lot easier, though.
I wonder if some of that boils down to experiences vs. things. Some people could easily afford to fly out to see family more often and would love to, but are being held back by their excessive purchases. But that's the thing, if you have the capacity to buy what you love and are otherwise being wasteful with money, that's where you have the most room for improvement, but if you don't have that capacity at all, you're kind of SOL. And if you've never had the capacity at all, how can you be sure it's really what you love?
Just a note about the bolded text above, first class is not worth it. Don't get me wrong, it's great: comfortable, good food, good drinks, easy to sleep well, but it only lasts for however many hours you fly (6, 8, 12 hours). The difference in price for economy vs. first class is so much that I just didn't feel it was worth it* for so short a time (and to be honest, not a truly special experience, you're still in a plane watch the same movies and eating better, but not special, food). Those thousands of dollars can pay for something a lot better than a nicer experience when flying. Just my two cents.
* I never paid for first class. Either with miles that were otherwise expiring or company paid (a total of about 2 or 3 time).
I flew Economy Plus from Toronto to Auckland and I was so in pain (hips and knees) when we landed. And that was with a 5 hour stopover in Vancouver. If I do that again without longer layovers I will seriously consider first class. I was totally physically useless my first few days in NZ.
So I guess it depends on how long the flight is. I have flown Toronto/Palm Springs in Economy with no issues. But overseas is so much harder on the body.
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I do not do well with flying. My entire body is swollen usually for days. Jet lag is a major problem for me too.
First class definitely helps, as do the times that I have footrests, and wearing super big/comfortable shoes, etc.
That said, I just try to limit my flying whenever possible.
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That's an interesting way to think about it. I think a lot of people have a scarcity mindset where they feel wasteful buying one really expensive thing that they would love because how much it could afford otherwise. I'm not saying that's the best way to see it, only that it feels very unnatural to focus strongly on saving money in other areas, only to let loose in one.
The hard part is knowing the difference between what you love and what you like. I think I would love to fly first class internationally someday, but the price is hard to swallow for something that might only be marginally better than the standard economy class. I'd have to pay first to find out. Some people think they would love to own a gigantic house, but they may come to hate it when they realize how much maintenance and cleaning it requires.
If you KNOW what you love and it happens to be expensive, I think that makes things a lot easier, though.
I wonder if some of that boils down to experiences vs. things. Some people could easily afford to fly out to see family more often and would love to, but are being held back by their excessive purchases. But that's the thing, if you have the capacity to buy what you love and are otherwise being wasteful with money, that's where you have the most room for improvement, but if you don't have that capacity at all, you're kind of SOL. And if you've never had the capacity at all, how can you be sure it's really what you love?
Just a note about the bolded text above, first class is not worth it. Don't get me wrong, it's great: comfortable, good food, good drinks, easy to sleep well, but it only lasts for however many hours you fly (6, 8, 12 hours). The difference in price for economy vs. first class is so much that I just didn't feel it was worth it* for so short a time (and to be honest, not a truly special experience, you're still in a plane watch the same movies and eating better, but not special, food). Those thousands of dollars can pay for something a lot better than a nicer experience when flying. Just my two cents.
* I never paid for first class. Either with miles that were otherwise expiring or company paid (a total of about 2 or 3 time).
I have flown first class on Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Lihue, HI about 5 times. At one point in time I had MVP status and was upgraded to first class if they had available seats. The flight time in the air is 5.5 to 6.5 hours. You are seated on the plane for another 45-60 minutes for take-off and landing. In my opinion, I'm in much better shape when I get off the plane from first class. When talking about shorter flights (less than 2 hours of flying), I don't think I would get much value from first class.
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This is an evergreen topic of discussion but it needs a bit of clarification:
1. The term "first class" as used for domestic travel within the US is absolutely not worth it as even the longest flight is barely about 5 hours.
2. For international travel on the other hand "business class" gets you a flat bed on which you can sleep in great comfort (see attached photo of a typical business class seat on British Airways). When I was flying to Asia several times a year to look after elderly ailing parents, I always flew in business class. Business class typically costs about 3 times economy fare but on a 14 hour non-stop flight, you come to really value the ability to stretch out and sleep.
The way I look at it is this: if there is some exciting fun adventure waiting for me when I land, I am happy to take regular economy. But I consider having to deal with difficult family situations as work, not pleasure. So I used to treat myself to business class.
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Back on topic...
I just watched the movie. I liked how there were four very different situations but in the end it was just a tiny taster of financial literacy. I liked the fairly strong message of stop spending money on crap you don't need. But I don't feel like anyone needing investing help would get enough from it to give them the confidence. It didn't really explain how early retirement is possible to someone who doesn't already know the shocking simple math etc. But it might be quite useful to someone getting out of debt to give them a few tools.
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It just popped up on German Netflix today so I'll probably take a look at the weekend. I assume the target audience is not people who would, for example, be long-standing members of this forum. The baby steps you need to start with for the ubiquitous man on the street tend to be very, very baby. I'm interested to see how I find it.
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The Guardian reviewer didn't think much of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/sep/06/get-smart-with-money-review-martin-lewis-could-teach-these-financial-experts-a-thing-or-two
Martin Lewis is a UK financial adviser who started a very successful financial web site https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/.
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Back on topic...
I just watched the movie. I liked how there were four very different situations but in the end it was just a tiny taster of financial literacy. I liked the fairly strong message of stop spending money on crap you don't need. But I don't feel like anyone needing investing help would get enough from it to give them the confidence. It didn't really explain how early retirement is possible to someone who doesn't already know the shocking simple math etc. But it might be quite useful to someone getting out of debt to give them a few tools.
I just watched the movie. Overall, I liked it. Four different stories with four different coaches. The female artist story was probably the most inspiring for me. She was only able to pursue her passion/side hustle after she figured out a way to save some money from her W-2.
MMM was helping a family that scaled their income from 70K to 150K to 300K in 2 years and they are going to retire in 5 years. I loved the content, but I wish their income was closer to 120K and they had a 10 year plan because I think that would resonate more with the average family. They sold their house and bought a smaller house with an extra unit for airbnb.com. I wish they could have focused more on their new lower housing expense. It was stated that the old house was $3000/month. However, there was no mention of the cost of the new house. If the new house payment is $2000/month with $2000/income from airbnb.com, it is very possible for their new housing cost to be zero cost. I wish that was shared.
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I just watched the movie. Overall, I liked it. Four different stories with four different coaches. The female artist story was probably the most inspiring for me. She was only able to pursue her passion/side hustle after she figured out a way to save some money from her W-2.
MMM was helping a family that scaled their income from 70K to 150K to 300K in 2 years and they are going to retire in 5 years. I loved the content, but I wish their income was closer to 120K and they had a 10 year plan because I think that would resonate more with the average family. They sold their house and bought a smaller house with an extra unit for airbnb.com. I wish they could have focused more on their new lower housing expense. It was stated that the old house was $3000/month. However, there was no mention of the cost of the new house. If the new house payment is $2000/month with $2000/income from airbnb.com, it is very possible for their new housing cost to be zero cost. I wish that was shared.
I am most of the way through watching the movie. The one thing that stands out is how much the four subjects just completely avoid thinking about money. In a general sense the coaches have a fairly straight forward task - just get them to think about money in terms of inflows and outflows. It also helps that the subjects are receptive to being coached!
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I just watched the movie. Overall, I liked it. Four different stories with four different coaches. The female artist story was probably the most inspiring for me. She was only able to pursue her passion/side hustle after she figured out a way to save some money from her W-2.
MMM was helping a family that scaled their income from 70K to 150K to 300K in 2 years and they are going to retire in 5 years. I loved the content, but I wish their income was closer to 120K and they had a 10 year plan because I think that would resonate more with the average family. They sold their house and bought a smaller house with an extra unit for airbnb.com. I wish they could have focused more on their new lower housing expense. It was stated that the old house was $3000/month. However, there was no mention of the cost of the new house. If the new house payment is $2000/month with $2000/income from airbnb.com, it is very possible for their new housing cost to be zero cost. I wish that was shared.
I am most of the way through watching the movie. The one thing that stands out is how much the four subjects just completely avoid thinking about money. In a general sense the coaches have a fairly straight forward task - just get them to think about money in terms of inflows and outflows. It also helps that the subjects are receptive to being coached!
Yes I think the researchers / casting team definitely found the right people.
The review @bill1827 posted above seems pretty accurate. I agree that the best story was the artist who got to art.
There's little more than the basics in terms of pointers. But if you are ready for more than the basics there wasn't enough detail. The movie might have value in just showing people that money is nothing to be scared of or ignored. Just sort of pique their interest to find out more, look up those experts, sort out their own finances.
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This will most likely be a Wednesday night viewing activity. I’m looking forward to seeing.
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I enjoyed it. Clearly too basic for those of us who are FI or have made great strides toward FI, but I think the show will be helpful in getting people to begin thinking about how they spend their money. Really love that this is on a platform like Netflix.
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I enjoyed it. Clearly too basic for those of us who are FI or have made great strides toward FI, but I think the show will be helpful in getting people to begin thinking about how they spend their money. Really love that this is on a platform like Netflix.
+1. This sums up my feelings.
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I've been on the frugality train for a while now and my wife has mostly just been along for the ride. She's rarely ever looked at anything on this site and sometimes I feel like she just tolerates it when I talk money. So I was very happy that she suggested we watch this last night.
From her perspective, I think the documentary felt very HGTVish. Some things felt staged and it was rather convenient that Teez just so happened to make the team right on time. But that aside, I think it opened her eyes to what I've been banging the drum about all this time. She was blown away by how much some people spend on certain things. Based on our discussion afterwards, I think she's more on board now.
To me, the makers glossed over a lot of important money matters. I think it was interesting to see four different coaches and their angles on money though. IMO, some advice sucked like asking the artist to consider looking into NFTs. Some advice was good like having a family downsize their home because it was too costly. Some stories felt relatable to most Americans in that we had a couple people struggling with student loan and credit card debt. Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
Anyway, it was a great impetus to review my finances and ensure I'm being as efficient as possible. This is something I'll do this month.
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I've been on the frugality train for a while now and my wife has mostly just been along for the ride. She's rarely ever looked at anything on this site and sometimes I feel like she just tolerates it when I talk money. So I was very happy that she suggested we watch this last night.
From her perspective, I think the documentary felt very HGTVish. Some things felt staged and it was rather convenient that Teez just so happened to make the team right on time. But that aside, I think it opened her eyes to what I've been banging the drum about all this time. She was blown away by how much some people spend on certain things. Based on our discussion afterwards, I think she's more on board now.
To me, the makers glossed over a lot of important money matters. I think it was interesting to see four different coaches and their angles on money though. IMO, some advice sucked like asking the artist to consider looking into NFTs. Some advice was good like having a family downsize their home because it was too costly. Some stories felt relatable to most Americans in that we had a couple people struggling with student loan and credit card debt. Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
Anyway, it was a great impetus to review my finances and ensure I'm being as efficient as possible. This is something I'll do this month.
I think you are correct about the NFL player. It's not relatable. I think the purpose was to show that even NFL players have money problems.
I love to talk money on this forum and listen/watch money related podcasts. Beyond that, I don't really talk about it much in my real life. My son is 5, so maybe when he gets older I will try to give him advice and talk about it more.
In my opinion, people who struggle to pay their bills talk about money much more often. It dominates their thoughts and behaviors because if they make a mistake there are large consequences. My wife and I have enough money for everything that we want. We created a plan and we are pretty much on autopilot. There really isn't much to discuss.
My retired parents talk and complain about money constantly and it's annoying. They accuse the other person of overspending and won't ever come to a mutual agreement on a budget. It's been that way forever. They want us to join in and complain about money but we don't because we don't have anything to complain about.
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IMO, some advice sucked like asking the artist to consider looking into NFTs
Oh god. I can't believe Paula Pant is still huckstering crypto junk. All her advice just seemed kind of similarly sleazy bumper sticker logic like "There's a limit to how much you can cut, but there's no limit to how much you can make!!!".
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
Wow, I did miss that.
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I watched the first half-hour or so yesterday after work. I remember watching Teez Tabor play (against my favorite team) in college. The trope of millionaire athletes from humble beginnings making it big, then blowing it all is interesting to me. I've seen it a hundred times with varying outcomes. I think it's rare, but perhaps becoming more common, for them to realize that the money faucet won't run forever and to be concerned enough about it to reach out for help. I think his focus is in the right place...looking to secure a future for his wife and daughter. He's young enough that he could still end up getting some decent paydays from the NFL...so maybe he will have learned enough from this process to invest wisely and spend thoughtfully.
I had less sympathy for the lady that paid off all of her credit cards (can't remember if that was a consolidation loan?) only to max them out again. She seemed to me to be more of the mindset that this was something that happened to her...not something that she willingly and actively did herself. Her husband is working overtime regularly just to make ends meet and she's just been spending. It made me eyeroll hard when she said that she'd tried every sort of budget there was and nothing worked...while continuing to spend on her credit cards and put herself deeper into debt.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
A quick internet search tells me the practice squad salary is not paid during the offseason (or any weeks you're not actively practicing with the team, for that matter). It's really a week-by-week thing where you can get cut any time. It's therefore more of a $200k/year gig (at best) than a $500k one. Nobody makes it to FIRE on an NFL practice squad. Within a couple years you'll either prove yourself worthy of a real roster spot or you'll be forced out of the league and need to start a different career.
The phenomenon of pro athletes blowing all the money is real. The average NFL rookie will play in the league for about three years. The ones who stay in for a decade will be set for life if they have even a tiny bit of financial sense. In the much more typical case of someone who makes the league minimum and washes out after a year or two, the NFL will not be a road to riches. If they're FIRE-minded from the start they'll be partway to a lean FIRE after one year, maybe getting close after two. If they're not, well...it's pretty easy to blow much of an NFL rookie salary on a nice car and some fancy vacations, and if an injury cuts your career short you have to start all over after becoming hedonically adapted to the high life.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
The NFL season is pro-rated into an 18-week season, so he was making 180K/year at 10K/week.
The minimum salary for someone on an NFL roster with 2 years experience in 2021 was 895K/year, which is 49.7K/week.
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The phenomenon of pro athletes blowing all the money is real. The average NFL rookie will play in the league for about three years. The ones who stay in for a decade will be set for life if they have even a tiny bit of financial sense. In the much more typical case of someone who makes the league minimum and washes out after a year or two, the NFL will not be a road to riches. If they're FIRE-minded from the start they'll be partway to a lean FIRE after one year, maybe getting close after two. If they're not, well...it's pretty easy to blow much of an NFL rookie salary on a nice car and some fancy vacations, and if an injury cuts your career short you have to start all over after becoming hedonically adapted to the high life.
The ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "Broke" does a pretty good job of diving into this issue. Spoiler Alert: it is a multilayered problem with issues coming from all sides.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
A quick internet search tells me the practice squad salary is not paid during the offseason (or any weeks you're not actively practicing with the team, for that matter). It's really a week-by-week thing where you can get cut any time. It's therefore more of a $200k/year gig (at best) than a $500k one. Nobody makes it to FIRE on an NFL practice squad. Within a couple years you'll either prove yourself worthy of a real roster spot or you'll be forced out of the league and need to start a different career.
The phenomenon of pro athletes blowing all the money is real. The average NFL rookie will play in the league for about three years. The ones who stay in for a decade will be set for life if they have even a tiny bit of financial sense. In the much more typical case of someone who makes the league minimum and washes out after a year or two, the NFL will not be a road to riches. If they're FIRE-minded from the start they'll be partway to a lean FIRE after one year, maybe getting close after two. If they're not, well...it's pretty easy to blow much of an NFL rookie salary on a nice car and some fancy vacations, and if an injury cuts your career short you have to start all over after becoming hedonically adapted to the high life.
It's pretty interesting that MLB players typically do not go broke. The average position player, makes their major league debut at 24.4 years old. For pitchers it's 25.3 years old. I think the average number of minor league seasons before their debut is around 6. While different players get different levels of money as a signing bonus, everyone makes the same amount as a minor leaguer, which isn't much. It's a long season and $500/week.
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I thought it was definitely aimed at the "newbie" crowd who struggles with blowing their entire paychecks and comprehending things like stock indices or CC interest. Yet the following breadcrumbs offer areas for further exploration for the "advanced" MMMer:
1) Tiffany Aliche's concept of Needs, Loves, Likes, and Wants: This is an interesting framework I'm going to explore further. The idea is we routinely sacrifice our needs and loves for the sake of short term dopamine hits from likes and wants. Thus our homes end up full of plastic garbage that we "like" and "want" but for these things we sacrifice our "needs" for financial stability and our "loves" of what we could do with our lives were we not on a consumerism treadmill. I find this paradigm highly motivational. It explains so much.
2) The cinematography is full of passive-aggressive silent facepunches to laugh at, like when the person who struggles with credit card temptations buys a latte at Target and brags about how they only went off-list on a couple of things, or the zoom-ins on the going-broke NFL player's bling and Range Rover, or the look on MMM's face when his couple is proud they got their spending down to a mere $100k/year. The director seems to get our sense of face punching humor at some level. It's too obvious to have happened by chance.
3) The documentary exposes us to a wide range of scenarios, and offers itself as a lesson in how to talk to friends, spouses, or loved ones in each situation. I think we sometimes get super technical and analytical on this forum and become the professors who couldn't successfully teach a classroom of first graders.
a) The broke high-salary / high-spender
b) The emotion-driven impulse spender
c) The "trapped in my dead end job" creative type who isn't into analysis
d) The family who sees spending money as the solution to most problems
4) A chance to reconsider some of the fundamental personal finance concepts we "advanced" mustachians think are too basic for us, such as automation of separate accounts for bills, spending, and savings, elimination of credit cards, budget spreadsheets, cooking, etc. I know I've slipped away from these fundamentals under the assumption that I don't need them anymore, and habit will suffice. But I bet I could squeeze out a couple thousand dollars worth of value by picking these habits back up.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
A quick internet search tells me the practice squad salary is not paid during the offseason (or any weeks you're not actively practicing with the team, for that matter). It's really a week-by-week thing where you can get cut any time. It's therefore more of a $200k/year gig (at best) than a $500k one. Nobody makes it to FIRE on an NFL practice squad. Within a couple years you'll either prove yourself worthy of a real roster spot or you'll be forced out of the league and need to start a different career.
The phenomenon of pro athletes blowing all the money is real. The average NFL rookie will play in the league for about three years. The ones who stay in for a decade will be set for life if they have even a tiny bit of financial sense. In the much more typical case of someone who makes the league minimum and washes out after a year or two, the NFL will not be a road to riches. If they're FIRE-minded from the start they'll be partway to a lean FIRE after one year, maybe getting close after two. If they're not, well...it's pretty easy to blow much of an NFL rookie salary on a nice car and some fancy vacations, and if an injury cuts your career short you have to start all over after becoming hedonically adapted to the high life.
It's pretty interesting that MLB players typically do not go broke. The average position player, makes their major league debut at 24.4 years old. For pitchers it's 25.3 years old. I think the average number of minor league seasons before their debut is around 6. While different players get different levels of money as a signing bonus, everyone makes the same amount as a minor leaguer, which isn't much. It's a long season and $500/week.
I don't have the stats on this (I don't know if they're out there), but I imagine you'd get similar numbers to the other major sports if you expand the scope to include everyone who is drafted/signed and doesn't ever make it to the Majors. The road from amateur to big leaguer is longer in baseball than any other sport, and the minor league population is much larger (616 players were drafted in 2022, compared to 262 for the NFL and 58 for the NBA). The 109th pick in this year's MLB Draft got a $3.7 million signing bonus.* The 109th-best basketball amateur is already working some other job.
For the majority of prospects, these signing bonuses are their best/only payday. Include them in the consideration and I'm sure just as many blow through it as in other sports.
Then there's demographics. Other sports are probably catching up, but US players generally come from affluent backgrounds because baseball's not a cheap sport to play. Americans aren't the ones who grew up hitting rolled-up socks with sticks and catching them with gloves made of cardboard anymore.
Plus, MLB has long-term, guaranteed contracts, so once you make it and are good enough to warrant a multi-year deal, you're going to get paid even if you get hurt.
I think all this can explain why MLB players tend not to go broke.
*To be fair, the draft doesn't exactly go in order due to signability concerns; teams are reluctant to use a high pick on a high school player likely to go to college instead of signing, meaning the 109th pick is not necessarily the 109th-best prospect/worthy of the 109th-best bonus. For perspective, the 101st pick got a $925,000 bonus.
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I probably got more chuckles out of it than anything else ... especially from the NJ lady in credit card debt. I was surprised how fast she paid it off, did they say her income? I could see some of the target audience complaining that all 4 cases were couples and income didn't seem to be a problem (Maybe the artist/chef were outliers there?) The other part that made me chuckle was the line about "you know some relationships struggle because one person is more frugal than the other" ... I wondered if we were gonna go THERE, but alas we jumped off that topic quickly. I think that discussion would have helped folks. I don't know everything about MMM but I was wanting more "face punches". I get that this is an intro movie, but that family's budget getting DOWN to $10k didn't exactly seem like an achievement, he could've been portrayed as a LITTLE more critical of their spending.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
You missed the extra zero, $520,000/year is pretty good. But there are athletes who really do blow through everything, and plenty of people who are on the downswing income-wise, so I could see where it would be a good case study. Essentially personifying the windfall situation.
A quick internet search tells me the practice squad salary is not paid during the offseason (or any weeks you're not actively practicing with the team, for that matter). It's really a week-by-week thing where you can get cut any time. It's therefore more of a $200k/year gig (at best) than a $500k one. Nobody makes it to FIRE on an NFL practice squad. Within a couple years you'll either prove yourself worthy of a real roster spot or you'll be forced out of the league and need to start a different career.
The phenomenon of pro athletes blowing all the money is real. The average NFL rookie will play in the league for about three years. The ones who stay in for a decade will be set for life if they have even a tiny bit of financial sense. In the much more typical case of someone who makes the league minimum and washes out after a year or two, the NFL will not be a road to riches. If they're FIRE-minded from the start they'll be partway to a lean FIRE after one year, maybe getting close after two. If they're not, well...it's pretty easy to blow much of an NFL rookie salary on a nice car and some fancy vacations, and if an injury cuts your career short you have to start all over after becoming hedonically adapted to the high life.
It's pretty interesting that MLB players typically do not go broke. The average position player, makes their major league debut at 24.4 years old. For pitchers it's 25.3 years old. I think the average number of minor league seasons before their debut is around 6. While different players get different levels of money as a signing bonus, everyone makes the same amount as a minor leaguer, which isn't much. It's a long season and $500/week.
I don't have the stats on this (I don't know if they're out there), but I imagine you'd get similar numbers to the other major sports if you expand the scope to include everyone who is drafted/signed and doesn't ever make it to the Majors. The road from amateur to big leaguer is longer in baseball than any other sport, and the minor league population is much larger (616 players were drafted in 2022, compared to 262 for the NFL and 58 for the NBA). The 109th pick in this year's MLB Draft got a $3.7 million signing bonus.* The 109th-best basketball amateur is already working some other job.
For the majority of prospects, these signing bonuses are their best/only payday. Include them in the consideration and I'm sure just as many blow through it as in other sports.
Then there's demographics. Other sports are probably catching up, but US players generally come from affluent backgrounds because baseball's not a cheap sport to play. Americans aren't the ones who grew up hitting rolled-up socks with sticks and catching them with gloves made of cardboard anymore.
Plus, MLB has long-term, guaranteed contracts, so once you make it and are good enough to warrant a multi-year deal, you're going to get paid even if you get hurt.
I think all this can explain why MLB players tend not to go broke.
*To be fair, the draft doesn't exactly go in order due to signability concerns; teams are reluctant to use a high pick on a high school player likely to go to college instead of signing, meaning the 109th pick is not necessarily the 109th-best prospect/worthy of the 109th-best bonus. For perspective, the 101st pick got a $925,000 bonus.
The MLB draft has gotten really complicated after they introduced the slot value system, which I think first started in 2012.
When a player gets drafted into the MLB, they know it's going to take 3-6 years to make it to the majors and their weekly checks are $500. I think it's pretty easy for them to realize that they are not getting any additional fast money anytime soon.
After the NFL draft, they play immediately and get the big checks, but the money is not guaranteed. It's true that the big stars are starting to get more guaranteed money. However, 90% of the NFL players contracts are not guaranteed. If they get hurt and get released, the checks stop immediately.
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Watched it. Didn't love it for the reason why I dislike a lot of modern documentaries. Why do these documentaries all insist on adding,
1.) Vlogging segments
2.) Instagram/TikTok style portrait mode video
3.) Text message/Twitter pop ups on screen
I sit down to watch a feature documentary on my big TV. Why are we trying to simulate the horrible experience of being on your phone?
All that is superficial though. My biggest issue were the coaches. Everyone except for MMM seemed inauthentic. And MMM had the easiest job. A family grossing $300K with $156K of annual spend. Not that bad. That couple seemed a little insincere anyway. Like, they didn't need help, and they knew they didn't need help.
So you had three insincere coaches and one insincere case study. Shoulda been MMM coaching the three sincere people. But the other coaches have stronger personalities so I get why they did it the way they did.
I think these kinds of docs just aren't for me. I thought the Netflix series, "Money Explained" was quite good though. Less reliant on personal stories with a three act structure and more history/information dense.
Clearly I'm not the target audience of any of this since I already know all there is to know about personal finance. But certain things just make me cringe. Like Ro$$ doing the "When it goes down, not if." explanation to Teez near the end of the doc. That should have been covered upfront. And I'm sure it was, and it's just editing that makes it come at the end. But it irked me.
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I watched this with my daughters. We liked the arty young woman in Austin who was working hard to overcome her struggles, and doing her best to create interesting work for herself. Older DD could relate. It was fun to see MMM, and he was true to his brand encouraging the white, high-earning couple with small kids to optimize groceries, DIY, downsize to a property with a STR and so forth. They were likable and curiously the only couple out of all 4 profiles to work together. How come we didn't see much of emotional-spender CC debt's partner? Or the partner of the NFL player (who was very interesting); or much of the partner of Austin creative other than in the final segment when they were cooking together.
Overall it seemed like a decent primer to avoid debt/get out of debt/spend lower than your means/create the life you want, targeted to the masses. Some simple math is shown on things like what $60K of pleasure spend could mean invested in the S&P, for example.
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I watched this with my daughters. We liked the arty young woman in Austin who was working hard to overcome her struggles, and doing her best to create interesting work for herself. Older DD could relate. It was fun to see MMM, and he was true to his brand encouraging the white, high-earning couple with small kids to optimize groceries, DIY, downsize to a property with a STR and so forth. They were likable and curiously the only couple out of all 4 profiles to work together. How come we didn't see much of emotional-spender CC debt's partner? Or the partner of the NFL player (who was very interesting); or much of the partner of Austin creative other than in the final segment when they were cooking together.
Overall it seemed like a decent primer to avoid debt/get out of debt/spend lower than your means/create the life you want, targeted to the masses. Some simple math is shown on things like what $60K of pleasure spend could mean invested in the S&P, for example.
I guess the unmarried people’s finances were not merged? Or it could have been a director’s decision to appeal to audiences whose finances are not merged, or the CFO of a married/merged household where the other partner tells them to handle the money.
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Started watching the doc, learned something in the first few minutes. I did not know that Amazon had a cellphone app. Like that just never occurred to me, if I want something on amazon I go to the desktop and read up on what I want then sometimes put it into a wish list to wait a few days to make sure I really want it. The idea that people would just buy stuff on a phone like with no delay or real thought just did not enter my head space.
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Started watching the doc, learned something in the first few minutes. I did not know that Amazon had a cellphone app. Like that just never occurred to me, if I want something on amazon I go to the desktop and read up on what I want then sometimes put it into a wish list to wait a few days to make sure I really want it. The idea that people would just buy stuff on a phone like with no delay or real thought just did not enter my head space.
Its striking how much impulse shopping happens on Amazon and Target. Both in this movie and in Ramit Sethi's podcast (https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/i-will-teach-you-to-be-rich-podcast-v/), many people seem to have racked up huge credit debt from these two retailers.
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BTW Tiffany Aliche & MMM did a Q&A on Twitter yesterday regarding the documentary
https://twitter.com/TheBudgetnista/status/1569086837704036352?s=20&t=kwKE-TzPaqhk6s4cGIJ5Dg
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Hmm. I see the criticisms but still want to check it out. I do wish they included some more lower income people in it.
As far as loves, I used to be kind of obsessed with gemstones and jewelry. I just liked bright and shiny objects. Anyways long story short, after I divorced I had gotten rid of the ring associated with that (it wasn't the original ring, and it was purchased during a time it gave me a bad taste in my mouth). Once I was officially divorced I decided to make myself a 3 stone diamond ring. Part of me felt like this was crazy. But I admit having something that was exactly what I wanted, and so luxurious and beautiful, prevented many other impulse buys of lesser items during that time. Anyways my gemstone and jewelry bug finally has lessened, and I don't know why. Or maybe for me I'd realized I'd rather have 1-3 nice pieces, and as I have those pieces I don't need to search anymore.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
For those who don't follow the NFL, Teez was signed from Atlanta's practice squad to the active roster of the Seattle Seahawks. His weekly goes from about $15K to probably $56K (minimum NFL salary for a 2 year veteran). I think this week he has to be on the active roster making the higher salary then Seattle may be able to put him on their practice squad making the $15K again. Of course, none of his salary is guaranteed.
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
For those who don't follow the NFL, Teez was signed from Atlanta's practice squad to the active roster of the Seattle Seahawks. His weekly goes from about $15K to probably $56K (minimum NFL salary for a 2 year veteran). I think this week he has to be on the active roster making the higher salary then Seattle may be able to put him on their practice squad making the $15K again. Of course, none of his salary is guaranteed.
I have to admit it was underwhelming at the end of the documentary when Teez had saved a whopping $40k while his salary was five figures PER WEEK. I don't know how long he had that salary at that point in the documentary, but it came across like maybe he was saving 10% of his salary or something. If I was him, I'd get to $2M invested ASAP because he's one twisted ankle away from being a clerk or a janitor.
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I actually watched it twice because I was so puzzled by the high-earning family's spending. After cutting their spending, they were still at $10k per month ($7k not counting the mortgage) which seems crazy high without daycare and with a SAHP to meal prep. That was about the same as the football player (I'm assuming because he had a little over $200k saved and Ross told him that would last him 2 years at his spending level) but the football player had visibly more expensive cars, jewelry, vacations, accessories, etc.
Overall I enjoyed the documentary - they picked a good mix of people to cover and I appreciate how open they all were about their finances (just wish there was more detail on their spending!).
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Others were not relatable at all, like having a business where you can essentially conduct virtual sessions for $300k/yr or where you're sad that you "only" made the practice squad of one of the most elite sports teams in the world at $10k/week. Variety is good, but Teez's story in particular is so unrelatable that I don't know why it was included other than to make people feel better that even millionaire athletes have issues.
$10k/week is only $52k/year, which isn't exactly big bucks.
I think the point of the documentary is to get a little of everything, so that everyone has someone they can relate to. An athlete who blew through his initial contract might be relatable to anyone who received a large windfall.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
For those who don't follow the NFL, Teez was signed from Atlanta's practice squad to the active roster of the Seattle Seahawks. His weekly goes from about $15K to probably $56K (minimum NFL salary for a 2 year veteran). I think this week he has to be on the active roster making the higher salary then Seattle may be able to put him on their practice squad making the $15K again. Of course, none of his salary is guaranteed.
I have to admit it was underwhelming at the end of the documentary when Teez had saved a whopping $40k while his salary was five figures PER WEEK. I don't know how long he had that salary at that point in the documentary, but it came across like maybe he was saving 10% of his salary or something. If I was him, I'd get to $2M invested ASAP because he's one twisted ankle away from being a clerk or a janitor.
Unless I missed it in the show, I don't think he has anything close to 2 million in the bank. After the agent fee and income taxes, I estimated his take home pay to be around 2.65 million since 2017. Below is my best estimate of his earnings.
2017 & 2018: 2.33 million guaranteed + 1.64 signing bonus = 3.97 million
Agent gets 10% of the top. Then after federal and state income tax, he is left with about 2.2 million.
2019: 16 weeks on the practice squad = 160K.
After agent and income taxes = 104K
2020: Did not play (injury). Zero income.
2021: 8 weeks on practice squad (80K) and 10 weeks on active roster (500k) = 580K
After agent and income taxes = 343K
As of September 15th (2 days ago), he is now on the Seattle Seahawks active roster, which someone else said is 56K/week.
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I thought it said the agent gets 40%?
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I thought it said the agent gets 40%?
I'm not a professional athlete, but I'm pretty sure that agents do not collect 40%. More than likely, it's 10% for the agent and then 30% for income taxes for a total of 40%.
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I actually watched it twice because I was so puzzled by the high-earning family's spending. After cutting their spending, they were still at $10k per month ($7k not counting the mortgage) which seems crazy high without daycare and with a SAHP to meal prep. That was about the same as the football player (I'm assuming because he had a little over $200k saved and Ross told him that would last him 2 years at his spending level) but the football player had visibly more expensive cars, jewelry, vacations, accessories, etc.
Overall I enjoyed the documentary - they picked a good mix of people to cover and I appreciate how open they all were about their finances (just wish there was more detail on their spending!).
Did you figure out how the spend that much? I guess two car payments and averaged out two vacations per year (got to go see the mouse!!!) plus general consumption mind set could get you to 7k/mom.
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I enjoyed this documentary quite a bit. All of the 4 case studies resonated with me somewhat for different reasons.
The Teez Tabor story clearly stuck some viewers as un-relatable, but for me it was really important. Loved the "you better save most of that money 'cause you might never get a job that good again" message. He was actually in the most precarious situation of everyone at the start. Very high bills, no current income, a line of work where you will more-likely-than-not get hurt and be done forever in an instant, didn't finish school & didn't have a back up plan, feeling regret to have wasted the money when he had it flowing, and a family who depended on him . . . all of that is some pretty big stress.
Sports and many other demanding manual labor jobs are like this: young strong men make it "big" for a short period of time doing work most people can't or won't do, only the youngest and strongest can even get hired for the work, then bodies get trashed and they are involuntarily "medically retired" to zero income before they know what hit them. The worst hurt end up drawing a pittance of social security disability because they couldn't work long enough to quality for even moderate-sized payments. To be honest, unless he really took that advice to heart Teez Tabor may still be in a precarious situation, and I wish him the best. There are a lot of young men who will benefit from watching it, and I'm glad it was included.
Ariana with the giant student loans and giant credit card debt is going to resonate with tons of people. For example, I just listened to a college financial aid counselor merrily verbally push a loan that isn't even needed: the particular student literally has tuition/fees & housing paid for and the "helpful counselor" was STILL trying to get him to take out a couple thousand in loans to buy their overpriced campus meal plan that isn't even required. "It is part of the aid package and it's super easy to just get that money you need with this "guaranteed" student loan. Barely an inconvenience. This is what you should do." Infuriating. The student had even checked "I will not take out loans" on the FA application and then had rejected the loans when they were presented as part of "the package." Yet the pushing of the loans persisted. Huh. I mean, do they get kick backs or something?
So while we on the MMM board can sit back and blame Ariana for bad decisions in the past, the fact of the matter is that there is a powerful marketing machine in the US. That marketing machine pushes, pushes, pushes student loans, car loans, credit card debt, automatic renewals for subscriptions, and other borrowing as a super easy and convenient "smart decision" that solves problems. It convinces a lot of people that borrowing is a good idea. And then a lot of people get in over their heads, just like Ariana, and start to feel hopeless because they've gotten into a cycle of paying hundreds or even thousands of dollar a month just on unsecured consumer debt interest.
Many people don't even realize they are in the cycle for awhile . . . because they don't look at the statements, which the card companies, hospital systems, car insurance companies, etc. actively encourage by pushing the "paperless" option! At least back in the day when people got big heavy bills in the physical mail they got a monthly reminder. Now the indebted don't even have to be inconvenienced by having that pesky physical bill arrive as a reminder that their money was spent long before it was earned! Yeah, I support that it is more environmentally friendly, but that is not the main driver behind the corporate pushing of the paperless billing options.
I hope that the documentary gave people enough information to look up MMM and the others, where they will hopefully be able to build from there.
I agree with this, and I'm sure it will get at least a few young people realizing that they need to think about their money and figure out a plan. I liked that each of the advisors had different ways to frame the same basic approaches (cut your stupid spending, pay yourself first, invest for the long term, etc.) The focus on needs and then loves (forget likes and wants) was a new gem for me from this documentary. I feel like it is the core of the MMM message, but phrased in a different way by a different person and this time it really resonated with me.
And, of course, loved it when MMM micro-winced at the couple's continued very high monthly spend, and then politely pointed out that the $36K in totally frivolous annual spending they had proudly "cut back" is what most families manage to completely live on for a year. Bravo.
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I actually watched it twice because I was so puzzled by the high-earning family's spending. After cutting their spending, they were still at $10k per month ($7k not counting the mortgage) which seems crazy high without daycare and with a SAHP to meal prep. That was about the same as the football player (I'm assuming because he had a little over $200k saved and Ross told him that would last him 2 years at his spending level) but the football player had visibly more expensive cars, jewelry, vacations, accessories, etc.
Overall I enjoyed the documentary - they picked a good mix of people to cover and I appreciate how open they all were about their finances (just wish there was more detail on their spending!).
Did you figure out how the spend that much? I guess two car payments and averaged out two vacations per year (got to go see the mouse!!!) plus general consumption mind set could get you to 7k/mom.
I didn't figure it out. It's so confounding to me because their house, furnishings, car, clothes, jewelry look normal to me (no offense meant, and I live in a VHCOL city so there are many high earners around me) but our non-mortgage spending is half of theirs. Nearly all the kid stuff I have I got for free, but even if I paid for it, that wouldn't add up to thousands of dollars per month. It can't be going to Amazon purchases because they'd be swimming in stuff. Their Costa Rica vacation rental seemed modest too. They didn't mention having any debt besides the mortgage. I guess it could be something like medical treatments or therapy not covered by insurance, or financially supporting extended family.
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I thought it said the agent gets 40%?
I'm not a professional athlete, but I'm pretty sure that agents do not collect 40%. More than likely, it's 10% for the agent and then 30% for income taxes for a total of 40%.
NFL agents are among the lower paid among sports agents at 4 percent commish or less (not 40, not 10, four). Baseball agents are at 5 percent. That's because NFL players go straight from college to the NFL and NFL agents don't have to deal with several years of non-income as their player cycles through the minor leagues.
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I thought it said the agent gets 40%?
I'm not a professional athlete, but I'm pretty sure that agents do not collect 40%. More than likely, it's 10% for the agent and then 30% for income taxes for a total of 40%.
NFL agents are among the lower paid among sports agents at 4 percent commish or less (not 40, not 10, four). Baseball agents are at 5 percent. That's because NFL players go straight from college to the NFL and NFL agents don't have to deal with several years of non-income as their player cycles through the minor leagues.
Thanks for the info. I found a Forbes article from 2020. I copied and pasted below.
"Agent fees are typically capped and regulated by the players associations, with the top commissions allowed by FIFA (10%) and Major League Baseball (5%), which gives a ranking advantage to soccer and baseball agents. The NHL and NBA both allow fees to hit 4%, and the NFL caps them at 3%."
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^I'm glad the agent fees are capped, or who knows how much of the new kids' money the agents would try to take?!
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Is this currently out? MMM just posted the trailer and I was thinking it might not be released yet. I just canceled netflix and am trying to hold out on immediately resubscribing!
I don't want to subscribe to Netflix just to see this one show, but it is tempting. Perhaps discussions of it on this forum will be good enough for me.
I'm pretty sure you can cancel within 30 days and get a full refund.
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I watched this last night. It was well done, but no new info for anyone who is an MMM regular.
Netflix comes free with my phone plan. I watch occasionally, but nowhere near enough to be worth paying for if it weren't included.
My suggestion for folks who don't currently have Netflix would be to wait until you see a good promo or coupon for it; Black Friday/Cyber Monday should have something if they don't run a promo before that.
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This thread reminded me to cancel my 30 day free trial. Amazon tried to get me to extend another 30 days. Luckily I was reminded two days before I was charged $14.99 or maybe it was $15.99. I didn't renew the free trial. I'd just forget and then get charged.
Thanks!
Now to watch the movie.
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I watched the first half-hour or so yesterday after work. I remember watching Teez Tabor play (against my favorite team) in college. The trope of millionaire athletes from humble beginnings making it big, then blowing it all is interesting to me. I've seen it a hundred times with varying outcomes. I think it's rare, but perhaps becoming more common, for them to realize that the money faucet won't run forever and to be concerned enough about it to reach out for help. I think his focus is in the right place...looking to secure a future for his wife and daughter. He's young enough that he could still end up getting some decent paydays from the NFL...so maybe he will have learned enough from this process to invest wisely and spend thoughtfully.
I had less sympathy for the lady that paid off all of her credit cards (can't remember if that was a consolidation loan?) only to max them out again. She seemed to me to be more of the mindset that this was something that happened to her...not something that she willingly and actively did herself. Her husband is working overtime regularly just to make ends meet and she's just been spending. It made me eyeroll hard when she said that she'd tried every sort of budget there was and nothing worked...while continuing to spend on her credit cards and put herself deeper into debt.
Yeah. I was wondering what she was even doing in Target, she shouldn't need a thing. And the caramel macchiato made me shake my head. My hair is on fire, what I need is a macchiato.
I wonder if it's really landed for her that if it wasn't for her husband, who is steadfastly working overtime and fixing her car for free, that she would be bankrupt and unable to get out of the welfare trap until her children are in school full time.
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I watched the first half-hour or so yesterday after work. I remember watching Teez Tabor play (against my favorite team) in college. The trope of millionaire athletes from humble beginnings making it big, then blowing it all is interesting to me. I've seen it a hundred times with varying outcomes. I think it's rare, but perhaps becoming more common, for them to realize that the money faucet won't run forever and to be concerned enough about it to reach out for help. I think his focus is in the right place...looking to secure a future for his wife and daughter. He's young enough that he could still end up getting some decent paydays from the NFL...so maybe he will have learned enough from this process to invest wisely and spend thoughtfully.
I had less sympathy for the lady that paid off all of her credit cards (can't remember if that was a consolidation loan?) only to max them out again. She seemed to me to be more of the mindset that this was something that happened to her...not something that she willingly and actively did herself. Her husband is working overtime regularly just to make ends meet and she's just been spending. It made me eyeroll hard when she said that she'd tried every sort of budget there was and nothing worked...while continuing to spend on her credit cards and put herself deeper into debt.
Yeah. I was wondering what she was even doing in Target, she shouldn't need a thing. And the caramel macchiato made me shake my head. My hair is on fire, what I need is a macchiato.
I wonder if it's really landed for her that if it wasn't for her husband, who is steadfastly working overtime and fixing her car for free, that she would be bankrupt and unable to get out of the welfare trap until her children are in school full time.
Diapers, although with her history i would have done curbside pickup to avoid looking at other stuff. I would have liked to see therapy recommended for her, to get at whatever is triggering the spending. I don't know why they made it seem like her biggest fear was her car breaking down if her husband is a mechanic. Seems like towards the end there was some prosperity gospel bs with that one, but I can't remember the wording now.
The bartender in extreme hcol Austin lived in an awfully big house too, so I'm guessing she lives with someone who has a very high income. It's too bad they didn't mention this as part of why she could afford to take a risk on her art. All of these people seemed to have above average safety nets, except Teez.
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Diapers, although with her history i would have done curbside pickup to avoid looking at other stuff. I would have liked to see therapy recommended for her, to get at whatever is triggering the spending. I don't know why they made it seem like her biggest fear was her car breaking down if her husband is a mechanic. Seems like towards the end there was some prosperity gospel bs with that one, but I can't remember the wording now.
The bartender in extreme hcol Austin lived in an awfully big house too, so I'm guessing she lives with someone who has a very high income. It's too bad they didn't mention this as part of why she could afford to take a risk on her art. All of these people seemed to have above average safety nets, except Teez.
Foreshadowing.
With the bartender towards the end they showed her partner more who was a bit older and more established. I think big houses are sort of standard in Texas, lots of cheap land, lots of suburban sprawl.
All of them (except Teez) they lived in homes with lots of random crap all over the place. Like dude that shit adds up.
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I enjoyed the film, but this is one case on Netflix where a series would have made more sense than a feature-length documentary. Either that, or focus on fewer people.
We're all left hungry to deep-dive into each person's finances and figure out what can be optimized. This is especially true with the family spending 13k/mo -- on what? What were eating that cost over 1k/month?
For the server/artist, I would think you can live quite comfortably in Austin, TX earning 50k/yr and sharing expenses with a partner, but her story did not focus on cost cutting. Did I see it correctly that her cell phone bill was over $200/mo? (it flashed on the screen so quickly.)
Many of the people seemed to have shopping addictions, and it would have been great if they explored buying things second-hand or joining a Buy Nothing group.
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This is an evergreen topic of discussion but it needs a bit of clarification:
1. The term "first class" as used for domestic travel within the US is absolutely not worth it as even the longest flight is barely about 5 hours.
Unless you spot one of those bizarre unicorn situations where Domestic "first class" is actually cheaper than Economy. I managed that once on AA while spending points instead of $. apparently Economy was oversubscribed, so the algorithm had cranked up the price enough it was beyond "first" in the points realm.
And yeah, Domestic US "first" deserves the quotes. I did get free bottom-shelf booze (3 drinks), a slightly better meal and wider seats, but that was it.
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I feel like I’m missing something in regards to need love like want. My parents spent a decade having loud fights as well about love vs like issues. Specifically spending money on travel by pinching Pennie’s day to day. We did the frugal travel, and honestly I think the money would have been better spent day to day. Clothes, food, music lessons would have made a bigger impact on my life than a trip to Disney World.
Overworked people love the luxury aspect of vacations: eating out, lounging on a beach, or seeing a resort. We stayed at free breakfast places, packed lunch and often dinner. Other than a very expensive trip to our home country it was all a bit forgettable.
My point is that we often imagine we will love something because it’s expensive or unusual. But that dress you only wear once or that 5 course tasting menu is better spent on incremental improvements, aka likes.
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I feel like I’m missing something in regards to need love like want. My parents spent a decade having loud fights as well about love vs like issues. Specifically spending money on travel by pinching Pennie’s day to day. We did the frugal travel, and honestly I think the money would have been better spent day to day. Clothes, food, music lessons would have made a bigger impact on my life than a trip to Disney World.
Overworked people love the luxury aspect of vacations: eating out, lounging on a beach, or seeing a resort. We stayed at free breakfast places, packed lunch and often dinner. Other than a very expensive trip to our home country it was all a bit forgettable.
My point is that we often imagine we will love something because it’s expensive or unusual. But that dress you only wear once or that 5 course tasting menu is better spent on incremental improvements, aka likes.
I disagree that incremental improvements = likes, at least not for everyone. My example is the few expensive/unusual outfits that I wear only once/twice per year on a special occasion. Which means that some pieces will go several years without being worn. But those pieces were selected to be interchangeable with all the others. Part of what I love about this part of my wardrobe is creating a different combination each time. It may take me a decade or more to get through all the combos. And occasionally I add another piece, stretching out the time between uses for everything a bit more. I truly *love* doing this and spending on these clothes brings me a lot of happiness.
OTOH, there are definitely places where I spend a bit more to incrementally improve my satisfaction with the purchase. No examples are coming directly to mind, but I know I don't reflexively purchase the cheapest option each and every time. There are certain purchases where I know that getting the mid-range or luxury version rather than the base/stripped-down version is the way to go *for me*.
I would also ask: how does one discover one's like vs love status for something without trying it out? Of course there are some things that would just not appeal from the get-go. But some things, like maybe the 5-course tasting menu that you mention, maybe a particular person needs to try that thing to find out if it is a love or a like for them. Obviously, only if they can afford it of course.
As for the example in the movie, it's super-common for people to put off travel because it's a big expense and then fail to save in the day-to-day and just fritter it all away on inconsequential consumerism. But it could have been another "big" expense, like a loom or spinning wheel (relevant to my personal interests), a remodel, a brand new car, an ATV, etc. I felt that it was a good example to show an Everywoman who was going for it to save for the "big" expense and make the day-to-day decisions (not sacrifices-giving up a like is not a sacrifice) to get there. Very much in alignment to the MMM philosophy.
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I feel like I’m missing something in regards to need love like want. My parents spent a decade having loud fights as well about love vs like issues. Specifically spending money on travel by pinching Pennie’s day to day. We did the frugal travel, and honestly I think the money would have been better spent day to day. Clothes, food, music lessons would have made a bigger impact on my life than a trip to Disney World.
Overworked people love the luxury aspect of vacations: eating out, lounging on a beach, or seeing a resort. We stayed at free breakfast places, packed lunch and often dinner. Other than a very expensive trip to our home country it was all a bit forgettable.
My point is that we often imagine we will love something because it’s expensive or unusual. But that dress you only wear once or that 5 course tasting menu is better spent on incremental improvements, aka likes.
Well, clearly you didn't "love" those trips, so of course it didn't feel worth it to you. I guess that's one gotcha here, especially with families: how do you reconcile differences in loves vs. likes (or even "don't cares") between spouses and/or other household members?
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I feel like I’m missing something in regards to need love like want. My parents spent a decade having loud fights as well about love vs like issues. Specifically spending money on travel by pinching Pennie’s day to day. We did the frugal travel, and honestly I think the money would have been better spent day to day. Clothes, food, music lessons would have made a bigger impact on my life than a trip to Disney World.
Overworked people love the luxury aspect of vacations: eating out, lounging on a beach, or seeing a resort. We stayed at free breakfast places, packed lunch and often dinner. Other than a very expensive trip to our home country it was all a bit forgettable.
My point is that we often imagine we will love something because it’s expensive or unusual. But that dress you only wear once or that 5 course tasting menu is better spent on incremental improvements, aka likes.
Well, clearly you didn't "love" those trips, so of course it didn't feel worth it to you. I guess that's one gotcha here, especially with families: how do you reconcile differences in loves vs. likes (or even "don't cares") between spouses and/or other household members?
There is actually an area of academic research called, "Family Studies" in which some of these questions can be answered in a very scientific way. I have read a small portion of research on family vacations. When you give the children the choice on where to go, they will enjoy it more and complain less. When you have less complaining from the kids, the parents like it more. While it might not be possible to let your kid throw a dart at a globe. You might be able to ask for their input for options and then come up with 3 options and let them make the final decision.
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Hmm. I see the criticisms but still want to check it out. I do wish they included some more lower income people in it.
I finally managed to actually watch this so I'm catching up on the thread/re-reading so that the bits I read before I saw it make more sense.
I do wish they had included some more lower income people in it, although that has never really been MMM's target audience. What I would have also liked to see would be a lower income joe soap to compare with the lower income really talented artist. I loved her story but it's a bit of a unicorn story in that not everyone has that kind of talent and skill. I suppose I would have liked to see someone a bit more like me, while the producers of these kind of shows need more televisable subjects. :-)
I liked all the segments, although felt like I could relate the least to the high-earning couple. Loved that Teez Tabor almost immediately started with passing on the information he had learned to other younger men. That's really a crucial part of the whole thing, I think.
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clarkfan1979-We did just that on our last big vacation this summer. We asked the kids and changed some things up. My husband and I were leaning towards fun long road trip. The kids really wanted Hawaii. We did Hawaii and had a blast. 4 kids kind of out weight us in some ways-of course we make final decisions but it ended up being a wonderful time. Surveying everyone really helped especially since my kids are 11-18 years old.
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Well, clearly you didn't "love" those trips, so of course it didn't feel worth it to you. I guess that's one gotcha here, especially with families: how do you reconcile differences in loves vs. likes (or even "don't cares") between spouses and/or other household members?
My Mom likes travel enough that we did trips to both Disneys, Hawaii, Yellowstone and Paris/England as choices for the kids. Those are the most memorable, but still…. I think these family bonding trips failed because they were one-off. We took in a Shakespeare play in London because it was important to me, but arrived late and missed half because it wasn’t interesting to my parents. Taking me to 20 local plays over 20 years would have had a bigger impact bonding wise.
Its the same with the clothes or music lessons or pizzas we didn’t have. I genuinely grew up thinking we were too poor to afford new glasses when I broke mine. I taped them up and was happy I wasn’t scolded for a month - because neither parent noticed my walking around with tape on my glasses.
Sure, if you’re buying needless junk, stop and save for a few nice things. That’s not eliminating likes for loves, that’s eliminating clutter. Travel stands out to me in my life, but I’d say it’s generally true that the big ticket item you buy a kid at Xmas is going to be broken, stolen, or ignored within 6 months.
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I enjoyed the film, but this is one case on Netflix where a series would have made more sense than a feature-length documentary. Either that, or focus on fewer people.
We're all left hungry to deep-dive into each person's finances and figure out what can be optimized. This is especially true with the family spending 13k/mo -- on what? What were eating that cost over 1k/month?
For the server/artist, I would think you can live quite comfortably in Austin, TX earning 50k/yr and sharing expenses with a partner, but her story did not focus on cost cutting. Did I see it correctly that her cell phone bill was over $200/mo? (it flashed on the screen so quickly.)
Many of the people seemed to have shopping addictions, and it would have been great if they explored buying things second-hand or joining a Buy Nothing group.
Paula Pant recently discussed the documentary on a brief visit to a podcast I listen to. She said that a lot of material ended up on the editing room floor. In her case, that included a lot of discussion about cutting costs.
At the end of the day, this documentary wasn't meant for money nerds who want to dive into the details. It was meant for people who have no idea where to even start. The documentary took four individuals/households and focused on a different aspect of finance for each one. The normal person is hopefully going to see themself in one of those people, take away a few things from the documentary, and seek out more information.
I don't think the regular person is going to sit down to watch a full series on personal finance.
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I don't think the regular person is going to sit down to watch a full series on personal finance.
I have been watching netflix series with competitions for glass blowing and knife making. netflix is (was?) king of long tail - niche video.
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Youtube link on needs, love, like and want
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFkGb79aOYc
Youtube is saying this video is no longer available... do you have another link or more info on who made the video so I can go look for it?
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I don't think the regular person is going to sit down to watch a full series on personal finance.
I have been watching netflix series with competitions for glass blowing and knife making. netflix is (was?) king of long tail - niche video.
And my wife watches British people bake bread. All of those things are more interesting than personal finance. My wife was asleep halfway through this documentary, if that's any indication of how invested she was in it.
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Yeah and this documentary took me a few sitting to get through because I was hardly invested in the people, more detail on them and I think I could have been more interested. spread out the basic finance stuff. but hay I have 0 experience in making movies and shows.
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I was going to watch it but between the Netflix trailer and the comments on here I changed my mind. The "students" didn't impress me and since I already know the FIRE basics (though still not FIREd...) I wasn't in the mood to drink watered down wine cooler.
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I was going to watch it but between the Netflix trailer and the comments on here I changed my mind. The "students" didn't impress me and since I already know the FIRE basics (though still not FIREd...) I wasn't in the mood to drink watered down wine cooler.
The Beastie Boys didn't fight for your right to drink White Claw.
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I was going to watch it but between the Netflix trailer and the comments on here I changed my mind. The "students" didn't impress me and since I already know the FIRE basics (though still not FIREd...) I wasn't in the mood to drink watered down wine cooler.
I watch these to see if I would recommend them to non-mustachians. This one I would, Playing With FIRE I wouldn't.
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I watched.
I thought Pete Adney was not being MMM. That was refreshing. I thought he came off as understanding. And his couple made huge changes.
Pete says at one point that it’s bold of them to downsize their house. DW paused it there and we discussed how it would be bold of us to stay in our smaller house and not take on more debt and expenses to live on more land.
I want to see Teezs enthusiasm for investing in stocks now that he has actually lost money. The advice he got to invest in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ seemed off. I take that to be two ways to buy the same stock. And then Teez buys Apple and Facebook which already makes up a large portion of his portfolio in both of the index’s he is buying. The concept of of not worrying about diversification because you own an index is being eroded.
I didn’t like Paula Pant, but it could have been because of editing. I haven’t listened to much of her but I felt like I was getting a highlights of her advice rather than an interaction with the client.
I was super impressed with how quickly the woman afraid of her car breaking down paid off her credit card debt. The latte she bought at target was disappointing but I thought the scenes of her picking up items and not putting them in her cart were great. They actually showed her changing her spending habits.
I hope she can turn that debt pay down momentum into savings.
I was lying down when I watched this but I would say it passed the butt test.
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The Beastie Boys didn't fight for your right to drink White Claw.
Your 'Inflation and Interest Rates' thread is immensely valuable and educational, but this...this is art. <chef's kiss>
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I watched.
I thought Pete Adney was not being MMM. That was refreshing. I thought he came off as understanding. And his couple made huge changes.
Pete says at one point that it’s bold of them to downsize their house. DW paused it there and we discussed how it would be bold of us to stay in our smaller house and not take on more debt and expenses to live on more land.
I want to see Teezs enthusiasm for investing in stocks now that he has actually lost money. The advice he got to invest in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ seemed off. I take that to be two ways to buy the same stock. And then Teez buys Apple and Facebook which already makes up a large portion of his portfolio in both of the index’s he is buying. The concept of of not worrying about diversification because you own an index is being eroded.
I didn’t like Paula Pant, but it could have been because of editing. I haven’t listened to much of her but I felt like I was getting a highlights of her advice rather than an interaction with the client.
I was super impressed with how quickly the woman afraid of her car breaking down paid off her credit card debt. The latte she bought at target was disappointing but I thought the scenes of her picking up items and not putting them in her cart were great. They actually showed her changing her spending habits.
I hope she can turn that debt pay down momentum into savings.
I was lying down when I watched this but I would say it passed the butt test.
The guy mentoring Teez probably needs someone to be mentoring him on investing. And yeah Paula Pant basically gave the opposite advice as MMM, by saying that earning more money was more important than cutting expenses. Overall I give it two thumbs down. The only people I could see this appealing to our people like my mom who have very little understanding about budgeting and finance and who also wouldn't choose to watch a Netflix documentary about money.
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I don't think the regular person is going to sit down to watch a full series on personal finance.
Do such series exist? I'd love to watch such a thing!
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Here's another element to add to this discussion:
Self Discipline
Every story discussed in the documentary, almost every decision made in the past that brought people to these financial tipping points can be linked to a lack of self discipline. I'm shocked sometimes when I see "clusters" of behaviour that are all clearly, at their root, caused by a lack of self discipline. This documentary was chock full of 'em.
When you see someone who can't seem to stop shopping, buying 700-calorie coffee drinks, impulse shopping, buying jewelry that no one needs, relying so much on others to solve their fairly simple problems, there is usually a general lack of self discipline. Add in bad food choices, lack of exercise and fresh air, and a creeping sense of "it's all out of my control" seems to be inevitable.
Not to sound old and simplistic in my thinking (ok, guilty) but I can't help but see that thread connecting all these cases. It's like none of the people involved in these case studies every learned to say, "no" when faced with a bad choice. Not until they are adults, well along in their lives, and they need to rely on some external source of wisdom to remind them that one of the most powerful words you can use to not just get yourself out of a bad financial situation, but avoid entering one in the first place is simply to say, "no".
No, I don't need to buy that. No, I don't have the money for that right now. And most importantly, "No. I'm not going to buy that because it will not make my life better."
Does anyone teach this stuff anymore? A little more self-discipline in each of these cases and there would've been no need for the outside help. What these consultants were essentially doing is reminding people to say no. To have control. To have self discipline. Really, to be surrogate parents.
Was at the mall yesterday (for maybe 10 minutes) and I swear all I saw was obesity, loose-fitting "comfort" clothing, giant whipped-cream topped coffee drinks, credit cards, slow-moving people and a general lack of self-discipline. Wow, but this seems to be at the heart of so many of these ills.
Either that, or I'm now officially old and impatient. Probably a bit of both.
One of the most important lessons to make sure your loved ones understand is the difference between internal and external locus of control. With an internal locus of control comes explanations, not excuses, and a general sense of a little more control over your destiny. And finance is a microcosm of this idea.
Texx
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The etiology of self destructive behaviour is a little more complex than just teaching kids about responsibility, which I'm fairly certain every US parent hammers pretty aggressively into their kids.
What is more tricky though is instilling values that are actually healthy, and can clearly guide that sense of personal responsibility.
When people are hammered with a social message that their key pressure in life is to *appear* as "successful" as possible, then their sense of responsibility gets coopted towards maintaining that appearance. Nothing matters more.
Not playing along can feel quite distinctly like failure.
I once belonged to a women's forum, which was basically a cross section of middle class women in Canada, and it gave me a lot of insight into what drives a lot of middle class behaviour.
Down to the compulsive buying of Starbucks drinks, there was a distinct pattern of there being key consumerist benchmarks that these women felt compelled to accomplish in order to not feel like they were failing.
They would go batshit for the Starbucks red cups and points system and I was like "but why?" They all started collecting Pandora charms and I was like "but why?" And then they all started carrying around these obscenely expensive vinyl Longchamp collapsible shopping bags and I was like "BUT WHY???"
What's scary is that this *was* their sense of personal responsibility kicking in. To them, complying with these social expectations is what being a successful member of their ecosystem feels like.
It's not really a lack of control in the way you are framing it, it's a directed and systematic set of priorities that just happen to not be particularly helpful or healthy.
But those behaviours are less about lack of discipline and more about a commitment to an identity. I've talked to many middle class women who are in scary amounts of debt and have scary amounts of excess weight, and they are not generally women who lack discipline, they lack a solid sense of self worth, and feel powerless to defy the social demands of the identity they have committed to.
Not keeping up with the expectations of that identity feels like failure. They are more afraid of judgement than anything else, and they've been heavily conditioned to fear it.
Toxic basis of identity is an extremely difficult thing to deconstruct.Often things have to get pretty bad before someone is willing to question their entire framework of their own self worth.
That brings in the next challenge: hopelessness.
It's one thing to feel a sense of responsibility, it's another to feel a sense of empowerment. If feeling a sense of responsibility was enough for obese people to lose weight, almost no one would be obese. The challenge is that motivation is very hard to sustain in the face of a challenge that feels insurmountable.
Remember how I said that things have to get pretty bad before someone will challenge the basis of their own identity and self worth? Well, yeah, by the time things are really bad, they don't feel very feasible to solve.
Let's look at an opposite example of our friends who are spending themselves into debt. Let's look at our workaholic friends whose sense of responsibility manifests a little differently.
We have Tanya, who yeah, was raised in the US neoliberal tradition and feels a powerful internal locus of control drive towards being "successful" as defined by the social norms associated with her identity. Only her social norms weren't ugly expensive charm bracelets and designer baby bags, her social norms were making partner and bragging about how little sleep you get.
She made partner the year her special needs son was born. Her sense of identity would have seen stepping back from partnership as abject, unacceptable failure, so she just pushed herself harder to live up to expectations.
She worked her poor body into a state so dysfunctional that she ended up having TIAs in her late 30s.
Now, it's tempting to say that the indebted middle class woman with her vast collection of trendy commercial crap and kitchy nail art is just self indulgent and lazy and Tanya is actually just too disciplined, but in a very real way, the two women are driven to self destruction by extremely similar forces: fear of not living up to the social expectations of their respective identities.
For many people whose lives and bodies are falling apart, ironically, they often don't need an ounce more pressure, they actually need to feel more *entitled* to care about themselves.
I spent years figuring out how to motivate patients to just stop neglecting themselves, and it turned out that appealing to their sense of responsibility was useless. I needed to foster a sense of being entitled to decent self care.
Most people have been conditioned to feel like their own well being is the most disposable thing they have. So it's often the first thing to be discarded when under pressure. Literally everything else feels more important.
So when I work with people in self destructive patterns, my goal is to foster in them a much more powerful sense of entitlement to well being, which paradoxically helps them engage in much less of these self-destructive behaviours.
They key isn't to add pressure to feel more responsible. The key is to alter their sense of what is important to be responsible for in the first place. To move their own well being from the disposable to the paramount.
The key is to harness their already extremely powerful drive not to "fail" and to redefine self-destruction as failure, and to redefine personal well being as success.
And that's not easy. That means deconstructing a lifetime of toxic messaging about what success and failure look like.
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Once again Malcat wins the internet….
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I don't think the regular person is going to sit down to watch a full series on personal finance.
Do such series exist? I'd love to watch such a thing!
Lots of people watched Til Debt Do Us Part, although it didn't follow the same people week after week. The people in financial difficulty were different each week but were followed over several weeks.
ETA - saw the post and replied, then came back to read the rest. Yes, Malcat wins the internet again.
And she is right about the social expectations of your group. I had an academic friend apologize about how much her house was worth (she and her husband bought it a long time ago, and prices have gone way up since). Because academics are supposed to focus on "more important things" than how much a house is worth.
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Once again Malcat wins the internet….
I just operate under the assumption that when huge proportions of a population are engaging in the same brand of self-destructive behaviour, there has to be a driving force behind it beyond just personal "weakness."
Most people are pretty intensely driven and absolutely petrified of failure. So if people are failing on key life metrics on a large scale, then it makes more sense that there's something off with their internal definitions of failure, not their will not to fail.
The example of obesity is a really good illustration. I lost weight from obese to very lean. I was treating thousands of patients at the time and everyone wanted to know my secret, what punishing workout routine and what whacky restrictive diet was I using to pull off this magical transformation?
When I said that I don't do much exercise aside from gentle stretching and slow walks that felt good to do daily, and that I don't follow a specific diet, I just slowly improved my diet over time with a heavy focus on nutrient dense foods in serving sizes that make me feel good after I eat them, they would look crestfallen and defeated.
I was literally telling them that losing a massive amount of weight was reasonably easy, but they had been so conditioned to believe that successful weight loss looked like extreme behaviour, that they dismissed everything I said as nonsense.
Either I was lying, or I was a genetic freak, but they could NOT accept that just a modest lifestyle modification produced steady, slow, consistent weight loss over time.
They were socially programmed to believe that weight loss must equal extreme restriction and punishing exercise, and be driven primarily by self-loathing and shame.
That's what "success" looked like to them. Loving self-care and a focus on what feels good was anathema to their construct of "successful" weight loss.
Even in the face of actual results that they desperately wanted to emulate, they couldn't internalize reasoning that was incompatible with their paradigms of "success" and "failure."
I had to start using their own language to get through to them. I had to start saying things like "I knew I was too lazy and tired to do extreme workouts. I knew I didn't have the discipline to stick to a strict diet. Instead, I did what I could manage, I tackled small changes one at a time because I just didn't have the willpower to do it all at once, but those little changes add up over time. I had to sacrifice fast weight loss for very slow weight loss, but the whole experience was easier as a result."
Once I started framing the behaviour as a form of "failure" as per their framework, they were able to grasp it that I was willing to accept a certain amount of "failure" in my approach and just be realistic about how "limited" my effort could be, but that it still worked because I was willing to accept a sub-optimal pace of loss.
Seriously. I had to frame my very successful weight loss in terms of failure just to get patients to grasp it as a feasible thing to do.
That's how powerful the programming is.
These people weren't stupid or lazy, they were brainwashed and I could NOT deprogram them. I could only find ways to work within their existing frameworks, which was FUCKED UP.
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@Malcat those are very interesting thoughts. I'd come across a couple of the themes before, but your synthesis results in a very intriguing framework for understanding the twin dysfunctions of consumerism and careerism.
It must be frustrating to Show People The Path only to be argued with because your path looks a lot different than the path that led them to their current misery. I imagine a lot of the people you talk with expect in their heart of hearts that their current path will lead to sustainable contentment, and all they expect from you is some cheerleading and motivation to keep plowing through.
But why should they be so attached and committed to a particular path? Sunk cost fallacy? Your use of the terms "brainwashing" and "deprogramming" intrigue me here.
I think the deep belief in consumerism/careerism comes from years of repeated exposures to the assumptions that more stuff or more job will lead to more contentment. Every time we look at our phones, walk past a TV, or see a billboard we absorb one more message along these lines. News articles celebrate high achievers and treat the daily struggles for a good life as meaningless. The propaganda effect is real, and thanks to smartphone addiction we are exposing ourselves to more and more of it, devoting multiple hours per day to looking at ads in exchange for the little shots of dopamine between the ads.
People who do addiction treatment have recognized the necessity to dial people down rather than cold turkey, and that's why we have needle exchanges, methadone clinics, etc. Like your weight loss journey, taking on too much change at a time can lead to failure, even if the change is one's own assumptions and orientation toward extrinsic self-esteem.
Yet there's a deeper, scarier truth from the point of view of the counselor or Mustachian casual observer: The cultural norms we receive from the world are often toxic. Culture can destroy hundreds of millions of lives and still self-perpetuate, because perpetuation is not at all connected to the delivery of benefit to the "users".
Culture (values, language, behavioral norms, ways of doing things) was originally invented by our species as a way to transmit behaviors that were advantageous, such as how to produce food, how to defend oneself, how to communicate and cooperate with others, etc. We're a LOOONG way from that original purpose when we're looking at targeted ads or keeping up with the Kardashians. Yet our brains are still primed to internalize and repeat what others are doing as if our lives still depended on it.
Ads that perpetuate a negative body image, work cultures that perpetuate the importance of career advancement over one's personal life, varous trinkets and status symbols and SUVs for sale - all these messages can continue ruining the happiness of their users forever, because people are not examining them or rejecting them. We cannot even avoid them. It's time to be more judgemental about the worth of what we're consuming, including ideas. Especially ideas.
So even as we nudge people toward the better path, we must be aware that we ourselves have probably internalized some toxic shit too. Just as the consumerists and careerists don't know they are self-destructing, we may think we're fine according to metrics we've internalized. Actually we might be on a treadmill of our own, working against our self-interest or communal interest in a way we cannot see, and wasting the opportunities our lives offer. Maybe it's not work or consumption, but some other domain of life such as parenting, health, meaningfulness, or the sources of our own sense of self-worth.
This line of thought always tempts me to ditch my smartphone and TV, use a painfully slow computer for work only, and to live more in the present world of experiences and sensations. The "why not to do that" reasons look a helluva lot like the arguments of the consumerists and careerists, about being a social outcast, failing in various ways, or falling behind in some way. And then we're back to talking about incremental change and framing the status quo as failure, aren't we?
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@Malcat those are very interesting thoughts. I'd come across a couple of the themes before, but your synthesis results in a very intriguing framework for understanding the twin dysfunctions of consumerism and careerism.
It must be frustrating to Show People The Path only to be argued with because your path looks a lot different than the path that led them to their current misery. I imagine a lot of the people you talk with expect in their heart of hearts that their current path will lead to sustainable contentment, and all they expect from you is some cheerleading and motivation to keep plowing through.
But why should they be so attached and committed to a particular path? Sunk cost fallacy? Your use of the terms "brainwashing" and "deprogramming" intrigue me here.
I think the deep belief in consumerism/careerism comes from years of repeated exposures to the assumptions that more stuff or more job will lead to more contentment. Every time we look at our phones, walk past a TV, or see a billboard we absorb one more message along these lines. News articles celebrate high achievers and treat the daily struggles for a good life as meaningless. The propaganda effect is real, and thanks to smartphone addiction we are exposing ourselves to more and more of it, devoting multiple hours per day to looking at ads in exchange for the little shots of dopamine between the ads.
People who do addiction treatment have recognized the necessity to dial people down rather than cold turkey, and that's why we have needle exchanges, methadone clinics, etc. Like your weight loss journey, taking on too much change at a time can lead to failure, even if the change is one's own assumptions and orientation toward extrinsic self-esteem.
Yet there's a deeper, scarier truth from the point of view of the counselor or Mustachian casual observer: The cultural norms we receive from the world are often toxic. Culture can destroy hundreds of millions of lives and still self-perpetuate, because perpetuation is not at all connected to the delivery of benefit to the "users".
Culture (values, language, behavioral norms, ways of doing things) was originally invented by our species as a way to transmit behaviors that were advantageous, such as how to produce food, how to defend oneself, how to communicate and cooperate with others, etc. We're a LOOONG way from that original purpose when we're looking at targeted ads or keeping up with the Kardashians. Yet our brains are still primed to internalize and repeat what others are doing as if our lives still depended on it.
Ads that perpetuate a negative body image, work cultures that perpetuate the importance of career advancement over one's personal life, varous trinkets and status symbols and SUVs for sale - all these messages can continue ruining the happiness of their users forever, because people are not examining them or rejecting them. We cannot even avoid them. It's time to be more judgemental about the worth of what we're consuming, including ideas. Especially ideas.
So even as we nudge people toward the better path, we must be aware that we ourselves have probably internalized some toxic shit too. Just as the consumerists and careerists don't know they are self-destructing, we may think we're fine according to metrics we've internalized. Actually we might be on a treadmill of our own, working against our self-interest or communal interest in a way we cannot see, and wasting the opportunities our lives offer. Maybe it's not work or consumption, but some other domain of life such as parenting, health, meaningfulness, or the sources of our own sense of self-worth.
This line of thought always tempts me to ditch my smartphone and TV, use a painfully slow computer for work only, and to live more in the present world of experiences and sensations. The "why not to do that" reasons look a helluva lot like the arguments of the consumerists and careerists, about being a social outcast, failing in various ways, or falling behind in some way. And then we're back to talking about incremental change and framing the status quo as failure, aren't we?
lol, well yeah, we all possess pretty toxic foundational belief systems because we all develop our belief systems within a toxic system.
That's why it's kind of the cornerstone of a lot of counselling to NOT try and tell people what they should be doing, only to help them explore for themselves what might be buried within their systems that's causing them difficulties.
For me, as a former accomplishment junkie/workaholic, the key for me was figuring out that it's *my* job to define *for myself* what success looks like. I spent several years contemplating this and addressing it with my therapist, my spouse, talking through ideas here extensively, etc, etc...
It took all that fucking work to come up with the most dumbfuck obvious, common sense metrics for my own success.
Am I sleeping enough and waking rested and calm?
Am I eating primarily nutrient dense foods that make my body feel good in amounts that maintain a healthy weight?
Am I exercising enough AND am I enjoying it?
Is my house clean enough for me to feel comfortable in my living space?
Do I invest enough time and energy into my connections with loved ones?
Is my marriage consistently getting stronger?
Do I like myself?
If the answer to any of the above is "no" then that's a hair on fire emergency that requires action to address the critical deficits within my lifestyle. Suddenly through that lens, it becomes very clear that career, money, consumer spending, etc, are all just levers that I can pull and balance to serve those goals.
A career, for example, is not an accomplishment for me anymore if it has a net effect of detracting from those above stated metrics.
I decided for *myself* what success looked like, and I'm just as driven and demanding as ever of myself to achieve success.
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I finally got around to watching this documentary, a vacation rental had Netflix included.
I thought it was pretty well done. They did a good job getting four different perspectives. My takeaways:
I hope Teez takes the advice to heart, it looks like he got a full year's NFL salary last season (~$965,000). Even saving a third of that after taxes and temporary living expenses would go a long way. I wish there was briefly the "what are you doing after playing?" discussion.
The others? Did anyone else get uncomfortable with the shear amount of clutter in the houses? That stuff adds up! It's time to sell stuff!
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Just watched the docu twice. Once with 1 kid, and then again the same day with my wife and another kid.